‘I think there’s an Ericson—’
‘No, I’ve got it. Not Ericson – Aricson – same thing but not quite. Tony said he was the real hard character round there – Aricson. Bzzz. Well, Miss Culworth, pleased to have met you. Hope you find your father all right. And any time you want to sit here and watch the monkey house – or do a jiggle yourself – I’ve a good little four-piece band – just walk up these back stairs.’
‘Thank you, Buzzy.’
‘It’s a privilege and a pleasure to see a nice class of people round here. ’Cos I’ll tell you frankly – I won’t lie – most of my customers are either silly twerps or sheer bloody riffraff. So long, Doc. Come again.’
As she went rather cautiously down the rickety stairs, Maggie decided that although Buzzy was a kind of monster, she liked him and would trust him in an emergency. She also decided to stop being grand and aloof about Birkden just because she had lived and worked in London. She might soon come to hate Birkden – already she could easily imagine herself doing that – but she could no longer talk and behave as if it was simply a dull place full of dull people.
‘What do we do now?’ she asked as they reached the street.
‘Talk in the car.’ This was sensible, but Maggie rather resented his curt manner. She realized, however, that Buzzy’s gin and tonic had contained more gin and less tonic than she was used to, and that anyhow this had been earlier than her usual drinking time. Probably Dr Salt could down a stiff whisky, however old, at any time without feeling a desire for a cosy mellow chat.
‘You can do one of two things,’ he began in the car. ‘Go home and talk to your brother. Or come back to my place and do some telephoning from there.’
‘Can I be of any use, if I stay on?’
‘Yes. But you must persuade your brother to join us.’
‘I want to. I feel if I go home and try to explain, he’ll think it’s all my nonsense. If you do it, he won’t. Also, I want to keep my mother out of this.’
‘My place then.’ He started the engine. ‘And we’ll talk when we get there. It isn’t six o’clock yet. Lot of traffic about. I don’t like talking and driving.’
He seemed almost unfriendly now, not calling her Maggie as he’d done earlier, and she began to wonder if she didn’t really rather dislike him. On the other hand, without working it all out, she felt certain she would never find her father without a lot of help from Dr Salt.
‘Will your brother be home yet from the University?’ he asked her. They were now among the books and records again.
‘No, it’s too early.’
‘Then I suggest you ring up all the Birkden hotels and ask about your father. You’ll find them in the classified directory—’
‘That’s what I thought,’ she replied tartly.
He ignored this. ‘Has he any friends in Birkden he might stay with?’
‘I asked myself that, yesterday morning, and decided he hadn’t. I do know about my father, Dr Salt.’
‘Do you?’ His tone wasn’t sharp but amiable, rather sleepy. ‘What about Noreen Wilks? No – no, Maggie – I’m not trying to score a point. The truth is, we know far less about people than we think. Sometimes their very closeness hides more than it reveals. By the way, has your father a passport? Yes? Well, ask your brother if it’s still there.’
‘Yes, Dr Salt. Any further instructions, Dr Salt?’
‘I sound like that, do I? Sorry, Maggie.’
‘What shall I tell Alan we’re going to do, if he does join us?’
‘Pay a visit to the Fabrics Club.’
‘He’ll be all for that if there’s a chance of seeing Miss Jill What’s-it – Frinton – again—’
He stared at her, but then, just as she thought he was going to tell her not to be too light and airy about this business, he merely nodded.
‘All right, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll start phoning. What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to have a bath—’
‘Well – my God!—’
‘Can’t get any hot water in the morning. And if I light a pipe and just soak, I may get an idea or two.’
CHAPTER FIVE
The Fabrics Club
1
Either he required an incredible amount of smoking and soaking or he deliberately kept out of the way until she had admitted Alan and had begun her explanations. Just as she expected, Alan was sceptical and obviously thought she was being influenced by something dreamt up by a crackpot.
‘I must say, Dr Salt,’ Alan told him, about seventy-five seconds after she had introduced them, ‘so far as I can understand it, this all seems a bit thick.’ His manner wasn’t hostile, but neither was it friendly.
‘It’s not a bit thick, it’s a lot thick,’ said Dr Salt, in his amiable sleepy style.
‘I tried all the hotels,’ Maggie interposed hastily. ‘They don’t know anything about my father. And Alan found his passport at home.’
‘In any case,’ said Alan, ‘can you see him going to the South of France? He hadn’t enough money anyhow. Besides, he just wouldn’t. Why shouldn’t he have asked a few questions about this mysterious girl – your ex-patient—’
‘Noreen Wilks.’ Dr Salt seemed to like repeating her name, rather slowly and grimly. Already it was beginning to irritate Maggie. Blast Noreen Wilks!
‘Noreen Wilks,’ said Alan. ‘Why shouldn’t he have asked a few questions about her and then gone on to do something else?’
‘What? Where?’
‘Well, of course, I don’t know. But I don’t see that Maggie and I have to bother about this Noreen Wilks.’
‘No, you haven’t, but I have. You don’t care about Noreen Wilks, I don’t care about your father. Very well, let’s leave it at that.’
‘No – please,’ cried Maggie urgently. ‘I’m sure there must be some connection. Alan doesn’t understand yet—’
‘What don’t I understand?’ He gave Maggie a glance, then looked at Dr Salt.
‘I want to leave Birkden as soon as I can,’ said Dr Salt. ‘But I’m not going until I know what happened to Noreen Wilks. She was a patient – an unusual patient – and I still feel responsible for her. You can understand that, can’t you, Culworth?’
‘Yes – of course – but—’
‘Never mind the buts for the moment. Listen to this. Noreen Wilks left her lodging on the evening of September 12th, dressed for a party, and never went back. She’s never been heard of since. Early on the morning of the 13th, Derek Donnington, only son of Sir Arnold Donnington, head of United Anglo-Belgian Fabrics and Birkden’s Mr Big, shot himself. The official verdict was Accidental Death, but we can ignore that. Well, that might be a coincidence. It might be another coincidence that when your father arrives on Monday to ask about Noreen, he suddenly disappears. It might be another coincidence that the cinema girl he saw, and the one I questioned yesterday, cleared out in a panic last night. It might be still another coincidence that the young man who warned me to leave Birkden was the one who said something to her. Now I don’t know what happens in physics, Culworth, but in medicine we don’t like as many coincidences as that. Finally, I’ll tell you what I believe, though I’ve no proof. While I don’t suppose for a moment that anything very serious has happened to your father, I believe Noreen Wilks is dead.’
Alan raised his right eyebrow and took his pipe out of his mouth as if to examine it – one of his donnish tricks. ‘Isn’t that going much too far?’
‘Possibly. It’s just possible that she’s been to a doctor who’s never got in touch with me. It’s just possible her condition isn’t as serious as I thought it was. Perhaps Noreen and your father are laughing their heads off somewhere—’
‘I’m sure that isn’t true,’ Alan said sharply.
‘You believe it isn’t. So do I. And I also believe Noreen Wilks is dead. Now I’m going to ask a few questions at the Fabrics Club. You’re welcome to come with me. You may notice things that I miss.’
‘We might
as well, Alan,’ said Maggie. ‘I’m certain now Daddy came here to inquire about Noreen Wilks. And, after all, that’s what Dr Salt is doing. And what else can we do?’
‘I don’t know.’ Alan looked unhappy. ‘But we’ve nothing to do with this Fabrics Club. Aren’t we going to look silly—’
Dr Salt bounced out of his chair. ‘Let’s look silly, then. I haven’t cared a damn for years about looking silly. Are you coming or not?’
‘I am,’ Maggie told him.
‘I’ve got my car. I’ll follow you.’ Alan didn’t sound downright sulky, but obviously he was still sceptical. ‘Do you know where it is?’
‘I’ve never been there, but I know vaguely where it is,’ said Dr Salt. ‘And I’ll drive fairly slowly.’
When they were in his car and moving off, Maggie said to him: ‘I know you don’t like talking when you’re driving, but perhaps you don’t mind listening. I want to explain about Alan. He’s not really against you. The point is, he’s just come from his University and lecture room and physics lab, and he’s suddenly plunged into all this – and so far he hasn’t – sort of – absorbed any of the atmosphere. He’s still in his particular world where you don’t expect anything strange to happen to anybody.’
‘Except the H-Bomb,’ Dr Salt muttered.
‘I know. I’ve argued with Alan and some of his friends about that. There’s a kind of innocence about them in some ways. Perhaps because they’ve always been in school or college, never where people are thinking about money all the time. He often makes me feel years older than he is.’
Dr Salt made a grunting noise. Apparently he didn’t care how old any of the Culworths were.
‘Actually, Alan’s four years older.’
This time he didn’t even grunt. Not interested.
‘And, anyhow, I can’t altogether blame Alan,’ she went on, determined now to make him show some interest. ‘You know, Dr Salt, you do pile it on a bit. Every time you say Noreen Wilks, you make it sound as if you thought she’d been murdered.’
‘Do I? Sorry!’
‘Oh – I know you don’t mean to. Why would anybody—’
‘I’m driving,’ he cut in ruthlessly.
Furious with him, and feeling compelled to do something, she looked back to see if Alan was following them. He was. Then she stared ahead at the darkening streets of Birkden, almost expecting them to begin looking quite different. But they refused to look sinister and mysterious. Birkden wore the same face it had worn when she had come in by bus a few hours ago – only a few hours, though now she felt as if she had spent days with Dr Salt.
2
They were passing semi-detached villas and larger houses in their own grounds, softening the edge of town and country. Soon they were moving alongside the vast bulk of the United Fabrics works – she remembered then that the firm had moved almost into the country some years ago – and at the imposing entrance Dr Salt stopped to ask a man on duty there the way to the Club. His directions took them up a road that might still have been almost a country lane. They turned into a drive and parked in a wide space, where there were only a few other cars, not far from a lighted doorway.
‘Now what?’ said Alan rather grumpily as he joined them.
‘We go in,’ Dr Salt told him. ‘I can do the talking.’
‘It doesn’t look very busy,’ said Maggie.
‘Early yet,’ Dr Salt said. ‘Anyhow, it may be one of their quiet nights. And so much the better.’
He led the way in. There was no porter just inside the door – Maggie had expected one because she had been to several mixed clubs with Hugh – but there was a place where a porter ought to have been, so perhaps he wasn’t on duty yet. Dr Salt did not hesitate, but went forward and opened a door into soft lights and soft music. It was a cocktail bar, charmingly lit, and decorated and furnished in an unfussy modern style, rather Scandinavian. There was plenty of space in front of the curved bar counter, where the white-coated barman and his array of bottles took most of the light, but all round the walls were low tables and rather low chairs and banquettes, variously upholstered in what were probably the most magnificent specimens of United Fabrics’ fabrics. Nobody was sitting at the tables, but three people, two smart young men and an even smarter girl, were standing at the bar. The muted violins, the melancholy clarinets, that had been taped somewhere in New York or Los Angeles, went on and on, as they did now all over the world, saying that life and love were rather sweet, but that nothing really mattered very much. Maggie thought she heard Dr Salt muttering curses on them.
Now the three at the bar could be overheard. One of the young men was saying that somebody was projecting the wrong image.
‘You and your images!’ cried the girl wearily. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Come off it, ducky. As if you didn’t know what it was all about.’
‘Do I? Since when?’
‘Since you were about fifteen, I’d say.’
‘And you’d be quite wrong, Alec.’ This was the second man. ‘But where the hell’s Kate?’
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ said the girl. ‘Every time she starts doing her face, she begins thinking about something else.’
‘Do we know what?’
‘As a matter of fact, you don’t,’ the girl told him. ‘Because even I don’t.’
‘Let’s go in, then,’ said Alec. ‘George, if a Miss Tiller asks for me, tell her we’ve gone in. I’ve already signed for her.’ The three were now moving slowly towards a door on the left of the bar. ‘They’re very sticky about that, here.’
‘And quite right too,’ said the other young man. ‘God knows what would be blowing in!’
Maggie knew very well that this was not aimed at her and her two men. The young man had never noticed them. But the remark did not make her feel any better. In these surroundings, still wearing her shop clothes, and after taking one look at that girl, she felt small, shabby, dreary. As Dr Salt went slowly towards the bar counter, she sat on the edge of the nearest chair, beckoning to Alan to sit down. But he persisted in leaning against the wall, just inside the doorway, and in glaring at nothing in particular, feeling – as she knew without any doubt – a perfect fool. That was simply because he knew he had no right to be there and might be ordered out at any moment. But the whole snooty place wasn’t telling him that his face and hair were wrong, his clothes and shoes wrong, that he was just a miserable little drear; which was what it had been busy doing to her. She now watched and listened to Dr Salt, who was leaning against the bar counter and had been lighting his pipe. He might be – indeed, he obviously was – a maddening man, but there was one thing about him – he didn’t seem to care a damn.
‘My name’s Salt,’ he told the barman very carefully. ‘Dr Salt.’
‘Oh yes.’ The barman was fairly young and had a crew cut; his face seemed wider across the jaw than across the forehead. Maggie had been against him from the first glance.
‘Are you Tony?’ asked Dr Salt.
‘No. Tony’s not here any longer.’
‘Oh – what a pity!’
‘Most people don’t think so. I took his place.’
‘I see.’ Dr Salt sounded vague and rather stupid. ‘Though I don’t really know Tony. He was mentioned to me by a friend of mine.’
‘Is that so? Well, I don’t think you’re a member, are you?’
‘Oh – no, not at all.’ Dr Salt gave a little laugh that Maggie had never heard before and instantly disbelieved in. ‘Though I don’t know why I said not at all, because either one would be a member or not a member – one could hardly be partly a member. No, I’m not.’
‘I got it the first time. Well, I can’t serve you a drink unless you’re a member.’
‘I don’t want a drink.’
‘What do you want, then? And are those two with you?’
‘Yes, friends of mine. Miss Culworth. And Dr Culworth – of the University of Hemtonshire.’ Dr Salt sounded idiotic. ‘They’re just waiting for me. And
I’d like to speak to your manager – Mr Dews, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Does he know you?’
‘I’m afraid not. Hardly anybody knows me.’
‘I doubt if he’ll see you.’
‘One of us could try, couldn’t we? That is, if he’s here tonight.’
‘Yes, Mr Dews is here.’
‘Where – may I ask?’
‘In there.’ The barman indicated a door in the wall to the right of the bar.
Dr Salt looked as if he were about to move in that direction. ‘Oh – well – perhaps if I knock – and then ask nicely—’
‘He wouldn’t like it.’
‘Hates being disturbed, does he?’
‘If he’s busy, he does. And most times he’s very busy. Has all this place on his hands. No joke, I can tell you. I wouldn’t change jobs with him.’ The barman glanced to his left. ‘Oh – you’re lucky. He’s coming out. Oh, Mr Dews,’ he called. ‘This is Dr Salt, and he’d like a word with you.’
‘But of course – of course.’ Mr Dews came tripping, rosy and smiling, into the brighter light illuminating the bar. He wore a charcoal-grey suit, black suède shoes, a dusty-pink tie, and his hair in bronzed waves. A pretty youth probably about forty-five; he gave Maggie the creeps even across the room.
‘I’m Donald Dews, Dr Salt. And if you want to see me, here I am. Shall we sit down – or do you prefer to stand? I’ve been sitting down in my office, so I’m quite happy to stand. But why don’t we have a drink?’
‘I’m not a member.’
‘Oh – poor man – you’ve been warned, have you? We just have to be strict here. But, after all, I do run the Club and now you’re my guest—’
‘I’m not alone. Come on, you two.’
Reluctantly Maggie and Alan moved forward and met the other two about halfway to the counter. Dr Salt, who now seemed to talk and behave like somebody else, sounded quite fussy and self-important as he introduced them. ‘Miss Maggie Culworth – Dr Alan Culworth of the University of Hemtonshire, Mr Dews. They live in Hemton – and – believe it or not – they’re here – I mean in Birkden, of course – trying to find their father – Mr – er—’
Salt is Leaving Page 7