Not Safe After Dark: And Other Stories

by Peter Robinson

  My postmortem examination the following day indicated only that Richard Ellerby had enough water in his lungs to support a verdict of death by drowning. Let me repeat: There was no reason whatsoever to suspect foul play. People had fallen over the weir and died in this way before. Assault and murder were crimes that rarely crossed the minds of the denizens of Utopia. That the back of Richard’s skull was fractured, and that his face and body were covered with scratches and bruises, could easily be explained by the tumble he took over the weir. It was May and the thaw had created a spate of meltwater, which thundered down from its sources high in the Pennines with such force as easily to cause those injuries I witnessed on the body.

  Of course, there could be another explanation, and that, perhaps, was why I was loath to let matters stand.

  If you have imagined from my tone that I was less fully convinced of Saltaire’s standing as a latter-day Utopia than some of my contemporaries, then you may compliment yourself on your sensitivity to the nuances of the English language. As I look back on those days, though, I wonder if I am not allowing my present opinions to cloud the glass through which I peer at the past. Perhaps a little. I do know that I certainly believed in Sir Titus’s absolute commitment to the idea, but I also think that even back then, after only thirty years on this earth, I had seen far too much of human nature to believe in Utopias like Saltaire.

  Besides, I had another quality that would not permit me to let things rest: if I were a cat, believe me, I would be dead by now, nine lives notwithstanding.

  * * *

  It was another fine morning when I left Benjamin in charge of the ward rounds and stepped out of the hospital on a matter that had been occupying my mind for the past two days. The almshouses over the road made a pretty sight, set back behind their broad swath of grass. A few pensioners sat on the benches smoking their pipes under trees bearing pink and white blossoms. Men of “good moral character,” they benefited from Sir Titus’s largesse to the extent of free accommodation and a pension of seven shillings and sixpence per week, but only as long as they continued to show their “good moral character.” Charity, after all, is not for everyone, but only for those who merit it.

  Lest you think I was a complete cynic at such an early age, I must admit that I found much to admire about Saltaire. Unlike the cramped, airless, and filthy back-to-back slums of Bradford, where I myself had seen ten or more people sharing a dark, dank cellar that flooded every time it rained, Saltaire was designed as an open and airy environment. The streets were all paved and well drained, avoiding the filthy conditions that breed disease. Each house had its own outdoor lavatory, which was cleaned regularly, again averting the possibility of sickness caused by the sharing of such facilities. Sir Titus also insisted on special measures to reduce the output of smoke from the mill, so that we didn’t live under a pall of suffocating fumes, and our pretty sandstone houses were not crusted over with a layer of grime. Still, there is a price to pay for everything, and in Saltaire it was the sense of constantly living out another man’s moral vision.

  I turned left on Titus Street, passing by the house with the “spy” tower on top. This extra room was almost all windows, like the top of a lighthouse, and I had often spotted a shadowy figure up there. Rumor has it that Sir Titus employed a man with a telescope to survey the village, to look for signs of trouble and report any infringements to him. I thought I saw someone up there as I passed, but it could have been a trick of sunlight on the glass.

  Several women had hung out their washing to dry across Ada Street, as usual. Though everyone knew that Sir Titus frowned on this practice—indeed, he had generously provided public washhouses in an attempt to discourage it—this was their little way of asserting their independence, of cocking a snook at authority.

  As befitted a wool buyer, Richard Ellerby had lived with his wife and two children in one of the grander houses on Albert Road, facing westward, away from the mill toward the open country. According to local practice after bereavement, the upstairs curtains were drawn.

  I knocked on the door and waited. Caroline Ellerby opened it herself, wearing her widow’s black, and bade me enter. She was a handsome woman, but today her skin was pale and her eyes red-rimmed from weeping. When I was seated in her spacious living room, she asked me if I would care for a small sherry. While Sir Titus would allow no public houses in Saltaire, convinced that they encouraged vice, idleness, and profligacy, he held no objection to people serving alcohol in their own homes. Indeed, he was known to keep a well-stocked wine cellar himself. On this occasion I declined, citing the earliness of the hour and the volume of work awaiting me back at the hospital.

  Caroline Ellerby smoothed her voluminous black skirts and sat on the chesterfield. After I had expressed my sorrow over her loss and she had inclined her head in acceptance, I moved on to the business that had been occupying my thoughts.

  “I need to ask you a few questions about Richard’s accident,” I explained to her, “only if, that is, you feel up to answering them.”

  “Of course,” she said, folding her hands on her lap. “Please continue.”

  “When did you last see your husband?”

  “The evening before . . . before he was discovered.”

  “He was away from the house all night?”

  She nodded.

  “But surely you must have noticed he was missing?” I realized I was perhaps on the verge of being offensive, or even well beyond the verge, but the matter puzzled me, and when things puzzle me I worry away at them until they yield a solution. I could no more help myself than a tiger can change its stripes.

  “I took a sleeping draft,” she said. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t have woken up if you’d set me down in the weaving shed.”

  Given that the weaving shed contained twelve hundred power looms, all thrumming and clattering at once, I suspected Caroline of hyperbole, but she got her point across.

  “Believe me,” she went on, “I have been tormenting myself ever since . . . If I hadn’t taken the sleeping draft. If I had noticed he hadn’t come home. If I had tried to find him . . .”

  “It wouldn’t have helped, Caroline,” I said. “His death must have been very swift. There was nothing you could have done. There’s no use torturing yourself.”

  “You’re very kind, but even so . . .”

  “When did you notice that Richard hadn’t come home?”

  “Not until George Walker from the office came to tell me.”

  I paused before going on, uncertain how to soften my line of inquiry. “Caroline, believe me, I don’t mean to pry unnecessarily or to cause you any distress, but do you have any idea where Richard went that night?”

  She seemed puzzled at my question. “Went? Why, he went to the Travellers’ Rest, of course, out on the Otley Road.”

  It was my turn to be surprised. I thought I had known Richard Ellerby, but I didn’t know he was a frequenter of public houses; the subject had simply never come up between us. “The Travellers’ Rest? Did he go there often?”

  “Not often, no, but he enjoyed the atmosphere of a good tavern on occasion. According to Richard, the Travellers’ Rest was a respectable establishment. I had no reason not to believe him.”

  “Of course not.” I knew of the place, and had certainly heard nothing to blacken its character.

  “You seem puzzled, Dr. Oulton.”

  “Only because your husband never mentioned it to me.”

  Caroline summoned up a brief smile. “Richard comes from humble origins, as I’m sure you know. He has worked very hard, both in Bradford and here at Saltaire, to achieve the elevated position he has attained. He is a great believer in Mr. Samuel Smiles and his doctrine of self-help. Despite his personal success and advancement, though, he is not a snob. He has never lost touch with his origins. Richard enjoys the company of his fellow workingmen in the cheery atmosphere of a good tavern. That is all.”

  I nodded. There was nothing unusual in that. I myself ventured to the
Shoulder of Mutton, up on the Bingley Road, on occasion. After all, the village was not intended as a prison. It was beginning to dawn on me, though, that Richard probably assumed I was above such things as public houses because I was a member of the professional classes, or that I disapproved of them on health grounds because I was a doctor. I felt a pang of regret that we had never been able to get together over a pipe and a pint of ale. Now that he was dead, we never would.

  “Did he ever overindulge?” I went on. “I ask only because I’m searching for a reason for what happened. If Richard had, perhaps, had too much to drink that night and missed his footing . . . ?”

  Caroline pursed her lips and frowned, deep in thought for a moment. “I’ll not say he’s never had a few too many,” she admitted, “but I can say that he was not in the habit of overindulging.”

  “And there was nothing on his mind, nothing that might tempt him to have more than his share that night?”

  “There were many things on Richard’s mind, especially as regarded his work, but nothing unusual, nothing that would drive him to drink, of that I can assure you.” She paused. “Dr. Oulton, is there anything else? I’m afraid I’m very tired. Even with the sleeping draft . . . the past couple of nights . . . I’m sure you can understand. I’ve had to send the children to mother’s. I just can’t handle them at the moment.”

  I got to my feet. “Of course. You’ve been a great help already. Just one small thing?”

  She tilted her head. “Yes?”

  “Did Richard have any enemies?”

  “Enemies? No. Not that I know of. Surely you can’t be suggesting someone did this to him?”

  “I don’t know, Caroline. I just don’t know. That’s the problem. Please, stay where you are. I’ll see myself out.”

  As I walked back to the hospital, I realized that was the problem: I didn’t know. I also found myself wondering what on earth Richard was doing by the weir if he was coming home from the Travellers’ Rest. The canal towpath would certainly be an ideal route to the tavern and back, but the river was north of the canal, and Richard Ellerby’s house was south.

  * * *

  On my way to the Travellers’ Rest that evening, I considered the theory that Richard might have attracted the attention of a villain, or a group of villains, who had subsequently followed him, robbed him, and tossed his body over the weir. The only problem with my theory, as far as I could see, was that he still had several gold sovereigns in his pocket, and no self-respecting thieves would have overlooked a haul that big.

  As it turned out, the Travellers’ Rest was as respectable a tavern as Richard had told his wife, and as cheery a one as I could have hoped for after my gloomy thoughts. It certainly didn’t seem to be a haunt of cutpurses and ruffians. On the contrary, the gaslit public bar was full of warm laughter and conversation, and I recognized several groups of mill workers, many of whom I had treated for one minor ailment or another. Some of them looked up, surprised to see me there, and muttered sheepish hellos. Others were brash and greeted me more loudly, taking my presence as an endorsement of their own indulgence. Jack Liversedge was there, sitting alone in a corner nursing his drink. My heart went out to him; poor Jack had been severely depressed ever since he lost his wife to anthrax two months before, and there seemed nothing anyone could do to console him. He didn’t even look up when I entered.

  I made my way to the bar and engaged the landlord’s attention. He was a plump man with a veined red nose, rather like a radish, which seemed to me to indicate that he was perhaps a whit too fond of his own product. He nodded a crisp greeting, and I asked for a pint of ale. When I had been served, noticing a slight lull in business, I introduced myself and asked him if he remembered Richard Ellerby’s last visit. Once I had described my late colleague, he said that he did.

  “Proper gentleman, Mr. Ellerby was, sir. I were right sorry to hear about what happened.”

  “I was wondering if anything unusual happened that evening.”

  “Unusual?”

  “Did he drink too much?”

  “No, sir. Two or three ales. That’s his limit.”

  “So he wasn’t drunk when he left here, unsteady in his gait?”

  “No, sir. Excuse me a moment.” He went to serve another customer then came back. “No, sir, I can’t say as I’ve ever seen Mr. Ellerby inebriated.”

  “Were there any rough elements in here that night?”

  He shook his head. “Any rough elements I send packing, up to the Feathers on the Leeds Road. That’s a proper rough sort of place, that is. But this is a respectable establishment.” He leaned forward across the bar. “I’ll tell thee summat for nowt, if Mr. Salt won’t have public houses in his village, there’s no better place for his workers to pass an hour or two than the Travellers’ Rest, and that’s God’s honest truth.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” I said, “but surely things must get a little out of hand on occasion?”

  He laughed. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “And you’re sure nothing strange happened the last night Mr. Ellerby was here?”

  “You’d be better off asking him over there about that.” He nodded toward Jack Liversedge, who seemed engaged in a muttered dispute with himself. “I’ve as much pity as the next man for a fellow who’s lost his wife, poor beggar, but the way he’s carrying on . . .” He shook his head.

  “What happened?”

  “They got into a bit of a barney.”

  “What about?”

  He shrugged. “I heard Mr. Liversedge call Mr. Ellerby no better than a murderer, then he finished his drink and walked out.”

  “How much longer before Mr. Ellerby left?”

  “Five minutes, mebbe. Not long.”

  I mulled this over as he excused himself to serve more customers. Jack Liversedge’s wife, Florence, a wool sorter, had died of anthrax two months ago. It is a terrible disease, and one we were only slowly coming to understand. Through my own research, I had been in correspondence with two important scientists working in the field: M. Casimir-Joseph Davaine, in France, and Herr Robert Koch, in Germany. Thus far we had been able to determine that the disease is caused by living microorganisms, most likely hiding in the alpaca wool of the South American llamas and the mohair of the Angora goats, both of which Sir Titus imported to make his fine cloths, but we were a long way from finding a prevention or a cure.

  As I sipped my ale and looked at Jack Liversedge, I began to wonder. Richard Ellerby was a wool buyer. Had Jack, in his distraught and confused state, considered him culpable of Florence’s death? Certainly from what I had seen and heard of Jack’s erratic behavior since her death, it was possible, and he was a big, strong fellow.

  I was just about to go over to him, without having any clear plan in mind of what to say, when he seemed to come to a pause in his argument with himself, slammed his tankard down, and left, bumping into several people on his way out. I decided to go after him.

  * * *

  I followed Jack down the stone steps to the towpath and called out his name, at which he turned and asked who I was. I introduced myself.

  “Ah,” he said, “’tis thee, Doctor.”

  The towpath was unlit, but the canal was straight, and the light of a three-quarter moon lay on the still water like a shroud. It was enough to enable us to see our way.

  “I saw you in the Travellers’ Rest,” I said. “You seemed upset. I thought we might share the walk home, if that’s all right?”

  “As you will.”

  We walked in silence, all the while growing closer to the mill, which rose ahead in the silvery light, a ghostly block of sandstone against the black, starlit sky. I didn’t know how to broach the subject that was on my mind, fearing that if I were right, Jack would put up a fight, and if I were wrong he would be justly offended. Finally, I decided to muddle along as best I could.

  “I hear Richard Ellerby was in the Travellers’ the other night, Jack.”

  “Is that so?”
>
  “Yes. I hear you argued with him.”

  “Mebbe I did.”

  “What was it about, Jack? Did you get into a fight with him?”

  Jack paused on the path to face me, and for a moment I thought he was going to come at me. I braced myself, but nothing happened. The mill loomed over his shoulder. I could see a number of emotions cross his features in the moonlight, from fear and sorrow to, finally, resignation. He seemed somehow relieved that I had asked him about Richard.

  “He were the wool buyer, weren’t he?” he said, with gritted anger in his voice. “He should’ve known.”

  I sighed. “Oh, Jack. Nobody could have known. He just buys the wool. There are no tests. There’s no way of knowing.”

  “It’s not right. He bought the wool that killed her. Someone had to pay.”

  He turned his back to me and walked on. I followed. We got to the bottom of Victoria Road, and I could hear the weir roaring to our right. Jack walked to the cast-iron bridge, where he stood gazing into the rushing water. I went and stood beside him. “And whose place is it to decide who pays, Jack?” I asked, raising my voice over the water’s roar. “Whose job do you think it is to play God? Yours?”

  He looked at me with pity and contempt, then shook his head and said, “You don’t understand.”

  I looked down into the water, its foam tipped with moonlight. “Did you kill him?” I asked. “Did you kill Richard Ellerby because you blamed him for Florence’s death?”

  He said nothing for a moment, then gave a brief, jerky nod. “There he were,” he said, “standing there in his finest coat, drinking and laughing, while my Florence were rotting in her grave.”