The Dyehouse

by Mena Calthorpe

  Hughie started walking again. He heard a door open, steps onto the street, then the door closing. The man came with great strides, making for the station. He passed Hughie and called a muffled ‘Good day’ as he passed.

  Good day, Hughie thought. Yes, it was morning. Soon the sky would be lightening, the stars paling. He passed Barrington Terrace, tracing the branches of the tree to the top window. He smiled fleetingly, thinking of Patty.

  He turned the corner and he was in Richmond Parade. Just ahead loomed the dark bulk of the Dyehouse. A steam train passed slowly. Hughie could see the warm yellow glow, the steam spiralling; see the dark outlines of the men’s figures; hear the warm friendliness of their voices.

  But he would have to go back. Alice might wake any time. Find the bed empty; sit up, worrying; even raise an alarm.

  Cats sleeping on the mat in the porch outside the corner shop stirred as he passed. They stretched, opened up their eyes, alert and watchful. And presently he was at the Dyehouse. He put out his hand and felt the solid bulk of the dark red-brick structure. It was the same. The same dark, shrouded, grimy windows. The broken lights on the fourth floor, the overhanging section above the office, the red door, the dirty white barricading. All just as he remembered it.

  He put his hand into his cardigan pocket and pulled out his key-ring. He stood holding it in his hand, looking at the lock. It looked the same. It was the same. They hadn’t changed it.

  They hadn’t called in his key. Why was that?

  He slipped the key into the padlock. It turned easily and he slid the barricading back.

  If the main lock was unchanged, if things were as they used to be…

  The key turned in the lock. The door opened into the familiar vestibule. He went quickly to the signal control, picked it up and gave the code.

  He glanced briefly around Renshaw’s office. The same bottles of dye, the same cards, the same stale cigarette butts, the same rubbish trailing from the drawers. Nothing was changed.

  He turned off the lights. He closed the front door and pulled the barricading to. He wandered aimlessly into the dark warehouse. In the boiler-room all was still. No light. No warmth. No John Thompson sitting on the packing case, smiling up at him. He walked like a ghost in a world of pipes and gauges.

  But the smell was the same. He stopped in the warehouse and sniffed it up. Sulphuric ether. The tin was roughly opened, standing in a corner. Have an accident with that some day. Some day there’d be trouble and someone would get really hurt.

  The stairs were inviting, reminding him of the greige stacked on the fourth floor, of the work waiting to be done, of the colours.

  But he made for the vats. Still, silent, cold, the steel gleamed back at him. He went into the lab and turned on the light. The new range was on the table. The green. So that was to be the new green. And they were having trouble with it. The experimental swatch was thrown on the ground. It was out. Dead out. Flat, dull, uninteresting. He picked up the range pattern. Why, he could do that. Do it on his ear.

  He picked up a pencil and began to write. All the particulars. He lit the gas, set the bunsen burner and began.

  It was almost daylight. Hughie wrapped the cloth in white and placed it beside the range pattern. It was exact.

  The dyer’s instructions for the first vats were thrown on the desk. He rolled up the glass from the balances. No. 1. He weighed up carefully. No. 4. No. 6. No. 7. No. 9. He had them ready. All ready for the kick-off.

  In the warehouse the trolleys stood stacked with rolls. ‘Best-Yet’! Hughie ripped the paper. So they had got the contract after all. The first batch was on its way out. Not as good, not quite as good as the colour swatches he had dyed. He handled the cloth, smoothing its glossy satin surface. Not quite as good, but Best-Yet was taking it.

  He went through to the presses. The cloth lay in heaps piled in the trucks. Green, peach, deep gold, salmon, apricot, peacock blue, purple, plum.

  Sims was turning it out all right. The dyeing was good.

  He thought of his earlier conversation with Renshaw. No one can be regarded as indispensable. No, that was true. Sims was carrying on. He was doing a good job. Hughie’s trained eye knew where to look for the faults, and they were few.

  He walked up the stairs. It was darker here. The windows were closed off. He kept walking up until he reached the fourth floor. The stockroom door was locked. He took out his key and opened it. He was singing softly to himself.

  Now the room was in darkness. The rolls stacked on the tables looked white and ghostly. He wandered aimlessly down the first aisle, touching the stacks, identifying the quality with his fingers. The greige stock was not coming in so quickly. Old Harvison was afraid of being caught. He was not allowing the greige to build up.

  Hughie stood still. He remembered this room. When he was a kid, the very first day he started, he had helped Ron James stack rolls on the end table. It had been a hot summer’s day and the cloth had stuck to their sweaty hands. They had sat down after a while, and old Boyle who was the boss then had come and caught them.

  ‘Hard work lifting those rolls, you reckon? But never mind, Hughie, you’re going to the lab with Tommy Peters tomorrow. And Ronnie, I’m going to start to train you up.’

  But they hadn’t gone straight to their new jobs. They had played about in the stockroom for a fortnight, throwing waste at each other, singing the latest songs, covertly smoking cigarettes. Taking about the future, looking at the future and wondering about it.

  Well, James was out now. Pushed out. But he had got on at City Dyers. Got a better job, really. But he was a different bloke. A different kind of bloke altogether.

  He turned into the second aisle. The heavy cloths were warehoused here. Hughie felt the rolls and thought of the colours he would like to see on these textures. Rich, warm colours.

  At the end stack his fingers closed over something foreign. Oblong cards. There were half a dozen of them, the PG cards that Patty had left on the bench the day she came up to speak to Renshaw. Hughie picked them up and ran them through his fingers. He wondered briefly what they were doing here. Whether they were important. He shuffled them through his fingers, then placed them back beside the stack.

  There was a trolley already loaded, waiting at the lift-well. The tickets had been taken off. Patty Nicholls had probably written them in and totted up the weight.

  Cloth for the vats! He had already weighed up the dyes for it in the lab. Strange, that. The rolls picked out, the tickets written in, the dyes weighed up. He began to laugh again.

  The wires sang as he hauled up the crane. He pushed the wire door open. He stopped laughing. Far below he could see a round patch of daylight. He looked at it, bending over.

  Then his arms shot out and the floors rushed together as he passed to the bright circle that proclaimed the new day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  John Thompson was late.

  There had been a holdup on the line and the trains were running off schedule. It was no use worrying. If he got off the train to hunt up a bus at a strange station he would probably be later still. Better to wait while the train crawled and bumped on its way towards Macdonaldtown.

  John had Renshaw’s key. Ever since Hughie left, no one had been disposed to accept the responsibility of opening up. Renshaw was loath to come in early every morning. He worked long hours of overtime as it was, and he felt entitled to start work with the main body of the staff at eight o’clock. He had finally decided to give his key to John. John was the logical man. He had to be in early in any case to get steam up. He was honest, trustworthy, dependable.

  John glanced at his watch. They were just past Lewisham, and running fifteen minutes late. He picked up his paper and began to read. No need to sit watching every factory as the train moved slowly past.

  They were in at last. John picked up his bag. He smiled at some men hurrying off the platform. There would be a good many places without steam for a while this morning. He glanced at the skyline: s
moke issued from few of the chimneys. Must be a lot of blokes on this train, he thought, and grinned to himself. Still, he had better hurry.

  It was almost 7.20 when he reached the Dyehouse door. The barricading was unlocked, but pushed to. The main door was on the latch. He pondered this for a minute. The seal was broken, and no one was about. That meant someone in authority was in the place. Perhaps Bob Mayers. Perhaps Cuthbert or Harvison had come over on a lightning raid. He cursed under his breath. Well, they could go take a running dive off Ben Buckler. He’d clocked-on on time every morning for twelve months or more. He pushed the barricading open, pushed the door and hooked it back. They were not on overtime now. The men would not begin to drift in until about ten minutes to eight.

  He went straight to the boiler-house. He did not change. He worked quickly and methodically. And when everything was under way, he picked up his billy and went whistling through to the tap in the drying area. He noticed the bundle lying under the lift-well, at first absently. It looked strange. From where he was standing in the peculiar light, with the shadows falling here and there, it looked almost like a body.

  He filled the billy, still idly looking at the sprawled white mass. He came through to the blinding light under the loading dock.

  The water slopped from the billy as he opened his mouth to scream.

  The neck was twisted and grotesque, the eyes stared unseeing at a heap of rose swami flung into a corner. Blood had soaked into the white drill of the overalls.

  John put the billy on the ground. He picked up a length of yellow silk and flung it over the body.

  What to do? Ring for the police! Ring for a doctor! Ring Larcombe, Renshaw. He ran to the office and picked up Miss Merton’s Teledex. Dr Sparkes. Yes, the doctor, urgently. Man maybe dead. Man most certainly dead. Now Larcombe. Yes, that’s right. Looks like he’s dead. Looks like he’s had it. What’s that? Get the police? Get Renshaw. Keep the men away. He’d be around immediately.

  Renshaw was backing out the car when he heard the phone ring.

  ‘Who the hell…!’

  He drove to the front door, leapt out of the car and picked up the phone.

  Why the hell should Thompson be ringing? Why the hell couldn’t he wait? Accident! What sort of accident? Boiler blow up? Trouble with chemicals?

  ‘Hughie Marshall. Looks like he’s dead. Looks like he might have fallen down the lift-well onto the loading dock.’

  The sunlight was bright on the street. The two peppercorn-trees looked green and inviting through the open window. It looked like a lovely day.

  ‘What’s that you’re saying?’ Renshaw said roughly. ‘You must be mad. Hughie Marshall? But he doesn’t work there any more. Why would Hughie Marshall be lying dead on the floor? You must be drunk.’

  He waited, looking at the trees in the street, at his car parked at the front gate.

  ‘I reckon I’d know him,’ John Thompson said. ‘Even now I reckon I’d be able to tell Hughie Marshall.’

  ‘I’ll be over,’ Renshaw said.

  He put down the phone. In the space of a few minutes, how the morning had changed! Hughie Marshall was dead, with unpleasant implications. How did Hughie get into the Dyehouse? There were the keys. The keys that he had thought about only yesterday. The keys that he had intended picking up, perhaps today. He pictured Larcombe’s face, Harvison’s cold anger. Well, they had got him. He was right out on a limb. They’d caught him with his pants down, this time.

  The police were already there when Renshaw pulled up before the Dyehouse. They had cordoned off the section and were talking to John Thompson. Looking at his keys. Glancing at the open barricading. Miss Merton, coming through the vestibule, stopped.

  ‘Don’t let anyone through this way,’ a policeman said. ‘The bundy’s in this area? Too bad. You’ll have to take a risk on who’s late.’

  The doctor and police had spoken together. There were no suspicious circumstances. The time of death was established. They had tracked Hughie through the warehouse, into the boiler-room, down to the lab and up to the fourth floor.

  In the lab, Larcombe had stood looking at the weighing-up that Hughie had done, and at the colour swatch for the new green.

  ‘I see you have that green right,’ he said. He indicated the colour pattern and the swatch that Hughie had dyed. Renshaw looked at it too. The green. The new green. They had worked on it most of the previous day without result. He laid the swatch beside the pattern. It was exact.

  He didn’t lie to Larcombe, this time.

  ‘Poor bastard,’ he said.

  But there was more to be faced. The police interviewed Cuthbert and Harvison at Head Office. The story might provide evening headlines. It was not good for business.

  ‘Is it common practice to allow keys to remain in the possession of persons no longer in the employment of the Company?’

  It was not the practice or the policy of the Company. By no means. And those responsible for this oversight could expect to be dealt with severely.

  Mr Harvison looked at Mr Cuthbert. Well, it was his department. Instructions to personnel. Did that rattle-brained Renshaw understand the importance of calling in keys? Of having locks changed if keys should be lost? Was he so lacking in common nous as to be unaware of the value of the stock lodged at Macdonaldtown?

  ‘We should do something about Mrs Marshall,’ Cuthbert said suddenly. ‘I think we should write to her.’

  Harvison’s mind swung back from the Company problem. Mrs Marshall. Well, yes. There was a Mrs Marshall. The quiet little figure that he remembered vaguely had a wife. It had married someone. Had set up a home somewhere. No doubt this Mrs Marshall was prostrate with grief over this little man in the white overalls whose face he scarcely remembered.

  ‘With us thirty-five years,’ Cuthbert said.

  ‘Got all that was coming to him,’ Harvison said bluntly. ‘You paid him up when he left.’

  ‘Got all that was due to him,’ Cuthbert said. He felt irritated.

  ‘Well, suit yourself. He’s caused us enough trouble. I’m going to root that Larcombe along over this. God knows what else is going on at Macdonaldtown. Do what you like, as long as it doesn’t cost us dough.’

  Harvison leaned back in his chair. He rattled his papers. The interview was over. Cuthbert gathered up his books. He was feeling strangely shaken by Hughie’s death. There was something not quite straight about the whole thing. He thought of Larcombe coldly, and with increased irritation. He let Renshaw ride over him.

  He went into his office. The day’s work was waiting. Decisions to be made on this and that. He plunged into it, and presently he forgot about Renshaw, about Hughie, about the Dyehouse.

  There was little work done at the Dyehouse that day. Renshaw was tied up, first of all over Hughie, and then over the keys. The police had questioned him again and again. They would be sure to mention the matter to the old man. It would have to come out. There was no other explanation for Hughie’s presence in the Dyehouse. Larcombe was not helpful. In one flash he saw everything that he had worked for swept away. He had trusted this fellow, Renshaw. He had depended on him. Now he was cold to his explanations and pleadings.

  ‘You know the rules,’ Larcombe said. He looked with aversion at Renshaw. He had climbed slowly and painfully to his present position, and God only knew just when Harvison might decide to cut his water off.

  ‘It was easily done,’ Renshaw said. ‘You saw it yourself. I was unconscious when he walked out. You know what the score was. You saw him hit me. I didn’t make up his money. I was out like a light when he left. Cuthbert saw him at Head Office. He should have asked him about the keys.’

  ‘Cuthbert was out,’ Larcombe said shortly. ‘Miss Uliffe made up Hughie’s money. Cuthbert left an instruction. It’s no good trying to sidestep it. It was your job to get the keys or report them missing.’

  ‘I’ve told you. I was thinking about it only yesterday. Thinking I’d send Sims around. I wasn’t worried. Not really. You kno
w yourself Hughie was honest enough.’

  Larcombe turned around. He looked slowly at Renshaw and sneered.

  ‘Your tune’s changed a bit today.’

  ‘I mean honest. About money. About things.’

  ‘He wasn’t a bad dyer, either,’ Larcombe said suddenly. ‘He tied up that green that had you tossed. I tell you, Renshaw, if anything comes of this you’d better be watching yourself. You’d just better be on your toes.’

  Sims and Collins had not started the vats up early. The weighing-up was done, but they were uncertain whether to use the dyes. The way Hughie was he could have put anything in.

  ‘Seemed all right with the green,’ Sims said. He lifted it up, holding it to the light. ‘Couldn’t be closer.’

  ‘He really liked it,’ Collins said slowly. ‘Liked mucking about with the bloody stuff. You wouldn’t read about it.’

  ‘No,’ Sims said.

  ‘I’m not cut out for this game,’ Collins said suddenly. ‘You’d have to really like a job to put up with this for years. Water dripping from the ceiling. Floors always wet and cold.’

  ‘What about your Tech? That’d be down the drain.’

  ‘It’s my life,’ Collins said. ‘I’ve only got the one. First job that suits me I’ll be right out of this dyeing game. Out of the textiles altogether. First thing that looks like really fitting me I’ll be shooting through.’

  Oliver was standing on the edge of the crowd, just outside the cordon. He could see nothing more than a shapeless mass in the centre of the loading dock. He caught Barney’s eye and went across to him. They had not stripped down for work. The throb of the machinery told them that no vats were under way. Very little machinery was turning in the building. In the boiler-room the two Colonials were panting slowly. The steam was there on tap, waiting for the operators.

  Barney and Oliver walked upstairs slowly. It was hard for Oliver to understand Hughie. Only yesterday he’d had a word with Alice. Advised her to talk to Hughie. To get him to take a fill-in job for a while. What was there in jobs that got blokes that way? In the big groups, the professions, men often got like that. But for a bloke in an ordinary run-of-the-mill job…