Джон Пристли - Salt is Leaving

3

"We'll have to talk very quietly, if you don't mind," said Salt, speaking very quietly himself.

"I don't mind. But I can't help wondering why. I mean – this is a sitting room – or it's trying to be-"

"I'm not thinking about that. Something quite different. By the way, there's some whisky in my bag."

"No, thanks, not for me. What I need, after all that mysterious creeping around, is something for my tummy."

"Well, I've got something for your tummy too," he told her. And of course he had, being a doctor, and came back with something fizzy in a glass. She thanked him all the more warmly because he had attended to her before asking what had happened at 806.

"I feel I ought to have managed it better," she said. "But he was so determined to get rid of me. He was also rather tight, rather rude and quite ready to be still ruder. He wasn't prepared to be interested at all in female callers."

"Which suggests there was a girl in his room – um?"

"That's what I felt. Also, just as he opened the door I thought I heard a girl laugh. I never heard anything afterwards. I may have imagined the girl's laugh. I'm afraid this doesn't add up to very much. I certainly can't prove he had a girl in there. Sorry, Salt."

"Not to worry. I may try something else shortly. In the meantime, we'll just have to sit and wait and keep our voices down."

"I don't know what we"re supposed to be doing," she said. "But if you want to suggest you"re here by yourself, then why don't we turn on the television or the radio? My voice wouldn't be heard above it. Right?"

"Right. Let's try this radio." He fiddled with the set until there came out of it, booming and boring away, the voice of a man who was talking about railway trains. After a minute or two of this, he tried again and found some music. "It's the Mozart clarinet quintet," he announced with some satisfaction. "Let's stay with it – unless you have a very strong objection, Maggie. You"re not a music- hater , are you?"

"You ought to know I'm not. I like it, even though I don't know much about it."

"Listen to this, then. It's a masterwork – a credit to the human race."

It was five minutes later when the human race began discrediting itself. The door, which Salt had left unlatched, was flung open, and a young woman, wearing a dressing gown and apparently not much else, came charging in, looking as if she were about to embrace Dr Salt with her dressing gown flung wide open. With only a few seconds" interval, she was followed by a tall thin man who was holding a flashlight camera.

"Go ahead, Coleman," said Dr Salt cheerfully. "Maggie, this is Herbert X. Coleman."

"Another sodding balls-up," cried the young woman bitterly as she stepped away from Dr Salt and wrapped the dressing gown around her. "This is the last time, Bert."

"Perhaps you'd like me to take my clothes off," Maggie suggested sweetly.

"If you did, dearie, then something "ud go wrong with his bloody flashlight. My God – I'll never learn."

"All right, all right," said Coleman. "So it didn't work out. Not that I did anything wrong, but he was too smart for me, that's all. It can happen."

"It's always happening," the young woman said contemptuously. "But not with me any more." She looked at Maggie. "Sorry to have intruded, dearie. Nothing personal. Just business."

"Come on, Enid, and stop yapping. I must have telegraphed the punch somehow-"

"You did, Coleman," said Dr Salt sharply. "And we'll leave it at that. But try anything else and I'll make you wish you'd never left Birmingham. Now clear off – and don't frighten anybody in the corridor."

As the door closed behind them, Maggie switched off the radio. "I know it's lovely music, but you can listen to it some other time. He was trying to frame you, wasn't he? I've seen it on the movies-"

"So has Herbert X. Coleman," said Dr Salt, grinning. "He's the Birmingham model of a Hollywood private eye." No longer troubling to keep his voice down, he explained how Coleman had called on him early in the afternoon. "I guessed then he'd been brought here to run me into any kind of trouble. Then I spotted him down below, first, waiting for somebody, and then, later, talking to the girl. And that's why I didn't want us to be seen together and why I asked you to come up here first. They didn't know you were here, of course. Which reminds me." He went to the telephone.

"Now, then, where are we?" He pulled a kind of miniature directory out of the base of the telephone. "This is all so modern and convenient they turn you into a switchboard operator to speak to anybody. This is it, I suppose? 'To call another room, first dial 17.'"

As soon as he had finished dialling and had waited a moment, the receiver produced some sort of screech that even Maggie could hear. "What did you say?" he asked the screecher. He listened and then, without speaking again, put down the receiver and gave Maggie a triumphant nod.

"That's all," he told her. "I can run you home now, Maggie. And thank you for being so patient and good."

"Do you mean you've finished now?"

"For tonight, anyhow. I don't want you to go, but I think you ought just in case our friend Coleman thinks of something that might involve you. Ready?"

As they went down in the lift, she asked him if he had definitely decided to return to his flat in the morning.

"Certainly. I've a lot of little things to do. But I may accept Buzzy's invitation to spend the evening at his club. Would you like to come and lend me a hand as soon as you"re through at the shop? Saturday's a busy day, I imagine. I can't fetch you because I'll no longer have my car. I'm selling it tomorrow afternoon."

"Alan can run me down on his way to Jill." As they left the lift, she said, "What about dinner tomorrow night?"

"A very good question, Maggie. We'll eat at home, eh? No Saturday night table-grabbing. We'll be up late, so we might risk chump chops and then Welsh rarebit. All right?"

"Lovely. Do you want me to bring anything?"

"No, my dear. I'll pop out fairly early in the morning. Now, just hang on and I'll find the car."

As usual they said nothing while he was driving. However, when they stopped outside the house Maggie couldn't leave him without saying something. "I've been wondering and wondering all the way here. And I can't decide if I'm just stupid or you"re being fantastic. You've spent tonight playing these games with Herbert X. Thing – Coleman – and those people in 806, and you"re talking about selling your car tomorrow, buying chops and stuff, going to Buzzy's club – and yet at the same time you"re defying the police and everybody and talking as if you'll prove young Donnington didn't kill Noreen Wilks."

"I am, yes. Quite right, Maggie."

"But if you mean it – then when – and how?"

"Better not stay here. Excuse me." He leant across and opened the door for her.

"Oh – you"re just being maddening now, Salt-"

"I'm not trying to be. When? I'd say tomorrow night or Sunday night. How? Well, I think I know now who killed Noreen Wilks – and why. But let's leave it. See you early tomorrow evening, Maggie. Goodnight, my dear."

1

They had just finished washing up the dinner things when the telephone rang. Salt was back after a few moments. "That was Buzzy. I asked him earlier to ring me – if necessary. We'll go along to the Club now."

"Not until I've changed," Maggie told him firmly. "Did you notice I arrived carrying a small suitcase?"

"I did, though, of course, I didn't know what was in it. Daren't even risk a guess. But you don't need to change to visit Buzzy."

"I need to change for my own sake. But I promise not to be long. And please remember, Salt, it's raining, it's Saturday night, and we must have a taxi – if it's possible to find one."