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. Rumour 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 wash houses 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 westwards, away from the mill towards 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 draught,’ 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 draught. 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 enquiry. ‘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 working men 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 draught… 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 tow-path 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.