The Suicide Murders

TWENTY-ONE

I wished there had been a big, old-fashioned bolt for me to slap home behind me, but there wasn’t. I dusted myself off quickly in a vestibule of dark stained wood, with a display cabinet showing the new miracle fabrics that Rutledge is making part of our everyday lives; on the opposite wall hung an oil painting of the factory from the front, showing the immaculate slanted approach to the front door in the early 1900s. Through a frosted-glass double door I found myself in a hall leading, over a part-metal part-hardwood floor, towards a silver-painted heavy fire-door to both left and right. But in front of me lay an office with a geezer looking through the plate glass window at me. I smiled and sauntered into the industrial green charm of this refuge.

“’ello, wad can I do for you?”

“Oh, I was just passing,” I said, rationing my breath and trying to look calm and businesslike. “Rutledge around?”

“You gotta be kidding. Dere ain’t been no Rutledge ’ere for fifteen years. We keep the name, dat’s all.”

“You from Montreal? How’d you like Ontario?”

“Look, I was born in Ontario, spent all my life in Ontario, and dose bastards in Quebec can murder demselves in dere beds for all I care, and dat’s fur sure. Now, what do you want ’ere dis time of night?” I felt the door behind me open.

“I’m working on a project for school, and I wonder if I could bring my class through to see the machines?”

“Sure ting. Dey do dat all de time. I’ll show you around. Make you a hexpert.” I saw him looking over my shoulder at the newcomers. “We’re sure getting busy and dat’s for sure. You looking for somebody?”

I turned and saw the trio for the first time close up. I recognized the hefty one with the blue ski-jacket. There was blood on his shoe. The other two I’d only seen in silhouette against the light at the top of the alley. One was dark, the other darker. Both were wearing the sort of jackets hunters wear over plaid shirts, with twill trousers. The darker one displayed a large moustache over a blue chin and a black leather cap. The other was bareheaded with heavy acne scars. The chase through the bush had been kinder to me than to these guys. There were burrs on their trousers, scratches on their hands and faces. They were controlling their breathing well. The heavy with the black cap answered the foreman.

“We’re with him,” he said smiling at both of us.

“You sure look like you came down ’ere the ’ard way. Okay,” he said throwing down the clipboard he’d been holding since I walked in on him. “I’ll show you de working looms on dis floor. Upstairs it’s de same ting all hover again. Dat way,” he nodded toward my right, “is all finished now. Just storage, no machines. Dis way we ’ave hold machines, and den in de next room de new machines from St. Louis. Best in the world.” He led his docile group to the fire-door and hefted it with his shoulder; it rode uphill on tracks, so that it rolled down into place when we walked through it. What we walked into was a blast of noise from about fifty looms, in five rows.

It was like the screech of a high-powered engine as the engineer hears it. It looked like a scene out of a movie I went to once about the workhouse in Merrie England. The looms just had to be manned by orphans. Each machine set bobbins of yarn dancing overhead as an automatic shuttle ran back and forth. Every once in a while a take-up reel weighing a ton lurched a notch or two to keep the tension right. Above us, waterpipes ran over each aisle, sending out a fine spray into the already noise-clogged air. I saw a few women walking around, but they didn’t look like my idea of weavers. Nobody tried to talk in that din.

Directly across from the door we came in by was a new steel shutter door set into the old wall. The foreman pulled a chain that dangled to one side. He started a motor and the door began to lift slowly. Here was another room full of machines. As we passed into this room, an addition to the original factory, I saw that the chain for closing the door was on my side. The foreman had swaggered quickly to the middle of the room, I hung back. Then I made my second wild dash of the evening. I sprinted to the door, pulled the chain, tossed it over a high bracket on the wall, and ducked under the closing shutter. I hoped that it would take a minute for them to figure out how to open it. I could hear them shouting behind me, the foreman, for some reason, more plaintive than the rest. I was pushing open the silver-coloured fire-door when the other shutter stopped in the closed position. A moment later I was out the other doors and running ahead of my wind up the wooden steps. I was shooting up the lane when I heard the factory door slam closed behind me. My heart might burst from the effort of that uphill scramble, but I was miles ahead of them as I came up St. Andrew Street. I never loved this messy, gaudy, nearly superseded stretch of pavement so much in my life before. I headed across the street into the jungle-mouthed atmosphere at the Men’s Beverage Room of the Russell House. I walked through the smoke, enjoying the comparative quiet of the blue hazy room, past figures hunched over amber drafts on black-topped tables, until I found the bathroom. I passed a terrified face in the mirror as I went by. I felt better after splashing water on my face. The roller towel wasn’t much help; it offered a choice of filthy and filthier.

As I turned, thinking of phoning somebody, anybody, I became aware that the doorway was filled by something that wasn’t a door. It was one of my fleet-footed friends from down below.

“I’ve got a friend wants to talk to you. Nobody’s going to get hurt, just come peaceful.”

“Bill Ward?” I asked, not believing what I was hearing.

“Smart guy, eh? Got all the answers. Well, maybe you got a couple answers for him. Let’s go.”

“Bloody hell! Why didn’t you say that Bill Ward wanted to see me. I’ve been meaning to see him for a week!”