As I looked around at the shops and houses, seen afresh from our unfamiliarly lofty vantage point, I noticed a commotion on the pavement ahead. A small knot of onlookers had gathered, pointing upwards, and a young man was running towards the tram waving his arms.
The driver seemed not to notice him – or chose not to – and we carried on. As we drew alongside the low-roofed building, I was at last able to see what had caused the passers-by to stop passing by and look up. Hanging from one of the ornate posts supporting the wire for the overhead electric cable was a portly, expensively-dressed gentleman. He was struggling to free himself, having become somehow caught on the ornamentation at the top of the post. He had managed to get one foot onto the wire and was attempting to lift himself free, but this caused the crowd to yell warnings that neither I nor he could make out. He passed over our heads and it was as I saw the trolley pole racing towards his feet that I realized what the warnings were about. I grabbed Lady Hardcastle and pulled her to the floor just as there was an almighty bang, a blue flash, and a shower of sparks from the rear of the tram. The whine of the motor stopped immediately and the driver engaged the brakes, bringing the tram to a jolting halt.
I helped Lady Hardcastle up from the floor.
‘Thank you, pet,’ she said. ‘We’d better go and see if we can help that chap.’
‘I doubt there’s much we can do, my lady,’ I said, heading towards the rear of the tram.
We looked down and saw the man’s body on the ground, his shoes still smoking and, to judge from his other injuries, almost certainly dead. The small crowd, previously so animated, was standing in shocked silence. The driver and conductor had rushed to the body, but the conductor had left his colleague to it while he went to the telephone on a nearby tram wire post to call for help.
We made our way hastily down the stairs and out onto the pavement just as a bobby rounded the corner and a shrill-voiced woman urged him to hurry over. He took charge at once and, having examined the body, instructed everyone to remain calm but not to go anywhere; he would need to take witness statements.
A couple of people from around the fringes of the crowd sidled away at this point, obviously keen not to be delayed yet further by the need to tell the authorities exactly the same story as a dozen others. The constable chose not to notice, but after a quick word from the conductor, complete with several unselfconscious glances in our direction, he made sure that Lady Hardcastle and I were aware of the necessity of our remaining where we were.
The conductor came over to us.
‘You must have had quite a shock, madam,’ he said to Lady Hardcastle. ‘You should sit down. The constable will be over to talk to you soon.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but we're quite all right. Is there anything we can do to help?’
‘Help, madam?’ he said, with genuine surprise. ‘I i’n’t certain there’s anything a woman can do here. Best leave it to the men while you have a sit down.’
She rolled her eyes at me, but we neither of us said anything, instead plonking ourselves down on the open platform at the rear of the tram.
‘No, madam,’ he said patiently as though to a dull-witted child. ‘Not there. You get back inside the tram and make yourself comfy on one o’ they nice seats in there. The constable shan’t be long. On you go, now.’
Lady Hardcastle said nothing, but nor did she make any attempt to move. He regarded her sympathetically and seemed to make up his mind that she would never understand, and left her to it. He whispered something in the constable’s ear and nodded in our direction. The constable approached.
‘Is everything all right, madam?’ he said, solicitously. ‘The conductor seems to think you might be in shock.’
‘I know, Constable. He seems really very sweet.’ She stood and I lifted myself off the low platform, too. ‘How do you do,’ she said, offering her hand. ‘I am Lady Hardcastle, and this is my maid, Miss Armstrong.’
The constable seemed a little nonplussed by her forwardness, but took her hand and said, ‘How do you do, m’lady. Constable Richardson.’
‘Well, Constable Richardson,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more than any of the witnesses on the ground, but Miss Armstrong might have seen a little more than I did. I was watching the world go by.’
She recounted the last part of our journey while the constable made notes in a little notebook. When she had finished he turned to me. ‘And you, miss? What did you see?’
Taking my cue from Lady Hardcastle, I described the events as accurately and succinctly as I could. Once again he made copious notes and, after accepting Lady Hardcastle’s calling card to confirm our home address, said we were free to go.
‘Would you like our telephone number, too, Constable?’ she said. ‘I’m afraid we’ve only just had it installed and I haven’t had the opportunity to get some new cards printed yet.’
‘Your telephone number?’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Well, I suppose for completeness…’
She dictated the new number which he wrote on the back of her card before tucking the card into his notebook. With that, he knuckled his forehead, bade us good afternoon and moved over to the remaining onlookers before any more of them could slope off, never to be seen again. He began speaking to them one at a time, and I remarked silently to myself upon the broad cross-section of society that one might meet on a typical English pavement in the middle of a summer’s afternoon. There was a man who looked to be a clerk, a nurse from the nearby hospital, a labourer in his work clothes, a lady and gentleman who had been standing together earlier on but who were now separated by some distance and were acting as though they didn't know each other. And there, at the back, was the young man I had seen running towards the tram as he tried to warn the driver of the impending calamity. He seemed to be concentrating very intently as though desperate to overhear the constable’s conversations with the other witnesses.
‘I do rather think someone ought to stay with the body,’ said Lady Hardcastle, nodding towards the unattended casualty lying on the tram tracks. ‘There’s nothing we can do for the poor fellow, I know, but someone ought to keep watch over him until help arrives for Constable Robertson.’
‘Richardson, my lady,’ I said, automatically.
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Why, what did I say?’
‘Something else, my lady,’ I said, looking around to see whether help were any nearer. The constable had chanced upon the scene of the tragedy but any additional help would have to come from farther afield and I wasn’t altogether hopeful that reinforcements would be arriving soon.
It was another twenty minutes before a black police motorcar drew up, followed shortly afterwards by an ambulance from the Bristol Royal Infirmary
To our surprise and delight, one of the policemen in the motorcar was Inspector Sunderland. We agreed not to go and bother him since he was obviously working, but as soon as he noticed us loitering near the ambulance, he came quickly over.