Still William (14 page)

‘Proper?’ said Miss Hatherly indignantly. ‘Surely there can be no impropriety in a spirit?’

‘Er – no, dear – of course, you’re right,’ murmured Miss Euphemia Barney, flinching under Miss Hatherly’s eyes.

‘I shall go tonight,’ said Miss Hatherly again with one more scathing glance at Miss Euphemia Barney, ‘and I shall receive the message. I want you all to meet me here this time
tomorrow and I will report my experience.’

The Society for the Encouragement of Higher Thought expostulated, but finally acquiesced.

‘What a
heroine
! How
brave
! How
psychic
!’ they murmured as they went homewards.

‘What a thrilling data it will make,’ said little Miss Simky, who had now recovered from her hysterics and was feeling quite cheerful.

William was creeping downstairs. It was too windy for him to use his pear tree and he was going out by way of the dining-room window. He was dressed in an overcoat over his
pyjamas and he held in his arms ten small apples which were his contribution to the feast and which he had secretly abstracted from the loft during the day. Bang! – rattle – rattle
– rattle! – Three of them escaped his encircling arms and dropped noisily from stair to stair.

‘Crumbs!’ muttered William aghast.

No one, however, appeared to have heard. The house was still silent and sleeping. William gathered up his three apples and dropped two more in the process – fortunately upon the mat. He
looked round anxiously. His arms seemed inadequate for ten apples, but he had promised ten apples for the feast and he must provide them. His pockets were already full of biscuits.

He looked round the moonlit hall. Ah, Robert’s ‘overflow bag’! It was on one of the chairs. Robert had been staying with a friend and had returned late that night. He had taken
his suitcase upstairs and flung the small and shabby bag that he called his ‘overflow bag’ down on a chair. It was still there.

Good! It would do to hold the apples. William opened it. There were a few things inside, but William couldn’t stay to take them out. There was plenty of room for the apples anyway. He
shoved them in, took up his bag, and made his way to the dining-room window.

The midnight feast was in full swing. Henry had forgotten to bring the candles, Douglas was half asleep, Ginger was racked by gnawing internal pains as the result of the feast
of the night before, and William was distrait, but otherwise all was well.

Someone had (rather misguidedly) given William a camera the day before and his thoughts were full of it. He had taken six snapshots and was going to develop them tomorrow. He had sold his bow
and arrows to a classmate to buy the necessary chemicals. As he munched the apples and cheesecakes and chocolate cream and pickled onions and currants provided for the feast he was in imagination
developing and fixing his snapshots. He’d never done it before. He thought he’d enjoy it. It would be so jolly and messy – watery stuff to slosh about in little basins and that
kind of thing.

Suddenly, as they munched and lazily discussed the rival merits of catapults and bows and arrows (Ginger had just swopped his bow and arrows for a catapult) there came through the silent empty
house the sound of the opening of the front door. The Outlaws stared at each other with crumby mouths wide open – steps were now ascending the front stairs.

‘Speak!’ called suddenly a loud and vibrant voice from the middle of the stairs, which made the Outlaws start almost out of their skins. ‘Speak! Give me your
message.’

The hair of the Outlaws stood on end.

‘A ghost!’ whispered Henry with chattering teeth.

‘Crikey!’ said William. ‘Let’s get out.’

They crept silently out of the further door, down the back stairs, out of the window, and fled with all their might down the road.

‘SPEAK!’ A LOUD AND VIBRANT VOICE CALLED SUDDENLY. ‘SPEAK! GIVE ME YOUR MESSAGE!’

Meanwhile, upstairs, Miss Hatherly first walked majestically into the closed door and then fell over Robert’s ‘overflow bag’, which the Outlaws had forgotten in their
panic.

Robert went to see his beloved next day and to reassure her of his undying affection. She yawned several times in the course of his speech. She was beginning to find
Robert’s devotion somewhat monotonous. She was not of a constant nature. Neither was Robert.

‘I say,’ she said interrupting him as he was telling her for the tenth time that he had thought of her every minute of the day, and dreamed of her every minute of the night, and that
he’d made up a lot more poetry about her but had forgotten to bring it, ‘do come indoors. They’re having some sort of stunt in the drawing-room – Aunt and the High Thinkers,
you know. I’m not quite sure what it is – something psychic, she said, but anyway it ought to be amusing.’

THE OUTLAWS STARED AT EACH OTHER, AND THEIR HAIR STOOD ON END. ‘A GHOST!’ WHISPERED HENRY WITH CHATTERING TEETH.

Rather reluctantly Robert followed her into the drawing-room where the Higher Thinkers were assembled. The Higher Thinkers looked coldly at Robert. He wasn’t much thought of in
high-thinking circles.

There was an air of intense excitement in the room as Miss Hatherly rose to speak.

‘I entered the haunted house,’ she began in a low, quivering voice, ‘and at once I heard – VOICES!’ Miss Simky clung in panic to Miss Sluker. ‘I proceeded up
the stairs and I heard – FOOTSTEPS!’ Miss Euphemia Barney gave a little scream. ‘I went on undaunted.’

The Higher Thinkers gave a thrilled murmur of admiration. ‘And suddenly all was silent, but I felt a – PRESENCE! It led me – led me along a passage – I FELT it! It led me
to a room—’ Miss Simky screamed again. ‘And in the room I found THIS!’

With a dramatic gesture she brought out Robert’s ‘overflow bag’. ‘I have not yet investigated it. I wished to do so first in your presence.’ (‘How
noble
!’ murmured Mrs Moote.) ‘I feel sure that this is what Colonel Henks has been trying to show me. I am convinced that this will throw light upon the mystery of his death
– I am now going to open it.’

‘If it’s human remains,’ quavered Miss Simky, ‘I shall
faint
.’

With a determined look, Miss Hatherly opened the bag. From it she brought out first a pair of faded and very much darned blue socks, next a shirt with a large hole in it, next a bathing suit,
and lastly a pair of very grimy white flannel trousers.

The Higher Thinkers looked bewildered. But Miss Hatherly was not daunted.

‘They’re clues!’ she said. ‘Clues – if only we can piece them together properly; they must have some meaning. Ah, here’s a notebook – this will explain
everything.’ She opened the notebook and began to read:

‘These socks are both marked ‘Robert Brown’,’ suddenly squeaked Miss Sluker, who had been examining the ‘clues’.

Miss Hatherly gave a scream of rage and turned to the corner where Robert had been.

But Robert had vanished.

When Robert saw his ‘overflow bag’ he had turned red.

When he saw his socks he had turned purple.

When he saw his shirt he had turned green.

When he saw his trousers he had turned white.

When he saw his notebook he had turned yellow.

When Miss Hatherly began to read he muttered something about feeling faint and crept unostentatiously out of the window. Marion followed him.

‘Well,’ she said sternly, ‘you’ve made a nice mess of everything, haven’t you? What on earth have you been doing?’

‘I can’t think what you thought of those socks,’ said Robert hoarsely, ‘all darned in different coloured wool, I never wear them. I don’t know why they were in the
bag.’

‘I didn’t think anything at all about them,’ she snapped.

They were walking down the road towards Robert’s house.

‘And the shirt,’ he went on in a hollow voice, ‘with that big hole in it. I don’t know what you’ll think of my things. I just happened to have torn the shirt. I
really never wear things like that.’

‘Oh, do shut
up
about your things. I don’t care what you wear. But I’m
sick
with you for writing soppy poetry about me for those asses to read,’ she said
fiercely. ‘And why did you give her your bag, you loony?’

‘I didn’t, Marion,’ said Robert miserably. ‘Honestly I didn’t. It’s a
mystery
to me how she got it. I’ve been hunting for it high and low all
today. It’s simply a
mystery
!’

‘Oh, do stop saying that. What are you going to do about it? That’s the point.’

‘I’m going to commit suicide,’ said Robert gloomily. ‘I feel there’s nothing left to live for now you’re turning against me.’

‘I don’t believe you
could
,’ said Marion aggressively. ‘How are you going to do it?’

‘I shall drink poison.’

‘What poison? I don’t believe you know what poisons
are
.
What
poison?’

‘Er – Prussic acid,’ said Robert.

‘You couldn’t get it. They wouldn’t sell it to you.’

‘People
do
get poisons,’ Robert said indignantly. ‘I’m always reading of people taking poisons.’

‘Well, they’ve got to have more sense than you,’ said Marion crushingly. ‘They’re not the sort of people that leave their bags and soppy poems all over the place
for other people to find.’

They had reached Robert’s house and were standing just beneath William’s window.

‘I know heaps of poisons,’ said Robert with dignity. ‘I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to take. I’m going to—’

At that moment William, who had been (not very successfully) fixing his snapshots and was beginning to ‘clear up’, threw the contents of his fixing bath out of the window with a
careless flourish. They fell upon Robert and Marion. For a minute they were both speechless with surprise and solution of sodium hydrosulphate. Then Marion said furiously:

‘You
brute
! I hate you!’

‘Oh, I
say
,’ gasped Robert. ‘It’s not my fault, Marion. I don’t know what it is. Honestly
I
didn’t do it—’

Some of the solution had found its way into Robert’s mouth and he was trying to eject it as politely as possible.

‘It came from your beastly house,’ said Marion angrily. ‘And it’s
ruined
my hat and I
hate
you and I’ll never speak to you again.’

She turned on her heel and walked off, mopping the back of her neck with a handkerchief as she went.

Robert stared at her unrelenting back till she was out of sight, then went indoors. Ruined her hat indeed? What was a hat, anyway? It had ruined his
suit
– simply
ruined
it.
And how had the old cat got his bag he’d like to know. He wouldn’t mind betting a quid that that little wretch William had had something to do with it. He always had.

He decided not to commit suicide after all. He decided to live for years and years and years to make the little wretch’s life a misery to him – if he could!

CHAPTER 8

W
illiam was feeling disillusioned. He had received, as a birthday present, a book entitled
Engineering Explained to Boys
, and had read it in
bed at midnight by the light of a lamp which he had ‘borrowed’ from his elder brother’s photographic apparatus for the purpose. The book had convinced William that it would be
perfectly simple with the aid of a little machinery, to turn a wooden packing case into a motorboat. He spent two days on the work. He took all the elastic that he could find in his mother’s
work drawer. He disembowelled all the clockwork toys that he possessed. To supplement this he added part of the works of the morning-room clock. He completely soaked himself and his clothes in oil.
Finally the thing was finished and William, stern and scowling and tousled and oily, deposited the motorboat on the edge of the pond, stepped into it and pushed off boldly. It shot into the middle
of the pond and promptly sank . . . So did William. He returned home wet and muddy and oily and embittered, to meet a father who, with a grown-up’s lack of sense of proportion, was waxing
almost lyrical over the disappearance of the entrails of the morning-room clock.