The Case Of William Smith (3 page)

He sipped his Benger’s and relaxed. Like everything that Abby cooked it was perfect. Mrs. Bastable got lumps in it three times out of four.

On the stairs Mrs. Salt was saying, ‘I hope you didn’t contradict him, Mr. Smith. It isn’t good for him to get excited. You had better let three or four days go by before you come again.’ When they reached the hall she hesitated for a moment and then opened the parlour door.

‘I should like a word with you before you go.’

William wondered what the word was going to be. He followed her into a room furnished in the Victorian manner with a bright carpet, plush curtains, a handsome solid couch and chairs, a fixture once devoted to gas but now converted to electricity in the middle of the ceiling, and a great variety of enlarged photographs, photogravures and china ornaments which combined uselessness and ugliness to a remarkable degree. The whole scene was reflected in a large gold-framed mirror over the mantelpiece. All the furniture had been inherited from Matthew Salt’s parents and dated back to the time of their marriage, but Abigail Salt added regularly to the ornaments whenever she took a holiday or attended a bazaar.

She shut the door behind them, fixed her eyes on William, and said,

‘Has my brother been talking to you about his will?’

William did wish that everyone would stop talking about wills. He couldn’t say so of course, but it was the only thing he wanted to say. If he hadn’t had the rather thick, pale skin which never changes colour he might have blushed. He felt just as uncomfortable as if he had. He said,

‘Well, as a matter of fact he did talk about it.’

Mrs. Salt’s colour deepened. Her gaze was very direct.

‘Then I hope you’ll make him all the return you can. He’s taken a wonderful fancy to you, and I hope you’ll feel you’ve got a duty to return. He’s got a right to do what he wants with his own, and he’s had no objections from me, but I feel obliged to say that in my opinion you will owe him a duty.’

William really had no idea what all this was about.

He said, ‘I’ll do all I can,’ and she said, ‘Oh, well — ’ and turned back to the door. She had discharged her conscience and the interview was over. Without a word and without looking back she went along the narrow passage to the front door and opened it.

There was quite a thick drizzle outside. The wet air drew into the house with a smell of soot in it. The light from the hall shone out, showing two shallow steps down into the street. William turned on the top step with his hat in his hand and the light shining on his thick fair hair. He said, ‘Good night, Mrs. Salt, and thank you for letting me come. ’ And Abby Salt said, ‘Good night, Mr. Smith,’ and shut the door.

William put on his hat and stepped down into the street.

Detective Sergeant Frank Abbott was reflecting on the general unsatisfactoriness of crime. Not only did it flout morality and break the law, but it haled deserving detective sergeants of the Metropolitan Police Force out to remote suburbs in weather wet enough to drown a fish. His errand had nothing whatever to do with the case of William Smith, so there is no more to be said about it than that it had got him just nowhere at all. The weather, on the other hand, had improved. The rain no longer came down in sheets. There was much less of it, and what there was no longer descended, it remained in the air and thickened it. It remained on the skin, the eyelashes, the hair, and with every breath it rushed into the lungs. Visibility was particularly poor.

Making for the tube station, which could now be no more than a few hundred yards away, Frank was aware of a fellow pedestrian. The first thing he noticed was the light from an open door. A man in a waterproof stood black against it. The light dazzled on hair that was either fair or grey. Then he put on a hat and came down into the street, and the door was shut. The immediate effect was that the man had disappeared as if by the agency of one of those cloaks of darkness which used to figure in all the best fairy tales. Then little by little he emerged again, first as a shadow, and then, as they approached a lamp-post, in his original form as a man in a waterproof.

Frank was in process of registering this, when he became aware that there were two men, not walking together but one behind the other. The other man might have been there all along, or he might have slipped out of a cut between two houses, or, like the first man, he might have come out of a house. Frank Abbott wasn’t consciously debating the point, but you are not much use as a detective unless you have a noticing habit of mind. The things noticed may never be thought of again, but if needed they will be there.

From the moment of the second man’s appearance there was the briefest possible lapse of time before the thing happened. He appeared, he closed on the man in the waterproof, and hit him over the head. The first man dropped. The second man stooped over him, and then at the sound of Frank Abbott’s running footsteps straightened up and dashed away across the street.

After a pursuit which almost immediately demonstrated its own futility Frank came back to the body on the pavement. To his relief it was beginning to stir. Then, as he too stooped, it reared up and hit out. All quite natural, of course, but a little damping to a good Samaritan. The blow had very little aim. Frank dodged it, stepped back, and said,

‘Hold up ! The chap who hit you has gone off into the blue— I’ve just come back from chasing him. How are you — all right? Here, come along under the lamp and let’s see.’

Whether it was the voice sometimes unkindly described as Oxford, the intonation which undoubtedly bore the brand of culture, or the manner with its touch of assurance, William Smith put down his hands and advanced into the light of the street-lamp. It shone down upon an uncovered head of very thick fair hair. Frank, retrieving a hat which had rolled into the gutter, presented it. But the young man did not immediately put it on. He stood there, rubbing his head and blinking a little, as if the light had come too quick on the heels of his black-out. The blinking eyelids were furnished with thick sandy lashes, the eyes behind them were of an indeterminate bluish-grey, the rest of the features to match — rather broad and without much modelling, wide mouth, rather thick colourless skin. Frank, who touched six foot, gave him a couple of inches less. The shoulders under the raincoat were wide and the chest deep. He thought the man who had hit him wouldn’t have stood much chance if he hadn’t come up behind.

All this at the first glance. And then, hard on that, a flash of recognition.

‘Hullo! Haven’t we met somewhere?’

William blinked again. His hand went up to his head and felt it gingerly. He said,

‘I don’t know — ’

‘My name’s Abbott — Frank Abbott — Detective Sergeant Frank Abbott. Does that strike a chord?’

‘I’m afraid it doesn’t.’

He took a step sideways, shut his eyes, and caught at the lamp-post. By the time Frank reached him he was straightening up again. He grinned suddenly and said,

‘I’m all right. I think I’ll sit down on a doorstep.’

The grin had something very engaging about it. Frank slid an arm around him.

‘We can do better than a doorstep. There’s a police station just around the corner. If I give you a hand, can you get as far as that?’

There was another grin.

They set out, and after one or two halts arrived. William sank into a chair and closed his eyes. He was aware of people talking, but he wasn’t interested. It would have been agreeable if someone could have unscrewed his head and put it away in a nice dark cupboard. For the moment it was of very little use to him, and he felt as if he would do better without it.

Somebody brought him a cup of hot tea. He felt a good deal better after he had drunk it. They wanted to know his name and address.

‘William Smith, Tattlecombe’s Toy Bazaar, Ellery Street, N.W.’

‘Do you live there?’

‘Over the shop. Mr. Tattlecombe is away ill and I’m in charge. He’s at his sister’s — Mrs. Salt, 176 Selby Street, just round the corner. I’ve been out seeing him.’

The Police Inspector loomed. He was a large man. He had a large voice. He said,

‘Have you any idea who it was that hit you?’

‘None whatever.’

‘Can you think of anyone who would be likely to hit you?’

‘Not a soul.’

‘You say you were visiting your employer. Had you money on you — cash for wages — anything like that?’

‘Not a bean.’

William shut his eyes again. They talked. The Inspector’s voice reminded him of a troop-carrying plane.

Then Frank Abbott was saying,

‘What do you feel like about getting home? Is there anyone there to look after you?’

‘Oh, yes, there’s Mrs. Bastable — Mr. Tattlecombe’s housekeeper.’

‘Well, if you feel like it, they’ll ring up for a taxi and I’ll see you home.’

William blinked and said, ‘I’m quite all right.’ Then he grinned that rather boyish grin. ‘It’s frightfully good of you, But you needn’t bother — the head is very thick.’

Presently he found himself in the taxi with Frank, and quite suddenly he wanted to talk, because it came to him that this was a Scotland Yard detective, and that he had said something about having seen him before. He passed from thought to speech without knowing quite how or when.

‘You did, didn’t you?’

‘I did what?’

‘Say you’d seen me before.’

‘Yes, I did. And I have.’

‘I wish you’d tell me how — and when — and where.’

‘Well, I don’t know — it was a good long time ago.’

‘How long?’

‘Oh, quite a long time. Pre-war, I should say.’

William’s hand came out and gripped his arm.

‘I say — are you sure about that?’

‘No — I just think so.’

The grip on his arm continued. William said in an urgent voice,

‘Do you remember where it was?’

‘Oh, town. The Luxe, I think — yes, definitely the Luxe. Yes, that was it — a fairly big do at the Luxe. You danced with a girl in a gold dress, very easy on the eye.’

‘What was her name?’

‘I don’t know — I don’t think I ever did know. She appeared to be booked about twenty deep.’

‘Abbott — do you remember my name?’

‘My dear chap — ’

William Smith took his hand away and put it to his head.

‘Because, you see, I don’t.’

Frank said, ‘Steady on! You gave your name just now — William Smith.’

‘Yes, that’s what I came out of the war with. What I want to know is how I went in. I don’t remember anything before ’42 — not anything at all. I don’t know who I am or where I came from. In the middle of ’42 I found myself in a Prisoners of War camp with an identity disc which said I was William Smith, and that’s all I know about it. So if you can remember my name — ’

Frank Abbott said, ‘Bill — ’ and stuck.

‘Bill what?’

‘I don’t know. I’m sure about the Bill, because it came into my head as soon as I saw you under the street-lamp before you spoke or anything.’

William began to nod, and then stopped because it hurt.

‘Bill feels all right, and William feels all right, but Smith doesn’t. Anyhow I’m not the William Smith whose identity disc I came round with. I finished up in a concentration camp, and after I got released, and got home, and got out of hospital I went to look up William Smith’s next of kin — said to be a sister, living in Stepney. She’d been bombed out and no one knew where she’d gone. But there were neighbours, and they all said I wasn’t William Smith. For one thing they were real bred-in-the-bone Cockneys, and they despised my accent. They were awfully nice people and too polite to say so, but one of the boys gave it away. He said I talked like a B.B.C. announcer. None of them could tell me where the sister had gone. I didn’t get the feeling that she was the kind of person who would be missed, and they were all so sure I wasn’t William Smith that I didn’t really feel I need go on looking for her. If you could remember anyone who might possibly know who I was — ’

There was quite a long pause. The street-lights shone into the taxi and were gone again — one down, t’other come on. First in a bright glare, and then in deep shade, William saw his companion come and go. The face which continually emerged and disappeared again was quite unknown to him, yet on the other side of the gap which cut him off from the time when he hadn’t been William Smith they had met and spoken. They must have known the same people. Perhaps it was the blow on his head which made him feel giddy when he thought about this. It was a little like Robinson Crusoe finding the footprint on the desert island. He looked at Frank, and thought he was the sort of chap you would remember if you remembered anything. High-toned and classy — oh, definitely. Fair hair slicked back till you could pretty well see your face in it — he remembered that at the station. Long nose in a long, pale face. Very good tailor—

Curiously enough, it was at this point that memory stirred, if faintly. Somewhere in William’s mind was the consciousness that he hadn’t always worn the sort of clothes he was wearing now. They were good durable reach-me-downs, but — memory looked vaguely back to Savile Row.

Frank Abbott said, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t seem to get any farther than Bill.’

William got up next day with a good-sized lump on his head, but not otherwise any the worse. He wouldn’t have told Mrs. Bastable anything about it, only unfortunately she happened to be looking out of her bedroom window and not only saw him come home in a taxi, but having immediately thrown up the sash, she heard Detective Sergeant Abbott ask him it he was sure he would be all right now. After which she met William on the stairs in a condition of palpitant curiosity. If the injurious conjecture that he had been brought home drunk really did present itself, it was immediately dispelled. She was all concern, she fluttered, she proffered a variety of nostrums, and she certainly didn’t intend to go to bed, or to allow him to go to bed, until she had been told all about it. She punctuated the narrative with little cries of ‘Fancy that!’ and ‘Oh, good gracious me!’

When he had finished she was all of a twitter.

‘Well, there now — what an escape! First Mr. Tattlecombe, and then — whatever should we have done if you’d been taken?’

‘Well, I wasn’t.’

Mrs. Bastable heaved a sigh.

‘You might have been. It’s given me the goose flesh all over. Only fancy if that had been the police come to break the news, and Mr. Tattlecombe still in his splint! Oh, my gracious me — whatever would have happened?’

She was a little bit of a thing with a light untidy fluff of hair and a nose which went pink in moments of emotion. It was pink now and it quivered. She dabbed aimlessly at her hair and three of the remaining pins fell out. William stooped to pick them up, and wished he hadn’t. He said he thought he would go to bed, and went.

He fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow and passed into his dream. He had been having it less and less — only twice last year, and this year once, a long time back in the summer. He had it now. But there was something different about it — something troubled and disturbed, like a reflection in troubled water. There were the three steps leading up to the door, but the door wouldn’t open. He pushed, and felt it held against him. But not by bolt, or bar, or lock. There was someone pushing against him on the other side of the door. Then the dream changed. Someone laughed, and he thought it was Emily Salt. He had never heard her laugh, but he thought it was Emily. He saw her peep at him round a door — not the door of his dream, but one of the doors in Abby Salt’s house. And Abby Salt said, ‘Poor Emily — she doesn’t like men,’ and William woke up and turned over and went to sleep again and dreamed about being on a desert island with packs of Wurzel Dogs, and flocks of Boomalong Birds, and a pond full of Dumble Ducks. It was an agreeable dream, and he woke in the morning feeling quite all right.

When he had dealt with the post and given everyone time to get going, he went through to the workshop which they had contrived out of what had been a parlour and a rather ramshackle conservatory beyond it. Of course all the glass had been broken during the war, but they had got it mended now, and it was a fine light place, if chilly in winter. Two oil-stoves contended with the cold, one in the parlour, and the other in the conservatory. When Mrs. Bastable looked after them they had diffused a strong smell of paraffin without perceptibly raising the temperature. William took them over because he noticed that Katharine’s hands were blue, and it occurred to him that the oily smell was definitely inappropriate. Roses, or lavender, but quite definitely not kerosene oil. He wrested the stoves from Mrs. Bastable, who took umbrage and had to be pacified, but there was no more smell and the temperature went up considerably.

When William came through from the shop an elderly man and a boy were preparing carcases of dogs and birds at the conservatory end. Katharine Eversley was sitting at a large kitchen table in the parlour putting the finishing touches to a rainbow-coloured Boomalong Bird with an open scarlet beak.

William came and stood beside her.

‘That’s a good one.’

‘Yes — he screams, doesn’t he? I’ve just finished with him, and then I’ll start undercoating the ducks. They’re going to be pretty good when we get on to those metallic paints. There — he’s done!’ She turned so that she could look up at him. ‘Are you all right? Miss Cole says someone tried to rob you last night.’

‘Well, I don’t know what he was trying to do. He hit me over the head just as I was coming out after seeing Mr. Tattlecombe.’

She said quickly, ‘Did he hurt you?’

‘Oh, just a bump. My hat took the worst of it.’

‘Did you catch him?’

‘No — I was out. A detective from Scotland Yard picked me up and brought me home in a taxi. Very nice chap.’

‘Then you don’t know who hit you?’

‘No. Abbott said he went off like greased lightning.’

Katharine moved the Boomalong Bird away and picked up a waddling duck. She opened a tin of paint and began to lay on a flesh-pink undercoating. William drew a stool up to the other side of the table and started on a duck of his own. After a moment Katharine said,

‘It’s rather — extraordinary — you and Mr. Tattlecombe both having accidents — like that.’

William grinned.

‘Mr. Tattlecombe says he was “struck down”. I certainly was.’

‘What does he mean, “struck down”?’ said Katharine.

‘He thinks someone pushed him. He says he came out of the side door. When he found it was wettish he left it open behind him and went over to the edge of the kerb. He saw a car coming, and then he said he was struck down.’

Katharine looked up, her brush suspended. She wore a faded green overall which covered her dress. Her skin and her lips were as they had been made. She was pale. Her eyes had their dark look. William knew all their looks by now — the dark, like shadows on a pool; the bright, like peat-water in the sun; the mournful clouding look; and, loveliest and rarest, something which he couldn’t even describe to himself, a kind of trembling tenderness, as if the pool were troubled by an angel. Young men in love have very romantic thoughts.

Katharine Eversley looked at William Smith and said,

‘It was at night?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘He came out in the dark and the door was open behind him? Would there have been a light in the passage?’

‘Yes, that’s how he knew it was wet — the light shone out on the pavement.’

She went back to her painting.

‘And you came out in the dark last night?’

‘Yes.’

‘With the door open from a lighted passage?’

William looked surprised.

‘Yes. Why?’

‘I was wondering. It seems odd — ’

‘What were you wondering?’

She didn’t answer that. She said,

‘What is Mr. Tattlecombe like?’

‘Like?’

She said, ‘How tall is he?’

‘About the same as me — about five-foot-ten.’

‘Is he about the same build too?’

‘Just about.’

He was contemplating her steadily now. She went on drawing her brush across the wood in long, even strokes.

‘What sort of hair has he got?’

William said soberly, ‘Very thick and grey. Why?’

‘I was wondering about your both being struck — that was his word, wasn’t it?’

‘Struck down.’

‘Well, I was wondering — whether there was anyone — who had a grudge against him — or anything like that. If you are about the same height and all, and you were coming out of his front door — your hair is very fair — it wouldn’t look so different from grey hair, coming out like that with the light behind you, would it? The person who pushed Mr. Tattlecombe before might have been having another try.’

William said cheerfully, ‘Or it might be the other way round. The chap who took a swipe at Mr. Tattlecombe might have thought it was me.’

Katharine’s brush stopped in the middle of a stroke — stopped, and went on again.

‘Do you know of anyone who has a grudge against you?’

‘No, I don’t. But there might be someone. Only it would have to be someone out of my horrid past. Seven years seems rather a long time to keep up a grudge, doesn’t it?’

Katharine said nothing. She had finished undercoating her duck. She took another.

William said, ‘I tell you what I think. It was wet when Mr. Tattlecombe had his accident. I think he slipped on the kerb. When he came round he was all shaken up, and he thought he’d been pushed. That’s what I think.’

‘And you?’

‘Just a chance see-what-he’s-got affair. Chap on the prowl and no one about, and he thinks he’ll try his luck. I might have had a nice fat wallet.’

‘Did he take anything?’

‘No — because Abbott came up.’ There was a short pause. Then he said, ‘There was one odd thing — at least I think it’s odd, because I can’t account for it. You know I was knocked right out, and then I came round and Abbott was there, and my hat had come off and he picked it up — ’

‘Yes.’

‘There was a street lamp not so far ahead, and Abbott had a torch. What I mean to say is, it was pretty murky, but I saw something on the pavement and I picked it up.’

‘What was it?’

‘I thought it was a piece of paper or a bill. As a matter of fact it was a letter. I thought it must have fallen out of my pocket, so I just slipped it back there — I’d got my raincoat on. But this morning when I had a look at it, it was a note from Mrs. Salt to Mr. Tattlecombe — and that’s what I thought was odd.’

Katharine’s brush was arrested.

‘Why should Mrs. Salt write him notes when he’s lying in bed in her house? Or am I being stupid?’

William laughed.

‘That’s just what I thought. And then I saw there was a date, and it was quite an old letter. He must have got it just before he had his accident. I remember his saying Mrs. Salt had written to ask him to go up there on the Sunday. What beats me is, how did that note get into my pocket? Because it must have been in my pocket, or it couldn’t have fallen on to the pavement, and I couldn’t have picked it up. Not that it matters of course. There — I’ve finished my duck!’ He reached for another and dipped his brush.

After a little silence Katharine said,

‘You know, this is a most dreadfully uneconomic way of turning out these creatures. If they were factory-made, you’d clear about double the profit.’

‘Yes, I know. Just before his accident I had got Mr. Tattlecombe to the point of agreeing to something of the sort. He didn’t like it, but I’d got him to the point of saying I could make enquiries. We’re protected by our patents, so there was no reason why we shouldn’t go ahead. As I said to him, if the children round about here like the animals, the children in other places probably will too, and if they like them, why shouldn’t they have them?’

She looked up and smiled.

‘Yes — why shouldn’t they? What did you do about it?’

‘I wrote to Eversleys — ’ He checked on the name. ‘That’s funny, isn’t it? I never thought of it before. I don’t know why I didn’t, because when you said your name it did just seem to me — ’ he drew his thick fair brows together in a frown and gazed at her in a concentrated sort of way — ‘it did just seem to me as if — well, as if I’d heard it before.’

‘Did it?’

She spoke so softly that he could hardly hear the words.

‘Yes, it did. I didn’t connect it with Eversleys, but of course that’s what it was. It sounds awfully stupid, but the fact is, I was — well, I was thinking too much about you. I mean, I was thinking you were just exactly what we wanted, and Miss Cole was being a bit difficult, so I hadn’t much attention left over for things like names. But it ought to have struck me afterwards, only somehow it didn’t. People’s surnames don’t seem to belong to them the way their other names do.’

Katharine’s heart beat as hard as if she were seventeen and her first proposal looming. She thought, ‘He’s trying to tell me that he thinks of me as Katharine. Oh, my darling, how sweet, and how ridiculous!’ She said,

‘I know just what you mean. I don’t think of my friends by their names at all.’

He considered that.

‘Don’t you? How do you think of them?’

‘I don’t think I can describe it. Not names — or faces — it’s just something that is them and not anyone else.’

‘Yes — I know what you mean.’

‘You were going to tell me about Eversleys. What happened?’

He was still frowning.

‘I suppose there’s no connection?’

She gave him her lovely smile.

‘Well, that’s just what there is — a connection.’

‘But they’re in a pretty big way.’

‘I’m a poor relation. Go on and tell me what happened. You wrote to them. What did they say?’

‘They asked me to come and see them.’

Katharine bent over her duck.

‘Did you go?’

‘Yes, I went, but it wasn’t any good.’

She half looked up, checked herself, and looked down again.

‘Tell me what happened.’

‘There’s nothing to tell. I went in. I didn’t see either of the partners. I came out again, and bumped into an old boy in the street.’

She bent lower.

‘What sort of an old boy?’

‘Looked like a clerk — highly respectable. First I thought he was tight, and then I thought he was ill. He asked me who I was, and I told him. Seemed a bit odd, the whole thing, but he said he was all right and went off.’

‘But you saw someone inside, in the office?’

‘Yes — Mr. Eversley’s secretary.’

‘What was she like?’

He laughed.

‘She?’

‘Wasn’t it a woman? Secretaries are as a rule.’

‘Yes — rather a good-looking one. Not young, but quite a looker. I was trying to catch you out. I wanted to see if you knew her.’

‘I know you were. I do. Her name is Miss Jones. She’s Cyril Eversley’s secretary — he’s the senior partner. She’s been there a long time — something like fifteen years. Very efficient, and as you say, quite a looker.’ She lifted her eyes to his face. ‘What happened when you saw her?’

‘Well, just nothing. She’d given me rather a late appointment, just on six o’clock. Neither of the partners was there, and the office was packing up. She didn’t seem inclined to give me very much time. I showed her some of the creatures and asked if the firm would be interested in manufacturing them under our patents, but she hardly looked at them.’