The Case Of William Smith (8 page)

William and Katharine sat by the fire and talked. Mr. Tattlecombe would have approved of their demeanour. William had a writing-block and pencil, and appeared to be entirely concentrated on doing sums. Although she was sharing the sofa, Katharine was not even touching him except with a fold of her dress and the look which dwelt sweetly and with a tinge of humour upon a serious and rugged profile. The single young man and the single young woman were, in fact, engaged upon computing a double income and deciding whether it justified them in getting married without waiting for the Wurzel toys to boom. For the purposes of this computation they had taken their joint salaries, and Katharine had confessed rather tentatively to a private income of two hundred pounds a year. To her relief, this was received with approval, William obviously considering with perfect simplicity that it would make it easier for them to get married, and was therefore a very good thing.

Since this had gone down so well, she followed it up with a casual, ‘I’ve put it rather low — it’s always been more than that really. But there was a hitch this year — some of the things didn’t pay. That was one of the reasons why I had to let my flat.’

He looked up frowning.

‘What do you pay for this one?’

‘Well, Carol didn’t really want to take anything. She didn’t want to let. She said there was always a chance the roof might fall in. They had a land mine about a quarter of a mile away, and there’s an idea that it rather shook the whole of this place up.’

The frown deepened.

‘I don’t like your living in a place where the roof might fall in.’

‘Darling, I think Carol was just trying to push the flat on to me without taking any rent for it.’

‘But she ought to be getting rent for it. I mean, it’s all right for you, but when we get married, it will be my business to pay the rent. How long is she going to be away?’

‘You never know with Carol. That’s partly why she didn’t want to let. She’s gone off to get material for the sort of book she writes — A Roamer in Rome, or, Tramps in Tanganyika, you know. She does it awfully well, with little pen and ink sketches. And sometimes she gets what she wants in six weeks, and sometimes she just stays on and on letting it all soak in.’

William put down two pounds a week for ‘rent of flat’. He remarked that it might be very inconvenient if they had to turn out at a moment’s notice.

Katharine said, ‘We might be able to get back into my own flat.’

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she realized that she ought to have kept them in. William immediately wanted to know where it was, how many rooms it had, and what the rent would be. When she told him he said with decision that it would be a good deal too expensive, but they could be looking about for something else.

He finished their budget, looked at her very seriously, and said,

‘We can do it easily. How soon will you marry me?’

‘As soon as you like, William.’

‘If you really mean that, we could make it next Saturday. That would give us the weekend.’ He dropped his pencil and paper and took her hands. ‘Am I hurrying you? Is it too soon?’

The colour came up into her face and her eyes shone.

‘No, it isn’t too soon.’

He put his arms round her.

‘Oh, Katharine!’ And quite a long time after that, ‘I’ll tell Mr. Tattlecombe tomorrow.’

The interview with Mr. Tattlecombe went off well. Abel had a gratified feeling that his advice had been followed. A little more rapidly perhaps than he had contemplated, but it was good advice and William was following it. A single young man was exposed to temptations. The Lord had provided the institution of marriage. William Smith would make a good husband. If the young woman was respectable and discreet, the marriage would be blessed. Not even to himself would Mr. Tattlecombe admit the secret fear which sometimes presented itself, that William might get tired of the Toy Bazaar and seek opportunities in a larger sphere. The nearest he got to it was the thought that marriage settled a man.

He was, therefore, gracious and urbane, invited William to bring Miss Eversley to see him, and withheld the comments he might otherwise have made when he discovered how very little William knew about her family or her upbringing.

‘She was in the A.T.S. during the. War. I don’t think she has many relations. The partners in Eversleys are some connection, but I think it’s fairly distant. You remember I went to see them about the Wurzel toys, but the secretary said they wouldn’t be interested.’

Abel nodded. Families were like that. Some of them went up in the world, and some went down. Those that went down dropped out. It wouldn’t be likely that the Eversleys would be taking any interest. Having the same name didn’t get you very far. Nor having grand relations. What mattered was whether the young woman had good principles and the kind of disposition which made a man happy in his home. He said so.

When William came away he had a few words with Abigail Salt, and arranged with her to bring Katharine straight on from the shop next day. Abigail’s calm, decided manner relaxed sufficiently to display quite a human interest.

Emily Salt did not appear at all. For the first time since he had been coming to the house William left it without being made aware of her presence. There had been no furtive step just round the corner, no door that closed as he came up to it, no tall shape disappearing into an empty room, no bony features peering down from an upper landing, grotesquely illuminated by light striking from below. It was rather like going to a haunted house and finding the ghost away from home. He did not really think about it consciously, but he had that sort of feeling.

He walked down the street past the place where he had been, to quote Mr. Tattlecombe, ‘struck down’, and round the corner into Morden Road, which was better lighted and altogether busier, since it ran out into High Street. At the far end it developed shops and became quite crowded. It was in his mind to cross the High Street and take a bus. Quite a number of people seemed to have had the same idea.

The lights changed as he came to the island in the middle of the road. There was a little crowd behind him, tightly packed. Just as a large motor-bus came rolling up he felt a sharp jab under his left shoulder-blade. It was a very sharp jab, and it had considerable force behind it. He was on the edge of the kerb. Thrust suddenly forward, he lost his balance and would have lurched into the road if the big man next to him had not caught his arm in a powerful grip and held him back. The bus roared past over the spot upon which he had been due to fall. The man who had caught him by the arm maintained his grip on it and said angrily, ‘For God’s sake — what do you think you’re doing?’

William turned a sober face.

‘Someone pushed me,’ he said.

And with that the lights changed again and the little crowd broke up, streaming over the crossing — two small boys; a woman with a shopping-basket; a workman with a bag of tools going home from some overtime job; a couple of fly-away girls painted high; one of those dowdy, pathetic old women with draggled skirts and a disintegrating hat; a man who looked like a prosperous tradesman; another who might have been a not so prosperous professional man; a stout woman with a little boy; a young woman with a baby which ought to have been at home in its bed. William could not discern anyone whom he could suspect of having jabbed him in the back. Yet someone had jabbed him in the back, and if it hadn’t been for the stranger who still gripped his arm he would almost certainly at this moment be lying dead, whilst a crowd collected and a police constable took down the details of his sticky end.

He repeated his previous remark, and added to it.

‘Someone pushed me — jabbed me under the shoulder with something hard — I think it was a stick.’

The large man who held him by the arm let go. William was manifestly neither mad not drunk. He looked him up and down, and the anger went out of him. Odd things happened. He had been in all the big cities of the world, and it was his opinion that London could beat most of them when it came to odd happenings. If he hadn’t been in a hurry he would have pursued this theme with William. As it was, he decided regretfully that he hadn’t the time. Mortimer was the devil and all if you kept him waiting. If he wasn’t in a good temper, the interview would be a flop. He therefore clapped William on the shoulder, said, ‘You’re lucky not to be dead. Better be more careful about what enemies you make,’ and went off at a swinging stride. That he afterwards interviewed the elusive Mortimer with tact and penetration, wrote a brilliant article on him and his latest discovery, and about a month later published an intriguing sketch entitled ‘A Jab in the Back with a blunt Stick’ has of course nothing to do with this story.

William caught his bus.

He told Katharine all about his interview with Mr. Tattlecombe, but he didn’t tell her about the jab in the back. For one thing it would have seemed a stupid waste of time, and for another it might have frightened her. Also, coming along in the bus, the idea of a spotted animal with horns and a rolling eye had come into his mind, and he wanted to get it down on paper in case it faded. He thought of calling it the Crummocky Cow. Ideas were annoyingly apt to fade if you neglected them. The odd thing was that after doing his sketches, and having supper with Katharine, and talking over their plans in a state of happiness which was quite beyond anything he could have thought possible, he had no sooner said good-night to her and turned out of the Mews than the jab came back to him. It was partly, of course, that the place was uncommonly sore, but it was also partly that the voice of the erratic stranger who had most probably saved his life persisted in his mind — ‘Better be more careful about what enemies you make.’ Well, of course that was absurd, because he hadn’t an enemy in the world. Or had he? Someone had knocked him down and knocked him out. Someone had jabbed him in the back, and but for the arm of the erratic stranger he would have pitched forward under a regular juggernaut of a motor-bus.

He walked as far as the Marble Arch and stood there waiting for a bus. Suddenly a voice said, ‘Hullo, Bill! How are you? None the worse?’ He turned to see Frank Abbott, very much off duty, in the most correct and up-to-date of evening clothes, his slim elegance accentuated, his whole appearance that of a leisurely young man about town— the last person on earth, it would be thought, to prompt a confidence. Yet William Smith was so prompted. Perhaps because the matter pressed upon his mind to the point of compelling him to make some effort to throw it off, or perhaps because of the name which belonged to his forgotten past. Be that as it may, he said quite simply and directly,

‘I’m all right, but something else has happened.’

‘When?’

‘About half-past seven this evening. Someone tried to push me under a bus.’

‘Someone tried to push you?’

‘Jabbed me in the back with a stick — I’ve got no end of a bruise. There was a crowd on an island. He jabbed me, and I’d have been under the bus if the man next to me hadn’t been extra strong in the arm.’

‘Where was this?’

William told him.

‘I’d been to see Mr. Tattlecombe again. I walked as far as the High Street, and I was crossing over to get a bus.’

‘Were you followed?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘You didn’t see who pushed you?’

‘The lights changed and everyone streamed off. There didn’t seem to be anyone the least bit likely. But of course he could have slipped away — gone back instead of crossing over — there was time before I got my footing and turned round. It — rather took me aback.’

Frank was frowning slightly.

‘Want to report the matter to the police?’

William shook his head.

‘I don’t see what they could do.’

Frank took out a thin notebook, wrote in it, and tore out the page. He said,

‘It looks to me as if someone was finding you inconvenient. If you don’t want to go to the police, I wonder if you would care to consult a friend of mine. She used to be a governess. Now she undertakes private enquiries — which she spells with an ‘e’. She’s been mixed up, one way or another, with more big cases than I should have time to tell you about. The Yard owes her a great deal more than it is likely to acknowledge. She’s about the most intelligent person I’ve ever met, and what she herself would call a gentlewoman. If you feel you are getting out of your depth, I should advise you to go and see her. Here’s her name and address, and here’s your bus. See you some time.’

Frank Abbott had had a very busy week. A corn-chandler’s wife in Wapping went missing after a violent quarrel with her husband and had to be traced. Husbands in the most peaceable professions have been known to murder quarrelsome wives, and Wapping is convenient to the river. After a number of voluble neighbours had been interviewed, some dark suspicions hinted at, and a false trail which finished up at a mortuary at Gravesend investigated, it transpired that Mrs. Wilkins was visiting a friend in Hammersmith with the possibly illusory hope that her husband’s heart was being rendered fonder by her absence.

A good deal of energy having been wasted and a good deal of time taken up, Sergeant Abbott would have been in a fair way to forgetting his brief encounter with William Smith if it had not been suddenly recalled to his mind. Then the telephone informed him that his cousin Mildred Darcy had arrived in England after a seven years’ absence. She appeared overjoyed to be back, and wanted, in rapid succession, to know whether policemen ever had any time off duty; if they did, when would he be having any; and what about dining with her and George at the Luxe tonight.

Frank was reputed to have more cousins than anyone else in England and to be on good terms with them all. Seven years is a long time, and people are apt to change in the East, but he had always been very good friends with Mildred, and he thought he would like to see her again. She had been flighty, fluffy, and charmingly incompetent. He wondered if her rather notable complexion had survived. George he remembered as a heavy, worthy young man eminently suited to his probable role of providing ballast.

He accepted the invitation to dinner, and at the appointed hour arrived to find George less noticeably earnest, but Mildred a good deal more inconsequent than he remembered her. The complexion was gone, and so was the charm. She looked out of date in more than the matter of clothes and hair, but she was obviously in high spirits and affectionately pleased to see him again. Under an appearance of rather mannered indifference Frank was clannish. He found himself shaking George by the hand and responding to Mildred’s pleasure. And then, right across all that, there jigged the recollection of William Smith.

Mildred was saying, ‘I can’t think when we met last,’ and all of a sudden he remembered that it was at the party where he had seen William Smith, whom he recalled not as William or Smith, but simply Bill. Bill — and a girl in a gold dress. Up to this moment they were the only two whom he could have sworn to out of all the guests who must have been present, and now, like two bits of a jigsaw puzzle slipping into place, Mildred and George came into the picture. He even remembered that Mildred had worn pink. With the barest possible interval, he heard himself say,

‘It was here at the Luxe, just before the war — somebody’s party. But I can’t remember whose. I can’t remember anyone but you and George, and a man called Bill, and a girl in a gold dress.’

George was leading the way into the dining-room. As they passed under the mirrored archway, Mildred Darcy looked sideways and saw herself reflected there with Frank. The reflection pleased her. Frank’s slim elegance, the excellent cut of his evening clothes, the smoothness of the fair slicked-back hair, his poise and assurance, all pleased her very much. It did not occur to her that her dress was démodée and not very fresh, that her hair looked brittle and dry and was done in a fashion which had died a year ago. The girl in a pink dress who had danced here before the war was gone and would never come back. She had been Mildred Abbott. This was Mildred Darcy after seven years out East but every bit as pleased with herself as Mildred Abbott had been. She glanced into the mirror and glanced back again to tilt her head and say,

‘We make a nice pair, don’t we?’

Frank decided that he needn’t feel sorry for her. He pursued the man Bill. He said,

‘We do — we always did. I remember thinking so last time. You had just got engaged to George. You wore a pink dress.’

‘Fancy your remembering that!’

‘It’s about the only thing I can remember.’

They reached their table and sat down.

‘Look here, who gave that party? For the life of me I can’t remember.’

‘Oh, Curtis and Molly Latimer.’

‘He was killed, wasn’t he?’

‘So was Molly — in one of the first air raids. Lots of the other people, one way and another. Just as well we didn’t all know what was going to happen to us, wasn’t it? It would have been frightfully grim if we had. That boy Bill — what happened to him?’

Frank Abbott said, ‘I fancy he went missing. By the way, what was his name?’

She stared. He remembered the trick, and that it had been attractive. Her eyes were a rather light bright blue, and when she was surprised or flummoxed the whole of the iris showed. She said,

‘I haven’t an idea, darling. I never saw him before, and I never saw him again. But they called him Bill, and he drew dogs and cats and penguins all over the back of the menu — really frightfully clever. I kept it for ever so long, but you can’t travel about with everything, can you?’

‘You’re sure you don’t remember his surname?’

‘I don’t suppose I ever heard it. You don’t, you know — not when you only meet a person once. But I thought he was rather a lamb, and I’ve often wondered if he came through the war. You say he didn’t?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You said he was missing. I thought he was rather a pet. George isn’t listening, so I can tell you as a completely deadly secret that I rather envied the girl.’

‘And who was the girl?’

Women shouldn’t pout when they are over thirty. It should have been George’s business to tell Mildred that her pouting days were over. She made the face which had been freakish and charming when she was twenty, and said,

‘But you remembered her. You said so — she had a gold dress. Was her name Lester?’

‘I don’t remember her name. Who was she, and why did you envy her?’

‘Well she was a daughter of Aunt Sophy’s friend, at least I think it was Aunt Sophy. Anyhow she was the daughter of somebody’s friend, because they were raving about her. Only now I come to think of it, I don’t believe her name was Lester, because I think they were the people she was staying with, but I can’t be sure. I think it began with an L, because if it didn’t, why should I think it was Lester? But it might have been Lyall — or Linkwater — or Satterbee — ’

Frank cocked an eyebrow.

‘Satterbee doesn’t begin with an L.’

‘No, it doesn’t, does it?’ She brightened. ‘You know how it is with names — you think it’s an L, and it turns out to be something quite different. Do you think perhaps I said Satterbee because I was running Linkwater into Latimer? It was the Latimers’ party, you know.’

‘Yes, you said so. But I don’t know why it should make you think of Satterbee.’

‘It might — you can’t tell with names. Or it mightn’t have been an L after all. Something made me think of Marriott just then. No, that was Cousin Barbara’s companion who went off her head in the middle of a tea-party and broke four of her best Rockingham cups — that lovely apple-green. Grim, wasn’t it? So it wasn’t Marriott. But it might nave been Carlton — oh, no, it wasn’t. I’ll tell you what it was — it just came in a flash. Do you find things come to you like that? They do to me. It was Elliot! That’s where I got the L from!’ She paused for breath, and added doubtfully, ‘But I’ve got a feeling it might be Lester after all.’

‘Have you?’ Frank had a sardonic gleam in his eye.

Mildred pouted.

‘Anyhow George admired her so much that I nearly broke off the engagement — didn’t I, George?’

George Darcy, having finished a detailed and painstaking conference with the waiter, turned back to his wife and guest.

‘Didn’t you what?’

‘Nearly broke off our engagement because you fell so hard for that Lester girl at the Latimers’ party just before we were married.’

George looked a little sulky.

‘I haven’t an idea.’

‘Well then, I did nearly break it off. And I must say she was awfully pretty.’ She went back to Frank. ‘He can say what he likes now, but he fell for her like anything. But of course she was engaged to Bill and no one else got a look in. They danced together practically the whole evening. I can’t remember whether they were just engaged, or whether it happened that evening, but I know they were married quite soon after that, because Aunt Sophy — if it was Aunt Sophy — told me so. But of course it may have been Cousin Barbara, or Miss Mackintosh, because they were both about a good deal just then.’

With his well-known talent for taking up the least important point in any preceding speech, George enquired,

‘Who was Miss Mackintosh?’

Mildred poured out information about Miss Mackintosh, who was quite old and kept poodles which had to be combed every day and it took hours, and who couldn’t, after all, have imparted any information about Bill and the Lester girl — if she was the Lester girl and not Lyall, Linkwater, Satterbee, Marriott, Carlton, or Rockingham. No — Rockingham was the china smashed by the mad Miss Marriott who was Cousin Barbara’s companion.

Frank Abbott extracted an exasperated humour from the proceedings, but he obtained no further enlightenment on the subject of William Smith.

Later on, when he was saying good night, he asked quite seriously,

‘Look here, Mildred, how sure are you about that chap Bill having got married? Never mind the girl’s name or anything of that sort — just concentrate on whether he married her.

She looked up at him doubtfully.

‘Well, I think he did — ’

‘What makes you think so?’

‘Well, I remember Aunt Sophy writing out and saying she was giving them some china. She had stacks of it, you know.’

‘You really remember that?’

‘Yes, I do, because I wondered which of the sets she was giving them. There was one I wanted myself, and I always hoped she was going to leave it to me.’

‘If she wrote and told you she was giving them a wedding present she must have mentioned their names.’

‘Oh, yes, she did.’

‘Well, then?’

She wrinkled up her forehead, a trick that was going to leave ugly lines, and before very long too. She said,

‘You know, I was thinking about the china. The tea-set I wanted was a pet — those little bunches of flowers and a blue edge, and a nubble on the top of the teapot shaped like a strawberry. I didn’t really bother about the names, but of course she must have said them.’

‘Try and think what she did say.’

‘She said, “I’m giving them one of the china tea-sets”.’

If Frank ground his teeth, he did it silently.

‘Never mind about the tea-set — she didn’t begin like that.’

‘Oh, no — she said I’d be interested to hear they were getting married, because I’d fallen for Bill — I told her I had, you know.’

‘She did say Bill?’

‘Oh, yes — I keep telling you she did.’

‘Then she would have said the girl’s name too. What was it?’

‘Darling, I’ve forgotten.’

‘You’re sure it was that Bill and that girl?’

‘Oh, yes!’ This time she was quite whole-hearted.

‘Are you sure they got married?’

‘Oh, yes, I am, because Aunt Sophy went to the wedding — she couldn’t have done that if they hadn’t got married. And I remember she did go, because she wore her sable cape, and I got her letter telling me about it on a simply sweltering day, and I remember thinking how frightful it sounded — and anyhow sable and Aunt Sophy — too, too grim!’

‘And still you don’t remember their names?’

‘There was Bill — ’

‘Thank you — I got that myself. It’s Bill’s surname and the girl’s names that I want. If you don’t know them yourself, what about your Aunt Sophy?’

‘Darling, she died five years ago. And she did leave me a tea-set, only I don’t know if it’s the one I wanted.’

‘Can you think of anyone else who would know?’

The wrinkles deepened. She shook her head.

‘Honestly, darling, I can’t. You see, such a lot of people are dead — Cousin Barbara — and the Latimers — and Jim and Bob Barrett — I remember they were there, because Jim said I looked like a rosebud, and George was furious. Does it matter?’

Frank Abbott said, ‘It might.’