Читать книгу The Case of William Smith - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 6

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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.’