Читать книгу The Case of William Smith - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 7

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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 if 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.’

‘What did she look at?’ said Katharine.

‘Well—me. My word she’s got a gimlet eye! I got the feeling I was a base-born black beetle all right. She said she didn’t think the things were in their line, but she’d tell Mr. Eversley about them and let me know. A couple of days later I got a line to say that Mr. Eversley wasn’t interested.’

Katharine went back to her duck.

‘When was all this?’

‘Oh, just before Mr. Tattlecombe went into hospital.’

‘Then—who actually wrote the original letter—you, or Mr. Tattlecombe?’

‘Oh, I did.’

‘Wrote it, or typed it?’

She heard him laugh.

‘You’ve never seen my writing, or you wouldn’t ask! I didn’t actually want them to turn us down, you know. It was in my very best typing, beautiful and legible and clear.’

‘And the signature?’

‘Oh, a quite recognizable William Smith.’

Katharine said slowly and carefully,

‘That sounds like a frightful cross-examination. But I thought as I do know him, I could perhaps find out whether Cyril Eversley ever saw your letter. He mightn’t have, you know—he does leave quite a lot to Miss Jones. And I thought it would be easier if I knew what sort of letter it was, and whether it was signed by you or by Mr. Tattlecombe.’ She looked up to find him frowning and her colour rose. ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’

The frown changed to an expression of dismay.

‘No—no—why do you say that? It’s most awfully good of you. I was just thinking——’

‘What?’

William registered candid surprise.

‘I don’t know. I got a sort of a come-over. I don’t even know what it was about. You said you’d find out if Eversley had ever had my letter, and I went into a sort of spin. The result of being cracked over the head, I expect—nothing to do with what you were saying. But I don’t think I’ll do anything more until Mr. Tattlecombe is about again. I don’t think he’d like it if he thought I was doing things while he was out of the way. You don’t feel as if I was being ungrateful, do you? Because I shouldn’t like you to think anything like that.’

Katharine wasn’t thinking anything like that. She was thinking rather breathlessly that she had been on the edge of walking enthusiastically over a precipice, and she felt a good deal of gratitude to William’s scruples about Mr. Tattlecombe. Suppose he hadn’t had them. Suppose she had been confronted with the choice of going back on what she had offered or appearing in Cyril’s office as the champion of William Smith. Or, worse than Cyril, Brett. She didn’t wish Mr. Tattlecombe’s sufferings to be in any way prolonged, but she had a feeling that it would be a pity if he were to come back to work too soon. She just wasn’t ready to take William Smith by the hand and lead him into the family circle—yet.