Patricia Wentworth - The Case of William Smith

She found William in the sitting-room, the gas fire lighted, and the curtains drawn. He explained that he thought she would be cold, and helped her to get the tea. They might have been doing it for years. Actually, when she came into the room he was sitting at the piano picking out a tune with one finger. As she was pouring out the tea she came back to that.

‘Do you play the piano?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘I don’t know very much about myself. My memory only goes back to ’42.’

She said, ‘Yes – you told me. I wondered how far it went. You see, it’s obvious that you must remember quite a lot-reading, writing, arithmetic. What else?’

He said, ‘Yes, I never thought about that. That sort of thing is all there. The usual history and geography seem to have stuck – schoolboy Latin – maths. I learnt German in the camps, and I rubbed up my French a whole lot. You know, that’s one reason I don’t think I’m William Smith, because he left school at fourteen and he wouldn’t have learned French or Latin. Mine weren’t anything to boast about, but I did learn them.’

‘And the piano?’

He laughed.

‘You heard me!’

‘You were picking out a tune. Do you know what it was?’

‘Well, it was trying to be Auld Lang Syne.’

‘Why?’

He gazed at her.

‘I don’t know – it just came into my head. When you come to think of it, it’s odd to remember tunes and forget people, isn’t it? There must be people I used to know walking around, and I might bump into them and never know them. That gives you an odd feeling. I used to think about it a lot and wonder if I should run into any of them, but it never happened until the other day.’

Katharine put down her cup.

‘You met someone – the other day – who knew you?’

He nodded.

‘The night I was hit over the head. It was the chap Abbott from Scotland Yard, the one who picked me up and brought me home.

‘He knew you?’

‘Well, sort of half and half. He said we’d been at a do together at the Luxe before the war, and I danced a lot with a girl in a gold dress who seems to have struck him all of a heap – which, I expect, is why he remembered me. But when it came down to names he couldn’t get any farther than Bill. You know, I always had a feeling that the William part of my name was all right.’

‘But he must remember some of the other people who were there.’

‘He says he doesn’t. It’s a long time ago – he’ll have been at hundreds of shows since then. You know how it is – things get run together in your mind. Look here, I could make toast at this fire if you’d like some.’

They made toast.

William ate a hearty tea. Afterwards he told Katharine that painting the duck black by accident had given him a very good idea for a really black bird, and which did she think would be the best name – the Rookie Raven, or the Kee Kaw Krow.

When she said she liked the Krow best he demanded pencil and paper and produced sketches. He sat on the hearthrug with a block propped against his knee, his fair hair sticking up on end, and a fiercely concentrated expression on his face. He was, for the moment, apparently quite inaccessible to anything except Krow. Yet when Katharine said idly, ‘What made you think of the Wurzel Dogs?’ he answered her at once in an abstracted voice,

‘Oh, I had a dog called Wurzel once.’

She almost stopped breathing. She let a little time go by, then she said in the same gentle voice,

‘When was that?’

He said, ‘I was ten,’ and came to with a start. ‘Oh, I say – I remembered that!’

‘Yes, you did.’

He was staring at her, intent and strained.

‘I remembered it then, but I don’t now. I’m only remembering that I remembered it.’

She said quickly, ‘Don’t try like that. It came when you were thinking about something else. I’m sure it won’t come when you’re trying.’

He nodded.

‘No – things don’t, do they?’ He leaned over and laid the sketches on her knee. ‘Look – what do you think of those?’

He had drawn every conceivable aspect of the Krow – the solemn, the rampant, the jaunty, the belligerent, the predatory. To each of them he had managed to impart the vitality which made all his creatures seem alive even in the wood.

‘They’re very good indeed.’

He said, ‘Wait a bit,’ took them back, and plunged again.

His hand just touched hers as it gathered the papers. It shook a little. He stopped it almost at once, but it showed him that he couldn’t really trust himself. He must do a little more to the Krows, and then he must get up and go away, because if he stayed he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t make love to Katharine, and of course he couldn’t do that. She was all alone here, and she had asked him to tea. He couldn’t possibly take advantage of her kindness. And of course he couldn’t make love to her at the shop. The sort of employer who takes advantage of his position to embarrass the girls who work for him rose with horrifying distinctness. He plunged back into the Krows.

Katharine watched him. It wasn’t very difficult to guess what he was thinking. It gave her that feeling between laughter and tears which she had so often when she was with William Smith. He was in love with her, and he wanted to tell her about it, but didn’t like to because she worked at Tattlecombe’s and it might make it difficult for her. She wasn’t quite sure whether she wanted him to say anything yet. It was the kind of moment in their relationship, exquisite and fleeting, which had its own particular charm just because it could not be indefinitely prolonged. It had the quality of a February day. The picture rose before her mind – a light air stirring, a hand’s breadth of blue in the sky, the almost imperceptible drifting of the clouds, a little mist to enhance and enchant the half-seen landscape – fruit, flower, and all still a dream of the bud. It had its charm – but February passes on its way. Like Faust she could have said, ‘Schöner Augenblick verweile doch.’

William put his papers together and got up.

‘I think I’d better go now.’

She smiled, and said, ‘You can stay to supper if you like.’

He stood there frowning a little. The living-room was more soberly suited than Carol’s bedroom, the furniture less modern. Katharine’s blue dress made a pleasant harmony with the rough brown leather of her chair. The dull background brightened her hair, her eyes. Her lips smiled at him. He said in a stubborn voice,

‘I’d better go.’

‘Why? Sit down again and talk a little.’

He shook his head.

‘No – I’ll be going. Thank you very much for asking me.’

It was only after the front door had shut that they remembered he had neither said goodbye nor touched her hand again.

Quite a number of interested heads looked out of gable windows as he drove away. There were four radios in full blast. A female with a strident voice was informing her offspring that she would cut his liver out if he didn’t come in. Behind the plane trees the new moon, curved and shining, was going down the western sky. In the living-room of the flat Katharine listened to the sound of William’s gears and his noisy retreat. Everyone in the mews would know that she had come home with a young man and he had stayed for hours.

She said, ‘Oh, William darling,’, and laid her head down upon her arm.

By the first post in the morning Katharine received a letter from Cyril Eversley. It ran:

‘My dear Katharine,

I am afraid I have not your present address, but I hope this will be forwarded. Brett tells me you have let your flat and gone away to take up some work – unspecified. So I do not even know whether you are still in town, or whether you would be able to lunch with me at the club on Wednesday next. Admiral Holden is coming up to go into your affairs with Brett and myself, and I thought it would be very nice if you could meet us afterwards for lunch. I know he would appreciate it. I am sure you will be glad to hear that the usual half-yearly dividend has now been paid into your account. I hope you have not been inconvenienced by the slight delay. We shall all look forward to seeing you on Wednesday – 1.15 at the club.