Patricia Wentworth - The Case of William Smith

‘Emily Salt?’

Abel nodded emphatically.

‘Right up against the door, with her hand on the knob, listening. Good thing for my leg she didn’t fall right on the top of me.’

William kept a straight face.

‘What did you do, sir?’

‘I said, “You’ll hear more comfortably if you come inside, Emily Salt.” She stared the way she does and said she was just coming in. So I told her what I thought about that. “Listening at the door,” I told her – “that’s what you were doing, and not the first time either. And I’ll thank you to keep your hands off my affairs, Miss Salt.” Abby came along then to get me back to my chair. “Now, Emily,” she says, and Emily flew right off the handle. I never heard anything like it – screamed like a wild cat and said I was doing Abby out of her rights. “And what’s it got to do with you if I am? ’ I said – and I could have said a whole lot more if my leg had been different. As soon as I got back to my chair Abby took Emily away. I could hear her screaming and going on all the way down the stairs.’

‘Mr. Tattlecombe – ’

Abel put up an imperious hand.

‘If it’s anything about my will, you can keep it to yourself. I’m agreeable, and Abby’s agreeable. And as for Emily Salt, she ought to be in a home, and so I told Abby when she came back. We didn’t have words about it, but we might have done if I’d stayed on,so I said I’d come home… That picture over the mantelpiece isn’t straight, and those two photograph albums have got changed over. The one with the gilt corners goes at the back of the table.’

He looked about him with a critical pleasure as William made these adjustments. None of the furniture was as handsome as Abigail Salt’s. The Brussels carpet was a good deal worn, the upholstery of the chairs was dingy. But it was his own place. The picture over the mantelpiece was an enlargement of the photograph taken of himself and Mary on their wedding-day – an earnest young man in an ill-cut suit, and a plain, sweet-faced young woman in balloon sleeves and a dreadful hat. The furniture was what they had bought together. He nodded approvingly, and said,

‘There’s no place like your own, William.’

That evening when they had had their supper and had cleared it away and washed up, William told Katharine all about Emily Salt and her listening at doors. He was making sketches of Crummocky Cows, sitting in a low chair and leaning forward with a writing-pad on his knee.

‘Of course she’s balmy,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how Mrs. Salt stands her. Whenever I’ve been there she’s either been peering round a door or disappearing round a corner. But all the same I don’t feel so happy about Mr. Tattlecombe’s will. He’s left me the business – did I tell you?’

Katharine said, ‘No.’

‘Well, he has. He told me about it that time I got knocked on the head. It’s awfully embarrassing when people tell you they’ve left you things in their wills.’

‘He told you that evening?’

‘Yes. He said Mrs. Salt was comfortably provided for, and a lot of things about our having worked the business up together and he wanted me to have it. Of course it’s got nothing to do with Emily Salt who he leaves it to – he told her that – but I can’t help wishing she didn’t feel like she does about it.’

‘It isn’t her business,’ said Katharine firmly.

She was plumping up the cushions and doing the sort of things that women do to a room which has been empty all day. Now she came to look over William’s shoulder at the sketches he was making. She put a hand on his back to steady herself and felt him wince. She said in a startled voice,

‘Did I hurt you? Why?’

He put up his left hand and caught hers.

‘It’s nothing. I’ve got a bruise, and you just hit it off.’

She stood beside him, looking puzzled, her hand in his.

‘What an extraordinary place to get a bruise. How did you get it?’

‘Someone jabbed me in the back with a stick.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, I think he was trying to push me under a bus.’

‘William!’

‘It didn’t come off, so you needn’t look like that.’

She was quite white. Her hand trembled. She said,

‘When was it? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Thursday, I think – yes, Thursday, because I met that Scotland Yard chap Abbott when I was going back from here and told him all about it. Darling, you’re shaking.’ He pulled her down beside him and put his arm round her.

‘What did he say?’

‘Abbott? There wasn’t anything he could say. I was jabbed, but I couldn’t see who jabbed me.’

‘Tell me what happened.’

He told her. When he had finished she said,

‘How far had you gone before it happened?’

‘It’s about a ten minutes’ walk from Selby Street to where I was getting the bus.’

She said, ‘You could have been followed.’

He nodded.

‘Well, I shan’t be going that way again.’

She thought to herself that it might happen anywhere – anywhere at all. Then, to William,

‘When you told Mr. Abbott, he must have said something – didn’t he?’

She was sitting on the ground beside him now, leaning against his knee, and he was trying different shaped patches on a cow. His voice was a little absent as he said,

‘Oh, he gave me the address of a Miss Silver. Governess turned detective, only he called it Enquiry Agent. He said she was a friend of his. He seemed to think she might be interested, but as I said, I don’t see what she or anybody else can do. There isn’t any motive, and I didn’t see anyone either time. I just got hit over the head and jabbed in the back. There’s nothing to go on.’

‘No, darling. Where does this woman live?’

‘I’ve forgotten. I expect it’s in one of my pockets – I had this suit on.’ He put down the pencil and dived. ‘Yes, here it is – Miss Maud Silver, 15 Montague Mansions, and a telephone number.’

Katharine put out her hand for it.

‘I’ll put it away. We might want it – you never know.’

He said, ‘Not likely,’ and began on a different arrangement of patches.

On Thursday afternoon, which was early closing at the Toy Bazaar but not in the neighbourhood of the Mews, Katharine got rid of William by sending him to buy a cake for tea, and then went off in the opposite direction, leaving a note just inside the door to say she had remembered something urgent and would be back as soon as she could.

She rang Miss Silver up from the first call-box she came to, and went on her way feeling very much as if she had jumped into a deep pool without knowing how to swim. If it had been a matter of herself, she would have turned back long before she got to Montague Mansions. If it had been anyone else but William, she would never have got there at all.

She did get there, was admitted by Emma Meadows, who looked the comfortable countrywoman she was, and was ushered in upon Miss Silver and her Victorian room. Miss Silver, laying down her knitting on the arm of her chair and rising to shake hands, saw a tall, graceful girl with a heightened colour. She said, ‘Mrs. Smith?’ and Katharine said,

‘I rang up. It is very good of you to see me at such short notice.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘I shall be glad if I can help you in any way. Will you not sit down?’

She picked up her knitting again and looked at her visitor in a kind and encouraging manner. The bright colour came and went. Mrs. Smith was nervous. She had breeding as well as very engaging looks. Her hair – really very pretty indeed – brown, but not at all a usual shade – so bright with those golden lights in it. Her clothes too – very becoming and well chosen, though not new – a good Scotch tweed, made by a first-class tailor – and the hat, very plain, but not the sort of hat which can be bought in a cheap shop. Miss Silver’s eyes passed to the shoes, the stockings, the handbag. She knew quality when she saw it, and she saw it now. The shoes and the handbag were not new. All this was received and registered as her visitor took the chair on the other side of the hearth.