Patricia Wentworth: The Case of William Smith

Mr. Tattlecombe was not pleased. If he had been up and dressed he would have held his own with Abby, but his leg was still in a splint and he didn’t so much as know where his trousers were. Dignity forbade a futile protest. He stared at her, but she took no notice. Setting the Benger’s down, she adjusted the pillows, smoothed a wrinkle from the bedspread, and left the room, shepherding William.

On the way down someone stood in a doorway on the half-landing. She stood for a moment, and stepped back without word or sign, shutting the door. It made no sound, and nor did she. William had a glimpse of her and no more. He never did have more than a glimpse of her. On the three occasions when he had been in this house, at some time either coming or going Emily Salt had peered at him – from a turn in the passage, from over the banisters, from a dark doorway. He saw now as much as he had ever seen of her or wanted to see – a tall, awkward shape with a forward stoop, long arms hanging, a white bony face with deep eye-sockets, raiment of funereal gloom. He thought Abel amply justified in a preference for Mrs. Bastable who housekept for him in the rooms over Tattlecombe’s Toy Bazaar. She wasn’t the cook that Abigail was, but she was cheerful and willing, and she had no Emily Salt. Abel was very fond of his sister and very grateful to her for her ministrations, but he could not do with Emily, and he was beginning to feel that he would be glad to get home.

He sipped his Benger’s and relaxed. Like everything that Abby cooked it was perfect. Mrs. Bastable got lumps in it three times out of four.

On the stairs Mrs. Salt was saying, ‘I hope you didn’t contradict him, Mr. Smith. It isn’t good for him to get excited. You had better let three or four days go by before you come again.’ When they reached the hall she hesitated for a moment and then opened the parlour door.

‘I should like a word with you before you go.’

William wondered what the word was going to be. He followed her into a room furnished in the Victorian manner with a bright carpet, plush curtains, a handsome solid couch and chairs, a fixture once devoted to gas but now converted to electricity in the middle of the ceiling, and a great variety of enlarged photographs, photogravures and china ornaments which combined uselessness and ugliness to a remarkable degree. The whole scene was reflected in a large gold-framed mirror over the mantelpiece. All the furniture had been inherited from Matthew Salt’s parents and dated back to the time of their marriage, but Abigail Salt added regularly to the ornaments whenever she took a holiday or attended a bazaar.

She shut the door behind them, fixed her eyes on William, and said,

‘Has my brother been talking to you about his will?’

William did wish that everyone would stop talking about wills. He couldn’t say so of course, but it was the only thing he wanted to say. If he hadn’t had the rather thick, pale skin which never changes colour he might have blushed. He felt just as uncomfortable as if he had. He said,

‘Well, as a matter of fact he did talk about it.’

Mrs. Salt’s colour deepened. Her gaze was very direct.

‘Then I hope you’ll make him all the return you can. He’s taken a wonderful fancy to you, and I hope you’ll feel you’ve got a duty to return. He’s got a right to do what he wants with his own, and he’s had no objections from me, but I feel obliged to say that in my opinion you will owe him a duty.’

William really had no idea what all this was about.

He said, ‘I’ll do all I can,’ and she said, ‘Oh, well – ’ and turned back to the door. She had discharged her conscience and the interview was over. Without a word and without looking back she went along the narrow passage to the front door and opened it.

There was quite a thick drizzle outside. The wet air drew into the house with a smell of soot in it. The light from the hall shone out, showing two shallow steps down into the street. William turned on the top step with his hat in his hand and the light shining on his thick fair hair. He said, ‘Good night, Mrs. Salt, and thank you for letting me come. ’ And Abby Salt said, ‘Good night, Mr. Smith,’ and shut the door.

William put on his hat and stepped down into the street.

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.