Patricia Wentworth: The Case of William Smith

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.’