William Again (17 page)

Just as Mr Graham had bent down his invisible head to try to bite the bonds round his knees through his cushion, Miss Strange, looking wild and dishevelled, returned.

‘She’s GONE . . .’ she burst out. ‘She’s not in the house, not in any of the bedrooms . . . What SHALL we do?’

At this point, with a bellow of rage, the man in the chair managed to shake off his cushion. The face that emerged was hardly human. Something violent had happened to its hair. Something violent
had happened to its collar. Something violent had happened to its expression. Before he could utter anything that was in his mind, a housemaid came into the room.

‘Oooo—’ she said, ‘it’s the master. They’re amurdering of him! Ooo-oo!’ With which remark she fled.

‘The master!’ gasped Miss Strange. She turned to William, ‘I didn’t know your father was alive.’ Then she turned to the figure who was obviously seeking words
capable of expressing his feelings. ‘Where is your wife?’ she ended sternly. ‘Miserable man, where is your wife?’

‘I haven’t got any wife,’ he shouted.

‘But who wrote—’

‘
I
wrote,’ he yelled.

‘Then Peter’s mother—’

‘There
isn’t
any Peter’s mother—’

‘My poor man, have I touched on painful ground?’ She placed a kind hand on William’s head. ‘Poor little orphan Peter,’ she murmured softly. ‘How long ago was
it since she wrote to me?’

‘There isn’t any Peter,’ shouted the man, like one distraught. ‘There isn’t any Peter’s mother. There isn’t any Peter. There isn’t any
Peter’s mother. There’s only ME, and you’ve nearly throttled me, and you’ve nearly suffocated me, and you’ve nearly knifed me, and would you mind going away? I
don’t know who the boy is,’ he went on, following her gaze, ‘except that he’s some young ruffian trespassing in my garden, and who’ll make my life a misery for the
next few weeks till he kills himself or me, or I kill him or myself—’

Miss Rubina Strange, baffled for the first time that afternoon, sat down weakly.

‘But I don’t understand,’ she said.

When she did understand, she did not sweep out of the room in disgust as he had hoped she would. Instead, she looked at him with bright eyes.

‘But how
wonderful
of you,’ she said. ‘Of course, I will keep your dear secret. What sympathy and understanding of a woman’s heart you have shown! It’s all
the more wonderful that you are a man. And we are friends, are we not? – old friends. We must have a chat.’ She looked round the room. ‘Let me tidy up a little first. Ah, the room needs
a woman’s touch . . . Then we will have a talk. There are so many things I want to ask and to tell you – ours will be a very beautiful friendship . . .’

Mr Monkton Graham threw a pathetic and pleading look at William.

‘You may stay a little . . .’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ he said coldly, ‘I’d rather go jus’ now. You won’t forget those things you promised me, will you?’

‘Er – no,’ said Mr Graham, whose spirit was broken.

‘My aunt’s not got much of a garden,’ said William, ‘so I expect I shall be here most days. I’ll come for the tricycle and money after tea.’

‘We mustn’t be shy of each other,’ Miss Strange said in low, confidential tones; ‘my friends call me Ruby . . .’

Mr Monkton looked wildly from her to William. His face was the face of a man in the depths of despair.

After tea, William’s mother was anxious to know how William had spent his afternoon.

‘I met a man,’ he said casually, ‘who’s going to let me play in his garden an’ he’s given me a tricycle and some money.’

‘Where does he live, dear?’ said Aunt Ellen.

At the end of the road,’ replied William.

‘Oh, I know,’ said Aunt Ellen, ‘it’s a beautiful big garden. You’re a very lucky boy, William. But I can’t think why—’

‘He must have taken a fancy to William,’ said William’s mother. ‘SOME people do . . .’

‘Now I must find you something to read,’ went on Aunt Ellen to William’s mother. ‘I’ve got some perfectly charming books that I know you’ll love.’

‘They’re all about a little boy – such a dear – called Peter. They’re written by his mother. They’re perfectly true. She tells you so in the preface. They’re so
beautiful that they make me want to cry whenever I read them
.
I lent one to William before he went out this afternoon –
Peter, the Sunshine of the Home –
but he seems to have mislaid
it. However, I’ve got heaps more. She – the mother – writes very beautiful little articles in one of the magazines. She must be a charming woman – to say nothing of Peter.’ She threw
William a smiling glance. ‘There are some things our William might learn from Peter.’

With all his faults, William knew when to keep his own counsel.

He merely winked at the cat.

CHAPTER 10

THE GREAT DETECTIVE

T
he play was produced by the village Dramatic Society William watched it spellbound from the front row, sitting between his mother and father. It
was to him like the gateway to a new and enthralling life. He could not see why his elder brother and sister were laughing. The scene opened immediately after a murder. The corpse had been removed
(somewhat to William’s disappointment), otherwise the room was as the murderer had left it. William held his breath as innumerable uniformed policemen moved about the stage with notebooks,
looking for clues, crawling under the table, and examining the floor with magnifying glasses. The only clue they could find left by the murderer had been a red triangle drawn upon a piece of paper
and neatly pinned to the body by a dagger. This, they informed the audience many times, was the mark of a criminal gang of robbers and murderers who were baffling Scotland Yard.

Then the Great Detective came upon the scene, followed by a very bored-looking and elderly bloodhound, with its tail between its legs. The bloodhound, having made its appearance amid applause,
contented itself with sitting in the corner of the stage and gazing scornfully at the audience. The Great Detective advanced to the centre of the stage, bent down, and picked up a cigarette end
from the floor. It had been left by the murderer. The police, who had failed to notice it, fell into postures of ardent admiration. The cigarette end, naturally, bore the name of the maker, and yet
more naturally was a blend made specially for the murderer. So justice set off hot upon the track, and the bloodhound yawned sleepily and shuffled off in the wake of the Great Detective.

The next scene showed the murderer moving in scenes of luxury and magnificence, wearing evening dress at all hours of the day, entertaining earls and ambassadors amid tropical palms and gilded
pillars, and waited on by an army of obsequious footmen.

There was also the adventuress in a low (very low) red evening dress, smoking cigarettes upon a gilded settee. The plot was rather involved. There was a young man in a tweed suit, who kept
appearing and calling to heaven to support his claim to the villain’s place and wealth, which the villain himself dismissed with a most villainesque snarl. There was also a simple maiden in
sky-blue muslin, with golden (very golden) hair, who was generally clinging to the young man or sobbing on his shoulder while he appealed to heaven to make him worthy of her.

But the Great Detective was the real hero of the play He appeared (always in a dressing-gown) in his room smoking a pipe and working up clues, with his hand upon the collar of his amiable
bloodhound, who tried to assure the audience by little deprecating wags of his tail that he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

The last scene was the great excitement. The villain, still in evening dress, with his background of palms and pillars, was packing to go away. The Great Detective arrived, tore open his
suitcase, and there were his handkerchiefs, adorned round the edges with red triangles – irrefutable proof – policemen with handcuffs spring from behind the palms – the young man, still wearing the
young woman round his neck, appeared from nowhere and thanked heaven for bringing the guilty to justice – the bloodhound, in a sudden spasm of emotion, licked the villain’s hand as he was led
out, and all was over, leaving only the young man and young woman wringing the hand of the Great Detective, who was still wearing his dressing-gown and smoking his pipe.

William walked out of the hall in a dream. It all seemed so wonderful and yet so simple. Probably half the people one saw about were criminals and murderers, if only one knew

You just found a clue and worked it up. It would be fine to be a detective. Of course, one needed a dressing-gown and a bloodhound, but he had a dressing-gown, and though Jumble wasn’t
exactly a bloodhound, he was a bloodhound as much as he was any kind of a dog. Jumble was all sorts of dog. That was what was so convenient about him.

Before William had retired to bed that night he had firmly made up his mind to lose no time in bringing some great criminal to justice with the aid of Jumble and his dressing-gown.

‘There have been,’ said Mrs Brown, William’s mother, at breakfast the next morning, ‘a lot of burglaries around here lately.’

William stiffened. A little later he went out, calling Jumble. He walked down the road, scowling at the houses as he went. In one of those larger houses the criminal must live, somewhere where
there were palm trees and a butler. Of course, a murderer was more exciting, but a burglar would do to begin with.

He met a man coming up the road from the station, carrying a black bag. William glared at him suspiciously. A bag! Of course a burglar would need a bag. Somewhat startled by William’s
stern, condemnatory expression, the man turned round again! William scowled still more. A guilty conscience! That was what made him turn round like that! He recognised, doubtless, the expression of
a detective. Jumble barked excitedly, and wagged his tail. Even Jumble suspected something.

William turned and followed, creeping along in the shadow of the hedge, bent almost double. The man turned round again uneasily. William followed him till he saw him enter a pair of large gates
by the roadside and go up to a fair-sized house with large bow windows. William, with pride and determination writ large upon his freckled face, took a piece of chalk from his pocket and made a
cross upon the stone gatepost. He had very neatly, and almost under the master’s eye, removed the chalk from his master’s desk at school that morning for the purpose. Becoming absorbed
in his task, he turned the cross into a spider, and then into a shrimp. A few minutes later, inspired now purely by Art for Art’s sake, he was adding a tree and a house, when he was roughly
and ignominiously ordered off by a passing policeman. With a glance of crushing dignity, he obeyed.

WILLIAM TURNED AND FOLLOWED, CREEPING ALONG IN THE SHADOW OF THE HEDGE, BENT ALMOST DOUBLE.

If only that policeman knew—

That night, William, after retiring for the night, dressed himself completely, donned a dressing-gown in lieu of an overcoat, crept downstairs, and out of the back door. He
released Jumble on his way.

Together they crept up the drive to the house. The bow window was open and the room was in darkness. The first thing William wanted to do was to find out what the inside of the house was like.
If there were palms—

He climbed in by the open window, holding Jumble tightly beneath his dressing-gown. He went out of the room and across a hall past the open doorway of a room in which the man who had been
carrying the bag was having dinner. Opposite him was (presumably) the adventuress – a little fatter than the adventuress in the play, and in a black evening dress instead of a red one. Still, you
couldn’t expect all adventuresses to look exactly the same. And she was wearing pearls. The pearls must be what the man had stolen last night and had been bringing home in his bag.

William stood in the doorway for a minute taking in the scene, then he went down to a room at the end of the passage – a glass room –
palms!
Ha! William had learnt all he wanted to know.
He returned to the other room and out of the bow window.

That evening Mr Croombe, merchant in the city, turned to his wife, with a worried frown.

‘There’s something worrying me, old girl,’ he said.

‘What is it, Jim?’ said Mrs Croombe.

‘Well,’ said Mr Croombe, throwing away his cigar end, ‘have I seemed queer at all lately?’

‘No,’ said his wife anxiously.

‘Not as if I might be subject to – er – hallucinations?’

‘Oh no, Jim.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s a strange thing. I was coming along the road today – I suddenly saw a boy – I hadn’t noticed him before, and he seemed suddenly to appear – a
most peculiar expression – most peculiar – very intense and searching, as if he had some message – you know, I’m never quite sure that there’s nothing in spiritualism. Well, I kept
thinking about it as I changed – that peculiar piercing expression – wondering, you know, whether it was hallucination or a message, or anything, you know. There was something not
ordinary
about his expression, and,’ he was obviously reaching the climax of the story – ‘well, you may hardly believe me, but – this evening, as we sat at dinner, I looked up and distinctly
saw
the same boy standing in the doorway and looking at me again with that peculiar expression. He wore a strange flowing garment this time. I pinched myself and looked round the room, and
then, again at the door, and he’d disappeared. Yet I swear I saw him, with just that extraordinary expression, looking at me – just for a minute.’