The Case of William Smith

Chapter Seventeen

That same evening Frank Abbott dropped in on Miss Maud Silver at her flat at Montague Mansions. Whatever happened in the outer world, here time stood still. But not in any sluggish, lotus-eating manner – ‘Oh dear, no,’ as Miss Silver herself might have said. He found in her a constant stimulus to thought, and whilst her idiosyncrasies were a continual entertainment, he did actually and in sober truth revere the little woman who, beginning her working life in what she herself termed the private side of the scholastic profession, was now a much sought-after enquiry agent.

Where time had been halted was on the threshold of this room. The furniture inherited from more than one great-aunt was of the type strangely popular in the sixties of the previous century. The chairs, with their walnut frames, bow legs, and spreading upholstered laps, suggested long-departed crinolines and peg-top trousers. Engravings of famous Victorian pictures in yellow maple frames looked down upon a carpet not of contemporary age but of a truly contemporary pattern. The pictures, interchanged from time to time with those in her bedroom, included the late Sir John Millais’ Bubbles, Mr. G. F. Watts’ Hope, together with The Stag at Bay and The Soul’s Awakening. The carpet, new a year ago, was of a lively shade of peacock-blue, with a pattern of pink and white roses in wreaths caught together with bows of green ribbon. The curtains, of the same blue but duller in tone, had survived the war, and though not actually shabby were due to be replaced as soon as Miss Silver felt justified in spending so much money upon herself. Two of her niece Ethel Burkett’s boys were now at school, and a baby girl had been added to the family during the past year. School outfits were expensive, and much as the Burketts rejoiced over having a daughter after three boys in succession, the year had placed a considerable strain on their finances, and it was not in Miss Silver’s nature to allow them to bear it unaided. The curtains could very well do another year, or even two.

As she sat in her comfortable chair beside her comfortable fire, her heart was full of gratitude. She had lived for twenty years in other people’s houses, and had expected to live twenty more before retiring on a pittance. The hand of Providence had, however, translated her into a new profession, and to circumstances of modest comfort. The mantelshelf, the bookcase, two occasional tables, and a whatnot were crowded with photographs of grateful clients incredibly framed in fretwork, in hammered or patterned silver, in silver filigree upon plush. A good many of them were photographs of young men and girls, and of the babies who would never have been born if this little old maid had not brought her intelligence and skill to bear upon their parents’ problems.

Frank Abbott was received very much as if he had been a nephew. He accepted the cup of coffee brought him by Emma Meadows, Miss Silver’s valued housekeeper, and sat back sipping it and feeling pleasantly at home. On the other side of the hearth Miss Silver was knitting a pair of infant’s leggings in pale blue wool. After completing three pairs of stockings each for Johnny, Derek and Roger, she was now equipping little Josephine for the coming spring – so treacherous and changeable. With four children to make and mend for, to say nothing of her husband and all the household work, Ethel really had no time for knitting.

There was a pleasant silence in the room. A coal fell in the fire. Miss Silver’s needles clicked above the pale blue wool. Frank finished his coffee and leaned sideways to put down the cup. Then he said,

‘How did you find out that the way to make people talk is to sit there knitting and make them feel everything is as safe as houses and it doesn’t matter what they say?’

A faint smile just touched her lips. She went on knitting.

He laughed.

‘You know, I’ve been here hundreds of times and it’s only just come to me that the thing you conjure with is security. That’s what you’re putting across. Your pictures, your furniture – they’ve come down from a settled past. They belong to the time when there practically wasn’t an income tax and European wars were just something you read about in The Times. There’s all that – and then the one practical modern touch, your office table. That makes them feel that the security doesn’t just exist in the past – it can be brought up to date and put to work for them.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘I find that a little fanciful.’

He smiled.

‘How many frightened people have you had in this room?’

Her eyes dwelt on him for a moment.

‘A good many.’

He nodded.

‘Well, I wouldn’t mind betting that very few of them went away as frightened as they came.’

Her needles clicked, the pale blue wool revolved. She said,

‘I think you have something on your mind. What is it?’

He did not speak at once, but leaned back, looking at her. No one could have suited her room better – the small neat features, the rather pale smooth skin, washed twice a day with soap and water, belonged to a period when a lady did not use make-up and even powder was considered ‘fast’. Her hair conformed more to the Edwardian than the Victorian age, being banked up in a fringe like the late Queen Alexandra’s and coiled neatly at the back, the whole controlled by an invisible net. During the years he had known her Frank had not observed that she had any more grey hairs than the few which he remembered to have been there at their first meeting, nor did she seem to be older in any other way. She might have stepped out of any family group at the end of the last century or at the beginning of this. It was her practice to wear a summer silk in the winter evenings. The current garment, of the type sold by pushing saleswomen to elderly ladies who are not very much interested in dress, was of a boiled spinach colour with an orange pattern of dots and dashes which suggested Morse. It came modestly to the ankles and revealed black woollen stockings and glacé shoes with beaded toes. The V-neck had been rendered high by the insertion of a net front with a boned collar. The pince-nez, used only for fine print, was looped to the bosom of the dress by a gold bar brooch set with pearls, and the base of the V was decorated by Miss Silver’s favourite ornament, a rose carved in black bog oak with an Irish pearl at its heart. Since the January evening was cold, a black velvet coatee reinforced the thin silk of the dress. It was a cherished garment – so comfortable, so warm – but it must be confessed that its better days were definitely past and gone, and that it was now a mere relic. No self-consciousness on that score, however, disturbed Miss Silver’s appreciation of its comfort.

With no need to keep her eyes upon her knitting, she smiled at Frank, maintained her affectionate regard, and waited for him to speak. When he did so, it was in an odd doubtful tone.

‘I’ve run up against something – I don’t quite know what.’

Miss Silver pulled on her ball of pale blue wool.

‘It is disturbing you?’

‘I suppose it is. The fact is, I don’t know whether there’s anything in it or not. There might be nothing – or something. I don’t know quite what to do, or whether I ought to do anything at all.’

‘Perhaps you would feel clearer about it if you were to put conjectures on the subject into words. If you would care to tell me about it – ’

He laughed a little.

‘I’ve come here on purpose, and you know it.’

Miss Silver coughed with the faintest hint of reproof.

‘Then, my dear Frank, suppose you begin.’

He said, ‘There’s probably nothing in it, but I’d like to get it off my chest. About a week ago I was coming along Selby Street, which is a respectable suburban road on the way out to Hampstead, when a man came out of a house on my left and walked along in front of me. I saw him with the open door of the house behind him. He had fair hair, and the light caught it. Anyone else could have seen him too. That’s one of the points – anyone could have seen what I did. After the door was shut and he was out in the street visibility wasn’t too good. It was a thickish night with rain in the air, but we were coming up to a lamp-post and I could see him ahead of me – perhaps twenty feet away, perhaps a little more. Then all of a sudden there was someone else, and I don’t know where he came from – out of one of the other houses – out of a cut between the houses – out of somebody’s porch – I don’t know. The first I saw of him, he was there between me and the light, closing up on the first man. All I can swear to is that he was wearing a raincoat and some kind of a hat. Then in a flash he swung up his arm and brought it down again. The first man dropped, I ran up, and the fellow who had hit him ran away. I lost him almost at once. As soon as you got away from the lamp-post you couldn’t see a thing. I went back to the man on the pavement, and he’d had a pretty lucky escape – hit over the head with something hard enough to break it if it had been the sort that breaks easily. He told me himself that it was tough. His hat had taken the worst of it.’

Miss Silver listened attentively, but made no comment.

Frank leaned forward.

‘Well, he was a bit dazed and shaken. I took him round to the police station and they gave him a cup of tea, and then I took him home to Tattlecombe’s Toy Bazaar, where he is an assistant temporarily in charge. He had been visiting his employer in Selby Street, where he has been laid up after a road accident. I expect you wonder what all this is about – and here it is. The chap said his name was William Smith, but it isn’t. I’d seen him before and I recognized him. I told him so, and he told me that he came out of a German hospital in ’42 as William Smith, and that was as much as he knew. He hadn’t got any past, and he naturally wanted to know who I thought he was.’

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

‘And who do you think he is?’

‘That’s the bother of it – I can’t get any farther than Bill. You know how it is, everybody using Christian names – I don’t suppose I ever heard his surname.’ He told her about the party at the Luxe. ‘And you can take it from me that’s the sort of crowd where he belonged, and that quite definitely you wouldn’t expect to find him assisting in a suburban toy bazaar. He told me himself that he wasn’t the William Smith whose identity disc he had somehow acquired. This man came from Stepney, and Bill went down there to make enquiries. Only relative, a sister, had moved away during the blitz and been lost sight of, but the neighbours all laughed at the idea of his being their William Smith. They were thorough-paced Cockneys and were proud of it, and they despised what they called his B.B.C. accent.’

Miss Silver looked at him across her knitting.

‘A curious story, Frank.’

‘Yes, but you’ve only heard half of it. I met the chap again on Thursday night. I’d been dining out, and I was coming home, when I saw William Smith in a bus queue at the Marble Arch. I went up and asked him how he was, and he said he was all right, but something else had happened earlier that evening. He’d been to see his employer again. Coming back, he was standing in a crowd on an island waiting for the lights to change, when, he says, someone jabbed him in the back with a stick. He lost his footing and would have fallen under a bus if the man next to him hadn’t grabbed him. By the time he’d got steadied up enough to look, the lights had changed, everyone was streaming away, and there wasn’t anyone who seemed as if they could have done it. I asked him if he was going to report the incident to the police, and he said no – he couldn’t see what they could do.’ He paused, and added, ‘I gave him your address.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘My dear Frank!’

‘Well, I thought you might be interested. That’s not all, you know. I’ve given you the last incident for what it’s worth, but two rather uncomfortable points emerge from what I’ve come across myself. Here’s the first. After William Smith dropped and I was running up, the man who had hit him was going to hit him again. That’s all wrong, you know. The chap was down and out – very completely out. If the motive was robbery, the thief ought to have been going through his pockets. Well, I don’t think the motive was robbery – I think it was murder. He’d got what looked like a stick, but it must have been something a good deal more lethal – probably a length of lead piping – and he was going to polish him off, and another blow like the first on a head with a paving stone under it would have polished him off. The fellow was so intent on what he was doing that he couldn’t have known I was there until I started to run, and even then he as near as a toucher took the time for that second blow. I shouted, and he lost his nerve and made off across the road.’

Miss Silver knitted in silence for a moment or two.

‘Do you think that this man was lying in wait for William Smith – that he saw him come out of the house and attempted to murder him?’

‘I can’t go as far as that – there’s no evidence. He could have seen him, he could have recognized him, and I think he certainly tried to murder him. That’s as far as I can go.’

After a slight pause she said,

‘That is your first uncomfortable point. What is the second?’

He said, ‘Bill – the chap I met at that pre-war party at the Luxe – was married.’

Miss Silver said, ‘Dear me!’

‘There was a girl there in a gold dress – very attractive. They danced together most of the evening. No one else got a look in with her – I know I didn’t. Now last night I dined with my cousin Mildred Darcy and her husband, just home after seven years out East. They were at that party. They were engaged at the time. Mildred remembers Bill – she rather fell for him – but she doesn’t remember his surname any more than I do. It’s the other way round with the girl in the gold dress. She has no views of any kind about her Christian name, but she produced at least half a dozen surnames, of which the most probable seemed to be Lester – if it wasn’t Elliot. There was some connection with Mildred’s Aunt Sophy, and she’s sure the girl and Bill were married, because Aunt Sophy wrote out and told her she had given them a tea-set. My cousin Mildred has the world’s most inconsequent mind. She really doesn’t remember Bill’s name or the girl’s, but she sticks to it that she remembers them as apart from their names, and that she is sure they got married – largely, I think, because of the tea-set.’

Miss Silver knitted thoughtfully. Then she said,

‘He has lost his memory – he does not know who he was before the war. But you believe that you met him at a party at the Luxe in ’39, and your cousin Mrs. Darcy, who was also present, informs you that he married the girl to whom he was then engaged. You knew him only as Bill, and you do not remember the girl’s name at all. Mrs. Darcy remembers too many names, and is not sure about any of them. You are of the opinion that his life has recently been attempted.’

Frank said, ‘An admirable summing-up.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘As to your two uncomfortable points – have you toid him that you consider the attack you witnessed was an attempt at murder?’

He said, ‘No.’

‘And you are wondering if you should put him on his guard.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘And you are also wondering whether you should pass on Mrs. Darcy’s information as to his marriage.’

Frank lifted a hand and let it fall again.

‘Correct on both counts. But what is there to say? I can tell him that the chap who hit him once was going to hit him again. It doesn’t prove anything – does it? I rather blench at telling him that my cousin Mildred says he is a married man, because – well, you used the word information, but anything Mildred produces is entirely without form and void. I told you she had an inconsequent mind. That’s putting it much too mildly. When it comes to anything like evidence, she hasn’t really got a mind at all – she just dives into a sort of lumber-room and brings out odds and ends. If you put them together they make something, but nobody – least of all Mildred herself – can do more than guess at whether the result bears any relation to fact. I think she really does remember that Bill did marry the girl in the gold dress, but I can’t be sure, and I don’t see that I’m justified in passing it on unless I am sure. On the other hand, if I did pass it on it might be a clue to his identity, or it might give his memory a jog, so I don’t see that I am justified in keeping it to myself. I am in fact exhibiting extreme infirmity of purpose, and as I usually don’t find any difficulty in making up my mind I don’t like it.’

Miss Silver knitted briskly.

‘There are interesting possibilities. On the other hand your cousin may be mistaken, and the attack you witnessed have been a mere sporadic act of violence, the initial purpose robbery, with the brutal instinct to strike a second time overpowering reason. This has been, and is, a factor in many crimes.’

‘I agree. But I am left with my impression. Would you like to discourse on the interesting possibilities?’

Miss Silver turned the pale blue leggings, which had now assumed a definite shape. She said,

‘You recognized him. Someone else may have done so.’

‘Yes.’

‘After seven or eight years a return from the grave would not always be welcome. On the purely material side, it might be inconvenient, or even disastrous. You have, I suppose, no idea of this young man’s circumstances?’

‘You mean when he was Bill? Well, no. The Latimers – Mildred said it was their party – well, they were in a fairly moneyed set. His father made a pile in soap. Most of their friends would be well-to-do. But’ – he laughed – ‘well, I was there! Bill may have been on the same footing. His girl looked expensive. But there again – you can’t tell with girls. My cousin Rachel who hasn’t a bean turns out looking like a million dollars, and I know women who spend hundreds and miss the bus every time. Bill’s girl may have made her own dress, or Aunt Sophy may have given it to her – or any of the other old ladies whom Mildred reeled off. There was a Cousin Barbara, I remember, queer and rather rich. Mildred’s mother had a whole tribe of relations, and they are all dead, so it’s no good saying go and ask them what about it. The whole thing could hardly be vaguer – could it? What I can’t account for is the fact that it has left me with these impressions, which are not vague at all, but quite definite and sharp. Do you know what it reminds me of? Looking up at a lighted window out of a dark street and seeing someone or something or watching a train go past and getting a glimpse of a face you can’t forget.’

Miss Sliver had a Victorian habit of quotation. She employed it now. The late Lord Tennyson was her favourite poet, but on this occasion it was Longfellow who came aptly to her lips:

‘Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing…

So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another.’