The Case of William Smith

Chapter Thirty

It was at a little after six o’clock on Saturday evening that the telephone bell rang in Miss Silver’s sitting-room. She lifted the receiver and heard an unknown male voice say with a trace of country accent,

‘Can I speak to Miss Silver?’

She gave her slight preliminary cough.

‘Miss Silver speaking.’

‘Miss Maud Silver – the private enquiry agent?’

‘Yes.’

The voice said, ‘My name is Tattlecombe – Abel Tattlecombe. Does that convey anything to you?’

‘Certainly, Mr. Tattlecombe.’

At his end of the line Abel ran a hand through his thick grey hair. Not having Miss Silver’s address, he had had to pick her out from among all the other Silvers in the telephone-book, and there was always the chance that he might have picked the wrong one. He felt a good deal of relief, and was able to achieve an easier manner.

‘Then I’m right in thinking that it was you that Mrs. Smith was telling me about – Mrs. William Smith.’

Miss Silver coughed again.

‘Did she tell you about me?’

‘Yes, she did. She works here. I expect she told you that. She came up and talked to me, wanting the afternoon off so she could go and see you.’

‘Yes, Mr. Tattlecombe?’

‘Well, I was agreeable. I would like to say I think a lot of William Smith. Mrs. Smith, she’s troubled about him, and so am I. She told me she’d been to see you and she wanted to go again. She said your name, but she didn’t mention any address, so I had to go to the telephone directory to find you. The fact is I’ve got things on my mind, and I think you ought to know what they are.’

‘Yes, Mr. Tattlecombe?’

Abel ran his hand through his hair again. He couldn’t think what Abby was going to say to him. But it wasn’t any good. There are things you can keep to yourself, and things you can’t. Why, look at Abby – she couldn’t keep it – had to come round and load it off on to him. Well then, he wasn’t keeping it either. His conscience wouldn’t let him. You can’t play about with people’s lives, and he wasn’t going to be a party to it. He said firmly,

‘There’s things you ought to know, and the way I’m placed I can’t come and tell you about them – my leg’s only just out of a splint. Would it be possible for you to come here?’

Miss Silver coughed and said, ‘Perfectly possible, Mr. Tattlecombe.’

Abel rang off with a slightly defiant feeling that he had burned his boats.

He had gone downstairs into the empty shop to telephone. He could manage the stairs if he took them slowly one step at a time and nobody hustled him. He had rather an enjoyable prowl about the shop and the workshop whilst he waited. The doctor said to use the leg, and this was as good a way as any. The new animals pleased him a good deal. He took a look into Miss Cole’s books, and was gratified.

When Miss Silver knocked as he had bidden her he went to let her in, walking stiffly, but not allowing himself to limp. What he saw when she emerged into the light had a very reassuring effect. Mr. Tattlecombe knew a lady when he saw one. He considered that Miss Silver was a lady. She was dressed in very much the same way as his sister Abigail. Her clothes were not made of such handsome material, and they had been worn for a considerably longer time, but they were the same sort of clothes. Suitable was the word which he would have used. None of your mutton dressed as lamb. An elderly lady should be suitably attired. Just what he would have done if the private enquiry agent whom he had as it were plucked blindly from the pages of the telephone directory, had walked in upon him in high heels, a skirt to her knee, powdered, lipsticked, and waving a cigarette, it is really quite impossible to say. He was, fortunately, not to be subjected to any such ordeal.

Upstairs, and able to view one another in the unshaded light of his sitting-room, it was with mutual approbation that they did so, Miss Silver’s mental comment being, ‘A very nice, respectable man.’ When they were seated and she had seen that his leg-rest was comfortably placed, there was one of those slight pauses. It was broken by Mr. Tattlecombe.

‘Well, ma’am,’ he said, ‘it was very good of you to come.’

Miss Silver offered a deprecating smile and a ‘Not at all.’

Abel continued.

‘The fact is, I think a lot of William Smith. He’s been as good as a grandson to me here. I lost mine that was in the prison-camp with him in Germany, and what one man can do to take another one’s place – well, William’s done that and more. His wife’s been to see you. She’ll have told you about me being struck down, and William too – and pushed after that to throw him under a bus when he was waiting on an island.’

‘Yes, she told me.’

There was a second pause. It lasted longer than the first one. In the end Abel Tattlecombe fixed his round blue eyes on her face and said in a tone of portent,

‘My sister had tea with me today.’

Miss Silver inclined her head without speaking.

‘Mrs. Salt – Mrs. Abigail Salt, that’s her name – 176 Selby Street.’

Miss Silver repeated her former acknowledgment.

Abel pursued the theme.

‘That’s where I was when I came out of hospital – that’s where I made my will leaving the business to William Smith. And that’s where he was struck down after coming to see me.’ He paused, and added, ‘Both times.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘So Mrs. Smith informed me.’

Abel brightened. He rubbed the top of his right ear vigorously and said,

‘Did she tell you about Emily Salt?’

‘Yes.’

Abel let his hand fall with a clap upon his knee.

‘However my sister Abby has put up with her all these years passes me. But it can’t go on. Something’s got to be done about it, and so I told her this afternoon. “She’ll be far better off in a home,” I said, “and no risk to others.” And Abby – well, for once she hadn’t got anything to say for a bit, and then come out with a piece she’d said before, about Emily being in a fever and not rightly knowing what she was saying.’

With a neat disentangling movement Miss Silver extracted the pith of this discourse.

‘Your sister came here to tell you of something Miss Salt had said during her recent illness?’

Abel wagged his head.

‘Influenza,’ he said gloomily-‘and clean out of her wits.’

Miss Silver, sitting extraordinarily upright on a small Victorian chair inherited from a previous generation of Tattlecombes, clasped her hands in her lap and enquired,

‘What did she say?’

Abel rubbed his ear.

‘Abby said she’d got a temperature of a hundred and three and she was laid there groaning. All of a sudden she shoots out her hand and gets Abby by the wrist. “He ought to be dead,” she says, whispering fit to curdle your blood, and then she screams it out at the top of her voice over and over a dozen times, till Abby was afraid the neighbours would think there was a murder in the house. Abby did her best to quiet her, and presently she stopped and said just as if it was something quite ordinary, “I did my best – both times. You’d think he’d be dead by now, wouldn’t you?” Abby said to hush and lie down, and she went to get her a drink. When she came back, there was that Emily lying there staring, and saying, “He’s no right to have the money. It’s very wicked of Abel.” Abby hushed her up and told her the same as she’d done before, that she didn’t want my money – her husband left her plenty, and William was welcome. She says Emily just went on staring. She took the drink and stared at her over the cup and said, “I thought you wanted me to.” Abby said sharp, “Wanted you to do what?” and that Emily shifts her eyes and says, “Oh, no – it wasn’t you, was it?” and she finished her drink and went off to sleep. Abby says there was talking and muttering in the night, but nothing you could put words to, and in the morning her temperature was down. Well, you may say it wasn’t much to go on and the woman was out of her head, but I could see there was more than that. I’ve known Abby too many years not to know when she’s got something on her mind, and in the end I got it out of her. Seems she went downstairs with William the night he was struck down. They were in the front parlour for a bit, talking about me. When she came back from letting him out she took notice that my mackintosh was gone fom the hall stand. I’d got it on when I had my accident, so it went to the hospital and come on with me to Selby Street. It was torn, but not too bad, and Abby mended it up and hung it in the hall against my wanting it. Well, it passed in her mind that Emily might have slipped it on to go to the post, which she shouldn’t have done, and Abby says she’d made up her mind to tell her as much. She went on up, and no Emily Salt. Presently she hears the front door and she goes down. There’s my mackintosh back on the hall stand wringing damp, and Emily halfway down the kitchen stairs. Abby says, “Where have you been?” and she says, “To the post.” Abby was going to mention the mackintosh, but that Emily didn’t wait, she was off into the scullery and the tap running. Said she wanted a drink. Cold tap-water after going to the post on a January night! Well, Abby said no more, but there was something she thought about afterwards when it come out about William being struck down.’ He paused.

Miss Silver said, ‘Yes, Mr. Tattlecombe?’

He wagged his head in an emphatic manner.

‘When she went down to see to the kitchen fire she missed the poker. It’s a little short one she keeps handy at the side of the range. Well, it wasn’t there, and she didn’t stop to look for it, but come next morning she found it in the scullery.’

There was a pause, followed by one pregnant word.

‘Rusty,’ said Mr. Tattlecombe.