The Case Of William Smith Read Online Free PDF

with. What I want to know is how I went in. I don’t remember anything before ’42 — not anything at all. I don’t know who I am or where I came from. In the middle of ’42 I found myself in a Prisoners of War camp with an identity disc which said I was William Smith, and that’s all I know about it. So if you can remember my name — ’
    Frank Abbott said, ‘Bill — ’ and stuck.
    ‘Bill what?’
    ‘I don’t know. I’m sure about the Bill, because it came into my head as soon as I saw you under the street-lamp before you spoke or anything.’
    William began to nod, and then stopped because it hurt.
    ‘Bill feels all right, and William feels all right, but Smith doesn’t. Anyhow I’m not the William Smith whose identity disc I came round with. I finished up in a concentration camp, and after I got released, and got home, and got out of hospital I went to look up William Smith’s next of kin — said to be a sister, living in Stepney. She’d been bombed out and no one knew where she’d gone. But there were neighbours, and they all said I wasn’t William Smith. For one thing they were real bred-in-the-bone Cockneys, and they despised my accent. They were awfully nice people and too polite to say so, but one of the boys gave it away. He said I talked like a B.B.C. announcer. None of them could tell me where the sister had gone. I didn’t get the feeling that she was the kind of person who would be missed, and they were all so sure I wasn’t William Smith that I didn’t really feel I need go on looking for her. If you could remember anyone who might possibly know who I was — ’
    There was quite a long pause. The street-lights shone into the taxi and were gone again — one down, t’other come on. First in a bright glare, and then in deep shade, William saw his companion come and go. The face which continually emerged and disappeared again was quite unknown to him, yet on the other side of the gap which cut him off from the time when he hadn’t been William Smith they had met and spoken. They must have known the same people. Perhaps it was the blow on his head which made him feel giddy when he thought about this. It was a little like Robinson Crusoe finding the footprint on the desert island. He looked at Frank, and thought he was the sort of chap you would remember if you remembered anything. High-toned and classy — oh, definitely. Fair hair slicked back till you could pretty well see your face in it — he remembered that at the station. Long nose in a long, pale face. Very good tailor—
    Curiously enough, it was at this point that memory stirred, if faintly. Somewhere in William’s mind was the consciousness that he hadn’t always worn the sort of clothes he was wearing now. They were good durable reach-me-downs, but — memory looked vaguely back to Savile Row.
    Frank Abbott said, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t seem to get any farther than Bill.’
    Chapter Four
    William got up next day with a good-sized lump on his head, but not otherwise any the worse. He wouldn’t have told Mrs. Bastable anything about it, only unfortunately she happened to be looking out of her bedroom window and not only saw him come home in a taxi, but having immediately thrown up the sash, she heard Detective Sergeant Abbott ask him it he was sure he would be all right now. After which she met William on the stairs in a condition of palpitant curiosity. If the injurious conjecture that he had been brought home drunk really did present itself, it was immediately dispelled. She was all concern, she fluttered, she proffered a variety of nostrums, and she certainly didn’t intend to go to bed, or to allow him to go to bed, until she had been told all about it. She punctuated the narrative with little cries of ‘Fancy that!’ and ‘Oh, good gracious me!’
    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