The Case Of William Smith Read Online Free PDF Page B

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