William Again

by Richmal Crompton

  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.’

  Mrs Croombe, open-mouthed, laid aside her sewing.

  ‘My dear Jim!’ she said. ‘How extraordinary! I wonder – you might try psychoanalysis if the vision comes again – it’s quite fashionable!’

  ‘I hope,’ said Mr Croombe, ‘that it won’t appear again. It wasn’t,’ he confessed, ‘on the whole, a pleasant expression.’

  Meanwhile, William, asleep in bed, was dreaming of Mr and Mrs Croombe, handcuffed, and dressed from head to foot in red triangles.

  ‘It’s chiefly jewellery that’s been taken,’ announced Mr Brown from the local paper the next morning at breakfast.

  ‘Ha!’ said William sardonically.

  ‘Mrs Croombe wants us to go to dinner on Saturday,’ said Mrs Brown, looking up from a letter.

  ‘Who’s Mrs Croombe?’ said Ethel, William’s elder sister.

  ‘They’re new people, up Green Lane, the end house!’

  ‘Ha!’ snorted William.

  ‘What,’ said William’s elder brother, ‘is the matter with you?

  ‘You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?’ said William with a disrespectful contortion of his face. ‘Just!’

  Then he went up to his bedroom and, putting on his dressing-gown, stood scowling into space with his head resting on his hand and his elbow on the mantelpiece in the attitude of the Great Detective thinking out a clue.

  The bloodhound insisted on spoiling the picture by sitting up to beg.

  That evening Mr Croombe looked very weary when he came home.

  ‘I went to a psychoanalyst,’ he said wearily, ‘about that – boy, you know, and he asked me questions for over an hour – all about my past life. He asked me if I’d ever had a shock connected with boys, and I remembered that squib that a boy let off just in front of me last November. He says that this hallucination may be caused by a subconscious fear. He gave me a lot of other cases of the same kind that he’s treating. He says that if, when I see the boy, I try to remember that really he doesn’t exist, I may get over it. I met cousin Agatha afterwards. She thinks it’s a message – she wanted me to ask the Psychical Research Society to come down, but I think I’ll wait till after the dinner-party anyway.’

  Mrs Croombe clasped her hands.

  ‘Oh, Jim!’ she said. ‘It’s all very wonderful, isn’t it?’

  William, after deep consideration, had decided not to take anyone into partnership. In the play there had been a faithful and unobtrusive friend of the Great Detective, who had merely asked questions and expressed admiration, but William, reviewing his circle of friends, could not think of anyone who would be content with this role. Therefore, he kept the whole thing to himself. He decided to bring off his great coup on the evening of the Croombe’s dinner-party. He decided to go into the house and hide till the dinner had begun, and then go out and collect the stolen jewellery and convict the criminals. He expected vaguely to be summoned to Buckingham Palace to receive the VC after it. Anyway, his family would treat him a bit different – just!

  He was in his bedroom, wearing his dressing-gown, and his faithful bloodhound was worrying the cord of it. He was sucking a lead pencil to represent the Great Detective’s pipe. He had, at an earlier stage, experimented upon an actual pipe removed from the greenhouse where the gardener had left it for a moment. A very short experience of it had convinced him that a lead pencil would do just as well.

  Dusk was already falling when the Great Detective issued forth – a sinister figure, with frown, lead pencil and dressing-gown – on the track of the criminals. The villain’s house was brightly lit up, and he experienced some difficulty in making his way in. He made it ultimately through the larder window, and was detained for a few minutes by a raspberry cream which was a special weakness of his. Then, leaving the empty plate behind him, he gathered his dressing-gown about him and reconnoitred. The coast seemed to be clear. He crept upstairs and then on all fours along the landing. A door opened suddenly, and the master of the house, in shirt-sleeves, appeared full in
William’s way. William returned his gaze unflinchingly. The master of the house paled and retired precipitately to his wife’s bedroom.

  ‘I’ve seen it again, Marie,’ he said.

  ‘What, dear?’

  ‘The – er – subconscious fear – the – er – message, you know. It was crawling along the passage outside in its curious long garment, and it gave me just the same kind of look. Piercing, you know – almost hostile. I’m beginning to feel rather nervous, my dear. You’ve – never seen anything of it, have you?’

  WILLIAM RETURNED HIS GAZE UNFLINCHINGLY. THE MASTER OF THE HOUSE PALED AND RETIRED PRECIPITATELY.

  ‘Never!’

  Mr Croombe wiped the perspiration from his brow.

  ‘I’d better look up some sort of comfortable – asylum, you know, somewhere where the food’s good – in case I go clean off it suddenly. I believe it generally begins by hallucinations.’

  ‘You must go away for a change,’ said Mrs Croombe firmly, ‘as soon as you can after the upset of this party’s over.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Croombe, ‘but supposing I see it there –when I have gone away?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Croombe vaguely. ‘Perhaps they don’t travel – hallucinations, I mean.’

  Meanwhile, the hallucination itself was concealed under the bed of his victim. He waited till host and hostess had gone down. He heard the sound of effusively polite greetings downstairs.

  ‘How good of you to come!’

  ‘Ha!’ snorted William to a cardboard hat-box that shared his refuge with him. ‘Just you wait!’

  Then he crept out and began to look around the room. He managed to find some of Mr Croombe’s handkerchiefs and was disappointed not to find red triangles on them, but he found a horseshoe on one, and that was just as likely to be the sign of a criminal gang. Then he went through the connecting door to Mrs Croombe’s bedroom. He opened a drawer and saw a leather box. There was a key in it, but it was not locked. He opened it – pearls, rubies, emeralds – all the stolen jewellery.

  ‘Ha!’ said William.

  He emptied it into the pocket of his dressing-gown. He looked round the room again. There were some silver boxes and candlesticks. William’s stern frown deepened.

  ‘Ha!’ he said again.

  All stolen things. He put them also in his pockets.

  The next thing was to try and find some handcuffs somewhere. He ought to have thought of that before.

  The party downstairs was going very well. The conversation turned on the thefts in the neighbourhood.

  ‘I hear that they have taken a considerable amount of jewellery,’ said Mrs Brown.

  Mrs Croombe paled.

  ‘Jewellery!’ she said. ‘Jim! I believe I forgot to lock my jewel-case. I believe I just left it in my drawer.’

  He rose.

  ‘I’ll go and see, dear,’ he said.

  He went out of the room. At the foot of the stairs was William, in a conspiratorial attitude, his pockets bulging.

  White to the lips, Mr Croombe returned to his festive board.

  ‘I can’t go just now, dear,’ he said to his wife, then he whispered with an air of mystery:

  ‘It’s there!’

  AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS WAS WILLIAM, IN A CONSPIRATORIAL ATTITUDE, HIS POCKETS BULGING.

  Someone gave a little scream.

  ‘Oh, is the house haunted?’

  ‘Well,’ admitted Mr Croombe, not without a certain wistful pride, ‘it’s not exactly the house. To be quite precise, it’s I who am haunted.’

  The whole table was agog.

  ‘It’s – a boy,’ said Mr Croombe. ‘I see him everywhere – in the road, in the house, with a piercing expression and curious raiment. He looks straight at me as if he meant something – a sort of freckled face – not friendly, I’m afraid. I’ve been psychoanalysed. It’s a sort of – er – complex—’

  There was a hubbub of excitement.

  ‘Is it there – now – outside the room?’

  ‘It was, but anyone mightn’t see it.’

  ‘May we go and see?’

  ‘Er – yes. I should think so – but be careful. You know, those – er – emanations can be very dangerous – a hostile aura, you know.’

  Three or four bold young men opened the door and crept cautiously into the hall. There was the sound of a scuffle and a high, indignant voice, familiar to two at least of the guests. The jaws of Mr and Mrs Brown dropped suddenly.

  ‘Let go of me! Take your ole hands out of my pocket. Mind your own business! Well, I’m a detective, but I’ve not got any handcuffs. Leave go of me – I’ve left my bloodhound behind – that’s not your stuff – well it isn’t his’n’— it’s stole stuff. I’ve tooken it ’cause I’m a detective – let go of me, I say. Leave go of my dressing-gown, will you? I’ll call the police – I say he’s a robber, an’ I bet he’s a murderer – will you let go of me? He’s a gang – look at his handkerchiefs – what d’you think of that – well, will you let go – ?’

  Still expostulating, William was dragged into the dining-room. Mr Croombe covered his face with his hands.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Don’t bring it too near.’

  ‘It’s the thief,’ said the young men excitedly. ‘Look at his pockets full of things!’

  ‘Leave go of me!’ said William, with rising irritability

  ‘My jewels!’ screamed Mrs Croombe.

  Mrs Brown, meeting her son face to face in such circumstances, did the only possible thing. She fainted dead away and did not recover till the crisis was partially over.

  William frenziedly accused Mr Croombe of theft and murder. He referred to handcuffs and bloodhounds. He said wildly that he had had the house surrounded by police. It took about half an hour to convince him of his mistake.

  ‘How do you know they’re their own things? They only say so – I’ve seen him walking suspicious with a bag full of something. Well, how do you know he isn’t a gang?’

  William, at the head of the gaily decorated table, pale and determined, in his dressing-gown, gesticulated wildly with his hands full of jewellery

  Mr Croombe was apologetic and pleading, wistfully grateful to William for being real.

  William – only gradually, and under the influence of a large and indigestible meal which Mr Croombe insisted on giving him in proof of his gratitude – forgot his grievances.

  Later, he found his father less sympathetic. Later still, he surveyed the world scornfully through his bedroom window, and thought of his family. It was no good trying to do anything with a family. The only thing was to cut loose from it altogether.

  Mentally he surveyed the past evening. Everything was different in real life. What was the good of being a detective when everybody said the people hadn’t done the things?

  Real life was stupid.

  He decided to go on the stage. There one could be a detective in comfort, and everyone didn’t say the person hadn’t done the things, and you’d made a mistake.

  He’d go on the stage.

  Feeling much comforted by this resolve, he got into bed and went to sleep.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE CIRCUS

  The circus was to be held in a big tent on the green. William had watched them putting up the tent the day before. He had hung around with wistful eyes fixed upon it. Here was the Wonder of Wonders, the Mystery of Mysteries – a circus. He had seen the posters of it. It would be there that very day, with its lions and tigers, its horses and dogs, its golden-haired, short-skirted beauties, its fascinating red-nosed kings of laughter, its moustached masters of the ring, its quips, its thrill, its mystery, its romance, its gilt and tinsel and light – a circus! It is a strange fact that William had lived for the eleven years of his life and never seen a circus. But he was determined that the omission should be rectified. It was dusk when he saw them pass. Through the bars of the cages looked out weary, spiritless lions and tigers, but to him they were veritable kings of the jungle. There was
an elephant and two camels, and, chained to the top of the van, a monkey, shivering in a green jacket.

  ‘Gosh!’ ejaculated William in rapture and admiration.

  There were several closed vans, but to William it was as if they were open. Clearly in imagination he saw the scene within. There sat laughing clowns and beautiful women with filmy skirts that stuck out round their knees. He could imagine the clowns pouring forth an endless succession of jokes, each with suitable contortions. The beautiful women would be laughing till their sides ached. He wished he had a clown for a father. Imagination almost faltered at the blissful thought. A ragged man leading one of the horses looked curiously at him – a small boy leaning against a lamp post with all his soul in his eyes.

  Slowly and reluctantly he went home to supper and bed. He dreamed of horses and lions, and tigers and clowns, and a life of untrammelled joy and jollity.

  ‘There’s a circus on the green,’ he announced at breakfast.

  ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full,’ ordered his father.

  William looked at him coldly. A clown would not have said this. He wondered on what principle parents were chosen. He sometimes wished he had been given some voice in the choosing of his. There were one or two improvements he could think of. He swallowed with slow dignity. Then: ‘There’s a circus on the green,’ he announced again.

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said his mother soothingly. ‘Ethel, pass the marmalade to your father. What were you saying, dear?’

  Whereupon William’s father proceeded with a monologue upon the Labour question that he had begun a few minutes previously. William sighed. He waited till the next pause.

  ‘I’m goin’ to the circus,’ he announced firmly.

  That brought their attention to him.

  ‘I don’t see how you can, dear,’ said his mother slowly. ‘It’s only staying for this afternoon and evening, and it’s the dancing class this afternoon—’

  ‘Dancin’!’ repeated William in horror. ‘Shurly you don’t expect me to go to dancin’, with a circus on the green?’