William The Conqueror Read online

  WILLIAM LOOKED ON WITH GREAT INTEREST. MISS MONTAGU, HOLDING AN IMAGINARY REVOLVER, ADVANCED THREATENINGLY ON MRS BROWN, AND MRS BROWN EDGED BEHIND THE SOFA.

  Then William’s father entered. He greeted Miss Montagu curtly. Mr Brown, though a well-meaning man, wasn’t at his best before breakfast.

  ‘Well,’ he said with one eye sternly fixed on William and the other apprehensively fixed on his visitor, ‘what’s he been doing now?’

  ‘Oh, John, dear,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘it’s burglars. Miss Montagu’s had burglars in the night.’

  ‘Three of them,’ said Miss Montagu, with a sob. The thought of all she had endured, together with the shock of the hot coffee that Mrs Brown had spilt over her, was almost more than she could bear. ‘Three great giants of men. They’ve ransacked the place – they’ve stolen all my jewellery. They – they covered me with revolvers and threatened to take my life. They—’

  ‘Have you told the police?’ said Mr Brown, his eye wandering wistfully to the dish cover beneath which reposed his eggs and bacon.

  ‘Yes, they’re coming round to interview me. I’m completely unstrung by it. I can’t tell you the state I’ve been in. If I’ve fainted once I’ve fainted a dozen times. Oh, there’s the Vicar’s “locum” passing the gate – do fetch him in, Mr Brown. I do so need spiritual solace after all I’ve been through.’

  Mr Brown, wearing a hang-dog air, went out to intercept the Vicar’s ‘locum’. The Vicar’s ‘locum’, wearing a still more hang-dog air, followed him up the drive and into the room.

  ‘It’s Miss Montagu,’ explained Mr Brown shortly; ‘she’s had burglars. She’s – she’s rather upset.’

  ‘I’m unstrung,’ said Miss Montagu, wringing her hands and visibly cheered by her increasing audience. ‘A gang of masked men. I resisted them and they shot. They missed me, but such was the shock to my nerves that I fainted, and when I returned to consciousness they were gone, but the place was ransacked—’

  ‘Here’s a policeman,’ said Mr Brown cheerfully, ‘just going into your house. Hadn’t you better go and interview him?’

  ‘Oh, fetch him in here, dear Mr Brown. I feel too much upset to move.’

  Muttering something inaudible beneath his breath and with a long agonised look at the coffee pot and bacon dish, Mr Brown went out to intercept the policeman.

  The policeman entered jauntily, taking his notebook out of his pocket. The Vicar’s ‘locum’ seized the opportunity to slink away.

  ‘It’s burglars,’ hissed Miss Montagu, with such violence that the policeman started and dropped his note-book. ‘My house was entered last night and I was attacked by a gang of men – masked.’

  The policeman licked his pencil and turned his eye upon Miss Montagu.

  ‘Was you roused by the noise, Miss?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Montagu eagerly, ‘I went down to confront them, and there I found five or six—’

  ‘Five or six?’ asked the policeman magisterially.

  ‘Six,’ said Miss Montagu after a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘Six,’ repeated the policeman, licking his pencil again and beginning to write in his note-book. ‘Six.’ He wrote it down with great deliberation, and then said a third time: ‘Six.’

  ‘I confronted them,’ went on Miss Montagu, ‘but they gagged me and bound me to a chair.’

  Mr Brown, unable to control any longer the pangs of hunger, had sat down at the table, and with a fine disregard of everyone else in the room, was attacking a large helping of bacon and eggs.

  ‘A chair, did you say, Miss?’ said the policeman brightening, as though they had arrived at last at the most important part of the evidence.

  ‘Yes, a chair, of course,’ said Miss Montagu impatiently. ‘They gagged me and bound me to it and then I fainted. When I recovered consciousness I was alone. The house was ransacked. My jewellery was gone—’

  ‘Ransacked—’ murmured the policeman, writing hard and moistening his pencil every other second. It seemed to be the sort of pencil that only acts when used in constant conjunction with human saliva. ‘Ransacked – jewellery—’

  He closed his book and assumed his pontifical air.

  ‘You’ve left heverything,’ he said, ‘I ’ope, as they left it.’

  Miss Montagu considered this question for a minute in silence. Then she spoke in the tone of voice of one who has been soaring in the clouds and suddenly fallen to earth with a bump.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said in a flat tone of voice. ‘Oh, no – I – I tidied up after them.’

  Mr Brown, who had reached the marmalade stage and was feelish uppish, said: ‘A great mistake,’ and was at once crushed by a glance from the eye of the law.

  ‘What exactly is missing, Miss?’ then said the law pompously.

  Miss Montagu spoke in the same voice. ‘I – I can’t be quite sure,’ she said.

  The policeman put his note-book into his pocket and squared himself as if for a fight.

  ‘I’d better come and visit the scene of the crime with you now, at once, Miss, and collect what evidence I can,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Mrs Brown compassionately to Miss Montagu. ‘I’m sure you aren’t fit to go alone.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ said Miss Montagu. ‘I feel that I might faint again any minute.’

  Led by the policeman and supported by Mrs Brown, she made her way slowly to her own domain.

  William’s father snorted contemptuously and poured out another cup of coffee.

  Over William’s inscrutable countenance there flickered just for one moment a smile . . .

  Miss Montagu was resting in her deck-chair in the garden. She had had a tiring day. She had had a constant stream of visitors who came ostensibly to inquire after her health, but really to elicit the whole thrilling story of the burglary. She felt exhausted, but she had the satisfaction of knowing that nothing was being talked about in the village but her burglary.

  Suddenly she looked up. That wretched boy was sitting, actually sitting, on her fence, after all she’d said to him. In his arms he held a nondescript dog that looked as if it had numbered among its ancestors a sheep and a cat and a monkey. She was just going to order him to descend at once and go in to write to his father again when something attracted her attention.

  The dog was wearing a collar. And the boy was looking at her in a meaning sort of way – a very meaning sort of way. Then, still looking at her, he took from one pocket a handful of arrows and threw them carelessly down into his garden. Then from the other pocket he took three balls and began carelessly to play with them. The words she had meant to say did not come. Instead she said faintly:

  ‘W-where did you get those?’

  The boy’s look became still more meaning.

  ‘From your house,’ he said, still carelessly playing with his ball, ‘last night. Don’ you remember? I was wearin’ a mask an’ you was wearin’ a pink dressing-gown an’ you said you was a poor defenceless woman. And you told me to think of my wife an’ not do anything rash. Don’ you remember?’

  Then, apparently losing all further interest in the subject, he returned to playing with his ball.

  There was a long, long silence – the longest silence Miss Montagu ever remembered in all her life. She blinked and went rather pale. Then, after what seemed to her several hours, she spoke. She said in a small, faraway voice:

  ‘They – they’ll never believe you.’

  ‘Oh,’ said William casually. ‘I’m not goin’ to tell ’em if – I mean, there’s really no reason why I should tell ’em.’

  ‘HOW CAN YOU TELL SUCH AN UNTRUTH ABOUT LAST NIGHT?’ DEMANDED MISS MONTAGU.

  WILLIAM STOPPED WHISTLING AND LOOKED AT HER.

  There was another long silence – longer even than the first. But during it Miss Montagu’s brain worked quite quickly. She understood what William’s ‘if had meant. She looked up at that horrid, freckled, untidy-headed boy who was whistling so unconcernedly upon her fence and s
aid sternly:

  ‘How can you tell such an untruth about last night?’

  William stopped whistling for a minute and looked at her.

  ‘I hope you won’t tell such a silly untruth to anyone else,’ she said severely. ‘If you don’t – I mean,’ with a slight display of embarrassment, ‘I mean – I mean I was going to tell you that my nerves have quite recovered now and that no noise from your garden will disturb me. Also if your arrows or things come over here you may come over to fetch them.’

  Then, with great dignity, she got up and swept into the house.

  William watched her retreat with apparent unconcern.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER

  IT was William’s Uncle Frederick who was responsible for the whole thing.

  He gave William a book called ‘Hunted by the Reds’. A spell of wet weather was also partly responsible.

  The Outlaws met in the old barn while the rain came down in torrents on and through the roof, and, having nothing else to do, read the story aloud in turns. Though the reading was frequently interrupted by criticism of each member’s reading by the rest (resulting occasionally in physical conflict), and by long, heart-searching discussions as to the conventional pronunciation of such words as ‘catastrophe’, the interest of the story was proof against all interruption. It gripped. It did more than grip. It thrilled.

  At first the Outlaws had taken for granted that the Reds must mean Red Indians. But they did not. They meant the Reds of Russia, modern Reds, the dreaded Bolshies.

  The villain of the story was one Dmitrich (which the Outlaws pronounced ‘Dimtritch’), chief of the Reds. He murdered everyone he met on principle. He flung bombs about as carelessly as other men fling used matches. Finally, he captured a princess of the Whites and kept her a prisoner in his castle, trying to extort from her by cruel threats the secrets of the Whites. In the last chapter she was rescued from the villain by her faithful lover, Paulovitch.

  The descriptions of Dmitritch were intriguing. He was cross-eyed and had a crooked nose. He was a most satisfactory villain in every way. Most of his remarks were prefaced by oaths represented on the printed page by blanks and dashes. This rather annoyed Ginger.

  ‘Why can’t they print wot he ackshully says?’ he asked indignantly. ‘It’d be much more int’restin’.’

  ‘They daren’t,’ said Douglas in an awed whisper, ‘they daren’t print the ackshull words. They’re too bad for print.’

  ‘What sort of words, though?’ persisted Ginger. ‘That’s all I want to know. It’s not fair putting blanks. I bet they don’t know themselves.’

  ‘They do,’ said William with an air of an oracle. ‘’Course they know. It’s bad words – words like “Damn” an’ “Hell” an’ – an’ – an’ “Hell” an’ “Damn”. Bad words like that – “Hell” an’ “Damn”.’

  ‘Well, that’s only two,’ said Ginger, still dissatisfied. ‘There’s one – two – three – four blanks in what he says here. He says – one, two, three, four blanks an’ then “Ho, would you, then? Curse you for a fool,” an’ then two more blanks. Well, that mus’ be more than jus’ “Hell” an’ “Damn”. There’s six blanks in what he says there.’

  William was slow to own himself in the wrong.

  ‘Well, those are the only two bad words there are. I know they are. He’d say ’em over an’ over again, of course. Like this: “Damn Hell, Damn Hell. Ho, there, what would you? Curse you for a fool. Hell, Damn.” Like that. Over an’ over again. “Damn Hell, Hell Damn”.’ William seemed to derive a certain pleasure from the repetition.

  ‘I don’t think you ought to keep on saying ’em like that, William,’ said Douglas piously.

  ‘Well, I like that,’ said William indignantly. ‘I don’t want to say ’em, but I have to, to explain about ’em prop’ly. Ginger was saying there mus’ be more’n two bad words an’ I was only explainin’ to him that there is only two bad words, but you use ’em over an’ over again.’

  ‘I think there is more’n two bad words,’ said Henry slowly and thoughtfully. ‘What about “By Jove!” ’

  ‘That’s not bad,’ said William.

  ‘Well, what about “Darn!” ’ said Ginger.

  William seemed to regard ‘Darn’ judicially.

  ‘Yes, that’s bad,’ he said at last, as though ‘Darn’ had just passed some severe test. ‘Darn’s bad all right. Well, he’d just put that in somewhere, too.’

  ‘Anyway, he might have been a norful-looking man,’ said Ginger, ‘whether he said two bad words or three or only blanks. He must have been a norful-looking man. Just fancy – cross-eyed an’ a crooked nose. An’ jus’ think of all the orful things he did – murderin’ people an’ chuckin’ bombs about an’ – an’ savin’ those bad words all over the place an’ carrying off the princess. I know what I’d’ve done to him if I’d met him.’

  ‘What?’ said William.

  ‘I’d’ve killed him,’ said Ginger boldly. ‘I’d’ve gone up to him an’ stuck a knife into him.’

  ‘Would you?’ jeered William. ‘I guess he’d be too quick for you. He’d see you comin’ an’ throw a bomb or somethin’ at you. He’d jus’ say, “Darn damn hell” to you an’—’

  ‘William,’ protested Douglas patiently, ‘you’ve gotter stop sayin’ those words.’

  ‘Well, he said them, din’ he?’ said William aggressively. ‘If I’m sayin’ what he’d’ve said I’ve gotter say the sort of words he did.’

  ‘You needn’t say ’em. You can say “Blank,” can’t you?’

  ‘All right,’ said William obligingly, ‘I don’ mind doin’ that. Well, then, he’d simply look at you with his cross-eyes an’ say, “Blank, blank, blank, blank. Curse you for a fool. Blank, blank,” and shoot you or bomb you, or cut your head off before you’ve got a chance to move. You talkin’ about killin’ him – a clever man like him— You!’

  Ginger was annoyed.

  ‘You talk,’ he said indignantly, ‘’s if I’d say I’d go up to him with a knife in my hand so’s he’d know I was going to do it. I wouldn’t, either.’

  ‘Where’d you put it, then?’

  ‘In my pocket.’

  ‘Huh! You can’t get any size of a knife that’d kill him into your pocket.’

  ‘Maybe I wun’t kill him with a knife at all,’ said Ginger, shifting his ground. ‘I daresday I wun’t, after all. I’d pretend to take him a walk, an’ when I got him into the middle of a bridge I’d push him into the water.’

  ‘An’ he’d swim out,’ said William, with contempt.

  ‘All right,’ said Ginger huffily, ‘kill him yourself.’

  ‘I’d poison him,’ said William. ‘I’d get some deathly poison an’ put it in his tea.’

  ‘How d’you know he drinks tea?’ said Ginger contemptuously. ‘I should think he’s the sort of man who drinks beer more’n tea.’

  ‘Oh, do shut up about him,’ said Henry. ‘I’ve jus’ about had enough of him, anyway. I say, it’s stopped rainin’ an’ it’s dinner time. Let’s go home.’

  It was on their way home that they met him – unmistakably cross-eyed and broken-nosed.

  They stopped still in amazement to stare at him.

  ‘Dimtritch!’ they gasped together.

  He looked at them furtively as he passed.

  ‘That’s him – that’s – that’s simply him,’ gasped Ginger. ‘Abs’lutely straight out of the book!’

  ‘Out of the book!’ repeated William scornfully. ‘Huh! That book’s not a book. I mean it’s true. It mus’ be. I guess someone jus’ wrote it to put people on their guard against him ’cause—’

  ‘’Cause they daren’t do it ’cept in a book, ’cause they’re afraid of him, an’ his bombs,’ supplied Ginger eagerly.

  ‘I was goin’ to say that,’ said William coldly. ‘You keep on int’ruptin’.’

  ‘I b’lieve I can see a bomb in his pocket,’ said Henry. ‘Look, it’s all bulging out – at t
hat side. It looks to me ’xactly like a bomb.’

  ‘You ever seen a bomb?’ said William.

  ‘I may’ve done,’ said Henry. ‘I may quite possibly have done. Anyway, it looked to me like a bomb. That’s all I say. I can only say how it looks to me. I don’t know how bombs look to other folks.’

  The figure was already disappearing round the bend in the road. The Outlaws hurried after it.

  ‘Hope his bomb doesn’t go off suddenly,’ said Henry, who was keeping in the rear. ‘Looks to me rather’s if it would.’

  ‘Well, it’d kill him first, wun’t it?’ said William.

  ‘I don’ know. He might turn round an’ throw it back at us sudden.’

  ‘He doesn’t know we’re here.’

  ‘Oh, doesn’t he! He knows everything. D’you remember when he led that other man – what d’you call him, Paulovitch – on an’ on, thinkin’ that he was followin’, an’ that Dimtritch din’ know he was there, an’ suddenly Dimtritch turned an’ stabbed him an’ left him for dead. D’you remember?’

  The Outlaws perceptibly slackened pace.

  ‘He’s goin’ in at Mr Jones’s gate.’

  ‘He’s goin’ to kill Mr Jones, p’raps.’

  ‘Don’ be silly. Mr Jones’s gone away.’

  ‘He mus’ be the man who’s taken Mr Jones’s house while he’s away.’

  ‘What’s he come to live here for, anyway?’

  ‘Some plot, you bet – somebody he wants to bomb, or murder, or revenge, somehow.’

  ‘I think he’s got a princess imprisoned there in Mr Jones’s house,’ said Douglas, ‘an’ I think we ought to rescue her.’

  ‘How?’ said William.

  ‘Well, we’ve gotter think of some plan for that,’ said Douglas.

  The discussion was resumed on the way to school the next afternoon.

  ‘What we’ve gotter do,’ said William, ‘is to find out what he’s doing here.’

  ‘We don’ even know what he’s calling himself,’ said Henry. ‘He’s sure to be calling himself something different from Dimtritch now.’