William Read online

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry, ‘but none of us have any relations that we think was drowned in a shipwreck.’

  ‘Oh, do shut up arguing about everything I say,’ said William wearily. ‘You’ve got no sense at all. D’you think our parents would bother to tell us about every single relation they ever had and what happened to ’em?’

  ‘I’ll ask mine tonight,’ said Henry, ‘whether they’ve got any relation they think was drowned in a shipwreck.’

  ‘They’ll prob’ly say they haven’t ’cause they’ll have forgotten him but I bet you anythin’ one of ’em has. Why’s he tryin’ to kill us if they haven’t?’

  The question seemed so unanswerable that the Outlaws did not attempt to answer it.

  But for a time there was so little to feed their suspicion that it might have died away altogether had they not happened to go past the two cottages one day a week or so later and found the garden of Oaklands empty, the blinds of the house drawn and a general air of desolation over the whole. They hung over the gate for some time, but it is of course no fun hanging over the gate of a garden when there is no one in the garden to send you away. So after a time they walked on down the road.

  They had long since ceased to dally over the gate of Beechgrove.

  ‘Wonder where he’s gone,’ said Ginger meditatively.

  ‘He’s killed him, of course,’ said William. ‘Squirted him with poison or jabbed at him with a poisoned spade same as he’d’ve done at us if we hadn’t run off so quick. Poor old Scraggy.’ William heaved a compassionate sigh for the victim. ‘He couldn’t run off quick so he got him.’

  ‘But why should he want to kill Scraggy?’ said Henry. ‘I thought it was us he wanted to kill ’cause of the money that was comin’ to us from the relation what people thought was drowned in a shipwreck.’

  ‘You talk,’ said William irritably, ‘’s if there was only one reason for anyone wantin’ to kill anyone. ’F you’d read all those books what Ginger ’n’ me’ve read you’d know that there’s dozens an’ dozens of reasons for people killin’ people. I bet this ole man Scraggy had a hoard of money hid in his house. He was a miser, an’ the other man found out he was a miser with hearin’ him countin’ his money through the wall. The noise of it kept him awake at night prob’ly so’s he couldn’t sleep, an’ he made a hole in the wall so’s he could watch him to see what he was doin’ an’ he saw him countin’ out sovereigns. An’ then he made his plot. He’s been practisin’ with poisons all this while prob’ly pretendin’ to be gard’nin’. He tried to practise on us an’ I bet if he’d’ve been able to hit us we’d be dead ’n’ buried by now.’

  ‘What d’you think he’s done with the body?’ said Ginger hoarsely.

  ‘Oh, there’s lots of ways of gettin’ rid of bodies,’ said William carelessly. ‘That never worries anyone – gettin’ rid of bodies. Buryin’s the easiest . . . Yes, I think most of ’em bury ’em. Yes, I think that’s what they do. Bury ’em . . . Course!’ with a sudden burst of inspiration, ‘that’s what he’s been doin’ – pretending to be int’rested in gard’nin’ all this while jus’ so’s to be able to bury him without people suspectin’ anythin’. You see, if he sudd’nly dug a hole to bury him people would suspect somethin’ an’ they’d dig up the bit he’d dug to see what he’d buried there, but if he’d been diggin’ up his garden for weeks an’ weeks no one could find where he’d dug the hole to bury him ’cause it would all look fresh dug up an’ so no one would suspect anythin’. I bet he’s one of the very clever ones. Well, I mean, that’s clever, isn’t it? I bet we wouldn’t’ve thought of that – I bet that if we’d murdered anyone we’d never think of doin’ that – diggin’ over our gardens for weeks beforehand to make it all look fresh dug over. No, I bet if we murdered anyone we’d simply dig a hole an’ bury ’em an’ then someone clever’d come along an’ find someone disappeared an’ a bit of our garden dug up jus’ about the size of a man an’ he’d dig it up again an’ find ’em an’ then we’d get hung. No, he’s one of the very clever ones. I bet he’s one of the sort that have poison in a ring an’ jus’ when they’re goin’ to be caught they raise it to their lips an’ fall lifeless to the ground. Sooner than be hung, you know. I’d sooner do that than be hung myself. I bet that’s the sort I’d be if I was one.’

  ‘Wonder what he’d say,’ said Douglas thoughtfully, ‘if you asked him where ole Scraggy was.’

  ‘Let’s go ’n’ ask him an’ see,’ said William, promptly turning on his heel.

  William had been walking away from the scene of the crime more and more reluctantly. After all, when an opportunity offered itself of entering his chosen career it seemed foolish to neglect it.

  ‘That’s how I’ll start,’ said William, assuming his stern frown of leadership. ‘I’ll ask him quite innocent where Scraggy is an’ I’ll watch how he looks an’ what he says. That’s what they often do. Only the very cleverest ones can help lookin’ guilty. D’you remember in “The Myst’ry of the Sundial” the man couldn’t help keep lookin’ at his rose bed where he’d buried him? Couldn’t help lookin’ at it. Kept on lookin’ at it. Sort of scared of it. An’ they noticed that an’ that was what made ’em suspicious.’

  ‘William,’ said Douglas, ‘I don’t think you ought to go back an’ ask him that, you know. It seems sort of dangerous to me. S’pose he got savage an’ squirted poison at us. It seems sort of silly to me to go back talkin’ to him now we know he’s a murderer.’

  ‘No, I think it’ll be all right,’ said William earnestly. ‘I think it’ll be all right. I don’t think they often do two murders so near together. They’d be frightened to. You can kill one person without anyone suspectin’ – except someone very clever – but if you start killin’ everyone what comes along nacherally people get sort of suspicious. I mean when nearly everyone someone meets dies they nacherally get suspicious an’ start cuttin’ ’em up to see if they really died nacheral. That’s how most murderers get found out. They get sort of reckless. They say, “Well, that one went off all right. Let’s try another.” But I don’t think this one’s one of the reckless ones. I think he’s too careful to be one of the reckless ones.’

  They had reached the gate of Beechgrove. William approached it cautiously. Douglas still more cautiously hung behind. William was relieved to see that the man had neither syringe nor spade ready to hand. He was engaged in the innocent occupation of tying up roses with raffia. Emboldened by this, William leaned precariously over the gate.

  ‘Come back, William,’ whispered Douglas. ‘He might have a pistol.’

  The man looked up. Having no implement to hand, and being at a critical point in his operation, he merely growled at them ferociously.

  ‘’Scuse me,’ said William with elaborate politeness. ‘’Scuse me interruptin’ you, but would you kin’ly tell me where ole Sc – where the gentleman who lives next door is?’

  ‘Mr Barton?’ snapped the man. ‘He’s gone away for a holiday, and be off with you or I’ll—’

  William hurled valour to the winds and fled discreetly.

  At the end of the road he collected his panting followers.

  ‘Thought I’d better pretend to be scared of him,’ he explained casually, ‘to put him off the scent. It’s always best to pretend to be scared of ’em to put ’em off the scent.’

  ‘D’you think p’raps he has gone away for a holiday really, William, after all?’ said Henry tentatively.

  ‘Course not!’ said William with deep scorn, ‘course not. That’s what he’d say nacherally. He’s lucky, of course, that no one lives with old Scraggy an’ so no one can have suspicion. That’s what they always say. They always say they’ve gone away for a holiday. Then they stay on for a bit so as not to be suspicious, then go abroad, so’s not to get caught.’

  ‘He di’n’t look any richer, William,’ said Henry, doubtfully, ‘he hadn’t bought a new suit or got new curtains or had his gate mended or anything.’

  ‘No,’ admitted William,
‘but sometimes they kill the man an’ then can’t find the money. D’you remember, Ginger, in The Myst’ry of the One-Eyed Man, how he did that? He knew he was a miser an’ had a lot of money hid away in his house, so he killed him shootin’ through the little hole he’d made to watch him countin’ his money, an’ then he can’t find the money. Looked for it everywhere but can’t find it. So he had to hang about lookin’ for it, an’ that was how they got hold of him ’cause of him hangin’ about lookin’ for the money ’stead of goin’ off abroad where they couldn’t catch him. I bet that that’s what he’s doin’. I bet that he’s killed ole Scraggy for his money an’ now can’t find it same as the man in The Myst’ry of the One-Eyed Man. He’s buried ole Scraggy in his garden an’ now he’s hangin’ about tryin’ to find his money.’ He stopped dead in the middle of the road. ‘I say, let’s go back again an’ see what he’s doin’ now.’

  The Outlaws, ever ready for a little more excitement, agreed. Very, very cautiously they crept back down the road till they reached the two cottages again. They happened to arrive there at the moment when the tenant of Beechgrove was issuing from his neighbour’s doorway, having watered his plants and fed his cat as he had promised to do in his neighbour’s absence.

  Unaware of the eight eyes watching him through the hedge be paused for a minute in his own garden and thoughtfully contemplated his rose bed. His roses weren’t doing at all well. It was very disappointing. He must get some sort of insecticide tomorrow. He went slowly indoors. The Outlaws emerged from the ditch.

  ‘There!’ gasped William. ‘There! Well, if that isn’t proof. Abs’lute proof. Di’n’t you see him? All of you? Comin’ out of his house where he’d been lookin’ for the money. Frownin’ cause he can’t find it. An’ simply can’t keep his eyes off his rose bed. D’you notice that. Simply can’t. Jus’ like the man in The Myst’ry of the Sundial. That’s where he’s buried him. An’ he can’t find the money. Well, that’s proof i’n’t it?’

  ‘I think we oughter go to the police,’ said Douglas, ‘now that we know.’

  ‘No, I’m goin’ to do it same as they do in books,’ said William firmly. ‘They never go to the police in books. They find out all about it first an’ then they jus’ send for the police to take ’em to prison.’

  ‘Well, we’ve found out all about it,’ said Ginger.

  ‘We’ve not found out enough,’ said William earnestly. ‘Not enough to send him to prison. If we hand him to the police now he’d just get out of it somehow. We’ve gotter get so much proof that he can’t get out of it before we send for the police.’

  ‘How we goin’ to get any more than what we’ve got?’ said Ginger. ‘Dig up his rose bed for the dead body or somethin’ like that?’

  ‘N-no,’ said William slowly. ‘I don’ think we’d better do that. We’ve gotter be cautious. I mean I haven’t got a pistol yet nor a bottle of that anecdote stuff an’ I haven’t any money to buy any till nex’ Saturday an’ I bet I shan’t have then what with all the money they take off me for breakin’ things. I don’ quite know how much pistols an’ bottles of anecdote costs but I bet they cost more than they’ll give me when they find the mincing machine’s broke though I bet you anything it would have broke anyway an’ they were quite tiny bits of wood I put through an’ it must’ve been a rotten mincing machine to get broke with them . . . what was I talking about?’ he ended abruptly.

  ‘You were sayin’ you wun’t go diggin’ up the body,’ said Ginger.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said William. ‘Well, I wun’t. We can’t do it without makin’ a noise an’ he’d jus’ come out an’ kill us an’ bury us in his garden in the night an’ no one would ever know what had happened to us. They’d prob’ly think we’d run away to sea an’ not bother any more about us. It would be silly to let him murder us like that before we’d got him hung.’

  ‘What shall we do, then?’ said Ginger anxiously; ‘he might find the money any time an’ go off abroad before we’ve got him.’

  ‘We’ll have to think out a plan,’ said William, thrusting his hands into his pockets with a scowl indicative of deep thought. ‘D’you remember in The Myst’ry of the One-Eyed Man he dressed up like the man the man had murdered an’ went to the man an’ got someone to hide with pieces of paper an’ pencils an’ write down all the man who’d murdered the man said an’ he was so scared thinkin’ he saw the man he’d murdered that he carried on somethin’ terrible tellin’ all about the murder an’ the men that were hid with pieces of paper an’ pencils wrote down all he said an’ that counts in lor. I mean, if you can get a murd’rer to tell about his murder an’ get men hid with pieces of paper an’ pencils to write down what he says, it counts. He gets hung.’

  ‘Yes, but who could dress up as ole Scraggy?’ said Douglas dubiously.

  ‘I could,’ said William. ‘I bet you anythin’ I could. I’ve got a white beard an’ a bald head wig at home. Or, rather, Robert’s got ’em, but I could borrow them off him without him knowin’. An’ you could be hid with pieces of paper an’ pencils to take it down.’

  They looked doubtfully at William. Even with a white beard and a bald head wig it seemed difficult to imagine anyone more unlike Old Scraggy in appearance than William. Still – they were accustomed to follow William blindly.

  ‘All right,’ said Ginger, ‘we’d better go home an’ look for pencils and paper. I never know what happens to all the pencils in our house. I’m always bringin’ them home from school and then someone always bags them.’

  ‘We’d better start that part of it tomorrow,’ said William. ‘It’s nearly tea-time and—’

  ‘Quick,’ said Douglas, ‘he’s seen us an’ he’s gettin’ his squirt.’

  Like lightning the amateur detectives streaked down the road.

  The next afternoon they met together in the old barn to discuss their plans. William had brought his white beard and bald-headed wig, together with an old pair of trousers of Robert’s, which he had cut down to make long trousers for himself, an overcoat and muffler and a pair of dark spectacles. The trousers were still so long that he had to fasten them round his neck with string.

  The Outlaws inspected him carefully.

  ‘I think you look jus’ like him, William,’ said Ginger loyally.

  ‘Well,’ said Douglas, a little less enthusiastically, ‘you look as if you might be tryin’ to look like him, but – but you’ve gotter young sort of face for one thing an’ your own hair shows under the wig, an’ your trousers look sort of funny where you’ve cut ’em off.’

  ‘They’re jolly good trousers,’ said William indignantly, as he pushed his hair out of sight under the wig. ‘Robert paid a lot for ’em when he had ’em new. An’, anyway, I’ve got a bowler hat same as men wear an’ they can’t see my neck isn’t scraggy ’cause of my muffler. I think it was jolly clever of me to think of that.’

  ‘I think you look quite all right,’ said Henry. ‘’Specially if you go out to him when it’s getting dark when he can’t see you prop’ly.’

  ‘Well, anyway,’ said Ginger impatiently, ‘let’s start doin’ somethin’. We shall look silly if he finds the money an’ gets off abroad while we’re standin’ talkin’ here.’

  Guarding William carefully on either side, the little company set off across the fields. Certainly William looked a curious enough figure to attract attention anywhere, though he himself was evidently unaware of this and imagined his resemblance to the tenant of Oaklands to be complete.

  ‘You needn’t try to hide me from people on the road,’ he said testily; ‘if they see me they’ll only think it’s ole Scraggy back from his holiday. Come to that, I think it would be a good thing to go into the village an’ talk to a few of them pretendin’ to be ole Scraggy so as to get a bit of practice in bein’ him.’

  They managed, however, to dissuade him from this. They had had experience of William on occasions when his enthusiasm ran away with him.

  ‘You don’t want him to get word of it,’ said Ginger
; ‘he’d know someone was after him then an’ jus’ slip off abroad before anyone could stop him. That’s what they do when they know the man’s nearly got ’em. D’you remember in that one – I’ve forgotten its name – with a green face on the back – he did that. He knew they were after him an’ so he slipped off down to the ship to go abroad an’ they only jus’ managed to stop him in the nick of time jus’ as he was goin’ on to the ship that was goin’ abroad by pretendin’ to send him a message from a confederation—’

  ‘A what?’ said Henry.

  ‘YOU NEEDN’T TRY TO HIDE ME FROM PEOPLE ON THE ROAD,’ WILLIAM SAID TESTILY. ‘IF THEY SEE ME, THEY’LL ONLY THINK IT’S OLE SCRAGGY.’

  ‘A confederation,’ said Ginger impatiently. ‘A confederation means another crim’nal. Well, they sent him a message from a confederation to say that he’d found the money an’ put ’em off the track. An’ he believed it an’ came back an’ they were all detectives in disguise an’ they got him.’

  ‘Yes, I remember,’ said William, ‘that was a fine one. Wasn’t that the one where they saw a green skeleton walkin’ down the attic stairs?’

  ‘No,’ said Ginger, ‘it wasn’t that one at all. That was the one with the picture of a big splash of blood on the back.’

  ‘I remember that one,’ said William. ‘That was a jolly clever picture. If ever I write a book I’m goin’ to have a picture of a big splash of blood on the back like that. It’d make anyone want to read it. Anyone’d buy a book that had a picture of a big splash of blood on the back ’cause they’d know it would be a nice excitin’ one. I can’t think why more books don’t have excitin’ backs like that. It’s ’str’ordin’ry to me to see books like what one sees with girls’ faces an’ such-like on the backs. Who’d want to read a book with a girl’s face on the back? Anyone sens’ble would sooner read about a murder than a girl any day.’