William the Good (28 page)

‘ONE MORE INTERRUPTION FROM YOU, MY BOY,’ SAID THE MAN WITH THE SPECTACLES, ‘AND OUT YOU GO!’

Ginger was anxiously awaiting his return.

‘Hello,’ he greeted him, ‘you’ve not got it after all! Whatever’s been happenin’ in there?’

‘All sorts of things,’ groaned William, rubbing his neck where the cross-eyed man had held it. ‘Crumbs! It was awful. They’re havin’ a meetin’ an’ it
kept sayin’ things an’ they thought it was me. It was awful! An’ he’s nearly broke my neck.’

‘Where is it?’ asked Ginger anxiously. He meant the parrot, not William’s neck. He wasn’t interested in William’s neck.

‘It went behind a sort of cupboard place,’ said William, still tenderly caressing his neck, ‘an’ it was quite quiet till they started havin’ a meetin’
an’ then it started sayin’ its things an’ they thought it was me. Crumbs! It was
awful! . . .
It’s right behind the cupboard thing now. I kept tryin’ to see it
but I couldn’t.’

‘Let’s see if we can see it from the window,’ suggested Ginger.

They crept very, very cautiously up to the window. They could see the parrot quite plainly. It was on the floor behind the cupboard gazing about it with a sort of cynical enjoyment. It evidently
had not spoken since it had secured William’s ignominious ejection. It suddenly saw the Outlaws watching it through the window and began to walk towards them across the floor. So intent was
the audience upon Miss Rubina Thomasina Fawshaw’s discourse (she was giving a lucid account of the effect of alcohol upon the liver) that no one noticed the parrot walking sedately across the
floor from the cabinet to the window. Having reached the window it stood for a few minutes gazing wickedly up at the Outlaws’ faces. Then silently, suddenly it hopped up on to the open window
sill. William put out his hand.

‘Got it!’ he breathed.

But he spoke too soon. He hadn’t got it. With a chuckle it flew off over the fence into the next garden, leaving William and Ginger gazing after it despairingly.

‘
Well!
’ said William after an eloquent silence. ‘We seem sort of
doomed
with that bird!’

‘Yes, an’ if we’ve not got it put back by the time my aunt comes back we’ll be still more doomed,’ said Ginger dejectedly.

‘Come on then,’ said William, ‘let’s catch it. It’s only just sitting on a tree.’

‘Oh, shut up!’ called the parrot, challengingly, from a small almond tree on which he was perching.

The two Outlaws scaled the fence and very, very cautiously approached the truant.

‘Got him
this
time,’ said William again joyfully as his outstretched hand descended.

But again he spoke too soon. The parrot squawked ‘Get out, you fool,’ and slipping nimbly away from William’s grimy hand flew on to the window sill where it hopped up and down
excitedly as if executing a war dance.

‘Go on, Ginger,’ said William. ‘Get him! You can get him there all right!’

Ginger pounced desperately, but the parrot merely hopped through the open window into the front room of the house.

‘
There!
’ said William, hoarse with horror and despair. ‘It’s gone into
another
house. Well, I’ve jolly well done enough goin’ into houses after
it an’ getting pushed out with someone’s fingers nearly meetin’ through my neck. You can jolly well go after it, this time.’

‘A’ right,’ said Ginger meekly, surveying the room with some anxiety.

‘Go on – it’s all right. It’s empty ’cept for it,’ said William.

The parrot had perched upon an electric light that hung down from the centre of the ceiling and was swinging briskly to and fro. Ginger slowly pushed up the window and slung one leg over the
ledge.

Then he looked back at William.

‘’S goin’ to be an awful job catchin’ him alone,’ he said pleadingly.

William had been regretting his decision not to join the expedition. William hated not being in the thick of an adventure.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘I bet it will take both of us to catch him.’

And despite his recent ignominious ejection he slung his leg over the sill after Ginger with quite pleasurable feelings of zest and excitement.

The parrot had stopped swinging on the electric light bulb now and was hopping to and fro upon a polished table. He suggested someone slightly inebriated trying to perform a very complicated
dance. He probably
was
slightly inebriated with freedom and excitement. . . . The two Outlaws approached him. With one beady eye fixed on them, but still merrily performing his dance, he
waited again till Ginger’s outstretched hand was a fraction of an inch from his back, and then with a diabolical chuckle he flew straight out of the window again.

‘
Crumbs!
’ said William. ‘Quick! Let’s go after him or we shan’t know which way he’s gone.’

But just at that minute there came the sound of the opening of a door and voices approached the room. Someone was coming. . . . There wasn’t time to get out of the window. Already someone
was holding the handle and the voices were just outside the door. Quick as lightning William and Ginger plunged beneath the nearest piece of furniture which happened to be a sofa with –
mercifully – a frilled loose cover that hid them from view. There wasn’t room to move or breathe but they felt grateful for the temporary shelter it afforded.

They were in fact so much exercised with the problem of existence in a space that did not allow for movement or breathing that at first they did not listen to what the voice were saying. But
haying partially solved the problem of existence in the cramped space and becoming gradually accustomed to the taste of the carpet their attention fixed itself upon the conversation that was going
on in the room. Neither Ginger nor William could see the speakers, but the voices were those of a girl and a man. The girl was saying:

‘Then we’ll do Latham House on Wednesday?’

‘I think so,’ said the man’s voice.

‘What time?’

‘I suggest three o’clock. Will that do for you?’

‘Yes. Quite well. You’re
sure
they’re away?’

‘Oh, yes. . . . We can get the things ready in the coach-house. All the servants are away too.’

‘Good! I hope it will be a success. Frenshams’ was a
great
success, wasn’t it?’

They may have said more, but the Outlaws heard no more. They were dazed and astounded by the one stupendous fact. They had found the burglars. They swallowed several mouthfuls of carpet dust in
sheer ecstasy. . . . They had found the burglars. Soon the closing of the door and the silence that followed it told them that the room was empty, and they crept out of their hiding-place, tiptoed
across the room and clambered out of the still open window.

‘Gosh!’ said William as soon as they were outside. ‘The burglars!’

Ginger was no less thrilled than William, but the parrot still lay upon his conscience.

‘The parrot!’ he murmured, looking around at the parrotless expanse of sky and road and garden that met his gaze.

William looked about too. There was certainly no sign of the parrot.

‘Oh, never mind the parrot!’ he said contemptuously. ‘What’s a
parrot
?’

Ginger murmured, truly enough, that a parrot is a parrot, but William stoutly denied it and even Ginger felt that a parrot paled into complete insignificance besides a burglar.

‘She won’t know it was us,’ said William (though without conviction), ‘and, anyway, it’s lunch time. I’m
sick
of tryin’ to catch parrots.
Burglars are more fun and I bet they’re a jolly sight easier to catch.’

‘What d’you think we’d better do?’ said Ginger. ‘Go round to Latham House at three o’clock an’ catch ’em?’

But even William’s glorious optimism could not quite visualise this capture. He frowned for a minute perplexedly. Then he said:

‘Tell you what! We’ll get Robert to come an’ help. He’s mad keen on catchin’ ’em.’

‘And Hector,’ said Ginger.

‘All right,’ agreed William. ‘Robert an’ Hector. We’ll tell ’em after dinner – on condition that they let us help with the catchin’.’

‘Of course,’ said Ginger.

William found that there was no need to lead up to the question of the burglaries. Robert at lunch could talk of nothing else. He had decided quite definitely to capture the
burglar. William knew that this decision was inspired solely by a desire to attain a heroic standard in the eyes of Miss Julia Bellairs. Robert wanted to catch the burglar not for the sake of the
adventure but so that Miss Julia Bellairs might hear that he had caught the burglar. While despising the motive William appreciated the decision.

‘My theory is,’ said Robert importantly, ‘that they’ll do our house this afternoon. You see, they’ve probably discovered that we’ll all going to be out this
afternoon. They know that the maids are going to the fair at Balton and that I’m going out to the tennis club, and that you and Ethel are going to the Barlows’ and William’s going
to tea to Ginger’s. They always find out exactly which house is going to be empty during the afternoon. Now I’ve decided to pretend to go out to tennis, but I’m going to come back
by the back way and wait in the house for them. They won’t be expecting me, you see, and I’ll overpower them before they’ve time to resist and—’

‘How will you overpower them?’ said Ethel, quite unimpressed.

‘Well,’ said Robert still more importantly, ‘I know a very good way to do that. I was reading in the paper about a man who did it. He knew that a burglar was coming, so he
arranged a pail of water over the back door, where he knew he’d come in because it was the only door not fastened and it fell down on him and drenched him and took away his breath, so that
the man got him tied up before he recovered his breath.’

‘You mustn’t do any such things, Robert,’ said Mrs Brown indignantly, ‘
ruining
the carpets!’

William took no part in the discussion. William believed in doing one thing at a time and he was giving his whole attention to the Irish stew. Moreover, he realised that Robert must be
approached privately, man to man, on the subject. Women had such queer ideas. Both his mother and his sister would, he knew, want to mess up the whole thing by bringing in the police.

So he followed Robert into the garden after lunch to impart his information.

‘I say, Robert,’ he began carelessly. ‘I know all about those burglars. They aren’t comin’ here today. They’re going’ to Latham House. At three
o’clock. I heard ’em say so.’

‘Rubbish!’ said Robert with elder brother contempt and severity.

‘
Honest
, Robert!’ persisted William. ‘I’m not makin’ it up. Honest, I’m not. Ask Ginger. We heard ’em talkin’ when we was out this
morning.’

‘Where did you hear them talking?’ said Robert.

William hesitated. To answer that question accurately would be to reveal the whole parrot episode – an episode far better left unrevealed. Robert would have no compunction at all about
informing Ginger’s aunt that it had been Ginger and William who had let her parrot out. After a slight hesitation William replied unblushingly:

‘Up on the common. On one of the seats.’

He assuaged his conscience (that very amenable organ) firstly by the consideration that the story in the main was true and the details were unessential and secondly that probably all land was
common land before they built houses on it, so really he wasn’t telling a story at all.

‘What were they saying?’ said Robert with slightly less contempt and severity.

‘Well, one of them was a woman and she said, “Let’s go an’ burgle Latham House tomorrow,” an’ they arranged to do that, an’ they said that they knew
that it would be empty an’ they said they’d get their jemmies and things ready in the coach-house an’ one of them said what a lot of fine things they got out of
Fremshams’.

‘Yes, they said that,’ said William vaguely, ‘at least, I
think
they said that. They said somethin’ like it, anyway. About all the fine things they stole out of
it.’

‘What were they like to look at?’ said Robert.

William realised that if he’d heard them talking on a bench he must have seen them.

‘Oh, they looked – they jus’ looked like thieves,’ said William vaguely. ‘He’d got a beard an’ she’d got black hair.’

So plainly did William visualise the couple he described – a Russian communist and a vamp once seen on the pictures – that he could hardly believe he hadn’t really seen
them.

‘She’d got a lot of jewellery on – things she’d stole, I suppose – an’ he’d got a muffler halfway up his face an’ a cap pulled down low over his
eyes.’

‘How did you know he’d got a beard then?’ said Robert.

William was taken aback just for a second, but quickly recovered himself.

‘It was one of those sorts of beards that stretch right up to the top of the person’s face and then it went down underneath his muffler too. It was a big sort of beard.’

‘Did you say Ginger was with you?’

‘Yes. We thought you an’ Hector would like to catch ’em without troublin’ the police.’

‘Oh, the police!’ said Robert with a scornful laugh (Robert had been reading a good many detective stories lately). ‘The police aren’t much good at anything like this.
They muddle every case they touch. But,’ rather coldly, ‘I don’t see why it was necessary to bring Hector into it. I could have managed it perfectly well without
Hector.’

‘Well, nacherally,’ retorted William. ‘Ginger wanted to have Hector in it same as I wanted to have you in it. If we thought we could have done it ourselves we wouldn’t
have had either of you in it, but we thought that probably bein’ bigger than what we are they’d overpower us before we’d time to catch ’em properly. But, anyway, Ginger
heard it same as I did, an’ he’s as much right to have Hector in it as I have to have you.’

‘All right,’ said Robert stiffly, ‘I suppose it cannot be helped now, in any case. I suppose he’ll have told him.’

A month ago Robert would have delighted in having Hector to catch the thieves with him. A month ago Hector had been his bosom friend. But since a month ago they had both met Miss Julia Bellairs,
and now Hector was no longer his bosom friend but his rival. They gave each other now only the barest sign of recognition when meeting in the street, and when they were both in the presence of the
beloved they affected to be unaware of each other’s existence. . . . The one drawback in Robert’s eyes to the present situation was that the glory of catching the thieves red-handed
would have to be shared with Hector. Still, probably the beloved would understand that Hector had been merely Watson to his Sherlock Holmes. If she did not so understand Robert decided it should
not be for lack of hints. . . . ‘A useful fellow, Hector,’ he would say, ‘of course, I couldn’t have brought it off without him. I planned the whole thing, of course, but I
couldn’t have pulled it off without someone to help me.’