William The Conqueror (13 page)

‘I found it in my garden,’ snapped his enemy.

‘It must have fell down, then,’ said William.

‘I shall confiscate
everything
of yours I find in my garden,’ said the enemy sternly.

She walked indoors. William sat motionless upon his fence. Through the window he could see her enter her dining-room and place Jumble’s collar in a cupboard.

He descended from the fence. Upon his freckled frowning face was a set look of purpose.

It was midnight. William, wearing an overcoat and a black mask, climbed cautiously over the fence and crept up Miss Montagu’s garden to Miss Montagu’s dining-room window. In one
pocket of his overcoat was his penknife, in the other a handsome pistol which had cost originally one shilling and sixpence, and which figured in most of the Outlaws’ adventures.

When he reached the dining-room window he took his penknife out of his pocket and began to attack the catch. His black mask kept slipping over his eyes, so he took it off and put it in his
pocket. Miss Montagu’s dining-room window was exactly like his own dining-room window, and William, in his character of robber chief, had often slipped back the catch of that with his
penknife. It was in any case a catch which an infant burglar could have manipulated in his sleep. William opened the window and entered Miss Montagu’s dining-room. Here he donned his black
mask. William, though sternly bent on what he looked upon as an errand of justice, was none the less thoroughly enjoying himself in his role. He opened the cupboard, and his eye beneath the black
mask gleamed. There they were – his two balls, Ginger’s ball, all his arrows, Jumble’s collar. With a little snort of triumph he put them all into his overcoat pocket.

Then a sound at the door made him turn, and his heart seemed to leap up to the top of his head and then down to the bottom of his boots. Miss Montagu stood in the doorway clutching a pink
dressing-gown about her. William looked round wildly for escape. There was none. The only alternative to flight was courage. He had recourse to that. He whipped his one-and-sixpenny pistol out of
his pocket.

‘Hands up,’ he croaked in a deep bass voice. ‘Hands up or I fire.’

It was a very dark night. All Miss Montagu could see was a vague form behind what was most certainly some sort of a revolver. She put up her hands.

‘I – I’m unarmed,’ she said with chattering teeth. ‘I’m a p-p-poor defenceless woman – think of your wife – think of your s-s-sister – think
of your m-m-mother – d-don’t, I beg of you, d-do anything rash.’

‘Sit down,’ ordered William in his raucous bass.

She sat down.

‘D-do be c-careful,’ she pleaded. ‘You know sometimes j-just an involunt-voluntary movement makes them g-go off. I haven’t anything really v-valuable, I assure you. I
– oh, d
-do
be c
-careful
,’ she screamed as William made a movement with his pistol.

William was backing past her slowly to the open window. At last he reached it. To his trembling victim on the chair who still held up her hands rather in the attitude of a lap dog in the act of
begging, it seemed as if he vanished suddenly and completely into the night.

She made her way unsteadily to the window and peered out into the darkness. There was no sign of him.

The danger was over. It was obviously time for her to faint or have hysterics. But there is something unsatisfactory in fainting or having hysterics without an audience. She rang the bell
violently. She screamed ‘Fire! Murder!’ at the top of her voice. Her domestics in various stages of undress gathered round her. Then, most effectively and dramatically and carefully,
she fainted on to the hearth-rug.

Meanwhile William, in his bedroom in black mask and pyjamas, was dancing a war dance round three balls, a heap of arrows, and a dog collar.

William was down in good time the next morning, but he found his next-door neighbour already in the dining-room. She was hatless, and looked disturbed but important.

‘Did you hear nothing?’ she was saying excitedly to Mrs Brown – who was smiling quite pleasantly in her relief that the visit had not the usual purpose of complaining of
William. ‘My house has been ransacked –
ransacked
from top to bottom. And when I disturbed him – well, I believe there were two or three of them, yes I’m quite sure
there were at least two of them – great
big
men, my dear Mrs Brown, both wearing masks – they covered me with revolvers.’

She became dramatic, and William looked on with great interest.

He saw Miss Montagu cover Mrs Brown with an imaginary revolver. Mrs Brown edged behind the sofa.

‘They threatened me with instant death if I moved hand or foot,’ continued Miss Montagu. She advanced threateningly upon Mrs Brown, the imaginary revolver in her hand. Mrs Brown sat
down, shut her eyes, and gave a little scream. ‘It was a most terrible experience, I assure you. I’ve been fainting on and off ever since.’

She sat down in Mrs Brown’s easy chair, evidently with every intention of fainting on and off again. Ellen, the housemaid, was just bringing in the coffee. Mrs Brown flew to meet her,
poured out a strong cup and flew back to Miss Montagu, who was wondering whether after all hysterics wouldn’t be more effective. Ellen, startled out of her professional calm, said:
‘What’s ’appened?’ and William watched the scene with his most inscrutable expression. Mrs Brown, in her panic, spilt half the hot coffee over Miss Montagu, and Miss Montagu
decided not to have hysterics after all, in case Mrs Brown, who was obviously losing her head, should use the rest of the hot coffee in an attempt to bring her round.

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

‘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.’