 Did William kill the man?
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Not if you believe me. For punishment, he locked me in a windowless room and told me to sit still until he came back. It wasn't so bad a punishment, except that when Dad closed the door, the light turned off and I was left there in the dark. One day, to prove me a liar, he opened and closed the door a few times from outside. My mother and father must have been glad when I was sent away to reform school after my thirteenth birthday party, the one If you believe any of this at all, you'll see why it couldn't be me who did the stealing. There was reason for me to steal, if I could have got away with it. Partridge didn't seem to notice me, but I knew that was an act. Some skin-and-bones character I didn't know struggled out of his seat, amening. As soon as I got cleaned up, I was going to have dinner in a good restaurant, and I was going to order such expensive food and leave such a large tip for the waiter and send one to the chef that they were going to think I was rich, and some executive with some brokerage firm would see me and say to himself, "Hmm, executive material. I beg your pardon, sir—" just like the razor-blade comic-strip ads in the old magazines that Frankie the Pig sells three for a quarter. They passed me, every one of them, and marched out of the meeting room into the kitchen. Even Partridge made his way down from the auctioneer's stand like a vulture with a busted wing and darted through his private door. Crockery was ringing and men were slurping inside. Following the wallboard, I went down the side of the room and behind the last row of chairs, closer, closer, and halfway up the room again to the entrance—the entrance and the little wooden box fastened to the wall beside it. The box was fastened to the vertical tongue-and-groove laths of the woodwork, not the wall. It wouldn't go up, down, left or right. While keeping a lookout for Partridge and somebody stepping out of the kitchen for a pull on a bottle, I spotted the clock for the first time, a Western Union clock high up at the back of the hall. "This," Brother Partridge said, "is one of the most profound experiences of my life."
 yes - he used the pipe and killed the man
 no - he watched the men do it, but William thought it was the spirits  yes, though he doesn't remember  yes - he used the pipe and killed the man  no - the two men did it when William's back was turned