Sky High

by Michael Gilbert

  That morning her subconscious had no lack of material. One voice said menacingly, ‘the Vicar’, and another, like one of Tennyson’s irritating birds, cried Tim, Tim, Tim.’

  Liz dismissed both voices by heaving herself out of bed.

  On the way downstairs, she knocked at her son’s bedroom door. There was no answer. She knocked again, then opened the door and poked her head round. There was no one in the room. The bed looked as if it had been slept in with some violence.

  She went on downstairs, had a word with Anna, the Austrian girl, who had come as a temporary help in 1939 and had been there ever since; and then went into the dining-room where she got a second surprise.

  A plate and cup had already been used. She went back to the kitchen.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Anna. ‘He come down early and gets his own. I’m just up when he finishes.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  ‘He said he catches an early train. Lots of work to do today. I make some more coffee for you now?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Liz.

  It did not sound like Tim at all. He usually caught the nine o’clock train, and when he missed that he had been known to fall back, quite complacently, upon the nine-forty-five.

  Perhaps he really was working harder. Liz might have been able to make a more intelligent guess about that if she had had the least idea of what it was he did when he got up to London. He had never told her, and, after one rebuff, she had ceased to ask about it.

  At ten o’clock came the Vicar.

  ‘What an unpleasant business!’

  ‘It’s not nice,’ said Liz. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘It started,’ said the Vicar solemnly, ‘because I happened to be polishing my spectacles last night, in my study, and I polished rather—er—vigorously and broke the bridge. Most provoking. Then I remembered that I had left my only other pair of reading glasses on the ledge inside the pulpit.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Let me see, it must have been about half-past nine. Yes. I walked up to the church and let myself in by the wicket door—’

  ‘Was it locked?’

  ‘Yes. Luckily I had brought my own key with me – there only are the two, mine, and the one I lend you for choir practices. Then, as I went past the offertory box I noticed’—having reached his climax the Vicar paused for a moment (it was one of the oratorical tricks with which, Liz reflected, he often embellished a poorly thought-out sermon)—’that the lid was very slightly raised. Someone had been tampering with it.’

  ‘And it was empty?’

  ‘Quite empty.’

  ‘What did you do about it?’

  ‘I was so upset, I forgot even to collect my glasses. I walked straight round to Constable Queen’s cottage.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he was very helpful.’

  ‘He was out – on a patrol, I understand. His wife was there and she let me use her telephone. I spoke to Sergeant Gattie at Bramshott.’

  ‘Yes. I should think you might get some service there. What did you do then?’

  ‘Then I telephoned you.’

  ‘It was half-past nine when you went to the church, and it was quite half-past eleven when you telephoned me. You must have lost some time somewhere.’

  The Vicar looked somewhat taken aback at this ruthless analysis. Then he said, ‘I was very upset. I spent some time in reflection before I telephoned you.’

  ‘Just general reflection, on the dishonesty of human beings, or something more in particular?’

  The Vicar compressed his already thin lips.

  ‘I was troubled as to what to do for the best. I was up at the church myself at six o’clock yesterday evening and the offertory box was undisturbed then.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mrs. Artside, slowly, as some of the implications of this sank in. ‘You’re quite sure about that?’

  ‘Quite certain. The reason I went up to the church at that time – one of the reasons – was to put an offering into the box from an American lady who had been staying with us. I could not have failed to notice if there had been anything amiss.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that’s right. The church was open to the public at that time.’

  ‘The west wicket door was open. I closed it and locked it when I left.’

  ‘And we start our choir practice about half-past seven.’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘It doesn’t leave a lot of time, does it?’

  ‘It doesn’t really,’ agreed the Vicar politely.

  Liz felt there was more to it than that. She was right. The Vicar compressed his lips once more and said, ‘Did your son give you the keys after he had locked up?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry about that, I told him to drop them in at the Vicarage, but he forgot. He gave them to me last night when he got in. I rather fancy—why, yes. There they are on the mantelshelf.’

  The Vicar got up, retrieved the keys, and said, ‘Thank you’. There were three of them, two large and one small. He stood for a moment swinging them by the ring which joined them.

  ‘It passes my comprehension,’ he said at last, ‘how anyone could get into the church when it is locked.’

  Liz thought of Brimberley Church, with its narrow windows, further darkened by wire netting on the outer side, its thick walls and its massive doors.

  ‘I don’t believe they could,’ she agreed.

  ‘Then how—’

  ‘Since you ask me,’ said Liz slowly, ‘I can only think that the thief must have slipped in when we were busy singing in the vestry – the wicket door would be standing open at that time, of course – and rifled the box. We were making enough noise with our singing not to have heard anything.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it might have been that.’ The way he said it made it plain that it didn’t fit in with his preconceived ideas on the subject.

  ‘Well, when else could it have been?’ asked Liz, the beginnings of a note of belligerence in her voice. ‘I opened the church myself. Most of the choir were waiting in the porch when I got there and we all went straight in together. Anyway, I don’t suppose you suspect them.’

  ‘No, no. Of course not.’

  ‘Then after the service, as you know, Tim locked up.’

  ‘Yes,’

  For the first time in the interview she realised what the Vicar was driving at. Being a woman of exceptional balance she did not fly off the handle. She simply left the next move to him.

  ‘Do you suppose,’ said the Vicar at last, ‘that your son may have let the keys out of his possession at any time yesterday evening and some—er, dishonest person got hold of them?’

  ‘I don’t see how they could. The keys were in his raincoat pocket when he got back here just after eleven.’

  ‘Did he tell you where he had been in the interim?’

  ‘The interim is, I fear, for the moment a closed book.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘However, I can easily ask about it when Tim gets home this evening. If it should turn out that he entrusted the keys for a couple of hours to a well-known church robber I’ll let you know.’

  That’s very good of you.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Stinking little rat,’ she added furiously to herself, as she wheeled out her motor-cycle for the run to Bramshott and the day’s shopping.

  At half-past eleven she was seated in one of the ingles of the Inglenook Cafe.

  She was sharing her table with a pleasant, pig-faced woman. She had been introduced to her at several fêtes and socials, and never having grasped her name was now reduced to referring to her as Mrs. Um.

  ‘And how is the Harvest Festival Anthem coming along?’ asked Mrs. Um.

  ‘Not so badly,’ said Liz. ‘I wish they’d put a little more coffee in the coffee here. What we need is one really reliable alto.’

  ‘We are doing the Kyrie from Bach’s Mass in B Minor,’ said Mrs. Um. It was now clear just why she had introduced the topic.

  ‘Rather gloo
my for a Harvest Festival.’

  ‘Surely, Mrs. Artside, great music can never be gloomy.’

  ‘It depends how you sing it. Talk of the devil. There are both my much-maligned altos. Hullo Sue. Lucy!’

  There was only one empty chair at the table. Liz dexterously hooked a fourth from under a small man who was hesitating about sitting down.

  ‘What a morning,’ said Lucy. She deposited a bursting shopping bag in the gangway, where it would be certain to trip up the next passer-by. ‘The shops are getting more and more crowded.’

  ‘Oh for the old days,’ said Liz, ‘when you rang up the butcher.’

  ‘You never.’

  ‘Certainly you did. And bullied him about last week’s joint. Butchers expected it in those days.’

  ‘Well,’ said Sue. ‘You were spoilt. I can’t remember any time when shopping was any different, and it seems quite natural this way to me.’

  ‘I don’t remember a great deal about before the war,’ said Lucy defiantly. ‘I was quite young.’

  ‘I was practically non-existent,’ said Sue. ‘Who’s meant to be serving today?’

  ‘It’s the Second and Third Witch,’ said Liz. ‘You must have seen Lady Macbeth as you came in. She’s doing the home-made cakes.’

  Seeing Mrs. Um looking puzzled Liz explained. ‘We’ve come to the conclusion that everyone who works here is a character out of Shakespeare. I think it was Ophelia who started it. That pale girl with long blonde hair who used to bring your coffee with two biscuits and a far-away look.’

  ‘She went off with a soldier,’ said Lucy. ‘We never heard whether she committed suicide.’

  ‘And Caliban. You must remember Caliban. He used to work in the back kitchen and leer at the girls.’

  Mrs. Um still looked puzzled.

  ‘You mean they are actors and actresses,’ she said.

  ‘Just a joke,’ said Liz.

  ‘Talking about jokes,’ said Sue hastily, ‘or rather, not talking about jokes at all, rather the contrary, what’s all this about someone robbing the Vicar?’

  ‘I heard about that,’ said Lucy. ‘I couldn’t make out what it was all about. He seems to be making out that it was something to do with the choir.’

  Mrs. Um, still looking baffled, gathered up her parcels. What a curious village Brimberley was! The choir robbing the Vicar! She left her money on the table and departed.

  ‘Poor woman,’ said Sue. ‘Fancy having a face like that and no sense of humour either. Now, Liz, what’s all this about—?’

  The three ladies drew their chairs closer together whilst Liz expounded.

  ‘—and practically accused Tim of stealing the money.’

  ‘What nonsense,’ said Sue. ‘I was in the porch with Major MacMorris and nobody could have broken open the box without us hearing. Quite impossible.’

  ‘As if he’d do such a thing anyway,’ said Lucy warmly; so warmly that Sue glanced at her reflectively.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Liz, ‘I gather that the box wasn’t actually broken open at all. The lock had been picked. Rather carefully picked. I’m not an expert on picking locks, but it sounds like a job that could have taken some time.’

  ‘The idea being, I suppose,’ said Sue, ‘that whilst we were blasting away at the Old Hundredth some joker walked in and rifled the box. A neat idea, really. How much did he get?’

  ‘No one knows. The Vicar reckons it may have been two pounds.’

  ‘Not big league stuff.’

  ‘A hundred years ago,’ said Lucy, ‘you could be hanged for stealing forty shillings.’

  ‘Two hundred years ago you could be burned for witchcraft,’ said Sue. ‘Talking of which, here she comes at last. Two cups please. And a plate of biscuits.’

  II

  ‘Ah, Artside,’ said MacMorris cautiously.

  He was standing inside his front door, blocking the entrance.

  ‘Could I come in a moment?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes. Come in.’ He backed off and Tim walked past him into the hall.

  After a moment’s hesitation MacMorris closed the front door and said in his soft, almost feminine, voice: ‘We can’t very well talk in the hall. Perhaps you’d like to come into my snuggery.’

  ‘What I’ve got to say won’t take a minute,’ said Tim. ‘Still – it’s very good of you. All right.’

  They passed from the hall into the snuggery, which turned out to be quite an ordinary sitting-room, rather dimly lit, or rather, thought Tim, not exactly dimly lit, but oddly lit. None of the electric bulbs, of which there were quite a number, seemed designed actually to illuminate anything. Two of them, in bowls, threw their lights up on to the ceiling, and three more, from such incongruous perches as a Chelsea flower girl, a dimpled whisky bottle and the crows-nest of a ship in full sail, cast their respective lights on limited portions of the walls and floor.

  In spite of this unusual arrangement, Tim managed to pick out a number of interesting regimental groups and one undeniable photograph over the sideboard of MacMorris himself, some years younger, smiling in the uniform of a second lieutenant. Then he found himself reclining in a shabby leather armchair, the seat of which was tilted at such an angle that he could see practically nothing but the ceiling.

  ‘As I expect you’ve guessed,’ he said, ‘I’ve called to apologise. I’m afraid I made rather an ass of myself last night. The fact is, I was rather worried – things up in London—’

  ‘My dear chap, not another word. I quite understand. Business worries. They’re the very deuce. Even a poor old retired warrior like myself knows that.’

  He got up, and for an awful moment Tim thought he was going to come over and shake hands, but he moved instead to the sideboard.

  ‘Well, that’s really all there is to it,’ said Tim, canting himself into an upright position, like a patient coming out of the dentist’s chair. ‘I must be getting along, I’ve got—’

  ‘You’ll have a drop before you go, I hope.’

  MacMorris had deftly deployed two glasses, a syphon and a promising-looking bottle.

  ‘Well—’

  ‘That’s the style, old man. Soda or water? I think you’ll like it. It’s pre-war stock.’ He stood for a moment with the bottle in his hand and said, ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve often wanted to have a word with you. Tell me now, you were in the Commandos during the war, weren’t you?’

  ‘Not actually the Commandos. Special Service.’

  ‘But that was the same sort of thing?’

  ‘The same sort of thing, but a lot easier. We used to fool round the Aegean in dhows and land at unlikely spots and—oh—blow things up, and that sort of nonsense.’

  ‘I expect they taught you all about unarmed combat, and ju-jitsu and so on.’

  ‘All the assassin’s trade,’ said Tim. ‘Why? Do you happen to be in need of a reliable murderer? They’re rather a drug on the market at the moment.’ There was a shade of bitterness in his voice.

  ‘No, but I might need a reliable bodyguard.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘I didn’t really mean to tell anyone,’ said MacMorris. ‘It’s a stupid thing, and I expect a chap like you would laugh at it – but, well, someone’s been threatening my life.’

  ‘Threatening your life?’

  ‘I’ve been getting letters. I thought, at first, it was a joke, and of course, it still may be. Only – I’m not a man of violence myself, and it was getting me worried.’

  Refraining from any inquiry as to why he should have joined the Army if he eschewed violence, Tim said, ‘I suppose you kept them.’

  ‘I’ve got the last one. It came yesterday.’

  He went across to the desk in the corner, which was the largest piece of furniture in the room; rolled back the top, unlocked a drawer and brought out a sheet of white paper. There were letters pasted on in the form of words which said simply: ‘GET OUT AND STAY OUT THIS IS FINAL NOTICE.’

  ‘Short and to the point,’ said Tim.
<
br />   ‘What would you do in my place?’

  ‘Go to the police,’ said Tim promptly. ‘Even if they don’t find out who’s sending the letters they’ll trample round and make such a fuss that ten to one they’ll scare this joker off.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I’m sure that’s right. I don’t know that I should bother Constable Queen about it. Chicken roosts and bicycle lamps are about his mark. But why not have a word with Gattie at Bramshott?’

  ‘Sergeant Gattie?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a good man. As a matter of fact, I know him personally. He was a sergeant in the Gendarmerie in Palestine – that was the Special Force they raised after the war to try and cope with the Irgun boys. I was seconded to them for a brief period. A short life, on the whole, but merry.’

  Then perhaps you could have a word with him?’

  ‘Well, I could do that. If you’re sure you want me to. If you’d like to lend me that letter—?’

  MacMorris hesitated. ‘I’d better hang on to it,’ he said. ‘It’ll be quite safe in that desk. I always keep the inner drawer locked. But if you could just explain the thing to him, since you know him. Then I expect he’ll want to come over and look at the letter.’

  ‘All right. We’ll do it that way,’ said Tim. ‘But it can’t be till Saturday. I’m afraid—’

  The word died. MacMorris was not even pretending to listen. He was staring up at the ceiling. There was silence for a count of five.

  ‘What is it?’ said Tim at last.

  MacMorris tilted his head forward and Tim saw his eyes.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked again, softly.

  ‘Didn’t you hear anything?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Tim. ‘As a matter of fact, whilst I was talking, I did think, for a moment – but it might have been anything.’

  ‘It was someone moving.’

  ‘Someone or something,’ said Tim, as lightly as he could. ‘Do you keep a cat?’