Sky High (20 page)

‘Some really frightful case is being discussed. A boy of thirteen, say, who has been living for the last three years by systematic robbery and violence. And all the time I’m trying to be horrified about it something inside me insists on saying, “Well, he must have a lot of guts, anyway. Better robbery than charity.”’

That’s purely Elizabethan,’ said Liz.

‘Do you know, I think I might have been quite happy in the reign of Good Queen Bess,’ said Cleeve sadly. ‘I know they hadn’t got drains and dentists, but think of the compensations. A man could cut out his own path for himself. If he hurt other people, that was just too bad for them. If he got hurt himself, no squealing.
And every single penny
that he made he kept.’

‘No television either,’ said Sue from the sofa. She was almost asleep.

‘It wasn’t all fresh air and freedom,’ said Liz. ‘What about religious persecution? What price the Star Chamber?’

‘Don’t pour cold water.’

‘I’m not pouring cold water. I think you’d have looked splendid in a ruff. And I’m sure you’d have given the Spaniards hell. As it is, you’ve got the next best thing. A lot of this house is Elizabethan, isn’t it?’

‘All the middle bit. And talk of religious persecution, we’ve even got a Priest’s Hole. Rupert spends hours looking for it. I had to put my foot down, though, when I found him boring holes in the panelling with a brace and bit. Who says bed?’

Liz and Sue said bed.

At that moment the telephone buzzer sounded. The extension was on the table beside Liz’s chair. She lifted the receiver.

And as she had guessed, it was Tim, at last.

That night, in her comfortable bed, with her feet on a stone hot-water bottle, Liz found herself curiously wakeful. Clamboys lay about her, five centuries of it, shifting slightly in its sleep, as an old house will.

Thought ran into dream, and dream woke again into thought.

At one moment they were all in the stern-cabin of a high-pooped ship-of-war. Bob, florid and magnificent in silks, with a leg to rival King Hal. The General, dressed in black, slight, upright and severe. Tim, bulky and happy with the sword on his hip. Sue showing all that a girl of eighteen was allowed to show in the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth and looking shockingly attractive and desirable. Even Rupert was there, improbably demure, serving the party on bended knee.

Four bells sounded. Or would it have been the stable clock? Liz had a feeling that one important person was missing, and frowned with disappointment when she realised who it was. Look as she would she could not see herself anywhere.

The frown was still on her face when the maid woke her at nine o’clock the next morning. She got up and looked out of the window. The gale had blown the rain clear out of the sky.

She was, had she known it, the last in the house to get up.

At seven o’clock Sue had roused herself, put on an old pair of flannel trousers and crept quietly downstairs. Clamboys was one of the last houses that still retained an adequate staff, and people were moving in the kitchen quarters.

The front door was unlatched.

She went out into a lovely cold morning that hit her like a friendly slap on the face. When she reached the stables someone was clanking a bucket and whistling.

She lifted down the light saddle from the peg, picked up the bridle and saddled Rosie, the bouncy grey. As she led the mare, clowning gently, towards the open door, Bob Cleeve appeared. Despite the cold of the morning he was in his shirt sleeves.

‘Morning, Sue,’ he said. ‘If you’ll hold your horse for a minute I’ll be with you. I want to knock some of the stuffing out of that brute Bolo.’

‘All right,’ said Sue. ‘But not too far or too fast. I’ve only got thin flannel trousers on me.’

‘And remarkably shapely you look in ‘em,’ said Cleeve with a grin. He disappeared into the end stall and an outburst of clattering and snorting recorded the protests of the terrible Bolo against early morning exercise.

At about the same time the General’s bedroom door opened and the General emerged. He looked cautiously about him and then tip-toed towards the nearest bathroom. He had been threatened with breakfast in bed and was determined to take no chances of such humiliation. Once let women get the upper hand of you and you might as well hem your own shroud.

Although it took him the best part of an hour to do everything that had to be done, when he finally got himself downstairs, he found that he was first at the breakfast table, and he had almost finished his meal by the time his host and his granddaughter appeared.

‘What
are you doing down here?’ said Sue.

‘Finishing breakfast,’ said the General complacently. ‘You two been out riding? I very nearly came with you myself.’

‘You—’

‘Remarkably good kedgeree, this. You ought to try a plateful with your ham.’

‘All right’ said Sue. ‘All right. But just wait till Liz sees you, that’s all.’

‘I’m not afraid of Liz,’ said the General. But nevertheless he finished up his breakfast and pottered out into the garden. Dangerous woman. It didn’t do to take chances.

But when Liz came down she had other matters on her mind. Her first inquiry was, had anyone telephoned?

As soon as she had finished her breakfast she rang up her house. It was Anna who answered. No, apparently Tim was not back. No sign of him. And no message. Was anything wrong?

‘There’s nothing wrong,’ said Liz. ‘Why?’

‘Everything feels wrong,’ said Anna. ‘I been hearing things. It’s not nice in this house alone. The boards get creaking. And last night, when I was going to bed, a man came to the door. I didn’t know whether to open it.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes. I opened it when he’d rung the bell a bit. It was the Vicar. Something about the choir treat.’

‘Well, goodness,’ said Liz. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘Nothing’s wrong with it,’ said Anna. ‘But I don’t like it.’

‘All right. There’s no reason for you to hang about. Tim’s got his own key. You go and spend the rest of the weekend with Mrs. What’s-her-name? The one you spend your afternoons off with. She’d be only too pleased to have you.’

‘Mrs. Antonovich,’ said Anna, sounding brighter at once. ‘Yes, I could stay with her. Would that be all right?’

‘See you on Monday morning,’ said Liz, and rang off thoughtfully.

Anna was a stolid person, not easily upset. She had never before raised the slightest objection to being left alone in the house. If Anna was beginning to panic, then something had better be done.

With sudden resolve she helped herself to a stick from the rack and set out for a walk. Clamboys stands on the southern edge of the heathland which runs, almost unbroken, from Brimberley to Woking. It is good country for walking, being sandy and open and traversed by a maze of tiny footpaths, most of them decorated with War Office notice boards which warn unauthorised persons of a variety of fates which will overtake them if they wander at large (unexploded gas shells). From long experience Liz ignored these and trudged in a haphazard circle which brought her back to Clamboys at lunch-time with a big appetite and a mind at rest.

In the course of her morning’s walk she had come to certain conclusions. They were not attractive conclusions, but it was a comfort to have reached some measure of finality.

After lunch, when they were finishing their coffee, they heard a car drive up and shortly afterwards a maid came in and said something to Cleeve. Cleeve looked startled, muttered, ‘I wonder what the devil he can want,’ and shot out of the room.

The Chief Constable was waiting in the library. He was looking as serious as he ever allowed himself to look.

‘I thought you ought to know,’ he said, ‘that our friend has been at it again.’

For a moment Cleeve looked blank.

‘A Major and Mrs. Lucas. Their country house in Essex, at Belton Park. Made a clean sweep of the family jewels. Diamonds and emeralds. All very nice stuff.’

‘Kept in an unlocked, downstairs drawer, I suppose,’ said Cleeve.

‘As a matter of fact, no. They usually keep it all at the bank. They just happened to have it out for a big dinner party and dance to-night.’

‘Our friend showing his usual, accurate sense of timing. Was there anything concrete to connect it with him?’

‘Quite a bit,’ said Pearce. ‘In fact, I should say myself, that there isn’t room for any doubt at all. Major Lucas had put the stuff in his own wall-safe in the study. Quite a nice little job with one of the new precision-combination locks. Well, as you know, that’s just our man’s cup of tea. In fact, I don’t think there’s another man in England who can open them by kindness alone. A dozen in America. One in Australia. Two or three in Palestine.’

‘Yes. Anything else?’

‘He got in at a first storey window without leaving much trace. So that probably means a folding steel ladder. And he used a motor-cycle for transport. That’s him too.’

‘Are they sure about that?’

‘They’ve found where he parked it in some long grass outside the walls. And he was seen, at least, it’s fairly likely it was him – shortly after he got away. The local bobby was sitting in a hedge waiting quietly for a chicken-steal to come off and he saw him go by.’

‘What time?’

‘Three o’clock, or near it.’

‘Any sort of description?’

Thick-set chap. Well wrapped up. Difficult to say whether he was young or old. In fact, just what we got the only other time he was seen.’

The two men looked at each other. In the sudden silence Sue’s voice could be heard, two rooms away, and the rumble of a reply from Liz or the General.

‘If you’re right,’ said Cleeve, ‘and God knows it’s got all the trimmings, then one idea goes clean overboard. MacMorris never had anything to do with the country house jobs.’

‘I’m not sure that I ever really thought he had,’ said Pearce slowly. ‘He fitted, in theory. He was a solitary man, with very little background to him. But – I don’t know. Somehow or other I could hardly see him belting across country on a motor-cycle, jumping walls, climbing up home-made ladders. It all seemed to me to add up to someone a good deal younger. Or at least,’ he added carefully, ‘someone very active for his age,’

‘He can’t be all that young,’ said Cleeve. ‘You told me yourself, he’s been going for nearly thirty years. I don’t suppose he started when he was at school.’

‘Do you remember Lockspeiser?’

‘Lockspeiser? No. Yes. Wait a minute. Wasn’t he a bank-note forger. Way back before the first World War. I think I do remember him.’

‘It wasn’t a him. It was them.’

‘Them?’

‘Three of them. The founder of the firm – he must have started up the business well back in Victoria’s reign. No one really knows when he
did
start. In fact, no one knows much about him. The second Lockspeiser – no family connection, just an accomplice – carried on where the old man left off. Same plates, same methods, same distributors. He even helped himself to the old man’s name. We know more about him. He’s still alive – in Ontario, Canada. A most blameless old party. We’ve got nothing definite on him. Before he left this country with his pile he handed over the outfit, goodwill, name and all, to Lockspeiser III. That was the one we caught.’

‘But,’ said Cleeve, and then stopped and said, ‘Hmp.’

‘Once you think of it,’ said Pearce, ‘this has got all the elements of a Lockspeiser. If you think of the three things a country house operator wants. The general technique. It’s not taught in night schools. You’ve got to learn it somewhere. A skill with certain types of lock. Windows, small drawers, small safes. Then, last but not least, he wants to have his finger on a good receiver. When he decides that he’s too old to play the active part himself, what’s to prevent him taking in a young partner? It could become a family business. Father to son.’

‘What a horrible idea.’ Cleeve sounded genuinely upset.

‘It’s not as uncommon as you’d think,’ said Pearce, ‘And look at the dates here. The first series starts some time after the Kaiser’s war and goes on until 1939, when it stops. The second lot starts a year or two after Hitler’s war.’

‘Your explanation,’ said Cleeve painfully, ‘being, I take it, that the younger man was otherwise engaged during the recent war. And needed a year or two to train up afterwards.’

‘I think so,’ said Pearce. As he got up he added, inconsequently, ‘I’m sorry, too, you know. I’ll keep you in the picture. I think something’s bound to break soon. Don’t bother to show me out.’

On his way down the hall the Chief Constable paused for a moment. The door of the little gunroom, on the left of the front door, was ajar and someone was watching him through it.

The door swung open and Liz appeared.

‘Come in here a minute,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to lurk, but there was something I had to say, and this was the only way of catching you alone.’ She pulled the Chief Constable inside and slammed the door.

‘An unexpected pleasure,’ said Tom Pearce breathlessly. ‘I’d no idea you were in the neighbourhood.’

‘I won’t take a minute,’ said Liz, ‘but I badly need a piece of information and you’re the only person I can think of who can get it for me quickly. I could ask Tony, but he’s abroad.’

The Chief Constable was not absolutely certain, but he had an idea that Tony was the Home Secretary. He bowed cautiously and asked what it was she wanted to know.

‘Have you heard of a man called Feder?’

‘Otherwise Barry?’

‘That’s the chap. Bob was talking about him to the General and me the other night. He was one of the first expert country house burglars, wasn’t he?’

‘I rather fancy he’s dead.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Liz. ‘I didn’t want to be introduced to him. I wanted to know something about him. I wanted to know
exactly how he was
caught.
’

‘Well, yes. I should think I could find that out for you. Is it urgent?’

‘If I’m right,’ said Liz in her deep voice, ‘it’s just about the most urgent thing you’ve ever done in your life.’

On Sunday morning, after breakfast, the General was so far recovered that he insisted on walking to Morning Service. He had a black eye, turning yellow at the edges, and a square of sticking plaster over his forehead, and he created quite a sensation among the congregation in the tiny church in the Park. It was plain to Sue that he would shortly be demanding to go home.