Sky High (9 page)

‘You can tell by the electric light bulbs,’ said Tim. ‘That’s one way. Explosion removes the glass, but the filaments are left behind. They get bent away from the source of the explosion—’ He was reading the report again, ‘I see it’s suggested that the seat of the explosion was in the front section or frontside section of the house, and fairly high up.’

‘That might be dining-room, spare bedroom, bathroom or attic,’ said Luck. ‘Can’t put it closer than that.’

‘Attic?’ Tim looked up sharply. ‘Box room, do you mean, or the smaller attic with the cistern in it.’

‘It would be the small one, I think, sir.’

‘Can you remember if cordite in jelly form gives off any smell?’

For the first time in the interview Inspector Luck managed to look genuinely surprised. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can probably find out. Why?’

‘I didn’t look round the small attic much. It was pretty dark. And by that time I’d come to the conclusion that MacMorris had imagined the whole thing. But when I stood just inside that open door, I was conscious of an odd smell.’

‘What sort of smell?’

‘That’s a hopeless question. It wasn’t powerful. But sharp, and slightly acid. Like metal polish, but slightly less definite. And here’s a funny thing – unless I’m just being wise after the event – but somehow my mind connected that smell with my service in Palestine.’

The Inspector considered this, his head on one side. Liz thought, uncharitably, ‘He doesn’t like it, because it doesn’t fit in with some preconceived notion, so he’s trying to pick holes in it.’

‘But of course,’ went on Tim, ‘even if the explosive was in the tank room, it doesn’t mean that the exploding device was there. That could have been anywhere.’

‘Exploding device?’ said the Inspector rather blankly.

There must have been something to set that little lot off. And I can’t help thinking it was connected with the bedroom. So far as we know MacMorris was in his bedroom when the balloon went up.’

‘Yes,’ said Luck. ‘But—’

More sales resistance, thought Liz. She said, sharply, ‘Do
you
think the explosion was engineered by someone, or not?’

The Inspector, unexpectedly attacked in the flank, swung round with a grunt.

‘I don’t know that we’ve got as far as that, Mrs. Artside,’ he said. This is only a first report.’

‘You must be working on
some
theory. I’m just asking what your theory is. If you want us to help you ought to be frank with us.’

‘Well,’ said the Inspector unhappily, ‘Since you put it like that – our idea at the moment is that there was a quantity of explosive somewhere in the house. It might have been in the tank room and it might not. And it went up by accident.’

‘Sounds a bit far-fetched,’ said Tim. ‘Here’s a man gets a threatening letter, and shortly afterwards he gets killed. I shouldn’t have leapt to the conclusion that it was an accident. But then, I’m not a policeman.’

‘We haven’t reached a conclusion yet. And, as I have already indicated, we don’t attach a great deal of importance to the letter.’

‘Just why,’ asked Liz, ‘should an ordinary citizen keep two suit-cases full of high explosive in his attic?’

The Inspector had seen this coming. He was being pushed into a corner. Maybe he was tired of dodging.

‘It’s a matter of the highest security at this moment,’ he said, ‘but I think, in the circumstances, I should be justified in telling you.’

‘Calculated indiscretion coming,’ thought Liz.

‘In our view, MacMorris may have been a professional burglar.’

‘A country house burglar,’ suggested Liz, gently.

The expression on the Inspector’s face was delicious. He somehow contrived to look both sly and startled at the same time. Just as if a hen had changed into a duck right under the fox’s nose.

Even Tim looked startled.

‘It’s all right,’ said Liz. ‘I’m not clairvoyant. It’s just that Bob – Colonel Cleeve – was talking about country house burglars two nights ago.’

‘And he told you about this one?’ The Inspector’s tone implied exactly what he thought about the security-mindedness of county councillors.

‘No. He didn’t. He happened to be talking about country house burglars generally. That’s why, when you said burglar—’

‘Now that the cat seems to be out of the bag,’ suggested Tim pleasantly, ‘why not tell us all about it?’

‘There isn’t a lot to tell,’ said the Inspector. He was still looking worried. ‘This one seems to have started to operate from here about the end of the war. 1946 was the first job that could be pinned down to him. There were hints that he lived in this part of the country. Nothing definite, you see. Cross-bearings. Then – it was in the spring of this year – a house near Henley – he was caught on the job.’

‘You say “he”,’ said Tim. ‘But did you know who it was? And were you sure all these jobs were being done by the same person?’

‘We knew they were done by the same person. You know enough about police work yourself, sir, to know that that’s one of the things you can be sure about.’

Tim nodded.

‘You said they caught him?’ said Liz.

‘Not actually caught him. Not to recognise him. But he was disturbed on the job, and broke off without getting what he’d come for. Someone had the sense to telephone Scotland Yard at once. They warned us. The Chief Constable had road blocks put out. It was a system he had ready worked out for just such a case. They weren’t to stop him. Just to report. He was checked through as far as the Bramshott cross roads. Then they lost him. There was a slip-up. Two parties went to the same road junction by mistake – and left the other unguarded. There was some fur flew about
that,
I can tell you.’

Liz could imagine it. Tom Pearce, the Chief Constable, was a man who lost his temper rarely but thoroughly.

‘But surely,’ said Tim, ‘even if you lost him, someone would be able to identify his car.’

‘He wasn’t in a car, not that time,’ said the Inspector, with a faint smile. ‘He was on a motor-bicycle. Very neutral things, motor-bicycles. Easy to hide, too.’

‘I believe MacMorris had a motor-bicycle,’ said Tim.

‘I believe he did,’ said the Inspector. ‘Three hundred others in this area alone.’

‘It doesn’t seem much to go on,’ agreed Liz. ‘I’ve got a motor-bicycle, but I don’t rob country houses. Did anyone see what he looked like?’

‘It was a dark, drizzling night. Most reports agreed he looked big – not tall, but thickish. Although that might have been because he was well padded up.’

‘And how many of the three hundred motor-cycle owners matched up with that description?’

‘Most of them. We didn’t go a lot by description. We started checking up on people’s past histories. We wanted someone who had come here in the last seven or eight years, and who had been busy during the war – and who might, perhaps, have lived in the Midlands in the late ‘thirties. It’s not certain. There were jobs done then that had the same sort of hall-mark.’

‘And did MacMorris live in the Midlands before the war?’

‘We don’t know. As a matter of fact, we only just got going on MacMorris, but as far as we had been able to discover, he hadn’t got any back history.’ The Inspector chopped the desk lightly with the edge of his hand. ‘He stops short, like that, the day he came here. There’s nothing before that.’

‘Did he never visit anyone?’

‘Certainly he did.’

‘Outside Brimberley, I mean. Up in London?’

‘Very probably. We couldn’t keep him in cotton wool. Anyway, as I say, we’d only really just started on him.’

‘But you were having his house watched?’ said Tim.

The Inspector allowed himself a brief smile.

‘I understand you bumped into Constable Queen once or twice,’ he said.

‘He seemed to hang about a good deal under the trees in Melliker Lane. I never thought there was anything sinister in it.’

‘Hanging about,’ said the Inspector. ‘That’s what most police work is, hanging about. It’s wonderful what you hear if you hang about long enough.’

‘I expect it is,’ said Tim shortly. ‘Were you thinking of anything in particular?’

‘Regular upper-and-downer you seemed to be having with Miss Palling on Tuesday night, Queen says.’

‘Does he really,’ said Tim. ‘Well, I suppose it’s all part of a policeman’s job to crawl round eavesdropping. But if he happens, by mistake, to overhear a private conversation, does he have to repeat it?’

The Inspector did not seem in the least put out. He was looking at Tim, with his head cocked.

‘Certainly he does,’ he said. ‘Everything that a policeman hears, sees and does goes down in the Occurrences Book. If it isn’t to the point we can always forget about it. But it’s surprising the little things that do come in useful.’

‘I expect you know your own job,’ said Tim coldly. ‘It doesn’t make it any pleasanter, for ordinary people, to know that they’ve been spied on.’

‘For instance,’ went on the Inspector, ‘there was something Queen heard about people sticking knives into people’s backs.’

It was impossible to say if Inspector Luck was smiling or not. Tim glared at him for a moment.

‘I suppose, then, it’s lucky for me no one thought of sticking a knife into MacMorris’ back. Or I should obviously have been your number one suspect.’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t go as far as that, sir. No motive.’

‘As a matter of fact I had a quarrel – a violent quarrel – with MacMorris about ten minutes before that conversation.’

‘Had you, now?’ said the Inspector. ‘Yes, I believe I did hear something about that, too. These things get about, you know. Very frank of you to tell us about it, though.’

‘I’ve nothing to conceal.’

‘Of course not, sir. Well then – that’s all for the moment. And thank you very much for coming.’

Mrs. Artside heaved herself out of her chair. She did not find herself liking Inspector Luck any better, but she was inclined to think that the honours of war were with him.

They stalked down the passage in dignified silence. In the charge room at the far end they found Sergeant Gattie, sitting at a desk, patiently filling in a yard and a half of pink form in triplicate.

He grinned at Tim and said, ‘You been hauled over the coals?’

‘Not really,’ said Tim. ‘Why?’

‘Us going into the house before the fire brigade rolled up. Inspector didn’t like it, I hear.’

‘Didn’t he now,’ said Tim indifferently. ‘What did he think we were doing? Destroying clues?’

The sergeant got off his stool and came round to the front of the desk. They were alone in the room. Mrs. Artside had gone on into the street.

‘Did you ever know cordite jelly go off on its own?’ he asked softly.

‘No,’ said Tim. ‘I can’t say I did. It usually needs a good detonating charge – and a detonator.’

Gattie nodded.

‘You saw it happen,’ he said. ‘Which would you say? Detonation or explosion?’

‘Detonation.’

‘I thought so too. He was in his bedroom at the time. Any ideas?’

‘If it had been the bad old days’—Tim found he had subconsciously lowered his own voice, too—’I should have plumped for the bedside lamp.’

‘No go. The General had a view of the bedroom window. Says the light was on the whole time.’

‘Well, there are plenty of other ways it could have been done. What about a contact switch in the bed. Would go off when he put his weight on it.’

‘No sign of it. We got the bed almost intact.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tim irritably. ‘I don’t know. There are so many damn ways the thing could have been done. Contact, trembler, push-and-pull, photo-electric, time, temperature. There’s no end to it—’

‘Yes,’ said Gattie. ‘I agree. But here’s what I can’t make out. You know as well as I do, there’s only one safe way of writing off the detonator – writing it off so that no one’s ever going to find the least little bit of it, wire or screw or brass filing – and that’s by putting it alongside the explosive. Then, when the thing goes off, it all gets blown up. Blown to smithereens, I mean, not just messed up.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Well, you see, it’s pretty clear the explosive wasn’t in the bedroom.’

‘I haven’t read the report properly, but I think that’s right.’

‘And there’s no trace in the bedroom of anything like a detonating device.’

‘If you’ve searched, and haven’t found anything, I’ll take that as gospel,’ said Tim.

‘Then how did MacMorris – who was in the bedroom – set off a lot of explosive – that was in another part of the house?’

‘Perhaps he went out of the bedroom.’

‘The General – who was doing his evening exercises in front of his window – saw MacMorris’ shadow move across the window a few seconds before the balloon went up.’

‘MacMorris’ shadow?’

‘Well – a shadow. He says it was MacMorris. No reason to suppose there was anyone else in the room.’

‘I suppose not,’ said Tim. He looked down at his watch and said, ‘I’d no idea it was so late. I shall miss that train.’

‘Which are you after?’

‘The twelve-five.’

‘You have cut it a bit fine. Better jump in the official wagon and I’ll run you down.’

‘It’s very good of you,’ said Tim. ‘I’ve simply got to catch it.’

‘You help us, we help you,’ said Sergeant Gattie, flashing his grin again.

No more was said until they had sailed into the station. The sergeant was one of those competent drivers who make fast driving look safe and easy. The up-train was signalled but was not yet in sight.

‘About what you were saying,’ said Tim. ‘If you’re right about it – there are ways out of it, of course. Time devices and so on – but if you’re right, what’s your idea?’

‘Well, sir. The stuff
could
have gone up by itself. Especially if it was in the tank room. The heat might have done it – or some sort of vibration.’

‘That’s the official theory,’ said Tim.

‘So what?’ said Sergeant Gattie. ‘Even the official theory’s got to be right sometimes. Law of averages.’

Holofernes:
‘Most military sir, Salutation.’