Sky High (27 page)

Watch him, thought the General. Much too pleased with himself. And why does he keep looking down at his watch. If I’m not mistaken that’s twice I’ve caught him doing it.

‘—if that really is all for the moment I must be getting along home. Rupert will be wondering what has happened to me.’

‘Rupert—’ began Liz. But quite suddenly there didn’t seem to be anything useful to say about Rupert.

So he doesn’t know Rupert’s here, thought the General. Wonder what he’d say if he knew he was in the kitchen cooking himself eggs and bacon. Would it make any difference to him – supposing he has planned to do something. Better be ready for anything.

‘That’s quite all right, General,’ said Cleeve. ‘I can see the gun. But I’m quite sure you’re not going to be so unkind as to use it on me.’

‘Shoot you if you get difficult,’ said the General. ‘Not unless.’

‘Then I hope you don’t classify going home as “getting difficult”,’ said Cleeve, ‘because that’s what I propose to do – by all your leaves.’

He was on his feet now. Neither Liz nor the General moved.

Tim seemed fathoms deep, in abstraction. Why did water-tanks and cisterns always make such a peculiar noise when they were refilling, particularly at the moment when they were nearly full?

‘You realise,’ said Liz sharply, ‘that there is someone who can give evidence against you. Rupert must have solved the secret of your famous priest hole; and incidentally helped himself to one of the implements you keep there – along with the explosive, and the swag, and other things you wouldn’t care to leave lying about the house. You didn’t by any chance lose a pick-lock? It must have been some time ago. Rupert is quite expert with it now.’

That hit him. There’s his head coming round. He’s going to charge.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Cleeve at last. ‘But if you think that you or anyone else can make Rupert say anything he doesn’t want to, I should advise you to think again. I’m fond of him, and I think he’s fond of me. You’ll find us a difficult combination. And now, if there’s nothing further to be said—’

He was half-way to the door when they all heard it. The front door of the house opened and slammed shut; heavy and hurried footsteps in the passage, then the drawing-room door was thrown open, and the bulk of Jim Hedges filled the doorway.

In that same moment Bob Cleeve turned on his heel, ran to the French windows, thrust against them, and was gone.

His disappearance seemed to release a spring which set them all moving.

‘Don’t go after him,’ said the General. ‘Telephone Tom Pearce. They must head him off. Oh, damn, I forgot, your telephone’s out of action. There’s a box on the corner.’

The car outside had started, and they heard it slam into top gear as it went down the drive.

‘Better be quick,’ said the General. ‘If he gets back to Clamboys he’ll destroy all the stuff in that secret cache of his, and then he can snap his fingers at us.’

‘Don’t you worry, General,’ said Jim. ‘It’s all set. That’s what I came to tell you. I didn’t know
he
was here. You could have knocked me down—’

They stared at him.

‘Morry told it all to me. Just so soon as he was alone in the car with me, out it all came. I never heard such stuff, secret hiding places, and dynamite and burglars’ kits and jewels and such. I rang up the Inspector right away, you see. Mr. Pearce was with him.’

‘Did they—’

‘They didn’t take a lot of convincing. They almost seemed to be expecting it. They came round, and picked us both up, and Morry showed him how the thing worked – under the staircase, a real neat job. You’d hunt a month and not find it.’

‘So they’ll be waiting for him when he gets back.’

‘That’s right,’ said Jim. ‘
If
he gets back.’ They could all hear the engine rising into top pitch, as the big car, driven by an angry man, hit the long straight stretch, west out of Brimberley, on the Clamboys road.

In the silence Tim heard something else, too. It was a noise he knew well. The characteristic, expiring effort of the water cistern.

Why did
they make that peculiar noise? The water ran out, and the ball-cock dropped as the level fell. He had made a joke about it, as he stood outside the MacMorris cistern room – something about someone coming to steal the ball-cock – then, as the level rose, the arm carrying the great brass float rose too, shutting up the inlet value. Up, down, and up again.

‘My God,’ said Tim, in a voice that jerked all heads round together. ‘What bloody fools we are. No time to talk. Jim, get Rupert out of that kitchen and turn on the sink taps. JUMP TO IT.’

Jim jumped.

‘General, take Liz out—right away—down the garden. Fast as you can. DON’T ARGUE.’

Then he was gone.

He took the steps in fours. There was no time even to try the bathroom door. He ran at it and slammed the sole of his foot hard, an inch below the china handle.

A smacking crack as something broke and the door burst inwards.

Sue was standing just beside the bath. She gave a very faint squeak. Tim did not even spare her a glance. He was at the basin. With two rapid movements he flicked on the taps. Then the bath taps.

‘Put a towel round you,’ he shouted, then swept her up and was out into the passage and skidding down the stairs.

Sue said ‘ouch’ as a bare bit of her hit the bannisters. Then they were cascading down the hall and out into the garden.

‘I think I could walk now,’ she said faintly.

Tim put her down absentmindedly and she gathered the towel round her. Fortunately it was a large one.

At the bottom of the lawn they found the General with Liz, and Jim Hedges with Rupert pick-a-back on his shoulders.

‘Hadn’t we better get a bit further – or lie down—’ said the General.

Tim let out his breath in a long, slow, sigh.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s all right now. But give it five minutes.’

‘I got both taps on in the kitchen,’ said Jim. ‘And I got Rupert, too.’

‘Not half, he didn’t,’ said Rupert. ‘He nearly broke my arm when he picked me up. I say, isn’t this fun. What happens next?’

‘Nothing,’ said Tim. ‘Nothing. It’s all over.’

They stood together in the dusk, listening to the cascading of the water.

King:

‘The extreme part of time extremely forms

All causes to the purpose of his speed

And often, at his very loose, decides

That which long process could not arbitrate.’

‘I could kick myself, now, for having been so stupid,’ said Tim, to Tom Pearce. ‘It was presented to me, on a plate, twice, and I missed it.’

‘Lucky you didn’t quite miss it the second time,’ said Pearce, ‘or we should have had a real old mystery on our hands.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Inspector Luck, resentfully, ‘that I understand it now.’

‘It was the water in the main cold water cistern,’ said Tim. ‘However many other tanks you have, if you use any water in the house anywhere it must, ultimately, empty that tank – which fills again from the main. The whole thing is regulated by a valve, which opens and shuts by means of an arm, with a floating ball on the end. The ball goes down, the valve opens wide, the water rushes in. As the water level comes up, the ball comes up too, and shuts the valve. It’s the last dying jerks of the arm letting in little spurts of water that cause the extremely odd noises most tanks make when they’re almost full.’

‘But—’ said Luck.

‘The point is,’ said Tim, ‘that unless
some
water has been run recently the tank won’t make any noise at all. It isn’t a living organism. You’ve got to do something to set it going – pull a lavatory plug or run a basin of water. So why should the MacMorris tank have been gurgling at me when he and I were searching the house. I’d already been in the house at least half an hour – probably more. And MacMorris hadn’t been out of my sight.’

‘He might have just finished a bath the moment you came.’

‘All right. So he might. I don’t think he had, but it was just possible. But how could anything like that have happened in our house when I got back after the choir outing? It was Anna’s day off. The house was – or should have been – empty since before lunch. Yet the tank was active. Meaning that someone had drawn off some water – and recently.’

‘I still don’t see,’ said Luck. ‘Where did Gattie put the explosive?’

‘You’re not trying,’ said Tim. ‘He put it in the tank, of course. A little water doesn’t hurt a good modern explosive. You can immerse it for weeks. I think the sequence was this. First empty out enough water from the tank. There’s usually a runaway tap up in the loft. He could use that. Tie back the valve arm so that no more runs in. Fix your detonating mechanism – a three-way switch – to the valve arm. Then untie the valve arm so that the water could run back to its proper level. That was all you had to do. The victim himself would do the rest, next time he drew off any water. If it was just a basinful, to wash his hands – which I think was all MacMorris did before he went to bed – then the tank would refill quickly and the explosion would be quick. If you emptied the tank for a smacking great hot bath, like Sue, bless her, then it would take much longer for the arm to come right up again and set the thing off.’

‘And so long as you kept some water running the tank would never quite refill, and you’d be safe.’

‘That’s it,’ said Tim. ‘And if you never washed at all, you’d be safer still. Cleanliness furthest from Godliness really.’

‘I see,’ said Tom Pearce, ‘I’ll remember it next time I have a bath. That letter – I take it MacMorris probably did write that to himself.’

‘I should think so, yes. Something made him suspicious. He felt they were moving in on him. Perhaps Gattie came into the house to reconnoitre and he heard him. Something like that. I think, too, though it’s of no importance now, that it was MacMorris who destroyed that photograph. He wouldn’t want it in evidence if the police were going to come nosing round. Too direct a lead back to his past. He was going to destroy that note about Brasseys when the explosion caught him. He already had destroyed the photograph. Probably burned it.’

‘Wonder he kept it at all,’ said Luck.

‘He was proud of it,’ said Tim. The Regiment is a bigger thing than you.’

‘Apparently,’ said the General, ‘when he got back to Clamboys he spotted Luck’s car – careless of Luck, that. So he turned straight round, and went back down the drive fast. Don’t know what was in his mind. I expect he’d got one or two safe deposits and that sort of thing. May have hoped to skip the country. Came out into the road too fast and went straight under a ten-tonne lorry.’

‘Yes,’ said Liz. She sounded neither vindictive nor upset. ‘Tom Pearce missed a chance there. As soon as I heard about it I suggested he took Gattie out and put him in the car beside Bob. That would have solved all their troubles.’

‘He couldn’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Most irregular. You could never hush it up. Bound to come out about Bob.’

‘I wasn’t worrying about Bob,’ said Liz. ‘He did it because he enjoyed it. I told him as much. He was an Elizabethan. Piracy. Throat cutting. Love making. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t write sonnets as well. No. All the regrets I’ve got are for Gattie. Thank God he wasn’t married, but his mother’s still living. I’ve spoken to her. She’s a nice old girl, and she’s going to get hurt by this. Rupert, too.’

‘What are you doing about Rupert?’

‘He’s staying with me,’ said Liz. ‘He ought to go to school right away.’

‘You can count me in on that,’ said the General.

‘We’ll finance him jointly. He’ll be a credit to us yet.’

‘If only you’d
explained
,’ said Sue.

‘Well, it seemed so silly,’ said Tim. ‘There I was, with everyone assuming I was in the Secret Service, and all the time I was holding down a respectable job as an estate agent.’

‘Was that how you knew all about Belton Park?’

‘That’s right. I’d inspected it the week before. I used to run round a lot of properties in the home counties. The firm lent me the car. It was rather fun.’

‘Why do you say “was”? You’re not giving it up, are you?’

‘Well—’

‘I’d much rather marry an estate agent than someone in the Secret Service.’

‘That’s all right then,’ said Tim. He kissed her absent-mindedly. He felt no difficulty about that sort of thing now. There was a lot to be said for starting your engagement by carrying the girl, mother naked, down a flight of stairs and dumping her on the lawn.

Broke the ice, so to speak.

‘You
do
seem to have bad luck with your tenors,’ said Mrs. Um, signalling for her bill. ‘First that nice Major, and then the police sergeant.’

‘I expect Tim will do the solo very nicely,’ said Lucy Mallory.

‘I hope so,’ said Sue.

‘As a matter of fact,’ said Liz. ‘I’ve had a last-minute offer—rather unexpected—I can’t tell you definitely yet—’

Florimond had said yes. Of course he would. It would be the greatest pleasure in the world. It must be done unofficially, of course. Not a word to anyone.

Liz agreed.

Florimond no doubt meant what he said too.

But he had not calculated with his publicity man, who had no use for lights if they were hidden under bushels, and saw no reason that such a chivalrous gesture should be entirely wasted.

Nothing vulgar like newspaper publicity, of course. But if you know how to use them there are faster and better ways of spreading news than the printed word.

At midday the first of the cars started to arrive. By one o’clock the parking problem was becoming acute; and a hastily assembled fatigue party was clearing the south gallery which had not been used since it had been condemned as unsafe before the turn of the century. At two o’clock chairs from the Institute were rushed up in Jim Hedges’ lorry and set outside the open west doors.