Sky High by Michael Gilbert Read Free Book Online

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