Sky High Read online

  Copyright & Information

  Sky High

  (The Country House Burglar)

  First published in 1955

  © Estate of Michael Gilbert; House of Stratus 1955-2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of Michael Gilbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  EAN ISBN Edition

  0755105117 9780755105113 Print

  075513205X 9780755132058 Kindle

  0755132424 9780755132423 Epub

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Born in Lincolnshire, England, Michael Francis Gilbert graduated in law from the University of London in 1937, shortly after which he first spent some time teaching at a prep-school which was followed by six years serving with the Royal Horse Artillery. During World War II he was captured following service in North Africa and Italy, and his prisoner-of-war experiences later leading to the writing of the acclaimed novel ‘Death in Captivity’ in 1952.

  After the war, Gilbert worked as a solicitor in London, but his writing continued throughout his legal career and in addition to novels he wrote stage plays and scripts for radio and television. He is, however, best remembered for his novels, which have been described as witty and meticulously-plotted espionage and police procedural thrillers, but which exemplify realism.

  HRF Keating stated that ‘Smallbone Deceased’ was amongst the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. "The plot," wrote Keating, "is in every way as good as those of Agatha Christie at her best: as neatly dovetailed, as inherently complex yet retaining a decent credibility, and as full of cunningly-suggested red herrings." It featured Chief Inspector Hazlerigg, who went on to appear in later novels and short stories, and another series was built around Patrick Petrella, a London based police constable (later promoted) who was fluent in four languages and had a love for both poetry and fine wine. Other memorable characters around which Gilbert built stories included Calder and Behrens. They are elderly but quite amiable agents, who are nonetheless ruthless and prepared to take on tasks too much at the dirty end of the business for their younger colleagues. They are brought out of retirement periodically upon receiving a bank statement containing a code.

  Much of Michael Gilbert’s writing was done on the train as he travelled from home to his office in London: "I always take a latish train to work," he explained in 1980, "and, of course, I go first class. I have no trouble in writing because I prepare a thorough synopsis beforehand.". After retirement from the law, however, he nevertheless continued and also reviewed for ‘The Daily Telegraph’, as well as editing ‘The Oxford Book of Legal Anecdotes’.

  Gilbert was appointed CBE in 1980. Generally regarded as ‘one of the elder statesmen of the British crime writing fraternity, he was a founder-member of the British Crime Writers’ Association and in 1988 he was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, before receiving the Lifetime ‘Anthony’ Achievement award at the 1990 Boucheron in London.

  Michael Gilbert died in 2006, aged ninety three, and was survived by his wife and their two sons and five daughters.

  Quote

  Armado:

  The sweet war-man is dead and rotten: Sweet chucks, beat not the bones of the buried: when he breathed he was a man. But I will forward with my device.

  Introduction

  The choir rehearses and the quiet life of Brimberly village goes on. Yet sinister undercurrents simmer beneath the surface. It starts to emerge that the respectable choir members may not have been entirely honest about their pasts. The usual peace and tranquillity of the village is threatened. The rifling of the church poor-box may not be unprecedented, but then there is an explosion . . .

  Chapter One

  THE CHOIR REHEARSES

  Boyet: ‘The trumpet sounds: be mask’d; the maskers come’

  ‘Christ,’ said Mrs. Artside pleasantly. ‘Not Kerr-rist.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Artside.’

  ‘That’s all right, Lucy. It’s a difficult word to sing. Jesus is much better, and, of course, Jesu is easiest of all, but we’ve got to take what the hymnographers give us. Let’s do it again from the beginning.’

  She sat down at the bench, which protested a little under her weight, and laid her thick, wrinkled fingers on the keys of the portable harmonium. The choir once more attacked Charles Wesley’s great morning hymn.

  ‘That’s not bad,’ said Mrs. Artside at the finish. ‘Not bad at all. There’s no need to look quite so down in the mouth, Maurice, when you’re singing “dark and cheerless is the morn”. I’m all in favour of expression, but you needn’t act it. That covers the hymns for the next two weeks, so now—’

  ‘What’s the last hymn next Sunday, Mrs. Artside?’

  ‘Hundred and sixty-six. Old Hundredth. You all know that. We’ll have the treble descant for verse three. “O enter then His Courts with praise.” All right, Rupert?’

  Rupert Cleeve nodded sombrely. Beside the three Hedges boys, thought Mrs. Artside, he looked like a greyhound puppy in a litter of collies. Where they were slow, shaggy-brown, and already thickening out into small replicas of their huge father, Rupert was thin, pale, and a bundle of controlled nerves. Dress him in a frilly collar and a satin suit and he would take the shine out of any Hollywood Fauntleroy. Even in a plain flannel suit he looked good enough to eat.

  ‘All right, then.’

  ‘What about the psalms?’

  ‘Plantagenet, Llandudno and Snagge,’ said Mrs. Artside rapidly. ‘It’s no good getting ambitious if we’re to make time for an anthem. After all, it’s the first one we’ve done since the Christmas before last. Hand the sheets round would you, Tim?’

  The thick young man in flannel jacket and corduroy trousers distributed the anthems and the choir, from Ellen, the youngest Hedges girl to big Jim Hedges himself, in his best black, stared with dutiful curiosity at the symbols spread out before them, symbols which their unstinting efforts had but three weeks to turn into a river of liquid harmony.

  Only Major MacMorris, the Cantoris tenor, seemed unperturbed. He glanced in quick, professional manner, through the score and bent across to say something to Sue Palling, the Cantoris Alto.

  Tim Artside noticed the movement but did nothing about it. There was five yards of vestry floor between them, and in church and directly under his mother’s eye was not the best place to start a fight.

  ‘”Come, ye thankful people, come”,’ said Mrs. Artside. ‘We can’t run to first and second trebles, so I think, on the whole, we’ll stick to first. The tenor solo – that’ll be safe enough—’

  Major MacMorris exposed his white teeth in a smile. He assumed, correctly, that the compliment was being paid to him. Tim Artside chalked that one up, too.

  ‘I’d better do the bass voluntary – “ere the winter storms begin” – unless—’ she looked politely at Jim Hedges, who grinned and said that on
the whole he thought Mrs. Artside would do it better than him.

  ‘There’s no alto solo—’

  ‘Thank heavens,’ said Sue Palling and Lucy Mallory in most perfect unison.

  ‘I suggest we take it straight through. Start on the tenth beat – like this—’ She sketched the introduction nimbly on the harmonium, and at the appropriate moment burst out with the word ‘COME’ in her resonant bass.

  ‘All right – once more then – I want you all to come in this time – plenty of attack. Da dum diddy dee—dum dum—dum dum—COME—yes, what is it?’

  ‘May I leave the room?’

  ‘I should have thought you could have lasted four pages of music without—all right, all right—we won’t argue about it. You ought to know.’

  Rupert walked sedately from the vestry and closed the door behind him. All his movements were composed and unselfconsciously neat.

  ‘Whilst we’re waiting for Rupert we might run through the treble part. All ready? On the down beat. “Come ye thankful people come. Raise the song of Harvest Home.” Oh dear. That wasn’t very good, was it?’

  It was evident that the trebles leaned on Rupert.

  ‘Try it once more. Well. That’s a little better. Perhaps if the altos backed you up this time—’

  ‘Come to God’s own temple come. Raise the song of Harvest Home.’

  The thin wailing drew to a close.

  ‘Wouldn’t raise the price of beer,’ said Jim Hedges. He spoke with the authority of one who was not only the father of five-sixths of the trebles, but also owned and drove the only taxi in Brimberley.

  ‘It hasn’t got much attack,’ agreed Mrs. Artside. ‘It’ll get better with practice, I expect. Here’s Rupert, at last. Try it once more.’

  It went better this time. The bass, which consisted for the most part of a repetition of the words ‘Harvest Home, Harvest Home’ was safe enough in the hands of Jim Hedges who, in forty years, had sung every part in Brimberley choir from treble and wobbling alto through green-stick tenor down to the comfortable depths of bass. Major MacMorris made child’s play of the tenor, rebelliously followed by Tim Artside, who was reliable if he had someone to help him start but had no idea of striking the initial note. Lucy Mallory and Sue Palling were, at best, moderate altos.

  ‘I think we shall make out,’ said Mrs. Artside at last. ‘We’ve got two more Tuesdays before the big day, and I’d like one private run with the trebles. Friday? No, that’s Institute Night. Next Monday then. It’ll save opening the church up if you can come to my house.’

  On behalf of five of the trebles, Jim Hedges agreed that Monday was as good an evening as any. Rupert said he would find out.

  ‘Come to that I can ask your father to-night,’ said Mrs. Artside. ‘He’s driving over to collect you. Thank you, Lucy. If you’d just put the psalters back in the choir stalls. You’ll want them all on Sunday. I’ll take the anthems home with me for next Monday. Would you lock up, Tim? I’ve got to hurry back home and put the coffee on. Are you going to be in this evening? The key goes back to the Vicar. If he isn’t in you can put it through his letter box, but I think he must be in, it’s Confirmation Class.’

  ‘All right,’ said Tim.

  ‘You know there isn’t a key for the inner vestry—’

  ‘I’ve locked up this church at least twelve times,’ said Tim. ‘You go and get the coffee ready. And reverting to your last remark but three, I don’t expect I shall be joining you, but if I do I am capable of getting out another cup. And who’s taking Rupert home?’

  ‘He can come on the back of my motor-cycle,’ said Mrs. Artside. ‘Would you like that, Rupert?’

  ‘All right,’ said Rupert. Even the thought of riding pillion to Mrs. Artside did not seem to stir his remarkable soul.

  Left to himself, Tim bolted the outside door of the vestry, fastened the window, and locked the anthem cupboard. He could hear the sounds of the choir dispersing; the dominant note was the squeal of the Hedges children, who seemed to recover full voice the moment they got outside the church. He grinned as he heard the eldest boy, Maurice, chanting ‘Kerr-rist, Kerr-rist, Kerr-rist’. The deep roar of his mother’s motor-cycle, rising as she changed gear for the corner, diminishing as she swung into the road, and muttering away into the distance. Heavy footsteps on the gravel – Jim Hedges, he judged – and the rattle of Lucy Mallory’s voice.

  He stepped out into the body of the church, shut the heavy inner door of the vestry, and made his way slowly through the choir into the aisle. All around him, in the quiet dimness was the church smell of hassocks and coconut matting and lamp oil and holiness.

  Out in the porch he could still hear voices. One was MacMorris. He would have recognised anywhere those amazingly gentlemanly cadences. The other was young Sue. She was laughing.

  MacMorris said, ‘But you don’t do that sort of thing at Blackpool.’

  She laughed again.

  Tim stepped through, shut the wicket door, and turned the key. He could see Sue now, white against the dusk, perched on the railing of the porch. MacMorris was standing beside her.

  ‘Oh, hullo Artside,’ said MacMorris. ‘Turned cold hasn’t it?’

  ‘Seasonable for the time of year,’ said Tim. ‘You walking home, Sue?’

  ‘I promised Major MacMorris I’d go with him.’

  ‘You promised me first.’

  ‘Did I?’ said Sue. She sounded genuinely surprised.

  ‘Well, old boy,’ said MacMorris judicially, ‘why don’t we all go together.’

  ‘Because, old boy,’ said Tim, ‘I’ve got something I want to tell Miss Palling, and I don’t particularly want it broadcast over half of Brimberley.’

  A brittle silence impended.

  ‘I may be wrong, but that sounded to me rather offensive.’

  ‘It wasn’t meant to be particularly offensive, or non-offensive, for that matter. It was just a thought. Are you coming, Sue?’

  ‘When you’ve apologised to Major MacMorris.’

  ‘Apologised,’ said Tim blandly. ‘But for what?’

  ‘For behaving like a silly little schoolboy.’

  ‘If I’m behaving like a silly little schoolboy, might I suggest that MacMorris – I beg his pardon, Major MacMorris – was behaving like a silly little grown-up.’

  ‘Really, Artside.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Possibly I misunderstood you. I thought he was offering to walk home in the gloaming with—’

  ‘Oh,’ said Sue. ‘What a stinking thing to say—I—really—’

  She looked at MacMorris. There was a pause in the proceedings, broken only by Tim, who was whistling quietly through his teeth.

  MacMorris seemed to appreciate that the next step was with him. He cleared his throat.

  ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that we’re both behaving stupidly.’ He turned to Sue. ‘If my offer offended you—’

  ‘Of course it didn’t.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry it should have been misunderstood. Perhaps you’ll both excuse me. Good night.’

  The dapper little figure swung away down the path. Tim and Sue watched in silence until the wicket gate clicked and he was gone.

  ‘Yellow, too, for all his high C’s,’ said Tim.

  Sue said nothing.

  ‘Let’s get going.’

  He saw that she was shaking.

  ‘You’re cold,’ he said. ‘If we walk quickly, you’ll get your circulation back.’

  ‘Don’t let me stop you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Walking quickly. In any direction you fancy.’

  It was rage, not cold.

  ‘But look here,’ said Tim. ‘What’s up? I’m sorry if that little twerp upset you, but—’

  ‘Are you going? If not, I am.’

  ‘You’re not going home alone.’

  ‘It’s a free country,’ said Sue. ‘You’re bigger than me. I can’t stop you using the public roads, if you feel like it.’


  She set off up the path and out into the road. Tim padded along beside her. Offended dignity kept him quiet for a hundred yards; then he said again, rather feebly, ‘What’s it all about?’

  ‘I think,’ said Sue clearly, ‘that that was about the most oafish performance I’ve ever listened to in my life.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Threatening a man who is half your size and twice your age, and then crowing like a silly little bully because he has enough gumption on you.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have—’

  ‘And of all excuses for forcing a quarrel on him, you had to pick on suggesting filthy things about him, because he offered to walk home with me – which he has done umpteen times before, without your permission – seeing that he lives in Melliker Lane only two houses away from us.’

  ‘I never—’

  ‘It was so silly it ought to have made me laugh – if it hadn’t made me sick. And now’—she swung round at the top of a dark lane leading off the main road, among the pine trees—’will you go home. I can actually see my front gate. Are you satisfied?’

  ‘It’s a bit dark,’ said Tim obstinately. ‘I’d better come down with you. Or are you afraid to trust me?’

  ‘Afraid of you?’ said Sue. She looked at him speculatively. ‘You great big war hero. I shouldn’t think that little girls are your strong point, are they? At least, I’ve never heard about it, and we hear so much about you, I feel sure anything like that would have cropped up by now. Prancing round with soot on your face – yes. Sticking knives into people, small people, I should imagine, on tonight’s form.’

  ‘Now you’re being silly,’ said Tim. ‘And anyway, I never stuck a knife into anyone.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they turn their backs on you?’ said Sue. ‘How tactless of them.’

  ‘You’re being stupid.’

  ‘If you don’t want to listen, you know what you can do with yourself.’