Free Sky High by Michael Gilbert Page A

furnished,’ said Tim. ‘On the ground floor I only went into the living-room, but I looked into the front room as I went by and it seemed pretty bare. Upstairs there was practically only one bedroom furnished at all, and one bed in another room.’
    They inspected the sad miscellany of household goods laid out on the tables; disembowelled cushions, strips of curtains, pillows, bedclothes, a plaster dog, a selection of kitchenware, mostly intact, pictures, some of them almost unrecognisable, some undamaged. It took Tim back to Italy and Greece, and the collection of household goods which he had so often seen, heaped on to handcarts, dumped beside roads, torn, scattered, trampled on, soaked with their owner’s blood.
    He searched among the glass and woodwork of the pile of pictures and pulled out two framed photographs.
    ‘I noticed these when MacMorris was talking to me on Wednesday night. They’re Regimental groups. I don’t know if you’re interested in his background, but these might be a help.’
    Liz and the Inspector came over and peered at them.
    ‘That one’s the Suffolks,’ said Liz at last. ‘It’s a Minden Day photograph. You can see the roses. But it was taken a long time ago. Those pill-box hats went out before the South African War. I don’t believe MacMorris was as old as all that.’
    ‘This one looks as if it was taken in India,’ said Tim.
    ‘I don’t suppose they belonged to him at all,’ said Liz. ‘It wasn’t his house, was it? I mean, he hadn’t bought it.’
    ‘I understand,’ said Luck cautiously, ‘that it was rented furnished from a Miss Anglesea.’
    ‘Oh, that’s right then,’ said Liz. ‘Dolly Anglesea’s father was in the Suffolk Regiment, and he went to India with them. Those photographs are nothing to do with MacMorris at all.’
    ‘All the same,’ said Tim. ‘There was one that was him – or his twin. Quite unmistakeable. Dressed up as a one-pipper. And he had some sort of gong up, too. Not a campaign ribbon. Might have been the M.C.’
    As he spoke, he was piecing together the fragments on the table. Seeing what he was doing the other two came and helped him. But nothing even remotely resembling a photograph of a Second Lieutenant appeared.
    ‘Did you find the letter?’ said Tim suddenly.
    ‘Which letter, sir?’
    ‘The anonymous letter.’
    There was a pause. Then the Inspector said. ‘Yes. Yes, we found that. The desk wasn’t much damaged, you know. But just how did you happen—’
    ‘Oh, don’t be so mysterious,’ said Tim. ‘He showed it to me that night. In fact, he asked me what he ought to do about it. It wasn’t the first he’d had.’
    ‘And what did you advise him, sir?’
    ‘I told him to show it to the police.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘For some reason he wasn’t too keen to do that himself. So he asked me to mention it to Sergeant Gattie. He knew I knew him.’
    ‘And you did?’
    ‘I work for my living during the week. There didn’t seem all that urgency. I was going to cycle over on Saturday morning.’
    ‘Pity,’ said the Inspector non-committally.
    Tim said angrily, ‘I didn’t know he was going to be blown up.’
    ‘Of course not, sir.’ The Inspector paused for a second and then said, ‘You think the letter may have had some connection with—with the explosion?’
    ‘Good Lord, but of course. I mean, that’s rather more up your street than mine, but I should have thought it was obvious. Here’s a man gets a letter threatening unpleasant consequences if he doesn’t get out. Which he doesn’t. So the consequences happen.’
    ‘Yes,’ said the Inspector. ‘We’ve got all the papers back in my office. The letter’s with them. There’s not much more we can do here. Lock up when you’ve finished, Lawley. There was one thing we noticed straight away about that letter, and it did just make us wonder. It was stuck on to a quarto size sheet of paper. It’s a common make, sold in all the shops round here. In fact – up