Three to See the King by Magnus Mills Page A

but instead there was nothing. It was dawn when I got to where it should have been, and all that remained was this big pile of tin, with the flagpole lying nearby.’
    ‘What about your captive balloon?’ I asked.
    ‘They’ve let it down.’
    He was beginning to look tearful once more, so Mary Petrie put her arm round his shoulder and said, ‘There, there, you’ll soon put it together again.’
    ‘I don’t know how,’ he moaned.
    ‘Well, we’ll help, won’t we?’
    She eyed me firmly, and I realized I was going to have a busy few days ahead.
    ‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘We’ll have a nice breakfast, and then we’ll go and see what can be done.’
    To tell the truth, by the time we were ready to leave I was quite looking forward to the project. It would be a fruitful pastime, I thought, reassembling someone’s house, and thereby earning their eternal gratitude. Of course, when Mary Petrie had said we’d help she actually meant me. For her part, she knew nothing about building from tin, and would have been no use at all. Actually, I knew nothing either, but I assumed it would be fairly straightforward.
    Mary Petrie saw us off after breakfast, and said she might have a walk across later to see how we were getting on. Meanwhile, she’d have some space to herself, which would be an agreeable change for her. By now I was pleased to see that Simon was getting some of his bounce back, and as we approached his place we shared a general feeling of optimism.
    This disappeared the moment we saw the enormity of the job. I had expected it to be quite obvious which piece went where, but when we were confronted by that huge pile of tin I was frankly dumbfounded. How were we supposed to tell the roof from the walls, the back from the front, and so on? The only readily identifiable parts were the door, the shutters and the chimney, which had been carefully set to one side.
    ‘Considerate of someone,’ I remarked, as we stood surveying the ruins. They’ve even folded up your balloon.’
    There didn’t seem to be any malice attached to the dismantling of Simon Painter’s house. I mean to say, anybody who wished to destroy it would have been better off using dynamite. Instead they’d simply taken it to pieces and left it in a heap. There was a separate stack which turned out to be all his worldly goods, neatly bundled together so as not to come to any harm.
    ‘You didn’t leave the door locked then?’ I asked in passing.
    ‘Of course not,’ replied Simon. There was no need … normally.’
    I could see he was quite upset, so I decided the best thing would be to get started immediately, in order to keep his mind occupied.
    Where to begin, though? It was like attempting to solve a jigsaw puzzle that had come in a box without an illustration on the lid.
    ‘We should have brought that picture you gave me,’ I said. ‘You haven’t got another one anywhere have you?’
    ‘There’s one on the bedroom wall.’
    ‘Well,’ I said. ‘At least that’s a clue: we’ll start there.’
    I approached the pile of tin and began going through it in search of the piece with the picture attached. Deep inside, though, it felt like a hopeless task. Even if we did find part of his bedroom wall, how on earth were we going to build the rest of the house around it?
    ‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you a coffee,’ said Simon. The stove won’t work without the chimney.’
    ‘Not to worry,’ I replied. ‘What about lighting a fire out in the open? That’ll cheer us up a bit.’
    ‘No fuel,’ he said. ‘I’ve spent so much time at Michael’s lately that it’s completely run down.’
    ‘Blimey, you have got it bad haven’t you?’
    ‘Suppose so.’
    ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Here comes the cavalry.’
    There were two figures moving towards us in the distance, and as they drew nearer I recognized Steve and Philip. Then all at once they started running.
    ‘Don’t touch the tin!’ shouted Steve, as soon as he was close