‘What’s happened?’ asked Biggles tersely.
‘Lazor was here.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘He must have gone, locking the door so I couldn’t get out.’
‘Why didn’t you shout?’
‘He didn’t give me a chance. I found the door open. I went in. He was standing behind it. He must have heard me coming. Before I could do anything he’d coshed me — knocked me out flat. I only came round a minute or two ago. Finding I couldn’t get out, all I could do was hammer on the door hoping you’d hear me. Lazor must have been collecting some stuff when I disturbed him. There was a bag on the table. I don’t know what was in it. That’s gone, too, I see. Sorry about this.’
‘You’ve nothing to be sorry about except yourself,’ returned Biggles. ‘How badly are you hurt? Let’s have a look at your head.’ He examined the wound. ‘Not too bad, I think. All the same, we’ll get you to hospital where you can be patched up properly. Why do you suppose Lazor went for you?’
‘I don’t know. I can only imagine he thought I was someone else; you, perhaps.’
‘That’s twice tonight he’s hit the wrong man,’ Biggles said grimly. ‘But never mind about him. Come on, let’s get you down to the machines. I’ve left someone in charge. Bertie is away in his car at the moment, but he should soon be back. There’s no point in staying here. If you can walk I’ll lend you a hand.’
They left the house and walked slowly, with Thompson leaning on Biggles’ shoulder, to where Ginger was standing. He was told what had happened. He wondered how Lazor had got past him on the track, but perceived it would not be difficult in the dark. He might not have used the track.
‘Sit down while you’re waiting,’ Biggles told Thompson.
Ginger fetched the seat cushion from the Aiglet’s cockpit, and Thompson was made as comfortable as possible with his back resting against an undercarriage wheel.
They had just finished this, and Biggles was lighting a cigarette, when from some distance down the hill there came the sound of a car approaching at high speed.
‘That must be Bertie coming now,’ Biggles said.
‘That doesn’t sound like Bertie’s car to me,’ observed Ginger. ‘Sounds more like two cars. Yes, you can see two pairs of headlights on the tops of the tallest trees.’
As the words left his lips there came a scream of brakes followed instantly by an ominous crash. The lights disappeared.
‘Holy smoke!’ exclaimed Biggles. ‘That was a beauty for somebody. Now what, I wonder? This place gets more like a battlefield every minute. I’d better go to see what’s happened. Ginger, you stay here with Thompson. Watch out for Lazor. This may be more of his dirty work.’ So saying, he went off down the track at a run.
He soon came to the scene of the accident. As Ginger had thought, two cars were involved. The rear one had apparently run into the back of the leading one. Four men were there. One was lying in the road. Bertie was standing by him. The others were two police officers. Biggles recognized one as the sergeant he had seen previously at the farmhouse. He was making gestures and babbling incoherently over and over again: ‘It was his own fault. He ran straight into me. I couldn’t do anything about it. Not a thing. He ran smack into—’
‘All right, officer,’ cut in Biggles. ‘You’ve told us. You needn’t keep telling us. Take it easy. Who did you knock down?’
‘It’s Lazor,’ informed Bertie.
‘The devil it is!’ exclaimed Biggles. Somehow he wasn’t expecting this.
‘Looks as if he’s had it this time,’ Bertie said without emotion.
‘How did it happen?’ asked Biggles.
The police sergeant answered. ‘He jumped out of the bushes and came stumbling down the road like he was drunk, waving his arms. I hadn’t a chance. I couldn’t stop. I hit him fair and square. I—’
Biggles interrupted, turning to Bertie. ‘How much did you see of this?’
‘Not much, old boy. I was taking the keeper chap to hospital as you ordered when I saw a policeman on a bike. I stopped and told him to let his boss know something was going on at the farm. He said he’d do that right away; so that saved me the trouble. I went on to the hospital. The keeper was still unconscious, so I didn’t wait. I headed back here flat out. At the bottom of the hill I overtook a car in front of me. I couldn’t pass so I sat on its tail. Suddenly, without warning, the car in front jammed on its brakes and I ran into it. When I got out I saw I’d been following a police car. It had knocked somebody down. That’s all.’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No. But my headlights took a crack.’
The policeman, who had been examining the body, came in again. ‘He’s dead all right. I hadn’t a hope of stopping. I can’t understand it. He must have been tight. I could swear he deliberately charged into me. It was his own fault.’
The other officer confirmed this. ‘I’d say he was drunk. Must have been blind drunk the way he acted.’
‘You’d better get him to a doctor, or the hospital,’ advised Biggles. ‘Is your car all right?’
‘As far as I know. I’ll soon see.’
Nothing more was said. There was no argument. The car started first time. The headlights had gone, but the sidelights were working. Between them Lazor was lifted in, Biggles taking the legs. Afterwards he looked at his hands. There was blood on them. ‘Hello, what’s all this?’ he muttered. He looked at the sergeant. ‘I think I can tell you something. I’ve a notion Lazor had been wounded before you knocked him down. Maybe that was why he acted as he did. He may have been trying to stop you.’
‘Wounded? How? Did you shoot at him?’
‘No, but the man he shot, a gamekeeper, fired at him with his gun. We heard the shots. But we’d better not stand here talking. You get along with the body.’
The car went off. It had to go to the top of the hill to turn. When it came back it went past without stopping, Bertie having moved his car tight against the bank to give it room. He now went up the hill with Biggles standing on the running board. So they rejoined Ginger who was still guarding the aircraft. Biggles told him briefly what had happened.
‘What a night!’ answered Ginger. ‘What’s the drill now?’
‘I think it’s time we knocked off and got some sleep. There’s nothing more we can do here except get Thompson to the hospital. Then we’ll go home.’
‘What about these machines?’
‘They can stand where they are for the time being. No one is likely to interfere with them. We’ll come back tomorrow in daylight when we shall be able to see better what we’re doing. Then we’ll take them back to where they live.’
‘That sounds a good idea to me,’ Bertie said. ‘I’m dead on my feet.’ He went to his car and started the engine.
There is not much more to be said; but a few details may need tidying up. Lazor, the Sheikh, was dead. If he wasn’t killed on the spot by the police car he was dead on arrival at the hospital. It was likely that he would have died anyway, for the post mortem examination revealed that he had severe gunshot wounds in the legs and stomach and had lost a lot of blood. So the gamekeeper had evidently been on the mark when he had emptied his gun at his unseen assailant. Why Lazor had gone to the farm after being shot will never be known, but a reasonable theory would be that, knowing he wouldn’t be able to get far, he had gone to the empty farmhouse, the only shelter within miles, either as a hide-out where he could dress his wounds or, not knowing he had put the telephone out of action, to phone for medical help.
As for the gamekeeper who had unwittingly played such a vital part in the affair, far from dying he had been able to leave hospital after treatment for shock. It turned out he had been lucky. By one of those extraordinary chances which, as every soldier who has been in action knows can occur, his life had been saved by a metal object. In this case one of the brass buttons on his jacket. Lazor’s bullet — there is no doubt as to who had fired the shot — had struck, and had been deflected by, th
e button on his breast pocket. But even so it had struck with enough force to knock him down; for a bullet, even if it does not penetrate, strikes like a blow from a sledgehammer.
His own version of the shooting, in a statement he made later, was that he did not deliberately fire the gun. He had no recollection of doing it. He heard a sudden movement in the bushes beside the road, and thinking it was the man he was looking for, the poacher, had ordered him to come out, at the same time pointing the gun in that direction in case he was attacked. The poacher was known to be a violent character. The gun was loaded and on full cock. He remembered seeing a flash and feeling a blow. What happened after that he did not know. He did not deny that his gun had been fired, so he could only conclude that when Lazor’s bullet had struck him, his fingers had tightened convulsively on the trigger, causing it to go off. It might well have happened this way.
That was all he knew. When he came round he found himself lying in the road. His gun had gone. Supposing he had little chance of being found in the lonely lane in the middle of the night, he had started to crawl home. His story, which tallied with all the evidence, was accepted.
Thompson, who had suffered only a superficial head wound, was kept one night at the hospital. In the morning he phoned Biggles at Scotland Yard. Biggles, who had already reported the events of the previous day to his chief, Air Commodore Raymond (at the same time handing over the stolen pearls), taking Ginger with him went down to meet him at the farm. Ginger went along to collect the police Auster. Biggles flew Thompson, who was still a bit shaky, back to Podbury, and was later picked up from there by Bertie in an official car.
All this time, of course, Caine was still in hospital, but he was informed of what had happened. His relief, when he heard that his razor-wielding associate was dead, was probably genuine.
There was some discussion at Headquarters about what action should be taken with him and Thompson, for they had both been ‘sailing near the wind’, to use a common expression. At the end nothing was done. It was felt they had both had a lesson they were not likely to forget, and with Lazor out of their lives they would be more careful in the future. Lazor was undoubtedly the villain in the case and no good purpose would be served by taking them to court. That was Biggles’ view. As he pointed out, Caine, who would carry the scar of Lazor’s ‘mark’ on his face for the rest of his life, had been punished enough. Neither was a professional criminal, although under Lazor’s influence that is what they might have become. On the whole they may have been lucky.
So ended a case, perhaps less spectacular than some in the Air Police records, that had started as a more or less routine exercise, but had finished in such dramatic circumstances — Biggles called it a sordid mess — at Twotrees Farm.
THE END
Biggles in the Underworld Page 14
