by W E Johns
‘So we know what he was doing,’ said Biggles slowly, taking a cigarette from his case. ‘Poor little beggar. He’s only a kid. I wonder what skunk got him into the smuggling racket! How long has he been dead?’
‘The doctor says three days. Death due to drowning.’
Biggles nodded. ‘The picture’s pretty plain. He wasn’t alone in the racket. Someone dropped him from a plane — in the wrong place. He fell in the drink and couldn’t get out. His job was to hand the watches to a confederate, after which he would have been picked up somewhere and flown home.’
‘He could have made his own way home if a pal had given him a ticket and some money.’
‘For that he would have needed a passport, in which case it would have been in his pocket. How many people know about this?’
‘The squire, the keeper, the doctor and us.’
‘Good. Try to keep it out of the newspapers for a few days. The inquest can be postponed pending inquiries. That will keep the pilot of the plane guessing and give me a chance to find him. That shouldn’t be too difficult. For obvious reasons the machine that unloaded this poor fellow into a death trap must have been privately owned — and flown. Air line pilots don’t play this sort of game. The drop would hardly be made in broad daylight for all the world to see so we can judge the time. Mind if I use your phone, sergeant?’
‘This way, sir.’
As they walked to the police station the Inspector remarked: ‘That coin suggests the boy came from France.’
‘Not only the coin. The parachute is a French type. The boy looks French, anyway.’
From the station Biggles put a call through to his operations room. Algy Lacey answered. Said Biggles: ‘Get me out a detailed met. report for last Sunday night. Wind velocity southern region is important. Tell Bertie to check all airports for continental, particularly French, privately-owned aircraft, landing during the hours of darkness on the same night. You might also check with radar for unidentified aircraft. That’s all. I’m on my way home.’
When Biggles and Ginger arrived at headquarters two hours later Algy and Bertie had completed their respective tasks.
Algy reported that the weather on the night in question had been clear and fine, with the moon in the first quarter. At midnight, from dead calm, a wind of 30 m.p.h. had sprung up from the southeast.
Algy was able to state that radar had a nil report. There was a record of only one private aircraft landing at an authorized Customs airport. A French Cigale light plane, F-XXZL, had landed at Gatwick shortly after midnight. The pilot was flying solo. He was well known there as a French businessman who dealt in antique clocks and watches. His name was Monsieur Claude Vauvine. His documents were in order. He had cleared Customs, spent the night in London, where he had a branch shop in Mayfair, and had returned to France the following day.
‘Something tells me he had other business interests over here,’ murmured Biggles, and went on to explain to Algy and Bertie the purpose of the inquiries. ‘I’d say it was the wind that did the mischief,’ he surmised. ‘The pilot would no doubt get a weather report when he started. The wind got up after he was in the air with the result that his accomplice fell in the lake. Had he known there was a thirty mile an hour wind he wouldn’t have risked the jump at all — unless he was a fool.’
Biggles made a mark on the large-scale map of the district. ‘It must have been about here that the boy with the watches intended to touch down. Algy, take the Auster and check up on the open ground in that area. You might take a strip of photos while you’re at it. Bertie, go and have a look at what Monsieur Vauvine sells at his shop in Mayfair. I’m going to slip over to France for a word with Marcel Brissac. Ginger, you might ring Marcel at the Sûreté and ask him to meet us. I shall land at Le Bourget. Say I want particulars of Mr Claude Vauvine who owns a Cigale, registration F-XXZL.’
It was three o’clock when Biggles and Ginger, in the police Proctor, landed at the Paris airport of Le Bourget to find Marcel Brissac, their French opposite number, waiting.
‘What do we have cooking this time, Beegles, old dog?’ inquired Marcel.
‘Did you put the spotlight on Monsieur Vauvine?’
‘But of course. Is he a naughty boy?’
‘He might be.’
‘He is a member of the Flying Club of Tornay, where he has his own machine, a Cigale, F-XXZL. It is, he says, useful in his business, which makes much travelling, for he has several shops in Europe. You know he went to England late on Sunday.’
‘Yes. Where did he clear Customs over this side?’
‘Here, at Le Bourget. He was alone. He took with him some of those old French clocks that have dancing figures on the face. Tell me, old cabbage, does this have a nasty smell — hein?’
‘I detect a slight aroma.’ Biggles explained the case, briefly. ‘If Vauvine is our man he must have picked up his assistant after he had checked out, probably between here and the coast, possibly at Tornay, which is in the right direction. Do you mind if we run down and make a few discreet inquiries? This is your affair as well as mine. Someone brought those watches into France from Switzerland.’
‘Let us go,’ agreed Marcel. ‘Louis Boulenger, the manager, who is also the chief instructor, is a friend of mine.’
They all got into the Proctor, which in twenty minutes was standing on the tarmac of the flying club. A middle-aged, jovial-looking man came over to them. Marcel introduced Boulenger, who cleared the air a lot by his own first question. ‘The police have come, no doubt, to find my missing mechanic, Lucien Mallon,’ he remarked shrewdly.
‘When did you last see him?’ asked Marcel.
‘On Sunday afternoon.’
Biggles stepped in. ‘Did he by any chance go off with Monsieur Vauvine on Sunday night?’
‘But no,’ answered the instructor, looking surprised. ‘Monsieur Vauvine went off alone, about seven o’clock. Later he came back, saying he had forgotten something.’
‘It would be dark then.’
‘Yes, it was dark; but Monsieur Vauvine is an old war pilot and often flies by night.’
‘He was still alone when he took off the second time?’
‘He does not say he is taking anyone. It is dark so I do not see.’ The instructor looked from one to the other. ‘You think he could have taken Lucien? If he did he did not bring him back, for I saw him return alone on Monday.’
Biggles went on. ‘This Lucien Mallon. Would he be about seventeen, with black hair, a spot under his left eye and a little scar on his chin?’
‘That is Lucien,’ declared the instructor. ‘I am worried. What shall I tell his mother if I have lost him, after I persuade her to let him come to me as apprentice?’
‘Sooner or later you will have to tell her the truth, my friend,’ said Biggles sadly. ‘In strict confidence, he is dead.’
Boulenger stared incredulously. ‘But that is not possible,’ he cried.
‘He jumped by parachute over England but fell in a lake and was drowned,’ said Marcel. ‘Now you know why we are here.’
‘But Monsieur Vauvine did not tell me! Why?’
‘He had a reason,’ returned Marcel grimly. ‘Presently I will tell you what it was. For the moment, not a word of this to anyone, or we may never catch the man who was responsible for Lucien’s death. I must ask you to do this. The next time Monsieur Vauvine fills his tanks for a business trip will you please phone me at the Sûreté?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Bon. That is all for now. Remember, silence. I’ll tell you the rest of the story later. Au revoir.’
‘Au revoir, monsieur.’
Biggles dropped Marcel at Le Bourget and went on to England, to find the set of air photographs, taken by Algy, on his desk.
They revealed what might have been expected; several large fields, adjacent, without hedges, trees or buildings of any sort; in a word, an ideal place for a parachute landing. The fact that it occurred where the dead smuggler would have touched down had there b
een no wind, could not, Biggles asserted, be coincidence. The area was bounded by a single second-class road. The nearest railway-station was five miles away.
‘As our nocturnal visitor would hardly be likely to walk five miles with a load of contraband it’s safe to assume that someone was waiting on that road with a car,’ surmised Biggles. ‘We shall be there too, next time, I hope.’
Bertie’s report on the Mayfair establishment of Monsieur Vauvine was equally significant. It was a double-fronted shop. One side was devoted to antiques, but the other window exposed for sale a selection of expensive new watches.
‘All we can do now,’ said Biggles, ‘is to wait till we hear from Marcel.’
It was a fortnight before the expected phone call came through. Apart from reporting that Vauvine was at Le Bourget, clearing customs for a flight to London, Marcel had another interesting piece of news. Two days earlier, Vauvine, who was under police surveillance, had gone by road to Pontade, on the Swiss frontier, where he had spent the night. After dark he had gone for a walk. While he was out, an aircraft, flying low, had passed over. It had come from the direction of the frontier and had returned that way. Marcel was convinced that while it was over France it had made a ‘droppage’ of contraband, but rather than risk making a mistake he had left things to take their course in the hope that Biggles would catch the smuggler red-handed.
In ten minutes the police car was on its way to the suspected Hampshire dropping ground.
It was a fine night, clear and still, when it arrived and cruised down the boundary road, watch being kept on both sides. Half-way down Ginger spotted what he was looking for. The headlamps of their own car shone for a moment on the metal fittings of a stationary car, showing no lights, that had been backed into the grass entrance of a field.
‘There he is,’ murmured Ginger.
Biggles did not alter speed until he had rounded the next bend, when he switched off his lights, turned, pulled into the side of the road and cut the engine.
‘You all know the drill,’ he said, getting out. ‘I’ll take Ginger with me and get as near the car as is possible without being seen. Bertie, when you hear the machine, get up on the hedge and try to see where the parachute lands. You’ll know the moment the drop has been made because the machine will almost certainly turn away. Algy, you stay at the wheel ready to move fast. Should the car up the road try to bolt turn across the road and block it.’
‘I get it.’
‘Come on, Ginger.’ Keeping on the grass verge Biggles began a cautious approach to the unknown car. There was no other traffic.
The time could not have been better judged, for within ten minutes, by which time they were close to the car, the distant hum of a light plane told them that the new-type smuggler was on his way. Ginger’s eyes probed the starry heavens for navigation lights but could see none. The aircraft came on.
The watchers on the ground were still creeping forward when the aero engine died for perhaps ten seconds, and then, coming on again, began to recede.
Ginger’s pulses beat faster, for he realized that somewhere in the darkness overhead a parachute was on its way to the ground. Biggles climbed up the bank and looked over the hedge. He was down in a moment, whispering: ‘Here he comes.’
At that instant the engine of the waiting car was switched on, as were, the lights, obviously to reveal its position. Biggles, with Ginger at his heels, moved swiftly towards it, but froze as the door was opened and a man stepped out. A few seconds later the night raider, a haversack on his shoulder, carrying his parachute in a loose bundle, ran up, breathing heavily from excitement or exertion — perhaps both.
The driver of the car was taking the haversack when Biggles stepped in. ‘I’m a police officer—’ he began, and then had to break off, ducking, as the man swung the heavy bag at his head.
Dodging the blow, he jumped forward to grab his man, now sliding back into his seat, only to have the car door slammed in his face. The gears clashed and the car shot forward, but not before Biggles had mounted the running board. His whistle shrilled.
The parachutist, a youth like his even more unlucky predecessor, made no effort to get away. Encumbered as he was with heavy clothing it would have been futile, anyway. He seemed stunned with shock, and did not resist when Ginger put on the handcuffs.
As Ginger took his prisoner down the road he could see the two cars together, the police car broadside on. By the time he had reached them the driver of the other car, with his road blocked and three officers to deal with, had submitted to arrest.
After the cars had been moved to clear the road Biggles took the parachutist, who still seemed dazed by the speed of events, to one side, and spoke to him quietly in French. ‘Do you know what was in that bag you carried?’
‘Non, monsieur.’ The answer was given so frankly that Ginger felt sure the lad was not lying.
‘Why did you do it?’ asked Biggles.
‘For adventure, monsieur.’ Ginger smiled at this naive reply.
‘What were you to do with the bag?’
‘I was to give it to the monsieur who would be waiting with the car.’
‘And then?’
‘He would take me to Monsieur Vauvine who would fly me back to France.’
Biggles turned to Ginger. ‘Send a signal to the chief,’ he ordered. ‘Tell him the birds are in the bag. Vauvine can be picked up at Gatwick. The parachutist has named him as the man who flew him over. We’re on our way home.’
So ended another smuggling scheme that may have looked safe to the man who organized it, but reckoned without the Air Police. He, and the driver of the car, who turned out to be the manager of the shop in Mayfair, are now serving long prison sentences, apart from losing some hundreds of valuable watches and paying triple duty on them.
The parachutist, whose desire for adventure may have blinded him to the seriousness of what he was doing, his age and a clean record being taken into account, was soon back in France, a badly shaken, and, it is to be hoped, wiser young man.
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THE BIRD THAT DIED OF DIAMONDS
‘If,’ said Air Commodore Raymond, of the Special Air Police, ‘if only crooks would turn their fertile imaginations to legal operations they would fare far better than they do by crime.’
Biggles’ eyes went to three diamonds that sparkled on his chief’s desk. ‘Very nice, too,’ he remarked, smiling. ‘Where did you find those?’
‘I won’t waste time by asking you to guess because you never would,’ returned the Air Commodore. ‘The large one came from the breast of a pheasant. Of the smaller ones, one came from its wing and the other from its leg.’
‘Are you talking about a live pheasant?’
‘It was alive until it got in the way of these stones.’
‘The bird didn’t have a string of pearls round its neck by any chance?’ bantered Biggles.
‘No. But it might have done.’ The Air Commodore pushed the cigarette box forward. ‘Sit down and I’ll tell you a tale that would have made Hans Anderson blush.’
Biggles lit a cigarette. ‘Go ahead, sir; I’m listening.’
Raymond proceeded. ‘Thfere lives, in Scotland, where he has an estate called Tomlecht, a retired Army Colonel named Colin McGill. He’s a friend of mine. Like many landowners, to meet taxation he’s been forced to take paying guests for the shooting season. He gets them by advertising in high-class sporting papers. In the spring he received a reply to such an advertisement from a Baron Zorrall who at the time of writing was at Monte Carlo for the pigeon shooting competitions. To make a longish story short it was arranged that the Baron should arrive at Tomlecht on October 15 for the pheasant shooting. In due course his guns arrived, in one of those cases which has a cartridge magazine attached. The Baron, however, did not arrive, either on the date fixed or later. There was not a word from him; wherefore after a time the Colonel wrote to him at the Monte Carlo address, an hotel, asking him what he wanted him to do with the guns.’
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‘To which the hotel replied saying the Baron wasn’t there.’
The Air Commodore frowned. ‘Don’t spoil my story by anticipating. The hotel said more than that. No person by the name of Baron Zorrall had ever stayed there. The Colonel promptly opened the gun case to make sure it contained guns. It did, and two boxes of cartridges, one of No. 7 shot and the other of No. 4. The guns and cartridges, incidentally, were of French make.’ The Air Commodore stubbed his cigarette.
‘Now towards the end of the season,’ he resumed, ‘the Colonel wanted a pheasant for the table, but finding he had run out of number four cartridges he borrowed a few from the Baron’s box. With one of these he shot a pheasant which in due course appeared on the dinner-table. To bite on a lead pellet in a game bird is not an uncommon occurrence, as you may have discovered; but to bite on a diamond must be a rare experience. If the Colonel is to be believed it’s also an uncomfortable one. One can imagine his astonishment when, removing the offending object from his mouth, he discovered what it was. Carefully dissecting the carcass of this remarkable bird he found two more diamonds — but no lead shot; from which he was forced to the incredible conclusion that he had killed his dinner with a charge of gems. That the cartridge had been loaded with them was beyond doubt.’
Biggles grinned. ‘Delicious. This beats the goose that laid the golden eggs.’
‘The Colonel did the obvious thing,’ went on the Air Commodore. ‘He cut open another cartridge. It was loaded with rubies. Others contained matching pearls, obviously a broken-down necklace. In a word, while the number seven cartridges were loaded with lead shot the number fours were loaded with precious stones. He made another discovery. In the box of number sevens, which apparently had never been opened, he found an advice note from the French suppliers, addressed to a Prince Boris Devronik, presumably an alias of Baron Zorrall, for, among other things, a box of empty cases which presumably he intended to load himself.’
‘With sparklers.’
