Death of an Airman

by Christopher St. John Sprigg

  “They did,” answered Bray.

  “That’s too bad,” Vane shook his head mournfully. “I should have thought Roget’s reputation would have secured him from suspicion. He acted in good faith throughout, and no one will be more surprised, I am sure, than that worthy notary when he is told that the charming Mr. Vandyke—I went to some trouble to be charming—is a criminal.” Tommy Vane smiled genially at the policemen. “The whole beauty of our scheme was the degree to which we used innocent people. It was safer and so much cheaper. It was, I believe, the main reason why we were never suspected for so long. I assure you that only five people connected with La Gazette dreamed that it was a centre for drug distribution. Those five people were Grandet and his four assistants, all men with criminal records, but so carefully segregated in their sub-department that no one was likely to come into contact with them. I trust you will be good enough to forward this part of my statement to the French police.”

  “I think I will,” said Bray thoughtfully. “I seem to remember Durand saying something of the sort, although the evidence against Roget was pretty damning.”

  “Good. Poor little Roget must be cleared. Well, I suppose there is no need to go into the mechanism of the distribution in detail—you probably know it already. Its essence was the suborning of the necessary number of air Customs officials in each country, and an arrangement whereby the day when those officials were on duty was signalled to head office. The real touch of genius in the scheme was, of course, the use of air transport, so that the drug was in the hands of the consumer before the end of the day on which it left the centre. I hope you appreciated the neatness of that idea, and also the efficiency with which it was worked out?”

  “We do appreciate it,” commented Bray dryly.

  “Ah, but you don’t, not fully,” expostulated Vane. “You have made the obvious clumsy error of thinking that it was a vast organization of bribery and corruption. But it wasn’t. The really delicious part of it was that the air taxi people themselves were absolutely unaware of the nature of the cargo they were carrying!”

  Bray and Creighton looked at each other with mutual surprise. “What! Do you mean to assert,” asked Bray, “that Gauntlett’s Air Taxis weren’t a part of your organization?”

  “Most certainly I do,” answered Vane in surprise. “Our procedure in each country was to put the newspaper air delivery out to tender among the various air taxi firms. The best tender won it. This disarmed suspicion, because it meant we employed a firm which was known by the Air Ministry and the police to be perfectly honest!”

  “But the risk! It seems tremendous!” exclaimed Bray.

  Vane shook his head. “Only a tenth of the risk that would result if all the pilots and van-drivers were aware of the nature of their cargo. The secret would be bound to leak out then among so many. Besides, the difficulty of getting enough dishonest pilots would be immense. And the cost of the organization, if it were a dummy one, would be an impossible tax on the scheme.”

  “Yes,” admitted Bray. “That point had puzzled us.”

  “There was no real risk. The drug was done up into bundles of newspapers, and each bundle was sealed. Would any pilot dream of opening them in the ordinary way? There was no danger that the cross-Channel pilot would clear Customs anywhere except at the aerodrome where our men were on duty, because he would know the other smaller aeroplanes were waiting there to distribute the papers to the provincial centres. The scheme was absolutely safe. La Gazette contracts were fought for eagerly by the air taxi firms of a dozen countries, and all that part of the organization was taken off our shoulders. We only had two responsibilities, apart from getting the dope into France. One responsibility was to arrange for safe Customs clearance at one regular aerodrome at more or less regular dates. This was the most expensive and difficult thing in the whole scheme and took us longest to arrange, and we never knew from one week to another when our two men would come upon the rota. The other responsibility was to provide a newsagent in each large town ready to act as a drug distribution centre. As Inspector Bray will appreciate, that is a fairly easy task. Provincial distributors, and lists of likely customers, can both be obtained in the world of white drug smuggling fairly cheaply. In our case they were kindly provided for us by our drug manufacturer without charge. So you see really the organization was much simpler than it seemed, and that was the main charm. Most of the work was done as a commercial proposition, by very respectable firms, experts in their line. All we had to do was to keep a general organizing eye on each national distribution.”

  “And where did you come in?” asked Bray.

  “I came to Baston to look after the English side: hence my appearance as a novice member of the club. As Vandyke I went to Croydon regularly, chartered an aeroplane and flew to the Chief’s headquarters for our conferences. I may say I adopted this method to shake off any roving policemen who might choose to follow me.”

  Bray flushed, but said nothing.

  “There is no point in giving you the heads of the other countries,” went on Vane. “Doubtless you have already got them. If not, well, you must look for them elsewhere. As you will have gathered by now, I don’t propose to incriminate anyone besides myself in this statement.”

  “You persist that none of the pilots engaged in carrying the drugs was aware of it?” pressed Creighton.

  “Most certainly,” answered Vane positively. “That is my main point in making this statement. Gauntlett, Randall, Miss Sackbut, Downton, Thorndike—none of them has or had the slightest knowledge of what he or she was doing.”

  Creighton gave an unbelieving smile. “I am afraid that story is too tall to believe. If, as you say, the pilots knew nothing about it, and had not to be bribed, can you explain why Furnace, before his death, had to be paid additional sums beyond his ordinary salary amounting to more than a thousand pounds per annum? Moreover, how did he come to be in possession of a drug which he knew to be cocaine—knew because he had taken it to a public analyst?”

  Vane’s face became suddenly watchful. “Oh, you knew that, did you? I didn’t realize it. Well, as it happened, Furnace was the one man who did find out—by sheer accident. He forgot to deliver one bundle, and some confounded impulse persuaded him to pull off the binding and have a look at one of the papers. Of course it was just bad luck that it happened to be one of the days when we were delivering drugs, and when he found a white powder in the newspapers he got suspicious at once.”

  “But he didn’t have it analysed at once,” Bray pointed out.

  “No. Fortunately he mentioned it to Ness directly he arrived. Ness was my assistant in the English organization; I had bought him cheaply and he was useful because he knew the movements of the Gauntlett people and could keep a check on them. Well, Ness told me at once, so I got on to the Chief and I was given authority to buy Furnace at any price. It wasn’t so expensive as it might have been, because I told him it was saccharine we were smuggling. He agreed to keep quiet for twelve hundred a year, and we paid it; but I was never happy, because he obviously suffered from ingrowing conscience. Furnace wasn’t a fool, and something made him suspicious. I don’t know what it was, but anyway the damned fool went to an analyst, and that blew the gaff. He began to get qualms of conscience and suddenly decided he was the most awful rotter the world had ever known. Brooded for days.”

  Vane sneered. “I think what really broke him was his love for a woman whom he felt to be too good for him, now that he had become a criminal. He got a fit of acute depression and span into the ground—after shooting himself, apparently. Why he shot himself first I don’t know, but I realized what had happened directly you found he had been shot as well as crashed. Unfortunately I couldn’t explain without giving myself away.” Vane looked defiantly at the two. “Well, that’s my statement, Inspector, and I hope you’ll let those pilots go!”

  Bray and Creighton went into whispered consultation.


  “Damned awkward,” confessed Bray. “It might be right, you know. It would explain a lot. You remember we were puzzled by the fact that Gauntlett and Miss Sackbut didn’t back Vane up over Mrs. Angevin’s movements. I think we’ll have to let Gauntlett, Sally Sackbut and Co. go for the moment, unless we find something to incriminate them in the documents we’ve got from Banchurch Street.”

  He spoke to Vane again. “If you think this statement is going to help you, my lad,” he said roughly, “you’re mistaken. There’s nothing here about your organization we didn’t know or couldn’t find out. Now look here, don’t be a fool. You’re in a bad jam, why make it worse? Tell us who the Chief is, and we won’t forget you. I can’t make a definite promise, but you can trust to us.”

  “Get thee behind me, Satan,” said Vane pleasantly. “I don’t propose to tell you who the Chief is. And I think it is extremely unlikely that you will ever find out. As a matter of fact, I happen to be the only member of the organization except one German who ever came into contact with the Chief otherwise than by letter. No, let me correct that. Several members of the organization met the Chief, but in circumstances that would have made it impossible for them to realize who they were speaking to.”

  “We shall find the Chief all right, don’t you worry,” said Creighton positively. “Somebody will give him away, consciously or unconsciously. Why not do yourself a bit of good, since the thing’s inevitable, and make our task easy?”

  “My dear fellow,” said Vane wearily, “that is one of the things that are definitely not done by the pukka criminal. I am sorry, but we cads have our code.”

  A silence followed, broken only by the steady writing of Sergeant Finch, who was acting as amanuensis. His task completed, he gave the statement to Vane, who read it carefully.

  “The style is rather heavy,” he commented, “and it shows no trace of any special sense of humour. Still, it is the best I can expect, I suppose.”

  He scrawled Claude Jeremy Hartigan in his bold eccentric hand across the foot.

  He had not completed the initialling of the pages when Murgatroyd came in and quietly approached his superior.

  “We’ve been having trouble with some fellow who says he’s an American Judge,” he explained. “One of our lads pulled him up when he was trying to make a quick getaway. He keeps telling some extraordinary story about a drunken Bishop who’s trying to work the three-card trick. I can’t make out whether he’s dotty or just putting it on.”

  Bray laughed, and Vane, who, as the cause of it, could appreciate the humour of the Judge’s bewilderment, ought to have laughed too, but he did not. On the contrary he lost for the first time his air of ease.

  “I ran into that guy this afternoon. He is dotty all right,” he said earnestly. “Sorry to disappoint you, but he’s nothing to do with us. He was brought here by the Bishop of Cootamundra, but he’s got some queer idea about him, and when the Bishop left him for a moment with me he suddenly decided to run away from the Bishop.”

  Bray looked at Vane closely.

  “All right, Murgatroyd,” Creighton was saying, “let him go after you’ve searched him, if his papers establish his identity.”

  Bray realized it might have been his imagination, but he thought he saw an expression of sudden relief pass over Vane’s face at Creighton’s words.

  “If you don’t mind, Creighton,” remarked Bray. “I’d like to have a word with this Judge.”

  “Just as you like. Ask him to come in, Murgatroyd.”

  Judge Innes was flushed and a little dishevelled, but still capable of a generous flow of indignation.

  “Are you the Captain?” he asked Creighton. “Is this your British justice, arresting an American citizen as he walks peacefully along? What’s the big idea? What are you charging me with anyway?”

  “You are not being charged with anything, sir,” said Bray in his most mellifluous tones. “It was necessary for us in the course of our duties to arrest several criminals at the aerodrome, and a cordon was placed round it to prevent any of them making their escape. The public were asked over the loud-speaker not to leave the grounds until further notice. You were found attempting to do so, somewhat rapidly, as I understand. Hence the action of our officers.”

  “Well, if that’s so…still you have no cause to suspect me. I’m an American Judge over here on holiday, and the only thing that’s the matter with me is my innocence, I guess. I got tied up with some old geezer who called himself a Bishop, but it turns out he was nothing much better than a confidence trickster. If it hadn’t been—”

  At this point the Judge’s eye fell on Vane, who now stood looking out of the door of the room, over the shoulder of the policeman guarding it. Unfortunately, although his face was turned away, his scarf was visible and the Judge went up to him.

  “Why, Hartigan, fancy finding you here! You can explain to these bulls—these gentlemen, I mean, about the Bishop. How I got sold by a guy like that! Is my face red?”

  Bray and Creighton began to speak simultaneously.

  “Why, do you know Hartigan?” they asked.

  “Sure I do,” answered the American. “I live near to Los Angeles, and I knew Hartigan well when he was at Hollywood. A very popular young man he was, and a great friend of my wife still, although he left us so suddenly—I don’t know why. I only heard some silly rumours I didn’t believe. Made his pile I expect, though I never heard there was much money in being a stunt man. Perhaps, though, he couldn’t go on being one after his marriage.”

  “What exactly was his job?” asked Bray, rather less interested now that he knew how the Judge had come to recognize their prisoner.

  “A stunt man,” explained the Judge. “He doubles for the stars and does the difficult or dangerous things they won’t do. Boy, but Spider was grand! Did you see that film about four years ago called ‘Hell-Birds’?”

  Bray nodded. “As a matter of fact I did.”

  “Say, but wasn’t it great?” said Innes enthusiastically. “Those crashes! That piece where the airman hero goes straight up to ten thousand feet and spins into the deck and you can see him waving all the time? There doesn’t look any fake about it and I can tell you there wasn’t. This baby here did that, and had he a hair out of place afterwards? I’ll tell the world he hadn’t!”

  Vane interposed angrily. “What the devil has all this got to do with how you knew me? I don’t want my past bleated about as if you were my Press agent. You’re a damned fool, Innes!”

  The judge turned red with indignation. “Say, if that’s what you think…” He reached for his hat and was about to go. “You wouldn’t think this boy here used to stay at my house for weeks on end and call my wife Mother, would you? All right, Tommy, I can take a hint!”

  The two police inspectors exchanged a glance. Creighton nodded. “Will you please stay a moment, sir?” begged Bray. “This is more important than you think. Am I to understand that Hartigan, as a stunt man, actually had to crash aeroplanes—really crash them, not just fake photography?”

  “Of course. Don’t you know that there are dozens of stunt men doing that for every flying film, Captain? You come to Hollywood and I’ll show you. All those spins into the ground are real. It’s just a way they have of taking the bang with a wing-tip as the ship touches which saves them being injured. They get hurt sometimes, but they’re well paid for it. You ought to read Dick Grace’s book. There was a lad if you like! He had even you licked, Spider. Why, I’ve seen him put a handkerchief on the ground and then crack up and reach for the handkerchief while he was still in the cockpit, hanging upside down with the rest of the ship in pieces on the ’drome! He’d give you a crack-up within ten feet of the camera, Grace would, if you paid for it. But that spin of yours in ‘Hell-Birds,’ Spider, was a sure fine thrill! Grace himself hasn’t done better!”

  “You damned maundering old fool!” exclaimed Vane, white with exa
speration. “Do you realize I am under arrest?” His voice shook with rage. “Damn and blast you, what did you want to come over to England for, you confounded old hayseed!”

  The Judge’s face softened when he saw the young man’s stricken face. He put his hand on his shoulder.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were in trouble, son?” he said. “I’d have helped you, you know that, don’t you? What is it, gentlemen?”

  “Drug smuggling,” answered Creighton briefly. “We have his confession here.”

  “Say, that’s bad.” He looked at Vane. “Were those rumours I heard about you down at the studio true after all then?”

  Vane nodded. “Absolutely accurate,” he said with forced lightness. “Uncle Sam eventually asked me to leave his country quickly, for the country’s good.”

  The Judge looked upset. “Maggie will be sorry to hear that, son. She thought a lot of you. I’m sorry if I got you on the raw. Now, look here, don’t be afraid of answering me. You want a good lawyer when you get in these jams—can you afford one? The first thing Maggie will ask me when she hears of your trouble is, did I help you? You know what she is about a thing like that,” said the Judge with gentle tact, “and it’d be more than my life’s worth if I couldn’t answer her.”