It was ten o'clock when, with Ginger beside him, he rang the front-door bell of Larford Hall. It was answered by a butler. "I'd like to see Mrs. Vanester on a personal matter of importance," Biggles told him.
They were invited into a hall, where the butler left them, presently to return and conduct them to a well-furnished sitting-room of some size. A tall, dark, heavily built but goodlooking woman of middle age rose from a chair where she had been at work, apparently making a hat.
"Good evening. You have something to say to me?" she questioned, speaking with a pronounced accent.
"Yes," replied Biggles. "I fear I am the bearer of bad news. We're from police headquarters."
The woman did not move or speak, but Ginger, who was beginning to know the signs of nervous emotion, saw the end of her nose turn white.
"Is Mr. Lurgens, of Rossenhalle, Holland, a relation of yours?" asked Biggles. Mrs. Vanester's hand flew to her heart. "He is my brother!" she cried. "Don't tell me he has crashed? Always I feared that he would fall in his aeroplane and be killed."
"I didn't say anything about an aeroplane," returned Biggles quietly. "But while we are on the subject, will you tell me why he found it necessary to land here last night instead of at an official airport? I have warned you that we are police officers." For a moment the woman did not answer. She stared at Biggles as if his face fascinated her. "Who said he landed here?" she asked at last, in a curious strained voice.
"I did," replied Biggles evenly. "I asked you why he landed."
"He wanted to see me, of course. Why not?" "As you say, why not? But why land here?
Why not land at the proper place?"
The woman shrugged. "I know nothing about flying."
"I suggest that he landed here because he carried something he did not want to declare to the Customs officers."
"Such nonsense!" scoffed the woman. "He brought nothing but a small present for me." " Would you call the box of feathers which I see
on the floor beside your chair a small present?" inquired Biggles. The woman drew a deep breath. "Very well!" she exclaimed curtly. "What of it? What are a few feathers? Is the possession of feathers a crime?"
"That depends on the feathers and how they were brought here," replied Biggles.
"So!" challenged the woman haughtily. "If there is a duty to pay I will pay it." Biggles shook his head. "You cannot, Mrs. Vanester, evade the law in this country and gloss over it as easily as that."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" "I'm hoping to discuss that with your brother."
"That is impossible. He is in Holland."
"On the contrary, I think I hear him landing now," averred Biggles imperturbably. For the first time the woman looked shaken. "Is he mad?" she muttered. "What could have brought him here?"
"I took the liberty of suggesting that you were anxious to see him."
"But I don't want to see him."
"No, but I do," said Biggles softly. "Here he is now, I think." The door was thrown open, and a swarthy man, with an unstrapped flying helmet on his head and a leather jacket on his arm, strode into the room. After a swift glance at the two men he looked at the
woman and said tersely: "What is this? Why do you ask me to come back?" With a hand resting on his hip, Biggles answered. "Your sister didn't ask you to come back. I sent the telegram. I am a police inspector and I arrest you for the murder of Edmund Teale, an aircraft apprentice, outside this house last night. I must warn you that anything you say
The accused man did not say anything. But he acted—swiftly. The flying jacket fell from his arm as his hand flashed to his pocket. Biggles moved just as fast. Two shots crashed almost as one, making the lights jump. Silence fell. Pale blue cordite smoke reeked across the room. Biggles swayed a-little on his feet, then stood still, his lips a thin line, a smoking pistol still half raised. The man facing him stretched out a hand for the table. His eyes, wide open, were on Biggles's face. His pistol fell with a soft thud on the carpet. Then, like a coat slipping from a peg, he crumpled in a heap on the floor. The woman screamed, stumbled to a settee and collapsed on it, Said Biggles, slowly and deliberately: "He asked for it. Ginger, pick up that gun. The phone's over there. Call Sergeant Winskip. Tell him he'll need an ambulance. Give my name to the operator or you may not get through." Then he walked stiffly to a chair and sat down.
Thus ended dramatically the case of the murdered apprentice. Lurgens, already wanted for murder, had nothing to lose by shooting at Biggles, who, realising this, was ready. Both shots took effect. Lurgen's shot hit Biggles in the side, making a flesh wound that put him in hospital for a week. Biggles's bullet did not kill Lurgens. It lodged in his body and was successfully removed. He was in hospital, on the way to recovery, when he made a desperate attempt to escape, tearing the stitches in his wound and causing complications from which he died a fortnight later.
Mrs. Vanester was deported as an undesirable alien.
Later it was revealed that Lurgens had once been employed as a pilot by a Dutch air-line company operating in Indonesia, and had been discharged for the very offence that in the end cost him his life. Ironically, the feathers that provided such a vital clue must have been only a sideline, judging from the big stocks of contraband goods found in Larford Hall, and black-market British currency found by the Dutch police in his house in Holland.
Exactly how Apprentice Teale met his death was never known, although it was proved by ballistic experts that Lurgens' pistol had fired the fatal shot. The probable explanation, supported by bloodstains in Lurgens' Fokker, was that Teale, on his way home, had seen the machine standing in the field,
and, investigating, hit on the truth. Anyway, the smuggler had shot him and disposed of the body in a manner which he had every reason to suppose would be simple and safe. It may have been simple, but, as events proved, it was not safe. The body, from the lonely sandbank on which it fell, called for justice, and it did not call in vain.
THE CASE OF THE STOLEN AIRCRAFT
"IN MY time I've seen and heard so many surprising things that I've often told myself that nothing could ever surprise me again." Biggles smiled whimsically as; sitting in his room at the Operations Headquarters of the Air Police at Gatwick Airport, he reached for a cigarette.
"What is it this time, old warrior?" enquired Bertie, adjusting his monocle. Biggles looked across at the map table on which Algy and Ginger were plotting a course.
"Come here and listen to this," he requested.
"Have you just come from the Yard?" asked Algy, as he walked over.
"Yes. I found Wing Commander Lyall, Provost-Marshal of the R.A.F., there with the Air Commodore; and he told us as queer a yarn as I ever heard in my life, I think. I got a laugh out of it, too."
"Shoot away," demanded Algy.
"Follow the story closely and don't miss a word,", said Biggles. "Here we go. Some time ago a pupil at the R.A.F. Training Establishment at Marling Road, in Suffolk, was detailed to do a cross-country test in a certain aircraft—to be precise, a Lysander numbered K.8009. Half an hour later, sweating in his flying kit, he returned to the Flight Office to say that he couldn't find the machine anywhere. Other people, including the Station Commandant, started looking, and they couldn't find it, either. In short, K.8009
wasn't on the airfield. Where was it? Nobody knew. Records showed that it had been overhauled and refuelled three days earlier and pulled out onto the concrete. With what reluctance we can well imagine the Station Commander had no alternative than to report to the Air Ministry that he had mislaid one perfectly good aircraft." Biggles stubbed his cigarette.
"A day or two after receiving this report the Air Ministry did the obvious thing. They sent a signal to all stations asking for a check to be carried out to see if anyone had an aircraft surplus to establishment. It was just possible that some thoughtless fellow had flown the machine to another airfield and forgotten to bring it back—a most unlikely proceeding, we must admit, but it was the only solution the Air
House could think of. The check was carried out according to orders, but, far from producing the missing machine, another Station Commander, at another training unit, had to confess that he was one short. He had lost a perfectly good Mosquito, of all things. At any rate, it wasn't on the airfield. Nor could its absence be accounted for.
"Upon receiving this information the Air Council
became exceedingly wrathful, and Station Commanders up and down the country began to lose their beauty sleep. The R.A.F. started looking for its lost sheep, but they were not to be found. About this time somebody remembered that just before the scare started someone had rung up to say that, while out shooting grouse on the Yorkshire moors, he had come upon the wreckage of an aeroplane. He thought the Air Ministry might like to know about it. Nobody had paid much attention to this at the time because war-time wreckage is still lying about the more desolate parts of the country, and nobody had been reported missing, anyway. However, somebody was sent along to have a look at this particular mess. And, sure enough, it turned out to be the bits and pieces of Lysander K. 8009. It had obviously gone into the ground flat-out, nose first, and scattered itself all over the landscape. Apparently it was flying itself at the time. At all events there was nobody in it or near it. How could you account for that?"
"The pilot, knowing he was going to collide with the floor, had already baled out," offered Ginger.
"Correct," answered Biggles. "That's the only possible answer. But who was he? Where was he going? What was he doing? Why didn't he report the accident? If something had gone wrong he would have been justified in stepping out." Nobody answered.
"There is more to come," resumed Biggles. "The next step in this chain of curious events was a letter sent to the Air Ministry by a farmer in Lincolnshire. Very politely he asked them to remove the aeroplane that was standing-in one of his fields as his cattle were using it as a rubbing post and he was afraid this wasn't doing it any good. An officer was sent along. What did he find?"
"The missing Mosquito," replied Bertie promptly.
Biggles nodded approvingly. "There are moments, Bertie, when your perception amounts almost to genius," he declared with gentle sarcasm. "You're quite right. There stood the lost Mosquito with hens roosting on it and a cart-horse scratching its tail on the rudder. How it got there nobody knows. The farmer swears he woke up one morning and found it there. But wait a minute. A very odd circumstance now arose. Records showed that just before the aircraft disappeared its tanks had been topped up ready for a long flight. When it was found the tanks were practically dry. That is to say, when the Mosquito left the ground it carried rather more than five hundred gallons of juice, which would give it a range of well over two thousand miles. Yet here it was, with almost empty tanks, within forty miles of the place where it started from. What do you make of that?"
"Nothing," said Bertie helplessly. "Absolutely nothing."
"I thought you wouldn't," murmured Biggles softly.
"Are there no pilots missing?" asked Ginger. "Not one," answered Biggles.
"What I want to know," put in Algy, "is what happened to all the petrol? Did the pilot fly round and round for hours and hours until he'd used it all u?" p
Biggles shook his head slowly. "That doesn't sound to me like the answer."
"But I say, look here, old boy; what does all this add up to—if you see what I mean?" asked Bertie.
"It doesn't add up to anything that makes sense," replied Biggles.
"And where do we come in?" enquired Ginger.
"We don't," Biggles told him. "At least, that is, not officially. The Air Ministry, as a matter of course, has now informed the Yard of these queer goings-on. I happened to be with Raymond and so heard about them. The Air Ministry has, I gather, confessed itself beaten, so if we can find the answers it should be a feather in the Air Commodore's cap. On the face of it the case is odd rather than sinister, but in aviation one never knows what lies behind a thing, however simple it may look. Until the mystery is solved it's impossible to say which government departments may be affected. It might be a matter of simple smuggling for Customs and Excise; it might be an ordinary police court job; but it might just as well come within the province of the National Security Office. If the aircraft had disappeared entirely the thing wouldn't be so strange. One would suppose that the machines had been pinched by some bloke for purposes of his own, possibly for sale abroad. That has been done. But why pinch an aircraft and then throw it away? That'
s the nut we've got to crack."
"Where are you going to start looking for the answers?" asked Ginger.
"You tell me," invited Biggles. "It should provide you with a nice mental exercise."
"What's the Air Ministry doing about it?" demanded Bertie.
"Nothing, except that all stations have been ordered to watch their aircraft to make sure that the thing doesn't happen again; which is going to be no joke for the airmen who are going to lose half their sleep doing guard duty."
"Could this be the work of some bloke in the service having a joke—if you get my meaning?" asked Bertie.
"I wouldn't call pinching government property to the tune of £1050,000 a joke," protested Biggles. "Neither will the fellow concerned, if he's caught at it," he added grimly.
"Could it be someone with a grievance, going this way to get his own back?" suggested Ginger. "What satisfaction could he get out of that?" enquired Biggles. "The only man to suffer at the finish is the tax-payer, who has to pay for the machines."
"I don't see how you're going to get to the bottom of it," observed Algy gloomily.
"Why not?"
"Well, by now the scent is stone-cold. You can't watch every machine in the country. As far as the machines already stolen are concerned—well, an aircraft doesn't leave tracks."
"Doesn't it?" asked Biggles blandly.
"Are you telling us you hope to find the bloke who pinched these machines?" enquired Bertie dubiously. "Hope is the word."
"But how are you going to pick up his trail?"
"That's what I'd like you to tell me," replied Biggles evenly. "Think it over." He got up. " Ginger, tell Flight-Sergeant Smyth that I shall want the Auster ready to take off at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. You can come with me if you like." Ginger looked puzzled. "Is this anything to do with the case you've been talking about?"
"Of course."
"What are you going to look for?"
"The man who purloined the machines." Ginger became slightly satirical. "Are you expecting to run into him in the atmosphere?" "No, although there's just a chance of it. It's more likely that I shall see him on the ground," answered Biggles, smiling.
"Are you kidding?"
"No."
"You really expect to see him?"
"I do."
"Then you know something?"
"I've got an idea."
"What is it?"
Biggles shook his head, a faint smile hovering about the corners of his mouth. "I've told you what Raymond told me. Work it out for yourself. It's time you skyway coppers did your own thinking."
Ginger looked hurt. "Well, give us a clue."
Biggles's smile broadened. "All right. Bring me a six-inch Ordnance Survey map of south Norfolk."
Ginger brought the sheet and unrolled it on Biggles's desk.
Biggles touched a spot with the point of a pencil. "That's where we're going," he said. "I expect to meet the bloke who pinched the planes. That's as much as I'm going to tell you. If he isn't there I shall be very disappointed."
The stars were paling in the sky when, the following morning, the Auster left the ground, and headed north with Biggles at the controls. Ginger, feeling rather chilly, for the early morning air was keen, after the metropolis had been skirted had nothing to do but gaze down at the still sleeping countryside. The tangle of roads that would soon be humming with traffic were still deserted; an occasional lorry on a main highway was the only thing that moved. For the rest, the scene was the flat, multi-col
oured, patchwork quilt that every pilot soon gets to know so well. The weather was fair after a soft autumn night, and except for a little mist persisting over low ground visibility was good. Above, a few flecks of cloud, far to the west, were the only stains ,in an otherwise cloudless sky. In short, the conditions for flying were perfect.
For rather more than half an hour not a word was spoken, although Ginger, with a map on his knees, followed the course until Suffolk lay below them to the right, and Cambridgeshire, with the imposing cathedral of Ely conspicuous slightly ahead, to the left.
The engine cut suddenly, picked up, went on again, cut again, and then continued with an uneven note. The machine lost height.
Ginger, of course, assumed that the power unit was failing, and was about to make a remark to that effect when he saw Biggles's hand moving the throttle. Instead of saying what he was going to say, he remarked sharply: "What the dickens are you doing?"
"I am afraid we may be going to have a spot of engine trouble," answered Biggles, smiling curiously. "We may have a forced landing."
"What do you mean—are we going down or aren't we?"
"I shall go down when I see what I'm expecting to see," replied Biggles. "That should happen at any moment. I'm hoping to create the impression to anyone on the ground that we're having a spot of bother, which would account for a landing outside an authorised airfield."
"What are you looking for?"
"Wheel tracks on a big field. With the dew still on the ground they should be easy enough to see. In particular, I'm interested in tracks that fade away, as if the vehicle that made them
"Had taken wing."
"Exactly. You see the farm ahead, to the left and some distance from the road? There's a village a mile or so to the north of it."
"Yes."
"That's where I'm expecting to see the tracks. There are some nice big fields, anyway." A minute later Ginger cried, in a voice in which surprise and satisfaction were blended: " Okay, there they are!"
"I've got them," returned Biggles.
The engine, which had been running unevenly, cut abruptly. The nose of the machine went down and the aircraft began a series of S turns that took it ever nearer to a large grass field across which ran several sets, of parallel lines, some, curiously enough, beginning and some ending in the middle of the field for no apparent reason. In one corner of the field stood a farm with extensive outbuildings. Ginger thought he saw a movement there, but he was not sure.
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