by W E Johns
‘There’s just a chance that the Creek will be frozen over,’ said Wilks, referring to the almost land-locked stretch of water from which Moose Creek took its name. ‘It has been freezing pretty hard.’
‘How shall we know?’ asked Biggles.
‘I always use the lake in winter,’ replied Wilks. ‘If the ice is safe they shift the windstocking across to it, because the ice has a much better surface than the aerodrome. Being boggy, during the summer it gets churned up by the wheels, and when these ruts get frozen hard in the winter they are awful. However, we shall soon see which it is to be. There’s the creek, in the distance. It wouldn’t surprise me if we found McBain there.’
‘It would surprise him, I’ll bet,’ grinned Biggles.
‘He’s been there, anyway,’ declared Wilks, who was staring down through the window. ‘There are his wheelmarks on the ice—at least, those are aeroplane tracks, and it’s unlikely that any one else has been up here. And there’s the windstocking by the side of the creek; that means it is all right to land on the ice.’
‘Well, that’s better, anyway. I wasn’t feeling too happy at trying to put this big bus down in a frozen field on a pair of skis. Can you see McBain’s machine anywhere?’
‘No.’
‘Then he must have gone off again.’
‘Looks like it.’
‘We’ll find him at Fort Beaver, no doubt.’
Nothing more was said while Biggles concentrated on putting the Jupiter down on the lake on her new type of undercarriage.
To those in the machine the difference was barely perceptible, apart from the fact that the machine ran a long way before coming to a standstill.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Wilks.
‘Refuel, put our wheels back on again, and head south for Fort Beaver,’ replied Biggles shortly. ‘There is no telling what lies McBain will spread about us if we leave him too long alone—particularly if he thinks we aren’t coming back to refute them.’
Leaving the others to attend to the refuelling and the replacement of the undercarriage wheels, Biggles walked across to the traffic manager’s office.
‘Here we are again, Mr. Canwell,’ he observed cheerfully.
The traffic manager looked up from a book in which he was just making some entries. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but you are just too late.’
‘Too late—what for?’
‘To take the gold down.’
Biggles nodded slowly. ‘Ah—of course. I remember. So it’s gone, eh?’
‘Yep. Biggest shipment we’ve ever made in one go. I waited as long as I could for you. McBain blew in, so I let him take it. I’m sorry—’
‘You will be, I fancy,’ put in Biggles dryly.
Canwell started. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ murmured Biggles. ‘I fancy you would have found us a bit more reliable in the long run—that’s all. How long ago did McBain leave?’
‘About ten minutes.’
Biggles nodded. ‘Right-ho, then. We might as well be getting along, too. See you later, maybe.’
Biggles walked slowly to the door, but once outside he strode swiftly to where the others were waiting for him. ‘It looks as if McBain’s got away with the boodle,’ he said crisply. ‘He’s got ten minutes start. Not expecting to be followed, he’ll cruise; if we run on full throttle we may overhaul him. Get aboard—step on it.’
An Unexpected Landing
NOT UNTIL THE Jupiter was in the air, roaring southwards on the trail of the Weinkel, did Biggles settle down to contemplate the situation. The gold was temporarily in McBain’s charge; if he intended stealing it, this clearly was his opportunity. In the circumstances it seemed unlikely that he would return to Fort Beaver, where transport from the rail-head would be waiting to take the gold on to the bank at Edmonton. Where, then, would he go? The more Biggles thought about it the more he became convinced that unless he overtook the Weinkel he would never see McBain again. He, with the machine and the gold in it, would disappear. In one way this would be to Wilks’s advantage, for the feud for possession of the aerodrome would cease; nevertheless, it was not unlikely that the Moose Creek Company would be so sore at losing the gold dust that they would never again trust gold to an aeroplane, in which case Arctic Airways would die for lack of business. If they could overtake the Weinkel and see where it went they might succeed in bringing the gold thieves to justice, which could hardly fail to cement their friendship with the Moose Creek Company. This opinion Biggles passed on to Algy, who was sitting beside him in the control cabin.
The Jupiter was now once more in the region of day and night, with the ‘bad lands’ gliding past underneath them. Biggles was staring ahead, striving to pick up their quarry, when Ginger, his eyes alight with excitement, pushed his way into the cabin.
‘Starboard!’ he yelled. ‘The Weinkel’s bearing west.’
Biggles did not answer. His eyes switched to the right, far away from the line he had been following. For a moment or two they studied the sky, section by section, before they settled on a tiny moving speck travelling on a southwesterly course at a slightly lower altitude than themselves. It was the Weinkel.
‘I was right,’ he said crisply to Algy. ‘McBain isn’t going to Fort Beaver; the course he is on will leave Fort Beaver miles to the east.’
As he spoke he touched the right-hand side of the rudder-bar with his foot, bringing the Jupiter round on a new course to follow the other machine.
For an hour the respective positions of the two machines did not change. Although in the circumstances it was hardly likely that the Jupiter would be seen by the men in the leading machine, Biggles kept at a safe distance, quite satisfied to watch. The only fear he had was that McBain should be carrying more petrol than they were, in which case they might ultimately be compelled to give up the chase for lack of fuel. He was, therefore, more than a little relieved when he saw the Weinkel going down. Grabbing his map, he studied closely the area they were over, then he turned a bewildered face to Algy.
‘There’s nothing there,’ he said.
‘Not even a village?’
‘Absolutely nothing.’
Algy stood up and surveyed the ground right to the horizon; it was all the same: open prairie broken by wide areas of fir forest, with a small lake here and there. ‘No,’ he agreed, at the end of his scrutiny, ‘there’s nothing in the shape of a town or village. What are you going to do?’
That was a question Biggles could not answer at once, for the problem facing him was a difficult one to solve. While the Weinkel was in the air it was extremely unlikely that McBain would see the Jupiter, but once it was on the ground, with its engines stopped, the noise of the Jupiter’s engines would certainly give them away. The Weinkel was still in the air, but it was now losing height rapidly, and it seemed only a matter of minutes before it would land.
His brain raced as he sought a solution to the puzzle. Studying the ground intently, he saw that to the right the ground was fairly open, and that it fell away quickly to the left, the locality in which the Weinkel looked as if it would land. It struck him that if he could put the Jupiter down on the high land behind one of the patches of timber, it might be possible for them to watch the Weinkel without being seen. Anyway, it seemed worth trying, so he at once proceeded to put the plan into execution. He cut the engines, and not until the Jupiter’s wheels trundled over the turf did the others realize what he had in mind.
The machine had barely come to a standstill before Biggles was out, running for all he was worth towards a line of spruce and fir that hid the whole of the country to the south. They were a mile or more from the Weinkel, so there was little risk of them being seen or heard. Ducking low under the drooping fir branches, they pushed their way to the far edge of the timber from where the country to the south lay open to their view.
‘There they are!’ Biggles’s voice was tense as, keeping under cover, he pointed out the Weinkel, which was now standing on th
e ground by a small log cabin near the edge of a lake. It so happened, however, that from their coign of vantage the Weinkel was between them and the cabin, so although they could see figures moving, they could not see exactly what was going on.
‘I should say they are unloading the gold,’ declared Ginger.
‘I don’t think there is any doubt about that,’ returned Biggles.
Several minutes passed during which no more was said; then, not a little to their surprise, the Weinkel’s engines suddenly opened up again, and almost before the watchers realized what was happening, the machine had taken off and was racing low over a south-easterly course. The cabin was deserted; or, at least, it appeared to be.
‘Gosh! We shall lose them if we are not careful. Come on.’ Suiting the action to the words, Biggles led the rush back to the machine.
In three minutes they were in the air again. But the Weinkel had had five minutes’ clear start, and an aeroplane can travel a long way in that time. There was no sign of it.
‘They were heading south-east. That’s the direction of Fort Beaver,’ Algy pointed out.
‘I know, but I don’t get the hang of this at all,’ muttered Biggles, with a worried frown. ‘If they’ve hidden the gold, they’ve got a bit of a nerve to go back to Fort Beaver.’
‘Maybe they’ll just land to pick up the things that belong to them, and, perhaps, refuel. Then they’ll come back, put the gold on board, and go straight on south to the United States,’ suggested Algy.
‘Possibly,’ agreed Biggles. ‘Yet, somehow, I don’t think that’s the answer. It’s got me beaten, and that’s a fact. One thing is certain; we’ve got to get back to Fort Beaver ourselves or we shall run out of petrol. Another forced landing would just about put the tin hat on things.’
‘Suits me,’ agreed Algy. ‘A night’s rest wouldn’t do any of us any harm.’
That closed the conversation for the time being. It was half an hour later before any one spoke again, by which time Fort Beaver aerodrome was in sight.
‘There’s the Weinkel,’ said Biggles. ‘And unless my eyes deceive me, that’s McBain and Ferroni standing beside it, talking to—it looks like Delaney.’
‘Yes, it’s Delaney,’ put in Ginger. ‘If he is asking them what has happened to the gold we’ll be able to enlighten him,’ he added.
‘It will be interesting to see just what is happening,’ observed Biggles smoothly, as he cut the Jupiter’s engines and glided down.
Their run in carried them very close to the Weinkel. McBain and Ferroni stared at them as they taxied past.
‘Yes, you might well stare,’ said Biggles quietly to himself, eyeing McBain and his pilot grimly. ‘You didn’t expect to see us back so soon—if at all—I’ll warrant.’ His eyes went past the two crooks and came to rest on something that lay on the ground beyond them. A strange expression crept over his face, but he made no further observation until he had switched off in front of their hangar. ‘Well,’ he said, in an odd tone of voice,’ what do you make of that?’
‘Make of what?’ asked the others together.
‘Those are the Moose Creek gold boxes that they’re unloading,’ went on Biggles. ‘They haven’t stolen the gold after all. They’ll never get a better chance.’ He passed his hand wearily over his face and then shook his head. ‘That seems to knock all our calculations sideways, doesn’t it?’
‘I—I don’t understand it,’ blurted Wilks.
‘You’d be a clever fellow if you did, I think,’ muttered Biggles dryly. ‘According to Ginger, those chaps are crooks, waiting for a chance to get their hands on a pile of gold. They’ve actually had the gold in their possession, with nothing as far as I can see to prevent them from getting clear away with it. Yet they bring it back here and quietly hand it over to the bank messenger—that looks like him coming now—like law-abiding citizens. There’s a weak link somewhere in that chain of events. We had better go inside and put our thinking caps on and see if we can find it.’
Under Arrest
FOR THE REMAINDER of the day and far into the night they discussed the problem that seemed to admit of no solution. At daybreak the following morning they resumed the debate. They could talk of nothing else. Biggles broke off long enough to send Smyth to the village, shopping, then he continued the discussion.
‘You can’t get away from it,’ he declared, staring out across the now deserted aerodrome. ‘If McBain stays here for ten years he won’t get a better chance to lift a load of gold than he had yesterday. If he is a crook, why did he deliver the gold instead of pushing off with it? That’s what I want to know. Had he wanted to, he could have been two thousand miles away by now. I give it up.’
‘The only answer seems to be that McBain isn’t a crook after all,’ suggested Wilks.
‘I tell you I heard them discussing ways and means of getting the gold,’ declared Ginger emphatically. ‘You’re not suggesting that I dreamed—’
‘Of course we’re not,’ broke in Biggles.
‘Maybe the haul wasn’t big enough, and they are waiting for another lot,’ suggested Algy.
Biggles shook his head. ‘That won’t do,’ he said. ‘Why, they might have to wait months. You remember that Canwell himself told us that it was an unusually big cargo of metal; and consider the other circumstances. The freeze-up has set in up north, and it’s only a question of days—perhaps hours— before it reaches us here. McBain must know by this time that something has happened to his other machine. He must know that we suspect him of the murder of old Mose. He probably guesses that we have got the transfer from Angus. Any one of those factors should be sufficient to send him scuttling out of this locality as fast as he can go. Why is he waiting? What is he waiting for? If he had hidden yesterday’s cargo of gold we might suppose that he is hanging about in order to pick up a second lot before clearing out, but with our own eyes we saw him hand the boxes over. There is something fishy about the whole thing. Talking of gold reminds me that we’ve still got Mose’s “poke” in the machine—the dust Angus handed over to us. We’d better put it somewhere safe pending such time as we can hand it over to the authorities. No doubt they’ll find Mose’s daughter. I don’t feel inclined to tear around at this moment looking for her. We’ll tell Delaney about it next time he comes up here.’
‘I’ve got a place where we can hide it,’ said Wilks. ‘There’s a secret cavity under my office floor; I had it specially made for valuables.’
‘With McBain and Co. about I think it would be a good thing if we put it in right away,’ declared Biggles.
The small bag of gold was accordingly fetched from the machine and put into Wilks’s hiding place. The task done, they returned to the tarmac.
‘To get down to brass tacks, what is the next move?’ inquired Algy.
‘The most important thing is that we now have the transfer,’ answered Biggles. ‘As far as I can see, there is nothing to stop us from showing it to Delaney, and asking him to order McBain off our property.’
‘Yes, I think that is the right procedure,’ agreed Wilks.
‘Then we’ll hang about for at bit to see if Delaney comes along; if he doesn’t, then we’ll go and find him,’ declared Biggles. ‘Go and brew a dish of coffee, Ginger. Bring it in the office when it is ready.’
Ginger nodded, got up, and made his way, deep in thought, to the back of the hangar, where the cooking stove had been installed.
The others sat outside the office door, smoking and discussing the situation. They were still waiting for the coffee when, to Biggles’s astonishment, Constable Delaney appeared at the entrance to McBain’s hangar.
‘What do you make of that?’ jerked out Algy. ‘I wonder how long he has been there,’ said Biggles.
‘It must have been a long time or we should have seen him go in,’ Wilks pointed out.
‘I thought everything was very quiet over there,’ muttered Biggles suspiciously. ‘He’s coming over to us now, by the look of it.’
Delaney
was, in fact, walking towards the Arctic Airways hangar, followed by McBain and Ferroni.
‘What the dickens do they want?’ growled Algy.
‘We shall soon know,’ murmured Biggles, rising to his feet to greet the constable. ‘Morning, Delaney; looking for something?’ he called cheerfully.
Delaney nodded curtly. ‘Yes,’ he said shortly.
Biggles experienced a twinge of uneasiness. There was something about the constable’s manner be did not like. However, he did not show it. ‘Make yourself at home,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’
The constable, carbine across his arm, came to a halt a couple of paces away and regarded the three airmen with an expression of shrewd suspicion. His eyes came to rest on Biggles.
‘Were you at Moose Creek yesterday?’
‘I was,’ replied Biggles frankly. ‘Any reason why I shouldn’t be?’
‘I’ll do all the questioning.’
‘Go ahead,’ invited Biggles cheerfully.
The constable turned to Wilks. ‘Any objection to my searching your outfit?’ he inquired. ‘I’m searching it, anyway,’ he added.
Wilks waved a conscience-free hand. ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘Maybe if I was told what you were looking for I could help you.’
‘I shan’t need any help,’ rejoined the constable.
‘You’ve had a look round McBain’s outfit for whatever it is you’ve lost, I presume?’ put in Biggles.
Delaney threw him a sidelong glance. ‘I have,’ he admitted.
‘And you didn’t find it?’
‘No.’
‘You won’t find it here.’
‘You talk like you know what I’m looking for.’
‘If I had one guess, and if I hadn’t seen the boxes being unloaded on the aerodrome yesterday, I should say it was the Moose Creek parcel of bullion.’
McBain took a quick pace forward. ‘What are you suggesting?’ he growled.
‘Work it out for yourself,’ replied Biggles evenly. He turned to Delaney. ‘You won’t find the Moose Creek gold here,’ he said. ‘Funny thing,’ he went on easily, ‘I should have thought that if those boxes had been empty you’d have noticed it.’
