by W E Johns
Algy spoke. ‘If it was over the Bristol Channel where did it start from? Somewhere out in the Atlantic?’
‘Could be, if it was based on an aircraft carrier. I must admit that doesn’t seem very likely, because if there was a foreign aircraft carrier hanging about our coast the Admiralty would know about it, and want to know what it was doing. But for the moment never mind about where the plane starts from. What we want to know, as it crosses the coast, is where it is going and for what purpose. As far as we can make out, every time it has been picked up an extension of its track would have taken it to about the middle of Cornwall. It doesn’t follow that the machine landed there. It could have dropped something and then made for home. But mark this. Whether it landed or simply flew over the objective, there must have been a confederate waiting on the ground either to show the position of the dropping area or to collect what the plane came over to deliver.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Ginger, ‘it’s time we had a close look at the middle of Cornwall.’
‘It’s a big lump of land to watch. Come on, Bertie. You’re the expert on the county. Can you narrow down the most likely areas to search, or to keep an eye on?’
Bertie answered. ‘I can tell you this. It’s all pretty hilly, and there aren’t all that number of places for a machine to get on the carpet, anyway at night. It’s true that on the north side of the county there’s plenty of open ground, by which I mean there are not so many trees there, so I’m told, being discouraged by the Atlantic gales. The south side is different. It’s well wooded and at the same time pretty hilly. Of course, there’s Bodmin Moor. That’s more central and it covers a lot of ground. A pilot who knows his job should have no great difficulty in getting his wheels on the ground, provided he chooses the right place. In the off season for holiday traffic he might even land on the main road, the A30, which runs right across it, mostly dead straight, for what must be the best part of ten miles or more.’
Biggles frowned. ‘Bodmin Moor,’ he said softly, slowly. ‘That name rings a bell with me. Where have I heard it lately?’
Ginger answered. ‘You’re probably thinking of the police constable who was found there, murdered — let’s see, it would be about a fortnight ago. The constable was found dead on the road. He was a man named Harley, one of the regulars who did night duty.’
‘Ah! That’s it. I remember now. I’ve heard no more about it.’
‘No doubt because no arrest has been made. There has been nothing more about it in the papers.’
‘Queer that this should crop up just when we were interested in the place. Can you recall the details, as far as they’re known?’
‘I think so. Some tourist on his way to the coast via Bodmin saw a bicycle lying beside the road. He stopped and had a look round, but seeing nobody he went on. A couple of hundred yards farther on his headlights picked up a body lying on the road. It was a policeman. He was dead. All he could do was move the body to the side of the road and press on to Bodmin, where he reported what he had seen to the police. They brought the body in. There were several injuries, one on the head. Naturally, at first it was assumed that the constable had been knocked down by a hit-and-run motorist—’
‘In that case, surely, the bicycle would have been near the body?’ interposed Biggles.
‘The answer was found at the post-mortem, when it was discovered that the officer had been shot in the back by a forty-five revolver bullet. That, of course, made it a case of murder. That’s the last I’ve heard of it.’
‘Now why should anyone murder a policeman at a spot like that?’ murmured Biggles pensively.
‘He may have stopped a suspicious-looking character to question him,’ contributed Algy.
‘I suppose that could be the answer, but it doesn’t impress me,’ returned Biggles. ‘In the first place, why should a suspicious-looking character be walking the road in the middle of the night? Why walk? One would think he’d try to thumb a lift. Again, why was the body so far from the bicycle? Why didn’t this supposed suspicious character get on it and ride away?’
‘You tell me,’ Algy answered. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘I’m wondering if by any chance this murder could have any connection with our problem. Why was the body so far away from the bicycle? That strikes me as very odd. If you asked me to explain it I’d say the officer wasn’t with his bike when he was murdered.’
‘All right. What do you think happened?’
‘If you’re asking for a theory, without any evidence to support it, I’ll give you one. The constable was cycling down the road when he saw something unusual. He stopped, and leaving his bike beside the road went forward on foot to investigate. In doing that he took on more than he bargained for. That’s the risk policemen take these days. He was trying to get back to his bike when he was shot in the back.’
‘But his body was found on the road, nowhere near the bike,’ argued Algy.
‘That’s because it was put there. The murderer didn’t know the policeman had a bike. He had to get rid of the body so he dumped it on the road, anywhere, hoping it would be assumed that the officer had been knocked down by a car. As in fact it was, at first.’
‘But why did the murderer have to go to all that trouble?’
‘Because he knew policemen don’t vanish into thin air. When this one failed to return from his beat a search would have been made for him. The man who did the shooting didn’t want that to happen.’
‘He could have put the body where it wasn’t likely to be found,’ suggested Bertie.
‘That doesn’t change my argument. It was better to have the body found, or, as I say, there would have been a full-scale search, which was something the murderer didn’t want.’
‘I can see some weak spots in your theory, old boy,’ came back Bertie.
‘Such as what?’
‘The wounds. If the constable was shot dead there would have been no need to knock him about.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. You’d expect a man knocked down by a car to have injuries — serious injuries if they were enough to kill him. And it’s no use arguing that the wounds were caused before the shooting because if the constable was on the ground it wouldn’t be easy to shoot him in the back. Why shoot him in the back, anyway? If the shot was fired to make sure he was dead it might as well have been into his chest, in the heart, or head. No. When that wretched police officer was shot he was trying to get away. His back was towards the gunman. And he had not then been injured or he wouldn’t have been able to run away. In a word, he was shot first and injured afterwards. Does that make sense?’
There was silence for a moment. Then Bertie said. ‘I know that road pretty well. The moor is open, but there’d be no difficulty in disposing of a body where it would never be found.’
‘Such as where, for instance?’
‘Down one of the old mine shafts scattered about all over the place. Hundreds of ‘em. A local lad once told; me there were over two thousand of ‘em.’
‘Are you talking about coal mines?’
‘No. Metals. Cornwall used to be a great place for metals — copper, lead, zinc, but mostly tin. The place is fairly dotted with ruins at what used to be the pitheads. Sometimes the old shafts have been fenced, but not always, so if you’re thinking of doing a hike be careful where you’re putting your feet. Every so often someone falls into one of these holes. It’s a dangerous place for kids to play, I can tell you.’
‘I find that interesting,’ said Biggles slowly. ‘I imagine these holes would make it dangerous for a plane to get down.’
‘Not if you knew your ground. Of course, the herbage is pretty rough — heather, gorse, and that sort of thing.’
‘Hm. I have a feeling it wouldn’t be a bad idea to cast an eye over Bodmin Moor.’
Said Ginger: ‘Does that mean you’re going to take up the case of the murdered constable?’
‘It does not. The local police would take a dim view of Scotland Yard poking i
ts nose in without being invited.’
‘Then why bother?’
‘There’s a chance that the man we’re after, this fly-by-night intruder, may be using the moor for whatever it is he’s doing. If we follow his tracks, those we know have always run in that direction, and as the moor must be a lonely place it seems the sort of spot he’d be likely to choose. We’ve got to start somewhere and this strikes me as good an area as any. What I’d really like to know is the exact spots where this unfortunate constable and his bike were found. If there is any connection between this and the man we’re looking for, it should narrow the area to be watched.’
‘You’ll only get that information by going to Cornwall.’
‘I realize that. Just a minute. Let me think.’ Biggles paused, toying with his pencil. He took a cigarette and lit it. ‘What I’d like,’ he went on, ‘is a mosaic of this moor on both sides of the road. We could extend the picture later if necessary. I’ll tell you what. We can all take a hand in this. Algy, you and Ginger can get the photographs. Take an Auster with a vertical camera and be on the job first thing tomorrow morning — that is, of course, if the weather is right. Visibility will dictate your altitude but around two thousand would be best. Have the pictures ready for me when I get back here.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I shall take Bertie and go to Bodmin by road. I’ll have a word with the police there and, if they’ll co-operate, find out exactly where the policeman and his bike were found. At the same time I’ll have a good look at the moor from ground level. I don’t think we need bother to find the man who reported the body to the police. They’ll have got a statement from him.’
Biggles got up. ‘Okay. Let’s get on with it. If we don’t soon have something to report the balloon will go up and we shall go up with it. Come on, Bertie. We’ll get off right away. We can spend the night in Bodmin to be ready for an early start in the morning. With any luck we should be back here by tomorrow evening.’
CHAPTER 3
BODMIN MOOR
AT ten o’clock the following morning, with a cigarette smouldering between his fingers Biggles sat on a low, heather-covered mound, beside the road that crossed the expanse of desolate ground he had come to see with his own eyes — as the saying is. Bodmin Moor. It was a fair morning, clear, with an occasional bank of high cumulus cloud drifting on the face of a moderate south-west wind across a blue sky.
As a general view the landscape was not inspiring, but it was much as he had expected to find it. One moor is very much like another. On both sides of the pale ribbon of road, without much traffic on it at this hour, an expanse of rough, flat, mostly treeless, uncultivated ground rolled away to a horizon formed by gently rising slopes.
As with similar areas in Britain, there was a wearisome sameness about the scene, with nothing to catch the eye or hold attention. The heather, tough old ‘stick’ heather, as it is called in Scotland, was not yet in flower. Only here and there a growth of gorse made a splash of gold. For the rest, one or two ruins such as Bertie had described, roofless walls with perhaps the stump of a crumbling chimney stack, were the only objects, dismal enough in themselves, to break the melancholy picture. High in the air larks were trilling, but apart from these there was no sign of life; no animal, not even a humble rabbit that had survived the killing disease, myxomatosis.
Things had gone as Biggles had planned. After an easy run down from London in the car he and Bertie had spent the night in Bodmin, Nine o’clock the following morning found them at the police station. Biggles had introduced himself, making the excuse for being there that the affair of the murdered constable might have a bearing on another case on which he was engaged; which was true. He did not say what it was.
The Inspector in charge could not have been more helpful. He said there had been no new development in the case of the policeman. They were still at a loss for a motive, and without one it was hard to think of a theory to account for the murder. When Biggles had asked for the scene of the crime to be marked on his map, he was offered the services of a policeman to show him the actual spot where the body was found; which was even better, particularly as the officer detailed to go with them was one of the party that had gone out to bring in the body. He knew exactly where it had lain.
‘I don’t think you’ll find much there,’ were the Inspector’s last words. ‘We’ve been over the ground thoroughly.’
Biggles answered that he was more concerned with the spot where the murder had been committed than with finding the weapon that had been used.
‘The whole thing’s a mystery,’ concluded the Inspector, shaking his head. ‘Why anyone should want to kill poor Harley beats me. He was a quiet, inoffensive sort of chap; rarely had any trouble with anybody except on one or two occasions with a poacher.’
‘And poachers don’t usually carry revolvers,’ returned Biggles, as he left the office.
With the policeman beside him, Police Constable Redruth, Biggles drove towards the scene of the murder. His guide appeared to be a taciturn sort of man. Not until they arrived did he speak, and then it was with a rich Cornish brogue.
‘We’re coming to the place now,’ he said. Then, ‘This is it.’ He got out and pointed to a spot on the verge. ‘Just here. This is where Mr Brunner put the body. He found it lying in the road. He moved it so it wasn’t run over by another car. They travel fast on this stretch.’
‘I suppose Mr Brunner made a statement?’
‘Yes. He’s a Mr Peter Brunner; comes from Coventry. He was on his way to St Mawes for his holidays. He says he looked around but couldn’t see anybody. It was a dark night.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Just after two o’clock in the morning.’
‘And where was the bicycle?’
Again the policeman pointed. ‘Along there. Same side of the road, lying in the heather. About two hundred yards from here as near as makes no difference.’
‘Was it damaged at all?’
‘Not a mark on it as far as I could see. Just as if poor Harley had put it down to look at something.’
‘By the way, was Mr Brunner alone in his car?’
‘Yes. Good thing too. It wouldn’t have been a nice experience for a woman if he’d had one with him.’
Biggles looked across the Moor. ‘I believe these ruins I can see are all that are left of old mine workings. Are they ever worked now?’
‘Never in my time. They’re just the same as when I first set eyes on ‘em as a boy.’
‘What’s that long dark-coloured mark I can see over there?’
‘Been a fire at some time, I reckon. Picnickers and hikers are always setting the heather alight. We don’t bother much. Can’t do much harm here unless the smoke’s blowing across the road to interfere with the traffic.’
‘Quite so. Well, I think that’s all. Thanks for coming along. Mr Lissie can run you back to the station now, I’ll wait for him here and we’ll get back to London.’ Turning to Bertie Biggles went on: ‘Take the officer back to the station. Collect our things at the hotel and settle the bill. I’ll stay here. There’s no need for me to come with you. Pick me up and we’ll push along home. We’ll have lunch somewhere on the road.’
‘Right you are.’ Bertie got into the driving seat and the car departed the way it had come.
Biggles, alone, found a little heather-covered hump and sat down to smoke a cigarette and survey the landscape pending Bertie’s return. The delay, he thought, would at the same time provide an opportunity to do some hard thinking while on the actual scene of the tragedy. Not that he knew much more than when he had set but for Cornwall. He decided not to bother to search the ground in the immediate vicinity because this, according to the Inspector, had already been done by the police. They had found nothing, and he was confident they would have done the job thoroughly.
As he sat there, with an occasional car passing in one direction or the other, a familiar sound overhead made him glance up. He saw what he
expected. An Auster. So Algy and Ginger had arrived. Forthwith they began their task of flying up and down. Always at the same altitude, taking in a different stretch of the ground on every run.
With the sound of the engine constantly in his ears, knowing what the plane was doing. Biggles took little interest in it. His eyes wandered over the landscape, not seeking anything in particular but on the off-chance of noticing something, such as a detail out of place, on which to concentrate his attention. He saw nothing to excite him, but because the dark patch of ground was one of the few conspicuous marks in an otherwise monotonous panorama, his eyes more than once wandered back to it. The police constable had said he thought it must be where there had once been a heath fire, caused by careless trippers lighting a fire for a picnic tea. As this is a common occurrence all over the country it seemed a reasonable assumption.
But why there? pondered Biggles. When the driver of a car on a long-distance run stopped to boil a kettle it was usually by the roadside, close to the car. Why did someone walk what Biggles estimated to be at least a quarter of a mile to light a fire? It seemed unlikely that anyone in a car would do that. Of course, he reasoned, it might have been caused by a party of hikers out for a tramp across the moor. No doubt that was a common occurrence. But this fire could not have been caused by a cigarette end tossed carelessly from a car window — a common cause for such fires.
Thus meditated Biggles, moodily contemplating the lonely moor, with the Auster drowning the song of the skylarks as it worked at its photographic routine. He was still sitting in the same place when the car returned.
Bertie stopped and got out. ‘I see the boys are on the job,’ he said cheerfully.
