he said stiffly, 'I wouldn't touch that watch with a barge pole.'
Biggles stared. 'What's the matter with it ? '
'You know what's the matter with it,' sneered the shopkeeper.
A hand closed like a vice on Biggles' arm. 'Come on,' said a brittle voice.
Turning, Biggles met the accusing gaze of Inspector Gaskin, of C
Division. Recognition was mutual. The inspector burst out laughing, presumably at the expression on Biggles's face. 'That's a good 'un,' he declared. 'Fancy me being fetched out to pick you up.'
Biggles looked slightly dazed. 'Fetched out? Who fetched you out ? '
The inspector indicated the jeweller with a jerk of his head. 'While he kept you waiting he tipped me off on the phone. I was in such a hurry to get here in my car I was nearly picked up myself for dangerous driving. I thought I'd at last got my hands on a chap we'
ve been looking for for some time.'
'What's wrong with the watch?' inquired Biggles. 'Plenty,' answered the inspector. 'If you'
re going to the Yard I'll give you a lift.'
Ten minutes later, in his office, he was explaining. 'That watch,' said the detective, tapping the instrument, 'in the country where it was made could be bought whole sale for about thirty bob. By the time it had paid export duty, transport, import duty and purchase tax, wholesaler's and retailer's profits, it would cost, over here, not less than ten pounds.
So if all these expenses could be avoided a fellow handling the watch could make a nice profit on it. By making three or four pounds a time on them, a thousand watches of that sort would net a lot of money.'
Biggles nodded. 'I get it. So that watch was smuggled in ? '
'That's it. Of course, there is a snag in this get-richquick game.'
'What is it ? '
'You couldn't sell that watch in this country, not to a respectable shop, because, by arrangement with the manufacturers, all watches imported under official licence have to carry a special mark. Shopkeepers know where to look for it. No mark means that the watch was smuggled into this country from abroad.'
Biggles lit a cigarette. 'How would that affect an innocent person, over here, caught with such a watch?'
The inspector shrugged. 'Well, no one would be likely to know about it unless he tried to sell it, as you did. The trouble would arise if he went abroad. Coming back the Customs officers would assume that the chap had bought the watch abroad and was trying to smuggle it in; in which case it might be a police court job, with a fine and treble duty to pay at the end of it.'
'That's a bit hard.'
'Not at all. That couldn't happen to anyone buying a watch at a respectable shop. People who buy things nowadays from street traders they don't know are asking for trouble.'
'Well, well,' sighed Biggles, and turned to the door.
'Here, just a minute,' requested the inspector. 'Where did you get that watch? Don't tell me that a sharper caught you?'
Biggles grinned. 'No,' he said softly. 'I'm going to catch him.'
He found Air-Constable 'Ginger' Hebblethwaite at the office, the others being on duty in the Operations Room at the airfield.
'What have you been doing?' queried Ginger.
'Buying a watch,' replied Biggles whimsically. 'I want you to buy me some more like it,'
he went on, showing his purchase. 'Take some money out of the safe, go round the big stores, clubs and hotels, get in touch with the hall porters and find out if any of them have a watch to sell. Don't pay more than five pounds. In each case get a description of the man from whom the fellow bought the watch.'
Ginger looked astonished, as well he might. 'What's wrong with going to a shop if you want a watch ? '
'They're not the sort I'm looking for.'
'Since when did hall porters start to sell watches ? ' inquired Ginger cynically.
'That, my lad, is what I want you to find out,' Biggles told him. 'Get cracking.'
In an hour Ginger was back. With exaggerated deliberation he laid five watches on Biggles's desk, in each case naming the hotel where it had been bought. 'Anyone would think it had been raining watches,' he remarked. 'Everyone in London seems to have a watch to sell. One fellow, who lives at Brighton, told me it's the same down there. Where on earth have they all come from ? '
'That's the little problem we're going to solve,' answered Biggles, smiling. 'Get Marcel Brissac, at the Paris office of the International Police Commission, on the phone.'
Ginger put through the call and presently handed the receiver to Biggles.
'Marcel at the other end,' he announced.
'Hello, Marcel!' called Biggles. 'Nice to hear your voice again. No — no.
I'm only interested in watches to-day.'
What the French detective said Ginger could not hear, of course; but Biggles's smile grew broader until, by the time he rang off, he was laughing. 'Poor old Marcel is in a flap,' he told Ginger. 'He says there are enough smuggled watches in France for everyone to wear one round each wrist and ankle and still leave plenty over. He says they're being flown into the country at night. The machine slips in and out before he can catch up with it. To guard every field in France would need the entire French Army.'
'It's hard to see how that sort of thing can be stopped,' said Ginger moodily. 'I imagine the same pilot is bringing the stuff into this country, too.'
'No doubt. If we can catch him it should put an end to the traffic. What happens is plain enough to see. The machine slips across the coast and hands the watches to an agent. The agent daren't try to sell them to the shops. It would be difficult to sell them direct to the public because not everyone wants a watch: so the trick is to get a loan on a watch and then forget to go back for it. It comes to the same thing as selling it, except that the man who gets the watch doesn't realize for some time that he's bought it. Well, I know the agent in this country. In passing off a watch to an old comrade he may have been just a bit too smart.'
Ginger looked astonished. 'You know the agent? All I could learn was, the fellow is a slick-looking type with red hair, who speaks with a slight Scotch accent.'
Biggles nodded. 'That's the man. Do you remember a tricky corporal rigger in North Africa named McDew — Roderick McDew ? I have a clear recollection of him because he's that rare thing, a dishonest Scot.'
remember him,' said Ginger.
'All right. Go round to the Air Ministry and ask them to get you his home address from R.A.F. Records. While you're there, go and see Doyle, of Air Intelligence, and ask him if any radar stations have picked up an unidentified aircraft crossing the coast, and if so, where and when.'
'Good enough.' Ginger went off.
When he returned, two hours later, he was able to provide the answers to Biggles's questions. The home address of the ex-corporal was Balburnie, near Forres, Scotland, where his father was a crofter. There had been several cases of unidentified aircraft crossing the coast. These had been widely scattered except at one point. This was on the south side of the Moray Firth, where, for three consecutive months, on the occasion of the full moon, a slow-moving aircraft had come in from the North Sea, and after a short while, returned to the Continent.
'Splendid,' acknowledged Biggles. 'It shouldn't take us long to get this business buttoned up. The aircraft comes in over Moray, which is a county with plenty of wide open spaces.
That can hardly be coincidence. We'll soon see. Let's go up and have a look round. Ring the Ops room and tell Algy to get the Proctor topped up.
I'd like a weather report on North East Scotland. We'll park at Inverness Airport, Dalcross, which is nice and handy.
Get out the six inch Ordnance sheets of the Forres area. We may need them.'
Ginger was looking at the calendar. 'The moon will be full on Thursday.
Rises at ten o'
clock.'
'Then we shouldn't have long to wait,' averred Biggles.
And so it came about that Thursday morning found Ginger, with Biggles at
the wheel of a hired car, cruising along one of the few, narrow roads, that wind for many lonely miles across the rolling heather-clad hills between the Moray Firth and Speyside. On this particular road was the croft known as Balburnie.
An air reconnaissance on the previous day had yielded little of interest.
For the most part the ground was a waste of heather, purple and brown with the sombre tints of autumn, wild and desolate in the extreme. Even crofts, with their tiny patches of cultivated ground, were few and far between. An occasional lochan, remote and mysterious, reflected the unbroken blue of the sky. Of country flat enough to permit the landing of an aircraft, there was little; and even that, as Biggles observed, would have to be surveyed from ground level before the risk was taken, for such places were often bogs.
'This must be Balburnie,' said Biggles presently as a small, stone-built dwelling appeared ahead. The eternal heather ran right to its walls, but there was a small field of oats on one side and some potatoes on the other. Among these a man was digging, with some scraggy-looking chickens scratching the upturned earth. He looked up, resting on his fork, as the visitors approached, when it could be observed that he was of late middle age, with the weary expression so often seen on the faces of those who spend their lives at war with nature in its hardest mood.
'You'll be Mr. McDew, I think ? ' greeted Biggles.
'Aye,' acknowledged the man.
'You've a son in the Air Force, I believe ? '
'Not now. He was.'
'I served with him at one time, name of Bigglesworth,' went on Biggles.
'Happening to be passing I thought I'd look in to see how he was getting on.'
'He's doing fine,' was the reply. 'He's no here, though. He's awa'
South.'
'Comes to see you sometimes, I hope?' prompted Biggles.
'Oh, aye. Comes up regular every month. Be up to-night, likely. Ses the heather calls him back.'
'Not much for him to do here?'
'Och, he likes walking fine. He walks half the nicht.' 'Just to be in the heather ? '
'Aye. Soon as he's here, off he goes to the Dubh Chtais.'
'It's a long way to come, just to walk on the heather, train fares being what they are,' murmured Biggles.
'No trains for Rod,' said the old man. 'He's got a car of his own. Smart lad, is Rod.'
'He always was smart,' agreed Biggles, without enthusiasm. 'Well, I won't stop you working. I thought I'd just look in. It's a fine day.'
'Aye, a grand dey.'
Biggles went back to the car and drove on. 'You know, this sort of business makes me sick,' he told Ginger bitterly. 'That old fellow has spent his life working. I'll warrant he's as straight as a gun barrel; yet here's his son, who ought to be helping him, on the high road to jail. Well, the sooner he gets there the better. It may teach him sense.
For the game he's playing he'll get six months. If he gets away with it he'll try something more ambitious, and when he's caught, go down for five years. What we— ! ' He swung on to the verge to avoid a racy-looking sports car that came tearing down the road at a speed that could not have been necessary. 'Get the number,' he snapped.
'I've got it,' said Ginger. 'That was McDew. I recognized him.'
'Alone? '
'Yes.'
'Come for some more watches,' murmured Biggles. 'To-night must be the night. We'd better go back a different way – we don't want him to see us.
Look up this place Dubh Chtais on the map. I expect it'll be a fair walk across the moor.'
Ginger unrolled the map. 'Here we are,' he said, pointing. 'Right in the middle of nowhere. No tracks, nothing. Some flat ground, judging from the contours.'
'We'll take a compass bearing on it,' asserted Biggles. 'We'd better start early, too. From what I saw from up topsides this is no place to get lost.'
He drove on.
At ten o'clock the moon crept up over the distant hills to reveal a scene that was heart-chilling in its utter loneliness. On all sides the moor rolled away to rounded contours, silent, without movement, without a spark of light anywhere. Only in one place was the ground level, and that for a short distance, where the heather gave way to yellow star-grass. On one side of it ran the banks of black peat that gave the place its local name. In the cover thus provided Biggles and Ginger sat gazing into the brooding gloom, waiting, watching.
For an hour nothing happened. Then a slight sound made Ginger stiffen.
But it was only a roe deer. Near them it stopped to stare back in the direction whence it had come; then it must have caught their taint, for it went off at a gallop.
'Quiet,' breathed Biggles. 'Someone must have disturbed that beast.'
Soon afterwards a shadowy figure appeared, walking slowly towards the middle of the level area, where presently it merged again into the darkness.
Another wait followed, and then softly through the still air came the sound that told Ginger that their vigil had not been in vain. It was the drone of an aircraft, either distant or flying high. A light appeared on the plain. Three times a torch was flashed upwards.
Immediately the drone of the aircraft died, to be followed presently by a curious swishing sound that puzzled Ginger until Biggles whispered,
'Helicopter.'
The light on the plain continued to flash at intervals as the aircraft drew nearer. In making its landing the machine passed low over the heads of the watchers, to settle with hardly any forward speed fifty yards farther on.
'Come on,' said Biggles softly. 'This is our cue. If the pilot tries to get off shoot at the blades of his rotor.' They walked forward briskly, and so engrossed were the pilot and his accomplice that they were within speaking distance before they were noticed.
McDew, carrying a bag, promptly bolted. Biggles called him by name, telling him that running would do him no good. However, McDew ran on and was soon lost to sight in the darkness.
Meanwhile, Ginger was occupied with the helicopter. The pilot had jumped into his seat and revved up his engine; but Ginger's automatic spat, and at the third shot splinters flew as the bullet shattered one of the wooden rotor blades. After that there could be no escape by air. Indeed, the pilot had to throttle back, for the racing engine was threatening to tear itself off its bearers.
'Come out of that,' ordered Biggles curtly. 'You can't get away. Don't try anything silly.
We're armed.'
The engine died, and a man got down, slowly, demanding in a loud voice, with a foreign accent, to be told the meaning of the outrage.
'Quit bluffing,' said Biggles grimly. 'We know your game. You're through with it.'
Ginger snapped handcuffs on the man's wrists.
'Start walking,' ordered Biggles. 'We've a long way to go.'
'I have nothing in my machine — nothing ! ' cried the prisoner hysterically. 'What have I done? I bring nothing. Look and see.'
'Where are the watches ? ' inquired Biggles.
'Watches? I have no watches. Look for yourself.'
'In that case they must be in the bag your friend was carrying,' said Biggles evenly. 'He will, no doubt, try to get to London with them. Well, he won't get far. The number of his car is known, and police are waiting for it
on every road leading south. It looks as if they'll catch him with more watches than he will need for some time - the sort of watches that aren't easy to explain.'
As a matter of fact, that is just what happened. THE CASE OF
THE POISONED CROPS
want you to go to Africa,' Air Commodore Raymond, of the Special Air Section at Scotland Yard, told his chief operational pilot, Air Detective-Inspector Bigglesworth. '
There's been nothing about it in the papers yet, but the unrest among certain tribes on the borders of the Kikuyu country has taken a turn for the worse; and in view of what's happening there it isn't surprising.'
'Has this anything to do with Mau-Mau terrorism?'
'It could be - indirectly. The scheme is too ingenious, and the operat
ion of it too technical, for the average native mind. But whoever is behind it is no friend of ours, and is obviously trying to aggravate the Mau-Mau trouble by spreading it to other districts.'
'What exactly is happening ? '
'Someone is now hitting the wretched native on his most vulnerable spot -
his food supply. Not only are his crops being destroyed but the very ground on which they grow is being reduced to a wilderness. The government of course will be blamed for this by everyone who happens not to like us. It's a queer business, and may hook up with a case of pilfering that occurred not long ago. Help yourself to a cigarette and I'll tell you about it.
50 Biggles and the Pirate Treasure Page 8
