by W E Johns
‘Tomorrow will be Saturday,’ reminded Ginger.
‘You needn’t tell me,’ answered Biggles grimly, and returned to the wad of documents.
It was late in the evening when he looked up and said to Algy: ‘I’m afraid it’s clutching at a straw but you might as well do something as sit there twiddling your thumbs.’ He passed a slip of paper. ‘I want you to take the car and go to this address in Knightsbridge. Mrs. Glibb — that’s the mother, and next of kin — lives there. Find out, discreetly, where John used to go wild-fowling.’
Algy stared. ‘What’s wildfowling got to do with it?’
‘Nothing, probably. But there’s just a chance that it might lead to something — or rather, somewhere. Here, under the heading of recreations, I see “wildfowling.” That suggests a district off the beaten track. Find out where John Glibb went to shoot wildfowl.’
Algy departed.
It was about two hours later when he returned. ‘Well?’ asked Biggles impatiently.
‘Aucherlocherbie.’
‘Aucherlocherbie,’ repeated Biggles slowly. ‘Vaguely, that name rings a bell.’
‘It’s in the north of Scotland. Mrs. Glibb says her son used to fly there sometimes during the war. He took a sporting gun and sent her ducks and things.’
‘The name doesn’t occur in these records. But I’ve heard it before. Just a minute — let me think.’
‘I gather Glibb didn’t actually serve at Aucherlocherbie,’ said Algy. ‘He went there on a short refresher course, or something.’
Biggles snapped his fingers. ‘I’ve got it! Ginger, get Works and Buildings, Air Ministry, on the phone.’
Ginger complied. When the call came through Biggles took the receiver and put a question. Then he listened for what seemed a long time. When he hung up there was a gleam of hope in his eyes. ‘I’ve got it now,’ he announced. ‘The place is in Sutherlandshire. It was a hush-hush bomb experimental depot in the war. The name caused so much trouble in signals that it was changed to Fargo. When Glibb was in bomber command he might well have gone there for one reason or another. Two hangars were put up for visiting machines.’
‘What happens there now?’ asked Algy.
‘Nothing. The station was one of the first to be abandoned at the end of the war, the Ministry having no further use for it.’
‘We might have a look at it.’
‘I can’t get there fast enough,’ answered Biggles. ‘Get the Proctor out. We’ll all go.’
‘Why not wait until morning and do it in daylight?’
‘I daren’t risk it. Tomorrow will be Saturday. Put a couple of brollies in the machine.’
‘Are you going to drop in?’
‘I am. If Glibb’s there, and hears a machine land, he’ll guess what’s cooking, and may make a bolt for it. Aside from that, I don’t know what sort of state the landing strip is in after all these years, for which reason, in the dark, I’d rather trust a parachute than landing wheels. Ginger can drop in with me. The machine can stand by and come in afterwards if necessary. We’ve some way to go so let’s get mobile.’
It was the dark hour before dawn when the Proctor, having refuelled at Kinloss, arrived over its objective. There was some difficulty in finding the place, for apart from the absence of a moon, feathers of mist were creeping in from the sea. Eventually, however, Biggles judged the area from the deeply indented coast-line; so, leaving Algy at the controls, with instructions to watch for signals, he stepped out into the void.
Ginger followed, and after the usual period of anxiety associated with a night drop, he found himself stepping out of his harness on a limitless expanse of rough grass mixed with young heather. He heard Biggles whistle softly in the gloom, answered, and rolling his parachute into a ball, walked to meet him. Not a light showed anywhere. Nothing moved. The only sounds were the fading drone of the aircraft and the cries of disturbed gulls.
‘The hangars are on the east side. They should be over here,’ said Biggles quietly.
Walking on, peering into the gloom, they struck the ‘hard standing’ of the old perimeter track. Following this they soon came upon the ruins of the wartime establishment.
This did nothing to relieve a landscape that was already depressing enough. Indeed, it is doubtful if there is any picture more melancholy than that presented by the disintegrating hutments of an abandoned camp.
In this case, time and the weather had done their worst. Doors hung awry on their hinges and empty window-frames stared blankly, like sightless eyes. Roofs of felt and corrugated iron had been torn off by the wind and lay where they had fallen, giving the place an appearance of having been blitzed.
Biggles did not comment. He had seen similar wrecks before and there was nothing to say. It was not until the enormous bulk of the two hangars loomed before them that he laid a hand on Ginger’s arm for caution.
Moving slowly now they advanced silently, their feet making no noise on moss that had almost smothered the tarmac out of existence. The great doors were closed. Very quietly Biggles opened the little accommodation door. The beam of his torch cut a wedge in the blackness and moved slowly towards a wall. Empty oil drums, mouldering tyres, and similar debris lay about; but there was no aircraft. The light died as Biggles switched off. They withdrew, and in the first grey light of the dawn walked on to the next hangar.
Before they reached it they had good reason to suspect that their quest had ended, for the doors were open, and from somewhere in the dark interior came a noise as weird as could be imagined, a sound so eloquent of hopeless misery that Ginger felt a chill run down his spine. A man was crying.
Biggles looked at Ginger, raised his eyebrows, and moved forward with no more noise than the shadow of a cloud. No one could be seen, but the growing light was reflected faintly on the perspex and metal fittings of a big aircraft. For a few more paces Biggles continued his advance. Then he stopped. His torch flashed, and came to rest on a slim figure in R.A.F. uniform that was sitting hunched up on an undercarriage wheel.
Apparently the man was taken quite by surprise, for as the light of the torch fell on him he sprang to his feet with a gasp of shock.
‘All right, Glibb, take it easy,’ said Biggles quietly.
‘Who are you? What d’you want?’ came the reply, in a voice as taut as a banjo string.
‘We just waffled along to see what you were doing, that’s all,’ replied Biggles casually. ‘Have a cigarette?’ He offered his case.
The unhappy pilot hesitated, his lips parted, his eyes wild. Then, with a trembling hand he reached out and took a cigarette. ‘I suppose you’ve come to arrest me,’ he said dully, as Biggles flicked his lighter.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ returned Biggles carelessly. ‘Of course, you’re behaving like a silly ass and your Station Commander is in a flap about it. No wonder. He’s liable to be torn off a strip for losing a machine. But no doubt you’ll be able to explain things to him when you get back.’
‘What have they done with my brother?’
‘Nothing, as far as I know. They were more concerned about you.’
‘Yes, of course,’ agreed the flying officer, drawing heavily on his cigarette. He looked up. ‘Who exactly are you?’
‘I’m just the bloke they call in to straighten out this sort of thing.’
‘I’d no intention of bombing anybody, really.’
‘Nobody supposed seriously that you had,’ prevaricated Biggles easily. ‘Of course, you may have a job to prove that.’
‘No job at all,’ declared the flying officer. ‘I’ve no bombs.’ Biggles stared. ‘What did you do with them?’
Glibb laughed foolishly, the laugh of a man overwrought and near to hysteria. ‘I dropped them in the sea on the way here.’
Biggles drew a deep breath. ‘Had I known that it would have saved me losing some sleep. Tell me, what gave you this crazy idea?’
‘Oh, I was mad, I suppose,’ returned Glibb miserably. ‘Of course, you know about my
brother taking that money. He took it, but it was for me. I lent it to a friend of mine who had got into debt. He promised to pay it back but he didn’t. That’s all there was to it. If that Air Ministry type hadn’t come along to make a surprise check all would have been well, because I could have put the money back out of my next month’s pay. The thought of my brother carrying the can on my account was more than I could stand, and — well, I don’t know what happened after that.’
Biggles dropped his cigarette end and put his foot on it.
‘I see,’ he said softly. ‘Well, this is no place for a picnic. Let’s drift along home.’ He turned to Ginger. ‘Make a signal to Algy to let the Chief know it’s okay. Then he can return to base. There’s no need for him to land here. We’ll trundle along in the Halifax.’ He turned back to Glibb. ‘Is that all right with you?’
The pilot nodded. ‘If I could face the flak up the Rhine for a couple of years I can take a little thing like this,’ he said calmly.
‘That’s the spirit,’ commended Biggles, as he turned to the cockpit.
Little remains to be told. The twin brothers, whose affection had led them into trouble, faced a court-martial, as was inevitable. But in view of the circumstances, and the fact that the money was repaid, taken in conjunction with their war records, the court took a lenient view and they suffered nothing worse than a severe reprimand.
It was, as Biggles told the Air Commodore when they returned to the Yard, just one of those things.
[Back to Contents]
THE CASE OF THE FLYING CLOWN
Air Commodore Raymond, of the Special Air Police Section at Scotland Yard, watched morosely as Biggles and his police pilots filed into his office and found seats.
‘Don’t look so worried, sir,’ said Biggles sympathetically. ‘It’ll all come right in the end.’
‘One of these days it won’t come right, and my thirty years of conscientious work will be forgotten in the public’s howl for somebody’s blood.’ The Air Commodore pushed the cigarette box forward. ‘This Section was started to curtail the activities of a few crooks who saw the advantages of air transport, but it’s fast becoming the dogsbody of every other department that finds itself with a knotty job that it can’t untangle,’ he went on bitterly.
‘That’s the usual reward for the willing horse,’ observed Biggles. ‘What’s the latest?’
‘Take a look at that,’ requested the Air Commodore, pushing forward a photograph.
Biggles looked at it, shook his head sadly, and handed it on to Ginger.
It showed an old-fashioned biplane in flight. Between the wings, struts had been formed into a cage. In the cage was a tiger. The weight was counterbalanced on the opposite side by a clown hanging from a wing-tip.
Pasted on the picture was the caption: Air Thrills Unlimited. The New International Air Circus opening in Paris next week.
‘Even with a slow-flying kite and stabilizing devices, that can be no picnic for the pilot,’ remarked Ginger, passing the photograph on to Bertie Lissie.
Biggles looked at the Air Commodore. ‘What’s this crazy outfit to do with us?’
‘That’s what we’d like to know,’ was the answer. ‘Maybe nothing. Maybe plenty. I’d say nothing, were it not for certain facts that are not easy to gloss over. The show is, as it claims to be, international, in that it has employees of nearly every nationality in the world. But let me start at the beginning, which occurred a year ago when the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation put a probe into the affairs of the former armaments king and mystery man, Jacob Ironmaster. He brought it on himself by his warmongering machinations. He had already made a fortune out of war and was doing his best to start another. He is, by all accounts, a strange and eccentric man, a misanthrope who appears to hate everybody. He is seldom seen in public, due perhaps to the fact that in his youth he was involved in an accident which deformed him for life. Be that as it may, he is certainly a mischief maker of the most dangerous sort. Actually, the FBI could pin nothing on him, but it has now been discovered that he is the financial backer of this Air Thrills Circus, which was formed, and has been practising its acts, in Germany.’
‘I see,’ murmured Biggles. ‘You’re wondering why he has put his money in it.’
‘We’ve discovered that his parents were originally in show business in Ireland, but that seems hardly sufficient reason for this new investment. Wait a minute. There’s more to come. Our security people decided that they’d like to know more about this curious show, so when it advertised for a super stunt pilot they supplied one — to keep an eye on things. The man who went was Wing-Commander Strickland, who used to do the sensational crazy flying at the RAF Display.’
‘You mean Jimmy Strickland?’
‘That’s right.’
‘How did he get on?’
‘He didn’t get on at all. He’s dead, and we’ve reason for thinking that he was murdered.’
Biggles grimaced. ‘Nasty. And so you’ve still no idea of Ironmaster’s real angle in this queer set-up?’
‘No. But what worries us is the fact that the show is due to open in Paris at the same time as the World Peace Conference. Not only that, but by some piece of publicity juggling the members of the Conference have accepted an invitation to attend the opening performance.’
‘Ah!’ breathed Biggles. ‘I get it. Ironmaster and the Peace Conference don’t mix.’
‘Exactly. You’ll see now why we’re scared that there’s more behind this than giving tigers joy rides. The World Conference would become a world disaster if an aircraft happened to crash into it — or drop a tiger into it.’
‘Why not get the Paris police to stop the show?’
‘Maybe that’s what Ironmaster would like to happen. Paris would like to stop the show, but say it would cause international friction. You know how touchy people are nowadays. The show claims to be international, and it is. There are some Russians — Cossacks — in it. If the show were closed it would be said that anti-Russian sentiment was the reason.’
‘So you get a headache either way, whether the show goes on or comes off?’
‘That’s about it.’
‘How did Jimmy Strickland die?’
‘He was killed in a crash. Knowing that a crash could easily happen we believed it until a British mechanic in the show came here and gave us his version of it. There is now reason to believe that Strickland got the information he wanted, but was suspected of being a spy and killed before he could pass it on. It was this mechanic who pulled him out of the wreck. He’s in the waiting-room. Perhaps you’d like to hear from his own lips what happened. His name is Jones.’
‘I certainly would.’
‘I’ll have him in.’ The Air Commodore pressed a button of his inter-com.
A minute later a smart-looking young fellow marched in and stood to attention.
‘I want you to repeat what you told me this morning,’ requested the Air Commodore.
‘Very good, sir. It was like this, sir. I was on the airfield. Stunt Strickland, as we called him, had just taken off for a test when a wing seemed to break off at the roots and he went into the ground like a brick. I ran over and pulled him out. He said, ‘Tell them to stop Nemo in Paris.’ He tried to say more, but he couldn’t get it out. Then he died in my arms.’
‘He could have been on his way home,’ said Biggles, glancing at the Air Commodore.
‘I’ve thought of that possibility.’
Biggles looked back at the mechanic. ‘Who is this Nemo?’
‘The flying clown, sir. He does the wing-walking. His stooge, Nix, does the flying. Nemo and Nix. You must have seen their pictures in the papers. Mind you, their act isn’t as dangerous as it looks. They use all sorts of safety tricks — suction shoes, quick-opening parachutes, and so on.’
‘Did you find anything that suggested sabotage when you examined the plane?’
‘I didn’t get a chance to examine it, sir. It went up in flames. That was queer, too.
I was still holding Strickland, not being sure if he was dead, when Nemo rushes up. He took no notice of me but went to the plane. The next thing was the machine was in flames. I tell you straight, sir, I didn’t like the look of it. Not that it matters now. I’ve walked out.’
‘I gather you didn’t like Nemo.’
‘Everybody hates the sight of him. He’s a ropy type. Never takes his make-up off. We reckon he sleeps in it.’
‘Thank you, Jones. That’s all,’ said Biggles.
The mechanic went out.
Turning to the Air Commodore Biggles went on: ‘What do you want me to do about this?’
‘Strickland’s place is vacant. The show is advertising for another stunt pilot. It struck me that you might apply for it. That would give you a chance to get into the gristle of the thing.’
Biggles smiled cynically. ‘Thank you very much. I never did like stunting.’
‘This is a special occasion. After all, Strickland was a friend of yours. You’re not going to let his murderer get away with it? You can take the others with you. It might help you to get the job if you said you could supply your own mechanics. They could guard your machine against sabotage.’
Biggles nodded. ‘All right, sir, you win. I’ll go and get organized.’
The night was hot, for Paris in high summer can be very hot. The atmosphere in the trailer caravan which Biggles had shared with his comrades for three days, since he had taken over the stunt pilot’s job, was stifling. From the animal cages not far away came an occasional growl and that peculiar smell wild animals in captivity give off.
‘Keep your voices low,’ Biggles warned the others. ‘A caravan lends itself to eavesdropping. As I was saying, most of the fellows here seem to be good chaps, whatever their nationality may be. They’re professionals, and concerned only with the success of the show. They haven’t much time for politics. There are, of course, exceptions.’
