by W E Johns
‘A hut, eh?’ Biggles looked interested. ‘Anything in it?’
‘Not much.’
Ginger told all there was to tell, except that he did not mention the negress, regarding the incident as something outside their own affairs. ‘It’s fairly certain that Hagen used the hut,’ he said in conclusion, showing Biggles the photographic film label.
‘Someone else may have been there taking photos of the birds, but I must admit it doesn’t seem very likely,’ said Biggles pensively, looking at the slip of paper. ‘How deep did you dig under this bedding stuff?’
‘Not far. Six inches, maybe. I’d nothing to dig with. It was slow work grovelling like a rabbit or I’d have gone on with it, because I’m pretty sure that something is, or was, buried there. But as things were I thought I’d better get back and tell you about it.’
‘Naturally,’ acknowledged Biggles. ‘Now we’re so near, well have another shot at it right away. I’d like to have a look round anyway. As I don’t normally carry a pick and shovel with me we shall have to do the best we can with sharpened sticks. Let’s cut some.’
The only wood available was the stems of the thorn bushes, and these, while being far from ideal for the job, had to suffice. The thorns had first to be removed, so it was the best part of half an hour before they were equipped for the task on hand.
The hut was reached without incident. Ginger was posted at the door for possible visitors while Biggles and Bertie went to work on the floor. It was not easy, and hands, which had to be used to scrape away the loosened soil, were soon showing signs of the harsh treatment. But progress, if slow, was made.
After a while Biggles exclaimed and held up a button. Examining it, he declared that it was a cuff button from a jacket. There was no maker’s name on it, so it told them nothing beyond the obvious fact that the ground had been disturbed; but the discovery set them working with greater zeal.
‘You know, old boy, I’ve always wanted to dig up a jolly old treasure,’ asserted Bertie, pausing to mop a streaming face.
‘Well you’re having your wish,’ Biggles told him cheerfully.
‘And I don’t care if I never have to dig up another,’ returned Bertie. ‘Beastly business.’
There was another exclamation as Biggles struck something solid. ‘Here we are,’ he predicted, scratching away at the earth vigorously.
A piece of flat wood was exposed.
‘What ho! Now for the jolly old doubloons, just like you read about – what,’ cried Bertie excitedly.
More digging was necessary before the board could be moved, and by that time a square, in the nature of a lid, was exposed. Biggles got his fingers under the edge and tore it up. Below was a cavity. It was empty.
For several seconds nobody spoke. All eyes stared blankly into the vacant hole.
‘Gone,’ said Biggles in a dazed voice.
‘Blow me down!’ growled Bertie. ‘After all that sweat.’
‘It must have been there,’ said Ginger awkwardly.
‘Of course it was there,’ muttered Biggles. ‘Everything fits. The lagoon. The mark. The birds – everything. This was Hagen’s cache. What else could it be? He looked up. ‘I’m afraid we’ve had it,’ he said heavily.
‘You think von Stalhein’s beaten us to it?’ queried Ginger.
Biggles didn’t answer for a moment. ‘It looks that way. Morgan may have dug it up, and having put it somewhere else, was on his way back when he ran into you.’
There was a short silence. Biggles stared at the hole, considering the matter. ‘No, there’s something wrong with that,’ he decided. ‘It doesn’t hook up with what happened yesterday afternoon at the Vega. Morgan’s behaviour, as Algy described it to me, merely suggested that he had located the lagoon, or the hut, from the photographs. Certainly nobody from the Vega has been here today or Ginger must have seen them: and if von Stalhein already had the box he wouldn’t have been hanging about in the mangroves. He’d have gone.’
Bertie put in a word. ‘But look here, old boy, Morgan might have got the box, or whatever it was, and decided to keep it himself. Come back for it later on – if you see what I mean. Being a crook, that’s the sort of thing he’d do. He could tell von Stalhein any old yarn.’
‘I see what you mean, all right, but it won’t do,’ answered Biggles slowly. ‘To start with, it’s some time since this dirt was turned over. It wasn’t dug up yesterday, or the day before. And if Morgan had got the box he wouldn’t have bothered to fill in the hole. Why should he? He could have told von Stalhein that this was not the place they were looking for.’
Bertie sighed. ‘Too true – too true. Somebody always knocks the polish off my bright ideas.’
‘Well, if von Stalhein hasn’t got the stuff, who has?’ questioned Ginger.
‘If I knew that I shouldn’t be sitting here like a dog that’s lost its dinner,’ growled Biggles. ‘I am still wondering if von Stalhein could somehow have got hold the stuff.’
‘Well, here he comes, so you can ask him,’ rapped out Ginger from the door.
Biggles sprang to his feet. ‘Who else?’
‘Zorotov and Morgan.’
‘Where?’
‘They’re coming from the direction of the sea. They must have walked along the beach.’
‘That’s grand news,’ declared Biggles. ‘If von Stalhein is coming here, obviously he hasn’t got the stuff. That’s all I care about.’
‘But here, I say, old boy, what are you going to do about the bunch of scallywags?’ inquired Bertie anxiously.
‘Nothing!’
‘Nothing?’
‘Not a thing. What is there to do? The stuff isn’t here. Von Stalhein can dig dirt until he’s blue in the face as far as I’m concerned.’
Ginger was peeping round the doorpost. ‘They’re coming here,’ he stated.
‘Okay. Let ‘em come,’ replied Biggles. ‘We’ll wait for them. Their faces, when they see us, should be better than a puppet-show. We couldn’t get away without them seeing us, anyhow, and I’m certainly not going to be seen running from any Iron Curtain riff-raff. If they want a fuss they can have it. Keep quiet.’ Biggles lit a cigarette.
Voices could now be heard approaching. English was the language used, apparently for Morgan’s benefit. Presently footsteps crunched on the shingle and brittle shells that fringed the lagoon. They stopped.
Von Stalhein spoke. ‘Yes, without doubt, this is the place,’ he said confidently. ‘He told me of the hut. Yes, it fits with the photos. There is the ridge with the flamingos’ nests.’
Zorotov answered, and it was clear at once from the way he spoke that it was he, not von Stalhein, who was in command of the party. He sounded irritable – put out, perhaps, by the long walk in the sun. ‘I hope for your sake you’re right,’ he said harshly, speaking with a pronounced foreign accent. ‘The same with you, Morgan. It is time you did something to earn the money we have paid you for so long. What are you standing there for? Go on. Get it, and let us leave this pestilential island.’
Footsteps advanced.
Biggles walked to the door of the hut and looked out.
‘Good morning, von Stalhein,’ he said evenly.
There was dead silence as the advancing party froze in its tracks.
‘I am afraid you’ve come a long way for nothing!’ said Biggles.
Of the others, von Stalhein was the first to recover.
‘What do you mean?’ he inquired frostily, his eyes on Biggles’s face.
‘The stuff isn’t here.’
‘What stuff?’
‘Oh, quit dissembling,’ replied Biggles, with a touch of impatience. ‘Let us call it Wolff’s scrapbook.’
‘He lies!’ cried Zorotov.
‘The trouble with liars is, they suppose everyone else to be a liar,’ answered Biggles smoothly.
Zorotov jerked a hand at Morgan. ‘Do something,’ he ordered.
The negro moved his feet nervously.
‘You’d be very
foolish indeed to put your hand near your pocket,’ Biggles told him. ‘Try something silly and I’ll make a hole in your hide where it’ll hurt more than the one you collected yesterday. And that isn’t a lie either.’
Von Stalhein walked forward to the door of the hut and looked inside. With set face he nodded curtly to Bertie and glanced at the empty hole. His eyes went round the bare walls. Then he looked at Biggles with raised eyebrows.
‘No, we haven’t got it,’ said Biggles softly.
‘Do you know who has?’
‘Come – come,’ protested Biggles. ‘Would I be likely to tell you if I knew?’
Zorotov, pale and tight-lipped with chagrin, turned on von Stalhein in a fury and let out a spate of words. He spoke in a foreign language but was obviously being very rude.
Von Stalhein merely shrugged his shoulders.
Biggles shook his head sadly. ‘You know, von Stalhein, mysteries often come my way; but the one that always gets me beaten is why you, once an officer and still sometimes a gentleman, associate with people who behave as if they were brought up in a sewer. Stick a cactus in his mouth.’
Zorotov went off again, this time at Biggles; but Biggles cut in with a brittle ‘Shut up! You start that line of guff with me and I’ll show you what we do with people like you where I come from. Your miserable tools may stand for it, but I won’t.’
For the first time ever, Ginger thought he detected shadow of shame on von Stalhein’s face. It was gone in a moment. His lips came together in a hard line and he turned away without a word.
Biggies drew gently on his cigarette, but he was round in a flash when Morgan’s hand moved, accidentally perhaps, towards his pocket. ‘As for you,’ he said grimly, ‘if ever I hear of you in Jamaica, or any other British island, I’ll have you put in gaol for attempted murder, where your dirty pay packet won’t be much use to you. Get out of my sight, you sneaking traitor, before I get really angry and give myself the pleasure of shooting you here and now.’
‘That’s a threat!’ cried Zorotov, throwing out a hand and looking from one to the other. ‘I call on everyone to witness that this man makes a threat of murder.’
‘Biggles’s eyes glinted. ‘A threat? That wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. And it goes for you, too, you reptile.’
Ginger hadn’t seen Biggles so angry for a long time.
‘Quite right, old boy, quite right – absolutely,’ murmured Bertie, adjusting his eyeglass. ‘I’m with you, every time.’
‘I refuse to be drawn into fighting,’ declared Zorotov, with a great show of indignation.
‘Ha! Fighting!’ sneered Biggles. ‘I know your sort. Your idea of fighting is to beg house-room in a friendly country and then drop poison around so that you grab the property.’ He turned again to von Stalhein. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he inquired curiously. ‘There was a time, when I flew war-kites, when a German could be relied on to give as good as he got; and no one knows better than me how lucky I am still to be on top of the ground. Have these Reds got you mesmerized or something?’
Von Stalhein bit his lip. Still he did not speak. Presently he dropped his cigarette and heeled it viciously into the ground.
‘Okay,’ said Biggles quietly. ‘Have it your own way. But you go on flying with carrion crows and you’ll become one.’
Zorotov pointed a finger at Biggles. ‘We shall meet again,’ he said thickly.
‘If we do, the pleasure will be all yours,’ Biggles told him.
Zorotov turned abruptly and strode away, followed by his colleagues. After they had gone about a hundred yards they stopped, and, from Zorotov’s violent gesticulating, what appeared to be an argument ensued.
‘Throw him in the drink!’ shouted Biggles.
The invitation was ignored. The three men walked on and were soon lost to sight among the sand dunes.
‘You’ll be asking von Stalhein to come and dine with us next,’ said Ginger cynically.
‘There’s a difference between a bad man and a good man gone wrong,’ answered Biggles coldly, as he turned back into the hut. ‘All that’s wrong with von Stalhein is he’s allowed a bug to get into his brain.’
‘So have a lot of other people, and they’re not much use to anybody,’ returned Ginger bluntly. ‘It’s up to them to winkle it out, not us.’
‘Okay. Forget it,’ muttered Biggles.
‘What’s more to the point, is, where do we go from here?’ put in Bertie. ‘I mean, have we time for a dip in the lagoon to freshen us up a bit, so to speak, after the recent slummy backchat?’
‘No, we haven’t,’ Biggles told him shortly. ‘What we have to do now is to find the person who rifled the cache. The chances are that whoever did it is still on the island. People don’t come and go very often. Whoever’s got the stuff may not realize the value of it. Who on earth would come to a place like this I can’t imagine, but that’s the nut we’ve got to crack.’
‘I know one person who comes this way,’ said Ginger, suddenly remembering.
Biggles started. ‘You do?’
‘Yes. An old woman. A negress who I suspect comes here to pinch flamingo eggs. She was here yesterday. I saw her.’
Biggles looked interested. ‘Is that so? If she’s in the habit of coming here, she may be able to tell us something. Which way did she go?’
Ginger pointed. ‘Over there. She’s got a donkey.’
‘Has she though? In that case I think I know where she lives,’ replied Biggles. ‘We passed her cottage on the way out. Let’s go and have a word with her. I must admit that when we passed her place she wasn’t exactly what you might call affable, but a little blarney and a few dollars ought to put that right. Wait a minute, though.’ He looked at the others as if another thought had occurred to him. ‘Maybe she does know something,’ he went on softly. ‘Maybe that’s why she gave us the cold and stony. Bertie said at the time that it looked like a guilty conscience, and he may have been right. That would account for her wanting to keep clear of us. Come on! It’s time we were getting back anyway, in case Algy comes over. Now the storm is past he probably will. It would be too bad if he bumped into Zorotov after what I gave him. I think the coast is the nearest way.’
They set off. The new route took them alone the edge of the lagoon. Biggles surveyed it. In fact he waded out for some distance. ‘There seems to be plenty of water at this end,’ he announced. ‘Pity we didn’t know about it earlier. We could have put the machine down here instead of using Man-o’-War Bay, which from now on will be a bit too close to the Vega to be healthy. If Algy comes, I shall feel inclined to bring the machine up here, out of the way of trouble.’
The journey was resumed.
CHAPTER 11
MORGAN TRIES AGAIN
It took Biggles, with Bertie and Ginger, the best part of an hour to get back to the cottage occupied by the negress, even though the coastal route they followed was nothing like as bad as the cross-country compass course they had taken on the outward journey. A certain amount of caution was necessary, for, as Biggles said, their enemies were quite good enough to shoot at them from cover if an opportunity offered. It was assumed that they had gone back to the Vega, but this was only surmise; they might equally well be lying in wait for them. However, they saw nothing of them.
Biggles’s main anxiety was concerned with the negress, whom he feared might have gone off somewhere; for this would mean either looking for her, a formidable task, or waiting for her to come home, which might mean a long delay. Again, if she saw them, judging from her behaviour on the previous occasion, she might them the slip altogether. In the event, these fears did not materialize. The woman was there, and they were made aware of it while some distance away in a manner that provided ample scope for speculation.
From the direction of the cottage, as they approached, came a sound of shattering blows as of metal. It was, as Ginger remarked, as if someone was throwing rocks at a dustbin. The volume of noise was certainly just as great, if not greater.
>
As they drew still nearer, another sound, one that did nothing to elucidate the mystery, became audible. Between blows, the striker appeared to be treating another person to some calculated abuse. It became possible to hear the words.
‘So you won’t, eh?’ Bang. ‘Yo don behave stubborn, eh?’ Crash. ‘I show youse.’ Whang. ‘Come back here, yo.’ Zonk. ‘How yus like dat one, huh?’ Bang – crash.
‘Sounds as if the old crow is walloping her moke,’ guessed Bertie.
‘If it’s the donkey that’s getting it, it must be wearing a tin suit,’ said Ginger.
Emerging from the bushes, the mystery was at once solved, and so curious was the spectacle provided that they all stopped to watch, for so far the buxom negress responsible for the din had not seen them. Swinging an axe, she was battering an object already so mutilated that it was impossible to say what it was. Whatever its original shape may have been, it no longer conformed to any common geometrical pattern. The maximum dimension was about three feet. That the object was of metal was made apparent by the noise it made when the axe struck it and sent it bowling over the rocky ground. Metal gleamed white where the axe had hit, although the original colour had been black or dark brown.
A short distance away, watching the exhibition with the placid indifference of its kind, was the donkey, loaded with two basket panniers.
Biggles advanced until he was between the woman and the house, when, suddenly seeing him, her exertions ended abruptly with the axe half-raised. Rolling eyes, showing the whites, betrayed her surprise.
‘Having a little trouble, ma’am?’ questioned Biggles quietly.
Slowly the woman lowered the axe. For a moment it looked as if she intended bolting, but Biggles held out a cigarette case, smiling, and that at once eased the situation. She accepted the offer. ‘My respects to you, master,’ she said, taking a light from Biggles and exhaling smoke with obvious relish.
‘What are you trying to do?’ inquired Biggles casually.
