by W E Johns
They ran down the stairs, snatching up their valises in passing, and jumped into the cab. Tug was picking up something from the pavement.
“Come on, Tug,” ordered Biggles crisply. “Get aboard and step on it.”
Tug climbed into his seat. The engine raced. Doors slammed.
“I want to collect that box on the opposite pavement,” called Biggles.
Tug swung his cab across the street, sprang out, picked up the box—which appeared to be heavier than he expected—threw it into the taxi, returned to his wheel and drove on.
“Don’t stop for anybody,” commanded Biggles. This was no casual remark, for people were running towards the scene, including a policeman, blowing his whistle.
Tug pushed aside the glass panel between him and those behind. “Where to?” he inquired.
“Delmar, Herts,” answered Biggles. “Take the Watford by-pass.”
“Okay, chief,” flashed Tug. The cab shot into a side street. In fact, it dodged through several before settling down for its twenty-five mile run into the country.
After a while Tug passed through to Biggles a small but heavy object with a thick glass lens on one side. “What’s this thing?” he asked.
“Great Scott!” exclaimed Biggles. “Where did you get it?”
“Picked it up on the pavement. It fell off that newspaper stooge. What is it?”
“It’s a camera,” asserted Biggles. “The type they call the candid camera. You can carry it under your lapel, up your sleeve, anywhere you like. It was designed to take photos without the subjects being aware of it. So the newspaper man’s job, or one of his jobs, was to get photos of us, no doubt for circulation amongst the gang, so that they’d know us if they saw us. Well! Well! We’ve spoilt that little game—I hope. We’ll get the film developed at Delmar in case there’s anything on it. Let’s see what’s in the box our boss-eyed friend was sitting on.”
Ginger lifted the lid. “Radio, by thunder!” he muttered.
Biggles nodded. “I’m not surprised. Remember what I told you about the modern crook being equipped with scientific devices? Now you can see it for yourself.”
“What do you suppose the bounder wanted radio for?” inquired Bertie.
“Work it out for yourself,” invited Biggles. “No, to save time I’ll tell you. I should say it was in order to let Robinson know about our movements as fast as we made them.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Bertie. “Absolutely. On this occasion at any rate the blighter didn’t get a chance to use it.”
“He did not, thanks to Tug,” said Biggles. “By the way, Tug, what are you going to do when we get to where we are going? Are you going straight back home?”
“What would I go home for?” demanded Tug.
“You mean—you’d like to stick around for a bit?”
“It’d suit me better than navigating this crate in and out of the traffic.”
“It’s okay with me,” averred Biggles.
“In which case it’s okay with me,” returned Tug. The taxi sped on, the polished tarmac surface of the Watford by-pass under its wheels.
Chapter 4
Stellar Skyways Incorporated
A FEW minutes after seven o’clock Tug’s taxi came to a stop outside the almost deserted headquarters of the abandoned air force station. Biggles found a squadron leader in charge, an officer named Crane. It was soon ascertained that he had received instructions from the Air Ministry regarding the provision of accommodation for the visitors, and everything was ready for them. As Biggles remarked to the others, the Air Commodore had wasted no time. By eight o’clock, having dined in the mess, they were settled in the small ante-room that had been set aside for their use.
“Crane’s a good type,” stated Biggles, as he sat down. “He does what he’s told and asks no questions. We made a good choice. Delmar should suit us fine as a jumping-off place. Now let’s get down to business and decide on the best way of going to work. We’ve got to make the next move, not the enemy.”
“You were going to tell us more about Stellar Skyways,” prompted Ginger.
Biggles nodded. “Yes, perhaps it would be as well if I got that off my chest before we go any further.”
“Which means, I take it, that you’re going to start operations by putting the spotlight on this concern?” suggested Algy.
“ We’ve got to start somewhere and Stellar Skyways seems as good a place as any. Whether they are the people we’re looking for or not I can’t help feeling that there’s something peculiar about their set-up, so we shall do no harm by having a closer look at it, anyway.”
Having got a cigarette going. Biggles continued: “It’s a biggish concern, and it wears some unusual features. The first one is, it is registered in Lichtenstein, which is one of the few little independent states left in Europe. You’ll find it on the map tucked away between Germany and Switzerland. Quite a lot of international companies are registered there, the big advantage being that their books are not open to inspection as they would be elsewhere. Some companies find it convenient to keep their affairs to themselves. Presumably the Stellar head office is there, although that may mean nothing. Apparently the company was originally a tourist travel agency called Stellar Tours, on the lines of the well-known Thomas Cook & Son. As such it was not a flourishing concern—as far as we know—and the war of course put an end to its activities. A few months ago it was acquired by a new holding company. Lately, fresh capital was introduced, and its scope extended to include air travel. The name was changed to Stellar Skyways. The company now runs air tours and a private charter service. How many passengers it has carried I don’t know, and I’ve no means of finding out. Now, this may be a perfectly genuine concern, but as I said just now there are certain features about it that I find extraordinarily interesting. The first is the way the company operates. Strangely enough, its aircraft do not call at Lichtenstein. By making landing arrangements here, there, and everywhere it can operate practically where it likes without owning a single airfield. Like the cuckoo it uses other birds’ nests. It has booking offices at most of the big airports, but that’s all. We may assume that local regulations in regard to landing dues, customs, international exchange carnets, and so on, are observed, for they are in force everywhere. But here we have a company owning its own aircraft, able to go where it likes, yet without owning a single airfield of its own.”
“Would that be allowed?” asked Ginger.
“In the ordinary way, perhaps not,” replied Biggles. “ Yet this one has managed to get such facilities. Its explanation would be simple. They could say, how can we establish airfields when we don’t know where we shall be asked to go? The destination is the customer’s choice. To put down our own airfields would cost umpteen million pounds—which would be true enough. You see, the company doesn’t operate to a hard and fast schedule. It runs air tours. That is, it plans an itinerary and advertises it. One such tour is evidently profitable, for it has become a regular thing. They call it The Old World Tour. It’s a circular trip taking in Casablanca, Cairo, Baghdad, Istanbul, and certain of the European capitals, including London.”
“Where does it start?” asked Bertie.
Biggles smiled. “Nowhere in particular. The company has booking offices and agents almost everywhere. Apparently you can board the plane at any of the ports of call if accommodation is available. The round trip occupies seven days. An original feature of it is this. Most of the actual flying is done at night. The company has a slogan, ‘Travel while you Sleep,’ the idea being that you go to bed in one country and wake up in another. This allows the daylight hours to be spent in sightseeing at the various capitals. No time is wasted on the journeys between them. From our point of view that may look suspicious, but there is something to be said for it. Of course, if the company was in fact playing a shady game no doubt it would suit them too. I had a word with Jimmy Carter, who is in the control tower at Croydon. He says the thing seems to work out all right. Incidentally, he menti
oned that most of the pilots are foreign—but that again, considering all the circumstances, and the international nature of the company, is not remarkable.” Biggles paused for a moment and then went on.
“The company also operates an enterprise which, if it is genuine, is certainly novel. It is called The Hunters’ Tour, and I must say that it interested me more than a little when I dug out the particulars. It seems that the company has acquired shooting concessions in Central Africa, at a place called Kudinga—at least, that is the centre. Presumably they have a landing area there. The Kudinga Plains have always been a sort of paradise for big game hunters, but the difficulty has been to get there. Even millionaires have responsibilities, and hitherto the time factor has put a limit on the number of people able to get to the place. Apart from that, not everyone was prepared to suffer the discomforts of a long overland journey from the nearest point of civilization. Kudinga is hundreds of miles from anywhere. Geographically it is curiously situated, being at the point where the territories of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, French Equatorial Africa and the Belgian Congo, touch. Actually, Kudinga is an enormous extinct volcano rising from tremendous plains and forest country teeming with big game. I’ve flown over it, so that at least is a fact. The aeroplane seems to have solved the transport difficulty. Incidentally, I imagine that it was on one of these Hunters’ Tours that Brigadier-General Carding was killed. The only thing that I can see against this show as a commercial undertaking is the difficulty of getting enough clients to make it pay. According to its advertisements the company has built a luxury hotel on the lip of the crater overlooking the plains. It’s a bungalow, covering a good deal of ground, equipped with every device to make life comfortable in a place that in the ordinary way would be extremely uncomfortable. I’ve seen an air photograph of the place; the company uses one in its advertisements. Incidentally, to judge from the advertisements nothing could be more open and above board.”
“Would they dare to do that if the show was not what it pretended to be?” queried Algy. “I mean, would they dare to let the general public in? From what you say I take it that the public is invited to go to this place?”
Biggles considered the question. “That could cut two ways,” he decided. “This expensive advertising might be a blind, part of a cleverly thought-out policy to prevent any possibility of suspicion. The more prosperous a company appears to be the less open is it to criticism.”
“And do the public actually patronize this happy hunting ground in Africa?” questioned Bertie.
“ I don’t know. I haven’t had time to contact anyone who has been there,” returned Biggles. “The place exists; there’s no doubt of that or they wouldn’t dare to make such a song about it. I must say it sounds attractive. To quote from the advertisements, the walls are thick and the roof double-thatched against the heat. Water is laid on in every room. Electric power provides air conditioning, light and so on. Oh, and by the way, only men are admitted—no women. One can visualise a sort of super-club in which sportsmen, so-called, can live in the lap of luxury and sally forth in charge of a professional hunter to the beat allotted to him. A taxidermist is on the spot to preserve and mount the trophies—skins, hides, heads, horns, and all the rest of it, so that these can be flown home with the lucky hunter who gets them. Goodness only knows what this place cost to build and equip. The charges, as one would expect, are also very much in the luxury class; but there, it would be a very expensive business to get to this particular hunting ground by any other method. Anyway, there it is, and to make things easy, the lodge, as they call it, is served by no fewer than three air lines. One plane comes in from Dakar, on the West Coast, to accommodate South American sportsmen. Another, for the benefit of the United States, comes in from Casablanca. Europe is served by a connecting link with the Old World Tour at Cairo. How this project is doing financially I haven’t been able to find out, but it’s an engaging proposition. There are brains behind it somewhere. It took brains to conceive the original idea and it must take brains to keep the thing going. As I remarked, the snag seems to be to find enough people with enough money to keep it going.”
Bertie polished his eyeglass reflectively. “I still can’t see how the company could start any funny stuff with a load of passengers on board.”
“What passengers?” inquired Biggles. “We’ve no proof that there are any passengers. And if there are, what guarantee have we that the seats are occupied by bona fide travellers? Some might be. Others might not. After all, the company needn’t accept bookings if it doesn’t really want them, even though it advertises. All that could be eye-wash. They could tell applicants that all seats were booked. They could then fill the seats with their own agents, whatever their business might be. See what I mean? Luggage would of course be checked at customs airports, but that wouldn’t prevent illicit cargo from being dropped off at prearranged places. Clearly, if this company was crooked it would find things very easy.”
“You think it is crooked?” asked Ginger.
“My own opinion is, if this company were genuine, it would fail for want of customers,” answered Biggles.
“Exactly,” declared Bertie. “Absolutely.”
“There are other factors that would puzzle a business man,” went on Biggles. “There seems to be a lot of unnecessary expense. To start with, why should cities be linked up in what is called an Old World Tour when they are already served by national air lines? I mean, one could reach any of these places more cheaply by taking a ticket on a regular service. And for the Hunters’ Tour, why should the company run special planes from Dakar, Casablanca and Cairo, when Kudinga could be served by a simple feeder line from Nairobi, which is on our Imperial route? It might be desirable to link the Hunters’ Tour with the Old World Tour, but it seems an unnecessary expense. Regarded from that angle alone the thing looks queer. Indeed, the closer one examines this set-up the more one is forced to the conclusion that the show is run not so much for the public as for some purpose known only to the directors. For all we know these planes may be running to capacity, but if they are not then the thing must be costing the company a pretty penny.”
“Sounds phoney to me,” murmured Bertie.
“It’s too early to say that,” returned Biggles cautiously. “Let us say there is something odd about it. Put it this way. If I was asked to organize a big smuggling concern this is just the sort of show I should try to develop. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Whether we are on the right track or not it will be interesting to see just what goes on inside Stellar Skyways. As I said before, we’ve got to start somewhere, and for lack of anything like a tangible clue this Stellar outfit seems to be as good a place as anywhere. I have already asked the Air Commodore to dig out all the information he has about the company, and let me have particulars of anything of an unusual nature that has happened in the areas served by it, particularly in Africa. Which reminds me, I asked Crane to develop the film in that candid camera. The shots should be nearly ready. They may tell us something. Ginger, you might slip along and see what’s happening.”
Ginger went off, to return in a few minutes with five prints on a sheet of blotting paper.
“They weren’t quite dry,” he said. “Only five films have been exposed—the others were blank. I haven’t looked at them yet.”
Biggles reached out and picked up the first print. He laughed softly. “Our front door in Mount Street,” he observed. He reached for another. “Same place from a different angle,” he remarked, tossing the print aside. He picked up the third. “Ah, this is more interesting!” he exclaimed. “It’s a close-up portrait of a man.”
“Do you know him?” asked Algy.
“Quite well,” answered Biggles, his lips twitching. “Matter of fact, it’s a fellow named Bigglesworth. Hm—I wonder when that was taken? There’s no background to give us a clue. Good thing you picked this camera up, Tug. They’d got a shot of me. What else have we?” The fourth photograph was blurred, but it was made out to b
e Tug, stepping out of his taxi, in Mount Street. “By Jingo! That fellow didn’t waste any time,” observed Biggles. “He must have taken that photo only a few seconds before you socked him on the jaw. Hello, what’s this?” He picked up the last photo.
Ginger, looking down over Biggles’ shoulder, saw that it was a full length shot of a man, a man unknown to him, standing by an aircraft. The photograph had been taken from a distance and included a large portion of the machine. He recognized the type, a twin-engined commercial eight-seater cabin monoplane of American manufacture.
“A Parkington Pacemaker,” he observed. “By the way, that film was the first one exposed.”
“What interests me more than the type is the registration letters and that flying dragon device,” said Biggles quietly. “Make a note of the letters, ring up the liaison officer at the Ministry of Civil Aviation, and ask him who the machine belongs to.”
In two minutes Ginger was through on the private wire. He gave the particulars and waited for an answer. It was soon forthcoming. “Thanks,” he said and hung up.
“Well?” queried Biggles.
“The machine is one of the fleet belonging to Stellar Skyways,” he stated. “That flying dragon device on the nose is their insignia.”
Biggles drew a deep breath. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Funny, isn’t it, that our first real clue should be provided by the enemy? I wonder who the chap is—but that’s something we may learn one day. Our job is to get to the inside of this show without loss of time—or better still, tackle it both from the inside and the outside.”
“ How are you going to get inside it?” asked Ginger dubiously.
“It shouldn’t be difficult,” declared Biggles. “I gave the thing some thought on the way here. I’m going to depart from our usual method of working together. We’ll break the party up and muscle in separately. That should increase our chances. One of us should get in. The snag that I am up against—and it goes for Algy too—is this; we have both been seen by Robinson. If he’s on the staff of Stellar Skyways he has only to see us on the horizon for a warning to buzz right through the entire organization. Fortunately he didn’t see you, Ginger, or Bertie; and he knows nothing of Tug. You, therefore, will have to make the opening moves. This is what I want you to do. Tug, working on the assumption that Stellar could do with more pilots, you are going back to London tonight. Put up at a small hotel. Then I want you to insert an advertisement in the ‘situations wanted’ columns of the London daily papers. Something on these lines. Pilot, aged twenty-five, no encumbrances, four thousand hours on all types, qualified navigator, able to do running repairs, seeks any sort of flying employment. Will go anywhere, do anything. Distance no object. Free any time. Get the idea?”
