by W E Johns
“Then there is something crooked going on!”
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that, but I now know enough to arouse my curiosity. This is it. Your photo enabled me to check on the aircraft, assuming it was the one you saw. It’s privately owned by a Doctor Alton Bentworth who lives in London, is a member of the Longborne Flying Club and keeps his machine there. From the secretary I’ve learned that Bentworth does a fair amount of flying, mostly very early morning. He did that yesterday, apparently going to Dartmoor. He got back about eleven, so it seems the machine must still have been there, although you didn’t see it, the second time you flew over. It may have been moved into the barn. At some time or other the doctor must have given his friends there this snapshot of himself—a touch of vanity perhaps. He specializes in plastic surgery, which hooks up with what you now tell me about men in bandages.”
“You think he might be running a private clinic or convalescent home for his patients?”
“A natural supposition, but if that is so, although he may not know it he has at least one queer member on his staff. The Fingerprint Department tell me that this torch has been handled by a gentleman named Manton Rushling, once a solicitor, who recently did five years for forgery. He was discharged from prison last year. He is now a free man, but the questions we must ask ourselves are, what is his association with the doctor and what are they both doing at a lonely farm on Dartmoor?”
Bertie answered. “From the gents we saw in bandages I’d say there’s a spot of plastic surgery going on.”
“That’s what it looks like. If that’s correct, who are these men being operated on?”
“How do we find that out?”
“That,” replied Biggles getting up, “is what I am now going to ask the Chief. It may mean a search warrant, and it’s for him to decide if we’re justified in applying for one.” He went out.
He was away for some time, and when he returned it was with Inspector Gaskin of the Criminal Investigation Department. “We’ve moved a step farther,” he told the others. “Gaskin tells me that two years ago Doctor Bentworth was struck off the Medical Register for improper practices; which means that officially he can’t practise his profession. That being so he can’t legally be running a nursing home on Dartmoor—with an ex-criminal solicitor in charge.”
“Then what can he be doing?” asked Ginger.
“That’s what we are going to find out. The quickest way will be to go to Dartmoor, ask some questions and have a look round. Gaskin may recognize someone. He has a search warrant should it be necessary. The ideal thing would be to arrive when the doctor is there. It’s too late for that today so we’ll slip down early tomorrow morning, that apparently being the usual time he makes his visit. We might as well fly down. If one Auster can land so can another. We’ll leave it like that.”
* * *
Shortly after daylight the next morning the police Auster was cruising high in the air within sight of the club airfield at Longborne. As this called for only a slight detour from the direct course for Dartmoor Biggles had decided to look at it on the way. It had proved worth while, for a hangar door could be seen open, and on the tarmac, airscrew spinning, an Auster.
“There he goes,” said Ginger, as the machine left the ground.
“Capital. We’ll go with him,” answered Biggles. “I’ll watch where he lands and follow him in.”
“If he spots you trailing him he may not land,” said Gaskin.
“With the glare of the sun in his eyes if he look back he won’t see anything.”
Nothing more was said. It was soon clear that the leading Auster was on a direct course for Dartmoor, Biggles kept well behind; with the visibility near perfect there was no risk of him losing his quarry.
Rather more than half an hour later, with the wide expanse of Dartmoor in sight, it began to lose height and, as had been anticipated, it eventually glided down to the farm, landed near it and ran on under the trees where Ginger had originally seen it. This was all Biggles wanted to know. He landed along the same track, and apparently was not seen, because he had not been heard, until the doctor cut his engine. When the police party got out and walked forward it to find the pilot they had followed staring at them obvious astonishment, as was understandable. He was a pale-faced, slightly-built man in the early thirties.
Gaskin opened the conversation. “We’re police officers,” he announced bluntly. “Are you Doctor Alton Bentworth?”
“Er—yes.” The doctor’s face went a shade paler.
“I’m going to ask you some questions,” went on the Inspector. “You’re not compelled to answer them but it will save time and trouble all round if you do. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to call on friends. Any reason why I shouldn’t?”
Gaskin ignored the question. “Who are these friends? You might as well tell me because I shall find out. I know one of them already. His name’s Rushling. Do you know who and what he is?”
The doctor hesitated, biting his lip. “More or less,” he admitted.
“How many men are there here besides him?”
“Three.”
“What are their names?”
“Leston, Gunther and Gallinsky.”
A slow smile of satisfaction spread over the Inspector’s face. “Good. I’ve been looking for them for some time.” To Biggles, in an aside, he murmured: “These are the wide boys who pulled off a twenty-thousand pay snatch a couple of months ago.” Turning back to the doctor and raising his voice he questioned: “Did you know that?” No answer.
Biggles stepped in. “The game’s up, Bentworth, so you might as well talk. Who arranged this party?”
“Rushling. We were at school together. He knew I’d been in trouble and came to see me with a proposition. I had to make a living somehow.”
“And the proposition was that he should run an establishment where crooks could lie low and at the same time have their faces altered so they would not be recognized by the police. Right?”
The doctor’s face was now ashen. “How did you know?” he managed to get out.
“I guessed. What about the bandaged hands? Are you faking new fingerprints for them, too?”
“For those who want it done.”
Biggles shook his head. “Pity you couldn’t have put your ability to better use. How long has this been going on?”
“About six months. These are my first patients here.”
“I imagine others would have followed.”
“Probably.”
“What was the idea of flying to and fro?”
“The sort of operations I do take time. I had to make daily visits. By plane I could do the trip in half an hour whereas by road it would take several hours.”
Gaskin came back. “These three crooks. The money hasn’t been recovered. Have they got it here? Having admitted so much you might as well finish.”
“I don’t know. Why should they tell me?”
“You’re not doing this for nothing. Where do you suppose they got the money from to pay you? You knew it had been stolen. I’d bet they paid in cash.”
“Quite true.”
“We’ll have a look at these notes presently,” asserted Gaskin. “The numbers are known. Now I’ll have a word with your precious patients. Are they likely to cut up rough?”
The doctor smiled wryly. “As they’re in the middle of facial operations they’re in no condition for that. For the same reason they’re not likely to run away. You’ll have to leave them here for the time being. In their present state it might be dangerous to move them. Now I’ve started I shall have to complete the job.”
“Let’s see what they have to say about it,” growled Gaskin, walking towards the house.
* * *
There is no need to go into the details of what followed. Never were criminals found in a more helpless state. The stolen notes were found in the house so the law took its usual course. Dr. Bentworth, bitter at having been drawn into the unsavoury b
usiness, turned Queen’s Evidence. All the culprits went to prison for conspiracy, the three wage bandits getting the longer sentences for robbery with violence.
As Inspector Gaskin said seriously in Biggles’ office when it was all over: “This face alteration by plastic surgery is a new menace. It was a clever idea and might well have come off if you hadn’t nipped it in the bud. Think what it could have meant! With professional crooks wearing new faces, and thumbs, the records on which we rely for identification could have become a dead loss.”
Biggles grinned. “Someone has to keep pace with the times. The case should convince the Chief Commissioner that the Air Police are worth their petrol.”
[Back to Contents]
THE TWO BRIGHT BOYS
NOT all the time of the Air Police was spent in the pursuit of criminals. There was much routine work to be done; for example, keeping a check on privately-owned aircraft to ensure that they were not used for improper purposes and watching that such machines returning from the Continent landed at an official Customs airport. This was all part and parcel of the day’s work with seldom anything to show for it. There were also complaints, as of low flying, to be investigated. These were usually settled without any fuss, but there was one case that was not without a humorous aspect, although, to be sure, as so often happens, comedy was walking uncomfortably close to tragedy.
The affair began with a complaint from a small air line operating company working between the North of England and London. One of their pilots had reported that over a certain area of Hertfordshire he had been “buzzed” by a small aircraft of unknown type. This confirmed the statement of another pilot who had noted on his Flight Report that, near the same place, he had seen a very small, red, high-wing monoplane of the “pusher” type behaving in a suspicious manner. He described the plane as “a horror on wings”.
These reports, following closely on a protest about dangerous flying from the parson of a Hertfordshire village, who stated that a small red aeroplane had missed hitting his church spire by inches, resulted in Biggles being sent along to investigate. He kept an open mind about what he was likely to find.
In an Air Police Auster he flew over the area several times without seeing the culprit. Algy and Bertie took turns, and they saw nothing, either.
Biggles was puzzled. “There must be something there,” he declared. “Two pilots and a parson can hardly be suffering from the same hallucination.”
The search continued, and at last, early one fine morning. Ginger, watching the sky while Biggles circled, spotted what they were looking for.
“For Pete’s sake!” he exclaimed. “Look what’s coming.”
Biggles started, staring through the windscreen. “What the devil...!”
The aircraft, a tiny red-painted high-wing monoplane, with a propeller behind and an undercarriage that looked like a perambulator, was cutting straight across their course.
“Watch out!” cried Ginger. “He hasn’t seen us.”
Biggles must have realized it, for he swung up in a steep climbing turn. As the stranger passed below them Ginger saw a small hatless head, in an open cockpit, looking down over the side. “He still hasn’t seen us,” he muttered. “That fellow’s a menace. He must think he owns the sky.”
By this time Biggles had come round and was following the red monoplane, now going down. “We’ll soon know all about that little horror,” he remarked, in a hard voice, as the objective machine flattened out over a wide, flat expanse of what looked like marshy land. Not far away, on some rising ground, stood a country mansion, and this, with some clumps of fine timber, suggested that the landing ground was in a park of some size.
The red machine ran to a stop in front of a large wooden barn with a corrugated iron roof, clearly of recent construction. Biggles ran the Auster beside it and jumped down to find himself being regarded askance by its pilot, who had now been joined by a companion. Both were boys of about sixteen.
“Hello!” called one, pointing to the red machine. “Isn’t she a beauty? Did you see her in the air?”
Ginger smiled when he saw painted on the side of the little monoplane, in white, racy lettering, its name. Skylark.
Biggles was not smiling. “Yes, we saw it,” he said, answering the boy’s question. “Did you see us?”
“No.”
“That’s what I thought. Lucky for all of us I saw you. What do you boys think you’re doing?”
“We’re designing an air flivver,” was the enthusiastic reply.
“What’s your name?”
“Tony Hankin. This is my friend, Cliff Clemson.”
“And you’re responsible for this?” Biggles indicated the little monoplane.
“Yes, we did it ourselves,” said the boy, proudly. “You see, we reckon it’s about time a plane at a price within reach of everyone was put on the market. That’s why we call our machine a flivver. That’s what Henry Ford, the man who made motoring for the million, called his first car. It was the price that made motoring popular.”
“And what he did with the motor car you’re going to do with the aeroplane, eh?”
“Exactly.”
Biggles smiled sadly. “ Did no one ever tell you that Mr. Ford also made an air flivver for the million, and why you don’t see it flying?”
“No.”
“Well, he did. And he threw a big party to introduce it to the public. He also engaged a leading test pilot to demonstrate it. The plane took off and was never seen again. It must have fallen in the sea. Whereupon Mr. Ford, realizing that if an expert pilot could lose his life in his air flivver he was likely to be responsible for thousands of deaths, ordered his men to smash every flivver that had been built. And that was that.”
The machine must have been structurally unsound,” declared Tony. “There’s nothing wrong with ours. We’re still alive, aren’t we?”
“For the moment, yes.”
“If you’re going to be so depressing I shall wish you hadn’t dropped in on us. Why did you?”
“Because I’ve been looking for you. There have been complaints about your flying.”
“By a lot of interfering old spoil-sports, I’ll bet.”
“The pilot of a plane with a load of passengers on board has reason to complain when he’s buzzed by a contraption that might fall to pieces at any moment.”
“I didn’t buzz him,” denied Tony hotly. “He altered course to look at me.”
Biggles failed to repress a smile. “I can believe that. But he says he was getting out of your way, he didn’t know where you were going, and he didn’t think you did, either. You didn’t see me this morning. If I hadn’t seen you and got out of your way you were likely to have rammed me. You were looking at the ground.”
“Don’t you ever look at the ground to get your bearings?”
“Yes, but I also watch where I’m going.” Biggles indicated the barn, the interior of which had been well fitted out as a workshop. “Where did you get the money for all this?”
“My mother let me have it.”
“What does your father think about it?”
“I haven’t got a father. Neither has Cliff. They were both killed flying in the war. I shall have plenty of money when I’m twenty-one, anyway.”
Biggles glanced at the big house on the hill. “Is that where you live?”
“Yes. This is our land. We can do what we like on our own property, can’t we?”
“Provided you don’t endanger the lives of other people, and that’s what you are doing. Tell me, does your mother approve this dangerous game you’re playing?”
Tony hesitated. “Well, not entirely. But she knows that Cliff and I are going into aviation when we leave school and she’s too good a sport to stand in our way. That’s why we wouldn’t do anything foolish.”
Ginger turned away to hide a smile.
“How old are you?” was Biggles’ next question.
“We’re both sixteen.”
“Don’t you think you�
��re starting a bit early?”
“No. We’ve been a year working on this job, in the hols. Working jolly hard, too.”
“I can believe that,” said Biggles. “What’s the engine?”
“Actually, it’s only an outboard motor which we’ve adapted for the time being. I’ll admit it gets a bit warm. And, of course, it doesn’t give us as much power as we’d like. But then, it hasn’t much weight to lift.”
“What’s your top speed?”
“I’d say about forty-five.”
“What’s going to happen if you run into a wind of fifty miles an hour?”
Tony thought for a moment. “In that case I suppose I shall have to go backwards.”
“Won’t that make it difficult to see where you’re going?”
‘I’m glad you raised that point,” acknowledged Tony. “I’ll fit a reflector. That should answer that question. As for the Skylark falling to pieces, that’s nonsense. The airframe is welded tubular steel construction and we’ve allowed an ample margin of safety. Anyhow, as you’ve seen for yourself, she flies like a bird, and that’s all we ask. We aren’t out for breaking records.”
Biggles shook his head slowly. “What you’re going to break is your neck.”
“And if I do, what of it? It’s my neck, isn’t it?”
Biggles smiled faintly. “I’m sorry, Tony. I think you’ve done a wonderful job and I give you full marks for it. But I’m an air police officer and I can’t let you go on with this. Already there have been complaints. If you don’t kill yourselves, presently you’re going to kill someone else.”
“Coming from you, a pilot, I call that a pretty poor argument,” said Tony, bitterly. “You can’t stop us flying.”
“Have you got a Certificate of Airworthiness?”
“We haven’t applied for one yet. We’re still in the experimental stage. We still have a few teething troubles to get over.”
“After all,” put in Cliff, “the Wright Brothers didn’t have a C. of A., and if they hadn’t gone ahead with their idea there still wouldn’t be any flying. Our plan is to have a machine all ready to go into production the day we leave school. We shall form a company and let some of the other chaps at school in on it.”