Death of an Airman

by Christopher St. John Sprigg

  “Very well. Now we must have some money to get the Airies started. And what could be more suitable than an air display?”

  “Why don’t you put up the money yourself?” said Lord Grunnage, without thinking.

  Lady Crumbles stared at him in horror. She had been organizing for charities for twenty years, and it was the first time that anyone had ever asked her to provide money for them herself. And her own brother to be so tactless!

  “My dear Gilbert,” she said gently, “I have my duties to my family!”

  “Your family? Do you mean old Frankie? I should have thought he’d got more than he knew what to do with. I see his tinned meat wherever I go!”

  “Please remember he is my husband,” said Lady Crumbles. “You may be sure that if I could merely sign a cheque for these charities instead of working my fingers to the bone it would be a tremendous relief.” She sighed and then brightened. “You must be president of the display, of course.”

  Lord Grunnage bowed his head meekly. “As long as I don’t have to do anything.”

  “Of course not. You know you never do. I shall look after everything. All I ask of you is to open the show and stay for a little. I must start forming the Executive Committee at once. While I remember, here are two tickets for the Midnight Matinée for Market Garringham Cottage Hospital. We should so love to see you and Lucy there.”

  “Very kind of you to ask us,” mumbled Lord Grunnage.

  “They are a guinea each. Send us the cheque along any day. Dear me, look at the time. I must fly.”

  ***

  Next day Lady Crumbles appeared at Baston Aero Club with the nucleus of her Executive Committee—a formidable trio. Lady Crumbles was, of course, herself chairman, and her vice-chairman was Sir Herbert Hallam, one of the few pilots who had been able to make a commercial success of long-distance flying in the early days. He had been knighted for his exploits, and now functioned as the director of several aviation companies, while avoiding, as far as lay in his power, any more flying. He was an energetic man, with a loud voice which had not lost the somewhat Cockney accent of Sir Herbert’s nurture. The third member of the Executive Committee was Dighton Walsyngham, a large, genial fellow, who was almost if not quite as successful in devising various pretexts for raising money as Lady Crumbles. The only difference was that in her case the ultimate object of the funds secured was charity, in his case it was himself. Walsyngham was a company promoter.

  At the moment he was engaged in organizing a gigantic internal air line project. He had recently swum into Lady Crumbles’ ken, and she had at once decided that he was a useful person, and had invited him on to the Executive Committee, to which he had blandly agreed. Walsyngham was built on the same imposing physical scale as Lady Crumbles, but he possessed an oily suavity which she lacked, and this supplied, as it were, a soft unguent which soothed his victims even as he advanced remorselessly over them quite in Lady Crumbles’ tank-like style.

  Miss Sackbut gazed at this trio with a kind of incredulous horror when they walked into her office. Lady Crumbles she knew, having seen her with the Lord-Lieutenant on the occasion when he had presented the club with a ’plane. Sir Herbert’s physiognomy was, of course, known to her and to everyone in aviation, owing to his unequalled pervasiveness, but Walsyngham’s was a new face.

  She feebly motioned them into chairs.

  “We are the Executive Committee of the Baston Air Display,” explained Lady Crumbles briefly and directly.

  “Air display, did you say?” asked Sally incredulously.

  “Certainly. We have decided to organize a flying meeting at Baston in aid of the Airies.”

  “Did you say Airies?”

  “Please don’t keep repeating my words, Miss Sackbut,” said Lady Crumbles irritably. “Yes, I did say Airies. They are the air corps of my Brownies. Now all we want from the club are the club machines, and the aerodrome, the services of your pilots, and, of course, the co-operation of the members.”

  “Is that all?” asked Sally.

  “For the moment, yes,” answered Lady Crumbles, whose obliviousness to sarcasm was her greatest strength. “As further needs crop up, we shall, of course, get in touch with you. Now, my dear, as manager of the club you must, of course, serve on the Committee; in fact, you ought to be aviation manager of the display.”

  “But I don’t think,” said Sally, who felt the situation rapidly sliding out of her control, “that I’m very keen on the display idea. I don’t think the members will be very keen on it either.”

  “My dear child,” said the Countess winningly, “don’t you realize that the whole idea of it is to help the club? The Airies are only a side issue. As soon as Gilbert said to me that he hoped the club was doing all right, I said to myself, ‘I must help them, the gallant things, and all they are doing for the country.’ And so the idea of the display came to me.”

  “It’s awfully good of you, of course—”

  “Not at all.”

  “It really is, but—”

  “Lady Crumbles spends her time doing good. How she has the time to fit it in I don’t know,” interrupted Walsyngham.

  “Wot amazes me is ’ow young she looks on it,” said Sir Herbert Hallam. “Work agrees with you, Lady Crumbles.”

  “It really is most awfully good of her,” insisted Sally with a quiet desperation, “but I am sure club members would resent the time taken up in practising and so forth.”

  “My dear Miss Sackbut, I am used to dealing with resentful people,” laughed Lady Crumbles. “If you get any complaints from a club member, I will have a little chat with him and point out that it is for the good of the club. Don’t you worry on that score.”

  “I hope it’s not going to cost anything,” said Sally, unwilling to give in without a struggle. “We really can’t afford a penny of capital expenditure.”

  “Leave that to the Executive Committee! We’ll raise the money. My dear, you seem to have so many odd objections…you don’t resent my coming in, do you? I mean, if you would prefer to be chairman of the Executive Committee yourself, I should gladly serve under you. I always say that we women shouldn’t let our feelings stand in the way of charity.”

  “Good Lord, no! I am delighted you should run the show,” said Sally, now fairly cornered. “I’ll co-operate with you all I can. I don’t want to have to do anything but the flying side.”

  As Sally thus succumbed to Lady Crumbles’ powers, there was the sound of a song outside, and Tommy Vane threw open the door. He was carrying a glass of beer, was dressed in a cherry-coloured, open-necked shirt, and wore dark-green flannel trousers with an orange belt.

  “Hi, Sally!” he shouted, holding up something in his fingers. “Look what I’ve found in the beer!” Then, seeing the formidable bulks of Lady Crumbles and Mr. Walsyngham and the familiar figure of Sir Herbert Hallam, he started to retreat with a muttered apology.

  Lady Crumbles, who had scrutinized him closely, suddenly gave an exclamation. “My dear Mr. Spider!” she exclaimed effusively. “Fancy seeing you here! Have you been in England long?”

  Tommy Vane gave her a startled stare. “I think you have made some mistake!”

  “I never forget faces,” exclaimed Lady Crumbles positively. “Surely,” she added, a little plaintively, “you haven’t forgotten me, Mr. Spider? Don’t you remember in Hollywood, showing me round, when they were filming Veronica Gubbage in ‘Naughty but Nice’?”

  “Merciful heavens? A maniac!” exclaimed Tommy Vane loudly. He backed out and closed the door rapidly behind him.

  Lady Crumbles looked indignantly round. “How extremely impolite! Mr. Spider was introduced to me when I visited Hollywood two years ago. He was in the cast of ‘Naughty but Nice’ when I saw it being filmed, and as he was English they gave him the task of looking after me. He did it very sweetly too; and now he seems so abrupt. I really cannot underst
and it!”

  “Surely there is some mistake,” suggested Sally, concealing a smile. “His name is Vane—Thomas Vane—and I’m sure he’s never been out of England; certainly not on the films. Are you sure the name was Spider?”

  “Perhaps it isn’t the same man,” admitted Lady Crumbles, in a tone that indicated she was fairly certain it was. “As for his name being Spider, now you mention it, perhaps it wasn’t. Everyone called him Spider at the studio, so naturally I called him Spider too, but it may have been only a nickname.”

  “I ’ad a monkey called Spider wot I brought ’ome from Singapore,” said Sir Herbert. “The pore little beast pegged out though.”

  “What on earth has a monkey to do with it?” said Lady Crumbles. “Really, Sir Herbert, you do say the most extraordinary things!”

  Walsyngham had meanwhile noticed Sally’s growing impatience. “Perhaps we’ve done enough business for to-day,” he said soothingly. “Shall we make our next meeting here at, say, noon to-morrow? Does that suit you, Miss Sackbut?”

  “Perfectly.” She nodded resignedly. How she wished Furnace was still alive. He would probably have been equal to Lady Crumbles. The new instructor, Winters, was too broken to the slings and arrows of outrageous committees at his previous clubs to offer much resistance. If only the woman hadn’t been Grunnage’s sister she would have told her to go to hell. She might yet.…

  The Executive Committee walked out. Sir Herbert, the last to go, favoured Sally with a wink and an expressive thumb jerked in the direction of Lady Crumbles, which heartened her a little.

  On her way to the car, Lady Crumbles halted as she saw a familiar figure hurrying by.

  “Lady Laura!” she hailed it. “Fancy seeing you here! But, of course, you do fly yourself, don’t you, you clever thing!”

  “Hallo!” said Lady Laura in her loud clear voice. “I haven’t seen you since we met at Hollywood.”

  “Well, so it was, at Hollywood. How very strange. Only just now I was reminded of that visit. Do you remember Mr. Spider, that man who showed us round?”

  Lady Laura laughed. “You mean ‘Spider’ Hartigan? A rather amazing young Englishman?”

  “That’s the man. My dear, I met somebody just like him, a member of the club.”

  “Oh, that would be Tommy Vane,” said Lady Laura. “They are rather alike; I’ve noticed it. He’s younger though, I think. What are you doing here, by the way? The charity racket, I suppose? You aren’t dragging Sir Herbert round for nothing!”

  Hallam gave a deprecating grin.

  Lady Crumbles became enthusiastic, a quality she could turn on like a tap. “Haven’t you heard? I’m organizing a display for the club. Half the profits are going to the club and half to my Airies. What do you think of the idea?”

  “Stinking!” retorted Lady Laura coldly. “It means having thousands of people tramping all over the aerodrome, and flying will be dislocated for the day, and there’s always a dozen or so drunks left over in the bar one doesn’t know what to do with. I know these shows.”

  “You’re always so witty, dear!” said Lady Crumbles, who was not to be put off by a Lady Laura. “Of course you won’t refuse to take part in the concours d’elegance?”

  “No. I shan’t. Not if there’s a decent prize. The last prize I won at a concours d’elegance was in the Brighton Hospital Motor Rally. It was supposed to be a silver cup, but when I took it home I found it was only electro-plate.”

  “I presented the prizes at the Brighton Hospital Motor Rally,” said Lady Crumbles icily. Hallam gave a gurgle which he changed into a cough as Lady Crumbles’ eye fell upon him.

  “I’m so sorry! Did you really? How frightfully tactless of me!” said Lady Laura indifferently. “Well, anyway, see that the Press are looked after at this show, whatever happens. So long!”

  “I really cannot see what people find to admire in that girl,” complained Lady Crumbles. “Look at her! As thin as a rake, and absolutely no distinction of manner at all. How she manages to run an aeroplane and a car I don’t know, for the Vanguards always were as poor as church mice. However, perhaps it would be more charitable not to enquire.”

  Meanwhile, on the retirement of the Executive Committee, Miss Sackbut had walked sadly out on to the flying field to take the Bishop for his lesson. He ventured to comment on her abysmal gloom.

  “I really begin to wonder whether I’m cut out for this kind of thing,” said Sally, explaining it. “First of all poor Furnace, and then this Crumbles visitation. The club is getting out of hand, that’s the truth. I can’t control it.”

  “Come, come, now. You can’t be blamed for poor Furnace’s death.”

  Sally transfixed him with a perceptive stare.

  “Can’t I? I don’t put it beyond Inspector Creighton. He’s been drifting into my office asking me questions altogether too often for it to be accidental.”

  The Bishop, too well aware of the truth of this, became a little agitated. “Miss Sackbut, can’t you help at all? I mean, you must see now that things have gone too far to stop them, even for Furnace’s sake. There was a mystery in his death, and it has got to be solved by the police wherever the solution leads. You know the actors in the drama. Can’t you possibly think of anything that will throw light on it? Anything in Furnace’s previous life, for instance?”

  Sally looked at him frankly. “The truth is, Bishop, I hardly dare. During the last two years I have had the sensation that something queer was going on in this aerodrome. It was the change in Furnace that made me notice it most. He was always secretive, certainly, but during the few months before his death it was something out of the ordinary even for him. Something was worrying him badly, I knew. That was bad enough, but it isn’t only that. It’s a silly feeling I used to have that there was something a little mysterious going on here. You know when you walk into a room and people stop talking suddenly, and you think they are talking about you? That sort of atmosphere. And queer little incidents which meant nothing separately, but were queer because they happened so often. There’s never been anything one could take hold of, you understand, until Furnace’s death. And even that looked a pure accident on the surface. But when you went into it, you see, we found it wasn’t an accident, but something dreadful. And ever since I’ve been wondering if something dreadful has been going on below the surface with those other little things.” Sally smiled painfully. “Oh, I suppose it all sounds a little hysterical. I don’t know why I tell you all this. I’m a bit under the weather, that’s all.”

  The Bishop became thoughtful. “Have you any definite suspicion—let us be frank—of any one person?”

  Sally nodded miserably. “I don’t trust Randall.”

  “Randall!” exclaimed the Bishop, startled. His mind jibbed at associating the gay and famous airman with these suspicions.

  “What on earth makes you feel that? Surely he was a friend of Furnace’s? He was very much distressed after the accident. And then, at the inquest, he spoke so generously about him.”

  “That’s just it!” exclaimed Sally. “My suspicions do sound silly when I mention them.”

  “But you must have some reason,” suggested the Bishop patiently.

  “Well, I haven’t. At least, it’s not much more than a feeling. But I’m certain Furnace and Randall were in something together. They were always whispering in odd corners, and then they would shut up in an unobtrusive sort of way when I came near.”

  “Possibly—ah—they were exchanging anecdotes unsuitable to the female ear,” remarked the Bishop jocosely.

  “Not to my ear!” said Sally with withering scorn. “No, they had some scheme on, and yet I’m quite sure Furnace didn’t like Randall. In fact, I overheard them definitely quarrelling twice. And sometimes Furnace’s eyes used to follow Randall in a way that made me—oh, I don’t know! I used to think it was a woman, but when George fell for Laura and it still
went on, I knew it wasn’t that, for Randall and Laura didn’t like each other. Got in the way of each other’s publicity, I suppose.”

  “Randall…” mused the Bishop. “I can’t imagine what there could have been between them. And yet there is a streak in his character, I suppose, which might be capable of strange things. But murder…I think the whole thing is too vague even to tell Creighton yet.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Sally, with a return to her former brightness. “It sounds rather silly when one says it, doesn’t it? I see Andy is looking at us reproachfully. The engine’s ticking over and we’re wasting petrol. It’s too bumpy for you to practise landings, so we’ll take you up for a spin.”

  “Really,” said Dr. Marriott nervously; “do you think I am sufficiently advanced for that?”

  “Of course. I want something drastic to cheer me up.” Sally dropped into her instructional tones as they climbed in and her voice came over the ’phones like that of a disembodied spirit. “Now the whole object of modern instruction is to ensure that you know how to get yourself out of any possible difficulty you may get into in your subsequent flying career. One possible difficulty is that if you stall with rudder on you’ll spin, so I’m going to teach you how to get out of that spin. Technically a spin is known as autorotation. Are you ready? Tail slice two-thirds forward. Stick right forward. Full throttle. Now she’s yours. Whoa! Keep her nose out of the ground. Don’t climb yet. Now. Climb at fifty-five miles per hour. Now stick forward a little for the turn. Oh, Bishop, Bishop, where’s your rudder! Come out of the turn altogether. Splendid. Very neat that. Climb again.”

  Steadily and grimly the Bishop mounted up, up, through the fleecy puffs of cloud. Up, up, until the aerodrome below looked like a square in the pattern of some terrestrial counterpane half obliterated by a drifting haze of tobacco-smoke. Up, up. So, reflected the Bishop uneasily, must the earth have looked when Furnace span to his doom—knowingly, or prey to some superior ingenuity of destruction?

  Sally was speaking, however. The voice coming so thinly through the ’phones was again admonishing him. “Remember that you spin with your rudder. You must stall first, but it is also necessary to misuse your rudder, particularly on a ‘slotted’ machine like this. Watch me. To make her spin I’m going to stall her, then put the rudder hard over. To stop her spinning I shall put the stick forward a little and then give her hard opposite rudder to stop the spin, then put the rudder in the neutral position again just as she comes out of the spin. All right. I’ve got her!”