"How would I know?"
"You down here on holiday?"
"Ran down for a spot of sunshine."
At that moment the mechanic returned and handed to Canton a packet of cigarettes which apparently he had been sent to fetch. That ended the conversation. "Well, I'll be getting along," said Canton. "So long."
Algy watched the man walk to his blue sports car and drive off. He was thinking fast.
That Canton had recognized the machine was certain. Had he recognized him as a member of the Air Police? He thought not. At all events, he had not appeared to associate him with the machine. He perceived he had been lucky to arrive when he did, otherwise he would almost certainly have taken off in a damaged machine. He broke into a perspiration at the thought, for if there is one thing that scares the average pilot it is the possibility of structural failure. For the second time in a few days he had had a narrow escape.
Ten minutes later he was in the air, heading for the Rhone valley, and home.
When he walked into the office he found Biggles and Ginger having tea.
"Hello!" greeted Biggles. "So you've decided to come home? Where's Bertie?"
"That," answered Algy, "is what I'd like to know." Biggles's eyes switched to Algy's face.
"What's happened?" he asked shortly.
Algy tossed his kit into a chair and sat down. "It's a long story."
"Okay. Let's have it. Take your time. Pour him out a cup of tea, Ginger."
Algy told his story from beginning to end, omitting nothing, but without any trimmings.
Biggles listened without once interrupting. At the finish he said: "Well done. "You've done a good job. Now we're on a trail worth following."
"But what about Bertie?"
"What about him? It's hard to see how we can do anything at the moment. Nor can I see any reason to panic. He's obviously running fast on a high scent. He'll come back."
"But what could have made him unload everything he had in his pockets?"
"Obviously he didn't want them on his person." "Why not?"
"Again, fairly obviously, he wanted to get rid of all signs of his identity."
"Why didn't he come and speak to me when he collected his kit at the hotel?"
"We don't know that he did collect his kit. That could have been done by someone else.
If Bertie did it, then he wasn't alone, or he would have spoken to you. But not so many questions. Give me a minute to think about this."
Biggles, a cigarette smouldering between his fingers, devoted himself to serious thought for a good ten minutes. Then he went on.
"What I think happened was this. It's only surmise, of course. At Nice Airport Bertie struck the same trail as you did, in a different place. You saw Canton at Monte Carlo. He may have seen him at Nice. After all, you saw him at Nice yourself, later on. He decided to follow the fellow. There was no time to get in touch with you. It looks to me as if he might have spoken to the man, and then went off with him, in which case he certainly wouldn't want in his pockets documents connecting him with the police. Apparently he didn't want his name to be known, either, or he wouldn't have parted with his passport.
He put his things in the cloakroom. In sending the receipt to you he served two purposes.
He safeguarded them, knowing that you would collect them, and at the, same time let you know that he was on the trail of something and was pushed for time. If Canton is living at the Villa Hirondelle, and it seems that he is, Bertie may have gone there with him. Wherever he went he was on something hot, we can be sure of that, or he would have got in touch with you. I don't think we can leave him down there on his own. He may still try to contact you at the hotel when he gets an opportunity. Apart from that, I feel we ought to keep an eye on the Villa Hirondelle. There's a hook-up between that place and Nice Airport. At any rate, Canton is evidently using the aerodrome."
"What's the drill, then?" inquired Algy.
"You'd better go back." Biggles smiled lugubriously. "Take a different machine this time, or something unpleasant may happen. You don't want to take off with one of Canton's squibs on board. Hire a car to drive yourself when you get there. You'll need to be mobile to watch both the villa and the airport.
"What are you going to do?"
"I shall have to stay here. I'm still waiting to hear from Marcel. He's gone to get a photo of El Asile, you remember? I expected him back before this."
"I think I can see him coming now," put in Ginger, who was standing by the window.
Five minutes later Marcel burst into the room. His customary smile was absent. His manner was peculiar, to say the least of it, as he turned accusing eyes on Biggles. "What happens?" he demanded.
Biggles stared. "I'm waiting for you to tell me." "Why do you shoot at me?"
Biggles sat back. "Just a minute. What are you talking about, Marcel? Why should I shoot at you?"
"That is what I ask," retorted Marcel stiffly.
"I have not been in the air since I last saw you," stated Biggles. "Just keep calm and tell me what this is all about."
"Your friend, Bertie. This one who wears a glass in his eye. He shoots at me. Do you tell him to do this? Is it a joke?"
"Were you flying at the time?"
"Yes."
"And was Bertie flying, too?"
"Of course."
"What machine was he flying?"
"A Hurricane."
"Really! And where did this happen?"
"Over the Ahaggar."
"Nonsense!" broke in Algy. "Bertie's in the South of France."
"But I tell you—"
Biggles raised a restraining hand. "Just a minute everybody. Sit down, Marcel. Take it quietly. Tell us what happened."
Marcel explained. "Yesterday I am flying over the Ahaggar to make a photo of El Asile.
I am high, like you say, at three thousand metres. I am alone in a world of mountains and. sand. The heat is savage. It is terrifying, but I go on. I see the valley. There are houses. I fly over, making my photographs. Good, I tell myself, now I can go home from this awful place.
I pour the sauce.* Then comes a shock. I hear guns. I see bullets fly. Someone is shooting at me. Mon Dieu! Am I insane? Can this be possible? Has the heat made me mad? I look. Voila! Behind me there is a Hurricane. The pilot is shooting at me. I fly for my life, for I have no guns to shoot back. I am a fool to take off my guns. Bullets pass me to the right, to the left. He is a bad shooter, this man behind me, or I am dead. He cannot hit me. I turn. I make the volplane. All the time he is shooting. Then, suddenly, he is sitting beside me, very close. I look. Who do I see? Now I know I am mad, for it is this man you call Bertie. He makes faces at me, grimaces the most terrible. Also he makes signs with his hands."
"Ridiculous," muttered Algy.
Marcel flung his portfolio on the floor with some force. "Am I blind?" he cried hotly. "
What I say is true. I know this one with the eyeglass. How can there be a mistake? What other man wears an eyeglass when he flies?"
"Let me tell you something," put in Ginger seriously. "If Bertie was flying that Hurricane, and wanted to shoot you down, you wouldn't be here now. What he shoots at he hits."
"And me, so do I," declared Marcel. "Tomorrow I put back my guns. When a person shoots at me I shoot back."
"Keep calm, everyone," requested Biggles. He looked at Algy. "Bettie disappeared on Tuesday. Marcel was shot at yesterday. However silly it seems, it was at least possible for Bertie to have got to El Asile in the time—by flying, of course. We must grant Marcel that. Let us assume that the pilot was Bertie. He shot at Marcel, and missed.
Missed a sitter. That isn't like Bertie. There's only one answer to that. Bertie wasn't really trying to hit him."
Marcel flung out his arms. "But why does he shoot at me? Why does he make faces?"
* French flying slang, meaning to fly on full throttle.
"I'd say because he was ordered to do it, and daren't refuse. Somebody may have been watching him f
rom the ground. Maybe that's what he was trying to tell you when he was making faces."
Algy shook his head. "This all sounds crazy to me. I still say Bertie is in the South of France. Had he been in that Hurricane he would have been his own master, and there would have been nothing to stop him flying home."
"That," answered Biggles succinctly, "would depend on how much petrol he had in his tank. Maybe he didn't want to fly home. The nearest French post where he could get more petrol would be Insalah."
"That is where I start from," said Marcel.
"How far is that from El Asile?"
"Five hundred kilometres, at least."
"Call it three hundred miles. Let us for the sake of argument say it was Bertie in the Hurricane. He must have taken off from somewhere handy. Where else is there but El Asile? If he started from there the people who are running the place would probably see to it that he hadn't enough petrol to get away. He would be given just enough for the job he had to do, which was to shoot down Marcel's Morane."
Marcel, having relieved himself of his complaint, came back to normal. "Two French machines have disappeared in the region of the Ahaggar. That is what they tell me at Insalah. It is thought they are lost in the mountains, but now I see perhaps they were shot down."
"It's a possibility, in view of what you've just told us," agreed Biggles. "This whole business seems to be getting into a bit of a tangle, he went on. "That was only to be expected, I suppose, since we are now jumping about three continents." He looked at Algy. "If Bertie really is in North Africa—although I'm not ready to admit that yet—
there isn't much point in looking for him in the South of France. All the same, I still think it would be a good thing if you ran down and had another look at this villa. Something seems to be going on there. Again, no matter where he is now, there's a chance that Bertie
may show up in Monte Carlo, in which case he would be looking for you. There may be a hook-up between North Africa and the South of France. Anyway, go, back in the morning."
Biggles turned again to Marcel. "What about the photos you took at El Asile? Were they any good, and if so, have you brought them with you?"
"But of course. I stopped to have them developed. They show nothing for excitement."
Marcel produced the photos and put them on the table.
"Beautiful photos, anyhow," observed Biggles, picking up the magnifying glass and studying the pictures while the others looked over his shoulders.
Ginger found himself looking at what is probably the most sterile group of mountains in the world. It was a scene of utter desolation. He remembered that even Arabs born to the desert called it the Land of Fear. He could well understand why. Only in one place was there any relief from the chaos of crumbling peaks which the action of wind and sun was gradually reducing to sand. In the flat bottom of a valley there appeared to be a certain amount of vegetation. At one end of this stood some rambling buildings of which details could not be seen, but which were presumably the headquarters of the White Prophets.
At one place in the valley the print seemed to be blurred, or fogged. He remarked on it to Biggles.
"What you're looking at is dust," said Biggles. "I'd say that's the dust raised by the Hurricane as it took off. I can think of nothing else that could have caused it. The machine doesn't come into the picture because it was already out of the field of view.
The dust had not time to settle. Well, the photos don't tell us much, but they tell us what we wanted to know. Even if these lonely ibex watchers don't go in for aviation themselves, they know someone who does. An armed Hurricane guards their valley, and that isn't to protect a few ibex. There's something going on at El Asile, and we'll find out what it is. There's no desperate hurry about it. Marcel's appearance may have alarmed them. Of course, this is really a matter for France, but we'd better work together. There's nothing much you can do here, Marcel, so I think you might as well go back to North Africa and stand by in case it is decided to do something about El Asile. By hanging about you might spot the D.C.3. Algy can go back to the South of France and keep an eye on the villa."
"Why not ask the French police to raid it?" suggested Algy.
Biggles shook his head. "We can't afford to risk going off at half-cock. We need more information before we show our hand. That's all for now. I'm going to the Yard to have a word about this with the Air Commodore. It's time he knew how things stand."
VIII
BERTIE TAKES A JOB
BIGGLES'S broad summing-up of the situation in the matter of Bertie's disappearance was not far wrong. This is what happened.
Bertie had taken his turn at watching the airport at Nice with no more enthusiasm than had Algy in Monte Carlo. Like Algy, he found the business of watching cuffs for a missing button more than somewhat monotonous. The chances of seeing Canton at Nice seemed very small indeed, with the result that when he did see him his sensations were similar to those of Algy when he found the man with the missing button.
Before that happened there was little Bertie could do except loaf about watching the arrivals and departures of planes and their passengers. He gossiped with the aerodrome staff. If they wondered why he spent so much time hanging about the airfield they said nothing of it.
He was not the only spectator, although it must be admitted that most of those who found entertainment at the airfield were boys. Bertie did, in fact, watch the machines coming in and going out because he had nothing else to do, and after all, he had a certain professional interest in them. It was in doing this that he first caught sight of Canton, although he did not know it at the time.
Sitting on a chock on the shady side of the hangar in which his machine was parked, for the day was blistering hot, his attention was attracted to a Mosquito, painted a light shade of blue, coming in to land. He noted that it carried French civil registration marks, and wondered what it was doing there. This interest was purely technical, even after the machine had landed, and was taxying towards him with the obvious intention of using the hangar. The machine stopped when the ignition was cut. The pilot stepped out, and Bertie moved forward for a closer view, his interest still being more in the machine than in the man. Indeed, it was not until the pilot spoke that he really looked at him.
"Pretty to look at, isn't she?" said the pilot, apparently gratified by Bertie's interest, as he pulled off his flying-kit and threw it into the cockpit he had just vacated. "She looks nicer in blue, than in her drab war-time paint. You are British, aren't you?" he added, as if to explain why he had used that language.
"British? Rather. Too true," asserted Bertie, looking at the speaker.
He saw a slim dark man of about thirty-five, with a small black moustache, smartly dressed—perhaps a little too smartly dressed—in a blue serge suit. For a moment Bertie saw no more than that. It was not until the man ran his fingers through his hair, which was brushed straight back without a parting, that his memory came into play. Even then it did no more than remind him of the description of the pilot Canton, the man he was actually looking for but did not expect to see. He looked again at the man, who, evidently flattered by Bertie's prolonged interest, mentioned that the colour scheme was his own idea.
Bertie's brain was rather slow getting into its stride. So bored had he become with the seemingly hopeless nature of his mission that he hardly thought of success. With a mild shock, he now remembered that Biggles had sent him to the South of France to keep an eye open for just such a man who now stood beside him. Watch Nice Airport, Biggles had said. It's the nearest landing-place to Monte Carlo, so there's a chance that Canton may use it.
Pulling himself together, Bettie took a more lively interest in the proceedings. He endorsed the pilot's views with professional knowledge and enthusiasm.
"Are you a pilot by any chance?" asked his companion.
"Rather. Did the war in the jolly old R.A.F., on Spits," answered Bertie warmly.
"So did I," was the reply.
"Jolly good fun—what?
" murmured Bertie. "Peacetime aviating must be pretty binding after the skylarks we had then—if you see what I mean?"
"How right you are. You're not in the service now, by any chance?"
"No. No jolly fear. Too tame. Too bally tame altogether. No use to me—no use at all."
"Do you get any flying?"
Bertie smiled sadly. "Can't afford it, laddie."
"Tough luck. I must give you a flip sometime. I'm often here. My name, by the way, is Canton."
"Mine's—Smith. Tommy Smith. Good old English name—what?" Bertie had nearly said Lissie. But his brain was now working smoothly, and it struck him, now he was sure of his man, that it might be unwise to give his real name.
Canton threw him a queer look. "Smith, eh? That's British right enough. Convenient name, too, sometimes."
Bertie appeared to overlook the implication. He
polished his eyeglass briskly while he tried to think of something else to say.
Canton helped him out. "Are you down here on business or pleasure?"
"Well, neither—if you get my meaning."
"What are you doing, then?"
"Nothing, old boy. Absolutely nothing."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, you see, being a bit short of cash. I made a raid on the casino in the hopes of filling the old pocket-book." "And lost what you had?"
"You know the answers," said Bertie sadly. "Matter of fact, I was hanging around here hoping to see someone I know, to get a lift home."
"Don't say you were crazy enough to come down here without taking a return ticket?"
" 'Fraid I was," sighed Bertie. "You're not going to England by any chance?"
"No. Not just now, anyway," answered Canton, who, judging from his tone of voice, was also doing some fast thinking.
"You—er—wouldn't like to lend me a bob or two, to see me through?" suggested Bertie tentatively.
"Are you broke?"
"Absolutely."
"You weren't thinking of looking for a job, by any chance?"
"What sort of job? Hard work doesn't agree with me."
40 Biggles Works It Out Page 7