Biggles and the Penitent Thief

by W E Johns

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1: A CASE OF BAD LUCK

  CHAPTER 2: A TALE OF INFAMY

  CHAPTER 3: BIGGLES HAS A PROBLEM

  CHAPTER 4: POINTS OF VIEW

  CHAPTER 5: BIGGLES SPEAKS HIS MIND

  CHAPTER 6: MIXED NEWS

  CHAPTER 7: THE PLAN

  CHAPTER 8: THE SNAG

  CHAPTER 9: UNWELCOME VISITORS

  CHAPTER 10: RAULSTEIN GIVES THE ORDERS

  CHAPTER 11: BERTIE TAKES A WALK

  CHAPTER 12: BIGGLES FACES THE MUSIC

  CHAPTER 13: GINGER GETS A FRIGHT

  CHAPTER 14: CAMPBELL CALLS THE TUNE

  CHAPTER 15: INTERLUDE FOR REFLECTION

  CHAPTER 16: A DESPERATE REMEDY

  CHAPTER 17: THE END OF THE TRAIL

  CHAPTER 1

  A CASE OF BAD LUCK

  THERE was silence in the London flat Biggles shared with his friends; his pilots of the Air Police. It had persisted for some time. Bertie and Ginger were engaged in what seemed an interminable game of chess. Algy was engrossed in a book. Biggles half sat, half reclined, in an armchair with an ashtray overflowing with cigarette ends at his elbow. The hands of the clock on the mantelpiece pointed to ten o’clock.

  As it struck the hour he yawned, and stirred. ‘Well, I don’t know about you chaps, but I’m going to put in some blanket drill.’ he announced. ‘Anyone who makes a noise when he goes to bed will incur my displeasure.’ He stood up.

  ‘Check,’ murmured Ginger, moving a piece on the chessboard.

  The word might have been a signal, for on the instant there came a tap on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ called Biggles.

  It was the doorkeeper from the hall below. ‘There’s a man downstairs asking to see you,’ he said, looking at Biggles.

  ‘It’s a bit late. Did he give any reason?’

  ‘No. But he said it was important.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘He didn’t give it; but he said you’d know him when you saw him.’

  Biggles sighed. ‘I suppose I’d better see what he wants. Bring him up.’

  A minute later the caller was shown in. He was a short, sturdy little man, who looked a little on the wrong side of forty. He had a mop of untidy fair hair and the eyes that came to rest on Biggles’ face were conspicuously blue. He wore a dark serge suit that had seen better days, although it was evident he had smartened himself up for the occasion. His collar was clean and fastened with an R.A.F. tie.

  ‘Am I supposed to know you?’ questioned Biggles, frowning.

  ‘Don’t say you’ve forgotten me, sir,’ returned the man with a hint of reproach in his voice. ‘I served in your squadron in the good old days. Miller’s the name, sir. 431 Corporal Miller, fitter-armourer. The boys called me Dusty.’

  Recognition dawned in Biggles’ eyes. ‘Of course. But it’s been a long time and you’ve put on a bit of weight since I last saw you.’

  ‘Like most of us, sir. Bound to, I suppose.’ Miller’s voice had a cheerful cockney ring.

  ‘What’s the trouble?’

  ‘You’ve hit the nail right on the head, as usual, sir. Trouble’s the word.’

  ‘Well, sit down. What can I do for you? Make it short because I’m just off to bed. What’s this trouble? Money?’

  ‘Nothing like that, sir. If that was all I wouldn’t worry. But I know what your job is now; I’ve seen your name in the papers. I thought you might be able to help me; give me your advice. Same time I might be able to tell you something.’

  ‘Well, get on with it. I’ll do the best I can,’ promised Biggles, a trifle impatiently.

  ‘I suppose the name Miller doesn’t mean anything to you— I mean as a copper — sorry, sir, policeman?’

  ‘There are thousands of Millers in London. Come to the point. This is no time for quiz games.’

  ‘Quite right, sir. But p’raps this’ll ring a bell. A bit over a year ago there was a big jewel robbery at a shop in Regent Street, place called Marchant’s. According to the papers the crooks got away with stuff reckoned to be worth a quarter of a million. They were never caught and the loot was never recovered.’

  ‘What about it? Don’t say you were one of the crooks!’

  ‘Not me, sir. I’ve always gone straight.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I know where the stuff is hid.’

  Biggles’ eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘If you had no hand in it how does that happen?’

  ‘My son was one of the gang. I’ve persuaded him to talk, if—’

  ‘If what?’ broke in Biggles sharply. ‘The police don’t bargain with crooks.’

  ‘Suppose you let me tell you the whole story, sir, right from the start. Then you’ll be able to judge for yourself. If my boy Tommy is a crook it was the police what made him one.’ A hard note had crept into Miller’s voice.

  ‘Go ahead, but keep it brief,’ Biggles said, glancing at the clock and reaching for a cigarette. ‘But before you begin, remember I’m a police officer, so it’s only fair to warn you that anything you say may be used as evidence. There are witnesses to this conversation.’

  Algy had put down his book and was listening, as were Bertie and Ginger, no longer interested in their game.

  ‘My son Tommy was the victim of the worst miscarriage of justice—’

  ‘I’ve heard that before,’ Biggles said with a hint of sarcasm. ‘Get on with the story.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Miller cleared his throat. ‘As soon as the war was over I got married. I’d got a good job with Vickers Aviation and everything was fine. We had a son, me and the missus. We brought him up well. He was a good lad. Did well at school, and we had hopes he’d do better than his father, although I haven’t done so bad. In our spare time I taught him all I knew and he was soon better with tools for fine adjustments, mikes and Vernier slide rules and so on, than I shall ever be. When he left school, with his exams passed, he had no difficulty in getting a job with Cluft’s, the people in North London who specialize in locks and keys for safes.’

  ‘And as a safe maker I suppose he could also break ‘em,’ put in Biggles dryly.

  ‘Naturally, if he’d wanted to. But he didn’t want to. He’d no reason to. He was doing well. He lived with us where we had a house in Weybridge and we were proud of him. Apple of my wife’s eye, as you might say. Then, out of the blue the axe came down and ruined all our lives.’

  ‘What sort of axe?’ inquired Biggles.

  ‘Like I say, Tommy was living with us, so to get to his job in London he had to go up and down by train — commuters, they call such people nowadays. One evening, it was during the bus strike, on a pouring wet night he was walking home from the station, a fair distance, when seeing a car coining along he thumbed a lift. The car stopped. He got in. He told the driver where he lived and the car went on. The driver seemed a pleasant sort of chap so they chatted, like people do, Tommy saying where he worked, and so on. We can see now that was the real tragedy, but how was he to know...’ For a moment the speaker looked as if he was going to break down.

  ‘Take your time,’ Biggles said gently. ‘Here, have a cigarette. Ginger, give him a glass of sherry.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ acknowledged Miller, as he accepted the drink. ‘Now, where did I get to? Oh yes. Tommy was in the car. Presently they ran into a traffic snarl-up. That’s what it looked like. The driver got out to see what was causing the hold-up. He had a look and walked away. He didn’t come back. Next thing was Tommy had to move the car to let somebody else go through. By the time he’d done that there was a policeman standing by each door. It was a police road block. Tommy was hauled out. It was a stolen car. Tommy looked for the man who’d been driving, b
ut he wasn’t in sight. No doubt he’d spotted what was going on and had hoofed it. Tommy tried to explain what had happened, but it was no use. He was taken to the police-station and charged with taking a car without the owner’s consent. He hadn’t a hope. To make a long story short, it ended with him getting three months in gaol. He couldn’t prove his story. Only his finger-prints were on the steering-wheel. He remembered the driver, the car thief, had been wearing gloves. The evidence was all against him and the police made the most of it. Tommy had only his bare word for what had happened. Nobody believed him.’

  Biggles shrugged, looking sympathetic. ‘I suppose that sort of thing can happen,’ he had to concede.

  ‘The time my boy served in prison did something to him,’ went on Miller grimly. ‘He was never the same afterwards. He went in as nice a lad as you could wish to meet; he came out embittered, his nature warped and twisted, hating everyone, particularly the police. It didn’t do me any good, either, my mates at the works knowing my boy was in quod. Of course he’d lost his job. Well, that’s the state he was in when he ran into the real culprit, the man who’d pinched the car. The meeting looked like an accident, but in view of what happened afterwards I’ve got my own ideas about that. This feller knew where Tommy lived and waylaid him; I’m certain of that. Tommy was ready to knock hell out of him, but the chap, one of the glib-tongued type, calmed him down, saying he’d make things right with him. They ended up with the man taking him to a pub for a drink. He explained he hadn’t been able to help him because he was on the run for another job.’

  Tommy didn’t think of going to the police?’ put in Biggles.

  ‘He’d no longer any time for the police.’

  ‘Pity. That’s where he was wrong.’

  ‘He can see that now, but it’s easy to see mistakes afterwards. Well, maybe you can guess what happened. It may not have been hard for Darris — that’s the name of the man who started all the trouble, Lew Darris — to persuade Tommy to go with him to see his boss, a sort of big-shot crook. You can see why. Tommy, being an expert on safes, would be useful. Of course, I knew nothing about this at the time, nor for a long time afterwards. But since he came home Tommy’s told me all about it.’

  ‘So he went away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Joined this master-crook?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The gang that did the Marchant job?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did your son tell you anything about the man who organized it?’

  ‘Told me as much as he knows about him, which ain’t much, although he got to know him well — too well, as you’ll hear presently.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Raulstein. Otto Raulstein.’

  ‘What nationality?’

  ‘According to Raulstein, his father was an Armenian and his mother Turkish. I dunno what that makes him but he came here years ago and managed to get himself naturalized British. A nasty piece of work if ever there was one. Must have been a crook all his life but got away with it by getting others to do his dirty work. Kept a big place at Wimbledon when Tommy first knew him.’

  ‘What made your son join such a man?’

  ‘Like I say, he was ripe to get his own back for what had happened; but as he said to me, his big mistake was to take money from Raulstein. Of course he was broke at the time. I wondered where he was getting his money. He said he’d been lucky at dog racing. That’s how things were when one day he went out and didn’t come back. That was more than a year ago. I didn’t see him again till the other day when he walked in looking like death warmed up. Now he’s told me everything, such a tale as you’d find hard to believe.’

  ‘But you believe it?’

  ‘Every word. He couldn’t have dreamed up such a story.’

  ‘Did he suggest you went to the police?’

  ‘No. I told him I was going to see you and ask your advice. I don’t think he cares what happens now. He’s sunk too low. Seems all broke up.’

  ‘What did you hope to gain by coming to me?’

  ‘I thought p’raps if Tommy told you where the Marchant swag was hid you’d leave him alone.’

  ‘So he knows where it is?’

  ‘He thinks so. But it ain’t here. It’s the other side of the world.’

  Biggles’ eyebrows went up. ‘How did they manage that?’

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ Miller said. ‘Listen to this.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ returned Biggles patiently, for by this time he was more than a little interested in the strange story the ex-airman was telling. He had already decided there was a ring of truth in it.

  ‘Like I say, Tommy saw Raulstein at his house,’ resumed Miller. ‘It turned out Tommy was the sort of man he’d been looking for to pull a big job he’d had in mind for some time. This was to break into the jewellers, Marchant’s, in Regent Street, one weekend when there would be nobody there. Tommy wasn’t prepared for anything like that. I’m giving you the story as he told it to me. He jibbed. Whereupon Raulstein turned nasty. The trouble was, Tommy had already been taking his money, through Lew Darris. Raulstein asked in no uncertain manner why he thought he’d been sending him money.’

  ‘Tommy must have realized he wasn’t being given money for nothing,’ interposed Biggles, critically.

  ‘He thought Darris was trying to make up for the scurvy trick he’d played on him over the stolen car business. Raulstein had another argument. He carried a gun. He showed it, threatening to use it on Tommy if he let him down. Finding that didn’t work, he tried the velvet glove method. One big job and that would be the lot, he promised. They’d all be rich for life. There wasn’t any risk. It was kids’ stuff. He’d got everything laid on for a clean getaway, which turned out to be true enough. They’d all be out of the country before the robbery was discovered. Well, let’s face it. Tommy fell for it. Remember, apart from anything else, he was flat broke, living on me, and no hope of getting a job. He’d no reason to stay here. He’d make a fresh start in another country. So after a bit he said okay. Whereupon Raulstein showed his full hand. He’d got an 800-ton diesel-engined yacht at moorings down at Ichenor, fully provisioned for a long voyage with an engineer in charge. A car would get them to it once the swag was in the bag. It was all too easy.’

  ‘That’s when Tommy should have gone to the police,’ remarked Biggles, shaking his head sadly.

  ‘He realizes that now, but he admits that at the time it was the last thing in his mind. He’d still got a chip on his shoulder about the police. Anyway, the job was done, as you know. There were three of ‘em in it. Lew Darris, the engineer from the yacht, who turned out to be an old lag named Grant wanted by the police, and Tommy. He would deal with the safes once they were inside. The others would do the breaking in.’

  ‘What about Raulstein?’ interrupted Biggles.

  ‘He waited with the car in a nearby car park. Well, I needn’t go into details. The job went without a hitch and the car was soon on its way to the coast. Two hours later the yacht, named Lapwing, was at sea with the swag on board, heading down the Channel. It looked all over bar the shouting, but, as you’ll hear, it wasn’t, not by a long chalk. The troubles were about to begin.’

  Miller broke off to sip his drink.

  CHAPTER 2

  A TALE OF INFAMY

  ‘WHERE were they making for?’ inquired Biggles.

  ‘America, where Raulstein reckoned there’d be no difficulty in selling the jewellery. But there was one thing, for all his planning, he hadn’t taken into account. None of ‘em really knew how to handle the ship. Raulstein was the only one who knew anything about it; but it’s one thing to mess about in sight of land, but another matter altogether to take a small craft across the Atlantic. Three days out, keeping clear of the regular shipping lanes, they ran into heavy weather. Tommy was as sick as a dog and for a while he couldn’t have cared less about what happened to them. Darris was in much the same state. Later they ran into a real snorter
which lasted for three days, and it took them all their time to keep afloat. Then it fell dead calm and they found themselves in thick fog. A few days of this and Raulstein had to admit he didn’t know where they were. As events were to show, they must already have been miles off course.’

  ‘Where were they making for, exactly?’

  The United States. Nowhere in particular. Anywhere would do, according to Raulstein. He couldn’t have known much about navigation.’

  ‘He must have been out of his mind,’ put in Bertie.

  ‘Well,’ continued the ex-airman, ‘by this time they were all exhausted and hardly on speaking terms. You can imagine the mess they were in. Food was running low. So was water. The weather turned cold. Tommy, who was pretty good at geography, said they were getting too far north. Not that they could do anything about it because the engine chose this moment to pack up. What was worse, the engineer, Grant, said he couldn’t do anything about it. There wasn’t much fuel left, anyway. So, with one thing and another, they were properly up the creek without a paddle, as you might say. All they could do was drift about hoping to see land—any land would do. Tommy says he was wishing he’d stayed at home.’

  ‘I’ll bet he was,’ breathed Ginger.

  ‘They’d been at sea for six weeks and were rocking about in a choppy sea when Tommy saw the sort of man Raulstein really was,’ Miller continued.

  ‘I’d have thought he’d have known that already,’ observed Biggles cynically.

  ‘He didn’t realize he was a murderer.’

  ‘So that’s what it came to?’

  ‘Yes. It was like this. In a nasty sea, with no land in sight, they were keeping the ship going with a bit of sail. Tommy came up from below just in time to see Raulstein push Grant overboard. There was no argument about it. It was deliberate. Tommy could hardly believe his eyes. Darris was at the wheel. He ran to him and told him to go about as Grant had gone overboard. Darris, who must have seen what happened, was staring straight ahead. He simply said, “Forget it.” Tommy stared at him, thinking he couldn’t have heard aright. Then he got it. Raulstein and Darris had fixed this up between them. Darris’s next words practically proved it. He said: “He was no damn use to us. Just so much dunnage. Without him the grub’ll last longer. Besides, he’ll be one less to share when we carve up the swag. Take my advice and keep your trap shut.” Tommy said no more. There was nothing he could do. Seeing the sort of company he was in, he realized he was likely to be the next to go overboard. He thinks the reason they didn’t knock him off there and then was because he was the only one who knew anything about cooking— what little cooking there was to do. He kept his mouth shut and his eyes open; and he took care to keep well clear of the rail.’