by W E Johns
‘I’ll watch it.’ Ginger lowered himself as before until he could reach the top rung of the ladder. It was tricky work. Should he lose his grip, as there was no guttering to save him, he would inevitably fall off the roof altogether. A peep showed the buffalo still there, a few yards away, grazing; but the sound of the ladder being drawn up made him raise his head. Or it may have been the noise of the helicopter, now nearly overhead, that made him look up and snort defiance.
Then came another complication to hasten Ginger’s efforts. From the grass, strung out across the field, sprung half a dozen lights in the form of a letter L. From his elevated position Ginger could look down on them, although it may not have been possible to see them from ground level. He had seen this arrangement too many times not to know its purpose. Landing lights. They told their own story. Then, from the direction of the house came the sound of a motor vehicle being started.
With feverish haste Ginger hauled up the ladder, rung by rung, and pushed it up the roof until Biggles could reach it. Biggles dragged it up and tilting it across the ridge allowed it to slide down the far side of the building.
‘Come on,’ he ordered, tersely.
Ginger clambered back up to the top and lost no time in following Biggles who was already on his way down. He reached the ground close behind him. The buffalo was not in sight, so apparently hadn’t realized what was happening.
‘We shall have to take the ladder with us,’ Biggles said crisply. ‘It won’t do to leave it here.’
They didn’t stop to collapse it, but each taking an end sprinted for the wall of trees that rose like a cliff against the sky. It was only a short run, but it was one to remember. Ginger didn’t waste time looking round, but it was easy to imagine the thud of hooves on their heels. However, this did not happen, and they reached the comparative safety of the fringe of bushes breathless but unharmed.
‘Watch out for the wire,’ Biggles warned, peering into the gloom, for they had reached cover at a spot some distance from where they had left it. ‘No doubt it comes right along here. Yes, here it is. Shove the ladder through to me. Careful not to let it touch the wire.’
Ginger pushed the ladder through and followed on all fours to find Biggles folding it to a more portable length. There was still no sign of the buffalo, so presumably it hadn’t moved.
‘What a crazy business,’ growled Biggles, dourly, gazing across the open field, now grey with visibility steadily improving. The helicopter, which had lost some height, was now close, but not yet in sight.
‘Now what?’ questioned Ginger. ‘Making for home?’
‘Not on your life,’ returned Biggles. ‘This is an opportunity too good to be missed. We’ll see the end of this. We should be all right here. We may not have had all this sweat for nothing, after all.’
Standing just inside the shelter of the trees they watched the field. With their eyes upturned for the first glimpse of the helicopter it was some seconds before Ginger saw a movement on the ground. A Land-Rover was fast approaching the building from the direction of the house. He called Biggles’ attention to it.
‘This gets more interesting every minute,’ Biggles said. ‘This is no accidental meeting. That car is here to meet whoever is in the chopper. This must have been arranged or they’ve been in touch. In this light it won’t be easy to recognize anyone from here; but we shall be able to see what happens. That chopper came up from the south. I wonder where it has just come from?’
‘From France, perhaps.’
‘That could well be. If you’re right it couldn’t have checked in at a Customs airport because between here and the coast there isn’t one.’
‘In your official capacity you’d be justified in questioning the pilot,’ Ginger pointed out. ‘The chopper’s going to land here, there’s no longer any doubt about that.’
‘Not so fast,’ Biggles answered. ‘Questions at this stage would get us nowhere. We might even get knocked on the head. We should merely have shown our hand for nothing.’
‘The chopper could have something dutiable on board.’
‘I think it’s more likely to have taken something somewhere, probably abroad. Quiet now. Here they are.’
The Rover had reached the building on the far side, for which reason it could no longer be seen. Apparently it had disturbed the buffalo, which was now retreating across the field. The sound of voices indicated there were at least two people in the car. Then came a rumbling noise as if heavy sliding doors were being pushed open. At the same time the helicopter touched down on the far side of the building, so that was also out of sight. This meant that the watchers could see nothing of what followed.
Said Biggles softly: ‘It would have been all the same had I been able to see through the skylight. The place was empty. Now we know why.’
‘You came here expecting to see a chopper inside,’ suggested Ginger.
‘Yes. No matter. This comes to the same thing. We know one goes to roost here. We’ve seen it. That’s all I wanted to know, anyway for the time being. It looks as if we’re working on the right lines. There’s something going on here, although it may take a bit of sorting out. Hark! There go the doors again, with the chopper put to bed inside, no doubt. I’d say the Rover came out simply to pick up the pilot. Yes, there’s the car going back to the house now. We shall learn nothing more here tonight, or rather, this morning, so we might as well go home. We’ve done a good night’s work after all, and I shan’t risk upsetting the apple cart by trying to do too much at one go. Algy will wonder what we’ve been doing all this time.’
‘He must have seen or heard the chopper so he should have a pretty good idea,’ Ginger said.
‘Let’s find out. It’ll soon be broad daylight and it wouldn’t do to be caught in the park.’
They set off through the wood, Biggles picking the easiest way and Ginger carrying the ladder. In a few minutes they arrived at the boundary wall. The ladder was used to enable them to surmount it, and after a quick look up and down they lost no time in getting on the road. They found they had struck it about two hundred yards from the car, still on the broad verge where they had left it. They hurried along to it, to find Algy somewhat irritated by their long absence.
‘You said you wouldn’t be many minutes,’ he complained.
‘You must have seen why we were delayed,’ Biggles told him, while Ginger was stowing the ladder in the back seat.
‘You mean — the chopper?’
‘Of course.’
‘I probably knew about that before you did.’
‘How could you?’
‘It was travelling on a beam put up from somewhere near here. I was fiddling with the radio in case Gaskin was trying to contact us to say there’d been a big robbery when I picked up a beam which I’m sure could only be a navigation aid for an aircraft of some sort. It wasn’t one of the regulars. The next thing I heard the chopper coming and the beam faded out; from which I took it the chopper had arrived.’
‘Quite right. So they’ve even got navigation aids. Well — well. Gaskin didn’t come through?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. Let’s get home. We haven’t done so badly. I’ll tell you about it on the way.’
The car moved off.
CHAPTER 8
A NICE GLASS OF SHERRY
For the remainder of the day following the sortie into Brindon Hall Park nothing of an active nature was done, although after some breakfast and a rest, back in the office there was a good deal of talking over the events that had occurred. Everyone had an idea of what should next be done, but always Biggles had to point out objections, the chief reason being that while they now had a certain amount of evidence to support their suspicions it was all circumstantial; and that was not good enough. As Biggles put it: ‘If we tried putting the handcuffs on a man in the position of Lord Malboise, without concrete proof of anything criminal, we’d be in for trouble in a big way.’
Their own records had yielded a certain amount of inform
ation, but it was mostly negative. Neither Lord Malboise nor his brother Clarence held a civilian pilot’s licence, nor was there an aircraft of any sort registered in their name.
‘The trouble is,’ Biggles went on, ‘contravention of Air Traffic Regulations in this case could hardly be called a criminal offence, and even if we got a conviction it would end in nothing more than a trivial fine. This is not the sort of fish we’re trying to catch. No doubt a perfectly good reason could be produced for keeping a plane in Brindon Park. If it comes to that we couldn’t swear that Lord Malboise, or Clarence, was operating an aircraft. We didn’t actually see their faces. We only assumed it was them in the Park this morning.’
Bertie’s scheme was to maintain a constant air patrol over the Park with the object of shadowing the helicopter when it left its base.
‘Forget it,’ Biggles said. ‘You can’t really be so naive to suppose that a light plane could waffle around the Park for hours on end without the people below guessing what it was doing? True, if they had nothing to fear they might not give it a second thought; but if, as we suppose, they’re up to something crooked, they’d take care not to pull that chopper out of its shed.’
Ginger was for more simple action. This was to go back to the Park, take up a position on the ground, in the trees, and watch the building from there.
‘We might be there for days, or even weeks, without anything happening,’ argued Biggles. ‘What would you use for food? You’d soon get bored with squatting on your bottom in a bush - that’s if the buffalo didn’t nose you out. We don’t know what other animals might be running loose in the Park, either.’
‘Very well, then,’ Algy said. ‘How about this? What’s wrong with having a look at things the other side of the Channel? This place Chateau Malboise, according to Who’s Who, in Normandy. You say the chopper came from that direction this morning, so there could be a hookup there.’
‘The notice said formerly of Chateau Malboise,’ reminded Biggles.
‘I know it did, but there would still be family connections,’ Algy replied. ‘One of them might still own the place. Maybe that’s why Clarence was selected for Intelligence work in the Special Air Service during the war. As a result of that experience he must know every yard of the coast of Northern France. He probably knows the country round the Chateau, too, even if he doesn’t live there now. The family may have had reasons for getting out of France. How long they’ve been in this country I wouldn’t try to guess; but they may have been here since the Revolution, when most of the aristocrats who stayed lost their heads.’
‘You make a point,’ agreed Biggles, after consideration. ‘But I don’t think we should pursue this business abroad, anyway, not yet. It could lead to complications. The French police would take a dim view of our operating in their country without so much as a by your leave. Of course, we could have a quiet word with Marcel Brissac, in Paris; but I think it would be better to stay on our own ground until we have something more definite to work on. Let’s not lose sight of our original assignment, which is to locate the brain which we have reason to believe is organizing these big robberies. We have picked up some hints as to who might be involved, but as evidence, in court, against a man with a title to his name, it would sound pretty flimsy.’
‘Very well, then,’ Algy said. ‘Having picked holes in all our suggestions, what’s your own idea?’
‘I feel inclined to do what I intended after our forced landing in the Park, which is go down by road in broad daylight and call on our noble lord. After all, he did invite us to sample his sherry. Algy can come with me. Four eyes can see more than a single pair. He may spot something in the collection of antique porcelain, if it’s on view.’
‘Why Algy?’ asked Bertie.
‘For obvious reasons it wouldn’t do for you to be seen near the place for fear of Clarence, if he’s around, recognizing you as the chauffeur he spoke to in the Savoy garage. There’s just a chance, if a remote one, that he might recognize Ginger as the princess by whom you were supposed to be employed. He’d better keep out of the way, too. Remember, people engaged in criminal activities develop shrewd faculties. They’re always on the alert. They have to be. So I’ll go down tomorrow, taking Algy with me. You two,’ Biggles went on, looking at Bertie and Ginger, ‘can stand by in case Gaskin comes through with a report on another big raid somewhere; in which case I suggest you get off in the Auster as fast as you can and make flat out for the Park to see if that chopper has been busy. Of course, if you did see it you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it; but the fact that it had been airborne would support our suspicion that it’s all part of the big racket.’
‘You’re not going to tell the Air Commodore what we’re doing?’ queried Ginger.
‘Not yet. He always gets nervous, afraid of a political dust-up, when people with titles are involved. That’s understandable. He might order us to lay off. As soon as we’ve got something more conclusive to show him, I shall, of course, have to put our cards on the table. Okay, chaps, that’s enough for now. Let’s see about getting ready for tomorrow. If our visit to the Hall does no good it should do no harm, provided we step warily.’
‘One last question,’ Algy said. ‘At what time tomorrow do we start on this jaunt through rural Sussex?’
‘Any time,’ answered Biggles, inconsequentially. ‘We could push off before lunch, take our time, and have a bite to eat at a pub on the way. I don’t go for trying to break speed records on country roads without a very good reason.’
‘Fair enough,’ agreed Algy. ‘That suits me.’
And so it came about that at a little before noon the following day Biggles and Algy set off in Biggles’ own car for Brindon Hall, the Sussex home of Lord Malboise, leaving Bertie and Ginger to take care of the office with particular attention to any relevant news that might come through from their old colleague, Inspector Gaskin.
It was a perfect summer day, and as for once there was no need for haste, Biggles settled down to make the best of it. Being mid-week the traffic was not heavy; but they took no advantage of this, and after a leisurely lunch at a convenient wayside tavern near Petworth they cruised on to reach their objective late in the afternoon, striking the wall that surrounded the Park a little distance from the one entrance that gave access to it.
Under Algy’s guidance they went on to the lodge, to find the Zulu warrior (as Algy had described him) on duty at the iron gates complete with leopard skin, shield and assagai. Three cars, presumably those of casual visitors, were parked nearby. Biggles stopped. As the pseudo-warrior came forward to indicate where they could put the car, Biggles called Algy’s attention to a notice hanging conspicuously on the gate. It read: Park closes today at 4.30 p.m.
Pointing at it Biggles said to the Zulu: ‘Does that mean we have to be out by half-past four? It’s nearly that now.’
‘Yes, sir,’ was the answer.
‘Even if we’ve come to call on Lord Malboise personally, at his invitation?’ inquired Biggles.
‘That is different,’ said the Zulu. ‘What is the name, please?’
‘Mr Bigglesworth. Can’t we drive in?’
‘No, sir. No private cars are allowed in the Park. We do not want an accident here. A car will come for you. Please to wait.’ The Zulu went off to what apparently was a private telephone booth in the garden of the lodge.
Still sitting in the car while they waited, Algy said to Biggles: ‘Well, what do you make of him? Is he a Zulu?’
‘Zulu my foot,’ replied Biggles. ‘He’s no more a native African than I am.’ He smiled and went on: ‘Still, he looks the part, all in keeping with the buffalo. I suppose the get-up is excusable — a touch of showmanship to give realism to the general performance. I’d call it a good idea. Kids would love it.’
The Zulu was on his way back to them.
‘Here comes the car,’ Algy observed, looking up the tree-lined avenue that ran through the estate to the mansion house. ‘It’s the Land-Rover. It’ll be
interesting to see who’s driving it.’
The Zulu was opening the gates. The car came on, and through.
‘Well blow me down!’ exclaimed Biggles. ‘It’s his lordship himself, no less. I expected it would be Clarence. What’s he doing today, I wonder?’
The Rover stopped. Lord Malboise got out and came over, smiling recognition when he saw who his visitors were. ‘So it’s you,’ he greeted cheerfully. ‘I didn’t recognize the name. I forgot to ask when you landed in the park. Never mind. I shall remember it in future. How nice of you to call.’
‘You gave us an open invitation to sample your sherry,’ reminded Biggles.
‘Of course — of course. Be sure it will be my pleasure to make you welcome.’
‘This is my friend. Algy Lacey.’
‘So now we all know each other,’ said Lord Malboise, offering Algy his hand. ‘But don’t let’s waste any more time here. Your car will be safe. Come along. I’ll run you up to the house.’
They all took their places in the Rover. They went through the gates, which were closed behind them, and on up the avenue. For a little way nobody spoke. Then, perhaps finding the silence somewhat embarrassing. Biggles said: ‘Tell me. I’ll admit I’m curious. Do you run this zoo as a sort of hobby?’
‘By no means,’ was the answer. ‘There are times when it’s a crashing nuisance. But today, in this country with its merciless taxation, most people with big estates have to do something if they want to keep their homes. It seemed to me that a few wild animals roaming loose in the park might attract visitors willing to pay for admission. After the initial outlay the upkeep is low. I have plenty of grass and I can run the place with one or two hands, such as the gatekeeper who sells the tickets. Of course, he isn’t really an African, as no doubt you realized; but he’s an attraction, part of the show,’ concluded Lord Malboise, with disarming frankness.
Biggles said: ‘I saw a notice on the gate saying the park closed at four-thirty. Do you usually shut up shop as early as this?’