by W E Johns
Thinking it might still be possible to complete the most important part of his mission, he got up and made his way cautiously towards the house. When he reached the point where the drive widened as it approached the front door, he saw with satisfaction that his luck was in. A light appeared at a window on the ground floor; as if an electric light had been switched on. A shadow moved across it. Someone was in the room. Who was it? It seemed a fairly simple matter to find out.
He advanced, slowly, keeping close against the shrubs, laurels and the like, which here lined the drive. He had not made much progress when he feared he had congratulated himself too soon. The silhouette of a man appeared against the light and in an instant the light was cut out as if curtains had been drawn. But either they had been drawn carelessly or they did not quite meet in the middle, for when they stopped moving, a gap, a narrow slit of light, was left between them.
This is how they had been, Bertie recalled, when Biggles had described how he had seen Lewis in the house. This was probably the same room. Who was in it now? Was Sir Humphrey alone or had he brought the escaped criminal with him? Bertie resolved to find out.
Holding his cudgel, still with the possibility of the guard dog in mind, step by step he made his way to the window, and after a pause to listen for danger, going down on one knee he applied an eye to the gap between the curtains. One glance was enough to reveal everything, and what he saw took his breath away, although he should perhaps have been prepared for something of the sort.
Trethallan and Lewis were both there. But it was not this bare fact that shook him. On a table between them was an open suitcase, the contents of which had apparently just been emptied on the table. It was money; a heap of bank-notes done up in bundles as they are stored in a bank. Trethallan was counting the bundles, making two piles, one on each side of the table in the manner of one for me, one for you.
So Biggles had been right, was the thought that flashed into Bertie’s head as he continued to watch this transaction. They had been to fetch the swag and were now busy ‘carving it up’ between them.
This did not take long. When the operation was finished Lewis packed his share back into the suitcase. Trethallan went to the panelled wall near the fireplace and slid a section of it to one side exposing a cavity. In this he stacked his share of the loot, and closing the panel returned to his companion.
Bertie, deciding he had seen enough, retired to the shrubs to think about it. There was no need for haste. For the moment there was nothing he could do. It would be some time before Biggles came along to pick him up. He considered walking to meet him; but that would mean a change of plan, which he knew from experience was ill-advised as all too often it ended in a muddle.
What did this mean — what he had just seen? Having achieved their purpose would the two men now part company? Would the next move be for them to return to the Bentley so that Trethallan could complete his part of the transaction by taking Lewis to the moor for his final getaway? If this was so did it mean that the intruder aircraft was on its way to pick up the convict and his money? Bertie hesitated, although thinking on these lines the matter suddenly became urgent.
There seemed to be only one way of learning what the two partners in crime intended to do next. This was to wait, and watch. He thought, and hoped, they would not leave the house. Time was getting on. They would not be likely to do anything in broad daylight. That would give him time to report to Biggles what he had seen. Give them all time to do something about it.
This seemed reasonable, and he decided it was the best thing to do. Had the operation continued to work out as Biggles had imagined it would, and the signs all pointed to that, all might have been well. Instead, they took an entirely different course, one that did not fit into Biggles’ scheme at all.
Bertie backed a little way down the drive and took up a position in the bracken from which he would be able to keep an eye on the house, the lighted window and the front door. Should the two men leave the house it would be, he was sure, by this door; and in this respect, at least, he was right.
He looked at the sky. There was still no sign of dawn, so there was no point in going yet to the rendezvous. Biggles would not be there. He would stick to the letter of the arrangement. Had Bertie thought there was the slightest chance of Biggles arriving early he would have hurried to the meeting place to unload his vital information, and leave the next move to him. But Biggles would still be watching the moor, and would not be likely to leave it until daylight put an end to any chance of the plane coming that night.
So Bertie could only wait, which was a pity, although to say this was a mistake would be going too far, and unfair to Bertie, whose state of mind can be imagined.
After some ten minutes or so the light in the room was switched off. A little later the front door was opened. Trethallan and Lewis came out. It was dark, but there was just enough starlight for the figures to be recognized. Lewis carried a suitcase; no doubt the case containing the stolen money. So they were leaving after all. Naturally, Bertie thought they were about to drive off in the car. Indeed, no other thought occurred to him. This dismayed him, for having no transport himself it meant he would lose them. But this did not happen. What did happen struck him at the time as even worse. The two men started walking briskly down the drive. All Bertie could do was crouch back in the bracken, hiding his face, trusting they would not see him. In the event he need not have feared. The men did not reach him. The footsteps stopped abruptly. Holding breath he waited for them to continue. They did not. Nothing happened. What were the men doing? Where had they gone? After a few palpitating seconds risked a peep. They were not in sight.
Taken by surprise, and not a little astonished. Bertie realized that only one thing could have happened. The men had left the drive. How? Where? Creeping along a little way he discovered the answers when he came to a much overgrown footpath, leading off through the bushes. Where were they going, and for what purpose? wondered Bertie desperately, thrown into confusion by a development so unexpected. What should he do? It had happened so suddenly there had been no time think. Should he follow? It would obviously be dangerous; the men might stop or he might run into them coming back; but that was a secondary consideration. It was the difficulty of pursuit in the darkness, not having the least idea of what lay ahead, that made him hesitate. He was afraid of doing the wrong thing. On the other hand, he was in a position, should things go well, to obtain information that could be of vital importance.
It was a murmur of voices some distance ahead that decided him. While he could hear the men talking would be able to judge where they were, how far they were in front of him. With his hands held in front of his face to protect his eyes from projecting twigs which in the darkness he would be unable to see, he set off along the path.
Soon, to his great relief, the footpath ran across more open ground. This enabled him to see a light that jerked about as if one of the men, probably Trethallan, was carrying a torch. Trethallan, no doubt knowing the ground, would be showing the way. It seemed more than likely that he was on his own property, reasoned Bertie. The light made things easier for him, but that is not to say he was happy. Far from it. On the contrary he was worried. Was he doing the right thing or should he have gone to the rendezvous? But he decided he had gone too far to go back. Having started he might as well see the business through to the end, wherever and whatever that might be.
The path meandered on interminably. He had no reason to think the journey would be a short one, but he did not expect it to be as long as this. Where on earth could the men be going? He reckoned they must have covered well over a mile, sometimes uphill, sometimes down. Where was it going to end? What could be the object of such an expedition at such an hour?
He still had not suspected the truth when the terrain began to change. The deciduous trees, with an undergrowth of shrubs and bracken, gave way to a stand of Scots pines with a thick carpet of needles under foot. There was less risk here of making a sound that might b
etray him; but the trees being widely spaced there was more chance of him being seen should the light be turned in his direction. He tried to avoid this by moving swiftly from tree to tree, pausing briefly behind each one before going on. This had the disadvantage of allowing two men to get farther in front; but this did not worry him while he could still see the light of the torch.
The path, now only faintly discernible, ran up some gently rising ground; evidently a hill, or a knoll. The light disappeared over the top. When he reached the spot, which he had approached with extra caution, it was not to be seen. Apparently it had been switched off as no longer necessary. The reason for this was plain to see. Below the hill the ground rolled away in flat open country for as far as it was possible for the eyes to follow it in a misty gloom. The men he had been following were not in sight. At all events, he couldn’t see them. They had completely disappeared. Where had they gone? What was this place?
For a few moments Bertie stared, frowning uncomprehendingly. Then the truth dawned on him. This was the moor. Bodmin Moor. Of course. Trethallan, knowing the ground, had taken a short cut. Biggles had been wrong in his conviction that when Lewis was brought to the landing ground it would be by road, in the car. That the trip might be made on foot had not occurred to any of them, the reason being, understandably, that the distance by road between the moor and the Towers was something like ten miles. It now appeared that cross-country, as the crow flies, for a rough guess it was not much more than two miles.
So there Bertie stood, bemused, staring at the wilderness of heather stretching away in front of him, colourless in the feeble moonlight. He had no idea of which part of the moor he was looking at. To make matters worse he had lost the men. It was reasonable to suppose they were making for the landing strip. But where was it? In which direction? Looking at the moor from a new angle he couldn’t even guess. To hope to come on it in the dark by accident was hardly worth considering.
The fact that Lewis was carrying a suitcase now became significant. His share of the money was in it. That could only mean one thing. He would not be going back to the house. He was on his way out. Now. Tonight — or early morning as it was now. Trethallan was with him to act as guide; to show him the way to the old mine which marked the landing ground. Yes, that was the answer. Bertie was sure of it. He could think of no other explanation to account for what had happened.
What should he do? Or rather, what could he do? Biggles, he did not doubt, was still on the road, watching. He would not leave until daybreak. That was fast approaching, but as yet there was no indication of it in the sky. Biggles should know what was going on. At once. It was imperative. But how could he get to him?
Bertie fretted. To retrace his steps to the Towers, even if he could find his way — and of this he was by no means sure — would be useless. He would arrive at the meeting place too late. The bird would have flown — literally. The alternative was to walk across the moor to the road. If he could find it. In which direction did it lie? To go the wrong way would only make matters worse. He looked for lights of cars moving on the road; but either there was no traffic at this hour before dawn, or there was just sufficient mist, rising as usual, to reduce visibility very considerably. It was impossible in such conditions to judge distance. The road might be no more than half a mile away, but for all he knew it might equally be two or three miles. He wasn’t sure, but the mist seemed to be thickening instead of dispersing.
This question of poor visibility introduced another factor. Would the plane attempt to land in such conditions? He thought not. Thinking as a pilot, first there would be the difficulty of locating the moor, let alone the strip. To put the aircraft down without mishap would be even more difficult. Even if lights were put out to mark the spot, they would hardly be the powerful sort used on commercial airfields. In view of what he was doing the pilot wouldn’t risk a crash. Wherefore it seemed that if landing arrangements had been made for that night, it might be found necessary to postpone them; that was assuming Trethallan was in radio contact with the plane. The mist would clear quickly when the sun came up; but then it would be light. Would the plane risk landing in daylight? It seemed highly improbable.
So reasoned Bertie, these thoughts going through his head faster than they take to tell. If the flight had to be postponed, all might yet be well. But he was still undecided about which course to take; to try to find the road, or to go back the way he had come, hoping to find Biggles waiting for him. But that would serve no useful purpose if the plane had come and gone.
Somewhere in the distance a car horn hooted. A welcome and familiar sound. He looked hard in the direction from which he thought it had come; but he could see no light; nothing. However, this decided him. The car that had sounded its horn could only be on the road. He started off at a trot, trusting to be able to keep his sense of direction. Apart from long heather impeding his progress somewhat, there was no difficulty until he came to a peculiar configuration of the ground, and he did not seriously regard this as an obstacle. It consisted of a number of mounds in the manner of enormous molehills, some twenty or thirty feet high. They were covered, like everything else, with heather. What had caused these humps he did not know, nor did he give the matter any consideration. He had only one thing in mind. To get to the road. So he hurried on between them, worried because he had never previously seen this part of the moor, and so could only conclude he was some distance from his objective.
It was not until he came upon some ancient brickwork that the truth hit him. This was the site of another old mine, and the mounds were the tips, the heaps of discarded debris thrown up when the mine was being worked. Judging from the growth of heather and weeds that had taken possession of them, this must have been a long time ago. Anyway, there was no chimney stack so it was not the mine he knew, the one not far from the landing strip; so there was no fear of encountering the shepherd’s dog. Having realized the sort of ground he was on he should, of course, have proceeded with extra care; he knew the danger of such places, and had in fact pointed them out to Biggles when speaking of these old mines.
But it is easy to criticize. Bertie’s mind was entirely taken up with getting to the road in the shortest possible time, so he hurried on regardless. He was looking ahead to mark the next hillock, in order to avoid it, when without warning his feet went through the heather into a void. Feeling himself falling he made a desperate effort to save himself, clutching wildly at the heather. For a few seconds he clung to it, trying to drag himself back; but it tore out by the roots and he fell into space, still snatching for something, anything, that might break his fall. He struck hard ground with a bump and rolled on, his fingers clawing into loose shale which, sliding with him, offered no hold.
The end came when his head struck something hard, and the world exploded in a shower of stars that faded quickly to utter darkness.
CHAPTER 13
THE PIT
WHEN Bertie opened his eyes he was at first conscious of only one thing. A throbbing head. A little later he saw above him a circular patch of sky. Still dazed, he struggled into a sitting position and tried to remember what had happened. Slowly it all came back. The Towers: the two men he had followed; the moor; the fall. With broad daylight above, he realized he must have been unconscious for a long time. He looked at his watch. The glass had gone, the face was smashed, so it told him nothing.
The next thing he did was to examine himself for injuries and was relieved to find no broken bones. That, he told himself, was something to be thankful for. The only real damage appeared to be to his head, which ached unmercifully. He felt it tenderly and found dry blood on his face. Beside him was the rock that had done the mischief. Close by it lay his cudgel.
At the bottom of the hole into which he had fallen, just below him, was a puddle of surface water that must have drained in. He made his way to it unsteadily, soaked his handkerchief and bathed his head, afterwards leaving the wet rag on as a bandage. This needed effort and he had to rest for a while. Hi
s thoughts became more coherent. Had the plane come? Had Lewis escaped after all? It had been near dawn when the accident happened. The moor had been misty. He comforted himself with the possibility of the flight having been postponed.
Calling himself hard names for not looking where he was going, he examined his surroundings and observed that his position might have been worse. Much worse. While he was actually falling, for a dreadful moment he felt sure he had stepped into an old mine shaft, perhaps of great depth. That would have been the end, without any shadow of doubt. He saw that things were not as bad as that, although they were serious enough. The hole into which he had fallen was shaped like an inverted cone, about thirty feet deep, as if there had once been a mine there and a half-hearted attempt had been made to fill it in after it was abandoned. Either that, or the place had been used only for opencast mining. The sides were not sheer, but steep; too steep for herbage, heather or anything else, to get a hold on it. The actual soil was a mixture of gravel and shale.
He sat on the rock which his head had struck. The movement produced dizziness and a feeling of nausea. This suggested concussion, and he thought it prudent to rest for a while before he did anything or he might fall again with more serious results. There was no urgency now that it was daylight, although the others would be in a state wondering what had become of him. Naturally, he was anxious to get out of the trap into which he had fallen, to see where he was, and if anything was happening on the moor. This, he saw, was not going to be easy; but just how difficult it was to prove he still had not realized.