by W E Johns
Frowning, the man spoke again to Steffans in his own language. He was heavily built, well dressed in a dark suit.
‘Talk to me,’ snapped Biggles. ‘I’m acting on behalf of Mr Steffans. Let’s get down to business. He’s willing to give you what you want if you bring back his wife.’
‘That is sensible.’ The man held out a hand. ‘Give me the papers.’
‘Not so fast. Where is Mrs Steffans?’
‘She shall be brought.’
‘You shall have the papers when you bring her here.’
‘Don’t you trust us?’
Biggles’ lips curled. ‘No. I’d no more trust you than I’d trust a rattlesnake. Now I’ve made that clear, produce Mrs Steffans and I’ll see you have the papers.’
‘It will take time to fetch her. She is not here.’
‘It’ll take time to fetch the papers. They’re not here, either. How long will it take to fetch Mrs Steffans?’
‘Twenty-four hours.’
‘All right. We’ll meet you here at this time to-morrow —say, nine o’clock. You bring Mrs Steffans. I’ll bring the papers.’
‘I’m not sure if that is possible.’
‘You’d better make it possible.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I mean is, if Mrs Steffans isn’t here, in this room, by nine o’clock to-morrow night the contents of the papers will be on the front page of every London newspaper in the morning.’
‘You wouldn’t dare to do that!’
‘Wouldn’t I? You don’t know me.’
‘It would embarrass your government.’
‘Not so much as it would embarrass yours.’
‘Where are the papers?’
‘Where you can’t get your hands on them, and never will unless you accept my terms. Now get out. I’ve nothing more to say.’
The men went without another word. Boots crunched on the track. A car door slammed.
Steffans’ face was as white as chalk. ‘I would never have dared to talk to them like that,’ he said in a weak voice.
‘I don’t mince words with that sort of reptile.’
‘Do you think they’ll bring my wife here?’
‘They will. Don’t worry. We’ll be here. Now we’ll get along home. See you to-morrow. Good night.’
Biggles and Ginger made their way in silence to the road junction where, presently, after the signal, the car joined them.
‘What news?’ questioned Algy.
‘We’ve learnt one or two things,’ answered Biggles. ‘I have reason to hope that Mrs Steffans will be brought back at this time tomorrow. The fact that they needed twenty-four hours to get her here makes it pretty certain that she isn’t in this country. The time factor also suggests that an aircraft is being used for transport because by no other method could she be brought here in the time. On the other hand, if she was in this country they wouldn’t need twenty-four hours to bring her here. We shall be here, of course, to see that there’s no hanky-panky.’
‘And you say there’s nothing we can do to these rats, old boy?’ muttered Bertie disgustedly. ‘It goes against the grain to let ‘em get off scot free.’
‘You’re telling me,’ said Biggles in a hard voice. ‘But while they have diplomatic immunity they’re untouchable. All the British government can do is ask for their withdrawal from England. That’s politics. Let’s get along. Tomorrow we’ll make photostat copies of the documents and then come back.’
A mile along the road, as the car drew level with the entrance to the American camp around which some troops were lounging, Biggles put on the brake and stopped. ‘Just a minute,’ he told the others. ‘I have an idea.’ He got out, walked over to the Americans, and with them crowding round him spoke to them for some minutes. When he returned he offered no explanation beyond saying they might be useful allies in the event of his plan going wrong. And with that he drove on.
The following evening, at about half past eight, with dusk dimming the scene, the car came to a stop at the top of the track that gave access to Steffans’ cottage. Biggles and Ginger got out.
Biggles spoke earnestly to those still in the car. ‘You know exactly what you have to do?’
‘Yes,’ answered Algy. ‘We tuck the car away at a handy spot where it can’t be seen and wait for the plane to come. If there’s no plane by nine-thirty we come to the cottage. If the plane comes, bringing Mrs Steffans, we let her and her escort go through to the cottage. We then deal with the plane.’
‘That’s the scheme,’ confirmed Biggles. ‘Be careful. We don’t want any shooting unless it’s absolutely unavoidable. The more quietly this business is handled the better for everyone. It’s one of those things. Already I’m on the borderline of what some people would call my official duties. You know what that means. If my plan works out as I hope it will, okay. But if it goes wrong I shall be for the high jump. Not that I care two hoots about that as long as Steffans gets his wife back and we beat these kidnappers at their own game. All right. Off you go.’
The car went on. Biggles and Ginger walked down the track to the cottage to find Steffans, in a state of nervous agitation, waiting for them.
‘Take it easy,’ Biggles told him. ‘Everything’s going to be all right. I’ll leave the door open so that we can hear what goes on.’
They settled down to wait.
For half an hour nothing happened. Then a car could be heard on the road. It stopped at the top of the track. A door slammed and it went on again.
‘What are they doing?’ asked Steffans anxiously.
‘The car’s gone on, I hope, to meet your wife,’ answered Biggles. ‘It dropped somebody off at the top of the track. Here he comes.’
Into the room, as if the house belonged to him, walked one of the two men who had called the previous evening. ‘So!’ he said shortly. ‘We are all here.’
‘Not quite all,’ returned Biggles evenly. ‘Mrs Steffans has still to come.’
‘She will soon be here. Give me the papers.’
‘You will have the papers,’ said Biggles succinctly, ‘when Mrs Steffans is in this room—not before. And don’t try any false moves with me. With people like you about I get an itch in my trigger finger.’
They waited. Ten minutes passed. Then, in the distance, could be heard the drone of an aircraft. The sound died as the engine was cut. No one remarked on it. Biggles lit a cigarette. Another ten minutes, brittle with tension, dragged past. Again came the sound of a car. It stopped. A door slammed. Came footsteps outside. Then, in the doorway, appeared a young woman with a man on either side of her. Seeing her husband she tore herself free and rushed to him.
‘There is the woman,’ said the man who had waited, in a harsh voice. ‘Now give me the papers.’
Biggles took them from his breast pocket and handed them over.
The man made a signal to his companions and turned to go.
‘Just a moment,’ said Biggles, and Ginger stiffened in anticipation of what he knew was coming.
‘In case you ever contemplate a repetition of this outrage there is one thing you ought to know,’ went on Biggles, evenly. ‘I have carried out my part of the bargain. You wanted certain papers. You have them. But in my office in London, at Scotland Yard, there are photographic copies. While you leave these people in peace you have my word for it that they will remain there. But should you ever again interfere with Mr Steffans or his wife I shall hand those copies to the press.’
Silence, brittle with tension, fell.
The hand of the man who had done the talking began to move slowly towards his pocket.
‘Don’t do anything silly,’ warned Biggles. ‘To shoot somebody would be the most certain way to defeat your object if you want the contents of those papers kept secret.’
The man swallowed. ‘You have cheated,’ he rasped furiously.
‘That, coming from you, making your living by terrorism, would make a fox laugh,’ stated Biggles coldly. ‘All right, let’s say I
cheated,’ he went on. ‘What are you going to do about it? With those films in my hands Steffans is in a stronger position than ever he was, and for that your trickery is responsible. You’re now the man on the spot. I’ll make a suggestion that may save your scalp. No one except the people in this room knows that those photographs exist. If you don’t talk, we shan’t. In a word, it might be as well if, when you give these papers to your boss, you forget to mention the photos.’
The three men stared.
‘One final word,’ said Biggles, looking at one of the last men to arrive. ‘Are you the pilot of the plane that brought Mrs Steffans here?’
The man moistened his lips. ‘Yes.’
‘Then you’d better go to London with your accomplices. It’s no use going back to the plane. You won’t find it there.’
‘But—’ blurted the man.
Biggles cut in. ‘You made an illegal entry into this country. It suited me to let you come in. But I’ve seen to it that you don’t go out the same way. That’s all.’
For a few seconds longer the men lingered, staring at Biggles as if there was something about him that fascinated them. Then they filed out. From the door Steffans watched them striding up the track. When he came back he said, ‘There’s a fire over on the marshes.’
‘That’ll be the plane,’ said Biggles calmly. ‘I didn’t feel like letting them get away with it. I would have arrested it, but that would have meant explanations it were better to avoid. Burnt planes, like dead men, tell no tales.’ Biggles glanced at Ginger. ‘Bertie will have enjoyed doing that.’
Steffans, who had returned to his wife, sprang to his feet as from the top of the track came an uproar that sounded like a battle. ‘What is that?’ he cried.
Biggles grinned. ‘Oh, I forgot to mention that on my way home last night I told some Americans about your wife being abducted by Communists, and why. Having some regard for her, since she served in their canteen, they took a dim view of it.’
Ginger looked at Biggles suspiciously. ‘Did you tell them that the men responsible were coming back here tonight?’
Biggles’ grin broadened. ‘I believe I did mention it. It sounds like it, anyway. There was some suggestion of throwing them in the pond. We’d better keep out of the way, then no one can say we had a hand in it.’
Slowly the noise subsided. Biggles got up. ‘Algy and Bertie should be back any time now,’ he told Ginger. ‘We’d better go and see what’s happened. Good night, Steffans. Good night, Mrs Steffans. Glad to have been of service. I don’t think you have anything to worry about now.’
‘What if that man tells his boss about the photos?’ questioned Steffans.
‘He won’t,’ Biggles assured him. ‘He knows as well as anyone that the men who hold the strings of the Iron Curtain are as merciless to their employees, when they bungle things, as they are to their enemies. As far as tonight is concerned, remember, mum’s the word. You’ll have to tell the local police that your wife’s been found, but you needn’t tell them how. Good night again. Come on, Ginger.’
Leaving the reunited couple arm in arm they went out and up the track to where by this time all was silent. Algy and Bertie were there, looking at the wreck of another car upside down on the edge of the pond.
‘What’s been going on here?’ demanded Algy.
‘It looks as if the United Nations have been taking it out of somebody,’ answered Biggles vaguely, gazing at the car, a flattened hat and a broken pair of spectacles. ‘Let’s get out this before someone comes along asking awkward questions. We’ve done our good deed for the day so I don’t feel like giving a lift to a bunch of ruffians who appear to have lost their transport.’
‘Absolutely, old boy,’ agreed Bertie warmly. ‘I’m with you there, every time. Let the blighters walk home.’
[Back to Contents]
THE CASE OF THE SUBMERGED AIRCRAFT
Biggles took a second glance at the expression on the face of his chief, Air Commodore Raymond of the Special Air Police at Scotland Yard, as, in response to an order, he walked into the headquarters office.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ inquired the Air Commodore.
Biggles smiled. ‘I was wondering why you were looking like that.’
‘Sit down and I’ll tell you. What would you say if I told you there is reason to believe that an aeroplane is standing on the bottom of a Highland loch?’
‘I hope the pilot finds it comfortable,’ returned Biggles evenly. ‘What is this? Has some crank designed an aircraft for underwater aviation?’
‘It may not turn out to be funny,’ said the Air Commodore, seriously. ‘I want you to fly up to confirm the report.’
‘Who told you about this, sir?’
‘I’ve just had a phone call from an official of the Highland Hydro-Electric Board. He thought we’d like to know.’
‘What type of machine is this—military or civil?’
‘He doesn’t know. That’s what I want you to find out. If it’s an R.A.F. type the Air Ministry can take over. This is what I’m told. There is, in the north-west corner of the Cairngorms, a sheet of water called Lochnaglash. As a matter of detail, and this should help you to find it, it is the lowest of a string of three lochs deep in the mountains, each taking the spill-over of the one above it. Lochnaglash is the source of a small river called the Glash, which is a tributary of the Spey, twelve miles away. A rough track leads to a village called Balashlin. That’s fourteen miles.’
‘Sounds like pretty wild country,’ remarked Biggles.
‘It is. For some months of the year snow makes the place inaccessible. The land was once a deer forest. But deerstalking is now out of fashion, and with the death of the laird the place came into the market. It was bought by the Forestry Commission who have made some experimental plantings but are no longer working there. Apparently the hydro-electric people have had an eye on the water. The lochs are fed by snow melting on the high tops. Anyway, they sent a man up to check the height of the water at summer level. As a result of the recent drought he found the water exceptionally low. Showing above the surface is an object that looks like the top of an aeroplane rudder. There’s no question of it being a tree because there are no trees near except the small stuff planted by the Forestry people and they’re some distance away.’
‘If it is a machine it must have been there for some time,’ stated Biggles. ‘It must be years since we had a record of an aircraft disappearing without trace.’
The Air Commodore nodded. ‘It could be a relic of the war. But the easiest way to settle the matter is for you to fly up and have a look. I suggest you take the Otter and land on the loch; otherwise you’d have to get a boat from somewhere to reach the object. There isn’t one on the spot, which is why the hydro-electric man could do nothing there.’
‘Okay, sir.’ Biggles looked at his watch. ‘I’ll get off right away while the weather’s fine. The Cairngorms, with cloud about, are no place for low flying. It shouldn’t take us long to get this sorted out.’
Biggles returned to his own office, where his police pilots were waiting.
‘What’s the drill?’ asked Ginger.
Biggles grinned. ‘The Loch Ness monster, sick of being ridiculed, has popped up in a place called Lochnaglash. It looks like an aircraft. We’re flying up in the Otter to catch it by the tail. We shall need the large-scale map of Banffshire and, I suppose, our bathing costumes. And Ginger, you might bring along the file on post-war machines that have disappeared, for possible identification.’
‘How long is this job going to take?’ asked Algy.
‘It shouldn’t take long—why?’
‘Hadn’t we better take something to eat in case we get stuck there for the night?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Biggles. There’s nothing to be had on the spot. Let’s get mobile. I’ll tell you what I know about this business on the way up.’
Four hours later, in clear weather, the Otter, an amphibious aircraft on the establishment of th
e Air Police, was losing height as it circled over the objective, which had not been difficult to find. But it was not such an easy matter to get down, on account of the towering hills which held the three lochs in a long narrow valley, with the result that while Lochnaglash had plenty of length it hadn’t much width. In fact, it was only after three attempts to get down had failed that Biggles succeeded by flying through the only break, a narrow funnel through which the overflow of the lochs escaped during the spring thaw, to form a minor tributary of the Spey.
Even before the keel had kissed the water, dark and sinister even under a summer sky, Ginger could see the object that had brought them to the spot. It was the only mark to break the unruffled surface, on which the surrounding hills were reflected with the faithfulness of a mirror. Only a few inches of the object showed, some fifty yards or so from a strip of detritus, the only feature that bore any resemblance to a beach. For the rest, the heather-clad slopes of the hills, with forbidding outcrops of rock, fell sheer into the water. A white streak showed where a sunless corrie still held its snow. There was not a soul, or a living creature, in sight, except an eagle, high overhead. Nor was there a tree, although a small clump of shrubby birch had managed to gain a foothold at one end of the beach. In a word, it was a typically remote Highland scene.
‘A dismal sort of place to finish up,’ remarked Bertie.
‘About as wild a spot as you’d find,’ returned Biggles, taxiing on slowly towards the mark which Ginger had pointed out ‘If it’s like this in summer think what it must be like in the winter, with snow everywhere and the loch a sheet of ice.’
‘That’s an aircraft rudder all right,’ asserted Algy, as they approached the object. ‘Who on earth could have tried to get down here?’
‘We should soon know,’ answered Biggles as, with the Otter edging towards the mark, he switched off. ‘Stand by with the anchor, Ginger, as we come alongside. The water can’t be deep or nothing would show above the surface.’