by W E Johns
‘Does that mean you’re going to hang about here waiting for him to come? He may have been and gone.’
‘He won’t have gone. He can’t know the parachute has been found so the chances are he’ll go on looking for it. Why not? Just a minute. I have an idea.’ Biggles turned to the boy. ‘You seem to have a lot of dogs. Have you one with a good nose?
‘We’ve a trained Alsatian. It isn’t ours. We’re boarding it for a gentleman while he’s abroad.’
‘Will you run home, Len, and ask your father if we can borrow it? And if so bring it here.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The boy dashed off.
‘What’s the idea?’ demanded Gaskin.
‘You’ll see. It may not work, but it might.’
They waited for about ten minutes, when the boy reappeared, running, with the dog on a leash.
‘Put him on that cigarette carton,’ requested Biggles.
Len obeyed. The dog nosed the carton, cast around once or twice, and then, seeming to be at fault, returned to the road.
‘That’s where the man got back into the car,’ said Biggles. ‘That’s why there’s no trail. Now bring him up here to where the car stopped again, or another car pulled in. If the scent isn’t cold he may tell us which.’
Again the boy obeyed, and this time there was no mistake. The dog struck the line instantly, and was off, nose to ground.
‘That’s it,’ cried Biggles. ‘The car came back, and I don’t think we need wonder why.’
If confirmation of Biggles’ suspicion was needed it was soon provided, for the dog, after running straight for a little while was soon zigzagging among the trees.
‘Whether or not this was our man he was certainly looking for something,’ asserted Biggles, panting with the effort of keeping up with the dog.
Farther and farther into the timber it went, frequently changing direction in a way that suggested they were crossing and recrossing their trail. Then the boy stumbled over a root and fell. The dog, finding itself free, went on alone at a pace too fast for them to follow. The boy, picking himself up, tore on after it, shouting to it to stop. Ginger came next in the line of pursuit, followed by Biggles. Inspector Gaskin, who was a heavy man, brought up the rear, breathing heavily.
For all their efforts the dog disappeared from sight in the trees ahead of them, but that it had gone no great distance was revealed by barking, accompanied by shouts. Ginger and the boy, together, burst through some bushes to find the dog barking furiously at a man who, with his back against a tree was keeping the animal at bay with a stick. Seeing them he shouted: ‘Is this your dog?’
‘Yes,’ answered Len, running up.
‘Then call it off before I shoot it,’ rasped the man, scarlet in the face with anger or exertion—perhaps both.
The boy called the dog to heel and it obeyed, growling in its throat.
‘Why don’t you keep that hound under control?’ demanded the man, malevolently, with some justification. He was dark, of medium height and build, with a small black moustache; his age might have been between thirty and forty. He was well, almost immaculately, dressed, in town clothes.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the boy, contritely.
At that moment Biggles arrived on the scene, and presently Inspector Gaskin.
‘You ought to have more sense than to let a brute like that run loose on public ground,’ grumbled the man. ‘Hang on to it while I get out of the way,’ he requested curtly, and strode off.
‘I wonder if he was the man we were looking for?’ said Biggles, softly, to Ginger, as they stood and watched him go.
‘That was the man I saw get out of the car,’ volunteered the boy.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Then the car may not be far away.’
‘He’s going towards the road,’ said Len, who, of course, knew the ground. ‘We aren’t far away from it here.’
‘You stay here and hold the dog,’ ordered Biggles. ‘We’ll see where he goes.’
Said Ginger, as they started off in the direction taken by the man: ‘That fellow is either carrying a gun or he was trying to scare us. Before you arrived he threatened to shoot the dog. In his anger that may have slipped out, or he may have been bluffing.’
‘I have an idea I’ve seen that face before, somewhere,’ murmured Gaskin, looking puzzled.
They halted behind some shrubs when they came within sight of the road. There was no need to go any farther for the car stood on it, tight against the grass verge, the man beside it. For a moment or two he lingered, lighting a cigarette, as if uncertain what to do. Then he got in and drove off. Ginger read aloud the number of the car, grey in colour.
‘Jaguar,’ said Biggles. ‘That gives us something to go on. I’d say he was the man we were looking for. What else could he have been doing here at dawn if he wasn’t looking for something? He wasn’t here for a picnic, and naturalists don’t normally wear city clothes when they’re bird-watching, or bug-hunting, or something of that sort.’
‘What about this body we were looking for?’ muttered Gaskin.
‘I suggest we leave that for the time being,’ answered Biggles. ‘Let’s go back to the Yard and check up on that car and its owner. That may be the quickest way to find out what all this is about.’
As the boy led them through the forest towards his home by a different route, saying it was a short cut, the dog turned suddenly at a tangent showing signs of excitement, straining at its lead.
‘Just a minute,’ said Biggles. ‘What now?’
‘We must have crossed that man’s trail again,’ declared the boy.
‘Let the dog go,’ ordered Biggles, although in fact Len was having a job to hold it. The dog leapt off; but it did not go far. Reaching a clump of bushes intertwined with brambles and bracken it pulled up short and then, with drooping tail began to back away, showing its teeth.
‘I’m afraid there may be something nasty here,’ said Biggles, with a meaning glance at Gaskin. ‘Len, you run along home. Take the dog. We’ll speak to your father later.’
They marked the direction taken by the boy so that they would know the way to the farm, and as soon as he was out of sight moved forward to the bushes. Signs of recent disturbance were evident, and presently Ginger stumbled over something soft that had been covered with bracken and dead leaves. Moving some of the debris with his foot he exposed a jacket.
‘Here we are,’ he said quietly, and in a few minutes a body had been carried to open ground. It was that of a youngish man, dark-skinned. There was no sign of parachute harness.
‘Crikey!’ exclaimed Gaskin. ‘Don’t say we’ve found another body.’
‘No,’ answered Biggles. ‘This fellow hasn’t been dead more than a few hours. He’s the chap who jumped. He’s all broken up.’
‘But where’s the parachute harness, the rest of the piece we’ve got?’
‘It must have been taken away by the man who put him here, and covered him up. Either he couldn’t carry the corpse or wouldn’t risk being seen with it. He found the body, but he didn’t find the top half of the brolly for the simple reason it wasn’t here. Len had found it and taken it home. He was still looking for it a few minutes ago, when we ran into him. That’s how it looks to me.’
Gaskin, on his knees, was going through the dead man’s pockets for something that might identify him. ‘This feller’s a foreigner, whoever he is,’ he stated. ‘This suit was never made here. We don’t make this sort of material and we don’t cut our coats like this. There’s nothing here. The chap who covered him up must have taken everything out of his pockets.’
‘You’d expect that.’
‘If he came from abroad we may have a job to identify him,’ muttered Gaskin. ‘That little scar over the right eye may help. Hello! What’s this.’ In moving a sleeve the inspector had revealed a tattoo mark low on the left forearm. It was blurred as if an attempt had been made to erase it, but the one word of which it consisted could s
till be read. The word, in blue ink, was Destin.
That tells us something, anyway,’ said Biggles. ‘He’s French. At least, destin is French for destiny, or fate.’
‘That’s appropriate, anyhow,’ stated Gaskin, as he got up. ‘Well, we can’t keep this business dark any longer. The body will have to go to the mortuary and the local police will have to know about it. Ginger had better slip along to the house and call the police on Betts’ phone. Tell ‘em we shall want an ambulance and a stretcher. It had better come to the farm. Wait for it, Ginger, and bring the stretcher party here.’
‘Okay,’ agreed Ginger, and went off.
Biggles and Inspector Gaskin waited for an hour, discussing the case. Then the ambulance came and removed the body of the unknown man, Gaskin explaining to the sergeant in charge how it had been found. He also, at Biggles’ request, asked him to withhold issuing a description of the dead man for twenty-four hours, to give them a chance to make certain inquiries before the man who had hidden the body learned from the newspapers that it had been found. They then returned to London, Gaskin to check up on the ownership of the car and Biggles to put through a call to his opposite number in Paris, Marcel Brissac of the French section of the International Police Bureau.
As Biggles told his staff when, back in his office, he called Marcel at the Sûreté, he was doubtful if his inquiry would produce results; so he was more than a little surprised when the information Marcel gave him exceeded anything for which he could have hoped. And he was not the only one surprised. Marcel was astonished by what Biggles could tell him.
Biggles hadn’t even finished describing the dead man when Marcel cut in with: ‘He has a scar over the right eyebrow?’
‘That’s right,’ confirmed Biggles. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Know him? Tiens! We are looking for him. And you have him. La-la.’
And this, in brief, was what Marcel had to say about him.
His name was Raoul Dubroc, born in Tangier of a French father and an Arab woman. He had been a criminal all his life. He had joined the Foreign Legion to dodge the police, and it was during his period of service that, in a fit of depression, he had made the silly mistake of branding himself with the tattoo mark, which nothing would remove. Later he had deserted, gone to Paris and become involved with a gang suspected of smuggling arms through Tangier to the terrorists in Algeria. It was on this charge that he had been arrested, but on a promise to reveal the name of the leader of the gang, who he had said owed him money, he had been given certain liberties under which he had taken the opportunity to escape. The French police had been hunting high and low for him.
‘You didn’t hunt high enough,’ said Biggles. ‘It looks as if his pals picked him up and dropped him overboard on our side of the Ditch. You’d better come over and identify him officially.’ Marcel said he would come.
Biggles had only just hung up when Gaskin came in. Biggles passed on the information he had just acquired.
The inspector pulled a face. ‘This begins to look like something more than simple murder. Gun-running, eh. Well—well.’
‘What about the car?’
‘That’s got me guessing, too. It belongs to a feller named Louis Brand. He runs a fishy night club in Soho, but we’ve never been able to pin anything on him. That’s where I must have seen him. I didn’t know he had a place in the country, but he must have, because the car is registered in Hampshire, the address being Dawfield Manor.’
‘Dawfield Manor,’ echoed Biggles. ‘That name rings a bell. Yes, I’ve got it. That’s where Sir Roy Wilton used to live. Used to own a plane, so that place must have an airstrip. He was killed in a crash in Africa about two years ago, on a big-game hunting trip.’
‘Looks as if Brand must have bought the place. He always had plenty of money and we could never work out where it came from.’
‘Gun-running can be profitable when it comes off,’ said Biggles pointedly. ‘I take it you’ve nothing on him?’
‘Not a thing.’
‘If we act fast you may get something.’
‘How?’
‘He may have taken the bottom half of that brolly home. If it fitted the top half we could ask him to explain how he came to have it.’
‘Is this feller Brand a pilot?’
‘Not to my knowledge. Ginger, you might check up on that.’
‘How do you figure this out?’ asked Gaskin, blowing through his pipe.
‘It’s pretty plain. According to Marcel, Dubroc fell out with his boss over money. He was going to squeal and the gang either knew that or suspected it. On the pretence of getting him out of France they picked him up in an aircraft and dropped him overboard.’
‘I can’t see how the parachute comes into it. Why give him one at all?’
‘You’ve got me guessing there,’ admitted Biggles. ‘Obviously there was a reason, and we shan’t learn what it was sitting here.’
‘You’re thinking of giving this country house, Dawfield Manor, the once over?’
‘Yes, and the sooner the better. If nothing else I fancy we have a case of illegal flying.’
‘Why the hurry?’
‘The plane that brought Dubroc here may still be in the country, but it may not be after to-night. If Brand is involved in this parachute affair he’ll want that aircraft out of the way. If it came in at night it’ll probably go out by night. If we start now we should get there by dark.’
‘Okay,’ agreed Gaskin. ‘Let’s go.’
Biggles looked at Ginger. ‘Any luck?’
‘No. He’s neither in the Air Force List nor on the Register of Civil Pilots—not under the name of Brand, anyway.’
‘No matter. There’s a pilot in the picture somewhere, that’s certain,’ asserted Biggles. ‘Dubroc wasn’t flying the machine himself or it would have crashed after he baled out, and there’s no report of a crash. Let’s get organized. We shall need a torch. Algy, Bertie, I think you’d better come along. We may have more than one man to deal with, in which case there could be trouble. Put the skeleton keys in your pocket, Ginger. There may be doors to deal with. Okay. Let’s get mobile.’
‘We’re going to be a bit of a squash in one car,’ said Gaskin. ‘I’ll follow you in my own, with a spare man.’
‘Just as you like,’ agreed Biggles.
It was dark by the time the police cars found Dawfield Manor, in which matter there had been a little difficulty, for it was well out in the country, as was to be expected if it was provided with a private landing ground.
Biggles, who was driving the leading car, did not stop at the gates at the entrance to the drive, but went on a little way and, parking it under some trees well back from the road, switched off the lights. ‘We’ll walk,’ he said.
Taking advantage of the ample cover provided first by a wood and later by a hedge, they made their way silently to the objective, which turned out to be a typical old Georgian manor house standing in grounds that had long been neglected. A light was showing in one room. Approaching it from the side they came upon the large open field that was obviously the landing ground used by the original owner. Several outbuildings, one large, loomed against the sky at the end of the field nearest the house. Biggles led the way towards it, and reaching it tried the small accommodation door. No one was surprised when it was found to be locked. He held out a hand for the skeleton keys. After some failures one was found to fit. Biggles pushed the door open, and leaving Gaskin’s man on guard outside they went in, to be greeted by the unmistakable reek of an aircraft, of oil and doped fabric. The torch sliced a wedge of light in the darkness. The beam struck an aircraft and moved down the fuselage to the French registration letter F.
‘Hm. So that’s it,’ murmured Biggles.
‘An Aubert Cigale—Major,’ said Ginger, recognizing the type. ‘Four-seater. Upward hinged doors on both sides. Dubroc would have no difficulty in getting out.’
‘You mean, there’d be no difficulty in pushing him out,’ said Gaskin.
They spent a little while looking for the sabotaged parachute harness, but failing to find it went out and moved on to the garage. This, too, was locked, but it was soon opened. Inside was the Jaguar. There was nothing on the seats. Biggles opened the boot, and there, in a heap, lay the bottom half of the fatal parachute. As he pulled it out and held up the ends of the lines to show they had been clean cut, some articles fell out; among other things a French identity card in the name of Dubroc, and a notecase containing money.
‘That’s about all we want to know,’ said Gaskin, grimly. ‘Brand’s going to find it hard to explain how these things got here. Let’s go and hear what sort of lies he can dish up at short notice. He’s in for an awful shock. We’ll try the back way first.’
Gaskin’s man went round to cover the front door. Algy and Bertie remained on guard outside the back door. It was not locked, so the others, moving quietly, went in.
A foreign-looking man was in the kitchen, washing dishes. The door was wide open, but he had his back towards them and did not see them until a slight sound made him look round. He dropped the plate he was holding. His hand flashed to his pocket; but Biggles was first, and the man stopped, staring at the automatic that covered him.
‘Take his gun, Ginger,’ ordered Biggles, briefly.
‘And you keep your trap shut,’ Gaskin warned the man, as he clicked handcuffs on his wrists.
‘I no understand,’ stammered the man.
‘You will,’ growled Gaskin. ‘Take him out, Ginger. My man’ll take care of him.’