by W E Johns
‘Yes. Plenty of room to get down.’
‘Okay,’ said Biggles. ‘We’ll get some sleep and be off at sparrow-chirp in the morning.’
When, in the forenoon of the following day, the Sunderland touched down on the lagoon at Tongariva the Mahina was already there, at anchor. Biggles taxied alongside and hailed. ‘May I come aboard, Captain?’
‘Aye, if ye’ll no scratch my paint,’ came the reply, in broad Scots.
Only Biggles and Marcel went aboard. When they said they were police officers Captain Hay took them to his cabin. ‘What’s the bother?’ he inquired.
‘You bought this schooner from Captain Nat Clark?’
‘Aye. That’s richt.’
‘You got a Bill of Sale?’
‘Surely.’
‘What do you know of Captain Clark?’
‘Only what everybody knows. The islands’ll be glad to see the back of him. Why do you want him?’
‘We’ve reason to believe he murdered a man, a white man, on one of the outer islands.’
Captain Hay looked at Biggles so hard, and for so long, his eyes narrowing, that it brought from Biggles the question: ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Would the name of this man by any chance be David Macdonald?’
‘His name was Macdonald.’
‘So that was it.’
‘What was what?’
The Scot shook his head, slowly, sadly, in self-reproach. ‘Knowing Clark’s reputation I should have had more sense than to listen to him. But I’d been looking for a new schooner for some time and no doubt he heard of it. He came to me with a proposition. Said he’d made his pile and was going home. He’d had enough of the islands.’
‘He didn’t tell you how he’d made his pile, I’ll bet,’ observed Biggles, sarcastically. ‘What’s your angle?’
‘I’ll show you.’
From his locker Captain Hay produced a small mahogany case. Neatly carved on the lid were the initials D.M. He opened the case to reveal a sextant. ‘I bought that off Clark when I bought his schooner. It was part of the bargain. I also bought a chronometer. Same initials. He had a compass and some other stuff I didn’t buy. He sold it to Jules Boulenger, the ship’s chandler on the wharf at Tahiti. I saw nothing suspicious in that. After all, a man who spends his life around the islands picks up all sorts of junk.’
‘But where did you get the name Macdonald?’ asked Biggles. ‘I see only initials on this case.’
‘He offered me a gold watch—a beauty, too. I didn’t buy it because I saw it was a presentation piece and I reckoned it might be unlucky. On the back of the watch it said: To Captain David Macdonald, from the Company, on completion of forty years’ service.’
‘Did you ask him how he got the watch?’
‘Aye. He said he’d had it for years. Bought it off a pawnbroker in Sydney, one time, he said.’
‘Didn’t it occur to you that all these things might have belonged to the same man?’
‘Afterwards. Not at the time. I was more concerned with the schooner.’
‘I’m sorry, Captain Hay,’ said Biggles, ‘but I shall have to take these things for evidence. I’ll give you a receipt, of course, and see that you’re refunded the money you paid for them.’
‘You’re not going to drag me into this, I hope?’
‘No. I don’t think that will be necessary. Now may we have a word with your head boy?’
‘What’s he got to do with it?’
‘You took the crew over from Captain Clark, didn’t you?’
‘Aye.’
‘Some hundreds of tons of freight were stolen from Captain Macdonald’s ship. Clark didn’t transfer that to his schooner single-handed. His boys must have done it.’
Again Captain Hay stared. ‘The lying dog. I bought forty tons of that stuff off him, at valuation, with the ship. It’s aboard now.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
‘Canned goods—salmon and meat. Biscuits, beans, rice. What are you going to do about that? Ye’ll no be taking that with you.’
Biggles smiled faintly. ‘No. You’d better sell it. Keep an account. It would have gone for salvage, anyway, so the insurance people should give you an ample discount. Now let’s hear what your boy has to say.’
The native was brought in and questioned. He described how he and the crew had carried the cargo of the Belinda to the Mahina. They had been back several times after the first load. It had been sold to traders on the islands. It was obvious that he saw nothing wrong in this. He was paid to obey orders and to him it was just another job. In fact, he thought it was rather a joke. He said he knew nothing of the captain of the Belinda being killed, and Biggles was inclined to believe that.
At the finish Biggles prepared a statement for Captain Hay’s signature. He signed it with Marcel and Algy as witnesses, Algy being brought aboard for that purpose.
‘Clark must have been a fool,’ growled the Scot. ‘He could have bought the Belinda, lock stock and barrel, as salvage, for next to nothing.’
‘I’d say his real trouble was greed,’ returned Biggles. ‘He wanted the lot, for nothing. Well, that seems to be all,’ he went on, putting the folded paper in his pocket. ‘You’ll get compensation for these instruments in due course. I’m much obliged for your help.’
They returned to the Sunderland.
‘What did you find?’ asked Ginger.
‘Enough, I fancy, to put a rope round the neck of a scoundrel,’ Biggles told him, in a hard voice.
‘What’s the drill now, old boy?’ queried Bertie.
‘Were going back to Tahiti, then home.’
In a few minutes the flying boat was on its way.
With nine thousand miles of ocean between him and the scene of his crime it is unlikely that any criminal received a more devastating shock than did Captain Nathaniel Clark when, after his ship had docked at Southampton, he stepped off the gangway to find regular police officers from Scotland Yard waiting to take him into custody.
Biggles had then been home for a week, and his report, with the appropriate exhibits, were in the hands of the Public Prosecutor. With such an array of evidence against him Clark’s case was really hopeless from the outset. If further proof of guilt had been needed it was provided by Captain Macdonald’s gold watch, which was found in his luggage, and fingerprints, traces of which still remained on the murder weapon which had been found on the floor of the cabin of the Belinda.
This, incidentally, was one of the few cases in which Biggles and Marcel had to go to Court to give evidence. The prisoner must have listened aghast as surely and inexorably Biggles put the rope round his neck as he told of the long trail across the Pacific in search of evidence and posed questions to which there could be only one answer, the truth. And it must have been with justifiable satisfaction that Biggles heard the judge say, at the conclusion of his summing up: ‘The arm of the law has always had the reputation of being long, but today, as we see, aviation enables it to reach out half-way across the globe.’
The charge was murder, and the verdict, guilty.
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THE CASE OF THE AMBITIOUS FISHMONGER
It is natural to associate crime with such obvious objects of value as money, jewels, gold and silver plate, rare furs and the like; and it is on these of course that the professional thief concentrates his attention. But there are exceptions, and one case that came Biggles’ way provides an example. It illustrates also that while not all crooks carry guns there is a type as formidable as those who do.
Air Commodore Raymond’s instructions were brief and almost casual. Handing a letter to Biggles he said: ‘You’d better have a look at this. It’s from an official of the Scottish Fisheries Board at present at Elgin. He says he believes some night flying is going on that we may know nothing about. The letter was addressed to the Air Ministry. They say they know nothing about it so they’ve passed it on to me.’
‘Elgin,’ murmured Biggles. ‘With several aerod
romes in that part of Scotland there’s bound to be a fair amount of aviation.’
‘Well, slip up and have a word with this Mr Sinclair who wrote the letter. There may be nothing to it, but as he’s been to the trouble of writing the least we can do is investigate. The airfield at Lossiemouth is only a mile or two from Elgin so the job shouldn’t take long.’
‘Okay, sir. I’ll run up right away.’
So Biggles, without enthusiasm, for he supposed this to be one of those cases for which a simple explanation would soon be forthcoming, took off in a Police Proctor with only Ginger for company, Bertie having the day off and Algy being busy on other work. From Lossiemouth a hired car took them to the office of Mr Sinclair, in High Street, Elgin.
Biggles, having introduced himself, came straight to the purpose of his visit. ‘You wrote this letter, sir. I’ve come to ask you if you had anything particular in mind when you wrote it? You say you’ve heard some night flying. Why should you suppose there was anything irregular about it?’
‘I have two reasons,’ answered Mr Sinclair, a shrewd-eyed, sandy-haired Scot of about forty. ‘In the first place, this isn’t a service machine. We see and hear plenty of those. Nor is it a passenger liner. It’s a light plane, and shows no navigational lights.’
‘You’ve actually seen the machine?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve heard it more than once?’
‘I’ve heard it twice, myself. But my water bailiffs have been hearing it steady since last April, always when the moon is full or nearly full. It usually flies the same course, which leads to nowhere—unless you’d call the North Sea an objective.’
‘Do you know anything about aviation, Mr Sinclair?’ asked Biggles.
‘No. But what I’ve told you would have struck me as peculiar even if it hadn’t occurred to me, as it did the day I wrote that letter, that it might have some connection with a little mystery of my own.’
‘Does that mean you have an idea of what might be the motive of this night flying?’
‘Aye.’
‘What do you think it’s doing?’
‘Taking into account certain circumstances of which I am aware, a suspicion has dawned on me that it might be transporting fish to London.’
Biggles looked incredulous. Then he smiled tolerantly. ‘Do you seriously believe that it would be a sane proposition to transport by air inexpensive consumer goods that could more easily, and much more cheaply, be carried by road or rail? And why do it at night, anyway?’
Sinclair answered with a touch of asperity. ‘Aviation is your business. Fish is mine. Your remark makes it clear that while you may be an expert in your own line, there are aspects of mine that you do not understand. It’s likely that there has never been any reason why you should.’
‘I’m sorry,’ returned Biggles, contritely. ‘Every man to his trade. I admit that my knowledge of fish is confined to a dish on the table. Please correct me.’
Said Sinclair, a trifle bitterly: ‘If you had a gang of thieves in London who were getting away regularly with hauls worth two or three thousand pounds there’d be a fine old how-do-you-do. The Press would want to know what Scotland Yard was doing and you’d have thousands of police out to find the answer. Here we have no such facilities. Here we must manage with a few village constables and such watchers as my Board can afford to hire.’
‘Perfectly true,’ conceded Biggles. ‘But we were talking of fish.’
‘Very well,’ said Sinclair. ‘Let us talk of fish. In north-east Scotland, except perhaps on the coast, the word fish is synonymous with salmon. Broadly speaking a salmon can weigh anything between six and forty pounds. Let us put the average at ten pounds. The current price of salmon in the London market is fifteen shillings a pound taking the whole fish. A ten-pound fish, therefore, is worth, in round figures, £7. Five hundred salmon would be worth £3,500. At certain seasons of the year there might be thousands of fish on one spawning bed. Would you still call salmon inexpensive consumer goods?’
Biggles looked startled. ‘You astonish me. I never realized that.’
‘Of course not. But here we do, because the salmon rivers of Scotland are an important part of our economy. We haven’t polluted our rivers as you have in England. At this time of the year you might say that our rivers have as many five pound notes in them as in any London bank. A bank can put its fivers in a safe. Ours are swimming free, and their protection is much more difficult. Notes can be identified by their numbers, but one salmon is like another. A stolen jewel can be spotted, but not a stolen fish.’
‘I see what you mean,’ said Biggles, looking interested.
‘My job is to see that the stock of fish is maintained,’ went on Sinclair. ‘Remember, it isn’t just one river. In this area alone we have the Spey, the Dee, the Don, the Deveron, the Findhorn, the Ness, and their tributaries. The fishing rights of any one of those rivers would be worth a fortune. They are, of course, strictly preserved.’
‘But a man can’t steal a river, Mr Sinclair.’
‘He can steal what’s in it. And he can destroy it.’
‘Destroy it? How.’
‘I’ll tell you. Fish that reach the markets are caught officially in two ways. By syndicates that pay large sums for the right to net the estuaries and anglers who with rod and line fish the upper reaches. They, too, pay dearly for the privilege, the rents helping to pay the rates. There have, of course, always been poachers, local men whose methods were so rough and ready that they did little harm. But the rising price of salmon has introduced a new and much more deadly menace, professional poachers who work in highly organized gangs using expensive equipment. They’re not satisfied with snatching a few fish and making off before the river watcher arrives. Their method is to poison the water. That not only kills the adult fish. It kills everything in the river. By destroying the parr and the smolts, as the young salmon are called, the entire stock is wiped out and the river may remain dead for years.’
‘What a despicable thing to do,’ muttered Biggles. ‘But doesn’t the poison make the fish unfit for human consumption?’
‘No. The flesh is not affected. Only the gills. The fish dies in agony. In a human being it would be like having acid poured into the lungs.’
Biggles looked horrified. ‘For heaven’s sake! What sort of men are these?’
‘They’re men who know the ways of salmon; Scots, I’m sorry to say, rough elements from the cities. They don’t carry weapons. They don’t need them. They’re big, rough brutes. It needs muscle to haul in a net of fish from a fast-flowing river.’
‘It must take a lot of poison to affect a river,’ put in Ginger.
‘Naturally, it is most effective just below the point where it is introduced, but thousands of fish die lower down. Unfortunately the poison is available in almost any quantity. Many insecticides are death to fish. The cyanide products used to destroy rabbits in their burrows are just as fatal to fish.’
‘Can’t you stop this brutal slaughter?’
‘We do our best. We have watchers on the rivers and on the roads, and what few police we have co-operate. But imagine how many men would be needed to patrol one river fifty or sixty miles long! One man is helpless against a gang. We’ve had men beaten up, kicked nearly to death and thrown into the river. We watch the roads because transport is needed to carry a load of fish to a railway-station for shipment to London, or perhaps Glasgow. We know they arrive. But what can we do? Such stolen property as jewellery or furs can be identified, but with thousands of salmon pouring into the market you can’t point to any particular one and say it was poached. At least, you’d have a job to prove it. Well, there it is. I hope I’ve made you see that there is big money in this racket, enough to make the employment of an aircraft worth while.’
‘You’ve certainly opened my eyes,’ admitted Biggles. ‘And it was hearing this aircraft that gave you the idea that it might be working with the poachers?’
‘That and other factors. The fish
haven’t travelled by road. We’ve had every road and every railway-station watched, but fish have got through. There isn’t much traffic in the early hours of the morning. We’ve stopped cars and trucks, but found no fish. We may even have stopped the culprit, but the law is such that in order to get a conviction we’ve got to catch the poachers with salmon in their possession.’
‘You say you know of occasions when, with the roads watched, fish have got through,’ said Biggles. ‘How do you know that?’
‘The price in London, at Billingsgate fish market, tells us. For what reason should the price slump suddenly perhaps three or four shillings a pound? That could only be the result of a big quantity of fish being thrown on the market. Where did they come from? Not from normal official sources. We can check on those. We also know that these fish have arrived within a few hours of a river being poisoned. How could that happen unless an aircraft was being used?’
‘You make a point there,’ agreed Biggles.
‘When my watchers first reported hearing an aircraft flying low on nights when the poachers had been active, I paid no attention. I could no more associate flying with fish than could you when you first walked into my office. Then I began to think. Why did this plane show no lights? Where could it be going? North-east Scotland is lonely country and not many services operate over it. Then a suspicion dawned in my mind and I decided to write to the Air Ministry.’
Biggles fingered his chin reflectively. ‘Now I realize that salmon are, as you say, five pound notes, I think you may be right. Frankly, I had no idea fish were so valuable. The problem now is how to confirm your suspicions. There’s no point in my sitting about on some lonely moor night after night hoping to hear the plane. Even if I heard it I could do nothing about it. I couldn’t follow it. I couldn’t stop it. No. We shall have to tackle this from the London end. Let’s leave it like this for the moment. The next time this plane is heard ring my office at Scotland Yard. It’s up to no good, anyway, or it would be showing the regulation lights. Or if you even suspect the poachers are out, ring me. I’ll then watch the fish market at Billingsgate to see what happens.’