Biggles Sorts it Out Read online

  CONTENTS

  GEOGRAPHICAL NOTE

  CHAPTER 1: A NOBLE LORD IN TROUBLE

  CHAPTER 2: LORD LANGDON TELLS THE STORY

  CHAPTER 3: THE LADY CAROLINE

  CHAPTER 4: BIGGLES MAKES SOME CALLS

  CHAPTER 5: AN UNEXPECTED CLUE

  CHAPTER 6: THE TRAIL PETERS OUT

  CHAPTER 7: THE KALAHARI

  CHAPTER 8: A SHOT—FROM WHERE?

  CHAPTER 9: CARTER HAS SOME ANSWERS

  CHAPTER 10: FORT SCHWARZ

  CHAPTER 11: MICK CONNOR

  CHAPTER 12: AN UNEXPECTED HAZARD

  CHAPTER 13: TENSE WORK BY MOONLIGHT

  CHAPTER 14: BERTIE TAKES A CHANCE

  CHAPTER 15: BROWNING TELLS HIS TALE

  CHAPTER 16: CURTAINS FOR CONNOR

  CHAPTER 17: A FAMILY HATCHET IS BURIED

  GEOGRAPHICAL NOTE

  THE KALAHARI DESERT

  SOUTH-WEST Africa, of which Windhoek is the chief town, was until the First World War when British troops took over, a German colony. To the north it is bounded by Portuguese Angola; to the south by the Republic of South Africa who now administers the territory, and to the east by Bechuanaland1 which contains most of the great Kalahari Desert, hundreds of miles of brown, arid, blistering earth, a country that has dried up.

  The Kalahari is not a desert in the sense of the Sahara, just rolling dunes of yellow sand. That is to say, there are areas of sparse scrub and trees, and sufficient herbage to support a certain amount of wild life, including big game, notably in the region of what is called the Etosha Pan. This is a vast low-lying area of what was once an inland sea but is now mostly black saline slime. There is a similar marshy piece of country called the Okavango Basin.

  Living a homeless precarious existence on whatever he can kill, or dig up out of the ground, are small brown natives called Bushmen, perhaps the most primitive people left on earth. There is a theory that these were the prehistoric inhabitants of the whole of Central Africa. Harassed by Arab slave traders in the north, they were forced south. Then, to South Africa, came the white men, so the last remnants of the tribes finally found refuge in a land so barren and so inhospitable that nobody wanted it. The Kalahari. There they learned to live practically without food or water, saved from extinction by a small melon, called T’Sama, which at certain times of the year grows in patches sometimes covering many acres. It provides both food and drink, and buried in the ground will keep for a long time.

  The Bushman still lives the life of his remote ancestors, but it is likely that his days are numbered. His only weapon is a small bow which shoots a poisoned arrow. An animal struck by one will eventually die, but before it collapses the archer may have to follow it for days. He then eats as much as his stomach will hold: one might say more, because living as he does his stomach has developed the faculty of extraordinary expansion, so that he is literally pot-bellied. He has now, perforce, come to accept the white man.

  Inevitably there are strange tales and rumours about the Kalahari, told by explorers or perhaps drift in through the Bushmen. One concerns the ruins of a lost city in the sand; of long man-made walls and terraces. There are tales of treasures, of course, some of fabulous deposits of diamonds in dried-up river beds. There may be some truth in these because from time to time a Bushman has produced a fine diamond. Where it came from he will not say. Perhaps he doesn’t know. It may have accompanied the tribe through years of wanderings. As in other parts of Africa there have been rumours of a lost race of white men, isolated and cut off from civilization by hundreds of miles of desert. But maybe these can best be forgotten.

  W.E.J.

  * * *

  1 Bechuanaland became the Republic of Botswana on 30th September 1966.

  CHAPTER 1

  A NOBLE LORD IN TROUBLE

  THE intercom telephone on Biggles’ desk buzzed. He picked up the receiver. ‘Bigglesworth here,’ he said. After listening for a moment he went on: ‘Right away, sir,’ and replaced the instrument. ‘The chief wants to see me,’ he informed his staff pilots and left the room.

  A knock on the door and he entered the office of Assistant-Commissioner Air Commodore Raymond, head of the Special Air Section at Scotland Yard.

  ‘Have you had any report of a plane being lost, stolen or strayed from its hangar?’ questioned the Air Commodore without preamble.

  ‘No, sir. If anything like that has happened we’ve had no information about it,’ answered Biggles.

  ‘I see. That answers that question.’

  ‘Had you a reason to suppose that an aircraft was missing from its base?’

  ‘It was just a possibility. Forget it for the time being. I’ve just had a visit from Sir Basil Goodall who, in case you don’t know, holds an important job in the Diplomatic Corps. He thinks we might be able to help him—or rather, help a friend of his.’

  ‘Who’s the friend?’ inquired Biggles, a trifle suspiciously.

  ‘Lord Phillip de Langdon of Ferndale.’

  Biggles smiled faintly. ‘So we now move in high society.’

  ‘Do you know anything about him?’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Nor had I until this morning,’ admitted the Air Commodore. ‘Matter of fact, all I know now is what I have just learned from Sir Basil and gathered from a line or two about him in Who’s Who.’

  ‘And what have you learned, sir?’

  ‘He’s sixty-two, a widower with a daughter of sixteen and lives at Ferndale Manor, in Surrey. His hobbies are travel and big game hunting, a subject on which he has written one or two books. The title was created in the sixteenth century. That’s about all. Four lines in Who’s Who is a very short piece for a noble lord of ancient ancestry. I gather from Sir Basil that he’s a bit eccentric, shuns publicity and doesn’t take kindly to strangers.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound very promising. What’s his trouble?’

  ‘It appears he has lost some valuable property.’

  ‘Consisting of what?’

  ‘A collection of rubies, one reputed to be fabulous.’

  ‘How did he lose them?’

  ‘They were stolen.’

  ‘From the house?’

  ‘Presumably.’

  ‘So the local police will be on the job.’

  ‘No. They have not been informed of the theft.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘His lordship doesn’t want a fuss. As I’ve said, he dislikes publicity.’

  ‘That’s a queer outlook. What does he expect us to do?’

  ‘Find the rubies, I imagine. We shall know more about it when we’ve seen him.’

  ‘Are we going to see him?’

  ‘Yes. Right away. Sir Basil rang up from here and made an appointment for us for eleven-thirty.’

  Biggles glanced at the clock. ‘We haven’t too much time.’

  ‘That’s all right. Ferndale Manor isn’t far from Dorking. We should get there inside an hour.’

  ‘Was there any reason why he shouldn’t have come here?’

  ‘I suppose there wasn’t. Maybe there’s something in the house he thinks we ought to see. Or perhaps as a peer of the realm he expects to be waited on. All I know is he got in touch with Sir Basil for advice and he must have decided that we were the best people to tackle the problem.’

  ‘For any particular reason?’

  ‘Apparently his lordship has reason to believe that an aircraft may have been used by the thief for his get-away. That’s why I decided to take you along to hear the story at first-hand.’

  ‘Ah! So that’s where we come in. No doubt we shall find that the manor stands in a park with an open space big enough for a plane to land on.’

  ‘No. That’s the very question I put to Sir Basil
. He knows the place and says it’s all pretty well wooded.’

  ‘Then I don’t get it.’

  ‘We shall learn more of the aviation aspect from Lord Langdon, no doubt.’

  ‘When did this theft occur—yesterday?’

  ‘It may have been anything up to two months ago.’

  ‘Two months! For crying out loud!’

  ‘The rubies were kept in a safe in the library. Lord Langdon rarely had occasion to look at them. Three days ago he decided, for some reason, to check them. They had disappeared.’

  ‘So he doesn’t know when they went?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It could have been weeks ago?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then all I can say is he has a mighty poor chance of ever seeing them again. Why did he suddenly decide to check them?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he’ll tell us. But let’s be on our way. I have a car standing by.’

  ‘Seems a queer business to me,’ muttered Biggles. ‘Do you mind if I use your phone to tell Lissie to take over as I’m going out?’

  ‘Do so.’

  Biggles put through the call and he and the Air Commodore went down to the car.

  In a little over an hour it was cruising up a broad avenue of stately beech trees.

  ‘These weren’t planted yesterday,’ observed Biggles.

  ‘No. Nor the day before,’ returned the Air Commodore dryly. ‘As I told you, the Langdons have been here a long time.’

  ‘I don’t see anywhere here for a plane to get down,’ said Biggles, looking around. ‘Sir Basil was right. More isolated trees than open land.’

  The mansion house, a big, sprawling but imposing building came into sight. ‘I wonder how his lordship gets the money to keep up a place of that size,’ murmured Biggles. ‘Most of these vast old houses are either falling down or being converted into flats or offices.’

  ‘Maybe rents from the farms on the estate keep him going,’ surmised the Air Commodore. ‘Or, of course, he may have sold some of the outlying land for capital. I imagine Lord Langdon to be the sort of man who would hang on to the family home as long as possible.’

  ‘Of course, if he ran short of money there would always be the rubies to fall back on—if he still had them.’

  The Air Commodore looked at Biggles sharply. ‘What does that imply?’

  ‘Nothing... nothing... except that if his lordship was reckoning on them as an asset he’d be shaken to find they’d gone.’

  The Air Commodore looked at his watch. ‘Just in nice time,’ he said, as Biggles brought the car to a stop before the pillared front entrance.

  The doorbell was answered by an old man in the dress of a house servant. The Air Commodore gave his name.

  ‘His lordship is expecting you, sir,’ said the man gravely. ‘He is waiting for you in the library. Follow me, please.’

  A short walk down a corridor decorated with hunting trophies brought the little party to a door. A gentle knock and the manservant opened it to announce: ‘Air Commodore Raymond, my lord.’

  A man was standing alone on a tiger-skin rug in front of the fireplace below the mounted head of an African buffalo with a tremendous spread of horns. ‘Come in,’ he invited, in a deep sonorous voice which nevertheless had a hard edge on it. ‘Pray be seated.’

  ‘I’ve brought Air Detective-Inspector Bigglesworth with me,’ said the Air Commodore. ‘He’s my chief aviation expert,’ he explained.

  ‘Good. Good. We shall need all the brains we can muster to solve this unpleasant problem,’ said Lord Langdon, in his deep voice. ‘Would you care for a glass of sherry after your journey?’

  The offer was accepted, Biggles looking hard at the man they had come to see. He had half expected an unusual type but nothing quite as outstanding as this.

  Lord Langdon would have been a striking figure anywhere, in any society. He was not less than six and a half feet tall with shoulders in proportion. With a figure as straight and lean as that of an athlete, he certainly did not look his age. The only indication of it was a few grey hairs in a bristling black beard. His hair, too, was thick, and worn rather long. The skin of his face, stretched tightly over the bones, had a parchment-like quality. It was dominated by a nose shaped like the beak of a bird of prey. Thick bushy eyebrows overhung dark eyes that had a disconcerting glint in them. As a young man he must have been strikingly handsome, decided Biggles. Whatever else he might be, this was not a man to be trifled with. He seemed to ooze energy, power, and inflexibility of purpose. He would have dominated any company.

  He fitted well into the room in which he had received his guests. It appeared to be a mixture of library, museum and armoury. From all sides, above and around glass-fronted bookcases, were the heads of dangerous animals, white-fanged, red-mouthed, eyes glaring. The skin of what must have been a monstrous snake, a python or anaconda a full twenty feet long, ran almost the length of one wall. Biggles did not doubt that the man pouring out the drinks had been responsible for the deaths of all these creatures. He must have spent a great deal of his life doing it.

  At intervals on a wall, resting on brackets, were the instruments that had done the killing; a regular battery of firearms, from shotguns to a variety of rifles which included an elephant gun. In a corner of the room, on a stand, looking rather incongruous, was a safe, a simple old-fashioned model which any safe-breaker who knew his job would have opened in five minutes.

  Lord Langdon handed his guests their drinks with large sinewy hands which Biggles was sure could have tied an iron poker into a knot.

  ‘I will tell you why I sought the advice of Sir Basil Goodall,’ he said. ‘He is one of my few friends, one of the very few men I would trust. Moreover, he knows my aversion to publicity. I trust that you, too, will respect my confidence. Let us have that absolutely clear from the outset. I want no word of this to get into the newspapers. I would like to recover the property I have lost, but I have no interest whatever in the thief. As far as I am concerned he can go to hell.’

  ‘It would be impossible to convict this man, even if we caught him, without taking him to court; and if he is taken to court, the case would be heard in public and consequently reported in the press,’ the Air Commodore pointed out.

  ‘We will deal with that obstacle when we come to it,’ was the answer. ‘First I will tell you my story. When I have finished you may ask me any questions you wish and I will answer them to the best of my ability. Let us start at the beginning.’ Lord Langdon sat down.

  CHAPTER 2

  LORD LANGDON TELLS THE STORY

  ‘I HAPPEN to be the owner of a fine collection of jewels,’ began Lord Langdon. ‘They are heirlooms. How much they would be worth in the open market today I do not know. To the best of my knowledge they have never been expertly valued. They were kept in that safe.’ The speaker pointed to the safe in the corner. ‘They are no longer there. When they were taken I do not know, but I think I know the man who took them.’

  ‘But you must have some idea of when they disappeared,’ the Air Commodore said.

  ‘Why should I? I rarely had occasion to open the safe. Even now, but for the most extraordinary fluke, I would not have known that the jewels, which consist largely of a remarkable collection of rubies, had gone.’

  ‘You reported the theft at once to the local police, of course.’

  ‘No. I never do anything in a hurry. I felt I needed time to think about it.’

  ‘The insurance people won’t like that, sir.’

  ‘The jewels were not insured.’

  Biggles looked incredulous. ‘Why not, sir?’

  ‘It would have meant trouble; inventories, valuation and that sort of thing, and somehow I never found time to get around to it. You see, more often than not I am abroad. I can let you have a list of the items from memory should you need one.’

  ‘The delay in reporting the theft won’t make it any easier for us to recover your property,’ said the Air Commodore dubiously. ‘It could be
anywhere by now. How were the jewels kept in the safe—in cases?’

  ‘No. They were all rolled up together in a piece of black velvet. They were always kept like that even when my wife was alive. She seldom had occasion to wear them. My daughter has never worn them. She is not old enough. On my death they would have become hers.’

  ‘She knew what was in the safe?’ queried Biggles.

  ‘Yes. One day, some time ago, I showed her the jewels.’

  ‘You say you think you know who took them?’

  ‘Yes. But I have no proof.’

  ‘Whom do you suspect?’

  ‘A man who was employed here: a footman named Richard Browning. It came about like this. About twelve months ago my old footman, Parker, who had served the house since he was a boy, died. I advertised in the Times newspaper for a new man to replace him. I had several replies, but the man I chose made his application in person. I liked him. He was a good-looking, well-spoken young fellow with an open, honest face, who looked you straight in the eye. As his references appeared to be in order I engaged him on the spot. For a long time I had no reason to regret this. He was intelligent above the average and it was remarkable the way he settled down to his duties. This is a big house, but he soon knew his way about as if he had lived here all his life.’

  ‘You say his references appeared to be in order,’ prompted Biggles. ‘Weren’t they?’

  Lord Langdon picked up from the table some papers pinned together. ‘Here they are. Bogus. Fakes, every one of them.’

  ‘When did you discover this?’

  ‘During the last day or two.’

  ‘Didn’t you check at the time?’

  ‘No. I suppose that was careless of me. Rather than go to any trouble I accepted them at their face value.’

  The Air Commodore shook his head sadly. ‘You were asking for trouble. May I ask what caused you to go to the safe to check that the jewels were there?’

  ‘That was most extraordinary. Last week I went to London to do some shopping. Walking down Bond Street I paused to look in the window of a jeweller’s shop. Forniers, to be precise. Imagine my surprise when I saw offered for sale a ring identical with the one I had here: a large ruby set in a circle of diamonds. My first impression was that it must be a facsimile.’