Biggles in Mexico Page 13

  At the word puncture a bell seemed to ring in Ginger’s head. In the drama of events he had forgotten that he had had a puncture on the road just before the storm broke. He had changed the wheel, using, of course, the spare. The puncture had been in the front right-hand tyre. In a flash he understood what had happened. Ritzy had probably spoken the truth. The diamonds were now on the spare wheel bracket. He, and he alone of the men there, knew the secret of the missing stones. The danger of holding that vital piece of information did not escape him.

  He looked at the car for the spare wheel. It was not where it should be. He couldn’t see it. What had happened to it? Had he, after changing the wheel, forgotten to put it on? Had it fallen off, or been knocked off, in one of his several collisions, with saguaros and the like, after he had gone off the road?

  He tried to think, going over in his mind exactly what he had done throughout the procedure of changing the wheel. He remembered jacking up the car and removing the damaged wheel. He remembered fetching the spare. He remembered that distinctly, for the clip was a type new to him and in the dark he had had rather a job to get it off. He remembered putting it on and removing the jack. But try as he would he could not recollect actually putting the damaged wheel on the bracket, or putting the disc on the new wheel. He had a vague recollection of seeing the disc slide down the bank. But then, he pondered, he wouldn’t necessarily remember what was, after all, an automatic, mechanical action. Only this was certain: the wheel containing the stones was either lying beside the road where he had left it, or it was somewhere on the mesa between the road and the place where the dismantled car now lay.

  What worried him was, presently one of the men was bound to notice that the spare wheel was missing. Had they not been so engrossed in what they were doing, with only diamonds on their minds, they must have noticed it already. What was going to happen when the discovery was made? What was he to say? Plead ignorance or tell the truth?

  He waited.

  The rear wheels now lay on the ground, their tyres in shreds. Ritzy stared helplessly. Schultz and his helpers stood close together, looking at him. Their expressions were ominous. To Ginger the tension was like waiting for a bomb to burst. No one took the slightest notice of the aircraft roaring low overhead.

  Then the bomb burst.

  It was Ritzy who noticed that the spare wheel was missing. ‘Just a minute,’ he cried shrilly. ‘Where’s the spare wheel?’

  ‘Are you sure there was one?’ inquired Schultz, coldly.

  ‘Am I sure? Of course I’m sure! Do you think I’d be so daft as to travel in country like this, on these sort of roads, without a spare? The last time I saw this car the spare wheel was on it.

  Schultz’s lips curled. ‘That’s enough,’ he grated. ‘He’s lying.’ He made a signal. ‘Let him have it.’

  The two men raised their guns and took deliberate aim.

  ‘Just a minute,’ Ginger found himself saying. ‘If you’re looking for the spare wheel I can explain that.’

  In thus betraying himself to save a man who was not only a crook but one who had committed murder, Ginger felt he was behaving foolishly. Ritzy meant nothing to him. But something in him recoiled from just standing there, watching a man shot in cold blood for something for which he was not responsible. Whatever the consequences Ginger felt he could not allow that to happen. Not that he really thought about it. The words he had spoken had come instinctively to his lips. He was convinced that Ritzy had told the truth when he had said the diamonds were in the tyre. They should have been, and it was not Ritzy’s fault that they were not.

  All the attention was now on Ginger.

  ‘What do you know about it?’ asked Schultz. He had to speak loudly to make himself heard above the noise of the aircraft.

  ‘I had a puncture on the road and had to change a wheel,’ Ginger informed them. ‘I need hardly say,’ he added cynically, ‘that I knew nothing about the tyre being stuffed with diamonds.’

  ‘What did you do with the wheel you took off?’ asked Schultz.

  ‘In the ordinary way I would have said I put it on the clips from which I took the spare wheel.’

  ‘Why isn’t it there now?’

  ‘One of two things must have happened. Either I left it lying beside the road, having forgotten to pick it up, or it could have been knocked off while I was blundering about in the dark afterwards, when I was off the road. I bumped into all sorts of things before I ended up in three feet of water. The wheel could have been washed off. So you see, Brabinsky could have told the truth.’

  ‘How could it have been washed off?’

  ‘It was dark when I changed over and there’s a chance I didn’t fasten it securely. I had a job to get the spare wheel off. The clips were new to me.’

  All eyes were on Ginger as he made this statement, which he thought did not sound very convincing. The others were looking at him as if they thought the same thing.

  Why Ritzy acted as he did Ginger could only guess. It may be that, knowing he was likely to be murdered, he grabbed at a chance to get away with his life. What was perhaps more likely, thinking if he could get away he might find the wheel and hide it somewhere he would be in a stronger position to bargain, he decided to take a chance on getting clear.

  Ginger had a suspicion of what he had in mind because while talking, with all eyes on him, he noticed that Ritzy was edging away, cautiously, with occasional sidelong glances at the bank leading to the top of the arroyo. Suddenly he spun round and raced for the lip. Raced may not be the right word, although that, no doubt, was what he intended. But the sand was soft and slid from under his feet as it took his weight.

  The end of this forlorn hope was inevitable. Ritzy got about half-way to the top. There was a volley of shots. He stopped, swayed and collapsed. Then, quite slowly, he rolled over and over back to the bed of the arroyo, where, in a crumpled heap, he lay still.

  Dry-lipped with horror at the spectacle of this cold-blooded murder Ginger could only stare. ‘You’ll pay for that one day,’ he heard himself telling Schultz, in a thin flat voice.

  ‘So?’ sneered Schultz. ‘Who’ll make me pay?’

  ‘It may not be me, but you'll pay.’

  Schultz pointed his automatic. ‘Unless you can find that wheel you’ll be next,’ he promised, viciously.

  CHAPTER 15

  GINGER TAKES A CHANCE

  GINGER looked at the grim faces confronting him and knew that unless the diamonds were found he could expect no mercy. He would, he thought, be lucky to receive any, either way. His common sense told him that after what he had seen, this ruthless gang, probably chosen for that very quality, would hardly be likely to allow him to walk away and denounce them. He knew too much. Unarmed, he couldn’t even make a fight of it. The odds of three to one against him were too great.

  The best he could hope for was, having got the diamonds, they would in their haste to get to the border abandon him in the desert. Actually, he was a little surprised that he had not already been shot out of hand. He could only suppose they thought he might be useful to them in identifying the exact spot where he had changed the wheel. This belief turned out to be correct.

  The sun was now half down the horizon. In a few minutes it would be dark, and to look for the wheel then, or at any rate until the moon came up, would be a waste of time. He became aware that the aircraft had gone. In his state of mind he had not seen it go.

  ‘Let’s get back to the road,’ said Schultz. ‘You can show us where you changed tyres. If we can’t find the wheel beside the road we’ll wait for the moon and try to find the cactus you ran into. If you’ve told the truth there should be marks.’

  ‘If the wheel had been left beside the road we should have seen it this morning when we were on the way to the border, or going back to Eltora,’ remarked one of Schultz’s men.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ disputed Schultz. ‘We were going pretty fast.’

  They walked on.

  Ginger had several tim
es thought of Biggles. He couldn’t imagine what he was doing. Where was he? He would certainly be looking for him. According to Juan he had gone off with José in his brake, and that could be for no other purpose that he could think of. Even if he had gone back to Eltora to look for him there, when he found he was not there he would return to the road. He wouldn’t just sit down and wait for him.

  They were now threading their way, in early twilight, through the mixed desert vegetation towards the road, and Ginger decided that the time had nearly come for him to make a dash for safety. He would wait for it to get a little darker. Darkness would give him a chance. The danger would be in the first rush. If only he could get clear they would never find him in the thorny jungle.

  He had no intention of showing Schultz where he had changed wheels even if he could find the place, which he thought unlikely. He had already made up his mind about that. To do so would be as good as putting the diamonds in Schultz’s pocket and he was not going to do that whatever the cost. Once that happened there would no longer be any point in keeping him alive, anyway. On this score Ginger had no delusions. It was plain that the only reason why he had not been shot was because Schultz thought he might still be useful in locating the missing wheel. That would save a lot of time. Schultz had told Ritzy that time was of no importance, but that wasn’t true. He wouldn’t want to stay in Mexico an hour longer than was necessary. Without help it might take him a very long time to find the wheel.

  Ginger perceived clearly that he was now in the position that Ritzy had occupied earlier in the day. Only Ritzy had known exactly where the diamonds had been hidden in the car. Parting with his secret had cost him his life. Now it was thought that he, Ginger, knew where they were — or at all events knew where the vital wheel was. Actually, he didn’t know to within a mile, but he was not going to admit that until it became evident. The longer he could keep Schultz guessing the better would be his chance, not only of defeating him but of saving his own life.

  Thus thought Ginger as he trudged on, now looking for a good place to put his escape plan into action.

  Unable to see any distance ahead he perceived, to his intense disgust and dismay, that he had left it too late. Quite suddenly, without warning, they rounded a clump of mesquit to find themselves on the open road.

  Schultz looked at him. ‘Well, now do you know where you are?’ he questioned, harshly.

  Ginger did not know where he was beyond the obvious fact that he was on the road. The road looked much the same everywhere. But following his policy of anything to waste time he was not going to say that.

  What he said was: ‘I think it must have been somewhere about here, on the other side, that I changed the wheels. The place can’t be far away.’

  He felt he had to say something. Still looking for the ideal spot to make his dash, saying ‘Let’s have a look,’ he walked across the road to the opposite side. But Schultz, gun in hand, stayed with him. The other two followed.

  Ginger saw it was no use. The road was too open. Schultz was too close. Whichever way he went there would be time for shots to be fired and he could hardly hope for all three of them to miss. He began to make a pretence of searching along the verge.

  He was still doing this, in a silence that had become menacing, when the million to one chance came off. He saw the wheel.

  What he actually saw was the glint of the dying sun on a wheel disc; and even though it was not attached to the wheel he knew the wheel couldn’t be far away. There could hardly be two car wheel discs lying beside the lonely road. This, without doubt, was where he had been forced to stop with the puncture.

  Oddly enough, either on account of the nervous tension he was under, or because he was looking at the place, everything suddenly became clear. He remembered every move distinctly. He saw himself jacking up the car and taking off the wheel. He remembered that when in his haste he had thrown it aside it had rolled down a shallow bank into a sagebush, in which doubtless it still rested. He had noted the position of it, and the disc, intending to collect them when he had fixed the spare wheel. He had no recollection of doing that. It was now obvious that what with the darkness, the approaching storm, and his anxiety to press on, he had forgotten to do it.

  All this passed through his head in a flash. Holding his breath he took a pace aside, put his foot on the disc and twisted it to grind it deeper into the sand. This done he walked on, still apparently searching. No one spoke.

  Ginger breathed again. The men had not noticed anything. Out of the corners of his eyes he saw they were paying more attention to what he was doing than to the road itself. He congratulated himself. They hadn’t noticed the disc. It would now be more difficult than ever to find.

  In order to keep attention focused on himself, and perhaps to account for his failure to find the wheel, he remarked: ‘You realize that if the wheel had been left in view of the road somebody might have come along and picked it up?’

  ‘We should have seen it ourselves,’ answered Schultz, shortly.

  ‘You may not have noticed it. The wheel didn’t mean anything to you then. Anyway, somebody may have come along before you,’ argued Ginger.

  ‘There has been no traffic on the road. We have been on the road ourselves all day and would have seen anyone else on it.’

  ‘What about that old prospector?’

  ‘What use would the wheel have been to him?’

  ‘He might have taken it along and lodged it at the frontier post hoping for a reward. It would have some value, certainly to the man who lost it.’

  ‘We should have seen it when we spoke to him.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have seen it had it been under the tarpaulin. That burro1 looked to have a heavy load.’

  Although Ginger was talking chiefly for the sake of talking this seemed to be a reasonable argument. But it cut no ice with Schultz.

  ‘What with picks and shovels and crowbars that donkey had enough to carry without a useless wheel,’ he said.

  ‘It was just an idea,’ returned Ginger. ‘It struck me that you could still overtake him before he reached the border.’

  This bright suggestion — at least, Ginger thought it was a bright one to gain time — met with no response.

  They walked on a little way, Ginger still searching the verge, the others on the road watching him closely. Ginger felt that this couldn’t go on much longer and he was right.

  One of Schultz’s men stopped. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ he grumbled. ‘We shan’t find anything in this light. Either this kid’s fooling us or he knows nothing. Let’s finish with him and go back to Eltora for the night. You can see he’s no idea where he changed the wheels. He’s just killing time. We can come back tomorrow morning when we shall be able to see better what we’re doing.’

  ‘What are you going to say to Bigglesworth?’ asked the other man. ‘He’ll be in Eltora. He’ll ask questions.’

  ‘We can deal with him. He’d be better out of the way. He’s the only man in the place likely to come looking for this one.’

  ‘I think you are right,’ agreed Schultz. ‘We’d better go back to the car, or as it’s off the road we may have difficulty in finding it.’

  They all turned about, and telling Ginger to keep in front where they could see him, started walking back.

  So this was the end, thought Ginger, desperately. They would shoot Biggles, too. He had done his best. He had done well to gain a respite, but he couldn’t expect the farce to continue indefinitely. His delaying tactics had served their purpose, but they were played out. When they reached the car they would shoot him as they had shot Ritzy. Knowing what he knew the last thing they’d do would be to take him near Eltora.

  An idea came to him and he determined on a final effort.

  Approaching the area where he knew the wheel to lie he pulled up short, staring at a towering saguaro on the far side of the road and a little way back from it. One of its arms had broken and hung down, reaching nearly to the ground.

  �
�Now what is it?’ snapped Schultz.

  Ginger pointed. ‘That cactus. The one with a broken arm. I remember it. It’s the one I barged into in the dark. When I ran into it that arm crashed down on top of the car and frightened me to death.’

  All this, of course, was perfectly true. Ginger had reason to remember the incident. And, knowing where the wheel really was, he had no hesitation in calling attention to it.

  ‘Well?’ questioned Schultz.

  ‘The thought struck me that’s where the spare wheel might have been jolted off, or knocked off.’

  Ginger waited for the verdict. If they would leave the road to have a look at the foot of the cactus he would have a chance. There had been enough room for him to back out of the mess. That meant there was a little open space surrounded by the usual desert vegetation.

  ‘No harm in looking,’ decided Schultz. ‘It would save us a lot of time if it was there. I reckoned to be across the border by now.’

  They all left the road and picked their way through the few yards of mesquit to the spot where the uncouth vegetable raised its arms. But Schultz was taking no chances of losing his prisoner. He made Ginger walk in front of him. He walked behind with his pistol pushed into the small of Ginger’s back. In this manner they reached the little open space which Ginger remembered.

  ‘He’s right,’ asserted one of Schultz’s men suddenly. There are wheel marks here. And I can see where the car hit the tree. It knocked some of the skin off. It’s still wet where the sap’s running out.’

  The pressure on Ginger’s back was relaxed as Schultz took a pace forward to look. All eyes were on the ground.

  For Ginger the time had come. His last chance. It was now or never.

  ‘Look out!’ he cried shrilly. ‘Mind that snake!’

  There was no snake. At least, he saw nothing like one. But his shout of alarm served its purpose. In the moment of confusion that followed, with everyone looking wildly for the reptile, he took a swift leap to behind the saguaro as if he himself was trying to avoid the snake. He didn’t stop. Once round, bent double, he dived into the nearest chaparral. Seconds later, catching his foot in a root he went headlong.