BIGGLES OF THE INTERPOL

by Captain W. E. Johns

8. MURDER BY THIRST (Pages 136 – 146)

“Biggles looked up from his desk as a Scotland Yard messenger entered the Air Police office and announced that “two young people” wished to see him. “What do they want to see me about?” asked Biggles. “They say they’d rather tell you personally”. “All right. Show them in”. The two young people enter, one is a tall boy of perhaps seventeen; the other, a girl somewhat younger. The boy asks “Are you the famous Biggles?” “Well, let’s say I’m Biggles, anyway. Who are you?” The boy is John Murray, from Kalgoorlie, and the girl is Sally Dunn, from Perth. They arrived from Australia a week ago to finish their studies at the London School of Music. John tells Biggles that about four months ago, an elderly Englishman, called Mr Farlow arrived in Western Australia to go gold prospecting. He was looking for a partner and found a well-known bad character, named Black Jack Barnes. “He’s been in prison more than once. He was usually drunk and looking for a fight with someone – anyone”. “Why did no one warn Mr Farlow that this fellow was a wrong-un?” The answer is no one knew until it was too late and the two of them had gone off in a jeep. Some weeks passed without any sign of them, so an air search was started. The jeep was found bogged down in soft mud with dry tanks, but Farlow and Barnes were never found. John says Barnes boarded their plane at Darwin and flew to London. They recognised him and were not mistaken as he was missing two end fingers, which he had lost previously when blasting rock with dynamite. John asks how Barnes, who was always broke, get the money to come to London? If he had found gold, why not stake a claim. John thinks that would lead to questions about his missing partner. “In other words, you think Barnes may have murdered Farlow?” says Biggles. John and Sally think Biggles should find Barnes and ask him what happened to Farlow. “If he says Farlow died ask him where he buried the body. In Australia a man doesn’t leave his partner lying about for dingo meat”. Biggles says they have done right to report this. He asks for a description of Barnes. Sally has taken a photograph of him asleep on the plane and she gives this to Biggles. The two young Australians leave and Biggles asks to see Inspector Gaskin and tells him about Barnes and gives him the photograph. “I want discreet inquiries made round the gold mining companies to find out if he has called on them and if so for what purpose”. Biggles suggests they start with companies having interests in Australia. By the evening, Gaskin is back to report that Barnes is on his way back to Australia with a mining engineer and surveyor, in a plane belonging to the Antipodes Mining Corporation. Gaskin says he showed them samples of quartz stuffed with gold and said he knows where there’s tons of it. Biggles asks when the plane left and is told it was yesterday. Biggles says “Fine. With luck we might still beat it to Australia. I’ll go and have a word with the Air Commodore. I think he'll agree that a run to Australia is indicated”.

“A week later found the Air Police Wellington heading out over the lonely wastelands that comprise so much of Western Australia. Sitting besides Biggles in the cockpit, acting as guide, was the police sergeant who had been with the search party when the jeep was found”. Biggles had discussed the affair at some length with the Australian police officials but had learned little more than he already knew. Biggles knew that if Barnes had murdered his partner and buried the body, it would be futile to search for it. “There was still some doubt about the murder theory, the weak part being the motive; for if the prospectors had by a lucky chance ‘struck it rich’ there would have been no reason for Barnes to kill his companion, since there would have been ample wealth for both of them”. They fly out to a ridge of blue hills called the Musgraves, where the jeep was found in a drift just to the side of them. Biggles wants to land and wait “Until Barnes comes. I look at it like this. He found gold. That we know. He’ll come back. The place where he made the strike can’t be far from where the jeep was found, so if we sit down we should either see him or hear the aircraft when it arrives. This is the one place where, sooner or later, we can be sure of finding him”. Flying over the place where the jeep was found, they fly around looking for anything like a body. Biggles says a dying man would look for shade and the only shade they can see is clump of mulga, so Biggles lands and goes to have a look. “Suddenly he stopped. “That, I fancy, is all that’s left of the man we’re looking for,” he said quietly, pointing to some shrivelled, mummified remains lying against a stump”. (“Suddenly Biggles stopped” is the illustration opposite page 140). The sergeant examines the body and confirms “It’s him”. There is a note in the pocket. The sergeant reads it and says “He must have hoped that someone would find him, one day”. “What happened?” asks Biggles. “He says they found gold, a vein of quartz so rich that the metal was sticking out of it. On the way home to register their claims, Barnes, who was driving, by accident or design stuck the jeep in a sand drift. They were already short of water, but there was nothing else for it but to start walking. The first night out, Farlow says, while he was asleep, Barnes went off taking all the remaining water with him. He woke up to find himself alone. Knowing he hadn’t a hope of getting back he wrote this letter and crept into the only bit of shade to die”. Biggles dropped his cigarette end and put his heel on it. “I don’t know what the law is in this country but if Barnes took all the water knowing his partner must die of thirst, then he killed him just as surely as it he had put a bullet through his head”. The sergeant agrees. They hear a plane coming and watch it land on the edge of the foothills of the mountain range. They make their way to the aircraft and find it empty, but wait two hours for Barnes and his companions to return. The sergeant says he wants a word with Barnes. One of the surveyors says that Barnes is a lucky man. “He’s made a strike that will cause a sensation”. “It’ll cause a sensation all right,” returned the sergeant, caustically. He faced the prospector squarely. “Where’s Mr Farlow”. The sergeant is told that Farlow died of snake-bite and Barnes buried him but he can’t say exactly where. “You needn’t try,” sneered the sergeant. “We’ve found him. Before he died he wrote a letter, and the story it tells is a different one from yours. The Court can decide which is the right one”. Barnes’ hand goes towards his pocket “but it stopped when he found himself looking into the muzzle of Biggles’ gun”. Barnes is handcuffed. Biggles tells the sergeant “Don’t forget to whom the credit for this is due. I’ll see them when I get back”. “I’ll remember,” promised the sergeant.