BIGGLES INVESTIGATES

and other stories of the Air Police

by Captain W. E. Johns

2. A RING O’ ROSES (Pages 29 – 42)

“On a periodical tour of some of the smaller flying establishments Biggles was in Essex, in the club-house of Icarus Aviation, having a drink at the bar with Clinton, secretary and senior instructor, when to the delight of the pupils present an aircraft made a spectacular ‘falling-leaf’ landing and taxied on to the sheds”. “Do you encourage that sort of show-off over the aerodrome?” he inquired. Clinton shrugged a shoulder. “What is that racy-looking job? I don’t seem to know it,” went on Biggles. “A new French product,” explained Clinton. “They call it the Coursier. Only one or two have been built so far. I don’t think they’ll sell over here. It’s too expensive, both to buy and to run”. The plane belongs to a “nice lad” says Clinton. “He’s a Persian named Zand. Kerman Zand. He claims to be of the old Persian nobility. Oodles of money”. The new arrival comes over. “He was a slightly built young man, dark-skinned, with finely cut features, teeth like pearls and sparkling black eyes” and he orders drinks all round. Clinton says Zand’s “old man” is in the cosmetics business. “He runs it from one of those big old Georgian houses, Zand House, near Regent’s Park. Zand Cosmetics Ltd”. “You must have heard of a perfume called “Rosa Luna”. The trade mark of Zand Cosmetics is a Persian dancing girl wearing a yashmak (a veil concealing all of the face except the eyes)– and not much else”. “I haven’t noticed it” says Biggles. “Rosa Luna”, in other words Rose of the Moon, is like no other perfume on earth” says Clinton adding that Kerman is “a walking advertisement for the family product, as you won’t fail to notice if he comes near you. He puts it in his hair-oil”. Kerman Zand comes over. “He also bought with him a strong waft of perfume which, while wonderfully fragrant, produced a faint frown of disapproval in Biggles’ eyes”. He offers Biggles some champagne which Biggles declines as he has already had one drink and one is his limit when he’s flying. Clinton tells Zand that Biggles is “a cop” and Biggles and Zand chat. “Caught any naughty boys lately?” Zand asks. “We pick up one here and there, once in a while,” Biggles tells him. “From what I read in the papers, no matter how smart the cops are the crooks are always one jump ahead” says Zand. Biggles asks where he has been and he says “Only to Paris”. Zand asks Clinton for the bill for a new tank and then departs and Clinton tells Biggles that Zand has just bought a new Jaguar car. Biggles queries the new tank with Clinton and is told it was a new emergency tank in the Coursier, holding five gallons. Biggles ascertains that Zand goes abroad practically every weekend. Clinton shows Biggles an example of the Zand firm’s notepaper, with branches on it; London, Paris, Brussels, Geneva and Milan. Biggles wants to know where Zand landed in France and where he cleared customs on his return. Clinton frowned “My God! You are a nosy-parker”. (Matthew Parker, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1559 to 1575, had a reputation for prying into the affairs of others. He therefore acquired the nickname 'Nosey Parker'). “I’m a copper – remember? On my job suspicion becomes second nature,” Biggles tells him. Clinton shows Biggles the documents, Le Bourget in Paris and Southend stamped this morning – all in order. Biggles goes to his police Auster and takes off. As soon as he is in the air he calls Air Police Operations on the radio and tells Ginger “This is urgent. Go to Zand House, Regent’s Park, and watch for a dark green Jag. to stop there. Check if anything is taken into the house from the car. Is that clear? Over”. “Roger. Over”. Is the reply. An hour later Biggles walks into the office and Ginger reports that the car arrived with one man in it, “Foreign-looking type” and he took a couple of two-gallon petrol cans from the boot into the house. Then he fetched a small suitcase from the front seat. Biggles asks Ginger to look up the endurance range of the new French “Coursier”. Then answer is eight hundred miles. Then Ginger is told to check Kerman Zand’s pilot’s ticket. All is in order. Biggles tells Ginger that he is suspicious of Zand. “I wouldn’t trust that young man the length of Whitehall”. Biggles wonders why he’s had an extra fuel tank fitted when all his firm’s branches are well within the range of the Coursier. Biggles says when Zane was told he was a copper, for a split second a look came into his eye and the tip of his nose went white. “That’s always a sign of anxiety. A man can’t prevent that, either. A judge once told me it’s an almost certain way to tell if a witness is lying”. Ginger wonders if there was perfume in the petrol cans but Biggles doesn’t think so because “Much of the money saved in tax would be lost in the cost of air transportation”. They discuss things that come from Persia and Ginger wonders “Could drugs be the answer?” Biggles doubts that as well and thinks it is something to do with their business. Biggles decides to send Ginger to Garfold, the airfield where Clinton and Zane were, to pretend to be a pupil from another club doing a cross-country, but with engine trouble. Whilst they have a look at it, he can see Zand arrive and watch what he does.

“The following Monday at noon Ginger walked into the Operations Room carrying flying cap and goggles. Biggles was waiting”. Ginger says Zand is up to something and he reports what he has seen. “He was wearing a leather jacket with a fur collar. He took off his jacket and after a quick look round unzipped what must have been a little pocket in the fur collar. He took out six small objects, made of glass, I think, and put them carefully in a waistcoat pocket, each one wrapped in cotton wool”. Then he filled two empty petrol cans from his auxiliary tank and carried them to his car. When he went on to the club-house, Ginger went and sniffed the spare tank. It wasn’t perfume, but it had a volatile quality like some sort of spirit, but not brandy or whisky or anything like that. Biggles says he is carrying something illicit and they will catch him next Monday. “It begins to look as if this bright young man is making the oldest mistake in crime. Having pulled off something once, he imagines he can get away with it for ever. The cocky little rascal had the impudence to sneer at me that the police were always one jump behind the crooks. It’s time he was cut down to size. It’d be a pleasure to clip his wings”. “Another week passed. Ten-thirty on Monday morning saw the police Auster on Garfold airfield parked near the hangars”. They wait for the Coursier to arrive at a little before eleven. Clinton comes round and confronts Biggles to ask what he is doing. Biggles tells him to go to his office and stay there otherwise he may find himself in trouble for obstructing the police and lose his licence. Biggles and Ginger hide in the tool room of the hangar and watch Zand taxi in. He gets out and unzips his collar. Biggles then approaches him and asks what he has there. Zand spins round and drops something which breaks on the concrete floor. “You interfering fool,” he rasped. “Look what you’ve done”. Biggles asks what the substance is but the only answer is “find out”. Biggles says he intends to examine the contents of the extra tank and Zand spits “You cunning swine” and leaps at him with a dagger upraised. Biggles jumps sideways and the dagger gashes the shoulder of his jacket. Ginger trips Zane and Biggles twists Zane’s hand to make him drop the dagger. “This won’t improve matters for you,” he snapped through his teeth. “Now behave yourself, you murdering little devil, or I’ll give you what you deserve right here and now”. Clinton arrives and asks what’s going on. Biggles says he told him to stay in his office, but he can go and phone for a police car. “I suspected this young man of smuggling. He’s just tried to murder me”. Clinton says “I’m sorry if -” “Don’t waste time apologizing. Get on with it” says Biggles. Zane says he lost his temper and he is sorry. “You will be,” Biggles told him grimly. “Now, what is this stuff?” Zane says it is “Attar of roses. The real thing. Special Persian roses. It’s the base of our perfume “Rosa Luna”. In that broken phial was the essence of a million roses”. He didn’t declare it as each phial is worth nearly two hundred pound and the duty would be too heavy. Zane says that in the tank is absolute alcohol that you can only get from one place in France. A few drops of attar of roses put in a gallon of spirit makes the perfume and it sells at twenty pounds an ounce bottle. “And you’ve just brought in four gallons of spirit. At twenty fluid ounces to a pint, in my arithmetic is any good that would have made twelve thousand pounds’ worth of perfume”. (It’s more actually. 8 pints to the gallon, 4 gallons is 32 pints. At 20 fluid ounces a pint, that is 640 fluid ounces. At £20 per fluid ounce that is £12,800). Biggles shook his head. “No wonder you can afford to buy expensive aeroplanes and motor-cars”. Clinton returns to say the police car is there.

“The firm of Zand Cosmetics Ltd no longer exists. The directors are in prison”. Talking over the case afterwards, Ginger says they missed an important Persian product. From an encyclopedia, he reads “Attar of roses. The essence of Rosa centifolia or Rosa damascena, produced by distillation in water, the oil then being collected from the surface by means of a feather. It is chiefly prepared in Persia and Turkey, from which countries it is exported in small phials. It is very costly and is in itself too strong to be pleasant, but a few drops of it will scent a great quantity of spirit”. (Johns was a very keen gardener and so would have known all about roses). “Which all goes to show that today a copper is expected to know everything,” murmured Biggles sadly. Returned Ginger, grinning. “It looks as if we shall have to carry an encyclopedia around with us”. Biggles shook his head. “Not me. You know what they say. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. (There is a quote at the beginning of the book that ‘Nowadays a copper is expected to know everything’ which is from this story).