BIGGLES INVESTIGATES

and other stories of the Air Police

by Captain W. E. Johns

4. A MATTER OF CO-OPERATION (Pages 69 – 87)

The door of Air Police Headquarters at Scotland Yard was opened and the burly figure of Detective-Chief Inspector Gaskin, CID appeared. He glanced around, and seeing only Air-Sergeant Bertie Lissie, inquired; “Where’s everyone?” Bertie answered: “Biggles is with the Chief; Algy is still in India and Ginger’s gone to London Airport for a natter with Her Majesty’s officers of Customs and Excise”. Bertie says Biggles should be back any minute so Gaskin waits. A minute or so later, Biggles returns and says “Hello, Chief” to Gaskin. “What load of trouble are you hawking round?” Gaskin did not smile. “Pug Donovan is back in circulation”. “What am I supposed to do, burst into tears?” asks Biggles. “It’s no joke. You can’t know him. He’s an ugly customer in every sense of the word. He’s a bruiser. Fists like cauliflowers and fingers like blunt parsnips” replies Gaskin. Gaskin says Pug has been away a year and last night there was a tip off he was in the Frigate pub in Stepney. By the time Gaskin got there, he had gone. Gaskin wants to know how he got into the country with every sea and airport watching for him. He thinks he was flown in. Gaskin shows Biggles a photo of the wanted man. “Not exactly a pin-up boy” says Biggles. Gaskin wants Pug as “He could tell us where he’s got sixty thousand quid in notes tucked away”. Biggles asks if anyone else knows where the money is and Gaskin tells him, “Another old lag, also an Irishman, named Spud O’Connel, might know”. “He’s doing a seven-year stretch on Dartmoor. He won’t open his mouth”. “He would if I made the laws of the land” says Biggles. “Oh, and how would you manage that?” Gaskin was mildly sarcastic. “I’d sentence these wide boys, who have their swag hidden away, to stay in the nick until they coughed it up”. Gaskin says Pug and Spud “busted a bank in Pimlico. They were careless enough to leave their paw marks. We arrived two minutes too late. We picked up Spud, but Pug got away. He was seen in Paris the next day”. Gaskin says Pug wouldn’t have been so crazy as to try to get the swag through both British and French Customs. He would have dumped it somewhere beforehand and Spud would probably know where as they had worked together for years. Gaskin says Spud “won’t squeal. He knows that if he did, when he’d served his time Pug would be waiting to slice him up. Now Pug’s come back here to collect the loot”. Gaskin reckons he will return to France by air. Biggles wonders why Pug risked going to the Frigate pub. Gaskin replies “I’d say Pug went there to get news of Spud”. Biggles says “By now he’ll know he’s on the Moor with another five years to go”. (Johns has got his maths wrong here. Pug has been away a year. Spud got seven years. So he has six years to go. Taking no account of any remission for early release). Biggles adds “I imagine if news reached Dartmoor that Pug was back the word would soon go round?” Biggles suggests they give Spud a chance to escape. “He’d make a beeline either for the cash or the hide-out. All you’d have to do would be to follow him. He’d tell you all you want to know”. Gaskin looked incredulous. “Are you kidding? Put that up to the powers that be and they’d send for a psycho-analyst to examine your head”. Gaskin asks Biggles to do something about the air angle. “Without promising results I’ll lay on everything in my power to see Pug doesn’t depart by air without saying goodbye to us”. Gaskin leaves and Biggles tells Bertie only another crook, one able to fly with an aircraft at his disposal would take on the job. “Crooks all understand one language – money”. Biggles tells Bertie to run over to Paris and “Ask Marcel Brissac if he has a pilot in his records, not in prison, who, given sufficient money, might be able to lay his hands on an aeroplane”. If he has, Bertie is to get his details and find out who he is, where he is and what he’s doing at the moment.

“Rather more than two hours later Bertie landed at Le Bourget, where his police and Interpol identity cards waived the usual formalities. Having seen his Auster in safe hands, he took a taxi to Paris, where at police headquarters he had the good luck to find Marcel Brissac, Biggles’ French opposite number, in his office. Greetings exchanged he explained his mission”. Marcel says thoughtfully: “This man Donovan may be the elusive character the police have been hunting for a long time. We know he entered the country; the Security Officers on the train stamped his passport; but there is no record of him leaving”. Bertie asks Marcel if he knows of someone who would fly Donovan to England but Marcel does not know anyone. He knows smuggling goes but “How does one stop an aeroplane for questioning?” Marcel suddenly thinks of somewhere, a small aviation company which works from a private aerodrome near Chantilly, run by two partners, one French and one British. “It smells – how do you say? Fishy”. These men spend a lot of money. They started with one plane, an old Berline Breguet. Now they have a new Aubert Gigale-Major, a four-seat monoplane for touring. (Both of these are real aircraft). This costs much money. Another thing makes me smell fish. One goes often to a shady bistro named The Black Fox near the Place de la Bastille. Why do they go there? This is a place where crooks meet?” Marcel says they have been seen talking with Armand Picot, once the King of the Black Market, the Prince of Smugglers. Bertie asks the names of the two pilots and is told they are called “Desmond Grattan and Jacques Montelle”. Grattan was in the Air Force in the war. He was shot down and hidden by the Resistance. After the war, he was allowed to remain in France because he wished to marry a French girl. “Always he wears a little pair of wings in his buttonhole” says Marcel. Montelle was in the French Air Force and he was also shot down. “He carries on his face a scar which he tries to hide with a beard”. Bertie says he will take his evening meal at the bistro. Marcel tells him to take care. Berties says the R A F tie he is wearing may serve as an introduction to Grattan if he is there. Bertie asks Marcel to ring Biggles and tell him what he is going to do. Berties has lunch, then goes and finds the bistro called The Black Fox. He has a drink and a cigarette and reads the menu at a table. Half-way through his meal, “he noticed a man at the bar taking more interest in him than seemed necessary”. He sees in the man’s buttonhole a pair of gold wings and decides it must be Grattan. The man comes over and says “Hello. I spotted your R A F tie. What are you doing in a dive like this?” “I’m minding my own business,” Bertie told him coolly. “All right. There’s no need to be snooty. I served in the R A F. Staying long in Paris? I live here now, and might be able to give you some tips”. Bertie and the man fall into conversation and Bertie hints that he might be in a spot of bother. The man asks “So now you’re in a hurry to get across the Ditch?” The man says he might be able to help. The man offers to fly him across tonight “for a consideration, of course”. He wants two hundred quid, English or French. Alternatively, he could wait until tomorrow night when the price is a hundred pounds. “Fifty when we start and the rest when we’re across” says the man. The difference in price being that he has to go across tomorrow to pick up a passenger. The man says Bertie will need “twenty-five quid” for a taxi fare to get to London after they land. “Unless you feel like walking nine miles to the nearest station and waiting there for the first train in the morning”. Bertie then says “The best I can do is a hundred and fifty, part English pound notes and part in francs. That’d leave me twenty-five for the fare and a bit in my pocket”. (Bertie is referring to travelling that night, where the original price was two hundred pounds, rather than the following night). The man agrees. He wants a hundred when they get to the plane and the rest when they are across. The man will pick Bertie up from the bistro at twelve midnight. Bertie asks where they will land but is only told “You’ll see when we get there”.

“It need hardly be said that Bertie was well satisfied. This was better than he could have hoped. It seemed too good to be true”. Bertie is tempted to ring Marcel but dare not, in case he is being watched. A little before twelve Grattan comes in and says “Come on. We’re all set”. They get in a fast-looking sports car and Grattan tells Bertie “I hope you’ve got that money on you. God help you if you’ve been wasting my time”. “Don’t worry. You’ll get it,” answered Bertie. The car speeds away north in the direction of Chantilly. “During the twenty mile drive that followed there were moments when he told himself that whatever else happened that night he would not be in greater danger, such risks did Grattan take. No names had been mentioned, but he had no doubt about the identity of his companion. He was relieved when the car turned on to a secondary road and then through a gate to come to a halt near an aircraft, which, with the airscrew ticking over, stood outside a hangar”. Bertie pays Grattan the agreed amount and in a matter of minutes they are in the air. The aircraft is a side-by-side two-seater. They cross the Channel at 4000 feet. Grattan lands and Bertie hands over the rest of the money. To Bertie’s surprise that are on an aerodrome – from the absence of lights, one not in use. Bertie asks “Where the deuce are we?” and he is told it is the Easterhangar emergency landing ground, an old wartime landing ground that is now disused. The taxi arrives and Grattan gets back into the aircraft and disappears into the night sky. Bertie is asked by the taxi driver to pay in advance and he hands over the twenty-five pounds. Bertie asks to be dropped off at Trafalgar Square. Bertie gets out and takes its number as it continues on its way. He then takes another taxi from the rank at Leicester Square and reaches the flat a little after three a.m. “Trying not to disturb the others, he let himself in quietly and was making a cup of tea in the kitchenette when Biggles, in his pyjamas, appeared in the doorway”. “What the devil are you doing here?” he asks. Ginger puts on his dressing gown and joins them. Bertie tells his story. “Biggles drew a deep breath. “Of course, we always realized this sort of thing could go on. Easterhangar. A disused airfield without a guard. It’s too easy. We shall have to take up this question of wartime emergency landing grounds. Tonight should provide us with a concrete case to lay before the Commissioner. He can take it up with the Ministry. We’ll be waiting for Grattan when he comes. We’ll take Gaskin along”. Biggles tells Bertie “This is your show, so if you want to come with us tonight you’d better finish your tea and get some sleep”.

“Shortly before midnight a police car, showing no lights, tucked itself close to the one dilapidated hangar on the silent abandoned airfield. In it were Biggles, Gaskin, Bertie and Ginger. Bertie notes the weather conditions are the same as the day before and says they touched down a little after two o’clock then. They are expecting a taxi to arrive with Pug Donovan. “Don’t forget what I told you about him being a tough customer,” warned Gaskin. “Being an old-timer I don’t think he carries a gun”. Two hours pass before they hear the taxi arrive. For two or three minutes no one gets out. Then when they do, Gaskin recognises Pug and advances with the others. “The fight that followed need not be described. The taxi-driver had soon had enough, but Pug lived up to his reputation as a bruiser. Cursing luridly he fought like a trapped tiger, and by the time he was overpowered and the handcuffs were on his wrists everyone bore the marks of his flailing fists and boots. However, the odds against him were bound to tell and he was finally secured”. The suitcase is opened and found to be packed with notes. The aircraft arrives and runs to a stop about fifty yards away. “The pilot jumped down and lit a cigarette. By the time he looked up the police were almost on him. Taken by surprise there was little he could do, which was just as well, for when Gaskin ran his hands over him he found an automatic. What Grattan said when he recognised Bertie need not be repeated”. “The machine can stay where it is for the time being,” decided Biggles. “I’ll ring Marcel when we get back and let him know where it is. Well, I think that’s about the lot. Let’s get home”.