Biggles (20 page)

‘Over my dead body,' muttered Biggles.

‘Better make sure it isn't,' replied Raymond before ringing off.

It was a perfect day and suddenly Biggles was in his element again. The sea was amethyst, the plane was flying like a bird and, but for the knowledge that his friend was still in danger, Biggles would have been happier now than at any time since his holiday began. Even Algy's plight seemed less desperate now with the engine roaring steadily ahead and the wind singing in the guywires of the sturdy biplane. Corsica was below, its mountains
rising from the sea, and Biggles took the aircraft up to 15,000 feet. Then there was sea again, with nothing but the occasional small boat below to show that he was even moving. The hands of the dashboard clock ticked by. He checked his course against his compass bearing, and suddenly land appeared, a grey smudge low on the left horizon. Ten minutes later it had turned into an island, slap on course. Giglio — the island of the Lily.

He had no plans except to find a landing place and then to let events take whatever course they pleased. With this in mind he brought the aircraft down, and circled the tiny island at 500 feet. There was no obvious sign of life, apart from two fishing boats at anchor in the little harbour. He flew inland, following the line of a cart-track to the centre of the island. There were odd cottages and isolated farms but little else — and nowhere for an aeroplane to land. Then suddenly he saw what he was looking for — towards the northern tip of the island was a large white house, with a rough field behind it. To the ordinary mortal it would have appeared quite unremarkable but Biggles' practised eye saw something that he recognised at once — tracks on the ground that could be made by one thing only, an aircraft taking off or landing. He banked and flew round behind the house. There were two parked cars and further on a path that led to a natural harbour by the rocks.

‘So that's where the
Evening Cloud
goes when she's not at Monte Carlo,' he murmured. ‘O.K. Algy, here we come!'

With this he banked again, roared across the house, and then came in for a perfect three-point landing.

He had been expecting some reaction, and gripped his automatic as the plane rolled to a dusty halt, but there was not the faintest sign of life. He jumped down from the cockpit and began to walk towards the house — still nothing happened, and the place seemed silent as the grave. He shouted. No one answered. The house was shuttered, but when he tried the frontdoor it opened and he entered. It took a moment for his eyes to accustom themselves to the dint light in the room beyond.

‘Good God!' he suddenly exclaimed with horror.

There were four people in the room sitting around a table. All had been tied firmly to their chairs. Three of them were men he had never seen before, but the fourth was wearing a black dress and had long blonde hair. All of them were very dead. Biggles
was stunned at first and then his instinct was to get away from this house of death. But he had come here to find Algy, and was not leaving till he had.

It took him several minutes more to search the house, gun in hand, but there was not the faintest sign of life. In one room was a large laboratory, where presumably the drug ring had once had its factory. In another was a radio transmitter, but of Algy, and the unknown murderers of the quartet in the dining room, there was not the faintest sign.

Biggles started shouting, ‘Algy! Algy!' Total silence followed. Then suddenly he did hear something — a tapping noise from somewhere underneath his feet.

He called again and once more the tapping seemed to answer, but when he looked around the room all he could see was the stone-flagged floor of the ancient kitchen. He called a third time and now managed to locate the sound. It seemed to issue from somewhere near the fireplace, and when he looked there closely, he could see a large stone slab that did duty for a hearth. He pulled at it. It moved. He pulled again, and underneath it he could see a narrow flight of steps descending into darkness. Using his pocket torch to show the way, he lowered himself through the cavity and found he was in an old wine cellar underneath the house. There, bound hand and foot, and tightly gagged, lay a dishevelled figure — Algy.

‘My dear old chap!' gasped Biggles with relief. ‘However long have you been lying there?'

A muffled groan issued in reply, and Biggles carefully removed the gag.

‘Biggles, old boy,' said Algy weakly. ‘I thought you'd never come.'

‘Whatever happened?' Biggles asked, when they were safely out of the house.

‘I'm not too sure myself,' Algy answered. ‘That woman tricked me into going with her. She said you'd been delayed and had asked her to drive me down to meet you.'

‘A likely tale,' growled Biggles. ‘Still, go on.'

‘When I realised she had tricked me, it was too late. She had a gun. She forced me to fly her here — and that was that. As soon as
we arrived I was trussed up by her merry men and shoved into the cellar.'

‘But what about the killings? How did they occur?'

‘Haven't the foggiest, old chap, and that's a fact. All that I heard was a lot of scuffling and shouting around lunch-time. She started screaming something in Italian and there were shots. That was all. Next thing I heard was the sound of shutters being closed and doors slammed. I'd say there were half a dozen men, judging by the noise. Italians, and they all seemed pretty worked up, I can tell you. They must have cleared off straight away. Who d'you think they were, old boy?'

‘Members of some rival gang, I'd say. Either the Mafia or the
Union Corse.
I shouldn't think we'll ever know for sure. That lady friend of yours had obviously got herself a lot of enemies. If you ask me, you were lucky to be in the cellar. Had they known you were there, they'd certainly have done for you as well.'

‘Well, that's something I have to thank her for,' said Algy, managing a grin. ‘But Christopher Columbus, what a dreadful way to go!'

‘If ever anyone deserved it,' answered Biggles, ‘it was your friend the Countess. She was a murderess, a gangster, and she had ruined countless lives through drugs. Take my advice and save your pity.'

Algy nodded.

‘All the same,' he said regretfully, ‘it does seem a confounded waste. She was a very pretty woman.'

‘Algy, Algy, will you never learn?' said Biggles. ‘Now, let's get going. I think we'll leave the Countess and her three friends to the Italians. They can do whatever's necessary. I've had enough of your island of the Lily, thank you very much — and we've still got six whole days in Monte Carlo.'

Five minutes later, the biplane took off with a roar and headed back to France.

‘Just can't think what the trouble is with Biggles,' said Algy wearily. ‘Crotchety, bad-tempered, off his oats. Nearly bit my head off yesterday just because I lent the Bentley to Deborah. Dammit, Ginger, Deborah's a spiffing driver and it is my blinking motor-car!'

Ginger nodded sympathetically.

‘Well, you know what the old boy's like. He's very set in his ways and has been counting on you to drive him over to Mahoney's for the old Squadron reunion. These things mean a lot to him, and we had to take a taxi in the end. Apart from the expense, I think he'd hoped that you'd be there.'

‘But Ginger, it's ridiculous. I've got to be allowed some private life. And all this sentimental dwelling on the good old days — frankly it bores me rigid!'

‘Now, now, Algy, that's not fair,' said Ginger loyally. ‘Biggles is a great believer in
esprit de corps,
and with Mahoney back from Kenya it was obviously important to him. I think you should have gone as well.'

‘Jeepers!' exclaimed Algy. ‘Now you're turning against me too. You know what I think, Ginger? We're all getting old. There's Biggles coming up for his thirtieth birthday next month. The old brain-box is softening with age.'

He tried to laugh, but Ginger cut him short.

‘Now listen, Algy,' Ginger said, wagging an admonitory finger underneath Algy's nose. ‘I want to hear no more of this. Whatever you and Deborah get up to is your own affair, but I won't hear anybody criticising Biggles. And frankly, Algy, it comes Very ill from you of all people. Biggles has had a lot of worries lately and it's up to us to rally round. Remarks like that don't help at all.'

Algy looked suitably sheepish at the Yorkshireman's plain speaking.

‘Sorry, Ginger! Just forget I spoke. But all the same, it is dashed difficult for a chap.'

Deborah Carstairs-Lomax was a lovely girl. Of that there was not the slightest doubt. Six feet tall, and golden-haired, she managed to combine the profile of a Roman goddess with the strongest female forehand drive in the Home Counties. Biggles had christened her ‘the Valkyrie', and from the start had been considerably in awe of her. It wasn't just her size, although she did over-top him by a good half of her splendid head, and Biggles always had been touchy on the subject of his lack of inches. She was also one of the ‘new women' of the Twenties. She had a mind of her own — and spoke it at the slightest provocation. She was independent, and God help anyone who tried to stop her doing as she pleased. She knew exactly what she wanted — and she wanted Algy Lacey.

‘Just can't think why,' Biggles had remarked to Ginger in the course of one of their slightly worried conversations on the subject. ‘It's not as if our Algy's very keen on tennis, or literature, or any of those “interests” she's always banging on about.'

‘Sex is very strange,' said Ginger solemnly.

‘Sex, my old Aunt Fanny! I can't believe that Algy's ever had a chance of you-know-what with
that
young lady. Ice from the navel downwards! No, old chap, that lady's set her sights on one thing and one thing only — becoming Lady Lacey.'

‘You really think so, Biggles?' replied Ginger, as if such a notion in a woman was quite inconceivable.

‘Think so? I'm certain, dear old boy! A title's a very funny thing, and some women will do anything to end up with a handle to their name. Can't understand why poor Algy doesn't see it too.
The poor chap's being kicked around like a blasted football. Not interested in flying any more. No time for any of his old chums. Dreadful, Ginger, simply dreadful how a stalwart bloke like Algy can succumb! But you realise what it'll mean if it goes on?'

‘No, Biggles, what?' asked Ginger.

‘The end of the old firm, of course. Biggles and Co. just won't survive with that young lady in the woodwork.'

Biggles' words shocked Ginger Hebblethwaite, not least because he had recently been thinking much the same himself. The mid-twenties had been good to Biggles and his friends. None of them had felt like settling down and they had managed to achieve that life of constant flying and adventure which had been their aim when they set up Biggles and Co. after the First World War. There was hardly a corner of the globe they had not visited. Early in 1923 they had been working on retainer for an oil exploration company in British Guiana and had dabbled in the gold prospecting business in the hinterland of that extraordinary country. They never made their fortunes, but they had more than covered their expenses and by the following year had moved on to Bolivia, where for several months they worked in conjunction with Wilkinson, an old friend from the R.F.C. who was currently instructing the newly-formed Bolivian Air Force. While in Bolivia, they had a brush with bandits who had captured the daughter of the President, and, after rescuing her, moved on to the forests of the Amazon in search of a legendary blue orchid. After this they witnessed revolution in Colombia, mayhem in Panama, and warfare in Brazil. Early in 1925 they were in the islands of the Pacific, searching for enormous pearls. They visited Formosa and Japan. For several months they had been piloting a sea-plane up the cannibal-infested Sepik River, again in search of gold, but they failed to find it. They had spent several months intriguing against a Russian spy called Nikitoff in India, and had made their adventure-packed return to England via Persia and the Middle East. The details of these wandering years are given in the pages of
Biggles Flies Again
by Capt. W. E. Johns.

Throughout these years of travel and adventure Mrs Symes had faithfully maintained the Mount Street flat for them, whilst Algy's Bentley had been laid up awaiting their return in a corner of the hangar down at Brooklands. But none of them had dreamt of settling down, and even after Biggles and Co. returned and set
up base in Mayfair once again, the assignments and adventures continued to arrive so thick and fast that no one really had a chance to think about the future. Smyth, their inimitable mechanic, finally succumbed to matrimony, but his wife — a Lyons Teashop manageress from Peckham — was an independent-minded lady who intended to continue her career, and hardly seemed to notice when her spouse was absent. Ginger was happy wherever he could find an aeroplane to fly, while Biggles asked for nothing out of life except that the adventures should continue. The fortune that he dreamed of finding was still eluding him, but this was possibly just as well. Great riches would have worried him, and he was perfectly content to leave the financial affairs of the company to Algy. Women appeared to concern him even less these days. He never spoke of Marie Janis, but Ginger's theory was that the shock of her defection to von Stalhein had turned him permanently against the female sex in general. This was not entirely true. Biggles
was
susceptible to women, but he was also very cagey and discreet and probably preferred the cockpit to the boudoir. Any permanent relation with a woman, as he knew only too well, would spell the end of the sort of life he loved, and this was simply not a sacrifice he was prepared to make. But Algy was different. He was inclined to fall in love, and long before the glamorous Miss Carstairs-Lomax was on the scene there had been several very narrow squeaks — the dashing daughter of the Bolivian President, a teenage widow in Brazil, a nubile Japanese from Okinawa. With each of them it had appeared as if his end had come, but every time a fatherly talk from Biggles and a few hours' flying had done the trick. Algy was one of those lucky individuals who can fall out of love as easily as they fall into it — and he was always vulnerable to Biggles' mockery on the subject — until now. In the old days, the idea of a real row between the chums would have been inconceivable, particularly over the subject of a woman. But recently they had come dangerously near it, for the business of the Bentley was by no means the only friction caused by Algy's lady love. When Biggles had referred jokingly to ‘the Valkyrie', Algy had said tersely, ‘Biggles, I'd ask you not to refer to Deborah like that.' When Colonel Raymond had requested help with an Interpol investigation which involved flying to the north of France, Algy had finally backed out because Deborah was in the
finals of the Sussex Ladies' Tennis tournament at Hastings. There had been further trouble when Algy had refused to go with Biggles to the Hendon Air Show on the grounds that ‘Deborah just wasn't all that interested in aeroplanes'.