Death of an Airman (13 page)

“H'm, yes,” grunted Learoyd. “They're very dependent on their Customs men.”

“Perhaps, but with so vast an organization as the Customs, and so much money at the gang's disposal, it's not surprising they can find two bad hats among them in a whole country.”

“Supposing their two men got moved to another aerodrome?” queried the Superintendent.

“Quite simple. They find some excuse for the aeroplanes to make that their new port of entry. It's easy enough to change. I've found that an aeroplane from abroad on private charter can clear at any Customs airport, from Lympne to Manchester.”

“It certainly sounds a foolproof system. How did we get on to it?” asked the Superintendent curiously.

“Pure accident,” admitted Bray. “It looks as if one of their pilots threatened to squeal. Doing a bit of blackmail, I fancy, and pushed it too far. So they shot him and tried to hide it up. It got past the coroner as an accident, but Creighton, of the local constabulary—quite a smart man—found something fishy about it and investigated, and came across cocaine. Then he got on to me, and that started the whole business.”

“Queer! It's the sort of accidental way these things do start. Now, Bray, you know the position, what do
you
think should be our plan of action?”

“It's probably the same plan as you are thinking of, sir, but for different reasons—going slow. We've got all the minor people in the organization in our hands. We could get them any time. First we must take the names of all the Gauntlett pilots and van-drivers engaged in the newspaper delivery, and one of the straight Customs men can make a note some day of the people these newspapers go to, when he is examining them. We already know the two Customs men who are bribed. We can get all the warrants written out and ready.

“But I suggest that we don't do anything until we can pull in the big men. I'll write Durand of the Sûreté to-night so that he can do the same, and we'd better get in touch with our liaison men in Germany and Switzerland, and anywhere else where Durand finds the
Gazette
is distributed by air, so that the police there act in concert with us. These small fry don't matter much. When the time comes, we can sweep them all in together in a really big killing. What is really vital is that we catch the big men, particularly the Chief, who is a murderer as well, and I think that means sitting back a little.”

“Do you think you can scare one of the small men into giving the Chief away?” said the Superintendent thoughtfully. “One generally can, you know.”

“They may not know who the Big Noise is,” objected Bray. “But I can try, of course. I'm not sure that it mightn't best be done from Creighton's end. You see, these little men, when they hear there's a charge of murder in the air, may get the wind up, which they wouldn't on an ordinary dope prosecution. I shall have to work in with Creighton in any case, because Baston Aerodrome must have a pretty close association with headquarters, even if Gauntlett isn't the Queen Bee. But I suspect he is.”

“It'll be pretty ghastly for us if he is,” said the Superintendent slowly. “It's bad enough for Durand, because he'll have to fight against this politician bloke who gets the stuff into the country for him. But the nephew of our new Home Secretary! Gosh!”

Bray hesitated. “You don't suspect…I mean it's not possible is it…?”

The Superintendent shook his head vigorously. “Of course not. Good lord, Entourage wouldn't buy a cigarette after hours to save his life! But what on earth possessed a man with money and reputation like Gauntlett to get mixed up in an affair of this kind?”

Bray shrugged his shoulders. “Excitement, I suppose. It's difficult to account always for what makes criminals criminal. It's generally a case of ‘we needs must love the lowest when we see it,' I think. Shall I go down to Baston?”

“Yes. But have a talk with me first, after you've got all your facts in order. I'll get our plan of action drafted and the arrangements with the French and foreign police generally all mapped out. We must take care that nobody hops it while we're waiting. It's going to take a lot of men, of course, but it's worth it. It'll be the biggest round-up of my time, at any rate. Is there anything you want done right away?”

“Yes, sir, I'd like Finch to get a few photos of Valentine Gauntlett from the news agencies and take them down to the people at Banchurch Street to see if they identify him as Vandyke. Let me see, he won some air race which ended at Baston the other day. There's sure to be a group of the prize-winners taken at the end of the race.”

“Right-ho. I'll look after that. Sorry to have to take the main conduct out of your hands, Bray, but you see it's an international matter now. You'll get the credit. Bung down to Baston as soon as you can, there's a good chap. I'll wait in this evening till you're ready for handing over everything here to me, so that I can settle details with the Chief. I leave it absolutely to your discretion what you do down at Baston, subject to the usual reports. Do you get on with Creighton all right? It's technically his territory.”

“He won't make any difficulty,” said Bray decisively; “he's a decent old bird. I'll tell him enough to make him realize how important it is, and drop a hint that he'll get a share of the credit in the main round-up when it comes. In any case he's already brought us in by consulting me, you know, so there's no difficulty there.”

“Good; and look here, Bray, if they murdered someone to prevent a squeal they must be pretty tough. So look after yourself.”

Bray laughed and went. The Superintendent looked after him and sighed when the door closed.

Chapter XIV

End of an Engineer

“To think that all this should have come out of an accident on an aerodrome!” exclaimed Inspector Creighton, in the tones of one who has seen a ten-foot djinn rise out of a medicine bottle.

Bray had told him in brief outline of the organization that was behind Gauntlett's Air Taxis, and Creighton had listened with delighted attention. “Well, our trip to Glasgow wasn't wasted expense after all! I must tell the Superintendent that!”

“How have your investigations into the murder gone, Creighton?” asked the Scotland Yard man, with no great expectations from the answer.

“Far enough to prove it's no murder at all!” answered the other with relish.

“What! Look here, are you certain of your ground?” said Bray with a start.

“Perfectly. The Bishop and I worked it out together. It is the only possible explanation. These are the facts.” Creighton held up one thick finger. “According to the Home Office expert—here's the report—Furnace was shot dead two minutes before he was wounded by the blow from the dashboard as his aeroplane crashed. Now that apparently admits of two possible explanations.” The Inspector tentatively elevated two additional fingers. “One explanation is that he was shot at by a passenger or by someone flying near, and that the aircraft fell, out of control, and crashed, with its pilot already dead. But this explanation is positively contradicted by several circumstances. There were people watching the 'plane, and they are prepared to swear that no one was flying near it. There couldn't have been a passenger or he would have crashed with the aeroplane.”

“Or escaped by parachute,” suggested Bray.

“And been seen by everyone,” countered Creighton triumphantly. “Moreover, if anyone else had been in the aeroplane, Ness, the mechanic, would have noticed him. No, the idea of a passenger is impossible. And even if the murderer had been flying near Furnace unobserved, I do not see how he could have shot him neatly in front of the temple. It would almost certainly have been a slanting shot from the back or the side. No, everything shows the impossibility of another person being involved.” Creighton lowered two fingers and left the third in sole possession of the argumentative field. “That allows us only the second explanation, the one which explains everything. Furnace shot himself, and almost immediately the aeroplane crashed, and he fell limply against the dashboard as it struck the earth.”

Bray looked at Creighton for a moment, an ironical smile on his clear-cut features.

“It explains a great deal. But it doesn't explain the most important point of all—the starting point of your investigations.”

“You mean the cocaine? It seems to me to fit in all right. Remorse or fright would be motive enough for suicide.”

Bray shook his head. “No, I'm not referring to the cocaine. There is a little matter of post-mortem
rigor
. The Bishop and Bastable both told us that
rigor
had not set in when they saw the body, and they both assure us this could only mean that Furnace was still alive when he was taken out of the 'plane—and for some hours afterwards.”

“But it doesn't make sense!” groaned Creighton.

“No, it doesn't,” admitted Bray happily. “But it makes an interesting problem. The man was killed a few seconds before the crash, yet a few hours after the crash he was still living! No, Creighton, it's not as simple as we hoped. Whether it is accident or design I don't know, but the circumstances are such that the murder is an impossibility, and yet it is equally impossible that he was not murdered.”

“I don't know what to think,” confessed Creighton. “The medical evidence seems to go clean against the weight of the facts.”

“That's not altogether fair,” pointed out Bray. “It's fairer to say that one half of the medical evidence goes against the other half. If only Bastable hadn't arrived so late, and been so cocksure he knew what had happened, and such a blithering idiot anyway, he might have noticed something which would help us. Post-mortem stains, for instance. But we've got to go on what we've got, and as far as I can see it's a gamble. You're just as entitled to your suicide theory as I am to my murder theory.”

“I'm not so pleased with it now,” confessed Creighton.

“And I'm not pleased with my murder theory,” retorted Bray. “But it does offer us some starting point for an investigation. My present feeling is this: let us continue to act as if we believed it to be murder and try to scare some of the people involved into opening-up on the dope business. Do you agree?”

Creighton considered. “I don't see for why we shouldn't. But who are we going to scare?”

“Tell me who's on the permanent staff of the aerodrome who might be implicated.”

“There's Miss Sackbut. We're certain now she's in it as she carried the dope on your journey. I suspected her all along on different grounds, and seeing that she knew Furnace I think we can count her in. Probably she corrupted Furnace in the first place.”

“Frightenable, do you think?”

Creighton shook his head mournfully. “A tough body. I shouldn't like to take the job on.”

“Neither should I,” admitted Bray, his mind harking back to the bright, direct stare and firm chin of his pilot on the Channel crossing. “Who else?”

“Gauntlett. But of course we count him out.”

“Good lord, yes! Leave him alone. He's the last person we want to scare at the moment!”

“There's that little red-headed mechanic, Ness,” said Creighton thoughtfully. “Ground engineer they call him. He knew Furnace well, and they often used to go together on these flights for Gauntlett, on which we now know dope was carried. What about him? I should think he could be intimidated?”

“Good! Send for him, don't you think? It always scares them more. They get worked up coming to the station.”

Creighton got through to Baston Aerodrome and, when he had Ness on the end of the line, summoned him peremptorily to the police station.

“No doubt you'll know as well as I do what we want to see you for,” he ended with sinister emphasis. “Come along as soon as you can.”

Creighton hung up the receiver with a satisfied smile on his face. “Dead silence at the other end! I think I might describe it as a horrified silence! He'll be along pretty soon, I fancy.”

Ness was, in fact, announced soon after. Apparently he had only waited long enough to take off his greasy overalls, for his clothes were soiled and there was a smear on his nose.

“Sit down, Mr. Ness,” said Creighton quietly. “This is Detective-Inspector Bray, from Scotland Yard.”

Ness started, and controlled himself with a visible effort. Bray watched his tongue shoot out and lick his lips. “What do you want to know?”

“We want to know everything, Mr. Ness,” answered Creighton jovially. “We know most of it already.”

“What do you mean? I don't understand what you are talking about.” Ness looked determinedly at his boots.

“I think you do. Oh yes, I think you do.” Bray's lips twitched at the appalling portentousness of Creighton's tone.

A long silence followed. Bray watched Ness's knees shake slightly. The mechanic controlled them at last and managed to light a cigarette.

“Do you know what ‘accessory after the fact' means?” asked Creighton.

“Eh?”

“It has this implication, that anyone who helps a murderer, even by concealing his crime, shares some of the guilt. You understand, I think, Mr. Ness? You know that Major Furnace was murdered. Possibly even
why
he was murdered. But you have not told us.”

“What are you getting at?” whined Ness plaintively. “You don't suggest I murdered Furnace, do you?”

Creighton gave a sly smile. “That would be a matter for a formal charge. At the moment we are only aware that you know much more about the matter than you originally told us. Inspector Bray has come down here with a good deal of fresh information, and my own feeling certainly was that we ought to arrest you without delay and charge you with the murder of Major Furnace. The main reason why I haven't warned you is because if you can give us a plausible explanation we will let you go. Otherwise I am afraid we cannot let you leave this police station, and the law will have to take its course.” He paused. “We know, you see, that Major Furnace was dead before the crash.”

Ness turned a sickly green and dropped his cigarette. His mouth began to tremble and he was unable to stop the rapid twitching of his lips, which fascinated Bray for a moment.

“I hadn't anything to do with his murder! I swear to that!”

“I'm afraid we can't believe that, on your bare assurance.”

Creighton and Bray exchanged a pleased glance. Ness was badly scared. When the process had been carried far enough, it would be possible to press the man to give information about the dope-running business. The fact that the police knew about this might alone be enough to precipitate a confession from the man they saw before them, white and shaking. Their calculations were totally upset by his answer.

“I knew nothing about it until after it was done! I swear it! Look, I was at the pictures all the evening before. You can confirm it,” he said eagerly. “I went with three other people from the aerodrome. They'll be able to tell you. I'll give you their names.”

Creighton looked staggered. “What on earth has the previous evening—” he began, when Bray stopped with a warning glance.

“When did you know he was dead?” Bray asked the ground engineer.

“When I came back in the evening”; he shuddered. “Oh, it was horrible! And then when Vandyke told me I'd got to help him get rid of the body, I nearly threw my hand in. If I hadn't been certain I should be treated the same way as Furnace, I'd have done it!”

“So it was Vandyke who killed him?”

“No. Vandyke was in Baston with me. It was the Chief.”

“Who's the Chief?” said Creighton at once.

Ness looked at him wonderingly. “I don't know. Nobody knows. I don't think even Vandyke knows. The Chief shot him and told Vandyke how to clear it up.”

“Who's Vandyke?” asked Creighton after a glance from Bray.

“Don't you know who Vandyke is?” The engineer's shifty eyes fixed foxily on Creighton's face. “I believe you're trying to draw me out! I don't believe you know anything!”

“Yes, we know, young fellow,” said the policeman sternly.

“You don't! You're trying to trap me!” His mouth worked nervously. “You tricky—! I'm damned if I'll fall for it! I don't know anything, see? I don't know anything, damn you!”

“Come on, now,” said Creighton gruffly; “you can't get away with that!”

“I can! Tell me who Vandyke is, and I'll tell you more.” The two policemen were silent. The engineer laughed hysterically. “See? You don't know, you double-crossing swine!”

Bray hesitated. The witness was slipping out of his control. Should he take a plunge on the information he already had? If only Finch had identified Vandyke! He might have done so by now. But the opportunity was already about to evade them, and he could not wait for Finch.

“We know who Vandyke is,” said Bray carefully. “Valentine Gauntlett.”

Ness looked at him for a moment in wonder and then burst into peals of nervous laughter. “You think Valentine Gauntlett is Vandyke! Gaud, that's rich! Why, you don't know a thing, you lousy crooks, and you're trying to bluff me that you do. Well, fine fools you look! I've just been pulling your leg, see?”

“We've got you where we want you, Ness!” shouted Creighton furiously, with an unconscious recollection of the films. “You've told us all we want to know.”

“I deny it! I deny every word of what I told you! Prove it if you can!” The engineer had changed from despair to an impudent elation. “You haven't warned me and you haven't got a statement. I don't believe you know a thing about the murder. You're trying to bluff me, blast you! This is the last time you get me in a police station, with your damned knowing airs. Furnace committed suicide, and you're trying to make it murder to get promotion.”

Creighton was livid with fury. He evidently meditated detaining Ness. He exchanged a look with Bray, who shook his head.

“Give him a bit more rope for a while,” he whispered.

Ness was released by Creighton with an ill grace.

The ground engineer left the room with an ugly sneer, and Creighton ran his fingers through his scanty grey hair. “This tears it! What in hell's name do you make of this?”

“It blows your sweet little theory sky-high, Creighton. It wasn't suicide, at all events.”

“But it doesn't make sense!” moaned Creighton. “How can a dead man pilot a machine? If he was shot the previous evening, how was he flying round the next day?”

“Are your witnesses of this flight really sound?” asked Bray reflectively.

“Gosh, yes! Half a dozen of them, and one of them a belted Bishop, or whatever they are.”

“Then someone's wrong,” insisted Bray. “Here, what about this? They shove the dead body into an aeroplane, let the darn thing take off with the controls lashed, and then it crashes?”

“I don't know enough about flying to say. It sounds improbable to me. I don't believe it's technically possible.” Creighton meditated for a moment. “How about this? Supposing somebody else had crashed there, and the murderer happened to be on the spot and popped Furnace's body in place of the real pilot?”

“I don't think that's one of our best theories, Creighton,” smiled Bray. “It demands a remarkable lot from coincidence. Besides, what's happened to Pilot No. One's corpse?”

“Yes, that's awkward,” admitted Creighton. “It didn't sound very convincing when I said it. Do you think someone could have towed the aeroplane, with Furnace's body in it, above the aerodrome, and then cut the rope?”