Death of an Airman (7 page)

Mr. Thompson looked at the letter without reading it. Evidently he was only too familiar with its contents, and later the Inspector noticed its carbon duplicate on top of a bundle of correspondence on his desk.

“I had better tell the story from the beginning. Major Furnace came in—let me see—well, it would have been about a month before his death. He brought a screw of white powder in an envelope and he asked us to analyse it. Naturally we asked him to give us some indication of what he expected it to contain. He could not help us at all, however. Our analysts got to work, and you can imagine our surprise, Inspector, when we discovered the powder to be cocaine.”

The Inspector looked almost equally surprised.

“As you may imagine, that put us in a very difficult position. On the one hand, we had been consulted professionally and in confidence; on the other hand, here was a layman in possession of a drug and, presumably, in illegal possession. I was very worried, but after talking it over with the chairman we wrote the letter you have in your hand. The chairman and myself both saw the Major. I must confess that he seemed astonished when we told him the result of our analysis. Naturally we pointed out our position, and told him that it was essential we should have some satisfactory explanation of how he came into possession of the drug if we were to let the matter rest there. He told us a very circumstantial story of how a total stranger had pressed a matchbox into his hand and how he had found this inside. We told him that he must, of course, tell the police, and he agreed at once. In view of his assurance we left it at that.”

“He certainly never told us,” retorted the Inspector.

“Dear me!” said the secretary dismally. “And he seemed so straightforward about it. Well, as soon as I saw about his death, I said to the chairman, ‘Don't you think, sir, we ought to tell the police?' But the chairman was positive. ‘How can the two things possibly be connected, Thompson? We shall only stir up a lot of trouble.' Very positive he was.” The secretary gave a placatory glance. “I can assure you if I'd guessed for a moment that Major Furnace hadn't told you about the incident we should never have kept quiet.”

“Well, you've told me now,” said the Inspector mildly. “Have you the paper and the cocaine?”

“I'm afraid not. We gave it back to the Major. But here is the analyst's report.”

The Inspector was genial when he left, for undoubtedly he had at last come upon a clue of real importance.

Sitting in his office, he turned it over in his mind. Major Furnace had somehow or other come upon a drug trafficker or addict. It must have been in such circumstances that he had been suspicious of something without being certain. Had he been certain, he would not have taken the risk of going to near-by analysts and giving his own address. Directly Furnace heard that it was cocaine he had evidently decided upon some plan of action, otherwise he would have gone at once to the police in accordance with his promise to the secretary. The Inspector dismissed at once the story of the matchbox. Furnace had only told it after being pressed for some plausible explanation of his possession of the drug, and had it been true there would have been no reason for him to conceal his story from the police.

No, whatever the provenance of the drug, it had been such that it had given him a hold over some person. He had exploited that hold for blackmail, and thus the mysterious income was explained.

Now blackmail at once gave a motive for the murder. The blackmailed person was evidently someone of unusual spirit, for apparently towards the end Furnace himself had begun to be afraid. The Inspector read his letter to Lady Laura carefully. He noted that Furnace did not definitely say that he was going to commit suicide. All that he said was that he was in a nasty mess and that he was going to end it. Naturally, in view of his death, they had interpreted the end as being suicide. But need it be? Mightn't it be that he had begun to be afraid of the blackmailee—that that was the nasty mess—and that he proposed to end it by exposing the affair to the police? Then, assuming the blackmailee suspected this, wouldn't it be explicable for the blackmailee to plan the crash of the machine and afterwards finish him off, knowing that the survival of Furnace must be prevented at all costs?

As far as the Inspector could see this theory only left two loose ends. The Air Ministry man had insisted that the crash was either an accident or deliberate action on the part of the pilot. But, damn it, thought the Inspector testily, you can never trust these experts!

The other loose end, if indeed it was a loose end, was that the only person who seemed to have been in a position to shoot Furnace was Sally Sackbut, and was it really possible that she was the ruthless criminal of his theory? He doubted it, and yet there was the undeniable fact that as manager of the club, and herself a pilot, she was in an exceptional position to plan the crash.

However, the Inspector felt pleased, for he had cleared up so many conflicting features that a loose end or two might safely be left out for a moment.

The next question that troubled the Inspector was—setting aside for the moment the possibility that Sally Sackbut was the mysterious unknown—how far was this cocaine business connected with flying? Had Furnace merely stumbled on it in his private capacity as a resident at Baston? The Inspector found difficulty in believing this. Whatever the vices of Baston, and the little town had its share of them, they were mostly bucolic, and drug-taking was not among them. In fact, the Inspector knew singularly little about this form of wrong-doing.

Well then, was it a vice endemic to aviation? The Inspector imagined that a pilot would necessarily require to be physically fit, which
ipso facto
excluded drug-taking. But he was not sure, and for all he knew drug-taking might be a recognized aviation cult. He realized that here he would have to get advice. But from whom?

His train of thought was momentarily interrupted by the tinkle of his office 'phone. He lifted the receiver.

“Gauntlett here. You know you called in to see me about poor Furnace the other day? Look here, Inspector, can you come round and see me—at once? I've discovered something that I think will interest you. Yes, genuinely. No, I can't very well explain on the 'phone. In half an hour? Right ho, come straight to my office.”

Val Gauntlett was as delighted as a terrier with a rat as he led the Inspector to a portion of the aerodrome where lay a small block of wood. Over it a ground engineer in the scarlet-and-yellow overalls of Gauntlett's Air Taxis was mounting guard.

The ground engineer removed the block of wood, and the Inspector saw that it concealed a hole in the ground. He knelt down to inspect it. From the bottom of the depression projected a thin cylinder. The Inspector looked at it more closely and then gave a whistle of amazement.

It was the muzzle of a revolver, and its position could be most readily explained by the fact that it had fallen from a great height, embedding itself in the soil of the aerodrome like a bomb.

Very gently the Inspector loosened it. The firearm was rusty, as if it had been in the soil for some time. He examined it carefully, and measured the bore with his pocket callipers. Unless it was a remarkable coincidence, this was the revolver that had killed Furnace.

“Well, anything important?” asked Gauntlett eagerly.

The Inspector nodded. “It is. Extremely important, I fancy. Very good of you to have got in touch with me so promptly. Could this have been here long without being overlooked?”

“Good lord, yes! See for yourself the size of the aerodrome! If my 'plane hadn't happened to have been parked just here, Lumb would never have noticed it, and I know I shouldn't have.”

Creighton nodded, and walked slowly back to his car. Assuming that on further examination this proved to be the revolver which shot Furnace, did it alter his reconstruction? Not necessarily. After all, it wasn't a bad way of getting rid of an incriminating weapon to take it up in an aeroplane and drop it.

This, however, suggested still more strongly a link between flying, the murder, and the drug-taker. Not only did the murderer have something to do with flying, but almost certainly he was a pilot, for it would have been too risky for a passenger to throw it overboard. Ignorant as the Inspector was about aviation, he did know, from his solitary joy-ride, that in a two-seater aeroplane, such as the club used, the passenger sat in front of the pilot.

A pilot.…Sally Sackbut's image flitted again before the mind's eye of the Inspector.…

Chapter VIII

Autorotation of an Ecclesiastic

Meanwhile, Baston Aero Club had become the scene of activities which for a time obliterated the loose ends of the Furnace tragedy. The efficient cause was a remark made at breakfast by the Lord-Lieutenant of Thameshire, Lord Grunnage, to his sister, the Countess of Crumbles, to the effect that he hoped “that accident hasn't affected the Aero Club I'm president of. Sally Sackbut's a game little woman, and I should be sorry if she got into difficulties. Of course, the club's always on the verge of bankruptcy in this one-eyed town.”

Now Lady Crumbles lived in a passionate whirl of organization. Charity matinée succeeded to hospital ball with the inevitability of the seasons, and people instinctively (but vainly) put protecting hands over their cheque-books when she approached. Vainly, because Lady Crumbles' masterful and obtuse personality had the effect of a tank, and to be perfectly candid, her figure was planned on similar lines, which made the joint effect the more overpowering. Although Lady Crumbles was never in want of charitable objects for which to organize, or time in which to organize for them, she did sometimes find it difficult to originate new devices by which to abstract money from people under the show of giving them pleasure. Consequently she leapt at the remark thrown out, in all casualness, by Lord Grunnage.

“Gillie, you've given me an idea!”

“No, surely not,” said her brother nervously.

“Positively! Baston Aero Club must have an air display.”

“I don't think they'll like that at all.”

“Of course they won't. That's not the point. It's for a cause. For my Air Fairies!”

“Your what?” asked Lord Grunnage incredulously.

“My Air Fairies. You've heard of Brownies, I suppose?”

“A particularly repellent breed of Girl Guide, aren't they? Whenever I review a public function they seem to creep in on it somehow toward the end. They must be the most accomplished gate-crashers in this county.”

“Gilbert,” said Lady Crumbles sternly, “
I
am the patron of the Brownies in this county!”

“That, of course, explains it!”

“The Air Fairies are the aerial equivalent of the Brownies,” went on Lady Crumbles. “In time of war they will do their duty for King and Country by assisting our gallant airmen.”

“I don't think the name is very happy,” he suggested.

“And pray why not?”

Lord Grunnage coughed. “It might give rise to misconception.”

“I don't follow you,” answered Lady Crumbles brusquely. “However, as you seem to have taken some absurd prejudice against the name—what about the Airies?”

“That is better,” admitted her brother.

“Very well. Now we must have some money to get the Airies started. And what could be more suitable than an air display?”

“Why don't you put up the money yourself?” said Lord Grunnage, without thinking.

Lady Crumbles stared at him in horror. She had been organizing for charities for twenty years, and it was the first time that anyone had ever asked her to provide money for them herself. And her own brother to be so tactless!

“My dear Gilbert,” she said gently, “I have my duties to my family!”

“Your family? Do you mean old Frankie? I should have thought he'd got more than he knew what to do with. I see his tinned meat wherever I go!”

“Please remember he is my husband,” said Lady Crumbles. “You may be sure that if I could merely sign a cheque for these charities instead of working my fingers to the bone it would be a tremendous relief.” She sighed and then brightened. “You must be president of the display, of course.”

Lord Grunnage bowed his head meekly. “As long as I don't have to do anything.”

“Of course not. You know you never do. I shall look after everything. All I ask of you is to open the show and stay for a little. I must start forming the Executive Committee at once. While I remember, here are two tickets for the Midnight Matinée for Market Garringham Cottage Hospital. We should so love to see you and Lucy there.”

“Very kind of you to ask us,” mumbled Lord Grunnage.

“They are a guinea each. Send us the cheque along any day. Dear me, look at the time. I must fly.”

***

Next day Lady Crumbles appeared at Baston Aero Club with the nucleus of her Executive Committee—a formidable trio. Lady Crumbles was, of course, herself chairman, and her vice-chairman was Sir Herbert Hallam, one of the few pilots who had been able to make a commercial success of long-distance flying in the early days. He had been knighted for his exploits, and now functioned as the director of several aviation companies, while avoiding, as far as lay in his power, any more flying. He was an energetic man, with a loud voice which had not lost the somewhat Cockney accent of Sir Herbert's nurture. The third member of the Executive Committee was Dighton Walsyngham, a large, genial fellow, who was almost if not quite as successful in devising various pretexts for raising money as Lady Crumbles. The only difference was that in her case the ultimate object of the funds secured was charity, in his case it was himself. Walsyngham was a company promoter.

At the moment he was engaged in organizing a gigantic internal air line project. He had recently swum into Lady Crumbles' ken, and she had at once decided that he was a useful person, and had invited him on to the Executive Committee, to which he had blandly agreed. Walsyngham was built on the same imposing physical scale as Lady Crumbles, but he possessed an oily suavity which she lacked, and this supplied, as it were, a soft unguent which soothed his victims even as he advanced remorselessly over them quite in Lady Crumbles' tank-like style.

Miss Sackbut gazed at this trio with a kind of incredulous horror when they walked into her office. Lady Crumbles she knew, having seen her with the Lord-Lieutenant on the occasion when he had presented the club with a 'plane. Sir Herbert's physiognomy was, of course, known to her and to everyone in aviation, owing to his unequalled pervasiveness, but Walsyngham's was a new face.

She feebly motioned them into chairs.

“We are the Executive Committee of the Baston Air Display,” explained Lady Crumbles briefly and directly.

“Air display, did you say?” asked Sally incredulously.

“Certainly. We have decided to organize a flying meeting at Baston in aid of the Airies.”

“Did you say
Airies
?”

“Please don't keep repeating my words, Miss Sackbut,” said Lady Crumbles irritably. “Yes, I did say Airies. They are the air corps of my Brownies. Now all we want from the club are the club machines, and the aerodrome, the services of your pilots, and, of course, the co-operation of the members.”

“Is that all?” asked Sally.

“For the moment, yes,” answered Lady Crumbles, whose obliviousness to sarcasm was her greatest strength. “As further needs crop up, we shall, of course, get in touch with you. Now, my dear, as manager of the club you must, of course, serve on the Committee; in fact, you ought to be aviation manager of the display.”

“But I don't think,” said Sally, who felt the situation rapidly sliding out of her control, “that I'm very keen on the display idea. I don't think the members will be very keen on it either.”

“My dear child,” said the Countess winningly, “don't you realize that the whole idea of it is to
help
the club? The Airies are only a side issue. As soon as Gilbert said to me that he hoped the club was doing all right, I said to myself, ‘I must help them, the gallant things, and all they are doing for the country.' And so the idea of the display came to me.”

“It's awfully good of you, of course—”

“Not at all.”

“It really is, but—”

“Lady Crumbles spends her time doing good. How she has the time to fit it in I don't know,” interrupted Walsyngham.

“Wot amazes me is 'ow young she looks on it,” said Sir Herbert Hallam. “Work agrees with you, Lady Crumbles.”

“It really is most awfully good of her,” insisted Sally with a quiet desperation, “but I am sure club members would resent the time taken up in practising and so forth.”

“My dear Miss Sackbut, I am used to dealing with resentful people,” laughed Lady Crumbles. “If you get any complaints from a club member, I will have a little chat with him and point out that it is for the good of the club. Don't you worry on that score.”

“I hope it's not going to cost anything,” said Sally, unwilling to give in without a struggle. “We really can't afford a penny of capital expenditure.”

“Leave that to the Executive Committee! We'll raise the money. My dear, you seem to have so many odd objections…you don't resent my coming in, do you? I mean, if you would prefer to be chairman of the Executive Committee yourself, I should gladly serve under you. I always say that we women shouldn't let our feelings stand in the way of charity.”

“Good Lord, no! I am delighted you should run the show,” said Sally, now fairly cornered. “I'll co-operate with you all I can. I don't want to have to do anything but the flying side.”

As Sally thus succumbed to Lady Crumbles' powers, there was the sound of a song outside, and Tommy Vane threw open the door. He was carrying a glass of beer, was dressed in a cherry-coloured, open-necked shirt, and wore dark-green flannel trousers with an orange belt.

“Hi, Sally!” he shouted, holding up something in his fingers. “Look what I've found in the beer!” Then, seeing the formidable bulks of Lady Crumbles and Mr. Walsyngham and the familiar figure of Sir Herbert Hallam, he started to retreat with a muttered apology.

Lady Crumbles, who had scrutinized him closely, suddenly gave an exclamation. “My dear Mr. Spider!” she exclaimed effusively. “Fancy seeing you here! Have you been in England long?”

Tommy Vane gave her a startled stare. “I think you have made some mistake!”

“I never forget faces,” exclaimed Lady Crumbles positively. “Surely,” she added, a little plaintively, “you haven't forgotten me, Mr. Spider? Don't you remember in Hollywood, showing me round, when they were filming Veronica Gubbage in ‘Naughty but Nice'?”

“Merciful heavens? A maniac!” exclaimed Tommy Vane loudly. He backed out and closed the door rapidly behind him.

Lady Crumbles looked indignantly round. “How extremely impolite! Mr. Spider was introduced to me when I visited Hollywood two years ago. He was in the cast of ‘Naughty but Nice' when I saw it being filmed, and as he was English they gave him the task of looking after me. He did it very sweetly too; and now he seems so abrupt. I really cannot understand it!”

“Surely there is some mistake,” suggested Sally, concealing a smile. “His name is Vane—Thomas Vane—and I'm sure he's never been out of England; certainly not on the films. Are you
sure
the name was Spider?”

“Perhaps it isn't the same man,” admitted Lady Crumbles, in a tone that indicated she was fairly certain it was. “As for his name being Spider, now you mention it, perhaps it wasn't. Everyone called him Spider at the studio, so naturally I called him Spider too, but it may have been only a nickname.”

“I 'ad a monkey called Spider wot I brought 'ome from Singapore,” said Sir Herbert. “The pore little beast pegged out though.”

“What on earth has a monkey to do with it?” said Lady Crumbles. “Really, Sir Herbert, you do say the most extraordinary things!”

Walsyngham had meanwhile noticed Sally's growing impatience. “Perhaps we've done enough business for to-day,” he said soothingly. “Shall we make our next meeting here at, say, noon to-morrow? Does that suit you, Miss Sackbut?”

“Perfectly.” She nodded resignedly. How she wished Furnace was still alive. He would probably have been equal to Lady Crumbles. The new instructor, Winters, was too broken to the slings and arrows of outrageous committees at his previous clubs to offer much resistance. If only the woman hadn't been Grunnage's sister she would have told her to go to hell. She might yet.…

The Executive Committee walked out. Sir Herbert, the last to go, favoured Sally with a wink and an expressive thumb jerked in the direction of Lady Crumbles, which heartened her a little.

On her way to the car, Lady Crumbles halted as she saw a familiar figure hurrying by.

“Lady Laura!” she hailed it. “Fancy seeing you here! But, of course, you do fly yourself, don't you, you clever thing!”

“Hallo!” said Lady Laura in her loud clear voice. “I haven't seen you since we met at Hollywood.”

“Well, so it was, at Hollywood. How very strange. Only just now I was reminded of that visit. Do you remember Mr. Spider, that man who showed us round?”

Lady Laura laughed. “You mean ‘Spider' Hartigan? A rather amazing young Englishman?”

“That's the man. My dear, I met somebody just like him, a member of the club.”

“Oh, that would be Tommy Vane,” said Lady Laura. “They are rather alike; I've noticed it. He's younger though, I think. What are you doing here, by the way? The charity racket, I suppose? You aren't dragging Sir Herbert round for nothing!”

Hallam gave a deprecating grin.

Lady Crumbles became enthusiastic, a quality she could turn on like a tap. “Haven't you heard? I'm organizing a display for the club. Half the profits are going to the club and half to my Airies. What do you think of the idea?”

“Stinking!” retorted Lady Laura coldly. “It means having thousands of people tramping all over the aerodrome, and flying will be dislocated for the day, and there's always a dozen or so drunks left over in the bar one doesn't know what to do with. I know these shows.”

“You're always so witty, dear!” said Lady Crumbles, who was not to be put off by a Lady Laura. “Of course you won't refuse to take part in the
concours d'elegance
?”