BIGGLES OF THE SPECIAL AIR POLICE

by Captain W. E. Johns

IV. THE CASE OF THE TOO SUCCESSFUL COMPANY (Pages 77 – 96)

“Good morning, Bigglesworth.” “Morning, sir.” Air Detective-Inspector Bigglesworth reached for a cigarette from the box which Air-Commodore Raymond, head of the Air Section at Scotland Yard, pushed towards him. “What’s on your mind?” inquired the Air-Commodore, flicking his lighter. Biggles says that as things have been quiet lately, he has been bringing his records up to date. He has noticed something that strikes him as a trifle odd. A small charter company called Air Mobility Enterprises Limited (at the time of writing this, there is no such real company at companies’ house) seldom does any business but is managing to show a profit. “Furthermore, Wing-Commander Kellack, the proprietor, apparently makes enough out of it to be able to go to work in a Rolls-Royce”. Enquiries have shown that the company is careful to comply with all regulations but its takings would hardly pay for the insurance on the two aircraft it owns. Biggles says the company is too efficient. It has never had an accident, never had an argument with the Customs officials or the Air Ministry. “In a word, this company is too good to be true”. The Air Commodore laughed. “That’s pretty good. When a company gets slack, you jump on it. When it is run well, you still aren’t satisfied”. Biggles says the company doesn’t seem to care if it gets business or not and it doesn’t even advertise. The company flies to Paris and sometimes to Le Touquet (a small seaside town in Northern France). Biggles asks permission to spend some money investigating as he has a plan to send Ginger on one of their flights to check things out. The two directors of the company are Wing-Commander Oscar Kellack and a Julius Quick. Inquiries have shown that he used to run a popular bar in Paris. There is also a small staff of mechanics. The Air-Commodore gives permission to investigate. (The next part of the story is prefixed with a “II”). It was ten days before Biggles’s plan could be put into operation. This is because when Ginger rang up the air-line company to book a trip to Le Touquet he was told that no bookings could be accepted for the time being because the company’s machines were temporarily out of commission for their annual complete overhaul. If he left his address, they would contact him. “Ginger gave his private address”. Biggles, Algy, Bertie and Ginger discuss the situation. “What sort of company is it that manages to have all its machines grounded at the same time?” asks Ginger, who thinks they will never ring him up. Later, Ginger does get a letter saying they can accept bookings. So, at ten o’clock the following morning, Ginger is sitting in a blue-and-silver monoplane being flown by Wing-Commander Kellack. The formalities are followed to the letter. They take off. The only thing that Ginger thinks is strange is that the aircraft flies low across the Channel, too low for safety. What is also strange is that the machine climbs after crossing the French coast. “Ginger had arranged for the machine to wait for him, and take him home after he had conducted some imaginary business in the town”. In fact, he stays and watches the crew of the aircraft but nothing is suspicious. On the return trip, the machine goes straight up to five thousand feet and stays there and Ginger wonders why the pilot did not do that on the way out. Ginger reports back to Biggles that nothing happened. Biggles says “What you mean is, nothing that you could see”. Biggles tells Ginger he followed the aircraft at a comfortable distance behind and he saw a small object drop off the machine the moment they crossed the French coast, just south of Boulogne (a town some 24 miles north of Le Touquet). Biggles asks Ginger if he noticed a fellow and a girl at that spot. “They had what looked like some packets of food spread out on a yellow rug”. Ginger did and assumed that they were a courting couple. Biggles said he watched what they did and they went for a short stroll and one of them picked up the thing that had been dropped. They then returned to their car. It looks like it is a smuggling operation but as to what they dropped; Biggles says to Ginger “Your guess is as good as mine”. Biggles wonders why the company only fly on certain occasions. Gold or currency could be dropped at any time. Ginger says “So it boils down to this. These Mobility merchants are not what they pretend to be”. Biggles replies “That’s the English of it”. He adds that the next time Air Mobility pull their little trick should be the last. Biggles says he will ring up Marcel Brissac at the Surete and they can set a trap together. “It’ll be nice to see Marcel again, anyway”. Biggles suspects the company won’t be flying again yet and to prove it, he rings to book passage. He is told that all machines are booked to capacity for the next few days. (The next part of the story is prefixed with a “III”). It was another week before Biggles was able to secure a booking for the Continent on the Wednesday. This time Bertie was to be the passenger. Algy was at Gatton Airport, keeping an eye on things, in the role of an idle spectator. Biggles and Ginger had gone to France and met up with Marcel. They then drove down, in Marcel’s car, to the desolate sandhills that fringe the French coast in the region of Boulogne. “Biggles had, of course, noted the exact spot where the charter machine had crossed the coast on the occasion when Ginger was the passenger”. They took up a position where they could watch without being seen. In due course a big car comes along and a man and a woman with a mop of fair hair get out. They had with them a picnic-basket and a yellow rug. They went and chose a position about midway between the road and the sea and spread their yellow rug. Later, the aircraft flies over, racing low overhead and at a height of a hundred feet, a small object detaches itself from the machine and hurtles down to land within a score of paces of the picnic party. The machine then held straight on without deviating a yard from its course. When the aircraft is out of earshot, the woman gets up, looks around and makes for the package. Biggles, Ginger and Marcel walk briskly towards her. She runs for the package, picks it up and runs back to her companion. Ginger gives chase and the woman takes her skirt off and flings it at him, underneath she has men’s shorts on. Ginger grabs out at her hair and it comes away in his hand. “The supposed female was a fake. “She” was, in fact, a man”. The couple then race to their car, the fake female turns with an automatic pistol and fires twice at Ginger. One shot misses him and one grazes his arm, drawing blood. Marcel then shoots the fake female. The second man reaches the car but Biggles puts a bullet through the tyre and he surrenders, putting his hands up. Marcel gets his car and the wounded female impersonator is rushed to hospital at Boulogne, “where, it may now be said, he died a week later”. The other man is lodged in gaol. At the Police Bureau the contents of the dropped bag is examined and found to contain jewels. “From the published description, these are the jewels of the Countess of Bedlington,” said Biggles. “They were stolen from her London house a few days ago. This, apparently, is how they were to be got out of the country. And they’re not the first sparklers to come out this way, I’ll warrant”. “The captured man turned out to be one of the cosmopolitan spiv types so many of whom make a precarious living by their wits in Paris”. He went by the name of Igor Louensky and he also went out of his way to betray the whole gang. His job was to sit in the sands, pick up the bag dropped by an aeroplane and take it to a bar named the Two Pigeons, in Paris. There he was to hand it over to a man known in the Underworld as Harry. In order to get a lighter sentence, Louensky completes his mission and Harry is arrested with the goods on him. Back in the UK, with Inspector Hodson, Biggles went to Gatton Airport and interviewed the Managing Director of Air Mobility Limited (John’s misses out the word ‘Enterprises’ from their name for the rest of the story), Wing-Commander Kellack. “Seeing that the game was played out, Kellack made a clean breast of everything”. The company had started out as a genuine air-transportation company, but things had gone badly. Kellack had previously met Harry after the war and he had illegally cashed a cheque for him. Under threat of exposure, Harry had blackmailed the wretched Wing-Commander into working for him. This had kept the company on its feet. Kellack was given twelve months imprisonment to ponder his foolishness. It became clear that Harry, an international rogue, was the evil genius behind more than one racket that had worried the police for a long time. A French court saw to it that he was put where he could do no further mischief for a long time. “Biggles struck the name, Air Mobility Limited, the company that always showed a profit, from his records, with the observation; “Wound up,” and the date.