Death of an Airman (12 page)

“I have arranged with the driver,” he said to Robinson quietly. “Jump in.”

The van reversed, turned, and the light from a lamppost shone on the scarlet and yellow colours of Gauntlett's Air Taxis.

Then Bray climbed in, and the French driver—a youngster with dark eyes and an ingenuous smile—sped like a demon through the quiet streets out to Le Bourget.

Chapter XII

Inevitability of Self-Murder

Inspector Creighton looked at Dr. Marriott with an air of stupefaction on his honest face which the ecclesiastic thought almost too good to be true.

“My lord, you amaze me, really you do! You seem to know more about this business than I do!”

The Bishop of Cootamundra endeavoured to look modest. “Ah, has my little suggestion proved fortunate? That interests me. What is the result?”

Inspector Creighton opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a folder.

“Bastable agreed to consult with the Home Office expert,” he explained. “I raised some small point as an excuse so as not to hurt his feelings. A query about the force of impact of the wound.…Then I dropped a quiet word to the Home Office man. He spotted something at once.” Creighton looked at the Bishop impressively. “The revolver wound was made before the blow on the head was received!”

The Bishop nodded. “The possibility had occurred to me some time ago, and that was why I raised the point. It is the only hypothesis that makes sense after all.”

“I'm glad it makes sense to you,” exclaimed the detective. “I'm blessed if it does to me. For the Home Office fellow swears that it was the revolver bullet that killed Furnace, so that he must have been shot dead just before he hit the ground! No wonder he went such a bump against the cockpit dashboard. He would have been as limp as a sack. He must have been shot dead in the air. But how?”

“Not very difficult, surely?” ventured the Bishop.

“Not difficult—with him alone in the air and not another aero-plane near! Why, it seems to me impossible!”

“Only too possible,” said the Bishop with a quiet smile. “I fear you have the whole story now, Inspector. You remember the letter Furnace wrote to Lady Laura?”

“I do. And very misleading it was too.”

“On the contrary. It was the simple truth,” answered Dr. Marriott gravely. “Furnace, poor fellow, did kill himself. He shot himself in the air. A touch of imagination that, which one must admire, although one reprehends the essential cowardice of the act. It was a suicide which was the airman's equivalent of the Viking's funeral: death in a crashing 'plane. He shot himself in the head, and fell back, pulling the ‘stick' back with him. The machine stalled, and then span. In the spin the revolver doubtless fell out of the machine. If you make a search of the fields you will probably find it.”

“I did find it—fallen in the middle of the aerodrome,” admitted the Inspector.

“You see?” said the other triumphantly. “Additional proof! Well, he span into the ground, dead, and his forehead struck the dashboard, accidentally obliterating the original wound.”

“Then there was no murder?” said Creighton with an air of disappointment.

“No, I am glad to say,” replied the Bishop. “None. Have you the Home Office expert's estimate as to the time between the bullet wound and the dashboard wound?”

“Yes, here we are.” Creighton picked up a few folio sheets of neat typescript. “He says one must have followed within about two minutes of the other, perhaps less. The blood had no time to coagulate before the head struck the dashboard. That, of course, is what led Bastable wrong, to give him his due. The Home Office man said that only microscopical examination of the tissues revealed what had happened, and any doctor would have made Bastable's mistake. But, of course, these doctors hang together so much anyway, and he may just have been saving Bastable's face. Bastable more or less admitted that he'd made a very hurried examination of the body as the whole thing seemed so obvious.”

“Well, at any rate that is final,” remarked the Bishop. “We were watching the machine, and we should certainly have seen if anyone was flying near enough to shoot him just before the crash.”

“Certainly, my lord. But if you'll excuse me, aren't you leaving some loose ends? I mean, I shan't feel happy in my mind unless I clear up the matter of that extra money made by Furnace, for instance. And that cocaine.”

“I refuse to regard those loose ends as important, Inspector,” said Dr. Marriott firmly. “Still, how does this do? Furnace is making money for certain services rendered. He knows them to be illegal and consequently he gets heavily paid for them, but he does not know what their illegality consists in. However, just before his death he becomes suspicious, and, after investigation, finds they are connected with the drug traffic. Now lots of quite decent men think it perfectly legitimate to do illegal things—to cheat the Revenue, for instance. I can't feel very indignant about it myself when I get my income tax assessment. But there is something abhorrent about the drug traffic, with its trade in demoralizing human souls and drawing them into a slough of degeneracy. A decent man, such as I think Furnace to have been, may well have been horrified to find that he had concerned himself in such a filthy business. But he may have thought himself too deeply involved to be able to get out of it. And so he killed himself.”

“Ay, that's about it,” admitted the Inspector, as he turned it slowly over in his mind. “It all fits in.”

He felt a little sorry that the fine case he was working on had turned out to be not much more than the verdict at the inquest stated it to be, but there would be satisfaction in presenting the Chief Constable with a solution in this tangled case that cleared up everything. Not everything, though, because there was still the matter of the cocaine that Furnace had found. There were drugs at Baston, how or why he did not know, but it was a matter that had to be cleared up. If only his little trip to Glasgow with Bray had solved the mystery!

“If there is nothing more, Inspector, I must be getting back.” There was real misery in the Bishop's voice as he added: “There is a meeting of the Executive Committee to the Baston Flying Display, to which I now belong.”

“I am sorry to hear it, my lord,” said the Inspector simply, “but I saw it was bound to happen. I know Lady Crumbles!”

Chapter XIII

Interesting Contents of a Newspaper

Bray arrived at Le Bourget Aerodrome, and the van drove over the tarmac up to the scarlet and yellow biplane which was waiting for them, its two propellers flicking over with a quiet gurgle. A faintly familiar figure stood beside the biplane's nose, wearing a leather coat and grey trousers. As Bray came closer he recognized it. It was the same woman whom Creighton had tried to dodge at Sankport Aerodrome, Miss Sackbut he thought the name had been. She stared at him while the van-driver explained that he was to travel with the 'plane. Then she called to him.

“Hi, haven't I seen you before somewhere?”

“I don't think so,” said Bray, hoping that the recognition would not be mutual.

“Funny, I thought I had. Where are you going, in front or in the cabin?”

“In the cabin,” answered Bray without hesitation, and Miss Sackbut made no protest. The van was being unloaded. He watched carefully, but they put nothing but bundles of newspapers in the 'plane.

Was this the “consignment”? He felt oddly baffled, afraid that the fiasco of their Glasgow trip would be repeated.

Meanwhile Sally spoke.

“This is the second time I've had to do this damned early morning trip for Gauntlett,” she explained confidentially. “Thorndike piled up in a car in Paris last night. Tough luck, wasn't it? I always seem to be the ministering angel in these affairs. I don't know why Gauntlett doesn't get a B licence himself for emergencies, he's had enough flying experience.”

“What is the weather going to be like?” said Bray politely.

Sally eyed the dawn growing on the eastern sky. Layers of vapour were drifting in front of it like horizontal trails of chimney-smoke. “A bit sticky, I'm afraid. Damned early time to start off in doubtful weather. I shall take the long Channel crossing all the same. This compass is fairly decent and I trust these engines.”

She looked at her watch. “We'd better be getting off now.…”

Bray climbed into the cabin. The seats had been removed to make room for the bundles of newspapers which were scattered on the floor, but he piled one package upon another and made a seat of it.

The creaking rumble from the undercarriage faded into the shout of the engines as the grass sped past, fell away, tilted below the left wing-tip, and then fell away again. They were flying over the neat fields of France, still shadowed by the retreating fog of night.

The coastline, with the silver and gold edging of the Channel's low tide, opened ahead after about an hour's flying, with the sun, now risen, on the right. But Bray was oblivious of the view. He was carefully cutting the bundles of newspapers and examining their contents. His back was to the pilot, in case she glanced in at him through the window at the back of the cockpit.

He opened one and then gave a little gasp.…

He took out two or three newspapers and folded them carefully into his inside pocket. Then he tied up the package from which he had taken them.

Meanwhile the Channel had dropped behind them, together with the chalk hills of Kent, cut off abruptly, like a relief map, and with a similar artificial regularity in their curves. Almost before he had time to work out the bearings of his discovery, he found himself staring at the letters Sankport on a green field, as they banked in a tight circle and slipped over the edge of the aerodrome towards the hangars and bumped over the ground to the Customs Office.

It was this part that interested Bray, and he stayed to watch it. Two Customs men came out, and with the most perfunctory of glances at the contents, scrawled their approval on them. Suddenly Bray realized how glaringly he had neglected the obvious. Of course, it was only necessary to have one pair of confederates, and wait till they were on duty to run the stuff through.…Bray thanked Sally for his trip and went into the waiting-room to 'phone for a taxi to the nearest station. He had breakfast in Victoria and then walked to New Scotland Yard. Here a message was awaiting him, marked “Urgent”—to come up at once and see Superintendent Learoyd. “Urgent” was not used lightly in the Yard, and he went up to the Superintendent's without waiting to take off his hat or coat.

Superintendent Learoyd was more troubled than Bray had ever seen him. Such a panic could only be aroused from “Up Above,” and so it proved.

“Look here, Bray, what's this business about investigating Valentine Gauntlett's life to find if he has any criminal associations? Your man, Finch, has been nosing around, and he said you told him to do so.”

“They were my instructions, sir,” answered Bray, surprised. “While I was in Paris following up a certain line of investigation, evidence came my way which seemed to throw considerable suspicion on Gauntlett. So I wired the usual message.”

The Superintendent exploded with a kind of hissing noise, his grey moustache blowing away from his lips. “You delightful idiot! Do you realize who Gauntlett is?”

“No—since I gather from your tone that he is somebody important,” replied Bray a little resentfully. “I know he is head of Gauntlett's Air Taxis, that's all.”

“Oh, Bray, Bray!” implored the Superintendent. “Please read the Social and Personal column of
The Times
! Lord knows what trouble you may get us into. Valentine Gauntlett is our new Home Secretary's nephew. And we've been poking round at his house and so forth trying to find his criminal associations! Ye gods, if the Big Chief heard of it!”

“The Home Secretary's nephew!” echoed Bray, and the Superintendent was gratified to observe an expression of real and not perfunctory horror on his subordinate's face. Bray had not thought of associating Lord Entourage, formerly Sir Joseph Beatson, the pillar of Evangelicalism and Temperance and Anti-Gambling, with Valentine Gauntlett, but now he vaguely remembered that Entourage's sister had married some South African millionaire whose name began with a G. It probably was Gauntlett.

“Yes, the Old Man's nephew!” repeated the Superintendent grimly. “Can you conceive a more unlikely criminal! Do you realize he was left a couple of million in trust by his father? He even does a job of work, which shows he's a steady sort of fellow in spite of his wealth. Any more impossible candidate for our attentions I can't imagine.”

“I'm afraid I'm going to give you a shock, sir,” said Bray gravely. “My attention was directed to Gauntlett's Air Taxis because I found that his 'planes were distributing in this country copies of a French newspaper which had some connection with a dope organization. It took me a long time to trace the connection, but I found it—in Paris. I travelled over this morning on a Gauntlett Air Taxis 'plane, pretending to be a member of the organization. I took this out of some of the bundles of newspapers carried by that 'plane. It's just a sample. They were all the same.”

After one glance at Bray's serious face, the Superintendent took a copy of that day's
La Gazette Quotidienne
. He opened it, and almost at once noticed that a sheet of newsprint had been pasted over the centre fold to make a kind of bag which bellied suspiciously. He split the belly with his fingers, and a shower of white powder fell out and sifted on to the worn carpet of the Superintendent's room. The Superintendent looked at Bray.

Bray nodded. “I'm afraid so. Dope! We'll have it analysed to make sure. But there can't be much doubt, can there?”

“I'm afraid not,” admitted the Superintendent.

“And that's not all. There seems to be a murder mixed up with it down at Baston.”

The Superintendent looked dismal. “Ye gods, Bray, this is going to be the most ghastly scandal! We've got to go through with it, but we must go carefully. Tell me the whole story as you know it.”

Bray settled down in his chair and accepted a cigarette. “It's the story of the most complex international dope distribution organization I've ever heard of. Its source seems to be Paris, but who its head is I don't know. It appears to be a man who goes by the name of Vandyke, who, I fear, may prove to be Valentine Gauntlett. But it may not be so. For all I know as yet, Vandyke may be a tool for someone higher up.”

“How does a newspaper come into it?” asked the Superintendent.

“They've chosen a newspaper for two reasons, as I see it. It gives an excuse for an international distribution by air, with the minimum of handling, for a parcel of newspapers is the kind of thing that can be rushed through without any query as to why there is a rush. Secondly, the advantage of the newspaper as a vehicle for a drug is that it can be bought openly by any kind of person without suspicion and that it can itself carry messages to the customer. For instance, of the various Customs men who come on duty at Sankport Aerodrome, two have been bought by the gang. No doubt this has been done in all the countries where the dope organization operates. Consequently the drugs can only be smuggled through on the days when these men happen to be on duty together. This day is known a short while beforehand, however, and a simple code message in the newspaper gives the date. No doubt it is a different code message for each country. So far I have only discovered the English message, which appears on the first Monday in the month, and always contains a reference to some royal personage. The subscriber then knows when the dope is to be contained in his daily newspaper and takes great care that he gets it on that day. On any other day it is a perfectly ordinary and respectable newspaper.”

Superintendent Learoyd looked helplessly at the torn newspaper and nodded.

“The use of aerial newspaper deliveries has other advantages, of course,” went on Bray. “It cleans the whole business up so quickly. The drug is in the hands of the customers all over Europe by the afternoon of the same day.”

The Superintendent agreed. “That's smart; very smart. Our main hope in this drug traffic is that the stuff passes through so many hands and takes so long to reach the consumer. These people have got over that. But was it really necessary for the gang to buy a newspaper?”

“I think so,” answered Bray. “The essence of the scheme was the delivery by air. But the only way you could make regular delivery by air without exciting suspicion is by delivering newspapers. No other goods are distributed by private charter regularly, and it would only ask for investigation suddenly to start delivering say, cigarettes by air, for it is obviously an uneconomic method. Once you admit the necessity of using newspapers, and actually concealing the drug in the newspapers, it is necessary to be in control of the publishing department at least. In fact, control of the newspaper is almost inevitable. And as they only bought the control, and not any other charges, it probably wasn't expensive. I suspect other reasons for buying the newspaper as well—reasons which explain why it was done from Paris.”

The Superintendent pursed his lips. “Oh, I see. Politics. That makes it difficult, doesn't it?”

“I'm afraid it does. But we've always suspected it, haven't we? You remember that with the help of the League's Narcotics Bureau we proved conclusively that an enormous consignment of white drugs was being despatched to Paris from Macedonia every month, and we traced the O.K. to let it through to a certain politician not in the Ministry but possessing influence.
La Gazette
supports that politician through thick and thin, and I'm afraid—”

“That that was the price of the support? Quite. These things happen on the Continent,” said the Superintendent with a lofty British pride. “But you remember we didn't worry much, because so long as it didn't get to England, it didn't concern us. But now that we find it is getting over here, it's serious,” he reflected. “I say, Bray, what about finance? The expense of running this organization must be colossal?”

“Yes, but so must the revenue. I don't know how it works, but I rather expect that each drug addict pays a subscription to the paper. It might be one hundred pounds a year—it might be five hundred. We don't know. For this he gets some kind of token, possibly a card, possibly a password which is changed every so often. This entitles him to become a customer of one of the agents, of which no doubt there are a dozen or so in England, three or four in each large town. These agents are probably paid an annual capitation fee per head, according to the number of customers. Even if they were only paid ten pounds a head, there is no reason why it should not be extremely paying to be an agent, say, with a couple of hundred customers and no expenses.

“Then there is the cost of the central organization,” the Superintendent reminded him.

“Yes, but the paper has a perfectly solid and respectable history,” answered Bray, “except for its support of one politician, and it probably pays for itself. There is the foreign publisher, Grandet, and his four assistants to be looked after. They must be paid well as they handle the drug from the bulk to the distribution. Then there is the bribery of the Customs officers in each country—a pretty heavy item. And finally the expense of the aerial distribution. This must be the worst drain, but if they have several thousands of customers, as they seem to, they must be dealing in revenues of a million or more.”

“All the pilots and van-drivers would have to be bribed heavily. That can't be cheap.”

“No, it's a heavy expense. What is worse from the gang's point of view is that there are a large number of people who could give away the secret. It's the one defect in the plan, but inevitable, I suppose, in such a large-scale organization. And what an organization it is!” said Bray enthusiastically. “It really staggers one to think of the efficiency. The dope comes in in tons from Macedonia to the publishing office of the
Gazette
. The stuff is stored there, and almost every day it is slipped into copies of newspapers—for Germany one day, England another day, and so on. Before nightfall it's in the customers' pockets, scattered among towns hundreds of miles away. It makes ordinary business look inefficient!”