Authors: Dennis Wheatley
‘I am a colleague of Squadron-Leader Forsby’s. Are you the duty N.C.O.?’
‘Yes, Sir.’ The corporal replied, coming quickly to his feet and switching off the radio.
‘I understand that about half past two an aircraft came in and took off about half an hour later.’
‘That’s right, Sir,’ the man confirmed their worst fears. ‘Quite unexpected it was. Usually we are warned in advance and given the E.T.A. in ample time for whichever of us is on duty to get hold of the others and man the control tower. But with good weather, like it is today, and the strip clear that isn’t really necessary. All the same, it’s against regulations, and I was a bit took a back.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I walked over, Sir, and had a word with the pilot. He said that he had come down from our I.C.B.M. Station in the Hebrides to pick up some stuff that was wanted urgent, and he couldn’t understand why they had failed to send us a signal about him.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I told him he’d better watch out for the aircraft from Farnborough that was due in about half past four, but the said he’d have taken off long before that; so I came back here.’
‘Didn’t you report this unscheduled landing?’
‘I did, Sir, to Flying Officer Leathers, when he and others came along to see the Farnborough arrival in.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He entered it in the log, and said he’d send the Hebrides Station a rocket for having failed to warn us that they were sending this aircraft down.’
‘Then you let two hours elapse before you reported it?’ The corporal’s face became a little sullen. ‘Well, it isn’t the first time that someone’s forgot to send a routine signal,
Sir. Anyhow, I didn’t think it was anything to get excited about, and neither did my officer when I told him.’
‘All right! All right! Describe the pilot to me.’
‘He was a tallish chap, age about thirty. Clean shaven, and I think his eyes were brown. He was wearing pilot’s kit, not uniform.’
‘How many people had he with him?’
‘Only one man, Sir. He’d left the aircraft by the time I reached her and, being Sunday, with no one about, he’d walked over to the hangars to get the runabout out for himself. He drove it off towards the laboratory block, to fetch the stuff they’d come for, I suppose.’ The corporal turned towards Khune, and added, ‘I didn’t see him close to, but he was about your build, Sir; dressed like you too, in a mack and a beret.’
‘What make was the aircraft,’ Verney asked.
‘I’m afraid I didn’t notice, Sir. She was a two-engined job and I’d say she’d carry up to a ton of cargo,’
‘Did you take her number?’
‘No, Sir.’ The corporal bridled again. ‘This isn’t like a civil airport, you know, with aircraft coming in from all sorts of places all the time.’
‘Hell!’ muttered C.B. and, turning, he strode across the passage to the office. He was just about to pick up the telephone when it rang. The corporal, who had followed, murmured, ‘Excuse me, Sir,’ reached a hand past him, and answered it. After a minute he said:
‘It’s Squadron-Leader Forsby, saying to have the tower manned to clear the Farnborough plane in three-quarters of an hour.’
C.B. took the receiver from him. ‘Dick. This is Verney. There’s been a spot of trouble. Instead of going to the Club, drop everything and come here. Yes, at once, please.’ Hanging up, he said to the corporal:
‘There’s no need to get your team together yet. The Farnborough plane won’t be leaving till later. I expect the pilot is on his way here though. Go outside and, when he turns up, tell him there has been a postponement.’ Then, to
Khune, he added, ‘Would you be good enough to wait for us across the passage.’
Directly the two men had left the room, he rang the exchange and asked for a priority call to the Air Ministry. While it was being put through he remarked with a frown to Barney: ‘As it’s Sunday the place will be practically empty and none of our people available. We can only hope that the Duty Group Captain is a live wire.’
The Group Captain proved willing but far from hopeful about tracing Lothar’s plane. He too remarked upon its being Sunday, which meant that, in addition to normal traffic, hundreds of trainers and aircraft from Flying Clubs all over the country would be up, so that with such an inadequate description to go on, the chances of the plane being identified were extremely slender. But he said he would send out an emergency signal to all airports to hold any twin-engined transport aircraft that came down to refuel, pending special clearance.
C.B. then got on to Special Branch and asked for a warrant to be taken out for Lothar’s arrest, and for a check up that a night and day watch was being kept on the house at Cremorne, in case he returned to it.
While he was still on the telephone, Forsby joined them and Barney told him in a low voice what had happened. When he realised how completely they had been fooled, he shut his eyes and began to curse under his breath. Verney hung up and turned to him.
‘This is a bad business, Dick, and I’m afraid I can’t congratulate you on your security arrangements for your airstrip.’
‘Yes, it’s I who am to blame, Sir.’ Forsby’s tone had at once become formal. ‘Normally one of my men is present at every aircraft arrival and departure, to check the passes of the crew as they come off or reboard the plane. The thought that an unauthorised aircraft might come in without warning, land, and get away with it, never occurred to me.’
‘In a place of this importance, I think it should have.’
‘I’ll resign, of course, Sir.’
Verney gave him a gentle pat on the arm. ‘You’ll do nothing of the kind, old friend. This afternoon we’ve all been taken for a ride. If anyone is responsible, it is myself, as I came down here to take charge. Now, as an airman, tell me – what is the chance of our bird getting out of the country with his loot?’
The Squadron-Leader glanced at his watch. ‘It’s now twenty minutes to six, so he must have been gone the best part of three hours. From the description of the aircraft it doesn’t sound as though he has anyway near a full load, so he should have had plenty of petrol. Anyway, by now he could have refuelled at some small landing-ground near the East coast and be well out over the North Sea.’
‘I feared as much. Still, we might get a break even in Belgium or Holland through the Air Ministry tie-up with N.A.T.O. Anyway, there is no more we can do for the moment, so I’m in favour of accepting that late tea you offered us.’
Having collected Khune, they drove round to the Club and, owing to the hour, settled for drinks instead of tea. Taking their drinks into a corner, they held a gloomy inquest. As a result of it they reached the conclusion that Lothar had probably taken Otto’s excuse for not coming up to London – that an American boffin was coming down – to be a lie; so, from Friday night, he had given up hope of persuading him to co-operate and switched to threatening him with a death curse unless he left the Station for a few hours to keep a rendezvous, thus leaving the field free for his double to move about the Station during that time, without fear of coming face to face with him, and to make off with a quantity of the fuel instead of its formula.
It was Barney who produced the idea that, owing to Otto’s psychic link with Lothar, the former might be able to secure some clue to the latter’s whereabouts. Otto who, since the discovery of the way they had been tricked, had hardly spoken, brightened at once, and said:
‘That certainly is a possibility. Anyhow, I will do my
utmost; but, for such an attempt, I must have solitude and silence, so I had better go back to my quarters.’
Forsby looked across at C.B. ‘I ought to be moving, too. I’ve the unpleasant task in front of me of reporting this business to the Chief, and I don’t want to leave it much longer, as he usually asks a few people along to drinks on Sunday evenings. Do you still wish to set off to London as soon as possible, or would you prefer to dine here first?’
‘Dine and sleep, I think,’ Verney replied. ‘I told the Air Ministry to report back here if they manage to trace Lothar’s plane; and now Mr. Khune is going to have a cut at that too from the psychic angle. If either succeeded while Sullivan and I were on our way back to London, we’d lose hours of precious time in getting after him; so we will stay put for the night. We’ll all go along to Sir Charles now, and I’ll break the news to him for you.’
‘That’s damned decent of you, C.B. The old boy is bound to take it pretty badly – the actual theft, I mean – and what he’ll say when told about the psychic angle, I can’t imagine. If I tried to explain that part of it to him without support, he would probably think that I ought to be certified.’
They finished their drinks, returned to the car, dropped Khune at his bungalow, then drove to the Headquarters block, in which the Director of the Station had a flat overlooking the quadrangle. Forsby sent up his name and a few minutes later a man-servant showed them into a pleasant sitting-room.
Sir Charles Remmington-Rudd was a portly man in the middle fifties. He was nearly bald and had heavy sagging jowls, but an alert manner and a friendly smile. When Forsby had introduced his companions, C.B. reported the bare facts.
The eminent scientist said nothing for a moment, then he shook his head. ‘This is a very serious matter. Sit down please, gentlemen, and give me full particulars.’
‘Thank you, Sir.’ Verney took a chair. ‘It is an extraordinary story and, I’m afraid, a long one. May I ask to
begin with whether you believe in psychic phenomena?’
Sir Charles raised his eyebrows. ‘I can answer that only if you give me a precise definition of the meaning to yourself of the term you have used. However, it may help you if I say that science now admits the existence of certain faculties in the human mind which cannot be accounted for by normal processes. Before you go further, though, you say the story is a long one, and I am expecting a few friends in for drinks quite shortly. I take it everything possible is being done to trace these stolen drums of our special fuel?’
‘Everything, Sir.’
‘Very well, then.’ Sir Charles stood up. ‘It is now too late to put my friends off, but I can put off a couple who were to dine with me. If I can be of no immediate help this long story of yours will keep for an hour or two, so I suggest that the three of you should return at eight o’clock and tell it to me over dinner.’
They thanked him and took their leave, then repaired to Forsby’s bungalow, where they again mulled over the shattering event of the day without getting any further. After a wash and brush up, they dined with Sir Charles, who at first found it difficult to believe what they were saying; but Forsby had brought along a copy of Otto’s statement and, after the scientist had read it, he had to agree that the psychic bond between the twins must be accepted.
At half past ten they looked in on Otto. He had tried for an hour before dinner to get into touch with Lothar, then dined in the Mess and, since, tried again, but on both occasions without success. Forsby set the tape recorder in the hope that it might pick up a conversation between the twins during the night, then they all turned in.
On Monday morning the tape proved blank, but Otto reported that he had woken at about half past six after a vivid dream. In it he had seen Lothar getting into an aircraft, standing near which were a number of men in uniform, and he felt sure that these were Americans. He also had a feeling that the place was one of the air bases occupied by United States Forces in Eastern England.
Verney at once rang through to the Air Ministry and asked the senior officer in the Security Department there to take the matter up with his American opposite number and ask for exhaustive enquiries to be made.
This first earnest that Otto might succeed in helping them to trace his brother decided C.B. to take him to London, so that if he had further visions he could give full particulars of them with a minimum of delay. While the aircraft was being got ready to fly them back to Farnborough, Otto arranged with his number two to carry on with the experiments on which he was engaged, then Forsby ran the three of them along to the airstrip.
At Farnborough, Verney’s car was waiting to meet them. On the way into central London they stopped at the little hotel in Chelsea and arrangements were made for Otto to stay there, then C.B. dropped Barney in Warwick Square and went on to his office.
In spite of his preoccupations over the week-end, Barney had several times thought of Mary, and he feared that she might have taken rather badly his having had to let her down on Saturday night. So the first thing he did on getting into his flat, was to ring her number. As it was just on lunch-time he hoped to catch her in but there was no reply, so he assumed that she was probably out for the day on one of her modelling jobs.
In the evening he considered buying more roses to take to her, but decided that might give the impression that he had been enjoying himself over the week-end and now had a guilty conscience; so he arrived in the Cromwell Road at half past seven empty handed but armed with an elaborate story of a millionaire who had suddenly become interested in his Kenya travel project and had insisted on carrying him off to the country on Saturday to discuss putting money into it.
To his disappointment and annoyance, his ring at the front door of Mary’s flat brought no response, so evidently she was still out. Hoping that something had detained her, he hung about for nearly an hour, but she did not put in an
appearance; so he was forced to the conclusion that she was so annoyed with him that she had decided to ignore the invitation he had posted to her before setting off for Wales, and had already gone out for the evening either alone, or with someone else.
Consoling himself as best he could with the thought that having been up early that morning an ‘early bed’ would be welcome, he ate a solitary dinner at a little restaurant in Gloucester Road and returned to Warwick Square. But it was quite a time before he got off to sleep as thinking of Mary made him realise how much he had been looking forward to seeing her again and how much, in the past fortnight, she had, almost imperceptibly, come to mean to him.