'Well, how did you like it?' Gerry Wells turned to glance over his shoulder as he brought the plane to a halt once more on the Manston landing ground.
'It it was fine,' Milly said a little breathlessly. She had feared that she might be airsick, but the thrill of watching the tiny human figures in the sunlit fields, and town after town as they circled above them, with some new interest constantly arising out of the far horizon had made her completely forget her fear after the first few moments. Her cheeks were glowing now with a gentle flush from the swift wind of their flight and her blue eyes were sparkling in her delicate little face with happy exhilaration.
As Wells helped her out of the plane he had not the least twinge of conscience at having neglected his duties for an hour or so to give her the experience. He had no regular hours and his work often kept him up all night so he felt perfectly justified in taking this little break which had given Milly and himself so much pleasure.
Having seen his plane into its borrowed hangar they set out again for Quex Park and arrived back at the east gate by half past eleven. Their friendship had now grown to such a state that talking no longer proved a difficulty and Milly was giving him an account of her childhood which, although utterly lacking in all interest for most people, he found quite absorbing.
When they reached the house they went into Mrs. Bird's sitting room and found a lanky, unshaven, bedraggled figure lounging in one of the worn armchairs. It was Gregory and he was in none too good a humour.
He smiled at them with a cynical twist of his thin lips. 'Well, you had a good time I hope? Thinking of settling down in Thanet for a holiday?'
Gerry Wells raised his eyebrows. 'So you're back already? I hardly thought you'd be likely to get here before midday.'
'It's lucky I'm here at all,' snapped Gregory. 'Having risked my neck with that blasted parachute of yours. Still, I've been kicking my heels here just on two hours, while you've been disporting yourself, I gather, with the intention of showing Miss Chalfont what a mighty fine pilot you are.'
Milly went crimson. 'II think I'd better go and find Aunty, if you'll excuse me,' she murmured uncomfortably, all the gaiety gone out of her pretty little face.
'Run along, my dear,' Gregory said more amiably. 'It's not your fault if our heroic policeman decides to take time off to amuse himself and I'm not his boss anyway.'
Wells drew his shoulders back a little as the girl fled from the room. 'I take what time off I like, Mr. Sallust, but don't let's quarrel over that. Did you have any luck when you landed?'
Gregory shrugged. 'As I survived the ordeal it was almost inevitable that I should. Their headquarters down there is a little place called the Brown Owl Inn. It's miles from anywhere in the middle of the marshes but near the railway line running from Dungeness to Ashford. I had to stagger a mile through every sort of muck before I got near enough to see what was going on and by that time most of the planes had dumped their stuff and got off again. The interesting thing is, though, that while I was there a goods train came in from Dungeness and unloaded several hundred wooden cases, then the cases the planes had brought were loaded on to it instead, and it puffed off, presumably to London. Afterwards the stuff from the train was loaded on to a fleet of Lorries which duly trundled away inland; all the gang who had handled both sets of goods going with, them. The two different lots of cases, which were swapped over, had exactly the same appearance, by the way.'
Wells's eyes brightened. 'I think I get the idea. They're probably shipping cargoes of non dutiable goods in a small freighter. Those would be cleared by the customs without any charges in the normal way, of course, then consigned to London by the railway. But they must have got at some of the railway people to halt the goods train for a few moments near their secret landing ground; then the contraband that the planes bring over is substituted for the non dutiable stuff and delivered in London without any questions being asked.'
'That's about it,' said Gregory, 'though why they should bother to make the exchange I don't quite see.'
'I do,' Wells grinned. 'A fleet of lorries anywhere near the coast at night, might quite well be pulled up by one of the preventative men. By using this method they eliminate that risk and get the contraband straight through to London. The thing we've got to find out now is the address where the goods are to be delivered at the other end after they leave the London goods depot.'
Gregory produced the carefully folded form of the stolen telegram, addressed to Corot, from his pocket and spread it out although he knew its contents by heart now. 'Look,' he said, 'at the last two lines, "Seventh", that was yesterday, 43 47, "Eighth", that's today, 43, again 47. From the repetition of the numbers it looks a reasonably safe bet they mean to use the same landing ground to ran another cargo tonight; but we're not having any funny business with parachutes this time. We'll fly over to Ashford this evening, hire a nice safe car there, park it somewhere where it won't be noticed a few hundred yards from the Brown Owl and see what's doing. Maybe, if the luck holds, we'll be able to secure the information you want.'
Tine,' Wells agreed. 'We'll have to get on that train somehow, if it's only for a moment, so that I can get the address to which the goods are being forwarded in London.'
The next move having been arranged, Gregory decided to go in to Margate. It did not trouble him that the room Wells had occupied at the Queen's had probably already been let again, owing to the holiday rush, as the proprietors of the St. George's were old friends of his and he felt certain that, however full up they were, they would fix him up with a bath and a bed for the afternoon. Margate too was more convenient than Birchington for Manston Aerodrome, so it was agreed that Wells should pick him up at the St. George's, before going out there, at seven o'clock.
As Gregory stood up Mrs. Bird came in. 'You'd better make yourselves scarce now you two,' she said. 'That Miss Szenty is a proper lazy one, lying abed there and wasting all this lovely morning, but I've just taken her breakfast up so she'll be down shortly, and you don't want her to see either of you about the place. She says she'll be staying here for the next few nights so you'd best watch out when you visit us again or you may run into her in the garden.'
'Thanks, Mrs. Bird. I'm just off,' Gregory told her. It was some small comfort to be reasonably certain that he would be able to find Sabine there if an emergency made it necessary for him to get hold of her in the next day or two. Tired as he was, he wished desperately that he could remain and see her when she came downstairs, if only for a few moments, but he dared not risk it. His previous blunder was still fresh in his mind. It was a hundred to one that she would take to flight again the second she got rid of him and, in addition, it would give away the fact that the police knew Lord Gavin to be the tenant of Quex Park.