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Chapter 2: Two Go Clubbing
There was consternation in the Committee Room of the Royal Aeronautical Club on London 's Park Lane . Police Inspector Jaffe was interviewing Hermione Addams, the Club's archivist and librarian after the break in. Sir George Carstairs, the Aeronautical Club's Chairman was hovering nearby, wringing his hands with concern. Jaffe was trying to calm the distraught Hermione. “Please, Miss Adams, I can understand that you're upset, it must have been a frightening experience..”
“Frightening? That's hardly the point, is it Inspector? Have you seen what they've done?”
“Well, yes Miss Addams, but surely you…”
“Never mind me, what are you going to do about getting it back?”
“Soon, enough Miss Addams, I need to understand what happened, if you could just….”
“It's completely obvious what has happened Inspector – the broken display case should tell you that.”
“If you just tell me what happened to you, then …”
“Please, Hermione, do try to help the Inspector,” Carstairs interjected.
Hermione sighed and adjusted her half moon spectacles. “I've already been through this once with your constable and then with your sergeant, I would have thought that by now you would have enough to…”
“Please, Hermione,” Carstairs again. Jaffe waited, hoping that Carstairs' influence would persuade the librarian to re-tell her story.
“Oh very well.” She gathered herself. “I was working late, Inspector, in the library, cataloguing some of the papers on last year's record attempts. We keep track of all the flights here, you understand?”
“Yes, of course, please go on.”
“I heard a noise down here in the Committee Room. I knew there was no one else in the building so I came down to investigate.”
“Wasn't that a little unwise Miss Addams?”
“I suppose so, but it didn't occur to me at the time. I thought that perhaps Biggles might have…”
“Biggles?”
“Biggles, the Club's cat, he's always getting into places he shouldn't.”
“I see. Do go on.”
“Well as soon as I came in I could see something was wrong. The display cabinet had been broken open, there were maps and charts all over the floor. I made for the desk – we only have the one telephone there but as I got into the room someone grabbed me.”
“Did you see them?”
“Well not really, it was dark and there was just the light shining in from the corridor. Quite a tall man, quite strong – I could hardly struggle against him. He put a hand over my mouth – he was wearing gloves, I couldn't make a sound.”
“And then…”
“The other one started tying me up. They'd ransacked the displays they used some cords to tie my wrists from one of the early parachutes we have in the collection and then gagged me – with that” she pointed to a scarf lying on the desk. “Can you imagine - Major Schroeder wore that on his world altitude record flight in 1920. It's an absolute disgrace – people shouldn't be allowed to come in and ….”
“Did you see anything of the other man, Miss Adams?” Jaffe was feeling his patience draining away.
“Slighter than the first, shorter, wearing a mask across his face – well they both were - and a cap.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“Well they certainly weren't gentle and I was kicking out at them, the shorter one certainly got one of my heels down his shin, but they weren't violent. They didn't hit me or anything. Just dragged me over there…”
“To that propeller …”
“Airscrew, Inspector,” Carstairs, explained.
“I stand corrected – to that airscrew. And then Miss Adams?”
They tied me to it – pulled my wrists up against the top blade and tied my ankles to the bottom. I couldn't struggle at all.”
“The ropes were too tight?”
“No, not particularly. It's just I could run the risk of damaging it.”
“Damaging it?” Jaffe was having problems imagining that the slightly built Hermione could do much damage to an eight foot, solid wooden propeller.
“The airscrew – that was on the Farman bi-plane that first flew across the Irish Sea in 1910. I couldn't possibly have done anything that would have broken it. Not that they would have cared.”
Jaffe was beginning to despair of getting any real picture of what had gone on. Normally his problem was hysterical witnesses, not ones that were excessively matter of fact about irrelevancies. “If you could just return to the story, Miss Chapman, what did the men do once that had tied you to the propeller – sorry, airscrew.”
“Well they had a box – they pulled the trophy from the cabinet and pushed it into the box. Then they were grabbing charts from the cabinet and screwing them up as packing – pushing balls of paper into the box around the trophy. Then they picked up the box and climbed out of that window” she pointed to tall window that looked out on the Club's small garden, “with it. It's a national disaster – the Italians, French and Americans will be laughing at us for ever. You've got to get it back.”
“And after they left?” Jaffe ignored her passionate appeal.
“I was there all night. I couldn't move – the airscrew might have fallen on me, you know – it was only when Mr Carstairs came in this morning that he was able to free me.”
“And was there anything else you remember about the men, Miss? Anything at all?”
“No, I don't think so, Inspector. But you must get it back. It's a terrible loss for the Club and the country.”
“Of course, Miss Addams. We will do all we can. The trophy …”
“Not just the trophy,” Hermione interrupted. “All those charts too – some of the great flights of exploration had been planned on those flights – and they just screwed them up like so much packing.”
“Ah, yes,” Inspector Jaffe sighed, humouring her. “The charts. We mustn't forget the charts.” The truth was that he wasn't much concerned about them but he was worried by the loss of the trophy. Hermione was right; there would be international concern when its loss was announced.
The great, silver, Schneider Trophy for sea plane races – won outright by Britain six years before - had been stolen from its display case
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