The Big Rig

Having read this inflammatory message, the Professor ran to the side of the boat and glared out over the water.

Its contents had clearly been read below decks as well, as now that the door had been unlocked, frightened crooks were streaming out like clowns from a clown car. One or two immediately launched themselves overboard.

‘Come back, you cowards, come back I say!’ shouted the Professor.

‘Not likely,’ called one of the swimmers, ‘Agaton Sax could be here at any moment!’

‘If he isn’t already!’ said another, mid-backstroke.

‘He’s here already!’ went up the cry from the remaining gang members.

Despite the Professor’s best efforts to catch them, the rest of the men hurled themselves into the sea, for fear of the wrath of Agaton Sax. Eventually, only Professor Mortimer and Agaton Sax himself remained on deck, with Inspector Lispington seemingly still in the cabin below.

‘Never fear, Professor. You still have me and my men. We shall still overcome – but I’d best check on our prisoner.’

Before he could receive a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, the detective had already bounded down the stairs and into the dimly-lit cabin.

Lispington was waiting. He swung the lantern, which he had managed to liberate from its nail, as his old friend came through the doorway. Agaton dodged it narrowly and it slipped from the Inspector’s hand, crashing to the ground and leaving them in darkness.

‘Inspector! It’s me, Agaton.’

‘Agaton! Thank goodness!’ came a grateful voice from the shadows. ‘Where have you been? Have you taken care of the Professor and that fiend Gronsky? He was pretending to be you, you know.’

Agaton Sax signed. Perhaps a series of code words would be useful.

‘Inspector, listen to me. Everything is under control, but we can’t arrest Professor Mortimer just yet.’

‘Why the devil not?’

‘We don’t have the evidence we need. We need to catch him in the act, and that means letting him see his plan through.’

‘I heard his men jump overboard. We have the advantage!’

‘Still…’

‘Agaton, please.’

‘You must be patient, Lispington. I promise you, you’ll nab your quarry. Just trust me.’

Inspector Lispington grumbled in the dark.

‘Very well. But you give that Gronsky character a poke in the nose for me.’

‘I promise, Inspector. Gronsky won’t trouble you any further.’

***

Agaton Sax rushed up to the deck. His mind was racing now. Literally nothing had gone according to plan, and the one thing that had gone right was none of his doing, despite his name being attached to it.

Who had sent the mysterious message from ‘Agaton Sax’ that had so divided the Professor’s crew?

It had to be someone who knew he was involved and wished to startle Mortimer. So, a friend, or… the real Gronsky. That would complicate matters considerably.

So, that was the first mystery he needed to solve. Thankfully, he knew how to do it. Seeing that the Professor was leaning over the side of the boat, depressed by the desertion of his men, he snuck to the other end of the boat and made a quick radio transmission. The response he received calmed him greatly and was even cause for a small chuckle.

Then he proceeded to the Professor’s side.

‘Don’t worry, Professor. We’re better off without them. They didn’t deserve the rewards of all your hard work. All the more for us, I say.’

The Professor turned and looked at him.

‘You’re absolutely right. We’re so close to the end. We must not falter.’

So saying, he ran to the boat’s controls and revved the motor. The boat took off over the water at top speed.

Agaton was tempted to ask Mortimer to give his men a chance to follow, but he didn’t dare to raise any more doubts in the criminal’s mind.

He’d have to take care of this on his own.

Within less than a minute, they had transformed the other boat into a distant speck.

‘You don’t mind leaving your own men behind, do you?’ grinned the Professor.

‘Not at all. As I said, more for us.’

‘Good man.’

‘That said, they are aware of the position of the oil rig to which we are headed. If anything happens to me, they have orders to contact Scotland Yard, so let’s play fair with each other.’

The Professor glared at him, then turned back to the controls in a sulk.

Agaton took the opportunity to visit Lispington below deck. It was still dark as night.

‘We’re almost there, Joshua. Unfortunately, your men are now out of the picture.’

‘But that’s terrible. How will you… Actually, Agaton, I’m all at sea here. What is going on, exactly?’

‘It is time I filled you in properly. It’s all about oil, Lispington. North Sea oil. A new pipeline is being opened at 10:00 tomorrow morning about a hundred miles from here. I received word of it via my news feed, back in Sweden. One of the benefits of running a newspaper.’

‘I’m still lost.’

‘That’s all I can say for now, except that Professor Mortimer’s plan – were it to succeed – would be disastrous for all concerned.’

‘I trust you, Agaton. Do what you can.’

‘Thank you, Lispington.’

***

As the night wore on, Agaton was left to his own devices. The Professor kept his eyes fixed on the horizon, lost in his own thoughts. He almost looked like an absent-minded academic again – but the Swedish detective knew better. Yes, he was an academic, but a vile and single-minded one.

Still, his focus on the crimes to come gave Agaton the space to make two further secret radio communications, the result of which was that another message was soon received. Agaton, in his guise as Gronsky, brought it to the Professor post-haste.

‘You should see this, Professor Mortimer.’

YOU CAN’T ESCAPE ME. MY KINDEST REGARDS, AGATON SAX.

‘I’ll wring his neck!’ the Professor exploded. ‘Playing the hero when he’s too scared to show his face! If he wants to fight me, then let him come and fight me. I’ll give him good reason to regret his spineless taunts!’

‘Oh, how little you know,’ thought Agaton Sax.

At approximately 9:00, the oil rig to which they were headed came into view through the early morning fog. It towered over them, like a Loch Ness monster made out of metal and wood. Above it hovered a handful of news helicopters and on its decks, dozens of reporters jostled for space in front of a small stage that had been erected.

The critical moment was approaching, and Agaton felt every sinew in his body twang with anticipation.

By 09:23, they were within three nautical miles of the rig. By 09:35, the ship had swung round in a wide half circle. At 09:40, the Professor slipped into a diving suit. It was extremely ill-fitting, clearly having been intended for one of the deserters.

He was also holding a revolver.

‘Well, Mr Gronsky,’ he said, with a vicious grin. ‘The game is up. In fifteen minutes’ time, I will begin the operation that will set me above every other criminal mastermind in the world. But first, you and Inspector Lispington will be going for a little swim.’

The revolver’s hammer was drawn back with a click.

It fired a moment later, but not in the direction the Professor had intended. Something had caused him to throw his hands across his face, and the bullet pinged harmlessly into the water.

It was just enough distraction for Agaton to subdue the Professor and knock him unconscious to the deck. He grabbed the revolver, refastened its safety catch, and slipped it into his own pocket.

Then he pulled out his radio transmitter and gave the signal for the enormous spotlight that had blinded the Professor, exactly as planned, to be switched off.

The spotlight on the mini-submarine that had, as requested, emerged from the sea just in front of him.

‘You can come up now, Lispington!’ Agaton called, taking care to remove his dark glasses in an attempt to prevent his friend from immediately trying to rugby tackle Gronsky.

The large metal door atop the submarine opened with a hiss, and a familiar face appeared, just as Lispington limped up to this old friend’s side.

‘Oh no,’ said Lispington.

‘Oh, yes,’ replied Agaton.

It was Aunt Matilda.

...and she was waving an umbrella.

Matilda and the three Swedish sailors who had navigated on her behalf were invited aboard, and together they secured Professor Mortimer below decks.

With a quick rummage through the cabin’s supplies, Agaton rustled up a surprisingly delicious breakfast for all concerned, and answered all their questions about the adventure they had – to one degree or another – all shared.

He had suspected Professor Mortimer to be up to more than forgery from the moment he had seen the maps of the North Sea and the diving equipment in his study. Putting this together with the news item he had read at the Post offices, he saw that International Crime, Ltd. was in search of a new and better source of capital for their nefarious schemes.

They were after buried treasure – or, to put it more bluntly, oil.

‘But what exactly was he going to do?’ asked Aunt Matilda, munching happily on a piece of toast. ‘Blow up the platform?’

‘Not quite, Aunt,’ said Agaton.

‘Actually, what I’d like to know is how you got aboard the submarine, Miss Sax – and why?’

‘Well, that’s simple. The Admiralty called and said they had received a request for Agaton’s submarine to be brought to him, but he had neglected to tell them where to find the keys. Obviously, I couldn’t trust anyone else with the spares, so I took them to Gothenburg myself. They sent a jet for me, it being a matter of urgency. Once I was there, I realised that if I wasn’t happy about handing over the keys, I ought to be less happy about handing over an entire submarine and so I demanded to be taken with them.’

‘And I’m very glad you did, Aunt.’

‘Unfortunately, we were late in arriving. Something about currents, I think they said. When we did arrive, we spotted you, Mr Lispington, in some ludicrous costume having your moustache set on fire. Now you and I have never got along – I think you’re a bungler and a habitual tracker of mud onto my good carpets – but you’re a friend of my nephew’s and I wasn’t going to tolerate that. When I saw you taken prisoner, I thought I’d best frighten the devils a little. The sailors helped me out with the technical side, though I dare say I’d have worked it out for myself given the time.’

‘But how did you arrive at the exact moment necessary?’ wondered Lispington.

‘Ah,’ said Agaton. ‘Well, that was my doing. There were only two explanations for the mysterious messages. One, the real Gronsky had shown his face and was trying to interfere, or that my Aunt had somehow become involved. I realised it was the second when I saw how politely the first message had been signed. ‘Best wishes’ it said. Hardly the work of a threatening gang leader.’

‘Manners matter,’ said Aunt Matilda firmly.

‘Indeed they do, Aunt. After that, it was simply a matter of signalling the sub – which I now knew to be close – and setting up the rest.’

‘Amazing,’ said Lispington. ‘You are both to be congratulated. But you still haven’t told us what Professor Mortimer was up to with the rig.’

‘Oh, well, that is extraordinary. It really was a work of genius. He’s a clever man, it’s just a shame he is also greedy. He has had divers working secretly for years beneath the rig – thanks to all the forged funds – building a hidden second pipeline attached to the first. It would allow them to siphon off just enough oil to make them multimillionaires many times over, but not enough to warrant suspicion from the authorities. It ought to have been fool-proof. Once he had sufficient funds, he could have destroyed the second pipeline and returned to his academic life without a stain on his character.’

A hush settled over the group. It was a dazzling plan and they were almost – but not quite – sad to have seen it fail. A low moan from the Professor, bound in the corner, suggested his feelings on the matter were more straightforward.

Agaton Sax gave a final shrug, as if to say ‘this is the life of a crime fighter,’ then finally turned his attention to the sausages he had found in the cabin’s larder.

He cut off a piece and placed in his mouth, ready to enjoy the fruits of his labours.

He almost immediately spat out it again however, a look of intense distaste on his face.

‘What is it, Agaton?’ said Aunt Matilda.

‘It’s not… poisoned, is it?’ enquired Lispington.

‘No,’ said Agaton, wiping his mouth firmly with a handkerchief. ‘It’s full of garlic.’

~