BIGGLES ON THE HOME FRONT

by Captain W. E. Johns

V. A DAY IN THE COUNTRY (Pages 65 – 75)

“Shortly after nine the next morning Biggles set out for the public telephone boxes at Victoria station to put through a call to Inspector Gaskin”. Ginger buys a newspaper and looks at the “stop press” column. “They’ve got him,” he told Biggles. “Gerald Stoneways, the convict who escaped yesterday from Pentonville, was recaptured late last night”. Biggles needs to know if Stoneways had time to speak to Norman or not. He rings Gaskin from the payphone. “I see you’ve got Stoneways. Where and at what time did it happen?” (“Where and at what time did it happen?” is the illustration opposite page 65 – unusually there is no “see page etc” presumably because the line is on page 65 right opposite the illustration). Gaskin says that he had Norman followed from the Barn and he went by taxi to King’s Cross, suburban side, where he went to wait in a dark corner. They picked “Stony” up at the same place by chance, because he “was fool enough to pinch a car” and a Flying Squad car spotted it and jumped on the driver when he stepped out at King’s Cross. Norman saw this. Norman then takes a ticket for Hertford North and when he arrives at the station, there is a car waiting for him. Gaskin’s man saw it was a big black car – he thought a Daimler – but he didn’t have a chance of getting the number. Gaskin says they are watching King’s Cross for Norman’s return. Biggles says he will run down to Hertford and watch that end as he wants to know more about the car that collected Norman. Biggles asks Gaskin to provide him with a plain car and Gaskin says he will have a driver take a Ford to outside the Grosvenor Hotel. Biggles and Ginger walk round to the Grosvenor Hotel and in five minutes the car arrives and the driver makes a sign to Biggles and walks away. Biggles and Ginger then drive up the Great North Road to Hertford (where Johns used to live as a child). Biggles tells Ginger that he is gambling on the car dropping Norman off at Hertford North station. At the station, Biggles rings Gaskin to just confirm that Norman hasn’t already arrived at King’s Cross and he hasn’t. Biggles backs the car against a wall out of the way, but with a view of the station entrance. Hours pass and it is past five o’clock when a well-kept black Daimler drops Norman off. It quickly turns and leaves. Biggles can’t drive off and follow the Daimler until Norman has disappeared into the booking hall. Biggles set off after the Daimler but it only has a lead of a hundred yards or so. Ginger has noted the car number as CYM 618. They follow the car through the village of Waterford (which is a real village 1.6 miles north of Hertford) and it turns down a narrow country lane. The car then turns into a drive which disappears “into a tall shrubbery of rhododendrons and ornamental trees, behind which, at some distance, rose the several chimneys of a house of some size”. Biggles drives past and stops to speak with a farm labourer. “Would you please tell me that name of the house I’ve just passed?” he asks, adding “I’m looking for the residence of Mr. Smithson” purely as an excuse to ask about the property he is interested in. “He don’t live at Gortons, sir. Never heard tell of anyone of that name in these parts. It’s a Mister Carlton, Mister Eustace Carlton, what lives at Gortons now”. Biggles discovers Carlton has been there twelve months come Michaelmass (which is on 29^th September). (We are told later that the season is Spring, so 29^th September is some way off. Why did the labourer not just say “He’s been there six months”?). They drive off. Biggles says to Ginger “The next question is, what business has a London jewel thief with a country gentleman known as Mr. Carlton, although that is probably an assumed name?” Noticing it has turned six o’clock Biggles and Ginger return to the train station as Biggles had noticed a residential hotel opposite. Parking, they confirm the hotel does meals for non-residents as well. After a meal and coffee, Biggles and Ginger go to leave. Ginger sees two men. “One, a tall fair man in the early thirties, wearing an out-size moustache, he did not know. The other was the man, who, wearing an R.A.F. tie, had met Biggles at Victoria Station to buy the gold pendant. He still wore the R.A.F. tie”. Both men stare at Biggles. Then the man with the out-size moustache says “Well – well! If it isn’t Biggles! Fancy meeting you. What on earth are you doing here?” The mention of the name struck Ginger like a douche of cold water. But worse was to come. “Without waiting for Biggles to answer his question, the man went on, cheerfully: “I heard you’d joined the police force”.