BIGGLES ON THE HOME FRONT

by Captain W. E. Johns

VII. ACCIDENT OR MURDER? (Pages 87 – 98)

“Biggles and Ginger, almost the only customers, were sipping coffee in a quiet corner of the Victoria refreshment hall when, the following morning, Algy and Bertie arrived at the rendezvous”. “I was beginning to get worried about you,” Algy told Biggles, as he pulled up a chair. “Why haven’t you been home?” Biggles explains “In this murky game into which we’ve drifted everybody seems to watch everybody else; consequently we have to be careful where we go and who we’re seen talking to. Any news?” “Not a thing,” answered Algy, morosely. He explains that he and Bertie have been round all the clubs within striking distance of London. “Did you call at the South Wessex Club in your travels?” asks Biggles. “We did. Matter of fact we were there yesterday afternoon”. “Do they still employ an instructor named Bill Reverley?” Algy is surprised by the question. “Why do you ask that?” “Do they?” asks Biggles. “Well, they did” responds Algy. “Didn’t you hear the eight o’clock news? He’s dead. He was killed yesterday”. Biggles is shocked. “We were talking to him at eight o’clock last night”. Algy says the news reported that a man going to work had found a crashed aircraft and the pilot, who was flying alone, was dead, and had been identified as William Reverley. The crash was somewhere in Hertfordshire. Biggles asks if Reverley was at the club when Algy was there. The answer is no. He was in the air, in his own machine, an Auster, and nobody seemed to know where he had gone. Biggles sends Ginger to go and buy a paper. “The first editions of the evening papers should be out by now”. (It’s nine o’clock in the morning. Did the evening papers come out that early?). Ginger returns with the paper and says there’s just an inch in the stop press column. “The machine was found by a farm worker in a park near the village of Watton. Pilot identified as William Reverley. That’s all”. Ginger says Watton can’t be far from Gortons as he remembers seeing the name on a signpost. Biggles looks at Ginger. “It might, of course, have been an accident,” he said slowly. “On the other hand, remembering the conversation we had with him, and considering who he was with, it might not – although, no doubt, it looks like one”. Biggles speculates that Rev might have realized Laxter’s show was crooked and he had to be silenced. Biggles looked at Algy and Bertie in turn. “Have either of you ever heard of a private club, within a mile or two of Hertford, called Gortons?” Neither have. Biggles takes the map of Hertfordshire and draws a line from Waterford to the South Wessex Club aerodrome. It cut through Watton. “If those devils murdered him I’ll see they don’t get away with it” says Biggles. Algy wants to know how they met Reverley. “It took Biggles nearly an hour to bring Algy and Bertie up to date with the case”. Biggles tells both Algy and Bertie what Norman and Laxter look like by giving a detailed description of the two men. Biggles asks Algy to take their car and go and look at Rev’s crash, paying particular attention to the possibility of sabotage. It would be helpful if he spoke to locals to ascertain when the crash happened. Biggles asks Bertie to go and explore the house called Gortons and make a general survey. He shows on the map where Algy should drop Bertie off. “Do your best not to be seen. If you are, and you’re asked what you’re doing, play the bumpkin and pretend you lost your way trying to take a short cut. When you’re finished go back to the main road where Algy will pick you up after he’s finished at the crash”. Biggles says that he and Ginger will take Gaskin’s car and drive to Gatwick and then fly over Gortons and get some photographs. Biggles says they should all meet up back here, Victoria station, at six o’clock that evening. Algy and Bertie leave. Biggles give them a few minutes then he and Ginger leave. They go to the garage where they left the car then drive to the Air Police hangar at Gatwick. Biggles gives orders to get the Auster aircraft out and have cameras loaded. They fly towards their objective and Biggles tells Ginger he will only make just one pass over the property at seven or eight hundred feet. Reaching the objective, they see the house is at least a mile from its nearest neighbours. At the house end of the field are two large barns, one an open skeleton of the type used for storing hay and the other, a new brick building, closed with big double doors and a double row of skylights. “There was not a soul in sight, nor any vehicle of any sort”. Ginger takes shots with a pistol-grip camera designed for taking oblique photographs from the air. (This is the picture on the cover of the book). Biggles files the machine straight in level flight and takes a strip of vertical photographs. Ginger tells Biggles that the barn would hold two light machines comfortably. Biggles says he could see wheel tracks on the grass. They fly back to Gatwick and have a late lunch while the photographs are developed. “It was five o’clock when, with the photographs in a large envelope, they returned to London and parked the car in the same garage as before”. Returning to their Gillingham Street hotel, they find Laxter sitting in the hall waiting for them. “Where have you been?” he demanded irritably. “I’ve been kicking my heels here for a couple of hours waiting for you to come back”. Laxter then asks Biggles what is in the large envelope he has. “That,” answered Biggles shortly, “is my business. What’s yours?”. “Have you got a room here where we can talk?” asks Laxter. They go to their room. Ginger worries about how Biggles was holding the envelope. “For the envelope was one of those supplied for “public service,” and carried across the top, in bold type, the letters O.H.M.S.” (We are not told what the letters stand for. No doubt all children in 1957 knew that they stand for “On Her Majesty’s Service”).