BIGGLES
FLIES TO WORK
Some unusual
cases of Biggles and his Air Police
11. THE
CASE OF THE EARLY BOY (Pages 171 – 184)
This story has an interesting history as there are three
versions of it! It was originally written
as WORRALS
WORKS IT OUT and published in the GIRLS OWN PAPER in September
1947 as a story featuring Worrals and her friend Frecks. It was
subsequently rewritten by W. E. Johns and published in STIRRING STORIES FOR GIRLS 1960 (by Odhams Press Ltd) as 'Pearls
and Primroses' with the two lead characters becoming police officer
Margaret Robertson, and her assistant Jill Peters. Johns then rewrote the story yet again, this
time as “The Case of the Early Boy” for Biggles Flies to Work. For the third version, the story becomes a
Biggles story!
“Chief Inspector Gaskin, C.I.D.,
(Interesting that he is now referred to as Chief Inspector. Gaskin is usually referred to as Inspector), pipe
in mouth, walked up to Biggles’ desk in the Air Police office and without a
word laid on it a necklace that flashed with all the colours of a rainbow. Biggles picked it up and allowed it to dangle
from his fingers. “Very pretty,” he said
dryly. “Is this a little present from
you to me?”. Gaskin says it was found
hanging from one of the top branches of an oak tree in Ashdown Forest. (Ashdown Forest is only 12 miles away from
Lingford in Surrey where W. E. Johns used to live in the 1930s before he moved
to Reigate). Gaskin says that less
than twenty-four hours ago it was hanging round the neck of a princess in Monte
Carlo. The necklace and other jewellery
had been stolen from the bedroom of her villa.
Scotland Yard has received a phone call from Paris to be on the look-out
for the jewels. The necklace has been
found just before six o’clock that morning by a boy of fourteen named Tommy
Scrimshaw, who had taken it to the police station in East Grinstead. Gaskin had sent a car to collect it and Tommy
is currently in Gaskin’s office. Tommy
is bought in and tells Biggles that he went out mushrooming in their big
pasture but found a man had beaten him to it.
The man was walking up and down, looking at the ground. Tommy went to tell the man he was trespassing
on their land, but the man shouted at him “to get to hell out of it”. Tommy left the man to it and decided to go
and try to find the nest of a pair of jackdaws that were in an old oak on the
edge of the field. “Jackdaws pinch the
eggs of our hens”. It was then that he
found the necklace hanging on a twig. He
went home and showed it to his father, who told him to get on his bike and take
it to the police. Biggles decides to go
down and look at the scene. He tells
Tommy to go along with Inspector Gaskin to show him the field and then to stand
in the middle of it and wave his handkerchief when he sees their plane.
Biggles tells Ginger to “Call the ops
room and tell them to have the Auster ready”.
“What do you reckon happened?” asks Ginger. Biggles says “I can see only one answer to
that. An aircraft flew over but it
didn’t land. Had it landed the necklace
wouldn’t have got into the tree. No. The pilot dropped the jewels to a man who was
on the field waiting to pick them up”.
Biggles says something went wrong.
They must have been in a container, but it had broken open. “It isn’t as easy as some people may think to
throw an object clear of an aircraft, much less to hit a target, particularly
at night when this job must have been done.
The packet could have got caught in the slipstream and broken open by
being bashed against some part of the aircraft, probably the tail unit”. He adds “Long ago I remember getting a
twenty-pound Cooper bomb stuck in the V of the undercarriage struts of a
Sopwith Camel through being in too much of a hurry”. (There is a Biggles story that was
uncollected for many years, called BIGGLES’ NIGHT OUT! This story was originally published in
“Modern Boy” number 395 – dated 31st August 1935. In this story Biggles and Algy man the guns
of a Handley-Page flown by their friend Fernwell and a bomb gets stuck, that
Biggles can’t free. Eventually they
crash and manage to get clear from the plane before the bomb blows up. This story was uncollected for many years
until Norman Wright gathered the uncollected stories in BIGGLES – AIR ACE in
1999. It wasn’t a bomb getting stuck in
his Sopwith Camel and I can’t trace any story where that happened). “But surely in that case the man waiting in
the field would have found the stuff,” argued Ginger. “No doubt he would have found the container,
but obviously he didn’t find the jewels, or not all of them, or he wouldn’t
have been marching up and down when Tommy arrived on the scene shortly after
daybreak”. Biggles and Ginger drive to
their Auster and then fly to Ashdown Forest.
They see Gaskin, two police officers and Tommy standing in the middle of
the field, waving. Biggles lands, with
some difficulty, and remarks to Ginger that it was no field for a night
landing. Gaskin wonders why they chose
this field. Biggles answered. “I’d say it's just the job. With trees all round, it can’t be overlooked
and it would be fairly safe for the man on the ground to show light signals to
his pal up above”. Tommy points out the
tree branch on which he found the necklace.
They spent some minutes searching, without result, the grass and dead
leaves under it. Biggles asks Tommy if
he would like to find the jackdaws nest now.
“You might find something else in the nest – you never know”. Tommy climbs the oak tree and a jackdaw flies
out. Tommy shouts and returns at some
speed, dropping the last ten feet. “His
face was flushed with excitement. He
thrust a hand in a pocket and then held it out.
“Look!” he cried triumphantly. On
his grimy palm lay a glittering bracelet and a solitaire diamond ring. “There were in the nest,” he explained
breathlessly. Smiling, Biggles looked at
Gaskin. “Now we know how the necklace
got in the tree”. Biggles explains “Daws
are great birds for collecting anything that shines or sparkles. The bird that picked up the necklace must
have got the thing tangled on a snag and left it there”. Gaskin asks “What about the rest of the
stuff?” Biggles says “It’s likely the
man waiting here found it. But he must
know he hasn’t got it all. Don’t worry,
he’ll be back. He’s not likely to give
up looking for swag that must be worth every penny of ten thousand pounds,
knowing it must be about her somewhere”.
Biggles suggests that Gaskin places his men, under cover, around the
field, to intercept the man when he sees the game’s up and makes a bolt for it. Tommy was sent home to be out of danger
should the man, or possibly the men, show fight. (It was later learned that he watched events
from behind a hedge). They did not have
long to wait. A man appeared from under
the trees on the side of the field nearest to the road and began quartering the
field with his eyes searching the ground.
Gaskin asks the man “You lost something?” “I was hoping to pick up a few mushrooms” is
the answer. “Like these, for instance?”
asks Gaskin, holding out a hand on which sparkled the bracelet and the diamond
ring. “I’m a police officer –” he began,
but that was as far as he got. In a
flash the man was racing back in the direction from which he had come. The constables cut off his retreat. Gaskin searches the man’s pockets and finds
several pieces of jewellery and the crushed remains of what had been a small
white box with a streamer attached.
Gaskin says to Biggles “Well, that seems to be all”. “Not quite all,” disputed Biggles. “I have an interest in the plane that flew
the stuff over”. “Don’t worry about
that. The man we’ve got will squeal when
I get to work on him. I know the
type”. Okay. In that case I’ll leave it to you,” agreed
Biggles. They walk towards the
Auster. “I can’t see any mushrooms and I
think we’ve done enough birdsnesting for today.
The jackdaws did us a good turn so they deserve to be left in peace”.