BIGGLES HITS THE TRAIL

by Captain W. E. Johns

II. DICKPA’S STORY (Pages 29 – 53)

“Half an hour later the Professor, propped up in bed, told his story while Biggles, from a box-seat in the window, kept a watchful eye on the front door”. Lord Maltenham, recovered now, is seated in an armchair. “He was a delicate-looking young man of not more than twenty-one or twenty-two years of age”. Dickpa says there is little wrong with himself apart from weakness and nerve trouble brought about by recent experiences and his illness has been exaggerated to the B.B.C. in order to get Biggles there. Dickpa says “it must be nearly two years since we last saw each other” (referring to their last adventure told in ‘THE CRUISE OF THE CONDOR’). “You were anxious to go off on a flying trip” (presumably the one told in ‘BIGGLES FLIES AGAIN’). Dickpa wanted to go to the Far East. He took with him the son of an old friend, the Earl of Maltenham. The Earl had died, leaving his son, who was a medical student, with a large sum of money and the son “had discovered the deplorable properties of certain drugs to which he had access”. The son, Lord Roger Maltenham, who was the man with them now, had asked Dickpa to allow him to go with him so he would be well away from temptation. Six months later, they were “far in the heart of Western China, on the borders of Tibet”. Dickpa explains that Tibet is a country so vast that “you could get most of Europe into it quite comfortably”. Here, the two explorers heard about the Mountain of Light, reported to have strange properties. “It would take me too long to tell you now of all the dangers that beset us. But they were real, very real, and ultimately we fled”. “The fact that we were willing to depart evidently did not satisfy those who, for want of a better name, we will call the guardians of the mountain”. Dickpa tells stories of attempts on their lives, one of the strangest involving a cabin trunk on a ship called the Calamore Castle. One night, Dickpa saw the lid of the cabin trunk opening, but on examination it contained no one. The cabin was later tied up and put in the hold, which became flooded following an accident and a drowned Chinese coolie was later found inside. Back at his home, Dickpa had been attacked by a paralysing blue light that caused a numbing sensation. Roger Maltenham had been out in the grounds at the time but returned and was able to shoot at a vague shadowy form behind the light. Later, bloodstains were found, indicating that someone had been hit. Maltenham explains that he had fallen victim to a similar attack earlier that day, after going to the village to telephone the B.B.C. On his return “the ray followed me, and actually shone on me once; it produced a sort of numbing shock”. Biggles confirms something similar had happened to his arm. “It was not unlike an electric current shooting through my fingers”. Dickpa refers to the mysterious strangers after them as ‘savages’. Biggles corrects him saying “people who have learned to control a death-ray, or a ray that can produce paralysis, at the same time making themselves invisible, can hardly be classed as savages”. Dickpa says that he thinks these people came from the Mountain of Light and he believes the mountain exists, and that its remarkable properties can be attributed to large deposits of radium. There is a knocking at the front door and everyone except Dickpa goes downstairs. A police sergeant and police constable are at the door and are let in. They say that a dead man has been found in the grounds by a poacher called Bert Dalton. The dead man looks like a Chinaman, “though the Inspector says he’s a Jap. Naked as a new-born babe, too, that’s the funny part of it”. The man has been shot through the chest. The police sergeant says “I wasn’t suggesting you had anything to do with the shooting of this Chink, or whatever he is. The doctor says he’s been dead some time, twelve hours or more. The bullet was fired at pretty close range, he says”. The police leave and Biggles turns to Maltenham and says “Malty, I’m afraid you killed that cove”. They all return to Dickpa’s room to inform him of developments. Dickpa says he wants to “Go back to China, or rather Tibet, and get to the truth of the thing”. Biggles realises this is why he has been sent for. They are thinking of flying back. Biggles says “I’ve still got the old “Vandal”, but I don’t think she’s up to an affair of this sort. She’s obsolete, and the engine’s getting a bit shaky, which isn’t surprising considering the number of hours it’s done. No; if we went we should need a new machine”. Biggles estimates that to get a new machine, fuel, oil and everything else they need would leave no change out of thirty thousand pounds. Malty says “I have ten times that amount of money and nothing to do with it”. He will fund the trip in the hope there is some benefit to humanity at the end of it, as radium may be used to help with diseases such as cancer. The trip being agreed, Biggles asks where can they all sleep.