BIGGLES 'FAILS
TO RETURN'
By Captain W.
E. Johns
XI. THE
CATS OF CASTILLON (Pages
125 - 136)
Algy searches for the girl in the blue
shawl but can't find her. He decides to go
to Castillon and travels by bus. He finds himself next to a dark
fierce-looking man, dressed in black, carrying a heavy shopping bag. He doesn't know it but this is Mario. All attempts to engage this person in
conversation are rebuffed. He denies knowing
Castillon.
After changing buses the second bus has to stop
when the roads are closed and the journey continues on foot. Algy sees this same man travelling ahead of
him. Arriving at a deserted Castillon, the same man is there. The place is full of cats. "Everywhere he looked he saw cats, black
cats, long, thin, emaciated cats, with red-rimmed eyes. Most of them seemed to be afflicted with a
dreadful mange." Suddenly a knife
is thrown at him and misses. Algy chases
his assailant and catches the man from the bus and holds him at gunpoint. However a woman
behind Algy has a gun and makes Algy drop his.
(We don't know who this woman is for some time but unfortunately the
caption to the picture on page 135 rather gives it away. "Don't move", said the Princess,
"Drop that pistol". The text
doesn't say that at all. We don't find
out she's the Princess until page 145).
Algy is taken away and locked in a dark cellar.