SERGEANT BIGGLESWORTH C.I.D.

 

by Captain W. E. Johns

 

 

III.                   THE YELLOW SWAN  (Pages 21 - 31)

 

Biggles and Ginger fly in the Spur and Algy and Bertie fly in a Mosquito and land the following afternoon in Augsburg.  They go to see Wing-Commander Howath who tells them that the Renkell prototypes are not there - if they ever existed.  They are introduced to Rudolf Preuss, the works manager, who was a former First World War pilot who served in Boelcke's staffel in 1918.  Preuss is surly and rude to them.  Biggles and co. search Kurt Baumer's old office and find it virtually empty, but in the bin they find something of interest, a photograph of an Italian Air Force man signed on the back, "Souvenir of good comradeship, Libya, 1941.  To Kurt, from his friend, Carlos Scaroni.  Escadrille 33".  Biggles then decides to search the scrap-heap at the back of the hanger and finds some interesting things.  Nearly all the scrap metal has been flattened under a press but one piece of tubular metal is soon straighten out and identified as the rough outline of an oval rudder.  Biggles thinks this was part of the original mock up of the plane.  They then go to the hanger and find Preuss' aircraft, a small civil type painted an ugly ochre yellow without any registration marks.  Preuss joins them and Biggles comments on the nearly oval rudder and says it must be one of Renkell's designs, much to Preuss' annoyance.  The plane is fitted with a particularly large petrol tank.  Biggles asks Preuss why he called the machine Swan and then painted it a dirty yellow?  It can be painted any colour is the answer.  When Preuss leaves, Biggles reminds the others that planes were painted this colour for the Libyan campaign to make them hard to see against the sand.  The plane appears to be fitted with all modern devices, except radio.  Biggles suspects the radio is hidden in the bulkhead due to its thickness.  Biggles is highly suspicious of Preuss and thinks that Gontermann and Baumer would need a communication aircraft to keep them in touch with things at home.