BIGGLES WORKS IT OUT

by Captain W. E. Johns

VI. A MAN MINUS A BUTTON (Pages 66 – 75)

“Algy stood on the famous terrace at Monte Carlo, in the Principality of Monaco, in the South of France, and regarded the Mediterranean Sea with something like despondency”. He and Bertie have been “on the celebrated blue coast” for five days. Contact had been made with Biggles to inform him of failure and that merely brought the laconic reply “stick to it”. Algy knew the chances were slim. One man in six was wearing a jacket that could, by stretching the term, be described as green. Bertie has gone to the airport at Nice to look around. A man asks Algy for a light and Algy lends him his lighter. When the lighter is returned Algy notices a missing button from his cuff and the remaining buttons are similar if not identical to the one in Algy’s pocket. Algy is astonished. The man had an accent that might be German, Austrian or Czech. He was aged about forty and tall and fair. When the man walked away, Algy notices he walked with a slight limp. Algy follows the man, boarding a bus. At the destination the man goes to a bathing-beach. He is given a swimming costume, towel and the key to a cabin. Algy does the same and gets the cabin next door. When the man goes swimming, Algy is able to get the key the man’s cabin from the key board and examine his coat. He finds an envelope addressed to ‘Herr Wilhelm Groot, Villa Hirondelle, Eze, Alpes Maritimes, France’. He also pulls a button off the jacket to take for comparison purposes, then he relocks the cabin and returns the key. Algy compares the button to the button he has and they are identical. Algy then goes for a swim while he waits for the man – presumably Groot – to finish. Algy then follows him to another bus and they both get off at the Café de Paris. Groot sits at a table and orders tea. In due course a blue sports car arrives with a French registration number and a man of about thirty-five, slim and dark with a little black moustache arrives. His hair is brushed straight back without a parting and the man runs his hand through it. The men order sandwiches and when finished, Groot ask the waiter for a tooth pick. Algy at his table, at a discreet distance, also asks for a tooth pick and sees a replica of the little paper tube “which Joe, the black boy, had picked up in the Australian desert”. Algy presumes the new arrival might be Canton. Algy goes to book a cab and sits in it, telling the driver he is waiting for a friend. When the two men go off in the blue sports car, Algy tells his driver to follow it. They head to Eze and in due course, just outside the village, the vehicle turns off into a private drive. As Algy’s cab drives past he sees the name “Villa Hirondelle”. Algy returns to Eze and pays off the cab driver. In a village restaurant, Algy enquires of the waitress who lives at the Villa Hirondelle and is told that it is Monsieur le Count Heinrich Horndorf, said to be from Austria. The Count has been there nearly two years. Algy knows he is only about four miles from Monaco so he walks back to the villa to watch it. After about half an hour he sees a closed-van type vehicle pull up and do a double honk before being allowed to enter. Algy returns by bus to Monaco and goes straight back to the hotel to tell Bertie, but he is not there. Algy waits until one in the morning but Bertie does not return. The next morning, Bertie is not in his room and his things have gone. Enquiries reveal he has paid his bill and checked out during the night.