BIGGLES - AIR DETECTIVE

by Captain W. E. Johns

THE CASE OF THE STOLEN AIRCRAFT (Pages 81 - 93)

Biggles has just met with Air Commodore Raymond and Wing Commander Lyall, Provost-Marshall of the R.A.F. A Lysander aircraft has been taken from a R.A.F. Training Establishment and found crashed on the Yorkshire moors. Another Station Commander had reported a Mosquito missing and that was later found standing in a farmer's field in Lincolnshire. The fuels tanks had been topped up for a long flight were found to be empty, that would be some 500 gallons of fuel. No pilots are missing. "Why pinch an aircraft and then throw it away? That's the nut we've got to crack" says Biggles, "I wouldn't call pinching government property to the tune of £50,000 a joke". Biggles intrigues his colleagues by asking Ginger to come with him on a flight where he expects to meet the man who purloined the machines. He even points out on a six-inch Ordnance Survey map of south Norfolk where he is going. Biggles flies for half an hour and then fakes engine trouble in order to justify landing in a field. He is looking for wheel tracks on the ground, exposed by the morning dew, showing where an aircraft has taken off. Ginger sees the tracks so Biggles lands in a farmer's field with extensive outbuildings. A man dressed in overalls runs over to them and offers to put the plane right for them. He says he has a workshop and when Biggles and Ginger see it, the man has built a plane of his own design which he called the Lutton Flivver-plane. Biggles tells the man that in his opinion the plane looks like death trap. "From what I can see standing here your aspect ratio is cockeye; your centre of gravity is too far back and the view forward is poor." Biggles refers to the unknown man as Lutton and tells him that they are police officers and he thinks he has stolen the petrol they are looking for. The man pulls a revolver on them. "Don't be a fool, Lutton," says Biggles calmly, "Threatening a police officer in this country is a serious matter. You'll only make your case worse. I'll forget it happened if you'll put that thing away." "I suppose you're right," he said btterly, and tossed the revolver back on the bench. Biggles and Ginger get back in their Auster and back at his office he tells Air Commodore Raymond that "you can tell the Air Ministry that the man who lifted the two aircraft is Merville Lucas Lutton of Wimbold Farm, near Methwold, Norfolk. Biggles explains to his colleagues how he solved the case. It was obvious to him that the person taking the planes was an airman, who knew the routine of training units and could fly a variety of aircraft. The only thing missing was high-octane aviation spirit which was obviously for aviation. Biggles reasoned the man may have tried to get the fuel by fair means first and rang up the Ministry of Civil Aviation to see who had applied for a quota of aviation spirit. The one who fitted the bill was an ex-sergeant pilot named Lutton discharged on medical grounds who wanted it to test a new ultra-light plane which he had designed and built. Lutton lived in Norfolk, no great distance from the two airfields where the thefts had occurred. Biggles receives a phone call. The police went to arrest him and he tried to make a get-away in his home-made aeroplane. At five hundred feet a wing came adrift and he went into the ground like a brick. "I told him the thing was a death-trap" says Biggles.