BIGGLES IN THE UNDERWORLD

What made Caine change his tale when Biggles saw him a second time at the Icarian Club? What was the reason for all the secrecy at his Hampshire farm? And could there be any link in this with the disappearance of a pearl necklace from a London hotel? Biggles and his co-pilots, Bertie and Ginger, face some formidable risks in their search for the master mind, the gaol-breaker known to the police as Nick the Sheikh, who has a nasty habit of slashing the faces of people inconvenient to him with a razor.

by Captain W. E. Johns

First published September 1968 (the first posthumously published Biggles book following the death of the author on 21^st June 1968)

TITLE PAGE – Page 3

CONTENTS – Page 5

I. AN UNUSUAL BRIEFING (Pages 7 – 18)

“Air Commodore Raymond, head of the Special Air Police at Scotland Yard, picked up a document that lay on his desk and placed it in front of his senior operational pilot who had just entered the room and seated himself opposite. “Does that face mean anything to you?” he asked. “Not a thing”, Biggles answered. “I can’t recall ever having seen him. Nice-looking fellow. Who is he?” “He’s the most venomous little viper that ever slithered a crooked course through a civilized society. He is, or was, known to some of his associates in the underworld as Nick the Sheikh. Others called him Lazor the Razor, from his habit of carrying an old-fashioned cut-throat razor, his favourite weapon, in his breast pocket”. Raymond goes on “We aren’t sure about his real name, but there’s reason to think that he was christened Nicholas Lazor. Actually he's a British subject. He must be, as you’ll understand presently, although he might be one of these queer crossbreed types that can be thrown up almost anywhere between Liverpool and the Middle East. The photo shows “an alert, clean-shaven face, swarthy, with smooth, shining jet-black hair brushed back without a parting. At the sides it had been allowed to grow to just below the ears in what are sometimes called ‘sideboards’. In all there was something about the man that did not look truly Western European. His age might have been anything between thirty and forty”. Raymond says he has done forgery, blackmail, safe-breaking, the lot. He speaks five or six languages, which makes it easy for him to get around. One of his accomplishments is plausibility. He seems to be able to make anybody believe anything, and that puts him in the front rank of confidence tricksters. He broke out of Dartmoor where he was doing a seven-year stretch for felony and causing grievous bodily harm. He lodged with an old lady of nearly eighty “who was foolish enough to keep her life savings under her bed” and took them. “What a dirty little swine the fellow must be,” muttered Biggles. A plain clothes officer called Rigby spotted him when “the Sheikh turned on him and laid his face open with his razor. There’s more than one man in London with a scar from his cheek to his chin. It’s known as the Sheikh’s initials. Watch out he doesn’t write his name on you”. “Let him try it,” growled Biggles. Two years ago Lazor broke out of gaol. It turned out he was hiding in the R.A.F. where he was selected for flying training, and having got his wings was promoted to sergeant-pilot. He deserted before being sent to the Far East. Two days ago, Rigby, now retired, spotted Lazor in London, walking down Park Lane, having appeared to have come out of the Barchester Hotel. Rigby followed him and “watched him into a smart joint in Soho called the Icarian Club”. “Does the name mean anything to you? It’s a private club and only members are allowed in. A big Negro keeps guard at the door”. Biggles has heard of it and always imagined the name was intended to attract flying men, Icarus being one of the first men who tried to fly according to the ancient Greeks. Rigby called the Yard and Inspector Gaskin dashed round with some men, but Lazor had gone. Lazor had been seen meeting “a young chap who apparently had been waiting for him”. Raymond says about the time “the Sheikh” came out of the Barchester Hotel, the pearls of a certain Lady Crantonby, worth a small fortune disappeared from the bedroom where her maid had put them out for her to wear to the opera that evening. Biggles wonders whether the Sheikh was passing the pearls over to a pilot at the Icarian Club so they could be flown out of the country. He also wonders whether the Sheikh had used his charm on the maid to get information from her as to when the pearls would be out of the safe. Raymond says they had considered the possibility and interviewed her. The maid was about forty and having been with her ladyship for ten years, was terribly upset. “Naturally,” Biggles said dryly. “When a woman falls for a man, particularly a woman of that age, she’ll say anything to protect him. But let’s be fair. Supposing the Sheikh had been making love to her, if he’s as plausible as you say she’d have no reason to suppose he was a crook, in which case the whole thing must have come as a shock to her. She may not have told the Sheikh when she was putting out the pearls in order that he could help himself to them. Suspecting nothing, prompted by his crafty tongue, she may have let the information he wanted slip out by accident, as it were”. Raymond wants Biggles to “get a line” on the chap the Sheikh met at the Icarian Club. The man he met is described as being “about six feet tall, fair, with flaxen hair and sandy eyelashes and conspicuously bright, pale blue eyes. When Rigby saw him he was wearing a yellow polo-necked pullover, sports jacket and putty-coloured corduroy trousers”. Rigby didn’t know him and he couldn’t find him in the Rogues Gallery so it looks as if he is not a professional criminal. Biggles goes and briefs his pilots about the task in hand. His plan it to try and find the man the Sheikh met at the Icarian Club. Biggles is going to check the Air Force List for Short Service Officers who have recently gone back to civvy street. Bertie is told to check the register of all private owners and waffle round the flying clubs “for sight of this blue-eyed lad we’re looking for”. Ginger is told to do the same around Service stations as he may still be a serving officer and he is also told to try the RAF club. Algy is to keep in contact with everyone from the office. “Right,” said Biggles. “Let’s get on with it”.