Biggles Fails to Return

Algy went first. A dozen steps brought him to the bottom, into a bare, oblong cellar. There was only one piece of furniture, a wooden bedstead, on which a bed of dried herbs had been arranged. On it lay a man, a man whose emaciated face was half covered by a fortnight's stubble of beard. But the eyes that he turned on the visitors were clear. He was clad in an old boiler suit, but an R.A.F. uniform lay on the floor beside him. Algy stopped. His heart appeared to seize up. "Great heavens!" he breathed. "Biggles!"