WORRALS CARRIES ON

by W. E. Johns

III. A DARK NIGHT (Pages 30 - 42)

Frecks hears heavy footsteps as two men come out, and then they return to the building. Frecks decides she must find Worrals and she gets out of the bin. Frecks returns to the door but finds it locked. Climbing through a window, she suddenly hears Worrals calling her from outside. Frecks calls out and a man's voice says "Hi! Come here!". Frecks rushes back to the window and joins Worrals and they both run back through the warehouse to reach the boat. Worrals climbs out the window they originally entered by, but Frecks is caught and handcuffed. Worrals returns and is handcuffed as well. The man tells them he is taking them to Scotland Yard and puts them in the back of a car. The man notices the W.A.A.F. uniforms and asks the two girls what there were doing in the warehouse. "Spy hunting" says Worrals. The man removes the handcuffs and says it's time they had a little talk. He takes the girls to a restaurant on Jermyn Street and buys them coffee and sandwiches. The man says the girls can call him Major Gray and he produces a wallet with a Home Office stamp. Worrals gathers he is in the Intelligence Service and tells him how they came to be in the warehouse, beginning with the discovery of the geranium leaf on the landing gear of Joudrier's aircraft. Major Gray says he had followed another man there and he was hiding in an ice cream refrigerator when the shooting took place. The man shot was not Joudrier and the others all left via the river. Gray was about to leave when he heard Frecks slinking down the passage. Gray asks the girls to return to their station and keep an eye on Joudrier. He says as he is not a pilot, he cannot follow the fellow in the air, but the girls might be able to do that. He gives them a card with his address on and says if he is not at home they can leave a message with his assistant, Captain White. Noticing the time is nearly midnight, the girls shake hands with their new friend and find their way back to their car and drive back to the aerodrome. They are almost back when they notice someone has broken down and they are flagged down by a man. It is Joudrier. He says he has a flat tyre and needs to borrow a jack. Worrals says she will help him change the wheel, but she tells Frecks to get in the driving seat of their car.