The Case of the Poisoned Crops is the sixth short story in the fourth anthology of Biggles Air Police short stories entitled Biggles and the Pirate Treasure. The anthology was first published in July, 1954 by Brockhampton. In the anthology, this story is preceded by Biggles Buys a Watch and followed by Biggles Nets a Fish.
Synopsis[]
Someone has been using four drums of stolen insecticide to poison crops in Africa. Coincidentally, British stations have picked up a weak radio signal appealing for someone to go to the airfield at Klookerstein. Biggles is asked to investigate.
Plot[]
The plot is well described in the article on General de Groot (the key character in the story), with a few more details in the article on Felix Harley.
Characters[]
The Special Air Police/Scotland Yard[]
- Air Commodore Raymond
- Biggles
- Algy Lacey
- Ginger Hebblethwaite
- Bertie Lissie
Others[]
Aircraft[]
Places[]
Visited[]
- London, Scotland Yard - Raymond's office
- Klookerstein
- Nairobi - the text suggests that Biggles used this as his base. "We'll get back to Nairobi and report...."
Mentioned[]
Research Notes[]
- Algy gets to shoot down an aircraft with a Very pistol!
References to the past[]
- The Proctor and the Auster are described as two of the aircraft Biggles had just used in looking for the "Black Elephant", the cattle raider and terrorist in Biggles and the Black Raider.