The sun was setting in a blaze of scarlet and gold over the Indian Ocean as Biggles slowly made his way through the heterogeneous throng of humanity in the Delhi Road, Karachi, towards the Orient Hotel, where he had left Algy, who, reposing near a punkah with an iced drink at his elbow, had declined Biggles’s invitation to take a look round the town. Undeterred, Biggles had wended his way alone from street to street and was now returning to the Orient for dinner.
At the corner of Temple Square, with his eyes on a street carpetseller, rather than on his line of march, he collided violently with a slim, white-clad European who was coming in the opposite direction. The apology that rose automatically to his lips remained unuttered as he found himself staring into a rather tired face, upon wh
