Hue and Cry

In a bombed-out post-war London neighbourhood, the Blood and Thunder Boys discover that thieves are copying the adventure stories from their magazines to plan robberies. Joe Kirby leads the charge as he follows the clues the stories leave behind. He informs C.I.D. Inspector Ford, who laughs off the boys’ suspicion, setting the initial conflict in motion.

Joe tries to push the matter at work, but his boss, Mr. Nightingale, treats the claim as a nuisance and urges Joe to forget it. The tension between the eager youngster and the reluctant authority figures grows. Nightingale’s skepticism contrasts with the boys’ determination.

Joe and another boy visit the eccentric author Wilkinson to learn why the plots are being altered. They observe that Wilkinson’s wording is being tampered with somewhere between drafting and publication. The discovery deepens the mystery and pushes the boys further into the case.

The boys track down a female employee at the publishing house and confront her at a suburban home in Hampstead. The interrogation yields little insight, but it marks a key lead in connecting the story plots to the real crimes. The encounter heightens the tension and raises the stakes for the investigators.

Through their investigations, Joe and the gang narrow down the drop location where the criminals are storing their loot. The clue focuses their plan on intercepting the criminals at the right moment. The sense of progress charges the pursuit with renewed energy.

To draw the criminals into the trap, Joe and Wilkinson orchestrate the creation of a new adventure story. The plan is designed to send the criminals straight to the drop by manipulating their expectations. The pairing of fiction and policing becomes a clever ruse.

The next day, Joe reports the trap plan to Nightingale. While the boys hope for support, Joe soon realizes that his boss may be the mastermind behind the local crimes. The revelation reframes the entire investigation and injects a personal danger into the pursuit.

At the warehouse where the loot is kept, Joe finds a cache of stolen fur coats and is confronted by Nightingale, who threatens him. The tension escalates as the criminals' world closes in on him and the truth about Nightingale thickens. The moment marks a turning point in the battle between the boys and the criminals.

A chaotic melee erupts when other crooks and toughs arrive on the scene. The power struggle between Nightingale and Joe becomes entangled with the criminals' own actions. During the clash, Nightingale is temporarily knocked unconscious.

In a dramatic turn, hundreds of city boys respond to an arranged radio plea, flooding the scene and overrunning the criminals. Pandemonium erupts as the teenagers’ coordinated effort disrupts the loot operation. The action shifts from a private confrontation to a city-wide intervention.

The police arrive to restore order as the chaos subsides. Law enforcement takes control of the warehouse area and begins the process of wrapping up the crime wave. The boys’ vigilance is vindicated as the criminals lose the upper hand.

Joe tails Nightingale to a bombed multi-storied building for a final confrontation. The setting underscores the war-ravaged city as the stakes rise toward a lethal finish. The pursuit narrows to a personal duel between the two.

In the climactic showdown, Nightingale topples through a hole in the floor and plummets away, ending his reign of crime. Joe confronts him as the structure tilts toward safety or ruin, depending on the fall. The fall marks the end of the mastermind’s schemes and a victory for the boys and the authorities.