Gerard Fairlie, a close friend of Herman Cyril McNeile and one of the sources for the character of Bulldog Drummond, carried on the Drummond series after McNeile's death in 1937.

Fairlie was born in London, but his early education took place in Brussels. At the age of thirteen he returned to England to attend Downside School, where he joined the Officers Training Corps in 1914. Fairlie was by no means a brilliant student, but he was determined to pass the entrance examination for the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and he amazed his parents and schoolmasters by placing sixty-second out of over a thousand candidates. He entered Sandhurst in 1917.

From 1918 to 1924 Fairlie served in the Scots Guards. One of his favorite anecdotes from this period concerns Queen Mary, whom he met under very embarrassing circumstances when he was stationed at Victoria Barracks, Windsor. Having completed his duties as officer of...