Clinton studied him. "You sound as though you were very sure of him."
"Not totally. But there was one thing I was sure of."
"And what was that?"
Audley's eye was caught for an instant by the rich colours of the flowers in the hearth. "I only met one man who'd actually seen Charlie Ratcliffe in action—who knew him as he was. ...
He was an old gardener who liked growing flowers—the gardener at Standingham Castle."
Clinton waited.
"He said Ratcliffe was a chancer. So I gave him his chance, Fred. That's all. And he took it."
dummy5
Author's Note
THE Sealed Knot, the King's Army and the Roundhead Association, which are mentioned in passing in this story, are real organisations. The Double R society and its members in no way resemble these admirable and innocent groups, except perhaps in such virtues as they may share. No comparison between the factual and the fictional is intended.
On the other hand, the story of Soviet Russia's acquisition of the gold of the Spanish Republic is a matter of history; as is also that of General Krivitsky, the one-time Chief of Soviet Military Intelligence in Western Europe, who escaped to tell the tale—and to die in suspicious circumstances in a Washington hotel in 1941.
Document Outline
Local Disk
dummy5