"For example—" the Minister continued smoothly "—
whatever political mistakes the Duke made he did lay down one guiding principle for times of crisis, a rule to which I wholeheartedly subscribe: 'The King's government must be carried on'. I intend to see that it is carried on, and that is why I'm here now."
Audley tried another smile.
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"I've said something that amuses you?" The Minister frowned.
"No, Minister. I was smiling at myself for jumping to the wrong conclusion for your being here."
"Indeed? Which was—"
"That otherwise I might have gone off to sulk in my tent. I didn't want to go to Washington in the first place—not simply because I don't like to spy on my friends, but because I don't like being buggered about. Because I know why I was sent, in fact."
Stocker gave a warning cough. "David—"
"No, Brigadier. If the Minister has heard quite a lot about me he may as well hear this too. I'm a hard-liner in East-West relations, Minister. I dislike the Russians, and I hate Communists. And with the Helsinki nonsense coming up my face didn't fit at all—I'd become an ancestral voice prophesying war. Or if not war then treachery. So I was banished to the New World with the promise of a fortnight's extra holiday after that, and then a choice of research projects on NATO security. Which promise is about to be broken as thoroughly as any of the undertakings the Soviet government may have appeared to give at Helsinki. And Sir Frederick Clinton knows that that just might have been enough to break the camel's back."
"You're beginning to sound suspiciously like a prima donna, David," said Stocker.
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"Beginning? Brigadier, I am a prima donna. If you insist on giving me damned difficult arias—like this one—" Audley waved the newspaper cutting "—I've no choice in the matter.
So if you want someone else to sing this, you get whoever you can. But if you want me to sing it, then you damn well have to put up with me, temperament and all." He turned back to the Minister. "So?"
The Minister smiled. "So you'll sing for us?"
"Of course. The Queen's government must be carried on, one way or another. If you're prepared to take me on trust, I'm prepared to take you, Minister. Sir Frederick gave you good advice."
"That you would trust me face-to-face? Obviously he knows you very well."
"Too damn well for my own good. And I know him too."
"He also says that you're good at finding things—that you once recovered a lost treasure for him."
"I've found a number of things for him. And people. But in this case the treasure appears to have been already found. So what exactly do you want me to find?"
"What makes you think we want you to find anything?"
"Well, you surely don't want me to solve a murder for you.
Because solving murders isn't my forte. Murder is for policemen—just as politics is for politicians."
Again the Minister smiled, though more coldly this time.
"Touché, Dr. Audley— I'll try to remember that. But you've dummy5
read the two cuttings: what do you make of them?"
"Textually, you mean? You want a comparison between the two?"
"That would be interesting—for a start."
Audley looked down at the cutting in his hand. Cromwell's Gold—and now Charlie Ratcliffe's gold—was an incomparable "silly season" story for any newspaper by any standards. It was every reader's Walter Mitty dream come true: a ton of gold uncomplicated by taxes and death duties.
Besides such a fortune even the biggest football pools win looked like a lucky afternoon at the bingo hall; but more than that it was a quick fortune won not by luck, but by the sweat of the finder's intelligence, and therefore deserved as no chance fortune could ever be. Only sour grapes would disapprove of Charlie's riches.
Except for one dark suspicion.
"All right . . . Two cuttings, two papers . . . One a heavyweight Sunday, the other a popular Monday." He raised the second cutting. "But the difference goes deeper than that."
"How—deeper?"
"Ratcliffe gave the story to the Sunday. But he didn't give a thing to the daily— there isn't a single first-person quote from him, not a real one. It's all second-hand, or out of their cuttings morgue."
"Inverted revolutionary snobbery, perhaps?"
"Perhaps. But also a mistake."
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"Why a mistake?"
"Because it never pays to be unfair to the press when you've got a good story. This Ratcliffe—he's not quite as clever as he thinks he is, if that's what he did."
"I'm still not quite with you, Audley."
"Well, it's like this, Minister. He gave the Sunday a splendid story about the discovery of a great treasure, and that's what their story is about. But he gave the daily paper nothing, so they had to dig up the story for themselves—and they dug up a new story. But it's not a treasure story, it's a murder story."
He looked towards Stocker. "What about the rest of the daily press? Did they write about treasure—or murder?"
The Brigadier's expression soured, as though the thought of the British press as a whole was distasteful to him and the only good newspaper was a dead one. Then he nodded.
"Meaning . . . murder?" Audley smiled. Obviously it wasn't quite the moment to admit that some of his best friends were journalists. "Of course they did. That's where the best story is. But if he'd saved a bit for them, or if he'd been fair all round, they might have felt a tiny bit inhibited about putting his skeletons on display so prominently. But he didn't—so they weren't. Of course, as a revolutionary he might have lost either way, but this way he made it a certainty."
He passed the cutting to the Minister. "Read it for yourself.
It's not really about gold, it's about murder. They say that he killed the pair of them, first the son and then the father."
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"The old man died of cirrhosis," said Stocker.
"A mere detail. He simply anticipated his murder—and that was why Cousin James had to go first. But Charlie wanted the estate, and Charlie got it, that's what it amounts to."
"The estate?" Stocker growled derisively. "The estate is little more than the land on which Standingham Castle stands.
And that—"
"Is near-derelict?" Audley grinned, warming to the task of imagining the extent of Charlie Ratcliffe's villainies. "And no doubt the old man was up to his neck in debt—don't bother to tell me. It's all there between the lines."
"It is?" The Minister looked down at the cutting, then back at Audley. "I must say I don't see it."
"You don't see it, Minister, because you don't need to see it—
you already know it." Audley paused. "The man who wrote that—the reporter, or the re-write man or the sub-editor, or whoever—I hope they pay him what he's worth. There's not a word in it any lawyer could quarrel with. But what it amounts to is that Charlie found the gold, or at least he established to his own satisfaction where it was. Only he didn't want any arguments about ownership—or problems with death duties, either. And if there was doubt about the ownership, then if the father died before the son he might have to face double death duties—which is why the son had to be killed off before cirrhosis got the father. So he killed the son, waited for nature to take its course with the father, and then came up with the goodies. How's that for size?"
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"Very neat." The Minister stared at Audley thoughtfully.
"And substantially correct?"
The Minister nodded slowly. "Substantially . . . yes, it very probably is. I don't dispute that." He lifted the cutting. "But there's nothing here that says as much. In fact they go out of their way to say that he didn't do it."
"Oh no, they don't." Audley shook his head. "They most carefully don't say that. What they say—or what they very clearly imply—is that he couldn't have done it."