Outrage was the response from the birds, the wren flew off. The Turtledove was asked to take over. She bobbed and nodded respectfully, slowly with pretend calmness she read…

“The dark clouds swirled around the windows but I could see plainly, the disagreeable head of Francis Barrowes, his cruel face set in that familiar scowl. About his person was concealed a fortune of perhaps a quarter of a million Francs in notes and the same in bullion, also a large number of classified and irreplaceable doccuments, the absense of which will in all probability cost the British state in excess of a billion pounds over the course of the next twenty years... or so it seemed to him. His eyes were glazed, fixed upon his portable typewriter. He was composing a letter to his collegue Damien McClough.”

return