Smitty got out the file and I flipped through. C. D. McKee. Cosmo Darwin McKee. Nothing at all about his early life. A few short paragraphs in which he was included in lists of academic honours conferred on him by various foreign universities while at Oxford. The war, his Generalship, meetings with Heads of Staff, etc., etc. Then a sort of social butterfly series—photographs mainly—old Porky leering out from glossy groups at Hunt Balls and deb parties and art exhibitions. I was flipping through faster when suddenly, wedged in between the Hunt Balls and his marriage to the wealthy American widow Mrs. Pauline Saegessor, and on newsprint instead of slick paper—wham—a pile of clips on the Bosworth Clute Securities case. A public scandal; a great big fat juicy business scandal. I caught my breath and studied them closely. What startled me at first was that I knew the name—Bosworth Clute. By, I suppose, a not very wild coincidence, this much married, much divorced English business tycoon was the father of one of the girls I’d been at school with. I ploughed through reams of almost incomprehensible testimony. Something about the firm being hammered on the Stock Exchange. Something about sharepushing. Something about Clute concealing his snowballing losses by using his clients’ securities without their knowledge. Something about gambling on a successful Suez action by Britain that would cause a boom in oil shares. Something about Clute being sentenced to six years in jail having been found guilty on sixteen counts of conspiracy, fraud, and false pretences involving £300,000. But what had all this to do with McKee? Oh—oh. There it was. A little bit tucked away at the end. Clute’s Board of Directors, amongst whom C. D. was singled out for special mention by the Judge. “As to General McKee I have satisfied myself that he was at no time aware of the transactions Clute was conducting though I should like to record my amazement at his lack of interest in the enterprise whether by naïveté or design and the lack of business qualifications which Clute seemed to feel appropriate to the selection of his Board of Directors on the whole and to General McKee in particular.” Hmm. Spot of trouble there.