Lord Lucan--A Strange Encounter by Clive Payne

Author:Clive Payne [Payne, Clive]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786237958
Publisher: Grosvenor House Publishing
Published: 2016-10-23T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Back in March while on holiday in Mallorca I had stopped at a café on my way into Palma. There, I had encountered, quite by chance, a dapper elderly Englishman who wiled away his afternoons at the Café Plaza sipping brandy and puffing on cigarillos.

He approached my table and asked if he might talk with me. He was most pleasant and I felt at ease chatting with him, our conversation being mostly about London and the sporting scene back in England.

He told me his name was Sidney Ainsworth and that he was resident in Mallorca, and that it was here, in the sleepy town of Molinar, that he intended to see out his days. Sidney dressed very smartly, which along with his somewhat upper-class accent, rendered him an air of quiet sophistication. You would have taken bets on it that he had been privately educated.

On taking my leave of him, he asked most politely, if I would post a letter for him when I retuned home. I wasn’t keen on this but as there was nothing obviously untoward about the man I agreed. The letter was addressed to a publishing house in London.

On my next visit to Mallorca I ran into Sidney again at the Café Plaza. We chatted for a while and once again he asked if I would post a document for him from London. It was of course, clear to me, that he did not wish anyone to know where he was living – that he did not wish his mail to bear a Mallorcan postmark.

Needless to say, I was suspicious, but Sidney came across as such a charming character that I found it hard to refuse what seemed a simple favour to someone far from home and who seemed lonely. He was most grateful and wanted to pay me for my trouble but I refused to take any money from him.

However, knowing where I was staying, he sent a letter to my hotel containing five hundred euros and a note to the effect that I might like to open the envelope and read his document and, if I so desired, to take the matter further. He asked only that I keep his whereabouts a secret. He said that I was his last big gamble.

It was all most strange. My initial thoughts were that despite his style and somewhat posh ambiance he had got himself into some financial mess and decided to up-sticks, move to Spain, and see out his day’s in some sort of forced seclusion.

He was getting older, and now with failing health, it seemed he had something to say to a publishing company in Bedford Square and wished to take me into his confidence.

I read Sidney’s incredible document on my flight home and so began the weirdest adventure of my life. It was all quite daft of course, but having met Sidney and read his story I was intrigued. I was hooked by curiosity, even though I was certain there had to be a clever twist somewhere along the line.

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