The Fourth Estate by Jeffrey Archer

Author:Jeffrey Archer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780330523196
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2011-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

NEWS CHRONICLE

25 OCTOBER 1951

Final Poll Gives Churchill the Lead “AND HOW WILL you be paying, Mr. Armstrong?” asked the estate agent.

“It’s Captain Armstrong, actually.”

“I’m sorry, Captain Armstrong.”

“I’ll pay by check.”

It had taken Armstrong ten days to find suitable accommodation, and he only signed the short lease on a flat in Stanhope Gardens when the agent mentioned that a retired brigadier was living on the floor above.

The search for an appropriate office took even longer, because it needed to have an address that would convince Julius Hahn that Armstrong had been in publishing all his life.

When John D. Wood asked what price range he had in mind, a very junior agent was handed the assignment.

Two weeks later, Armstrong settled on an office that was even smaller than his flat in Stanhope Gardens. Although he couldn’t altogether accept the agent’s description of the 308-square- foot room with a lavatory on the floor above as ideal, perfect and unique, it did have two advantages. The Fleet Street address, and a rent he could afford to pay-for the first three months.

“if you’ll be kind enough to sign on the bottom line, Captain Armstrong.”

Armstrong unscrewed the top of his new Parker pen and signed the contract.

“Good. Then that’s settled,” said the young agent as he waited for the ink to dry. “The rent for this property is, as you know, Captain Armstrong, E

10 a week, payable quarterly in advance. Perhaps you would be kind enough to let me have a check for El 30.”

“I’ll send one of my staff round with a check later this afternoon,” said Armstrong, straightening his bow tie.

The agent hesitated for a moment, and then placed the contract in his briefcase. “I’m sure that will be all right, Captain Armstrong,” he said, handing over the keys to the smallest property on their books.

Armstrong felt confident that Hahn would have no way of knowing, when he rang FLE 6093 and heard the words “Armstrong Communications,” that his publishing house consisted of one room, two desks, a filing cabinet and a recently installed telephone. And as for “one of my staff,” one was correct. Sally Carr had returned to London the week before, and had joined him as his personal assistant earlier that morning.

Armstrong had been unable to give the estate agent a check immediately because he had only recently opened an account with Barclays, and the bank was unwilling to issue a checkbook until it received the promised transfer of funds from Holt & Co in Berlin. The fact that he was Captain Armstrong MC, as he kept reminding them, didn’t seem to impress the manager.

When the money did eventually come through, the manager confessed to his accounts clerk that after their meeting he had expected a little more than C217 9s. 6d. to be deposited in Captain Armstrong’s account.

While he was waiting for the money to be transferred, Armstrong contacted Stephen Hallet at his offices in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and asked him to register Armstrong Communications as a private company. That cost him another £10.

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