Ferdinand Vermuiven, underpaid drudge in a Bucharest money-changer's office, started it. It was his somewhat grubby hand, protruding from under its paper cuff, that lit the fuse. Fizzing and spluttering it ran from Bucharest to Belgrade, from Belgrade back to Bucharest, and from Bucharest to London where it detonated a bomb in a certain quiet suburban mansion.
If Ferdinand Vermuiven had not looked up from his desk that morning, the whole course of Don Boulton's life would have been changed.
