Vintage Stuff

Chapter 8

It was late afternoon by the time Glodstone parked the Bentley in a street near Victoria Station. He had driven down in a state of euphoria interspersed with occasional flashes of insight which told him the whole affair was too good to be true. There must be some mistake. Certainly his judgement of Wanderby had been wholly wrong. What had the letter said? 'Maintains that you are the only gentleman among the masters.' Which was true enough, but he'd hardly expected Wanderby to have recognized it. Still, the boy's mother was La Comtesse, and he evidently knew a gentleman when he saw one.

But for the most part, Glodstone had spent the drive concentrating on ways of reaching the Château Carmagnac as speedily as possible. It would depend on what message he found at the left-luggage office, but if he took the Weymouth to Cherbourg ferry, he could drive through the night and be there in twenty-four hours. He had his passport with him and had stopped at his bank in Bridgnorth to withdraw two thousand pounds from his deposit account and change them into travellers' cheques. It was the sum total of his savings but he still had his small inheritance to fall back on. Not that money counted in his calculations. He was about to embark on the expedition of his dreams. He was also going alone. It was at this point that a feeling of slight disappointment crept over him. In his fantasies, he had always seen himself accompanied by one or two devoted friends, a small band of companions whose motto would be that of The Three Musketeers, 'All for one and one for all.' Of course when he was young it had been different, but at fifty Glodstone felt the need for company. If only he could have taken young Clyde-Browne with him but there was no time for that now. He must act with speed.

But the message he found waiting for him at the left-luggage office changed his opinion. He had been rather surprised to find that it was in fact a piece of luggage, a small brown suitcase. 'Are you sure this is the article?' he asked the attendant rather incautiously.

'Listen, mate, it's yours isn't it? You gave me the ticket for it and that's the luggage,' said the man and turned away to deal with another customer. Glodstone glanced at a label tied to the handle and was satisfied. Neatly typed on it was his own name. He walked back to the car with a new sense of caution and twice stopped at a corner to make sure he was not being followed. Then with the case on the seat beside him he drove to the flat of an aged aunt in Highgate which he was forced to use when he was in London. In keeping with his background, Glodstone would have much preferred his club, The Ancient Automobile, but it didn't run to rooms.

'Well I never, if it isn't Gerald,' said the old lady, rather gratuitously in Glodstone's opinion, 'and you didn't even write to say you were coming.'

'I didn't have time. Urgent business,' said Glodstone.

'It's a good thing your room is still ready just as you left it, though I'll have to put a hot-water bottle in to air the sheets. Now you just sit down and I'll make a nice pot of tea.'

But Glodstone was in no mood for these domestic details. They clashed too prosaically with his excitement. All the same, his aunt disappeared into the kitchen while he went up to his room and opened the suitcase. Inside it was stuffed with French newspapers and it was only when he had taken them all out that he found the second envelope. He ripped it open and took out several sheets of notepaper. They were all crested and the handwriting was unmistakably that of La Comtesse.

'Dear Mr Glodstone, Thank you for coming thus far,' he read. 'It was to be expected of you but, though I would have you come to my aid, I fear extremely you do not appreciate the dangers you will face and I would not put you at your peril without fair warning. Desperate as my situation is, I cannot allow you to come unprepared. Those about me are wise in the ways of crime whereas you are not. This is perhaps to your advantage but for your own sake and for mine, be on your guard and come, if you can, armed, for this is a matter of life and death and murder has already been done.'

'Your tea is ready, dear,' the old lady called from her cluttered sitting-room.

'All right, I'll be there in a minute,' said Glodstone irritably. Here he was about to engage in a matter of life and death and with murder already done, and aged aunts who called him dear and served tea were distinctly out of place. He read on. 'I enclose the route you must follow. The ports are watched and on no account must you appear to be other than an English gentleman touring through France. It is vital therefore that you take your time and trust no one. The men against whom you are set have agents among the gendarmerie and are themselves above suspicion. I cannot state their influence too highly. Nor dare I catalogue their crimes in writing.' This time the letter was signed 'Yours in gratitude, Deirdre de Montcon,' and as before the postscript ordered him to burn both letter and envelope.

Glodstone turned to the other page. It was typewritten and stated that he was to cross from Dover to Ostend on the early morning ferry on the 28th of July and drive to Iper before passing the frontier into France the following day. Thereafter his route was listed with hotels at which 'rooms have been booked for you.' Glodstone read down the list in amazement. Considering the terrible dangers La Comtesse was evidently facing, her instructions were quite extraordinarily explicit. Only when he turned the page was there an explanation. In her own handwriting she had written, 'Should I have need to communicate with you, my messages will be waiting for you in your rooms each night. And now that I have written this by hand, please copy and then burn.'

Glodstone reached in his pocket for a pen, only to be interrupted by his aunt.

'Your tea's getting cold, dear.'

'Damn,' said Glodstone, but went through to the sitting-room and spent an extremely impatient half an hour listening to the latest family gossip. By the time Aunt Lucy got on to the various diseases her grandnieces and nephews had been suffering from, Glodstone was practically rabid. 'Excuse me, but I have some really pressing business to attend to,' he said, as she launched into a particularly clinical account of the symptoms his cousin Michael had contracted, or more precisely expanded, as a result of mumps.

'Balls,' continued Aunt Lucy implacably.

'I beg your pardon,' said Glodstone, whose attention had been fixed on La Comtesse's instructions.

'I was saying that his '

'I simply must go,' said Glodstone and rather rudely left the room.

'What a very peculiar boy Gerald is,' muttered the old lady as she cleared away the tea things. Her opinion was confirmed some forty minutes later when she discovered the hallway was filling with smoke.

'What in heaven's name are you doing in there?' she demanded of the door to the lavatory which seemed to be the source of the fire.

'Nothing,' choked Glodstone, wishing to God he hadn't been so conscientious in following La Comtesse's instructions to burn all evidence. The letter and his itinerary had gone easily enough, but his attempt to screw the envelope into a ball and catch the flood had failed dismally. The envelope remained obstinately buoyant with the crest plainly visible. And the cistern had been no great help either. Built for a more leisurely age, it filled slowly and emptied no faster. Finally Glodstone had resorted to the French newspapers. They were incriminating too and by crumpling them up around the sodden envelope he might get that to burn as well. In the event, he was proved right, but at considerable cost. The newspapers were as fiery as their editorials. As flames shot out of the pan, Glodstone slammed the lid down and was presently tugging at the chain to extinguish what amounted to an indoor bonfire. It was at this point that his aunt intervened.

'Yes, you are,' she shouted through the door, 'You've been smoking in there and something's caught fire.'

'Yes,' gasped Glodstone, finding this a relatively plausible explanation. Nobody could say that he hadn't been smoking. The damned stuff was issuing round the edges of the lid quite alarmingly. He seized the towel from behind the door and tried to choke the smoke off before he suffocated.

'If you don't come out this minute I shall be forced to call the fire brigade,' his aunt threatened but Glodstone had had enough. Unlocking the door, he shot, gasping for air, into the hall.

His aunt surveyed the smoke still fuming from beneath the seat. 'What on earth have you been up to?' she said, and promptly extinguished the smouldering remnants of Le Monde with a basin of water from the kitchen before examining the fragments with a critical eye.

'You've been a bachelor too long,' she declared finally. 'Your Uncle Martin was found dead in the lavatory with a copy of La Vie Parisienne and you've evidently taken after him. What you need is a sensible wife to take care of your baser needs.'

Glodstone said nothing. If his aunt chose to draw such crude conclusions it was far better that she do so than suspect the true nature of his enterprise. All the same, the incident had taken a measure of the immediate glamour out of the situation. 'I shall be dining out,' he said with some hauteur and spent the evening at his club planning his next move. It was complicated by the date of his cross-channel booking, which was set for the 28th. He had five days to wait. Then there was the question of obtaining arms. The letter had definitely said 'Come armed,' but that was easier said than done. True, he had a shotgun at a cousin's farm in Devon but shotguns didn't come into the category of proper arms. He needed a revolver, something easy to conceal in the Bentley, and he could hardly go into a gunsmith in London and ask for a .38 Smith & Wesson with a hundred cartridges. The thing to do would be to approach some member of the underworld. There must be plenty of people selling guns in London. Glodstone didn't know any and had not the foggiest notion where to look for them. It was all very disconcerting and he was about to give up the notion of going armed when he remembered that Major Fetherington kept revolvers and ammunition in the School Armoury. In fact there were several old ones there. And he knew where the Major kept the keys. It would be a simple matter to take one and he could have it back before the beginning of next term. With a more cheerful air, Glodstone ordered a brandy before returning to his aunt's flat. Next morning he was on the road again and by lunchtime back at Groxbourne.

'Fancy you coming back so soon,' said the School Secretary. 'The galloping Major's back too, only he isn't galloping quite so much. Been and gone and sprained his ankle.'

'Damnation,' said Glodstone horrified at this blow to his plan, 'I mean, poor fellow. Where is he?'

'Up in his rooms'

Glodstone climbed the staircase to the Major's rooms and knocked.

'Come in, whoever you are,' shouted the Major. He was sitting in an armchair with one leg propped up on a stool. 'Ah, Gloddie, old boy. Good to see you. Thought you'd shoved off.'

'I had to come back for something. What on earth happened? Did you slip on some scree in Wales?'

'Never got to bloody Wales. Glissaded on a dog-turd in Shrewsbury and came a right purler, I can tell you. All I could do to drive that damned minibus back here. Had to cancel the OU course and now I've got old Perry on my hands.'

'Peregrine Clyde-Brown?' asked Glodstone with rising hope.

'Parents off in Italy somewhere. Won't be back for three weeks and he's been trying to phone some uncle but the chap's never in. Blowed if I know what to do with the lad.'

'How long is that ankle of yours going to take to mend?' asked Goldstone, suddenly considering the possibility that he might have found just the two people he would most like to have with him in a tight spot.

'Quack's fixed me up for an X-ray tomorrow. Seems to think I may have fractured my coccyx.'

'Your coccyx? I thought you said you'd sprained your ankle.'

'Listen, old man,' said the Major conspiratorially. 'That's for public consumption. Can't have people going round saying I bought it where the monkey hid the nuts. Wouldn't inspire confidence, would it? I mean, would you trust a son of yours to go on a survival course with a man who couldn't spot a dog-pat when it was staring him in the face?'

'Well, as a matter of fact I don't...' began Glodstone, only to be interrupted by the Major who was shifting his posterior on what appeared to be a semi-inflated plastic lifebelt. 'Another thing. The Head don't know, so for Lord's sake don't mention a word. The blighter's only too anxious to find an excuse for closing the OU course down. Can't afford to lose my job.'

'You can rely on me,' said Glodstone. 'Is there anything I can get you?'

The Major nodded. 'A couple of bottles of whisky. Can't ask Matron to get it for me. Bad enough having her help me to the loo, and then she hangs about outside asking if I need any help. I tell you, old boy, everything they say about passing razor blades is spot-on.'

'I'll see to the whisky,' said Glodstone, not wishing to pursue this line of conversation any further. It was obvious that the Major was a broken reed as far as the great adventure was concerned. He went downstairs in search of Peregrine. He had no difficulty. The sound of shots coming from the small-arms range indicated where Peregrine was. Glodstone found him using a .22 to puncture the centre of a target. For a moment he watched with delight and then stepped forward.

'Gosh, sir, it's good to see you,' said Peregrine enthusiastically and scrambled to his feet, 'I thought you'd left.'

Glodstone switched his monocle to his good eye. 'Something's turned up. The big show,' he said.

Peregrine looked puzzled. 'The big show, sir?'

Glodstone looked cautiously round the range before replying. 'The call to action,' he said solemnly. 'I can't give any details except to say that it's a matter of life and death.'

'Gosh, sir, you mean '

'Let's just say I've been asked to help. Now, as I understand it, your folks are in Italy and you've nothing on.'

For a moment Peregrine's literal mind struggled with the statement before he caught its meaning. 'No, sir, I've been trying to phone my uncle but I can't get through.'

'In which case you won't be missed. That's number one. Number two is we've three weeks in which to do the job. I take it you've got a passport.'

Peregrine shook his head. Glodstone polished his monocle thoughtfully. 'In that case we'll have to think of something.'

'You mean we're going abroad?'

'To France,' said Glodstone, 'that is, if you're game. Before you answer, you must know that we'll be acting outside the law with no holds barred. I mean, it won't be any picnic'

But Peregrine was already enthralled. 'Of course I'm game, sir. You can count me in.'

'Good man,' said Glodstone and clapped him on the shoulder. 'Now as to a passport, I have an idea. Didn't Mr Massey take the fifth-form French to Boulogne last year?'

'Yes sir.'

'And Barnes had flu and couldn't go. If I'm not wrong, the Bursar said he'd kept his temporary visitor's passport back. It could be he still has it in his office.'

'But I don't look a bit like Barnes.'

Glodstone smiled. 'You will by the time you cross,' he said, 'We'll see to that. And now for weapons. You don't by any chance have the key to armoury, do you?'

'Well, yes sir. The Major said I could keep my eye in so long as I didn't blow my head off.'

'In that case, we'll pay the gunroom a visit. We need to go armed and two revolvers won't be missed.'

'They will, sir,' said Peregrine. 'The Major always checks the guns.'

'I can't see him doing it in his present condition,' said Glodstone. 'Still, I don't like going unprepared.'

For once Peregrine had the answer. 'There's a smashing shop for replica guns in Birmingham, sir. I mean if we '

'Splendid,' said Glodstone. 'The Major wants some whisky. We can kill two birds with one stone.'

That evening the substitutions were made and two .38 Webleys with several hundred rounds of ammunition were stored in cardboard boxes beneath the seats of the Bentley. And the problem of the passport had been solved too. Glodstone had found Barnes's in the Bursar's office.

'Now it remains to convince the Major that you're going to your uncle's. Tell him you're catching the ten o'clock train and I'll pick you up at the bus-stop in the village. We don't want to be seen leaving the school together. So hop along to his room and then turn in. We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.'

Glodstone went up to his rooms and sat on in the evening sunlight studying his route on the map and sipping pink gins. It was nine before he remembered the Major's Scotch and took him the two bottles.

'Bless you, old lad,' said the Major, 'You'll find a couple of glasses in the cupboard. Saved my life. And Perry's off to his uncle's tomorrow.'

'Really?' said Glodstone. 'Anyway, your very good health.'

'Going to need it by the feel of things. Bloody nuisance being cooped up here with no one much to chat to. Are you staying around for long?'

Glodstone hesitated. He was fond of the Major and the whisky coming on top of his pink gins had added to the intoxication he felt at the prospect of his adventure. 'Strictly between these four walls,' he said, 'and I do mean strictly, the most extraordinary thing's happened and...' He hesitated. The Countess had asked for the utmost secrecy but there was no harm in telling the Major and if anything went wrong, it would help to have someone know. 'I've had a summons from La Comtesse de Montcon, Wanderby's mater. Apparently she's in terrible trouble and needs me...'

'Must be,' said the Major unsympathetically, but Glodstone was too drunk to get the message. By the time he'd finished, Major Fetherington had downed several stiff whiskies in quick succession and was looking at him peculiarly. 'Listen, Gloddie, you can't be serious. You must have dreamt this up.'

'I most certainly haven't,' said Glodstone. 'It's what I've been waiting for all my life. And now it's come. I always knew it would. It's destiny.'

'Oh, well, it's your pigeon. What do you want me to do?'

'Nothing. I know how you're placed and all that. But do remember, you're sworn to secrecy. No one, but no one, must know. I want your hand on that.'

'If you say so,' said the Major. 'Shake a paw. No names, no pack-drill and all that. You can rely on me. All the same...Pass the bottle. So you're crossing to Ostend?'

'Yes,' said Glodstone and got up unsteadily. 'Better get some shut-eye.' He wove to the door and went downstairs. On the way, he met the Matron and ignored her. She held no attractions for him now. La Comtesse de Montcon wanted him and the great romance of his life had begun. He crossed the quad. A light was burning in Peregrine's dormitory but Glodstone didn't see it.

'Fuck me,' said the Major, unfortunately just as the Matron entered.

Peregrine shut the book and turned out the light. He had just finished The Day of the Jackal.