Vintage Stuff (8 page)

A week later it did. As the last coach left for the station and the cars departed, Slymne
struck. The School Secretary's office was conveniently empty when he tucked the envelope
addressed to G. P. Glodstone, Esq., into the pigeonhole already jammed with Glodstone's
uncollected mail. Slymne's timing was nicely calculated. Glodstone was notorious for not
bothering with letters until the pigeonhole was full. 'A load of bumpf,' he had once declared.
'Anyone would think I was a pen-pusher and not a schoolmaster.' But with the end of term, he
would be forced to deal with his correspondence. Even so, he would leave it until the last
moment. It was in fact three days before Glodstone took the bundle of letters up to his room and
shuffled through them and came to the envelope with the familiar crest, an eagle evidently
tearing the entrails from a sheep. For a moment Glodstone gazed almost rapturously at the crest
before splitting the envelope open with a paper-knife. Again he hesitated. Letters from parents
were too often lists of complaints about the treatment of their sons. Glodstone held his breath
as he took it out and laid it flat on the desk. But his fears were unfounded.

'Dear Mr Glodstone,' he read, 'I trust you will forgive me writing to you but I have no one
else to turn to. And, although we have never met, Anthony has expressed such admiration for you
indeed maintains you are the only gentleman among the masters at Groxbourne that I feel you alone
can be trusted.' Glodstone re-read the sentence he had never suspected the wretched Wanderby of
such perception and then continued in a ferment of excitement.

'I dare express nothing in a letter for fear that it will be intercepted, except that I am in
the greatest danger and urgently need help in a situation which is as hazardous as it is
honourable. Beyond that I cannot go in writing. Should you feel able to give me that assistance I
so desperately require, go to the left-luggage office at Victoria Station and exchange the
enclosed ticket. I can say no more but know you will understand the necessity for this
precaution.'

The letter was signed, 'Yours in desperation, Deirdre de Montcon. P.S. Burn both the letter
and the envelope at once.'

Glodstone sat transfixed. The call he had been awaiting for over thirty years had finally
come. He read the letter several times and then, taking the left-luggage ticket, which he put
into his wallet, he ceremoniously burnt the letter in its envelope and as an extra precaution
flushed the ashes down the lavatory. Seconds later, he was packing and within the half hour the
Bentley rolled from the coach-house with a rejuvenated Glodstone behind the wheel.

From the window of his rooms in the Tower, Slymne watched him leave with a different
excitement. The loathsome Glodstone had taken the bait. Then Slymne too carried his bags down to
his car and left Groxbourne, though less hurriedly. He would always be one step ahead of his
enemy.

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.'