Vintage Stuff

'After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained,' he replied tritely to a gull that shrieked above him. In the clear summer air he could see faint on the horizon the coastline of France. Tomorrow he'd be there. That evening, while Peregrine struggled to explain to the desk clerk that he wanted a room at the hotel in Armentières and Slymne drove desperately towards Ivry-La-Bataille, Glodstone dined at a country pub and then went down to the ferry terminal to confirm his booking to Ostend next morning.

'Did you say your name was Glodstone, sir?' enquired the clerk.

'I did,' said Glodstone, and was alarmed when the man excused himself and went to another office with an odd look on his face. A more senior official with an even odder look came out.

'If you'll just come this way, Mr Glodstone,' he said mournfully and opened the door of a small room.

'What for?' said Glodstone, now thoroughly worried.

'I'm afraid I have some rather shocking news for you, sir. Perhaps if you took a seat...'

'What shocking news?' said Glodstone, who had a shrewd idea what he was in for.

'It concerns your wife, sir.'

'My wife?'

'Yes, Mr Glodstone. I'm sorry to have to tell you '

'But I haven't got a wife,' said Glodstone, fixing the man with his monocle.

'Ah, then you know already,' said the man. 'You have my most profound sympathy. I lost my own three years ago. I know just how you must feel.'

'I very much doubt if you do,' said Glodstone, whose feelings were veering all over the place. 'In fact, I'd go as far as to say you can't.'

But the man was not to be denied his compassion. The years behind the booking counter had given him the gift of consoling people. 'Perhaps not,' he murmured, 'As the Bard says, marriages are made in heaven and we must all cross that bourne from which no traveller returns.'

He cast a watery eye at the Channel but Glodstone was in no mood for multiple misquotations. 'Listen,' he said, 'I don't know where you got this idea that I'm married because I'm not, and since I'm not, I'd be glad to hear how I can have lost my wife.'

'But you are Mr G. P. Glodstone booked for the Ostend boat tomorrow morning?'

'Yes. And what's more, there isn't any Mrs Glodstone and never has been.'

'That's odd,' said the man. 'We had a message from Calais just now for a Mr Glodstone saying his wife had died and you're the only Mr Glodstone on any of the booking lists. I'm exceedingly sorry to have distressed you.'

'Yes, well since you have,' said Glodstone, who was beginning to find the message even more sinister than the actual death of any near relative, 'I'd like to hear who sent it.'

The man went back into the office and phoned through to Calais. 'Apparently a man came in speaking French with a strong English accent and wanted to find out on which ferry you were crossing,' he said. 'He wouldn't speak English and the clerk there wouldn't tell him where you were landing, so the man said to tell you your wife had died.'

'Did the clerk describe the man?'

'I didn't ask him and frankly, since...'

But Glodstone's monocle had its effect and he went back to the phone. He returned with the information that the man had disappeared as soon as he'd delivered the message.

Glodstone had made up his mind. 'I think I'll change my booking,' he said. 'Is there any space on tonight's ferries?'

'There's some on the midnight one, but '

'Good. Then I'll take it,' said Glodstone, maintaining his authority, 'and on no account is that fellow to be given any information about my movements.'

'We don't make a habit of handing out information of that sort,' said the man. 'I take great exception to the very idea.'

'And I take exception to being told that a wife I don't have has just died,' said Glodstone.

At midnight, he took the ferry and was in Belgium before dawn. As he drove out of the docks, Glodstone kept his eyes skinned for any suspicious watchers but the place was dark and empty. Of one thing, Glodstone was now certain. La Comtesse had not been exaggerating the brilliant criminal intelligence he was up against. That they knew he was coming was proof enough of that. There was also the terrible possibility that the message had been a warning.

'If they touch one hair of her head,' Glodstone muttered ferociously and adjusted his goggles as the Bentley ate the miles towards Iper and the obscure frontier crossing beyond it.

Chapter 10

'Gosh, it's good to see you, sir...I mean Patton, sir,' said Peregrine when the Bentley drew up outside the railway station that morning. Glodstone peered at him from behind his one-eyed goggles, and had to admit that he was fairly pleased to see Peregrine. He was terribly tired, had had no sleep for twenty-four hours and the border crossing Slymne had chosen for him had been so obscure that he'd spent several hours trying to find it.

'I'll get some breakfast while you fetch your kit from the hotel,' he said, 'I don't want to be delayed here too long. So step lively. You see, they know I'm coming but that you're with me they do not know.'

And with this strangely accurate remark, Glodstone climbed down and entered a café where, to his disgust, he was forced to make do with café au lait and croissants. Half an hour later the Bentley, which had attracted a disconcerting number of vintage car buffs around it, was once more on the road.

'We've stolen a march on them so far,' said Glodstone, 'but there's no doubt they know La Comtesse has been in communication with me. Which goes to show she has been badly served. And so, from now on, we must be on our guard and keep our eyes open for anything suspicious.' And he recounted the story of the man who had visited the booking office at Calais and had left the warning message. 'Which means they may be holding her against our coming.'

'Your wife?' asked Peregrine. 'I didn't know you had one.' For a moment Glodstone took his eye off the road to glare at him and looked back just in time to avoid crushing a herd of cows that was blocking the way.

'La Comtesse, you oaf,' he shouted as the car screeched to a halt.

'Oh, her,' said Peregrine. 'In that case, why did they say your wife was dead?'

To vent his fury and avoid actual violence, Glodstone sounded the horn. Ahead of them, the cows mooched on their way unperturbed. 'Because,' said Glodstone, with barely controlled patience, 'not even the most brazen swine would walk up to a booking clerk and say "Tell Mr Glodstone that if he comes any further La Comtesse will die." The last thing they want to do is bring the police in.'

'No, I suppose they don't. Still '

'And another thing,' continued Glodstone before Peregrine could send his blood pressure up any further by his obtuseness, 'the fellow enquired which ferry I was taking, which tells me this: they don't know I was crossing via Ostend. At least they didn't last night and it will take them time to find out and by then we must have reached the Château. It's surprise that counts, so we'll press on.'

'When those cows get out of the way,' said Peregrine. 'You don't suppose they're blocking the road on purpose?'

For a few seconds Glodstone eyed him incredulously. 'No,' he said, 'I don't.'

Presently they were able to drive on. As they drove, Glodstone's mind wrestled with the problem of hotels. La Comtesse had arranged the bookings to enable her to communicate with him en route and if he avoided them and pushed on there was the danger that he might miss a vital message. Against that there was the need for speed. In the end, Glodstone compromised and when they reached Gisors, where he had been scheduled to spend the first night, he sent Peregrine in to cancel the room.

'Explain that I've been taken ill and won't be coming,' he said, 'and if there are any messages for me, collect them.' He parked the Bentley out of sight round the corner and Peregrine went into the hotel. He was back in five minutes. 'The manager spoke English,' he said.