'So the blighter should. After all we've saved them from the Hun in two World Wars and a fat lot of thanks we've had for it. Bloody butter mountains and wine lakes and the confounded Common Market,' said Glodstone, who had been looking forward to a short nap. 'And no message or letter for me?'
Peregrine shook his head and Glodstone started the Bentley again. All day, the great car ate the miles and a vast quantity of petrol, but Glodstone pushed along the side roads of Slymne's tortuous route. It was afternoon by the time they came to Ivry-La-Bataille and Glodstone was able to totter into the hotel and remove his goggles. 'I believe you have a room reserved for me. The name is Glodstone,' he said in French that was a shade less excruciating than Slymne's and infinitely more comprehensible than Peregrine's.
'But yes, monsieur. Number Four.'
Glodstone took the key and then paused. 'Has any message come for me?'
The clerk looked through a stash of envelopes until he came to the familiar crest. 'This was delivered this afternoon, monsieur.'
Glodstone took the letter and tore it open. Five minutes later the key to his room was back on the board and Glodstone had left. 'You can stop bringing the baggage in,' he told Peregrine, 'La Comtesse has sent a message.'
'A message?' said Peregrine eagerly.
'Shut up and get in,' said Glodstone casting a suspicious eye round the street, 'I'll explain while we go.'
'Well?' said Peregrine when they were clear of the little town.
'Take a good look at that,' said Glodstone and handed him the letter.
'It's from the Countess asking you on pain of her death not to come,' he said when he had read it through.
'In that case why was it delivered by a man with an English accent who refused to speak English? In short, our friend who left the warning at Calais. And another thing, you've only to compare her handwriting with that of the earlier letters to see that the devils have tortured her into writing it.'
'Good Lord, you mean ' began Peregrine. But Glodstone's mind has already fabricated a number of new conclusions. 'Just this, that they know the route we're following and where we're going to stay the night, which may be to their liking but doesn't suit my book.'
'Which book?' asked Peregrine, browsing through a mental library from The Thirty-Nine Steps to The Day of the Jackal with more insight into the workings of Glodstone's mind than he knew.
Glodstone ignored the remark. He was too busy planning a new strategy. 'The thing is to put yourself in the other fellow's shoes,' he said, 'I'm sure we're being watched or waited for. And they know we've had that message yet we're going on. And that will give them pause for thought. You see, we've been warned off twice now. I think it's time we played their game. We'll turn back at Anet and head for Mantes and there we'll spend the night. Tomorrow we'll rest up and tour the sights and then tomorrow night we'll take the road again as soon as it is dark and drive for Carmagnac'
'I say, that will confuse them,' said Peregrine as the Bentley turned left across the Eure and headed north again.
But Slymne was already confused. Having driven all night to reach Ivry-La-Bataille, he hadn't dared stay there but had gone on to Dreux. There in a hotel he had penned the letter from La Comtesse and had slept briefly before returning with the ominous message for Glodstone to pick up. After that, he had watched the road from a track and had seen the Bentley go by. With a muttered curse he started his Ford Cortina and followed at a discreet distance in time to see the Bentley cross the bridge and turn a little later onto the Mantes road. For a few minutes Slymne was delighted before it dawned on him that, if Glodstone had intended to give up the expedition, there would have been no need for him to have left the hotel or to have taken the road south in the first place. The natural thing to do would have been to spend the night in Ivry-La-Bataille and head back towards Calais next morning. But Glodstone hadn't done the natural thing and moreover, to complicate matters, he wasn't alone. There had been another passenger in the Bentley. Slymne hadn't been able to glimpse his face but evidently Glodstone had persuaded some other damned romantic to join him on his adventure. Another bloody complication. With a fresh sense of exasperation, he followed the Bentley and wondered what to do next. At least the great car wasn't difficult to spot and was in fact extremely conspicuous while his own Cortina was relatively anonymous and could easily match the Bentley for speed.
As they reached the outskirts of Mantes, Slymne made another plan. If Glodstone left the town travelling north, well and good, but if he turned south, Slymne would drive for the Château and be ready to take action before Glodstone could get to see the Countess.
What action he would take he had no idea, but he would have to think of something. In the event, he was forced to think of other things. Instead of leaving Mantes, the Bentley pulled up outside a hotel. Slymne turned into a side street. Five minutes later, the Bentley had been unloaded and then driven into the hotel garage.
Slymne shuddered. Obviously Glodstone was spending the night but there was no telling when he would leave next morning and the idea of staying awake in case the blasted man decided to make a dawn start was not in the least appealing. Slymne wasn't remaining where he was in a sidestreet. Glodstone might, and, by all the laws of nature, must be exhausted but he was still capable of taking a stroll round the neighbourhood before going to bed and would, if he saw it, immediately recognize the Cortina. Slymne started the car and drove back the way he had come before stopping and wondering what the hell to do the next. He couldn't send yet another message from the Countess. Unless the old cow possessed second sight she couldn't know where Glodstone had got to, and anyway letters didn't travel several hundred miles in a couple of hours.
Slymne consulted the map and found no comfort in it. All roads might lead to Rome, but Mantes was a contender when it came to roads leading from it. There was even a motorway running into Paris which they had driven under on the way into town. Slymne dismissed it. Glodstone loathed motorways and if he did turn south again his inclination would be to stick to minor roads. By watching the intersection on the outskirts of the town he would be in a position to follow if Glodstone took one. But the 'if' was too uncertain for Slymne's liking and in any case following was insufficient. He had to stop the idiot from reaching the Château with those damning letters.
Slymne drove on until he found a café and spent the next hour gloomily having supper and cursing the day he had ever gone to Groxbourne and even more vehemently the day he had set up this absurd plan. 'Must have been mad,' he muttered to himself over a second brandy and then, having paid the bill, went back to his car and consulted the map again. This time his attention was centred on the district round the Château. If Glodstone continued on his infernal mission he would have to pass through Limoges and Brive or find some tortuous byroads round them. Again Slymne considered Glodstone's peculiar psychology and decided that the latter course would be more likely. So that put paid to any attempt to stay ahead of the brute. He would have to devise some means of following him.
But for the moment he needed sleep. He found it eventually in a dingy room above the café where he was kept awake by the sound of a jukebox and by obsessive thoughts that Glodstone might already have left his hotel and be driving frantically through the night towards Carmagnac. But when he got up groggily at six and after drinking several black coffees, walked back into town he was reassured by the sight of the Bentley being washed down by a young man with black hair who looked strangely familiar.