'We want to see Major Fetherington,' said Mr Clyde-Browne.
The woman looked doubtful. 'I'm just giving him a bed-bath,' she muttered, 'If you'll just wait a minute...'
But Mrs Clyde-Brown wasn't waiting for a second. Pushing past her husband, she bore down on the Matron. For a moment there was a confused scuffle and then the Matron managed to shut the door and lock it.
'Bed-bath indeed!' said Mrs Clyde-Browne, when she had got her breath back. 'If you'd seen what I saw...'
'Which, thankfully I didn't,' said her husband, 'now for good ness sake try and get a grip on yourself...'
'Grip on myself? I like that. If you ask me those two were...'
'I daresay,' snapped Mr Clyde-Browne, 'but if we're to get the Major's co-operation you're not going to help matters by intruding on his private affairs.'
'Private affairs indeed! That depraved creature was stark naked and wearing a French tickler and if you call that a bed-bath, I most certainly don't,' said Mrs Clyde-Browne, managing to combine sexual knowledge her husband had never suspected with a grievance that he'd never bothered to use one. But before he could reply the bedroom door opened and the Matron appeared. Mr Clyde-Browne was grateful to note that this time she was wearing a skirt.
'Well I must say...' she began.
'Don't,' begged Mr Clyde-Browne, 'We're extremely sorry to have...'
'I'm not,' interrupted his wife, 'considering that that filthy man in there '
Mr Clyde-Browne had had enough. 'Shut up,' he told he violently and, leaving her speechless, explained the situation as swiftly as he could to the Matron.
By the time he had finished she was slightly mollified. 'I'll go and see if the Major is prepared to see you,' she said, pointedly ignoring Mrs Clyde-Browne.
'Well I like that,' Mrs Clyde-Browne exploded when the door was shut. 'To think that I should be told to shut up in front of a '
'Shut up!' roared Mr Clyde-Browne again. 'You've already done enough damage and from now on you'll leave the matter in my hands.'
'In your hands? If I'd had my way none of this would have happened. In the first place '
'Peregrine would have been aborted. But since he wasn't you had to delude yourself that you'd given birth to a bloody genius. Well let me tell you '
By the time he had got his feelings about Peregrine off his chest Mr Clyde-Browne felt better. In the next room Major Fetherington didn't. 'If he feels like that about the poor sod I'm not surprised Perry's gone missing. What I can't understand is why that maniac wants to find him. He'd be better off in the Foreign Legion.'
'Yes, but what are you going to tell them?' asked the Matron.
'Lord alone knows. As far as I can remember, he told me he was going to stay with his uncle and then pushed off. That's my story and I'm going to stick to it.'
Five minutes later, Mr Clyde-Browne's legal approach had changed his mind. 'Are you suggesting, Major, that my son was guilty of a deliberate falsehood?'
The Major shifted uncomfortably under the bedclothes. 'Well, no, not when you put it like that. All the same he did say he'd phoned his uncle and...'
'The inescapable fact remains that he hadn't and that no one has seen him since he was left in your care.'
Major Fetherington considered the inescapable fact and tried to elude it. 'Someone must have seen him. Stands to reason. He can't have vanished into thin air.'
'On the other hand, you were personally responsible for his welfare prior to his disappearance? Can you deny that?'
'Prior to, old boy, prior to. That's the operative word,' said the Major.
'As a matter of fact it's two words,' said Mr Clyde-Browne, getting his own back for being called an old boy.
'All right, two operative words. Doesn't make any difference. As soon as he said he was going to his uncle's and shoved off I couldn't be responsible for his welfare, could I?'
'Then you didn't accompany him to the station?'
'Accompany him to the station?' said the Major indignantly, 'I wasn't capable of accompanying anyone anywhere. I was flat on my back with a fractured coccyx. Damned painful I can '
'And having it massaged by the Matron no doubt,' interrupted Mr Clyde-Browne, who had taken out a pocket book and was making notes.
Major Fetherington turned pale and decided to change his tactics. 'Look,' he said, 'I'll do a deal.'
'A deal?'
'No names, no packdrill. You don't mention anything to the Headmaster about you-know-what and...' He paused to see how-Mr Clyde-Browne would respond.
The solicitor nodded. 'Do go on,' he said.
'As I was saying, no names, no packdrill. The chappie you really want to see is Glodstone...'
Outside, Mrs Clyde-Browne sipped a cup of tea reluctantly. It was a peace offering from the Matron but Mrs Clyde-Browne wasn't mollified. She was wondering how her husband could have condemned her Peregrine to such a terrible environment. 'I blame myself,' she whimpered internally.
In the school office her words would have found an echo in Slymne. Ever since he had wrecked the Blowthers' brand-new Jaguar he had been cursing himself for his stupidity. He had been mad to plan Glodstone's prepackaged adventure. In an attempt to give himself some sort of alibi he had returned to the school, ostensibly to collect some books, only to learn that events had taken another turn for the worse.
'I've never seen parents so livid,' the School Secretary told him. 'And rude. Not even Mr and Mrs Fairchild when their son was expelled for tying a ferret to the crotch of Mr Paignton's pyjamas.'
'Good Lord,' said Slymne, who remembered the consequences of that awful occasion and had examined his own pyjamas very carefully ever since.
'And all because that stupid Peregrine Clyde-Browne hasn't gone home and they don't know where he is.'
Slymne's heartbeat went up alarmingly. He knew now why the youth he had seen washing the Bentley in Mantes had seemed so familiar. 'What did you tell them?' he asked tremulously.
'I told them to see the Major. What I didn't tell them was that Mrs Brossy at the Post Office says she saw a boy get into Mr Glodstone's old banger down at the bus-stop the day he went away.'
'Who went away?' asked Slymne, his alarm growing by the minute.
'Mr Glodstone. He came back here all excited and '
'Look,' said Slymne, 'does the Headmaster know about this?'
The secretary shook her head. 'I said he was on holiday on the Isle of Skye. Actually, he's in his caravan at Scarborough but he doesn't like that to be known. Doesn't sound so respectable, does it?'
'But he's on the phone?'
'The campsite is.'
'Right,' said Slymne, coming to a sudden decision, 'rather than have them bothering you, I'll deal with them. Now what's the number of the campsite?'
By the time the Clyde-Brownes left the Sanatorium Slymne was ready for them. 'Good afternoon,' he said briskly, 'my name is Slymne. I'm the geography master here. Miss Crabley tell me you're concerned about your son.'
Mr Clyde-Browne stopped in his tracks. Mr Slymne's reports on Peregrine's lack of any academic ability had always struck him as proving that at least one master at Groxbourne was neither a complete idiot nor a barefaced liar.
'More than concerned,' he said. 'The boy's missing and from what I've been able to gather from that man Fetherington there seems to be good reason to suppose he's been abducted by Mr Glodstone.'
Slymne's mouth dried up. Mr Clyde-Browne was evidently an expert investigator. 'Mr Glodstone's abducted your son? Are you quite sure? I mean it seems...'
'Of course I'm not sure. I'd have called the police if I were,' said Mr Clyde-Browne, bearing in mind the law on slander. 'I said I'd been given reason to believe it. What's your opinion of Glodstone?'
'I'd rather not comment,' said Slymne, glad to be able to tell the truth for the time being, 'my relations with him are not of the best and I might be prejudiced. I think you ought to consult the Headmaster.'