The Headmaster struggled with these alternatives but Mr Clyde-Browne was giving tongue again. 'Marguerite!' he yelled, 'Come here at once.'
Mrs Clyde-Browne crept from the study. 'Yes, dear,' she said meekly.
'I want you to bear witness that I have discovered these two guns in the water closet of this '
But the sight of her husband aiming two revolvers at the Headmaster was witness enough.
'You're mad, mad, mad!' she wailed and promptly had a fit of hysterics.
The Headmaster seized his opportunity. 'Now look what you've done,' he said appealing to Mr Clyde-Browne's better feelings in vain. 'Your poor wife...'
'Keep your hands off that woman,' snarled her husband, 'I give you fair warning...' He waved the revolvers as the Headmaster tried to calm her.
'There, there,' he said, 'now come and sit down and...'
Mr Clyde-Browne was more forthright. Putting the guns on a side table, he whisked a bowl of faded roses from it and did what he had been longing to do for years. It was not a wise move. With water running down her face and a Wendy Cussons in her hair, Mrs Clyde-Browne's hysterics turned to fury.
'You bastard,' she yelled and seizing one of the guns, aimed it at her husband and pulled the trigger. There was a faint click and Mr Clyde-Browne cowered against the wall.
The Headmaster intervened and took the gun from her. 'Toys,' he explained, 'I told you it was simply a prank.'
Mr Clyde-Browne said nothing. He knew now where Peregrine had got his demonic gifts from and he no longer cared where the sod was.
'Come into the study,' said the Headmaster, making the most of the domestic rift. 'The School Secretary will see to Mrs Clyde-Browne's needs and I'm sure we could all do with a drink.'
The respite was only temporary. By the time the Clyde-Brownes drove off half an hour later, Mrs Clyde-Browne had threatened to divorce her husband if Peregrine wasn't found and Mr Clyde-Browne had passed the threat on in terms that included legal damages, the end of the Headmaster's career and the publicity that would result when the News of the World learnt that Major Fetherington, instead of being in loco parentis, had been in loco matronae and wearing a french tickler to boot. The Headmaster watched them go and then crossed the quad at a run to the Armoury.
'Off your butts,' he shouted, evidently inspired by the place to use Army language and ignoring the Major's patent inability to do more than wobble in his wheelchair. 'You're going to France and you're going to bring that bloody boy back within the week even if you have to drug the little bugger.'
'France?' said Slymne with a quaver. That country still held terrors for him. 'But why me? I've got '
'Because this stupid sex-maniac can't drive. By this time tomorrow you'll be at the damned Château.'
'More than I will,' said the Major. 'You can sack me on the spot but I'm fucked if I'm going to be hurtled across Europe in a fucking wheelchair. I can't put it plainer than that.'
'I can,' said the Headmaster, who had learnt something from Mr Clyde-Browne when it came to blunt speaking. 'Either you'll use your despicable influence on your loathsome protégé, Master Peregrine Clyde-Bloody-Browne, and hopefully murder Glodstone in the process, or that damned man will have the police in and you'll not only lose your job but you'll be explaining to the CID and the Army why you gave those guns to a couple of lunatics.'
'But I didn't. I told you '
'Shut up! I'll tell them,' said the Headmaster, 'because you were screwing the Matron with a french tickler and Glodstone threatened to blow your cover.'
'That's a downright lie,' said the Major without much conviction.
'Perhaps,' yelled the headmaster, 'but Mrs Clyde-Browne evidently didn't see it that way and since her husband claims to be a personal friend of every High-Court Judge in the country, not to mention the Lord Chancellor, I don't fancy your chances in the witness box.'
'But can't we phone the Countess and explain...' Slymne began.
'What? That the school employs maniacs like Glodstone to come and rescue her? Anyway the secretary's tried and the woman isn't in the directory.'
'But the cost '
'Will be funded from the school mission on the Isle of Dogs which is at least designated for the redemption of delinquents and no one can say it's not being put to its proper purpose.'
Later that afternoon, Slymne drove down the motorway towards Dover once again. Beside him the Major sat on an inflated inner tube and cursed the role of women in human affairs. 'It was her idea to use that beastly thingamajig,' he complained, 'I couldn't stop her. Had me at her mercy and anyway I couldn't feel a thing. Can't imagine why they call them French letters.' Slymne kept his thoughts to himself. He was wondering what the Countess had had to say about the letters she hadn't written.
Chapter 18
He needn't have worried. For the moment the Countess had other problems in mind. In fact the day had been fraught with problems. Mr Hodgson had refused to spend another night in a place where he was liable to be mugged every time he went to the loo and had left without paying his bill; Mr Rutherby had added to his wife's and Mr Coombe's little difficulties by threatening to commit a crime passionnell if he ever caught them together again, and Mr Coombe had told him in no uncertain terms that Mr Rutherby wouldn't know what a crime fucking passionnell was until he'd been clamped in Mrs Rutherby for three bloody hours with people pulling his legs to get him out.
But it had been the delegates who had given the most trouble. Dr Abnekov still maintained that he'd been the victim of a CIA conspiracy to silence him, while Professor Botwyk was equally adamant that a terrorist group had tried to assassinate him and demanded a bodyguard from the US Embassy in Paris. Dr Grenoy had temporized. If the American delegate wanted protection he would have him flown by helicopter to the nearest military hospital but he could rest assured there would be no recurrence of the previous night's dreadful events. The Château had been searched, the local gendarmerie alerted, all entrances were guarded and he had installed floodlights in the courtyard. If Professor Botwyk wished to leave the symposium he was perfectly welcome to, and Grenoy had hinted his absence wouldn't be noticed. Botwyk had risen to the taunt and had insisted on staying with the proviso that he be given the use of a firearm. Dr Abnekov had demanded reciprocal rights, and had so alarmed Botwyk that he'd given way on the issue. 'All the same I'm going to hold the French government fully responsible if I get bumped off,' he told Dr Grenoy with a lack of logic that confirmed the cultural attaché in his belief that Anglo-Saxons were incapable of rational and civilized thought. Having settled the problem temporarily he had taken other measures in consultation with the Countess. 'If you refuse to leave,' he told her, 'at least see that you serve a dinner that will take their minds off this embarrassing incident. The finest wines and the very best food.'
The Countess had obliged. By the time the delegates had gorged their way through a seven-course dinner, and had adjourned to discuss the future of the world, indigestion had been added to their other concerns. On the agenda the question was down as 'Hunger in the Third World: A Multi-modular Approach', and as usual there was dissension. In this case it lay in defining the Third World.
Professor Manake of the University of Ghana objected to the term on the reasonable grounds that as far as he knew there was only one world. The Saudi delegate argued that his country's ownership of more oil and practically more capital in Europe and America than any other nation put Arabia in the First World and everyone not conversant with the Koran nowhere. Dr Zukacs countered, in spite of threats from Dr Abnekov that he was playing into the hands of Zionist-Western Imperialism, by making the Marxist-Leninist point that Saudi Arabia hadn't emerged from the feudal age, and Sir Arnold Brymay, while privately agreeing, silently thanked God that no one had brought up the question of Ulster.