'I beg your pardon?' said Glodstone, stung by the insult.
'No need to,' said the Countess nastily. 'It's not my sphincter you're spearing and that's for sure. But if I find you've been sodomizing my son you'll be leaving here without the wherewithal.'
'Dear God,' said Glodstone crossing his legs frantically, 'I can assure you the thought never entered my head. Absolutely not. There is nothing queer about me.'
'Could have fooled me,' said the Countess, relaxing slightly. 'So what else is on your mind?'
'Letters,' said Glodstone.
'Letters?'
Glodstone shifted his eye away from her. This was the crunch-point. If she didn't know about the letters she couldn't possibly be the Countess. On the other hand, with his wherewithal at stake he wasn't going to beat about the bush. 'The ones you wrote me,' he said.
'I write you letters about Anthony's allergies and you make it all the way down here to discuss them? Come up with something better. I'm not buying that one.'
But before Glodstone could think of something else to say, there was the sound of a shot, a scream, more shots, a babble of shouting voices, and the floodlights in the courtyard went out. Peregrine had struck again.
Unlike everyone else, Peregrine had spent an untroubled day. He had slept until noon, had lunched on baked beans and corned beef and had observed the comings and goings at the Château with interest. Now that he knew Glodstone was alive, he wasn't worried. People were always getting captured in thrillers and it never made any real difference. In fact he couldn't think of a book in which the hero got bumped off, except The Day of the Jackal and he wasn't sure the Jackal had been a hero. But he had been really cunning and careful and had nearly got away with it. Peregrine made a mental note to be even more cunning and careful. No one was going to bump him off. Quite the reverse.
And so through the long hot afternoon he watched the floodlights being installed and the police van being stationed on the road by the bridge and made his plans. Obviously he wouldn't be able to go up the cliff as he'd wanted and he'd have to make sure the lightning conductor hadn't been spotted as his route in. But the main thing would be to create a diversion and get everyone looking the wrong way. Then he'd have to find Glodstone and escape before they realized what had happened. He'd have to move quickly too and, knowing how useless Glodstone was at running cross-country and climbing hills, that presented a problem. The best thing would be to trap the swine in the Château so they couldn't follow. But with the guards on the bridge...He'd have to lure them off it somehow. Peregrine put his mind to work and decided his strategy.
As dusk fell over the valley, he moved off down the hillside and crawled into the bushes by the police van. Three gendarmes were standing about smoking and talking, gazing down at the river. That suited his purpose. He squirmed through the bushes until they were hidden by the van. Then he was across the road and had crawled between the wheels and was looking for the petrol tank. In the cab above him the radio crackled and one of the men came over and spoke. Peregrine watched the man's feet and felt for his own revolver. But presently the fellow climbed down and the three gendarmes strolled up the ramp onto the bridge out of sight. Peregrine reached into the knapsack and took out a small Calor-gas stove and placed it beneath the tank. Before lighting it he checked again, but the men were too far away to hear and the noise of the water running past would cover the hiss of gas. Two seconds later the stove was burning and he was back across the road and hurrying through the bushes upstream. He had to be over the river before the van went up.
He had swum across and had already climbed halfway up the hill before the Calor stove made its presence felt. Having gently brought the petrol tank to the boil, it ignited the escaping vapour with a roar that exceeded Peregrine's wildest expectations. It did more. As the tank blew, the stove beneath it exploded too, oil poured onto the road and burst into flames and the three gendarmes, one of whom had been on the point of examining a rear tyre to find the cause of the hiss which he suspected to be a faulty valve, were enveloped in a sheet of flame and hurled backwards into the river. Peregrine watched a ball of flame and smoke loom up into the sunset and hurried on. If anyone in the Château was watching that would give them something to think about, and take their minds off the lightning conductor on the northern tower. It had certainly taken the gendarmes' minds off anything remotely connected with towers. Only vaguely thankful that they had not been incinerated, they were desperately trying to stay afloat in the rushing waters. But the Calor stove hadn't finished its work of destruction. As the flames spread, a tyre burst and scattered more fragments of blazing material onto the bridge. A seat burnt surrealistically in the middle of the road and the radio crackled more incomprehensibly than ever.
But these side-effects were of no interest to Peregrine. He had reached the tower and was swarming up the lightning conductor. At the top he paused, heaved himself onto the roof and headed for the skylight, revolver in hand. There was no one in sight and he dropped down into the empty corridor and crossed to the window. Below him the courtyard was empty and the smoke drifting over the river to the west seemed to have gone unnoticed. For a moment Peregrine was puzzled. It had never occurred to him that the gendarmes were really policemen. Anyone could dress up in a uniform and gangsters obviously wouldn't bring in the law to protect them, but all the same he'd expected them to have been on the lookout and he'd gone to a lot of trouble to draw their attention away from the Château. But no one seemed in the least interested. Odd. Anyway he was in the Château and if they were stupid enough not to be on their guard that was their business. His was to rescue Glodstone and this time he wasn't going to mingle with people in passages and bedrooms. He'd strike from a different direction.
He went down the turret to the cellar and searched the rooms again. Still there was no sign of Glodstone. But in the abandoned kitchen he could hear people arguing. He went to the dumb-waiter and listened but the voices were too many and too confused for him to hear what was being said and he was about to turn away when it occurred to him that be was in a perfect position to kill all the swine in one fell swoop. Swoop wasn't the word he wanted, because coming up in a diminutive lift wasn't swooping, but it would certainly take them by surprise if he appeared in the hatchway and opened fire. But that wouldn't help Glodstone escape. Peregrine suddenly realized his mistake. They were holding Glodstone hostage. That was why they'd only had three guards on the bridge and had put floodlights on the terrace. They knew he'd return but because they'd got Glodstone there would be nothing he could do except give himself up. It explained everything he found so puzzling.
In the darkness Peregrine's mind, as lethal as that of a ferret in a rabbit warren, gnawed at the problem: and found an answer.
Chapter 19
In the grand salon the members of the symposium had long since abandoned the topic of World Hunger. There were no experts on nutrition or agricultural techniques among them and even Dr Grenoy had failed to rally them around the topic by recourse to those generalities which, as a cultural attaché, and a French one, were his forte. In fact his attempt had made things worse. Only the multi-modular approach remained and, thanks to the enormous dinner and now the brandy, found increasing expression in national prejudices and personal feelings.