Free Vintage Stuff by Tom Sharpe

ground. It was a fairly

desperate Glodstone who finally took himself off to bed and spent half an hour reading The

Thirty-Nine Steps again. 'Why the hell can't something challenging come my way for once?' he

thought as he switched out the light.
    A week later it did. As the last coach left for the station and the cars departed, Slymne

struck. The School Secretary's office was conveniently empty when he tucked the envelope

addressed to G. P. Glodstone, Esq., into the pigeonhole already jammed with Glodstone's

uncollected mail. Slymne's timing was nicely calculated. Glodstone was notorious for not

bothering with letters until the pigeonhole was full. 'A load of bumpf,' he had once declared.

'Anyone would think I was a pen-pusher and not a schoolmaster.' But with the end of term, he

would be forced to deal with his correspondence. Even so, he would leave it until the last

moment. It was in fact three days before Glodstone took the bundle of letters up to his room and

shuffled through them and came to the envelope with the familiar crest, an eagle evidently

tearing the entrails from a sheep. For a moment Glodstone gazed almost rapturously at the crest

before splitting the envelope open with a paper-knife. Again he hesitated. Letters from parents

were too often lists of complaints about the treatment of their sons. Glodstone held his breath

as he took it out and laid it flat on the desk. But his fears were unfounded.
    'Dear Mr Glodstone,' he read, 'I trust you will forgive me writing to you but I have no one

else to turn to. And, although we have never met, Anthony has expressed such admiration for you

indeed maintains you are the only gentleman among the masters at Groxbourne that I feel you alone

can be trusted.' Glodstone re-read the sentence he had never suspected the wretched Wanderby of

such perception and then continued in a ferment of excitement.
    'I dare express nothing in a letter for fear that it will be intercepted, except that I am in

the greatest danger and urgently need help in a situation which is as hazardous as it is

honourable. Beyond that I cannot go in writing. Should you feel able to give me that assistance I

so desperately require, go to the left-luggage office at Victoria Station and exchange the

enclosed ticket. I can say no more but know you will understand the necessity for this

precaution.'
    The letter was signed, 'Yours in desperation, Deirdre de Montcon. P.S. Burn both the letter

and the envelope at once.'
    Glodstone sat transfixed. The call he had been awaiting for over thirty years had finally

come. He read the letter several times and then, taking the left-luggage ticket, which he put

into his wallet, he ceremoniously burnt the letter in its envelope and as an extra precaution

flushed the ashes down the lavatory. Seconds later, he was packing and within the half hour the

Bentley rolled from the coach-house with a rejuvenated Glodstone behind the wheel.
    From the window of his rooms in the Tower, Slymne watched him leave with a different

excitement. The loathsome Glodstone had taken the bait. Then Slymne too carried his bags down to

his car and left Groxbourne, though less hurriedly. He would always be one step ahead of his

enemy.

Chapter 8
    It was late afternoon by the time Glodstone parked the Bentley in a street near Victoria

Station. He had driven down in a state of euphoria interspersed with occasional flashes of

insight which told him the whole affair was too good to be true. There must be some mistake.

Certainly his judgement of Wanderby had been wholly wrong. What had the letter said? 'Maintains

that you are the only gentleman among the masters.' Which was true enough, but he'd hardly

expected Wanderby to have recognized it. Still, the boy's mother was La Comtesse, and he

evidently knew a gentleman when he saw one.
    But for the most part, Glodstone had spent the drive concentrating on ways of reaching the

Château