Free Walking to Camelot by John A. Cherrington Page B

wash clothes in the basin.” To hell with that! The only way we can keep clean is to wash our socks and underwear each night.
    We have decided to take a cab to Uppingham, as the Crown Inn there has been recommended to us by the landlady. Before we set out for dinner, Karl insists that the cab driver be directed to the green lane where we found Tiffany’s clothing, just to make sure that the Oakham police have picked up the garments.
    â€œSince we can’t seem to rouse anyone at the Oakham police station, John, we have to be satisfied they are doing their job. I have to know.”
    â€œWe could just call them in the morning. It must be a good thirty miles back to Tiffany’s lane.”
    â€œNo, John, I have to know tonight that they have done their job and picked up the clothing.”
    â€œOkay, Karl. We will go back there.”
    And indeed we do. The cab arrives at our B&B around six o’clock. The cabbie is swarthy and sixtyish, sports a captain’s beard, and wears a Greek fisherman’s cap. He resembles Captain Smith of the
Titanic.
I show him the location of the Tiffany site, marked with an X in my
Guide,
and off we go. He does not seem to find our request at all unusual, and keeps up a steady stream of conversation about his relatives in Canada, who work in the Alberta oil and gas fields.
    We pull up to a spot in the road where it curves. Tiffany’s lane is marked with a bridleway sign attached to which is the familiar Macmillan sticker. Karl and I both get out and trundle up the dark, mucky track, casting furtive glances around us. The cabbie has positioned his vehicle with headlights shining up the lane to give us more light, but it’s a surreal, chilling scene right out of Stephen King’s
The Dark Half.
This portion of our otherwise delightful walk has taken on a sinister aspect. About two hundred yards in, we search on the right side below the hedgerow and then reconnoitre for another hundred yards or so.
    â€œKarl, the clothes are gone. The police definitely picked them up.”
    He just grunts and says he wants to search farther toward the road, but eventually agrees that the clothes are gone. By this time, the rain is pelting down. I can see the cab driver’s dim visage behind the wheel as his windshield wipers kick in.
    â€œOkay, John, I’m satisfied. Now I could use a good stiff Scotch.”
    The Crown Inn has great food and two known ghosts. The pub crowd is orderly. It is
de rigueur
in England for the barmaid to display generous décolletage, and we are satisfied that the Crown has passed muster in this regard. The buxom blonde swinging the Guinness is cheerful and friendly. She also smiles at me without any subtle mockery of my foreign accent when I order Karl’s double Scotch and my half pint of lager. Wherever one travels, the first thing the natives do is analyze your accent. The flip side of this is that to a villager, we are all foreigners unless we live within a radius of five miles. In these small rural backwaters, a Yorkshireman is a source of wonder, even gossip. But a North American is simply beyond comprehension and can be safely ignored.
    We both order the beef Wellington, which is delicious — essentially a filet steak lathered with pâté and duxelles, wrapped in a puff pastry and baked. I have mine with a touch of curry. The dish is named after the Duke of Wellington, perhaps because he was known to love a mix of beef, truffles, mushrooms, pâté in pastry, and Madeira wine. Others suggest that it was just a patriotic chef who wanted to assimilate the French recipe for
filet de bœuf en croûte
during the Napoleonic Wars. Regardless, I could eat this every night, washed down with a spicy Shiraz.
    Next morning there is a promise of sun. A winding path leads us out of Belton. There must be horses about, as there is a pervasive odour of horse manure when we emerge from a copse into open fields. In the tiny village of