their happy days of slaughter in the First World War, and the name would arouse just the right outdated emotions he required in Glodstone. So must the route. Slymne stopped frequently to consult his maps and the guidebooks to find some picturesque way through this industrial grimness, but finally gave up. Anyway, it would heighten the romance of the wooded roads and valleys further south and the slag-heaps and coal-mines had the advantage of lending the route a very convincing reality. If one wanted to enter France unobserved, this was the way to come. And so Slymne kept to side roads, well away from autoroutes and big towns during his daytime driving, only moving into a hotel in a city at night. All the time he made notes and made sure he was maintaining the spirit of Glodstone's reading without bringing him too closely in touch with the real world.
For that reason he avoided Rouen and crossed the Seine by a bridge further south, but indulged himself on Route 836 down the Eure before back-tracking to Ivry-la-Bataille and noting an hotel there and its telephone number. After that, another diversion by way of Houdan and Faverolles to Nogent-Le-Roi and Chartres. He was hesitant about Chartres, but one look at the Cathedral reassured him. Yes, Chartres would inspire Glodstone. And what about Chateau Renault just off the road to Tours? It had been four miles outside Chateau Renault that Mansel and Chandos had gassed Brevet in his own car. Slymne decided against it and chose the minor road to Meung-sur-Loire as being more discreetly surreptitious. He would have to impress on Glodstone the danger of crossing rivers in big towns. Slymne made a note 'Bridge bound to be watched,' in his notebook and drove on.
It took him ten days to plan the route and, to be on the safe side, he stayed clear of the countryside round the Chateau Carmagnac with one exception. On the tenth night he drove to the little town of Boosat and posted two letters in separate boxes. To be precise, he posted envelopes, each with a crest on the back and with his own address typed onto a self-adhesive label on the front. Then he turned north and retraced his route to Boulogne, checking each mark he had made on his maps against the comments in his notebook and adding more information.
By the time he sailed for Folkestone, Mr Slymne was proud of his work. There were some advantages to be had from a degree in geography after all. And the two envelopes were waiting for him at his mother's house. With the utmost care, he prised off the self-adhesive labels and steamed open the lightly gummed flaps. Then he set to work with an ink-pad to obliterate the date on the postmark while leaving Boosat clearly visible. For the next three days, he pored over the photograph of the Comtesse's letter to Glodstone and traced again and again her large flowing handwriting. When he returned to Groxbourne, even the Comtesse herself would have found difficulty in saying which of the letters she had written without reading their contents. Mr Slymne's skills had come into their own.
It was more than could be said for Peregrine Clyde-Browne. The discrepancy between his school report and his failure to pass any subject at O-level apart from the maths which, because it allowed of no alternatives to right and wrong, he had managed to scrape through with a grade C, had finally convinced Mr Clyde-Browne that sending his son to Groxbourne might have had the advantage of keeping the brute out of the house for most of the year, but that it certainly hadn't advanced the chances of getting him into the Army. On the other hand, he had paid the fees for three years, not to mention his contribution to the Chapel Restoration Fund, and it infuriated him to think that he had wasted the money.
'We're almost certain to be lumbered with the cretin at the end of the summer term,' he grumbled, 'and at this rate, he'll never get a job.'
'I think you're being very hard on him. Dr Andrews says he's probably a late developer.'
'And how late is late? He'll be fifty before he knows that Oui is French for Yes and not an instruction to go to the toilet. And I'll be ninety.'
'And in your second childhood,' retorted Mrs Clyde-Browne.
'Quite,' said her husband. 'In which case you'll have double problems. Peregrine won't be out
