Ivry-La-Bataille, Glodstone dined at a country pub and then went down to the ferry terminal to confirm his booking to Ostend next morning.
'Did you say your name was Glodstone, sir?' enquired the clerk.
'I did,' said Glodstone, and was alarmed when the man excused himself and went to another office with an odd look on his face. A more senior official with an even odder look came out.
'If you'll just come this way, Mr Glodstone,' he said mournfully and opened the door of a small room.
'What for?' said Glodstone, now thoroughly worried.
'I'm afraid I have some rather shocking news for you, sir. Perhaps if you took a seat...'
'What shocking news?' said Glodstone, who had a shrewd idea what he was in for.
'It concerns your wife, sir.'
'My wife?'
'Yes, Mr Glodstone. I'm sorry to have to tell you '
'But I haven't got a wife,' said Glodstone, fixing the man with his monocle.
'Ah, then you know already,' said the man. 'You have my most profound sympathy. I lost my own three years ago. I know just how you must feel.'
'I very much doubt if you do,' said Glodstone, whose feelings were veering all over the place. 'In fact, I'd go as far as to say you can't.'
But the man was not to be denied his compassion. The years behind the booking counter had given him the gift of consoling people. 'Perhaps not,' he murmured, 'As the Bard says, marriages are made in heaven and we must all cross that bourne from which no traveller returns.'
He cast a watery eye at the Channel but Glodstone was in no mood for multiple misquotations. 'Listen,' he said, 'I don't know where you got this idea that I'm married because I'm not, and since I'm not, I'd be glad to hear how I can have lost my wife.'
'But you are Mr G. P. Glodstone booked for the Ostend boat tomorrow morning?'
'Yes. And what's more, there isn't any Mrs Glodstone and never has been.'
'That's odd,' said the man. 'We had a message from Calais just now for a Mr Glodstone saying his wife had died and you're the only Mr Glodstone on any of the booking lists. I'm exceedingly sorry to have distressed you.'
'Yes, well since you have,' said Glodstone, who was beginning to find the message even more sinister than the actual death of any near relative, 'I'd like to hear who sent it.'
The man went back into the office and phoned through to Calais. 'Apparently a man came in speaking French with a strong English accent and wanted to find out on which ferry you were crossing,' he said. 'He wouldn't speak English and the clerk there wouldn't tell him where you were landing, so the man said to tell you your wife had died.'
'Did the clerk describe the man?'
'I didn't ask him and frankly, since...'
But Glodstone's monocle had its effect and he went back to the phone. He returned with the information that the man had disappeared as soon as he'd delivered the message.
Glodstone had made up his mind. 'I think I'll change my booking,' he said. 'Is there any space on tonight's ferries?'
'There's some on the midnight one, but '
'Good. Then I'll take it,' said Glodstone, maintaining his authority, 'and on no account is that fellow to be given any information about my movements.'
'We don't make a habit of handing out information of that sort,' said the man. 'I take great exception to the very idea.'
'And I take exception to being told that a wife I don't have has just died,' said Glodstone.
At midnight, he took the ferry and was in Belgium before dawn. As he drove out of the docks,
