around and they don't know where we are.'
Glodstone took out a pipe and lit it. 'But they know where we're heading,' he said, 'And if I were in their shoes I'd concentrate my forces on the roads leading to the Chateau. I mean I wouldn't waste my time any further afield when it is obvious where we're going.'
He laid the map out on the grass and knelt beside it. 'Now here's the Chateau and as you see it's devilish conveniently placed. Five roads lead into Boosat but only one leads from the village and past the Chateau. The drive must come from that road and by the look of the ground I'd say it goes up here. But first it has to cross the river and that means a bridge. That shows they've only to watch the road from Boosat to the north and Frisson to the south and guard the bridge to have us neatly in a trap. In short, if we drive there we're entering a killing ground. And so we won't. Instead, we'll go south on this road here to Florial. It's about twenty miles away with empty country in between and no connecting road to Boosat. If we can find a base somewhere there we can travel on foot to these heights overlooking the Chateau. They may be guarded but I doubt it. All the same, we'll have to move cautiously and take our time. And now let's have some breakfast. After that we'll lie up for the day and get some rest.'
Peregrine climbed back into the Bentley and fetched the camping-gas stove and the picnic hamper and, when they had breakfasted, Glodstone unrolled a sleeping bag. 'We'll take it in turns to keep watch,' he said, 'and remember, if anyone stops, wake me. And stop toying with those damned revolvers. Put them away. The last thing we want is to draw attention to ourselves.'
While Glodstone lay on the far side of the Bentley and slept, Peregrine kept vigil. But the road was little more than a track and the country flat and quiet and nothing passed. Seated on the running-board, Peregrine basked in the morning sun and was intensely happy. In a less literal person, the thought might have crossed his mind that his dreams had come true; but Peregrine had accepted dreams as reality from his earliest childhood and had no such gap to bridge. All the same, he was excited, and endowed the countryside around him with dangers it didn't obviously possess. Unlike Glodstone, whose heroes were romantic and born of nostalgia, Peregrine was more modern. Seated on the running-board, he was not Bulldog Drummond and Richard Hannay, he was Bond and The Jackal; a man licensed to kill. Even a cow which peered at him over a gateway seemed to sense its danger and retreated to browse more safely further afield.
So the morning passed with Glodstone snoring in his sleeping bag and Peregrine eyeing the world for lethal opportunities. The afternoon was left to Glodstone. Leaning on the gate and sucking his pipe, he planned his campaign. Once the base was found, they would need enough supplies of food to keep them off the roads and away from towns for several weeks if necessary. He took out a notebook and made a list, and then, deciding that their purchases should be made as far from the Chateau as possible, he woke Peregrine and they drove on to the next town. By the time they left it the back of the Bentley was filled with tinned food, bottles of Evian water, a comprehensive first-aid kit and a quite extraordinarily long strand of nylon rope.
'And now that we are well prepared,' said Glodstone, stopping to study the map again, 'we'll make a detour so far to the south that no one will suspect our destination. If anyone should ask, we're on a mountaineering holiday in the Pyrenees.'
'With all these torches and candles I'd have thought potholing would be more likely,' said Peregrine.
'Yes, we'd better get them out of sight. What else? We'll need a good supply of petrol to see us there and out again without using local garages. And that requires two jerrycans as a reserve.'
That night, they took the road again but this time their route was further east and through wider and more barren country than any they had seen before. By four in the morning Glodstone was satisfied they had come sufficiently far to turn towards the Chateau again without risk.
'They'll be watching the north-south roads,' he said, 'but we are coming from the east and besides, the Floriac road is off the beaten.
