The Headmaster closed his eyes and shuddered. From his previous dealings with Peregrine's father he'd gained the distinct impression that Mr Clyde-Browne didn't count kindliness as one of his strong points. 'So that's all the information we have? Is that what you're saying?'
Slymne hesitated. 'I can't speak for the Major but I have an idea he knows more than he was prepared to tell me.'
'By God, he'll tell me,' said the Headmaster savagely. 'Go and get the fellow.'
Slymne slipped out of the room and crossed the quad to the San. 'The old man wants to see you,' he told the Major, whose physical condition hadn't been improved by a dreadful hangover, 'and if I were in your shoes, I'd tell him everything you know.'
'Shoes?' said the Major. 'If I had shoes and wasn't in a wheelchair I'd have been out of here long ago. Oh well, into the firing line.'
It was an appropriate metaphor. The Headmaster was ready to do murder. 'Now then, I understand Glodstone told you he was going to France by way of Ostend,' he said, ignoring Slymne's plea for discretion. The Major nodded unhappily. 'Did he also tell you he was taking Clyde-Browne with him?'
'Of course not,' said the Major rallying, 'I wouldn't have let him.'
'Let him tell you or let him take the boy?' asked the Headmaster, glad to take his feelings out on a man he'd never much liked anyway.
'Take him, of course.'
'What else did he tell you?'
Major Fetherington looked reproachfully at Slymne. 'Well, if you must know, he said he'd been asked to undertake a secret mission, something desperately dangerous. And in case he bought it...'
'Bought it? Bought what, for Heaven's sake?'
'Well, if things went wrong and got himself killed or something, he wanted me to look after his interests.'
'Interests?' snapped the Headmaster, preferring not to dwell on 'killed'. 'What interests?'
'I really don't know. I suppose he meant let the police know or get him a decent funeral. He left it a bit vague.'
'He needn't have. I'll fix his funeral,' said the Headmaster. 'Go on.'
'Not much else to tell really,' said the Major hesitantly but the Headmaster wasn't deceived.
'The lot, Fetherington, the lot. You leave out one jot or tittle and you'll be hobbling down to join the ranks of the unemployed and I don't mean tomorrow.'
The Major tried to cross his legs and failed. 'All right, if you really want to know, he said he'd been asked by the Countess of Montcon '
'The Countess of Montcon?'
'Wanderby's mother, he's a boy in Gloddie's, the one with allergies and whatnot, to go down to her Chateau...You're not going to believe this.'
'Never mind that,' said the Headmaster, who appeared to be in the grip of some awful allergy himself.
'Well, she wanted him to rescue her from some gang or other.'
'Some gang or other? You mean to tell me...The man must be off his bloody rocker.'
'That's what I told him,' said the Major. 'I said, 'Listen, old boy, someone's having you on. Get on the blower and call her up and see if I'm not right.' But you know what Glodstone's like.'
'I'm beginning to get a shrewd idea,' said the Headmaster. 'Mad as a March fucking hare. Don't let me stop you.'
'That's about the lot really. I had no idea he was going to take Perry with him.'
