'You tell me,' said the Countess, 'I'm no mind-reader even if you had a mind. So, let's go.'
Glodstone ambled forward. In the east the sky had begun to lighten but he had no eyes for the beauties of nature. He was in an interior landscape, one in which there was no meaning or order and everything was at variance with what he had once believed. Romance was dead and unless he was extremely careful he might join it very shortly.
'I'm going to tell him not to do anything stupid,' he said when they reached the ramp.
'It's a bit late in the day for that, baby, but you may as well try,' said the Countess.
Glodstone stopped. 'Peregrine,' he called, 'I've got the Countess with me so it's all right. There's no need to be alarmed.'
Behind the wrecked police van Peregrine cocked the revolver. 'How do I know you're telling the truth?' he shouted, and promptly crawled away down the bank so that he could get a clear line of fire on the squat figure silhouetted against the sky.
'Because I say so, you gibbering idiot. What more do you want?'
'Why's she standing so close to you?' said Peregrine from a different quarter. Glodstone swung round and the Countess followed.
'Because she doesn't trust you with that gun.'
'Why did she ask us to rescue her?' asked Peregrine.
But Glodstone had reached the limits of his patience. 'Never mind that now. We can discuss that later out of the way.'
'Oh all right,' said Peregrine who had been looking forward to bagging another victim. 'If you say so.'
He climbed up the bank and Glodstone and the Countess seamed past the shell of the police van.
'OK, so what's with this business of my wanting to be 'rescued?' asked the Countess, pausing to put her shoes on. 'And who's friend with the itchy trigger finger?'
'That's Peregrine,' said Glodstone, 'Peregrine Clyde-Browne. He's a boy in my house. Actually, he's left now but '
'I don't need his curriculum vitae; I want to know what you're doing here, is all.'
Glodstone looked uneasily up and down the road. 'Hadn't we better go somewhere more private?' he said. 'I mean the sooner we're out of the district the less chance they'll have of following us.'
It was the Countess's turn to hesitate. She wasn't at all sure she wanted to go anywhere too private with these maniacs. On the other hand there was a great deal to be said for getting the hell away from burnt-out police vehicles. She didn't fancy being questioned too closely about the little gold bars in her suitcase or what she was doing with several different passports, not to mention her son's housemaster and a schoolboy who went round shooting people. Above all she wanted to put this latest piece of her past behind her. Bognor Regis called.
'Nothing like burning your bridges,' she said. 'Lead on, MacDuff.' And picking up her bag she followed Glodstone across the road and up the hillside. Behind them Peregrine had taken her words to heart and by the time they reached the ridge and paused for breath, smoke had begun to gather in the valley and there came the crackle of burning woodwork.
'That should keep them quiet for a bit,' he said as he joined them. Glodstone stared back with a fresh sense of despair. He knew what he was going to see. The Chateau looked deserted but the wooden bridge was ablaze.
'Quiet? Quiet? every bloody fire-engine and policeman from here to Boosat is going to be down there in twenty minutes and we've still to break camp. The idea was to get back to the car before the hunt was up.'
'Yes, but she said '
