'Shut up and get moving,' snapped Glodstone and stumbled into the wood to change into his own clothes.
'I'll say this for you, boy,' said the Countess, 'when you do something you do it thoroughly. Still, he's right, you know. As the man said, the excreta is about to hit the fan.' She looked round the little camp. 'And if the snout-hounds get a whiff of this lot they be baying at our heels in no time.'
'Snout-hounds?' said Peregrine.
'Tracker dogs. The ones with noses the cops use. If you'll take my advice, you'll ditch every item back in the river.'
'Roger,' said Peregrine, and when Glodstone finally emerged from the undergrowth looking his dejected self it was to find Peregrine gone and the Countess sitting on her bag.
'He's just destroying the evidence,' she said, 'in the river. So now you can tell me what this caper is all about.'
Glodstone looked round the empty dell. 'But you must know,' he said. 'You wrote to me asking me to come down and rescue you.'
'I did? Well, for your information, I...' She stopped. If this madman though she'd written asking to be rescued, and it was quite obvious from his manner that he did, she wasn't going to argue the toss with him in the present fraught circumstances. 'Oh well, I guess this isn't the time for discussion. And we ought to do something with Alphonse's suit. It reeks of mothballs.'
Glodstone looked down at the clothes he was holding. 'Can't we just leave them?'
'I've just explained to young Lochinvar that if the police bring dogs they're going to track us down in no time.'
But it was Peregrine who came up with the solution when he returned from the river. 'You go on ahead and I'll lay a trail with them that'll lead in the wrong direction,' he said, 'I'll catch you up before you get to the sawmill.' And taking the suit from Glodstone he scrambled down to the road. Glodstone and the Countess trudged off and two hours later were on the plateau. They were too preoccupied with their own confused thoughts to talk. The sun was up now and they were sweating but for once Glodstone had no intention of stopping for a rest. The nightmare he had been through still haunted him, was still with him in the shape of the woman who quite evidently didn't know she had written to him for help. Even more evidently she didn't need helping and if anyone could be said to have been rescued Glodstone had to admit she'd saved him. Finally, as they reached the woods on the far side of the Causse de Boosat, he glanced back. A smudge of smoke drifted in the cloudless sky and for a moment he thought he caught the faint sounds of sirens. Then they were fighting their way through the scrub and trees and after another half an hour stumbled across the overgrown track to the sawmill.
The same atmosphere of loneliness and long disuse hung over the rusting machinery and the derelict buildings, but they no longer evoked a feeling of excitement and anticipation in Glodstone. Instead the place looked sinister and grim, infected with death and undiscovered crimes. Not that Glodstone had time to analyse his feelings. They rose within him automatically as he made his way across to the shed and thanked God the Bentley was still there. While he opened the doors the Countess dropped her suitcase and sat down on it. She had ignored the pain in her right arm and her sore feet, and she tried to ignore them now. At least they had a car, but what a car! Yeah, well, it fitted. A vintage Bentley. You couldn't beat that for easy identification. A one-eyed man in a Bentley. Even if they didn't have road-blocks up the cops would still stop them just to have a look at it. On the other hand, vintage car owners didn't usually go around knocking off Professors. And there was no going back now. She'd just have to say she'd been kidnapped and hope for the best.
In the shed, Glodstone replaced the plugs and started the car. He had just driven it out when Peregrine appeared, panting and dripping with sweat. 'Sorry I'm late,' he said, 'but I had to
