Vintage Stuff by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online

is.'
    In the presence of the Bentley, Peregrine's feelings were almost religious. Mr Glodstone's

clichés opened up an idyllic world where simple chaps made simple decisions and crooks were

simply crooks and got what was coming to them. It corresponded exactly with his own view of life;

one day he'd be lucky enough to see murder done and would do something about it.
    But apart from these occasional visions of the future, he was occupied with games, with the

Major's OU course of shooting, doing the assault course, swimming in cold rivers and

rock-climbing in Wales during the summer holidays and generally fitting himself for the Army

career his father had decided on for him. In school work, he remained a failure. Each year he

took his O-levels and failed. It was the only cloud on his simple horizon. There were others

gathering.
    On the evening after his spell on the chapel roof, Mr Slymne locked himself in his bathroom,

set up his enlarger and printed the negatives. They showed Glodstone holding an envelope and

placing it in a cigar box. But the 8 x 10 prints were not big enough to tell him more. Mr Slymne

turned the enlarger round, put several books on the baseboard and focused on the bathroom floor.

This time the negative was so enlarged that the print only included Glodstone's hand, the lower

part of his face and the envelope. As it appeared in the developing dish Slymne bent over it

eagerly. There was something on the back of the envelope, he could see that now, but it was only

when he had transferred the print to the fixer and turned the light on that he recognized in

spite of the grain the blob as a crest. A crest? Slymne's thoughts turned to Glodstone's

background. The man was always boasting about his family but there'd never been any mention of a

family crest, and Glodstone was just the sort of fellow to have made a big thing about

it.
    If it wasn't his own, what was he doing with crested envelopes? And why keep them in a cigar

box?
    Anyway, he had learnt something new to add to the dossier. Mr Slymne took the print and was

about to wash it when his cautious mind considered the dangers if it were found. It would be

extremely awkward having to think of an excuse for photographing Glodstone from the chapel roof.

Far better to destroy them now. He tore the photographs into strips of soggy paper and flushed

them down the lavatory. The negatives went too. As he washed the dishes and cleared away, Mr

Slymne pondered his next move. It might be possible to provoke Glodstone into some discussion on

heraldry. He would have to do it tactfully.
    In the event, he had to do nothing more than listen. Two days later, he was passing his house

room when he heard two boys.
    'Tambon says it's a bloody great castle like the sort of thing you see on telly with towers

and everything,' said a boy Slymne recognized to be Paitter.
    'I bet he sucked up to Wanderby to get himself invited,' said Mowbray. 'He's always doing that

and Wanderby's a grotty snob. Just because his mother's a countess and he gets letters with

crests, he thinks he's going to marry a royal.'
    'Anyway, the countess is a real old cow according to Tambon. He was scared stiff of her. You

ask him what it was like.'
    A group of boys clattering down the staircase forced Slymne to move. He hurried along to the

staff-room deep in thought. Was it pure coincidence that Glodstone kept crested envelopes in a

cigar box and that he had a boy in his house whose mother was a countess and used crested

notepaper? And if it wasn't, what did it portend? Probably nothing, but it would be worth looking

into. For a moment he considered bringing the subject of Wanderby up in Glodstone's presence and

watching his reaction. But Slymne's mind, honed by the misery of so many years of insult and

dislike, had a new edge of cunning to it. He must do nothing to arouse the slightest glimmer of

suspicion in Glodstone. Besides, there