Vintage Stuff by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online Page B

be Glodstone's family home. A pipe-rack,

another photograph of Glodstone at the wheel of his Bentley, the usual bric-a-brac of a bachelor

schoolmaster, and shelves filled with books. An amazing number of books. Slymne had had no idea

Glodstone was such an omnivorous reader. He was about to cross to a bookshelf when a sound

outside halted him. Someone was coming up the stairs.
    Slymne moved. With understandable swiftness, he was through the door of Glodstone's bedroom

and wedged up against the washbasin behind it when someone entered the study. Slymne held his

breath and was conscious of a horrible weakness. Who the hell could be about when the school was

supposed to be empty? And how in God's name was he to explain his presence hiding in the bedroom?

For a moment he supposed it might be the woman who cleaned Glodstone's room and made his bed. But

the bed was made and whoever was in the study was putting a book back on a shelf. Several minutes

passed, another book was withdrawn, there was silence and the sound of the door opening and

shutting again. Slymne slumped against the wall with relief but stayed there for five more

minutes before venturing out.
    On the desk he found a sheet of paper and a message written in neat but boyish script. 'Dear

sir, I've returned Rogue Male. It was just as good as you said. I've borrowed The Prisoner of

Zenda. I hope you don't mind. Clyde-Browne.'
    Slymne stared at the message and then let his eyes roam round the room. The books were all

adventure stories. He ran along a shelf containing Henty and Westerman, Anthony Hope, A. E. W.

Mason, all of Buchan. Everywhere he looked there were adventure stories. No wonder the beastly

man had boasted that he only read decent manly stuff. Taking a book from a side table, he opened

it: 'The castle hung in the woods on the spur of a mountainside, and all its walls could be seen,

except that which rose to the North.'
    It was enough. Slymne had found the connecting link between Glodstone's treasure of mundane

letters from the Comtesse de Montcon, his Bentley and his belligerent datedness.
    As evening came, and with it the sounds of cars and boys' voices, Slymne sat on in the

darkness of his room letting his mind loose on a scheme that would use all Glodstone's adolescent

lust for violent adventure and romance, lure him into a morass of misunderstanding and

indiscretion. It was a delightful prospect.

Chapter 6
    For the rest of the term, Slymne soaked himself in adventure stories. It was a thoroughly

distasteful task but one that had to be done if his plan was to work. He did his reading secretly

and, to maintain the illusion that his interests lay in an entirely different direction, he

joined the Headmaster's Madrigal Singers, bought records of Tippett and Benjamin Britten and,

ostensibly to hear Ashkenazy playing at the Festival Hall, drove down to London.
    'Slimey's trying to worm his way into the Head's good graces by way of so-called music,' was

Glodstone's comment, but Slymne's activities in London had nothing to do with music. Carefully

avoiding more fashionable stationery shops, he found a printer in Paddington who was prepared to

duplicate La Comtesse de Montcon's notepaper and crested envelopes.
    'I'll have to see the original if you want it done exactly,' he told Slymne, who had produced

photographs of the crest and printed address. 'And it'll cost.'
    'Quite,' said Slymne, uncomfortably supposing that the man took him for a forger or

blackmailer or both. The following week, he found an excuse to be in the Secretary's office when

the mail came, and was able to filch Wanderby's letter from his mother. That Saturday, on the

grounds that he had to visit a London dentist about his gum trouble, Slymne was back at the

printer's with the envelope he had carefully steamed open. He returned to Groxbourne with a lump

of cotton wool stuck uncomfortably in his mouth to suggest some dental