Lost Lad (18 page)

           
"We never know if Coggan is at home or not at home.  The car is simply not visible.  It's parked up at the back of The Lodge in rhododendron bushes.  It
could
have been there yesterday."

           
"Dr Hardman, you know your employee better than we do!  May we please have some co-operation here.  Are you suggesting that Mr Coggan is lying?"

           
"Coggan is mysterious and devious.  He may have been at home at that time.  I don't know.  I suppose he would have answered the door ... "
 

At this point he became thoughtful.  Algernon Hardman, a respected upright citizen of the community for some years had been slightly uneasy about the private life of Adolphus Coggan.  From time to time there had been an occasional painful rumpus over the conduct of Simon Tonks, but in his case, at least the Doctor knew the worst of it.  Dolly was a cryptic character.  Infrequently, on a sunny day, employer would come across employee leaning on a hoe and a few pleasantries would be exchanged.  Hardman found him suitably deferential with 'nice manners'.  Hardly the quintessential rustic of popular imagination, Dolly was, above all, smooth, very smooth, well spoken using beautiful vowels in rounded articulation with an attractive, almost seductive, deep purring voice which often trailed away to a suggestive whisper.

           
"Oh yes, Dr Hardman, don't worry about that at all.  They'll be in next week.  Not much risk of frost now.  Oh I
quite
agree, Dr Hardman, pansies are
so
pretty, an excellent choice.  They'll certainly be planted in the fullness of time - at the appropriate juncture.  The ivy?  Personally I considered it quite attractive: the wild look you know.  Yes, as you wish, sir, I'll remove it in due course."
              

Conscious of his social standing, Hardman was fearful of 'opening a can of worms' if he gave information to the police which was too full and too frank.  On the other hand he honestly had no solid evidence to support his dark suspicions regarding the silver-tongued, ever mobile, part-time gardener.

           
"You will have to ask Coggan yourself, Inspector Russell.  If he claims he was out, he probably
was
out - he usually is.  Does he not have (oh dear, it sounds so dramatic) 'an alibi'?  Simon used to tell Marjorie that 'Dolly is always in demand': a reference, I gather, to a collection of widely dispersed friends on a long visiting list."

           
"An entertaining fellow?"

           
"Oh very.  I suspect some of his stock lines come from those awful shows staged at certain 'low life' public houses: men dressed up as women; that kind of thing.  Once I
over-heard him tell Simon, 'You've got to circulate to be noticed' followed by 'I'm very busy with a tight curriculum.'  Double-entendres are common in his regular patter.  Marjorie was once admiring his new pullover and suggested that it was probably expensive.  He said - 'I bought this for a ridiculous figure' and promptly lifted it up to reveal his fat belly!"

At long last Algernon Hardman was now actually smiling and so enjoying the effect on his uninvited guests that he permitted himself one more 'Dolly quote'.  

           
"Normally I don't approve of eavesdropping on servants' gossip, but I was amused during the time Simon was hobbling about complaining to Coggan about his 'bad foot'.  The response came back 'You're lucky to have a foot!'"

At that point the phone rang and was answered by the Master -

           
"It's for you, Detective Inspector."

           
"Yes?  Oh good!  Great!  We could use ... Say that again.  Are you sure?"
  He replaced the receiver, looked puzzled, stroked his chin and said very softly to himself -

           
"Extraordinary!  Belper.  Jasper Wormall."

Chapter 17

Cracker Biscuits in the Cottage

Momentarily, the name of Jasper Wormall produced a slightly nostalgic effect upon the two police officers.  After Simon Tonks, here was a second connection with the baffling 1949 Burgess Case of Belper.  Both men conjured up a grotesque image of a small, gnarled, craggy character known locally as 'the goblin'.  At that time he was in his seventies but with a large hawk nose, far forward of deep set grizzled, leering eyes, this hideous hunchback looked positively Jurassic.

Derek looked at John and John looked back at Derek.

           
"He's still alive!"
  said Derek.

           
"Must be over a hundred!"
  said John.

           
"Not far short of ninety.  Perhaps, after all, there
is
something to be said for using earth closet toilets."

           
"Perhaps," 
replied John, warming to his theory,
"Perhaps after years of emptying large buckets of 'jollop' as he called it, Jasper is now totally immune to all known germs!"

These were references to the long past Wormall family business of nightsoil men.  Back in the 1880's Jasper was assisting the 'honey dumpers' (his father and brothers) as the 'limey-lad'.  This was a boy with a naked flame torch who would walk after the cart and spread lime over any spillages of excrement to
'get shut at stink'
. 

"Detective Inspector ... I think you ought to see this,"
  spoke the hesitant voice of Algernon Hardman, reminding them that he was still there, still sitting behind his massive desk, still giving them his valuable time.  His countenance had recovered something of its more usual, acetous severity.

           
"I can't imagine
what
Mr Wormall has to do with this mystery but ... well, possibly this may help you."
  He passed Derek a letter.

           
"Thank you, Doctor.  I
two
would like to know what an old man 30 miles away knows about this business.  Ten minutes ago he was found trying to hide Brian Forrester's bicycle with the other bicycles parked outside the Herbert Strutt Swimming Baths.

           
"My God!"
said Winter.

           
"Positively identified by the 'St George' transfer.  A lucky break
at last.  The attendant saw him, became suspicious and telephoned the police station.  Now we can get somewhere.  Let's have a look at this letter."

From a neatly addressed envelope, Derek removed a small sheet of note-paper which was filled with tiny, slowly written, painstaking 'copper-plate' handwriting from a past century.  The style showed individuality, yet seemed to suggest a crabbed, small minded, narrow and isolated personality.  Clearly he was from a school which taught never to waste paper. 

Dear Doctor Hardman,

I an very sorry, Sir, to cause trouble to you, but the time has come when I must report to you that your butler, Simon Tonks, has been circulating lies about me.  I am sorry to inform you that he has brought
shame and dishonour
on your good house by frequenting a public house of
dubious reputation
in Nottingham called The Flying Horse.  I would not concern you, Sir, with these sordid matters but he has been making people laugh by telling them that I have been sitting in a public lavatory all day long eating food.
Two different friends have told me
.   I would never take food into a lavatory. 
It is not true.
  It is not hygienic.  I think you should tell him off or give him the sack.  Simon thinks he is very funny but he should not say nasty things about people.  I am very sorry, Sir, to bring you such painful tidings but I am thanking you most kindly for your valuable time in reading this letter.

Yours very respectfully,

Mr J. Wormall.

"What's all that about?"
asked Derek handing the letter to his assistant.

           
"I fear another case of Simon being Simon!"
replied Hardman.

           
"You spoke to him?"

           
"Oh, I certainly spoke to him - at length, and, as they say in the army, I gave him 'suitable advice'!  Of course, he was profusely apologetic: he always is.  I demanded explanations and gathered that this unfortunate and somewhat ancient Wormall character has a history of being the butt of Belper lavatory jokes.  In his defence, enthusiastically, Simon gave me several examples - such as the time when Jasper (as a boy) was ordered to retrieve his father's false teeth from the bottom of a tank of human excrement!"

           
"What did he have to say about the 'food' incident?"

           
"Apparently Simon was recycling an anecdote told to him by Coggan who was supposed to have observed Mr Wormall through a hole in a public convenience somewhere.  You should, of course, ask Simon about all this nonsense, but Coggan said he 'recognised the spread'!

           
"Pardon?"

           
"Some sort of picnic of cracker biscuits, butter and cheese - I think."

           
"He was, I take it, established in that WC for some time?"

           
"So it would seem,"
  replied an uncomfortable Dr Hardman, tersely, with some unspoken sardonic significance hovering in the air.

At that moment there was an unusual and unexpected occurrence.  Both police officers burst into a loud and prolonged belly laugh which effected Detective Sergeant John Winter to the point where he was struggling for breath.  Algernon Hardman watched this curious phenomenon for a few moments before his expression softened slightly to half smile.  Having composed himself, Derek was about to put another question to the Doctor when, once again, he lost control and broke down, into further sobs of laughter. 

            Having once taken tea with this cordial, if goblinesque man, they both shared a hilarious picture of his repulsive profile, sitting on a public lavatory bowl, carefully arranging with little camp movements of his wrinkled hands, cheese and biscuits on a napkin supported by his knees. 

            The laughter continued until their (hereinbefore) hostile host, in a slightly whimsical, judicial style, interrupted with -

           
"Perhaps, gentlemen, this might be a good time to adjourn for lunch?"
  

Being at the centre of a kidnap investigation, and having been interrogated for nearly an hour, Algernon Hardman would not wish to admit that the whole experience had been - somehow strangely therapeutic!  An hour before he had been distressed and depressed.  He was, in fact, on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  He had dearly loved Marjorie and, for all his intelligence and erudition, he could not see a clear way forward - a way of coming to terms, to deal with this particular light which had now gone out of his life - forever.  Algernon Hardman was not a man who could share his feelings.  Apart from Marjorie and his son, he had no best friend to speak to.  Algernon Hardman had no friends at all.  Marjorie and Charles had been his only real friends.

            Just for the moment, with the prospect of these two men, who were good company, joining him for lunch, he was greatly relieved - just for the moment.

Once again the telephone rang.  Detective Inspector Russell was informed that his team were ready to search Cressbrook Hall.  As resources were finite, he gave orders that the available specialists were to be split into two parties, one to deal with Cressbrook and one to be immediately dispatched to examine the crude isolated cottage and garden of Jasper Wormall.  Although not formally arrested, the little man had been asked to remain in the Belper Police Station at The Triangle, until he could 'help' the Detective Inspector 'with his enquiries'.  By this time, Daniel Forrester, stoic in brave Heanorian tradition holding back a strong emotion, had positively identified his brother's bicycle.

Derek visualised himself and John, a decade before, trudging up that steep, lonely, narrow, rough road on Shire Oaks Hill, which led to a primordial simple stone dwelling where old Jasper was born in 1875.  He recalled the tall trees and the raucous rookery, black crows circling around and around which seemed to accentuate a sense of evil.  He recalled the ugly hunched old man, skipping around, looking sinister, piling his garden rubbish on a crackling bonfire and remembered a history lesson  - 'bonfire = a fire of bones.'