Читать книгу Secrets at Toplingham Manor - T A Williams - Страница 15

Chapter 7

Next morning, after a short visit to break the news to his employers, Duggie continued his inspection of the manor. It was a real voyage of discovery. His first discovery was Mrs Vinnicombe.

Mrs Vinnicombe materialised from the general direction of the scullery carrying a dustpan and brush. Carrying is too weak a term. She carried a dustpan in the same way that Wyatt Earp carried his Colt 45, or a Samurai his sword. Her determined manner, and steely eye for grime, made clear to all and sundry that she was a woman with a mission. Her muscular arms – attached to a sturdy body of generous proportions – were dedicated to the eradication of dirt, wherever it might be. Indeed, upon catching sight of Duggie, her first action had been to bowl right up to him and vigorously rub some minute speck of dirt from his shirt. The sight of such a large figure, brandishing something in its hand, approaching him at a rate of knots was daunting. He recovered quickly – after all, a duster was in a different league from a loaded broom handle – and played the affable employer with some success.

‘Ah, good morning and you are…’

She barked out her name.

He repeated it, while he studied her; ‘Mrs Vinnicombe, how nice to meet you. And you are the…?’

‘Housekeeper.’ No time to waste. There was dirt out there, waiting to be combated. It was the proverbial dirty job, and she was the woman to do it. Duggie took in her aggressive attitude and wisely decided to make an ally of her, rather than an opponent.

‘I must congratulate you on the general air of sparkling cleanliness in the whole house. It is a rare pleasure to find oneself in an environment where such evident care has been taken.’ He beamed in her direction and was rewarded by just the hint of a smile. Good, he thought to himself, I’m getting there.

‘Tell me, Mrs Vinnicombe, who are the other members of staff here at the manor?’

‘There’s Patrick.’

‘Yes, I have already met him.’

‘Oh, you were lucky. He doesn’t seem to be around very much.’ There was disapproval in her voice. ‘And then there’s Stan. He’s the gardener. I’m surprised you haven’t seen him. He’s here all the time. It’s a huge job he’s got. There used to be a team of groundsmen once upon a time. Now he’s got to do it all by himself.’ He caught a definite tone of respect for the gardener’s industriousness.

‘Anybody else, Mrs Vinnicombe?’

Her tone became glacial. ‘Well, theoretically, there’s the butler. But I haven’t seen him for months.’

‘And what might his name be?’

‘Henri.’

Her pronunciation was not perfect and, in fairness, nobody had told Duggie that there was a foreign member of staff – unless you counted Paddy. So it took a few moments before he realised that the butler was probably of French extraction rather than somebody working for nothing in an honorary position.

‘Ah, Henri.’ He repeated the name a few times. ‘So that’s the lot? Just the four of you?’

‘That is correct, sir. And, just think, only ten years ago there was a staff of twenty.’ This time he could clearly hear the regret in her voice. He did his best to cheer her up.

‘Well, Mrs Vinnicombe, that is all going to change. Now that Professor Dalby is here, we are going to see that the manor returns to its glory days.’

She beamed. Then, excusing herself, she set off again with her duster. He watched her go.

In the absence of the butler, he decided to look around outside, in the hope that the gardener might be forthcoming. In front of the manor was a pair of superb cedars. No doubt planted generations, if not centuries, earlier, they were now absolutely huge. The lower branch of the bigger one was the girth of most other fully grown trees. So big indeed, that it had to be supported by a couple of massive props. A squirrel sat on its hind legs and surveyed Duggie’s approach from the relative safety of the next branch up. Stan the Gardener watched him from the seat of a garden tractor. Of the two, the squirrel looked more likely to give a civil reply to a question, but Duggie tried Stan anyway.

‘You must be Stan, the gardener.’

‘Must I?’

Not a good start. Duggie eyed the squirrel tentatively, but decided to give the gardener one more try.

‘Hello. My name is Douglas Scott. I’m the new chief executive.’

‘Chief executive of what?’

Terse, chilly, but, nonetheless a fair question. Duggie sat down on a log and started to tell him about the plan to turn the manor into a private country club. As he outlined some of his ideas, he was rewarded by a first glimmer of interest, which then led to a response.

‘Been telling them for years something needed to be done to the place. Old Mr McKinnon let it all go to pot in his final years, when he went doolally. Mind you, he was bed-ridden for the last three, or that might even be four, so he never even saw the gardens towards the end.’

Stan was a tall, rather gangly, individual, with one of those cavernous, morose faces that so rarely look happy, even if the owner is. As so often happens, the face had given up trying. As a result, Stan constantly looked as though he had just stepped in something. He was now, however, showing signs of uncharacteristic animation. Duggie felt a minor victory might have been achieved.

‘The gardens look wonderful, I must say. And how about the golf course?’ A troubled grimace crossed the already lugubrious face in front of him.

‘Breaks my heart. Could be superb, but golf courses take time and men. Here it’s just me, and it’s all I can do to mow the grass. The greens are indistinguishable from the fairways, and the bloody rabbits are digging holes everywhere.’

Duggie decided against making a joke along the lines of how he thought it was only a nine-hole course. Instead, he changed tack and sounded Stan out on the other members of the staff.

‘So there are just the four of you here, then?’

‘More like three, if you ask me – and only two of us do any work.’ His drooping mouth curled up into a brief sneer as Duggie asked him what he meant. ‘Our French friend. Conspicuous by his absence.’ Duggie picked up on this.

‘That’s the butler, you mean? Why is he absent? Is he sick?’

Stan replied reluctantly. ‘You’d better ask him that, Mr Scott.’

Duggie tried to prod a bit more about the butler.

‘So where might I find the butler? Any idea?’

Stan studied him for a moment. ‘Try asking at the Prince William. Just along the road at the entrance to Toplingham.’ His eyes flicked across to a figure coming up the drive. ‘I see that Patrick has ventured forth from the comforts of home, so I’ll leave the two of you together.’

He turned the key in the ignition, and the tractor roared into life. Duggie gave him a wave of the hand, and watched him leave in the direction of the first tee, assuming it was still there under all the undergrowth. Behind him, he heard the unmistakable tones of the Irishman.

‘A very good afternoon to you, Mr Scott. Would you be out for a constitutional to allow the ingestion of oxygen through your pharynx, down your trachea, and into the labyrinth that would be your bronchi, with all their clusters of alveoli, now would you?’

Duggie had to stop and think for a moment.

‘A breath of fresh air?’ He hazarded the translation. Paddy was impressed.

‘Sure and a fine grasp of the medical you have, to be sure. Your cranium surely houses a cerebral cortex of monumental proportions, now it does so, too.’

Duggie was beginning to find the conversation a little wearing.

‘I’m sure that’s right, Paddy, but tell me, do you think I might be able to find the butler down at the Prince William? Stan the gardener tells me he likes to hang out there.’

The old man gave him a knowing wink. ‘That he might, that he might. Sure and you could do far worse than begin your investigations there. A gentleman such as yourself, with an outstanding composite cognitive ability, you will find him for sure, that you will, you will.’

Duggie decided to reply in kind.

‘Paddy, has anybody ever told you, your constant references to medical terminology can make you a right case of haemorrhoids?’ The factotum looked uncertain, so Duggie explained.

‘A right pain in the arse, Paddy. A right pain in the arse.’

He patted him on the scapula with the prehensile multi-fingered body part at the end of his arm and set off for the car.