Free Appleby at Allington by Michael Innes Page B

front of Mr Goodcoal had begun to emit loops and coils of magnetic tape in a displeasing fashion, and as a consequence something like an air-raid warning was sounding over the alarmed heads of the mild revellers in Allington Park. ‘Interval,’ William Goodcoal said resourcefully, and flicked a switch. An obedient silence fell.
    ‘I suppose, Mr Goodcoal, that you have a great many young lads eager to come into your business?’ Appleby spoke diffidently; he might have had several junior Applebys at Dream for whose apprenticeship to an honest trade he was beginning anxiously to cast around.
    ‘Queues of them, Sir John. I can absolutely take my pick among the school leavers.’ Mr Goodcoal’s imagination again soared. ‘All the most brilliant minds, sir, in Linger Secondary Modern. And I have the ear of the headmaster, Sir John. He knows where there is a future for his lads. Take it from me.’
    ‘I’m delighted to hear you say so.’ Appleby was in fact a little tired of taking it. ‘Boys can get quite mad about everything electrical. But what about rather older men, Mr Goodcoal? Are there any real enthusiasts in Linger, or round about?’
    This was a topic upon which Mr Goodcoal proved to have much to say. Mr Goodcoal acted in an advisory capacity to numerous amateurs (some of them deep scholars, with letters after their names) as far afield as Snarl and even King’s Yatter. Others, of more humble station, were glad of corporate instruction once a week under the auspices of the local education authority. It was interesting work, responsible work. Lady Killcanon herself had spoken to him about it on the occasion when she did him the honour of calling him out to her car to fit a new battery in her electric torch (previously supplied by Goodcoal Enterprises Limited).
    ‘Are any of them eccentrics?’ Appleby asked.
    ‘None has ever mentioned it to me,’ Mr Goodcoal produced this reply after considerable thought. ‘Church, mostly, Sir John. My own connexion is largely Church. But, of course, there are Methodists and Baptists too.’
    ‘I see.’ Appleby betrayed no discomposure before this. When he next spoke, it was with the air of starting quite a different branch of the subject for discussion. ‘I suppose, Mr Goodcoal, there must be some without the intellectual equipment to tackle a difficult science like yours? Who get out of their depth, I mean.’
    ‘There do be that, sir.’ When aiming at gravitas , Mr Goodcoal’s idiom tended to turn rural. ‘And a tragedy it be to be observing of. That natural, now.’
    ‘A natural?’ Forty years of this sort of thing had taught Appleby’s scalp to tingle at the right moment. It tingled now. ‘Which would that be? Young Pescod? Or Mrs Pumphry’s boy? Or Billy Bubwith who’s always idling about the green at Drool?’
    ‘None of these, sir. None of these. Knockdown, Sir John.’
    ‘Knockdown?’ For a moment Appleby failed to acknowledge in this vocable a feasible surname even of the most rustic sort. ‘Somebody called Knockdown?’
    ‘Leofranc Knockdown, sir.’
    ‘Dear me! I haven’t heard of him.’ It seemed to Appleby that anyone so circumstanced in infancy as to emerge from it thus denominated could scarcely hope to have full possession of his faculties. ‘And he’s a natural?’
    ‘Simple, Sir John – simple, without a doubt. What the powers and wonders of electricity mean to Knockdown is no more, you might say, than sparks and flashes. He’ll do himself a mischief one day, mark my words.’
    ‘Is he in his mid-twenties, and with ginger hair?’
    ‘Ah, you’ve seen him around.’
    ‘Does he live with his family? Is he capable of looking after himself?’
    ‘He lodges with a couple of the name of Clamtree, just outside Linger on the Potton road. There’s somebody pays something, if you ask me.’ Mr Goodcoal had lowered his voice to the pitch in which it is appropriate to speak of improper matters. ‘A bastard, sir, I’d say.’
    ‘Would