As my visits to Eltering grew in number I realised that poor Vesuvius was the butt of many jokes, both in the office and out of doors. I think all were designed to goad him into a display of temper, but all failed. Vesuvius never erupted. I never played jokes on him — deep down I felt sorry for this man who, in truth, had a heart of gold and a gentle word for the most deprived and depraved members of society. His bluff exterior was not a true indication of his gentle nature and he genuinely loved other people.
It was his attitude to others that led him to organise bus outings for old-age pensioners from Malton. Vesuvius would commission a coach to take a load of old folks for a day at Scarborough, or to a theatre or zoo. He’d arrange to visit establishments like York Minster, Ampleforth College, Castle Howard, Thompsons Woodcarvers of Kilburn and other places of local interest.
His kindness led to another prank at his expense. We were in Eltering police office one night when the terrible traffic twins entered. Ben and Ron were happy and laughing as usual as they settled down for their mid-morning break. As Vesuvius entered to perform his egg-breaking ritual without mishap, Ben went into the sergeant’s office next door. I heard him lift the telephone and dial an extension number; then our office telephone rang. Vesuvius answered it.
“Eltering Police”, he growled in his deep voice.
And I heard Ben’s voice coming from the next office saying, “This is the Ryedale Coach Touring Company.”
“It must be urgent to ring at this time of day,” Vesuvius commented. “It’s two in the morning.”
And Ben replied, “It is very urgent, Mr Ventress, very urgent indeed. We’ve been up all night, working on revised arrangements. I’m ringing about that trip you’ve organised tomorrow night, to the brewery. We’ve had to cancel it.”
“Cancel it?” bellowed Vesuvius. “Why? It’s all laid on, supper an’ all, for the lads. Forty lads going . . .”
“That’s why I’m ringing you now, so you can cancel things. You didn’t apply for a licence, you see,” said Ben from the next office. Ron and myself sat enthralled, listening to both sides of this curious conversation. Vesuvius, of course, could only hear the voice on his telephone.
“Licence?” he snarled.
“Licence,” said Ben solemnly. “You need a Customs and Excise licence to run bus-trips. It’s a new law. It was introduced in the last budget and we forgot to tell you. It means your trip’s illegal, Mr Ventress. We’ve no option, I’m afraid. It’ll have to be cancelled. That’s why I’m ringing late, before tomorrow, so you can do the necessary. Sorry.”
“Can’t I get a licence, then?” he asked, a picture of misery.
“Not in time for this one, but pop into the post office and ask for a Coach Outing Arrangers Licence application form. It costs £10 for a year and means you can organise trips by coach anywhere in England, except the Isle of Man and the Channel Isles. That’s extra.”
“I’ll have to contact everybody that’s booked and return their money.”
“Sorry, Mr Ventress, but we daren’t cooperate with an illegally run bus-trip.”
“Aye, all right,” and the big, unhappy man put down the receiver.
“What’s up, Alf?” asked Ron, a picture of innocence.
“Bus company,” he said. “I’ve got to cancel my trip tomorrow night. It’s a pity. It’s a pensioners’ outing — the women-folk are all off to a bingo session, so I fixed up a trip for their husbands. We’re off to a brewery at Hartlepool. Seems I need a licence to run bus-trips now. Can’t get one in time
“Aw, Alf, what a shame!” Ben had reappeared and was having difficulty preventing himself bursting into laughter.
I didn’t know what to do. I do appreciate a good joke, but I don’t like to see people hurt and this had clearly upset poor old Vesuvius. He produced one of his pungent cigarettes and lit it, casting clouds of foul smoke about the room as he ate his cheese sandwich in silence. I didn’t find it easy to be a party to this and tried to make intelligent conversation by talking shop with Ben and Ron. Finally, the terrible twins decided to leave the office, chuckling to themselves as they went.
This left me with a great problem. Should I tell him it was all a joke?
“Tell me about the bus-trip,” I began. Gently, this untidy giant of a man explained how he felt sorry for pensioners without cars and without the funds and ability to get themselves around the countryside or attend functions like concerts, pantomimes and shows. He therefore arranged outings for them. He chatted on and on about some of the more enjoyable occasions and I forgot about the time. I found him a fascinating mixture of personalities. He was a stolid, gentle Yorkshire giant with a heart of gold and a softness beneath which was totally concealed by his external appearance. He looked like a perpetually angry man, yet I don’t think he had an ounce of anger in him. I decided I liked Vesuvius.
My dilemma was solved before I left because the telephone rang again. It jerked me back to reality and reminded me that I had lots of property to check before my next point. As Vesuvius answered it, I got up to rinse out my flask.
Seconds later, he was smiling all over.
“The bus company again,” he told me. “That chap’s rung me on his way home, from a kiosk. He’s just remembered — I applied before the financial year’s end, before Budget Day, so I can run trips without a licence that I’d got booked up before April 4th. It’s all right, Nick, and in compensation, they’re giving me the best bus, the one with the television in.”
“I’m pleased,” I said, leaving him to his new-found happiness.
In the weeks that followed, my talks with local bobbies told me that poor old Vesuvius had been the butt of countless pranks over the years, but not one had caused him to lose his temper, nor had he retaliated violently.
There were the occasional hints of anger, like the outbursts against his wife during his egg-breaking routines, and I began to wonder if he really did have a temper. What would make him rise to the bait, I wondered?
I collected quite a repertoire of jokes that had been perpetrated upon him. Ben and Ron had once put Vesuvius’ private car number on the Stolen Vehicles Register, with the result that he got stopped and questioned by a police patrol in Sunderland while heading north for a fishing holiday. No amount of explanation would convince the Sunderland police that it was his own vehicle until Vesuvius, in his patient way, managed to convince a sergeant that he was an honest policeman from Yorkshire. On another occasion, someone substituted the Superintendent’s home telephone number for the “Dial a Story” service offered by Hull Telephone Company. It had to be poor old Vesuvius, alone in the office one night, who decided he’d like to listen to a short story, and dialled the number concerned. The Superintendent was not very pleased to be roused by the familiar tones of Vesuvius at 2.30 in the morning, and he refused to accept that the joke was not originated by PC Ventress.
If Vesuvius and his placid nature were the butt of policemen’s jokes, they were also a fine target for civilian pranks. I learned he had once arrested a local scrap merchant for stealing lengths of copper piping, and the Scrappy eventually appeared at court to be heavily fined by the magistrates.
Thereafter, he considered Vesuvius his sworn enemy. Even though the Scrappy was later arrested by other policemen and fined even more heavily from time to time, he continued to hate Vesuvius, seemingly because that had been his first arrest and therefore the start of his criminal career.
Vesuvius bore the rancour with his traditional calm until the Scrappy realised that, once every few weeks, poor old Vesuvius worked a full tour of night-duty. This meant he slept between 7 am and lunchtime, spending the early part of the day in pleasant slumbers. Vesuvius lived in his own small, neat terrace house in a quiet part of Malton, so the virulent Scrappy decided to visit that street while Vesuvius slept. He chose to park his horse-and-cart outside Vesuvius’ peaceful home and announce his presence by blowing a trumpet.
The notion behind this scheme was that the trumpet would be
come a trademark and it would announce his whereabouts to those who wished to off-load their rubbish. They could run out of their homes and deposit it upon the waiting cart in exchange for a small payment, a very small payment as a rule.
To thwart retaliatory action by Vesuvius, the Scrappy changed his timing and his day. Some mornings, he would arrive at nine o’clock, others at 11 or 10.30, the result being that poor old Vesuvius never had any idea of the impending arrival of the noisy man and his blasted trumpet. He lost many hours of precious sleep because of this, but he never complained either officially or unofficially.
I learned from my colleagues at Malton that the trumpet was the pride and joy of that offending Scrappy. It was very old and very valuable, and furthermore had a deep sentimental meaning in the family, having been passed down from his great-grandfather, who had played it in a local brass band. When played properly its tone was excellent, but the puffing and blowing of this man did little to enhance its reputation. It merely produced a fearful din at his lips.
Malton police did receive complaints from other members of the public and attempts were made to confiscate the trumpet. Somehow, he managed to avoid all patrolling officers and we lacked the necessary hard evidence for a court appearance.
It was dear old Vesuvius who finally put a stop to the noise.
It happened one morning. Vesuvius had finished night-duty early and had taken four hours off duty in lieu of overtime worked. This meant he had finished work at two o’clock. By ten o’clock that same morning he was wide awake and in fact was downstairs tucking into a hefty plateful of eggs and bacon. It was at that time that the Scrappy chose to play the “Donkey Serenade” right outside Vesuvius’ front door, pointing the mouth of the trumpet high at the window above. The poor fellow was carried away by the thrill of his own music, and the notes were long and loud as the unseen donkey was duly serenaded.
On hearing this foul din, Vesuvius opened his front door and was outside before the Scrappy realised what was happening. One massive fist seized the offending instrument and the other clutched the collar of the ghastly musician. Without a word Vesuvius hauled both offenders through his house and into the backyard where he released his grip of the bewildered scrap merchant.
Then, without saying a word, Vesuvius opened the door of a small brick building and, smiling at the unhappy witness, removed the mouthpiece of the trumpet. He handed this to its owner with a smile on his face then stepped inside the shed.
Inside stood a huge mangle with ancient wooden rollers, worn hollow in the centre by years of wringing out the washing of generations. Smiling quietly at the waiting man Vesuvius inserted the slender tube of the mouth end of the trumpet between the rollers and began to turn the handle.
I am assured that cries of deep anguish echoed from the horrified scrap merchant as his precious trumpet was drawn into the mangle. He was kept at arm’s length by Vesuvius who used his powerful free arm to turn the handle. Eventually, the trumpet appeared from the other side, flattened like a pancake. Vesuvius took it in his hands, seized the dirty collar again and propelled the hapless character outside. Not a word was spoken by Vesuvius as he led the Scrappy to his horse, tossed the trumpet among the other scrap on the cart, and closed his door on that episode.
The slumbering Vesuvius was never again aroused by trumpet blasts.
My respect for Vesuvius grew as I saw more of him. Due to our shift system we frequently worked nights together and those mid-shift meal breaks were regularly provided with entertainment by those terrible traffic twins, Ben and Ron. Their pranks upon Vesuvius seemed endless, although it must be said they were all harmless. Vesuvius, on his part, took them stoically and never grumbled or lost his temper. His nickname seemed all the more apt because the violent eruptions of Mount Vesuvius were not very frequent, although it did grumble and threaten from time to time. They were very similar, he and his volcano.
It was nice to get him talking. On those occasions when the traffic lads did not arrive, Vesuvius and I would chat quite amiably. He would tell me of his early service in the Force when discipline was strict, and money was poor, but he was proud to remember the days when the public respect for the bobby was at its height, and when they appreciated the work done on their behalf. A few smartly clipped ears were infinitely better than either court appearances, the advice of social workers or the utterances of bureaucrats who had no idea of how to deal with people, but who were wizards with statistics. Modern law-makers were thinkers not doers, Vesuvius would say, but he continued to act in his own way, apparently totally content with life.
He told me the modern version of the Good Samaritan parable one night, relating how a social worker had found a poor man in the ditch. The man had been violently attacked and robbed by a gang of thugs. As the injured man lay bleeding in the street the social worker said, “What an awful thing to happen. Tell me who did this to you, so that I might find him and minister to him”.
As we grew to understand each other. I realised that Vesuvius was highly intelligent. He was far from the slow and dim-witted person he pretended to be and several little clues led me to this belief. The regular egg-smashing joke was one example of this. From snippets told me when we were alone he knew that Ben and Ron swapped the eggs, although he never allowed them to realise he knew of their pranks.
Whenever he was caught by their tomfoolery, he continued to blame his wife for forgetting to hard-boil the eggs, but he craftily told everyone else of his knowledge. The result was that only the terrible twins were fooled by this and although it meant an egg-spattered tunic from time to time, the real fools of the incidents were Ben and Ron. Everyone else was secretly laughing at them and their ignorance. It was this attitude that gave me an insight into the complex character of the stolid, unflappable PC Ventress.
He once told me he was waiting for the right moment to return their jokes; he would wait for months if necessary. When that opportunity did arise, it was marvellous, and I was delighted to be present at their comeuppance.
I was in the office at Eltering Police Station, enjoying one of those midnight breakfasts around two o’clock in the morning. It was a summer’s night, albeit cool and fresh and the moon shone brightly. Inside, Vesuvius was in his favourite chair, eating his usual pair of hard-boiled eggs with his napkin across his knees. Conversation was non-existent for he ate in silence, and then the terrible twins entered. There was enough slamming of doors and noise for an army of men as they breezed into the office.
“Grand night, Vesuvius,” smiled Ron, unbuttoning his tunic as he settled in the chair opposite.
“Aye,” agreed Vesuvius, munching his cheese sandwich.
Ben, meanwhile, had gone straight into the toilet. We heard the distinct crash of its door as he rushed inside, followed by the equally distinctive five minutes’ silence. Eventually, we heard the flush of the chain and the reopening of the door, followed by a somewhat anxious reappearance of Ben.
“The keys!” he cried as he entered the office. “The bloody car keys!”
“Keys?” puzzled Ron.
“Yeh, I stuck them in my trousers pocket, like I always do. They must have lodged on the top, on my truncheon strap,” and he indicated the right-hand trousers pocket. The top of his truncheon was showing, and its leather strap hung down the outside of his leg. Truncheons have a specifically made long pocket which runs down the inside of the right leg, to the knee, the entrance to which is adjacent to the usual pocket. It was not uncommon for objects to find their way into the wrong pocket, nor was it unusual for objects to get caught on the truncheon when it was in position.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“Well, there I was, sitting on the bog. I got up, my trousers still around my ankles and reached up to pull the chain. And as I stretched up, the car keys fell into the bowl — right down. They fell in at the precise moment I pulled the chain! I was too late to stop pulling — I saw the bloody things fall in but couldn’t stop the flushing.”
“T
hey’ve gone?” gasped Ron.
“Gone,” repeated Ben. “I couldn’t help it, honest. What can we do?”
“Search me!”
“The inspector will play holy hell! He’ll probably book us for loss or damage to county property, carelessness, dereliction of duty or some other trumped-up charge!”
“Don’t you carry spares?” I asked.
“We should,” Ron admitted, “but it’s the second time that idiot has lost ours. He lost the other set down a drain when he got out to deal with a road accident. Tonight’s keys were the spare set.”
“Are you sure they’ve gone right down?” I asked, trying to be helpful.
“Sure,” said Ben, sitting in a chair and removing his bait tin from his bag. “They’ve gone. I’ve checked.”
Ron and I went to examine the toilet basin and it was totally empty. There was no sign of the missing keys. We searched the floor and the route back to the office, then out to the car and finally we made Ben turn out his pockets. Nothing. No car keys.
“They went down, I saw them,” he repeated for the hundredth time. “I saw them fall in just as I flushed.”
“I can get them back,” said Vesuvius quietly, having concluded his meal. He wiped his mouth and replaced the folded serviette in its tin.
“You can?” they chorused, sitting bolt upright with relief evident on their faces.
“Dead easy,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Come on, Alf,” cried Ron. “Give! Put us out of our misery!”
“You know that manhole cover in the middle of the street outside, just in front of the door to the station?”
Ben nodded. It always rattled when a car drove across it and was a good warning that someone was approaching, like the Superintendent.
“Well,” said Vesuvius slowly, “the channels from our station toilets go through there. I’ve been down before, clearing channels, years ago. That manhole is about eight feet deep and several channels pass through the bottom of it. All you have to do is climb down inside — there’s steps built into the wall — and I could flush the chain until the keys are washed through. You’d get ’em back down there. Dead simple.”
CONSTABLE NICK BOX SET 1–5 five feel-good village cozy mysteries Page 24
