The Salisbury Manuscript

by Philip Gooden

  It took him a moment to understand what she was talking about then he said, ‘George. It stands for George. Good evening, Mrs Slater.’

  Walking back to his house, his leg causing him trouble, Henry Cathcart felt, paradoxically, not the damp chills of a November evening but a renewed warmth, the result of a temper which was turning from cold to heat. He was angry not so much with Amelia Slater – though some resentment in that quarter would surely be justified, he considered – as with himself. Angry in general for having allowed himself to be led so far astray, so very far, by the wife who was now a widow. Angry in particular that he had dropped the monogrammed, blood-speckled handkerchief which Bessie the maid had found. The handkerchief placed him inside Venn House on the evening of Felix Slater’s murder. Not much evidence by itself perhaps, although the blood speckles might have been awkward to explain away, but Cathcart was reluctant it should come to the attention of Inspector Foster. He had a high respect for Foster. No, the handkerchief now tucked into his coat pocket was not much evidence by itself, but it provided sufficient pressure for him to fall in straightaway with Amelia Slater’s request that he should provide her with fresh mourning outfits.

  Yet, even as he turned these matters over in his head, he thought again of how fine she looked in mourning, how very fine.

  Then he wondered whether he should get rid of the handkerchief or whether it was safe to have it laundered at home. If he got rid of it, he would have to burn or bury it. Otherwise the monogrammed initials were too revealing. If he did get rid of it, who was to say that it had ever existed, or rather who could say that it had been found, blood-speckled, near the site of a murder? But there were two people who might testify to that, he reflected. There was Amelia Slater and Bessie the housemaid. Mustn’t forget the housemaid.

  The Ringing Room

  While this was going on, while Inspector Foster was giving the news to Tom Ansell and Helen Scott, while Cathcart was seeing Amelia Slater, Canon Eric Selby had been talking to Walter Slater.

  The two men were in the ringing room of the bell-tower of St Luke’s. It was cold and damp and poorly illuminated by a few candles. Selby was concerned for the young man’s physical welfare. He was gaunt and unshaven. It could not be healthy to spend so long up here in this stone-walled, cheerless chamber, whatever one’s reasons. But Selby was still more concerned for Walter’s mental state. He was not speaking much, but what he did say was distracted and hardly coherent.

  When Selby had first been alerted to Walter’s whereabouts by Miss Annabel Nugent, he had not believed it. But the young woman had been insistent. She was gathering up some dead flowers from the church – one of her little, self-imposed duties – in the hush and dark of late afternoon when she saw her friend, the curate, going up the stairs to the bell-tower. He was clutching a bottle and something else to his chest in the manner of a fugitive or thief. He had not noticed her standing in a side aisle. There was such a fixed, almost desperate look on Walter’s face that he had not noticed anything at all but seemed to be moving like an automaton.

  Annabel made to move towards him but he had already disappeared up the spiral staircase, pushing the door to behind him. She half opened it again but the door gave a great creak and she heard the shuffle of climbing feet halt above her. She looked down and observed some crumbs on the floor. He had been carrying a loaf of bread as well as the bottle, clutching the items to him as though he feared someone might seize them. She didn’t know whether to be more surprised at this or at the queer, fixed expression on his face. Was he feeding someone up in the tower? Was he feeding himself? Suddenly frightened, Annabel turned and walked quickly out of the church. She spent some time waiting outside for Walter to appear again. It was late in the day, there was no church service. What could he be doing up there in the bell-tower? She asked herself whether his mind had been turned by the murder of his uncle.

  Wondering what to do next she then remembered not the vicar of St Luke’s, Mr Simpson (who, in truth, she did not like very much), but an old friend of her grandfather, the late Rev. Parsons. So she called on Canon Eric Selby and, haltingly, explained what she’d seen. And Selby had surprised her by the speed with which, after his initial doubts, he had put on his coat and shovel-hat and accompanied her back to St Luke’s. He might have been an old man, very old in Annabel’s eyes, but he walked with vigour and purpose. On the way, Annabel tried out her idea that Walter had become disturbed on account of the dreadful murder of his uncle, Felix Slater, which was the talk of the whole town. It’s possible, said Selby, without revealing that he had been present at the aftermath of the murder himself.

  Once they were inside St Luke’s, Annabel grew reluctant. She wished she hadn’t summoned the nice old gent now. For sure, Walter would be nowhere to be found (certainly not up in the bell-tower), and she’d look a fool. On the other hand, part of her hoped that Walter was all right and not skulking in the tower anyway. She was a little frightened too, and allowed Canon Selby, old as he was, to go first through the creaky door and up the spiral stairs. It was almost completely dark and they had to feel their way up.

  They reached the little, stone-flagged landing outside the ringing room and Annabel got a terrible shock because there was a figure standing in the doorway, waiting for them. It was Walter Slater. She would have known him in any case but a little light leaked out from the room, a couple of flickering candles which outlined his shape.

  ‘I heard the door,’ he said, his voice sounding strange to Annabel’s ears.

  ‘Miss Nugent, I recognize you but what are you doing here?’

  ‘I was worried about you.’

  ‘Who is that with you?’

  ‘This is Eric Selby, Walter. You know me, do you not?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I know you. What do you want?’

  ‘I think, Miss Nugent, that it would be best if you left me to speak to Walter by myself.’

  Annabel was half sorry, half glad to get her dismissal. She walked back down the stairs. She thought of poor Walter up in the ringing room, and felt curious. A little frightened still. Walter wouldn’t do anything to the old man, would he? He was a churchman. They were both churchmen. Then she recalled the murder of another churchman only a few days before.

  In the ringing room, Canon Selby was saying, ‘Shall we go and get something to eat?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘You aren’t sleeping up here surely, Walter?’

  But Selby saw against the wall a pile of material, old vestments and the like, which seemed to bear the marks of a body. There was, too, a kind of fustiness to the chamber for all its chill.

  ‘What if I am? This is my church – I mean, I am curate here. I can sleep here if I want.’

  ‘Most curates of my acquaintance would expect to be better accommodated than this. Does Reverend Simpson know you are here?’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t. No one knows I am here. Except you and Miss Annabel now.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Selby, ‘never mind the fact that you are here for the time being. The question is why you are here when you have a home to go to. I am sure that your aunt needs your comfort and protection.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mrs Slater. Amelia.’

  ‘Oh, my aunt. Yes, perhaps she does.’

  Both men were standing face to face. Selby was almost a head shorter than Walter but the authority seemed to lie with him. He spoke the last words softly and put his hand on the other’s shoulder. Walter irritably shook off his grasp.

  ‘Is this to do with your uncle’s murder?’

  ‘My uncle’s murder,’ said Walter as if the thought had just occurred to him. He took a step or two backwards. ‘You were there when – when Canon Slater was killed, weren’t you?’

  ‘Not when he was killed,’ said Selby carefully. ‘But I did arrive on the scene shortly afterwards.’

  ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘I do not know that I have to answer your questions, Walter, but I was out fo
r a walk.’

  ‘On such a cold and miserable night?’

  ‘I have always enjoyed walking in the cathedral close whatever the weather. I was out walking that evening as on so many others and I noticed a noise and disturbance coming from your uncle’s place, from Venn House. I wondered if anything was wrong.’

  ‘You did not like Canon Slater,’ said Walter. It was a statement rather than a question. ‘I heard you two arguing on the day that he died.’

  Eric Selby looked surprised at this but he did not ask how Walter had discovered the argument. Instead he said, ‘It is no secret that there was not a great deal of love lost between your uncle and myself but I regret his passing as much as any honest citizen of Salisbury must regret it, especially as it occurred in such terrible circumstances. Does that satisfy you, Walter? I had nothing to do with his murder.’

  Without giving any sign that he’d listened to these last words, Walter Slater turned away. He sat down on the makeshift bedding and buried his head in his hands. When he looked up again he seemed taken aback to find Selby still there. Selby was tired of standing. He went to sit on one of a handful of chairs placed in the room for the benefit of the bell-ringers.

  ‘You are a man of the cloth, Walter, as I am. We talk about the sins of others but less often of our own. Something has occurred to make you act in this very uncharacteristic way. You must either be sinning or sinned against. Which is it? Won’t you tell me?’

  ‘Oh, you want me to tell you, do you?’ said Walter Slater. ‘You want me to confess? Very well, I shall.’

  Hogg’s Corner

  Several miles away, in Northwood House, Fawkes was awakened by a shuffling and snorting from the horses. Fawkes – the coachman and valet and factotum to Percy Slater – chose to sleep in a loft above the stables rather than in the cold and cavernous main house. His master made no objection. Percy Slater ran an odd establishment, or more accurately he didn’t run it at all but let it fall to slow ruin about his ears. Fawkes might sleep where he pleased as long as he was available when required to convey his master about the place and for other odd jobs. So Fawkes had fashioned for himself quite a cosy area at the gable end which was once used for storage. He had equipped it with a simple bed and a chair and a little table. He liked the way he could look down on the world, even if it was no more than the world of the stables. It gave him the same feeling of apartness as driving a coach. He liked the privacy of the stables, the absence of visitors, not that anyone visited the main house. He probably preferred the company of horses to people. Percy Slater had once told him that he was like Lemuel Gulliver in the story but Fawkes did not know what the man was talking about.

  Now Fawkes heard stealthy movements from down below and was wide awake at once. It was that sound which had disturbed the horses. Fawkes was used to the stable noises, the sound of exhaled breath, the creak of the wooden stalls during the night. But this was a human being.

  He took hold of an iron bar which lay beside the bed, kept there for just these eventualities. A ladder led up from ground level to rest against one of a pair of cross-beams that supported the planks or flooring of Fawkes’s quarters. There was no light in the stables but Fawkes’s eyes were used to the dark, and he could just make out the uprights of the ladder from where he lay on his bed, snugged against the end wall. He listened as a first, experimental foot was placed on the bottom rung, then a second foot on the second rung, and so on. The ladder creaked slightly.

  Fawkes waited, lying on his back, his head turned sideways to watch the top of the ladder, his right hand gripping the iron bar. Fawkes was not frightened. He did not scare easily. The advantage lay with him, since he was awake and the intruder did not know he was awake. Besides, he had an idea who it might be. In due course, a cap and a head appeared at the top of the ladder.

  ‘Stop right there, mate,’ he said. ‘I can crack you over the nut before you get a foot higher in the world.’

  ‘Why’d you want to do that, Seth Fawkes?’ said the head. ‘I mean you no harm.’

  ‘I know you and your games.’

  ‘Well, I’m a-coming up now.’

  The head grew to a pair of shoulders, then added arms, torso and legs. There was something monkey-like about the figure which now drew itself over the edge of Fawkes’s living quarters. Meantime, Fawkes had swung from his bed and was fiddling with an oil lamp. But he kept the iron bar within reach just as he kept an eye on the new arrival until he had got the lamp hissing and glowing.

  ‘How’d you get in here?’ he said.

  ‘Through the door. And, before that, over the wall, Seth.’

  ‘It’s a high wall,’ said Fawkes. He was so unused to being called by his first name, rather than the more customary Fawkes, that to hear it was as odd as being addressed by a stranger. Yet the man sharing his little eyrie in the stables was, regrettably, no stranger.

  ‘Leaped it, didn’t I,’ said the intruder, referring to the wall.

  ‘Regular spring-heeled Jack, aren’t you, Adam?’

  ‘Enough of the complimenting. It’s a bloody cold night out. Got anything warm to drink?’

  Fawkes had a bottle of port, filched from his master. Reluctantly, he uncorked it and passed it to the other man. He watched as Adam swung himself round so that he was sitting with his legs dangling into space. He observed that Adam was wearing a kind of knapsack, which gave him a hunched appearance. The other man threw back his head and tilted the bottle to swallow, exposing his neck and his Adam’s apple. A single blow there would do it, thought Fawkes.

  Adam put down the bottle. He wiped his mouth. He looked slyly at Fawkes as he handed back the bottle.

  ‘I can guess what you’re thinking,’ he said.

  ‘Guess away.’

  ‘One quick push and I’d topple off here, wouldn’t I?’

  Almost right, thought Fawkes, though it was more of a blow than a push that he was considering.

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’ he said, aloud.

  ‘To pay me back for that little joke on Salisbury station,’ said Adam.

  ‘Joke? Oh, that little joke. You pushed me on to the line.’

  ‘You were not pushed but fell. Just toppled off the platform when you saw me coming.’

  ‘You speak as if you was out strolling. Saw you sneaking up rather.’

  ‘Anyway, there was no danger, no train coming. You got up and vanished. No harm done. Just my bit of mischief after a good day out.’

  Fawkes recalled that recent day out. He’d come in by train from Downton to visit a certain padding-ken or low boarding house run by a Mrs Mitchell. Fawkes had an understanding with Mrs Mitchell which went back many years. After their session together he’d ended up in the pub called The Neat-Herd (but universally known as The Nethers). There he had encountered Adam, not for the first time. They’d drunk quite a bit before Fawkes had to leave for the Downton train. Adam had been in an especially sprightly mood and had accompanied Fawkes to the station, darting around in the black garb he favoured. He was like a devil on wheels. Fawkes thought he’d got rid of him finally but his shadow had played that last trick on him on the station platform, bursting out to surprise him like some silly kid. Fawkes had been pissed enough to topple on to the track but retained enough of his wits to scramble out of the way pretty damned quick.

  ‘You do like mischief and games, don’t you, Adam?’ said Fawkes now, squinting down his forefinger as if he were aiming a gun. ‘You always have liked a spot of mischief.’

  ‘Keeps me going,’ said the other happily.

  There was an irritating bounce to Adam, as if he was never going to be troubled or put down by anything. Seth Fawkes knew that bounce only too well. He said, ‘What do you want here?’

  ‘Your master asleep?’

  "Spect so. Most honest people are at this hour.’

  ‘Your master honest? Ha!’

  ‘Beware of your tongue.’

  ‘I know Mr Percy Slater and his honesty. Didn’t he commission m
e to do a little job of breaking and entering a man’s room in a hotel because he wanted to know what documents that man was carrying? Letters and such to do with the honest Slaters.’

  ‘You should thank me for that commission, Adam. It was me as put your name forward to my master, knowing he wanted a spot of dirty work done.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Seth Fawkes. I am forever obligated to you. That shows you don’t bear me any hard feelings for that bit of larking about at Salisbury station. Your mistress now, is she at Northwood House tonight?’

  ‘Mrs Slater is not here from one year’s end to another, as you know. She stays in London.’

  ‘What about the old woman?’

  ‘You mean Nan? You can say her name.’

  ‘Does she sleep tight?’

  ‘Don’t know, Adam. She don’t sleep here in the stables anyway.’

  ‘We won’t be disturbed then.’

  ‘Disturbed in what?’

  ‘We’re going on a little search,’ said Adam.

  He shrugged the knapsack off his shoulders and unstrapped it. He drew some sheets of paper from it and began to study them.

  ‘Pardon me,’ said Fawkes. ‘You may be going searching, but I am staying here. For I have noticed that it is the middle of the night.’

  ‘Then we shan’t be seen.’

  ‘We won’t be able to see neither.’

  ‘We shall. The night is clear. No mist, no fog. There is a little moon to light our way.’

  ‘Whatever you want to do you can do by daylight.’

  ‘Too much risk. Besides, you know I like the dark. I work better then.’

  ‘I’m staying here,’ said Fawkes, but he spoke without conviction.

  ‘Pardon me but you are not staying here. I need your head. You know the way to Hogg’s Corner?’

  ‘It’s not a corner but a few oak trees behind the house. I don’t know why it’s called Hogg’s Corner.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said the other. ‘That’s where we’re going.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve got a little scent that’s atickling my nostrils, a scent coming from Hogg’s Corner. You can bring that lamp with you.’