The Salisbury Manuscript (20 page)

‘Not at all,’ said Tom carefully. He recalled that Helen hadn’t yet caught a glimpse of Mrs Slater. ‘It’s a strange kind of union. Mrs Slater is half Italian. Apparently Felix met her when he was travelling on the Continent. Met her in Florence where she lived with her parents. When they died she came to England and she . . . she . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, how Percy Slater put it was that she threw herself on Felix Slater’s mercy since she had no one else to turn to. And so they married and have lived in Salisbury ever since.’

‘Happily ever after?’ said Helen.

‘That’s what Percy said. Only he spoke the words with a kind of sneer. I thought perhaps he was envious of his brother. Mrs Slater is an attractive woman, Helen.’

‘I can tell that by the way you refer to her. But isn’t it odd, Tom, that she should have travelled from Florence to “throw herself on the mercy” of a cathedral canon?’

‘Maybe they had some kind of understanding. But we’ll never know, since I’m not going to ask her and he is dead.’

‘We’re going round in circles here,’ said Helen. ‘Talking of understandings, Tom, we were having a conversation before you left London . . .’

Tom got up and went over to where Helen was sitting on the other side of the fire. He knelt down and took both her hands in his. Her hands were warm.

‘Shouldn’t you be on one knee though?’ she said.

Tom was about to say that this wasn’t, perhaps, the most propitious moment to be talking about marriage and that he merely wanted to be near her when they heard the front door closing quietly as someone came into the house. Before Tom could rise to his feet again, the door to the drawing room opened. It was Eric Selby. If he saw anything strange in the sight of the young lawyer kneeling before his god-daughter, her didn’t say so.

In fact, he said nothing, but simply stood in the doorway with a peculiar, abstracted look in his eyes Underneath his shovel-hat, his white hair stuck out in disordered tufts as though he’d jammed the hat on in a hurry.

Eventually Helen said, ‘What is it, Uncle? What’s wrong?’

The Drawing Room

Earlier that evening Henry Cathcart had had a visitor. It was Bessie from Venn House. She was wearing a black armband and a doleful face. She carried a letter from Mrs Slater. Henry had of course written a note of condolence to the widow. Now he had a reply on black-lined notepaper, asking him to call on her straightaway. She did not have to say that she was not free to leave her home. A new widow is not at liberty to come and go as she wishes, not without exciting comment.

It was the early evening. Cathcart waited a short while to allow Bessie to get well on the way back to Venn House before setting off there himself. It was the first time he had been to West Walk since the night of the murder. He was admitted by Bessie, who put on a mild show of being surprised to see him. Mrs Slater was sitting in the drawing room. She was dressed in mourning and reading a book. She looked quite composed. She closed the book and put it on the arm of her chair.

‘Mr Cathcart, how good of you to come.’

‘How are you, Mrs Slater?’ he said, noting that she had not called him by his first name.

‘I am – how do they say it? – bearing up.’

‘Bearing up’ was his wife’s expression, he thought. He went to stand opposite her but took care not to come too close. He debated for an instant leaning forward to take her hand, which was covered with a thin black lace glove, and kissing it. But now did not seem the moment. He was conscious of how warm the room was, even warmer than Constance liked her sick room.

‘It must be terrible to have to stay in this house,’ he said. ‘It is my home,’ Amelia said. ‘I feel quite safe with the servants. And there is Eaves.’

‘Eaves?’

‘The gardener.’

‘But forgive me, Mrs Slater, the gardener does not sleep in the house, does he?’

‘Oh no. But he is within call. It is only a shame that Achilles is not still alive. He would have been company for me.’

Cathcart remembered that Achilles was her little pug. It had died some time in the beginning of the year. If he thought it strange she should be regretting the death of her dog rather than her husband, he did not say so. There was no doubt that she looked good, that she looked very good, in mourning clothes.

‘You haven’t seen Walter, have you, Henry?’

‘Walter? Oh, your nephew.’

‘Yes, my nephew.’

For the first time, Cathcart observed marks of pain on the woman’s face. Amelia’s wide, mobile mouth was set in a rigid line. Her forehead, which was partly concealed by the black trimmings to a little hat, was creased as if she were trying to remember something.

‘No, I haven’t seen Walter, not since the night, the terrible night when . . . when . . .’

‘When it all happened,’ she completed his sentence.

‘Do you think something has happened now?’ he said. ‘To Walter?’

‘I pray not. It is simply that no one has seen him for a day or more. His bedroom has not been slept in.’

‘You have informed the police?’

‘Inspector Foster knows. I believe he has been looking for Walter too.’

‘I expect he’ll turn up soon.’

‘I don’t want him to turn up soon,’ she said, her hands suddenly bunching into fists on the arms of the chair. ‘I want to see him now.’

‘You should not worry,’ said Cathcart. ‘Walter is a fine young man.’

She looked at him and smiled.

‘You are right. I should not worry. Walter is a fine young man.’

Amelia rose from her chair. She moved closer to Henry and said, ‘But, my dear Henry, I think it is
you
who should worry.’

Cathcart was aware again of the heat of the room. He was so struck by the way she had addressed him –
my
dear Henry
– that he scarcely noticed the rest of her words. Eventually he said, ‘I? Why should I be worried?’

‘Because you left something behind on your last visit here, on the very evening when poor Felix was killed.’

‘What did I leave?’

‘This,’ said Amelia Slater, moving away and reaching for a little reticule lying on a nearby table. ‘I put it here for safekeeping.’ She opened the beaded bag and brought out a pale silk handkerchief, a man’s one.

‘Is that mine?’ said Cathcart.

‘It must be,’ she said, making a show of scrutinising the handkerchief. ‘There are some letters embroidered on it. Ah, here they are. ‘H.G.C.’ I do not know of anyone else with the initials H.G.C. Do you know of anyone else?’

She held up the handkerchief by a single corner.

‘And now I look more carefully, Henry, I see that there are some specks of colour on the handkerchief. They look like specks of blood.’

‘It is blood,’ he said quickly. ‘I remember that I nicked myself while I was shaving that morning. Some of the blood must have got itself on the handkerchief.’

‘Tut,’ said Amelia Slater. ‘And you, one of the leading citizens of the town and one of the most prosperous too, could not afford to provide yourself with a fresh handker-chief for the day ahead?’

‘I meant to, I expect,’ he said. ‘ But I probably just stuffed it in my pocket and forgot about it.’

‘Ah well,’ she said, continuing to watch the handker-chief sway gently a foot from her face. It was as if she was conducting a hypnotic experiment on herself. ‘No doubt you have had a lot on your mind, Henry.’

Was he supposed to cross the few feet separating them and retrieve the handkerchief? Cathcart was reminded of a child playing a game. Suddenly he’d had enough. Something about the situation – whether it was the heat of the room or Amelia’s high-handed treatment of him or something less specific – reminded him of his wife Constance. He made to snatch at the handkerchief but at the last instant Amelia let it fall from her fingers so that it appeared she had surrendered it. He stuffed it into his coat pocket.

‘I must have dropped it,’ he said.

‘Ah, but where?’

‘Outside Venn House somewhere. In the porch.’

‘No, Henry. It was found inside, quite close to the door of Felix’s room. Bessie saw it but was too frightened to pick it up. She told me instead. So I picked it up – and now I have dropped it again – into your hand.’

‘Amelia . . . Mrs Slater . . . I am not sure what you are saying.’

‘I am saying nothing, Henry. I am too busy thinking of the death of poor Felix and of how I require another mourning outfit.’

‘What you are wearing now looks – looks fine to me. Sober and dignified and in the fashion, if I may say so.’

‘No, no,’ said Amelia, making an up-and-down motion with her hands from the top of her black-bonneted head to the tips of her black shoes, ‘no, no, all of this I am wearing is – how do they say it? – ‘cobbled together’. Yes, cobbled together.’

‘Then you would like to come to my shop and select something more
à la mode
?’ he said.

‘I should like nothing better than to visit your delightful shop, Henry. But, as you know, a widow is barely allowed to move a step outside her own room after the death of her spouse. She is as good as walled up like a bad person in a fairy story. As if she were the one guilty of his death! So, no, I cannot visit your shop. But I would be grateful, more grateful than I can show you at the moment, if you could send some of your people here to Venn House to see to my needs. No, do not send your people but come yourself.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It would be my pleasure.’

Now, despite the heat of the drawing room, Henry Cathcart felt cold. Cold and angry. Amelia put out her black-gloved right hand as a sign that he might kiss it, also that their interview was over. He kissed her hand, but automatically, without thought.

She said, ‘What does it stand for, the G?’

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 for 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.’