The Salisbury Manuscript (30 page)

From time to time – very often, in fact – he glanced across at Helen. At first she returned his looks and smiles but then he observed that her attention seemed to be distracted away from him or from her book and towards the old lady who was sitting in the diagonal corner. Tom glanced sideways but the woman with the hat, which obscured most of her face, seemed to be absorbed in
her
book.

He returned his gaze to the dreary view from the window. When he next looked towards Helen, it was to see a change in her expression. Her mouth was open in surprise and she was shaking her head urgently, not at him but at the other occupant of the compartment. When Tom twisted in his seat, he saw the old lady was staring straight at him. The hat had been pushed back on her – or rather, his – head. She – or rather, he – was holding a gun, a small gun, snug in a fist.

It was, he realized with a rush of terror, no old lady but Adam Eaves, garbed in black and disguised as a female. It would have been absurd, unbelievable, if it hadn’t been for the deadly earnest expression on Eaves’s small face. The glint of his eyes. The weapon in his hand. The devotional book thrown on to the floor of the compartment.

‘What’s the matter, Mr Ansell? You’re looking at me as if I was a dead man.’

Tom opened his mouth but no words came out beyond a gargled croak which he turned into a cough. Helen, who’d had little more than a glimpse of the murderous gardener outside Venn House, was quicker to recover.

‘We thought you were dead,’ she said. Her voice was quite steady in the circumstances.

‘Being dead is convenient, I’ve found,’ said Eaves. ‘I’ve been dead before. It enables you to pass unseen. Like being an old lady, when nobody notices you either. That’s true, isn’t it, Miss . . . Miss . . .? Not that you’d know, because everyone’s certainly going to notice
you
. Is it Miss or is it Mrs . . . I can’t see a ring on account of your gloves, and I haven’t had the pleasure of an introduction.’

‘Miss Scott will do.’

Helen said this coldly, and Tom didn’t think he’d ever admired or loved her more than he did at that moment. He spoke, more to distract attention away from Helen than anything else.

‘The body which fell from the cathedral was your brother’s, then. It was Seth’s?’

‘Course it was. He didn’t have a head for heights like me, poor fellow.’

‘But there was your confession,’ said Tom.

‘My confession?’ said Adam Eaves. ‘Oh yes, I read about that in the paper and had a good laugh. But it was none of mine, Mr Ansell. It was Seth as wrote it out and brought it to me just as I was leaving Venn House for good ’n’ all. He got upset when I wouldn’t sign it. Why should I put my monicker to a document like that, eh? You’re a lawyer. Tell me, would you?

‘Probably not,’ said Tom, wondering whether he dreaming this whole scene.

‘But Seth, he thought he could make me sign and turn me in or some such nonsense. He got into a right state when I disagreed with him, he tried to attack me, chased me all about the place. I believe you saw us, Mr Ansell.’

At this, Eaves stood up. A ridiculous figure in full skirts of some cheap material and a great-brimmed hat tilted to the back of his head like a cowboy in an illustrated magazine. He swayed slightly with the motion of the train but the gun was steady in his hand. It was a little gun, such as a woman might carry concealed in countries where women did carry such things. Tom thought of the United States.

‘Why don’t you leave us alone?’ he said. ‘Why don’t you make your escape instead of causing more trouble?’

‘I could do, couldn’t I?’ said Adam Eaves, as if the idea was occurring to him for the first time. ‘Why don’t I? Because I’m not minded to is why.’

‘There is a station soon,’ said Helen.

‘Is there, Miss Scott? No station for a fair few minutes yet. I know this line better than you, see. What I am going to do is fire this weapon a couple of times because this model is special, it has two barrels. I will do harm to you – the both of you – kill you, perhaps. And then I am going to pull what they call the communication cord. Have you noticed that, Mr Ansell and Miss Scott, the communication cord? It’s quite the new device and hangs on the outside of this carriage, just above the window. It rings a bell in the driver’s platform and when it rings he says to himself, oh there’s trouble, I wonder what, maybe a passenger taken sick of a sudden, and he puts on the brakes, and so this train draws to a standstill and so I make my escape over these fields, leaving you two here groaning and moaning. Or making no noise at all maybe, because you can’t. By the time anyone finds out what’s happened, I’ll be over the hills and far away.’

‘In God’s name, why?’ said Tom.

‘Why? I’ve always wanted to pull the communication cord on a train.’

‘Why do you want to harm us, I mean?’

"Cause I can,’ said Eaves. "Cause you got in my way.’

Eaves raised the gun and wavered in his aim, angling it first towards Tom then Helen. And back again towards Tom. Helen, who was still holding her sensation novel, threw
The Shame of Mrs Prendergast
at Eaves. He was taken by surprise. The book – it was a thick volume, full of incident – struck him in the chest and the gun flew out of his grasp and landed at Tom’s feet. Without thinking, he scooped it up and pointed it at Eaves.

‘It’s not loaded,’ said the gardener. ‘I was only joking.’ ‘Try me,’ said Tom. The gun, a woman’s weapon undoubtedly but small and potent, was in his hand. It had two barrels, one on top of the other. It was not cocked. Tom put one hand on the trigger, set far back in the handle, and the other on the hammer. He heard a thudding in his ears, over and above the clacking of the train. There was a kind of red mist before his eyes. He scarcely recognized the sound of his own voice.

‘Try me,’ he said again. ‘I would as soon kill you as look at you.’

‘I believe you would, Mr Ansell,’ said Adam Eaves.

With a swift movement, encumbered as he was by his female clothing, Eaves swung round and put his hand on the door handle. The train was travelling at speed on an embankment, and there was a drop on either side. ‘No time for the cord but
c’est la vie
,’ said Eaves, and he opened the door.

Once he’d opened it a fraction, it slammed back against the side of the carriage, propelled by their forward motion. The smoke from the engine entered the compartment. Adam Eaves half jumped, half threw himself outward into space. Later Tom was reminded of the way in which Seth Fawkes had been cast from the cathedral spire.

By the time Helen and Tom had recovered themselves sufficiently to pull the communication cord – moving warily towards the gaping door, watching the countryside whirr past their feet, Helen holding on to Tom while he fumbled on the exterior of the carriage for the cord – the train had moved on at least a couple of miles.

Mackenzie’s Castle, Again

‘Tell me again,’ said David Mackenzie. ‘You two seem to have had a very exciting time of it while I have been laid up here.’

Tom and Helen were taking tea in the Highgate house with Tom’s senior. They had been greeted enthusiastically by Mrs Mackenzie. That mannish lady had embraced Helen and winked, actually winked, at Tom. Outside the window of David Mackenzie’s room the weather was the same as on Tom’s last visit, with the fog licking at the window and a general gloom descending. Inside, the fire was slumbering and Mr Mackenzie was sitting in the same armchair, puffing at the same pipe, and wielding the same back-scratcher to reach the tricky points on the leg which was encased in plaster. Perhaps in deference to Helen, he was drinking tea rather than brandy. Otherwise it was as if he hadn’t moved in the several days that Tom Ansell had spent in Salisbury, witnessing murder, being nearly accused of it, and then seeing the demise of the real villain.

Tom had given his account of everything which had happened. He described his one meeting with Canon Slater, his glimpses of the Salisbury manuscript, the journey to Northwood House, his brief sojourn in Fisherton Gaol, the tangled affairs of the family, the true relationship of Walter Slater to Felix and to Percy, and so on. Tom no longer felt under any obligation to keep things secret, now that both the Slater brothers were dead. Most of this was new to Mackenzie, and he listened with profound interest.

At one point he said, ‘Well, there is no telling with people, is there? They are not what they appear to be. It’s like the Tichborne Claimant. No doubt if any of our affairs were examined in the harsh light of open court, all sorts of inconsistencies and impostures would be revealed. Felix Slater seemed to be the respectable one while Percy was the wastrel of the family. Yet it was Felix the churchman who caused his wife to disown his son, and Percy the gambler who agreed to take him as his own. There was perhaps more kindness in Percy than there was in his brother, even if there was no love lost between them.’

They weren’t the only unloving brothers in the business, thought Tom. There was also Seth Fawkes and Adam Eaves.

When Tom reached the final encounter with Adam Eaves on the train, he brushed over it, perhaps out of reluctance to relive the dangerous moment. He had been talking for the best part of an hour, and through several cups of tea. But David Mackenzie said, ‘Tell me that part again,’ so now Helen took up the climax of the story and repeated it in more colourful and vivid language than Tom could have managed. She stressed the murderousness of Eaves, their hair’s-breadth escape. Tom wondered, not for the first time, whether the episode would find its way into the novel she was composing.

After Tom had tugged on the communication cord – a small part of him being curious to see whether it would work, and the bell ring in the driver’s cabin and the train come to a halt (which it did) – there followed a period of confusion.

The guard arrived outside their compartment together with other interested passengers, and Tom explained how they’d been attacked by a fellow traveller, who had made his getaway as the train was moving. He did not mention the gun, which he had slipped into his pocket, or that he knew the attacker’s identity or the fact that he had been disguised as a woman. The story was far-fetched enough as it was. But the presence of Helen and her own words, together with the evident respectability of the couple, and the capacious bag (belonging to the ‘old lady’) which was still in the luggage rack, was sufficient to convince.

The train could not stay blocking the line. The fireman had already placed a red light on the rear carriage to warn any approaching engine on the up line, and the driver was agitating for them to move on. So they chugged on to Andover. From there, the Salisbury police house was telegraphed, and Helen and Tom were left to await the arrival of Inspector Foster while the train proceeded on its way.

Foster arrived with Constable Chesney, also by train from Salisbury. For the second time, Tom and Helen told their tale. He handed over the little gun, which Inspector Foster declared to be ‘not of English manufacture’. The large bag which Eaves had abandoned when he quit the train was opened and found to contain a peculiar assortment of clothing. ‘Looks like disguises, guv,’ said Chesney. The sight of an elaborately embroidered tunic-like garment, definitely not of English manufacture, prompted the constable to add, ‘Do you suppose he was going to pass for a Chinee next?’

By now, a couple of hours had elapsed and it was at least another hour before a search of the line several miles down the track could be instituted by the police and employees of the railway. Tom and Helen, who’d spent the time in the station refreshment room, were convinced that Eaves would never be found, living or dead. The man seemed to bear a charmed life and there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t be equally charmed in death.

In due course, however, Inspector Foster announced that they had discovered a body at the bottom of an embankment, in roughly the place where the murderer had leapt from the carriage. Tom’s first thought was that this must be another sham. But, no, it seemed not. The body was that of a man garbed in woman’s clothing. It was not in such a battered condition as the corpse of his brother retrieved from the roof of the cathedral cloister, since it had not fallen so far or met with such rough obstacles on the way down. Eaves was identified by the Inspector, who had seen the gardener on more than one occasion.

For the second time that day, Foster bade them goodbye. But it was a temporary goodbye. Tom and Helen were told they would have to return for the inquest, which would not be held for a week or two. They were allowed to travel on to London, where they arrived at Waterloo, weary, as it was getting dark.

Tom escorted Helen back to her Highbury home and left it to her to explain their adventures to the formidable Mrs Scott. He’d already had a twenty-minute conversation with Mrs Scott, while Helen was changing out of her travelling clothes upstairs, a conversation in which he had to tread the line between informing her of something and requesting it of her. He was conscious of being tired and haggard, of having escaped a murderer and spent the day waiting for news of a body. Yet something carried him forward. And he’d been agreeably surprised by Mrs Scott’s response. The lady had gone so far as to give him a sort of smile and to say that the news he brought was no real news to her and that any fool might have seen it coming. Tom wasn’t sure about the ‘any fool’ bit but he supposed that this was the closest he would get to assent and congratulation from Helen’s mother.

On the way up to London Tom had asked Helen to marry him. They were alone in their compartment, and were not interrupted by murderous gardeners disguised as old ladies or by police inspectors or anybody else. Tom asked, not on bended knee but sitting next to her on the buttoned carriage-cloth of the seat and holding her warm hand (she had removed her gloves), and Helen said yes, she said yes. Her hands were shaking slightly. So were his. Tom did not know whether it was the excitement of the proposal or the shock of the morning’s adventure. Both probably.

The next day they went together to see Mr Mackenzie, once Tom had deposited the Salisbury manuscript at the office. Some word of what had been happening in Salisbury must have reached old Ashley, the clerk with the corrugated forehead, because he actually expressed his pleasure at seeing Mr Ansell again and took personal charge of the manuscript. Tom wondered whether he would flick though its handwritten pages and be shocked by the contents, but Ashley was most likely beyond shock.

David Mackenzie too expressed his relief that Tom and Helen had returned unharmed.

‘I feel that I failed though,’ said Tom. ‘Our client is dead and the maunscript which I went to get was stolen.’

‘But the murderer has been found, and the manuscript recovered. And you have achieved one distinction which I think no lawyer in our office has yet managed.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘You have spent a night in gaol. You wrote to me about it.’

Tom had almost forgotten the letter. Looking back, his gaol experience seemed quite a minor event.

‘Tell me, Tom, did you have a chance to look inside it? The Salisbury manuscript.’

‘Just a glance.’

‘And?’

‘There were one or two encounters in it,’ said Tom uncomfortably, ‘which you would not want your servants to read – or the ladies for that matter.’

‘Tom!’ said Helen, clattering her cup into her saucer. ‘Never let me hear you say that again. I do not know about servants but whatever is fit for you to read is also fit for me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Tom.

‘Ah,’ said David Mackenzie, ‘my wife has heard from her good friend Mrs Scott that you are to be married, and I see that it’s true.’

‘How so, Mr Mackenzie?’ said Helen.

‘Only a couple who were married or were very close to it would talk to each other in that way.’

So, the Salisbury business appeared finally to be over. And was over, when the couple journeyed once again to that city on the plain for the inquest on Adam Eaves at the beginning of December. The gardener, who had been erroneously identified as the corpse found in the cathedral close, was found to have killed himself while the balance of his mind was disturbed. Conclusive proof of this was to be found in his female disguise.

Train suicides were not unknown. There had very recently been one off the Blackwater Viaduct in Truro. This case, though, was dramatic and tortuous enough not merely to fill the pages of the
Gazette
but to excite the interest of the national papers, whose reporters could scarcely make sense of all its twists and revisions as to who had killed whom, and why and when and how. Well, could you?

However, the young couple, who’d given evidence at the inquest during a brief visit at which they stayed at the house of a delighted Eric Selby and his quiet wife, were more interested in another newspaper feature in which they figured as protagonists. They did not make the headlines this time. In fact, they had had to pay (at the rate of sixpence per line) for another item – it was a smaller, more discreet item – in which was announced the imminent marriage of Mr Thomas Edward Ansell and Miss Helen Georgina Scott.