Philip Gooden - The Salisbury Manuscript

But Seth Fawkes did not turn up, alive or dead. He had not returned to Northwood House nor was he discovered in some ditch outside the town. And Tom was happy to leave the matter there. Privately, it was his belief — no, his conviction — that Seth had battled to the death with Adam, and then managed to escape from the spire. Either by somehow hiding himself in the shadows of the viewing platform even as the police were out there or, more daringly, by climbing round to one of the other faces of the tower. It could be done. There was that story of the sailor who’d climbed to the very top and performed a handstand. All one needed was the steadiest of hands and nerves, and great foolhardiness — or despair.

Other aspects of the Salisbury business had come to a slightly happier conclusion. Walter Slater had emerged again, now cleared of any suspicion of the death of his uncle or father, whichever of the two Slater brothers was credited with whichever role. (The true facts of his parentage remained a secret.) The curate had never returned to Venn House that night, despite his assurances to Canon Eric Selby, but gone back to the shelter of St Luke’s and the ringing room.

The poor young man was badly shaken and his whole life turned upside down. But he was being comforted by Miss Nugent, and in time might reconcile himself with his mother, Amelia Slater. He would inherit the Northwood estate once the legal process was complete — was due to inherit it anyway, regardless of who exactly his father had been — but Elizabeth, Percy’s wife, had the right to dwell there in her lifetime if she chose. Mrs Slater, informed of Percy’s death, was imminently expected from London for the funerals of her husband and her brother-in-law. Her attitude to his death was not known though, given the estranged nature of the lives they’d been leading, she would perhaps not be too distressed.

But in the meantime Walter, perhaps to distract himself from the tragic tangle of recent events, had absented himself officially from his clerical duties and gone with Miss Nugent to busy himself at Northwood. He had made clear his intention to put the place in order, had taken on fresh help from the town of Downton as well as a neighbouring village to start setting the house and grounds to rights. The aged Nan would be left as she was, to live out her days at Northwood dowager-style. It was an open question whether Walter Slater would return to the Church, or whether he might combine his vocation with that of a landed gent. Too early to say yet.

So Tom Ansell and Helen Scott made their goodbyes to Inspector Foster on the up platform of Salisbury station. The train was waiting its moment to depart on time, puffing smuts of smoke into the grey light of the November morning. Tom could see the cathedral spire above the station buildings, seemingly much closer than it really was. Strange to think that he had lately been witness to a life-and-death struggle up there. And it was at this very station that he had glimpsed the earlier tussle between Seth and Adam Fawkes on the fog-bound evening of his arrival.

Inspector Foster was saying something and he had missed it.

‘Sorry?’ he said.

‘The Inspector was wishing us a happy future together,’ said Helen.

Perhaps noticing the look on Tom’s face, Foster said, ‘I hope I have not spoken out of turn, but I am right in thinking that. . ’

‘Someone has yet to ask the question,’ said Helen.

‘And someone else has yet to make the reply when the question is asked,’ said Tom.

And so they boarded the train.

I suppose it is possible that Tom Ansell might have proposed to Helen Scott there and then on the train, since he had already been frustrated or intercepted in his intention on two or three occasions and had almost given up the search for the propitious moment. The compartment floor was a little dusty and greasy but he might have crouched down in a gingerly fashion rather than kneeling properly, and asked her for her hand. He might have proposed like that and she would almost certainly have accepted, if they had had the compartment to themselves.

But they were not to be alone. At the last instant, as the train was about to pull out of the station, the door was opened and an oldish lady was almost pushed inside by a porter who deposited a capacious bag immediately afterwards on the floor of the compartment. She was wearing a large hat which would have flown off with the speed of her arrival, had she not clasped it to her head with a black-gloved hand. Tom, who was sitting on the other side of the compartment with Helen opposite him, stood up and hoisted the lady’s bag on to the rack above her head. She thanked him, sotto voce , and then, without more than the swiftest glance at the young couple, produced a small, serious book from somewhere in her voluminous dress and proceeded to study it as intently as if it were the Bible or a devotional volume.

Tom was disappointed. He’d hoped to be alone with Helen. Even if he wasn’t to propose to her, they might have enjoyed chatting about the events in Salisbury and talking about what the Inspector had told them. But it did not seem appropriate to discuss their part in an exciting drama when there was company. He remembered that when he’d been travelling down to Salisbury, his compartment had been occupied by an old lady whom he’d also helped with her luggage. Was this the same one? He did not think so, but there was a symmetry to this absolutely meaningless coincidence.

Tom settled himself into the seat next to the window and smiled at Helen. Prepared for the train journey, she already had a book to hand. It was titled, Tom could see, The Shame of Mrs Prendergast . Another sensation novel, no doubt, to judge by its title and enticing cover, which showed a woman with a low-cut dress and necklace of pearls glancing in apprehension over her shoulder at a man who stood in the doorway to her room. For himself, Tom had nothing to read apart from Baxter’s On Tort , which he had considered discarding in The Side of Beef in Salisbury for Jenkins to ponder over but which some last-minute scruple had caused him to pack after all. There was also the Salisbury manuscript in his case, which he would certainly not have got out and opened in a railway carriage. So he had to content himself with looking out of the window at the bare, wintry landscape of the plain.

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.