The Salisbury Manuscript

The Study

For a second time, Tom Ansell arrived at the gate in the fine brick wall which fronted Venn House. He peered at the plaque which announced the house. He reached out. The latch felt clammy, even through his gloved hand. In any case the gate was already unfastened. It was as well that he’d first visited the Slaters’ place by day, since he doubted he’d have been able to find it on so dark and fogshrouded a night. Not that he was the only person out and about. A couple of shapes had passed him in West Walk, moving rapidly in the opposite direction and veering to avoid him in the murk.

He walked up the garden path between the yew trees. A diffuse light came from two or three windows at the front of the house. If he’d thought about it, it might have struck him as odd that the curtains or shutters hadn’t been closed against such a dank, inhospitable evening. But the first suspicion that something was wrong didn’t occur to Tom until he reached the front door to Venn House. The door, like the gate, wasn’t shut fast but was slightly ajar. He pushed the door open. Gas lights were burning in the lobby and in the hall and passage which stretched ahead to the interior of the house.

Tom paused in the lobby. Tendrils of mist floated in behind him. He closed the door. He listened. There was no sound. The distant smell of supper reminded him that he was hungry.

‘Hello,’ he said, tentatively, and then repeated himself more loudly.

No reply.

Where were the housemaids? Or his hosts, Canon and Mrs Slater? Or their nephew, Walter?

He walked into the hall and paused again, uncertain. There was no noise except for the methodical ticking of the longcase clock. He glanced to his left. The table in the dining room was laid for a meal. It was a relief to see that he was expected. Tom examined the ornamental ferns in the cabinet against the wall. He waited for someone, for anyone, to appear and acknowledge his presence. Someone to welcome him, take his coat, and usher him into the warmth of the house.

But no one came.

The last time he’d been here the talk was of various breakins at the houses in the cathedral close. Was that what had happened tonight? Was there a thief still in the house? If there was, then Tom had alerted him by calling out.

He looked around for something with which to defend himself. He went back into the lobby. There were walking sticks and umbrellas in a castiron stand. He chose a walking stick with a thick, bulbous handle. Holding it at the tapered end, and feeling faintly foolish, he made his way back down the passage. The smell of roasting meat from the kitchen area grew stronger but there was no clatter of pans. Tom moved quietly, senses alert, the walking stick held up like a club. He half expected to see a dark figure dart out of one of the rooms. Unless the thief — or thieves — had already made their escape. Those two shapes he’d glimpsed in the West Walk? Except, thinking back now, he had the impression that the shapes had been female.

He reached the door of Slater’s study. Unlike the other doors, this one was closed. Tom tapped on it, without result. By this stage he did not expect an answer. Some instinct told him that, if the house was occupied, then the intruder should be found in here. He twisted the knob and felt the door give a fraction. Not locked. Without giving himself time to hesitate, Tom swept the door open and almost leapt into the room, holding the walking stick high above his head and with his nerves so on edge that he would have brought it down on the skull of anyone standing in his path.

But the Canon’s study was as empty as everywhere else in Venn House.

It lay in darkness apart from a gas lamp burning on the nearest wall, the one on which were displayed those dark and violent pictures. Underneath them was the old chest which contained the memoirs of old George Slater and other papers. Which had contained them. The chest was open and its lid flung back against the wall. There was nothing remaining inside it. Felix Slater might have emptied it of its contents, in preparation for handing to Tom the Salisbury manuscript.

But Tom Ansell did not think Felix had emptied the chest. Something smelled wrong.

He cast his eyes round the study. The glass in the display cases containing what Canon Slater had called his ‘old artefacts’ glinted in the light from the single gas lamp. The shadows deepened on the far side of the room where large windows gave on to the foggy darkness of the garden and river. For the first time Tom’s attention was caught by the fact that the curtains had not been drawn in here either. The surface of Slater’s desk looked untidy and now Tom observed books and paper on the floor around the desk. Not just that. There was a strange item which Tom couldn’t identify in the centre of the desk, a kind of large ball or orb with a handle sticking up from it.

He moved closer to the desk, his heart thudding away. When he saw what the ball was, his gorge rose and he turned away, feeling sick and breathless.

He took several deep breaths and steeled himself to examine the sight more closely. Felix Slater was sitting at his desk. His head was slumped forward and resting among the pens and ink-holders so that the only part of him visible from a distance was the bare crown of his scalp, like a giant billiard ball.

Tom moved nearer still. In order to see the handle-like object which protruded from the back of Slater’s neck, he had to bend forward. Canon Slater had been killed with a flint spearhead, perhaps one of those in the display cases. It had been driven forcefully into the nape of his neck. Blood had flowed down on either side of his head and formed a dark pool on the surface of the desk. His hands were splayed out on either side, as if he were prostrating himself in prayer. Tom was thankful he couldn’t see the Canon’s expression since the man was face downwards. He must have been taken by surprise, sitting at his desk. Whoever killed him had taken the contents of the chest.

Removing his gloves and transferring the walking stick to his left hand, Tom reached out to touch the polished stone implement before thinking better of it. He should not tamper with the scene of a violent crime. Alarm suddenly replaced queasiness as he realized that whoever had done away with Felix Slater might still be inside the house. Inside the house or outside it and nearby. He was conscious of the darkness and fog pressing against the thin glass panes behind his back. Where was Mrs Slater? Or Walter? The household servants? The dreadful idea that there might have been more killing, that there were other bodies in Venn House apart from Felix’s, seized hold of Tom.

He darted back to the centre of the study, his eyes scanning the ranks of books, the pictures whose violence had been mirrored in reality, the glass cases containing what now appeared to him to be so many implements for murder. There was nothing for him here. Tom was almost out of the door, on his way to summon help, when he froze.

There were footsteps coming down the hall towards the rear of the house. Feet moving hesitantly, as if their owner didn’t know his way — or didn’t want to be heard.

Tom was still holding the walking stick which he’d taken from the lobby. He gripped the narrow end, holding it up like a golf club. By the single light on the wall, he glimpsed his white knuckles. By now he had blood on the back of his hands too, Felix Slater’s blood.

A shadow fell across the doorway. A man whom Tom had never seen in his life planted himself on the threshold of the study. He cast his eyes up and down Tom, hardly seeming to register the stick which the other had raised to head height. He looked in the direction of the desk across which Canon Slater lay slumped. The man, who was thickset and wearing a raincape, nodded his head as if in answer to an unspoken question and folded his arms across his chest. He stood blocking the way out. There was someone else standing to one side of the doorway, Tom could see another shadow.

For a time neither man moved, then the individual in the doorway said, ‘Put that stick down, there’s a good fellow.’

Tom was ushered out of Canon Slater’s study by Inspector Foster and Constable Chesney, although at that stage he knew neither of the policemen by name. Foster had relieved him of the walking stick, deftly slipping it from Tom’s hand and grasping it in his own.

They walked down the hall towards the lobby. In the lobby and around the covered porch, there was a cluster of people. Tom recognised all of them, even in his confused and distracted state. It was as if almost everyone he’d met since arriving in Salisbury two evenings ago had been gathered together to witness his capture and disgrace.

There was Amelia Slater and her nephew Walter, together with several of the household servants, including the girl whom Slater had rebuked for having a crooked collar and Eaves the gardener. All of these might have been expected to be on the scene. But there were others whose presence was more surprising and whom Tom noted, half unawares. There was Canon Eric Selby, wearing his shovel-hat. There was Percy Slater, his ruddy face looking pale in the swirling mist. Near Percy was the odd coachmancum-factotum, whose name Tom couldn’t recall in the stress of the moment. And, oddest of all, there was Henry Cathcart, the old friend to Tom’s father. What was he doing here?

No one spoke a word. They either looked at the ground or fastened their eyes on him in a manner that was both frightened and accusatory, so that Tom wanted to say, ‘I didn’t do this thing! It is a terrible mistake.’

But no one spoke and so he kept silent too.

Even though they were now outside, in the cold and misty night, Tom felt intolerably hot. His face was burning. He was suddenly conscious of the bloodstains on his hands and wanted to hide his hands in his pockets but he kept them stiff by his sides. He felt a nudge at his back.

‘That way, if you please, sir. Down the path.’

Tom walked between the dripping yew trees. He was in the lead, with Inspector Foster and Constable Chesney behind him. Tom heard an outbreak of comment and whispers from the onlookers. He might have made a break for it, might have run through the gate, but the thought was dismissed as soon as it occurred. Just as well since there was a second constable stationed outside the gate of Venn House.

They moved off together, a foursome, going up West Walk. Foster walked at a steady pace beside Tom with the two constables in close attendance. He was still holding the walking stick. Tom had no idea where they were going or, rather, he struggled to suppress the idea which he did have.

‘No carriage, I’m afraid, sir,’ said Inspector Foster, ‘but it’s not too far and if we walk briskly we will soon forget about the cold. Follow my lead now, Mr Ansell, we don’t want you going astray on a nasty night like this.’

The person who had murdered Canon Felix Slater watched as Tom Ansell walked down the garden path with the three policemen following at his heels, the Inspector grasping a walking stick. The young man looked stunned, as well he might. By the light of the lobby, the murderer had observed Tom’s bloody hands held rigidly at his sides. Caught red-handed, the murderer thought. The poor fellow must have come too close to Felix’s body and accidentally got his hands dirty. Almost involuntarily, the murderer whispered Tom’s name after he’d passed by and added for good measure, ‘He did it!’

Despite these signs of guilt, Felix Slater’s killer did not believe that Ansell would be detained long by the Salisbury constabulary. It would soon emerge that the lawyer had arrived at Venn House after the killing. The Inspector would question him and let him go.

But that would all take time. Time which the murderer could put to good use.