The Salisbury Manuscript

Mrs Banks’s House

It was Helen who came up with the idea that she and Tom should go off and see Mrs Banks, the sister of Andrew North, the sexton. From their conversation with Eric Selby, it was evident that North’s strange behaviour before his disappearance was being laid at Felix Slater’s door. There’d also been Selby’s mention of buried treasure and relics. This had gripped Helen’s imagination. She referred to it several times as the couple were walking through the close in search of the row of artisan cottages which lay tucked away out of sight of the cathedral and the grander houses. Tom thought of reminding Helen, again, that she wasn’t composing a melodramatic novel but in fact the words had pricked his curiosity too.

They found North’s dwelling in the middle of a neatly kept terrace. Here lived some of those who did manual work, both menial and skilled, in the cathedral and its precincts. Mrs Banks was a widowed woman who kept house for her brother and who, according to Selby, eked out a meagre income by taking in needlework. She had the look of a withered apple, red and wrinkled in the face. Once Helen had explained that they’d been directed there by Canon Selby, Mrs Banks’s attitude towards these well-dressed visitors shifted from wariness to welcome.

She invited them into a tiny parlour which doubled as a dining room. She apologized for the absence of a fire but it was early in the day and she was not expecting visitors. Tom and Helen were directed to sit on what was obviously her best bit of furniture, an old chaise, while Mrs Banks prepared the tea. Tom looked round. The room was spotless, the dining table polished like a mirror. By the sofa there were a few books on a shelf, more volumes than the Bible and a prayer book. Tom picked one up. He was slightly surprised to see that it was a history of Salisbury. Surprised that a cathedral sexton should possess such a thing. Yet who was to say that a man who earned his living with his hands shouldn’t also use his head? The book certainly belonged to the man for he had written his name in full — Andrew Herbert North — on the fly-leaf. The handwriting was neat and fluent, not that of an uneducated individual.

Hearing Mrs Banks returning, Tom quickly put the book back on the shelf. The sexton’s sister came into the parlour with a tray, on which was a teapot and china cups. She served Tom and Helen and perched on a wooden chair facing them. Tom explained that he was acting for the lawyers who had represented Canon Felix Slater. He implied that he was looking into the Canon’s affairs, which was true enough, and that they’d been told that Mrs Banks might be able to help them, particularly over the link between her brother and the Canon. Mrs Banks’s face wrinkled still further at the mention of Felix Slater — by now Tom was getting used to this response to Slater’s name — but she just about managed to express regret and horror over the terrible murder.

‘None of us have slept safe and sound in our beds since it happened,’ she said. ‘Mind you, I haven’t slept sound neither after my brother Andrew went off. It is over four weeks since he left here saying he was going for a walk, and he has never come back and I do not know that he ever will come back. I missed my husband Banks when he was gone but, truth be told, I miss my brother more.’

She was close to tears. Helen got up and put her arm round the older woman and produced a handkerchief. Mrs Banks put aside her teacup on the dining table. She dabbed at her eyes and then admired the stitching on the handkerchief while she composed herself and Helen sat down again next to Tom.

‘Thank you, my dear,’ she said, and then to Tom, ‘Forgive me, sir, but sometimes it is all too much to bear. Inspector Foster has been kind in his official way and says that he is still making enquiries about my brother, but in the next breath he will say that Andrew is a grown man and he cannot have come to much harm and no one bears a grudge against him and he is no one’s enemy and he will surely turn up one day and walk through that door there.’

She glanced towards the tiny hallway beyond the parlour, as if she expected her brother to appear at that instant. Once Mrs Banks had overcome her initial reserve, she started talking in long breathless stretches. Tom thought it was a relief for her to have sympathetic listeners.

‘Your brother was not in any kind of trouble?’ said Helen.

‘No, miss, he is an honest workman. Everyone speaks well of him.’

Tom said, ‘We have heard that Mr North used to do some work for Canon Slater.’

‘The Canon employed him to do odd jobs. Mrs Slater’s dog died not very long ago and Andrew dug a grave for him in the garden. But he did other things as well.’

‘Other things?’

‘Canon Slater is — no, he was, I should say the Canon was — a man who went digging and delving in the country around here. He was looking for old arty — arty somethings.’

‘Artefacts,’ prompted Tom.

‘That’s the word. Being a gentleman, Canon Slater didn’t do much of the digging and delving himself but got my brother to do it instead.’

‘What did they find?’ said Helen. ‘They must have found things.’

‘It didn’t look like much to me, miss, but then I expect the Canon took the best pieces for himself.’

‘So you saw items which your brother dug up,’ said Tom. ‘Maybe he showed them to you.’

‘I remember an evening, last spring it would have been, when Andrew came in like a blast of cold air, all high-coloured in the face and excited. He and Canon Slater had been out somewhere beyond the city and they had uncovered. .’

Mrs Banks hesitated. Helen, with her cup lifted halfway to her lips, smiled in encouragement. ‘Please tell us, Mrs Banks.’

‘. . an old grave or tomb, Andrew said. It seems awful to go disturbing people who’d been minding their own business underground for hundreds of years, but my brother said they weren’t people with flesh and feelings but no more than a pile of old bones and anyway he was used to dealing with dead bodies, wasn’t he? They didn’t mean much to him. Canon Slater would say a quick prayer over them and the two of them never carried anybody’s bones off but allowed the people to go on resting in peace, so it was all right.’

‘On this particular evening you said your brother showed you something?’ said Tom when Mrs Banks paused for breath.

‘It was a bracelet which he said was gold. It might have been, I don’t know, Mr Ansell. To me, it looked like a circle of muddy yellow, tarnished and dented. But Andrew said that when it was cleaned up, it would fetch a few quid.’

Mrs Banks’s free hand flew to her mouth, as if she’d said more than she intended. She added quickly, ‘I do not mean my brother was after money. It was more that he was trying to show me that he wasn’t wasting his time. In fact, it was the excitement of finding buried things which he really liked.’

Tom recalled the passion with which Canon Slater had spoken about the subject. The effect on Andrew North had obviously gone deep, becoming an obsession and even the ‘infection’ mentioned by Selby. But he trusted Mrs Banks’s view of her brother even if it was biased. There were simpler ways of making money than fossicking around old tomb sites with the distant expectation of coming across brooches and rings. Those who did such things must be motivated more by the excitement of the hunt rather than by any idea of profit.

‘Did your brother sell the bracelet?’ he said.

Mrs Banks answered more confidently. ‘I don’t believe so. It is probably still up in his room. I have not been to Andrew’s room since he — since he left — except to dust it and sweep it and air it. I would not dream of disturbing his things. He would be angry when he comes back.’

Once again, she looked towards the little hall with a forlorn expression.

‘Before Andrew. . disappeared. . did he give any indication of what he was doing?’ said Helen. ‘Still searching for hidden things, buried things?’

‘I dare say, miss. But if he was, he had stopped telling me about it. He knew I didn’t approve for all that Canon Slater said it was all right. Andrew turned a bit peculiar in the summer. He went off for long walks in the evening, after he’d done a full day’s work. He wouldn’t tell me where he was going but I think he was up to his old tricks because his clothes were sometimes dusty or muddy afterwards. He tried to pass it off as dirt from his ordinary work, but I knew better. The clothes had a fusty smell, not like you get from fresh, honest-turned soil. And he smelled of drink sometimes.’

‘Perhaps he was out getting oiled with some of his fellows,’ said Tom.

‘My brother did not get “oiled”, as you put it, Mr Ansell, with anyone. He preferred to drink by himself. He had a little flask containing brandy.’

There was an awkward silence after Tom was put in his place over the ‘oiled’ remark, before Helen said, ‘Was Canon Slater with him when he went out on these summer evenings?’

‘I do not think so, miss. My brother turned in on him-self and got impatient with the company of others, not that he’d ever been much of a one for company in the first place. Andrew made one or two remarks about Canon Slater which seemed to say the two weren’t as friendly any more. Andrew spent time poring over old books too — he was always a good reader, unlike me. In the old days, he used to read the Bible. He could recite it off by heart. But lately he has not seem so bothered with the scriptures. Instead he has been taken up by big books with maps and such inside. I came in here once to see him with a great volume open on his knees, his nose as close to it as if his life depended on it. He was making notes, always the methodical man. He glared at me so I left.’

‘Did you have a glance at the book?’

‘Like I say, it was maps and writing together on one page, but I could not see clearly.’

‘Where would he get such a book?’ said Helen.

‘There are books in the cathedral,’ said Mrs Banks, as if the question was a surprising one. ‘There is a whole library of old books in the cathedral somewhere.’

And there are old books in Felix Slater’s study, thought Tom. Perhaps North had borrowed from the Canon — or stolen — some volume which might lead him to more tombs and artefacts.

There seemed to be little more that Mrs Banks could tell them. Tom and Helen might have asked to look at North’s bedroom but, if the sexton’s sister was reluctant to do more than sweep in there, she certainly wouldn’t have allowed strangers to poke around the place.

Mrs Banks handed the handkerchief back to Helen, who said, ‘Thank you for seeing us, Mrs Banks. By the way, you said that your brother and Canon Slater had been somewhere near the city when they discovered a burial place. Do you know what direction it was in? North of here? South?’

‘I can’t tell you exactly where that was, miss. But I do know where Andrew was going more recently, at the end of the summer. He let it slip. It’s Todd’s Mound, outside the city.’

‘Did you tell the police?’ said Tom

‘Inspector Foster said he would send one of his men to look round up there, but I do not know whether he was speaking just to soothe me.’

‘We’ll have a look,’ said Helen, ‘and we will tell you what we have found. Even if it is nothing.’

‘Oh, I hope it is nothing,’ said Mrs Banks, tears forming afresh in her eyes. ‘I hope it is nothing!’