The Salisbury Manuscript

The Side of Beef

When he changed trains at Woking, Thomas Ansell noticed that the gas lamps in the second-class compartment had recently been lit. As the train began to move, the mantles glowed orange then white and the smell of the lamps mingled with the engine-smoke that somehow penetrated even though the window was shut fast. An old woman was sitting across from him. She was reading the Woman’s Journal. Thomas Ansell had hardly glanced at his book until then but he took it up now only to find he didn’t want to concentrate. Instead he gazed out of the smeared glass at the lowering sky and the bare ridge of the horizon. Despite the fug of the compartment, he hunched his shoulders and almost shivered.

He had the compartment to himself after Andover. As they drew into the station the woman opposite glanced up at the heavy case over her head. He hefted it down from the rack and stepped out after her to place it on the platform. They hadn’t spoken on the short journey. In fact he’d taken in no more than a round face and a maternal smile. She thanked him and then said some words that sounded like ‘Good luck.’ Aware of the train puffing impatiently at his back, Ansell might nevertheless have asked the woman why he needed luck but her attention was taken by a porter who took her case. He climbed back into the carriage, unsettled by her parting remark. Perhaps she’d noticed that half-shiver. Perhaps he’d mis-heard her.

The train sidled along and the gloom turned thicker. Tom Ansell abandoned the attempt to read and tucked his book into a coat pocket. At once the train jerked forward and then, seeming to fall back on itself, came to a juddering halt. There was a ledge of paler sky to the west but even as Tom looked it went out with the swiftness of a shutter. Darkness rushed at the carriage from all sides. He listened for sounds from the other compartments but there was no noise apart from the groaning and creaking of the rolling stock and the malevolent hiss of the gas-lamps.

He brought his face closer to the glass. There were deep shadows under his eyes. Helen had told him that he was looking tired when he’d said goodbye to her earlier that day.

‘You must take care of yourself,’ she said, putting out her hand and stroking his cheek. ‘You will write to me.’

‘You speak as though I’m going off on some dangerous adventure for months at a time,’ he said, rather wishing that that was what he was doing. Setting off on an enterprise which had a smack of danger. But a lawyer does not do that kind of thing. There are no shipwrecks or undiscovered tribes among dusty files and volumes full of precedents.

But, sitting in the railway carriage as night came down, Tom Ansell experienced exactly that, a presentiment of danger. He might have rapped on the wall of the compartment for the comfort of some response from the other side, assuming there was anyone there, but the fear of appearing foolish — more in his own eyes than another’s — prevented him. Instead he made an effort to get into his book but it did not engage him. His eyes kept flicking towards the smeared reflection in the window. He imagined himself as Helen must see him. Dark-haired, long-faced, a little serious perhaps.

‘You must take care of yourself,’ she’d said again that morning, as he took the hand which had touched his cheek.

‘Oh, I will. And when I come back I’ll have something to ask you.’

‘Don’t be so coy, Thomas Ansell. Surely you can say it now?’

She wasn’t being serious, he could see by the mischievous twitch to her mouth.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I won’t ask now. It demands a more. . propitious moment. The evening, and a certain dimness and glow which will suit the occasion. The conversation.’

‘Very well. Though, if you want to spare my blushes, it’s dim enough now.’

She withdrew her hand from his and went to stand by the window. It was drizzling and the grey sky seemed to be fixed a few yards above the roofs opposite. A man and a woman came out of a house on the other side of Athelstan Road. The man urged the woman to shelter under his wide umbrella and they walked off together.

‘Is that an image of married life, do you suppose?’ said Helen, beckoning Tom to join her by the window.

‘How he walks on the outside to protect her from any splashes, even though there’s not much traffic here, how he raises the umbrella so that the woman shall be completely covered,’ said Tom. ‘Yes, it could be an image.’

‘But perhaps she doesn’t want to be sheltered, perhaps she would like to feel the rain on her face,’ said Helen. ‘And I know for certain that though the woman is Mrs Montgomery that is not Mr Montgomery. He always leaves early in the morning to go to his work in the City. Besides, he is stouter and older than the man who is escorting Mrs Montgomery now. Today is Wednesday and every Wednesday it is the same. The gentleman you’ve just seen arrives at her door and the pair of them set off together for. . who knows what or where? They always return at about the same time, in the early afternoon. What have they been up to?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘And no interest in speculating about our neighbours? I can see that I’ve surprised you, Tom, and there you were thinking this was such a — such a salubrious area.’

‘You don’t spy on your neighbours, Helen?’

‘I do not set out to spy on them but I can’t prevent the servants telling me things and then, by chance, seeing them for myself. Besides it’s my duty to be curious.’

‘That couple must be innocent, surely? They wouldn’t appear so openly if there was anything to hide.’

‘What better way of diverting suspicion than by appearing openly?’ said Helen.

‘Well, it’s all grist to your mill,’ said Tom. ‘You can incorporate it into your writing. As you say, you almost have a duty to be curious.’

‘Ssh,’ said Helen, raising her finger to her lips. She blushed and Tom was pleased to see her lose her self-possession for a moment. ‘Do not mention that again or I shall regret revealing it you.’

Some time ago Helen had let slip that she was writing what she called a ‘sensation’ novel, involving an heiress who was cheated by a villain out of her property and abandoned by her husband-to-be and who was compelled to go to extreme lengths to recover both it and him. Tom was intrigued by this. He wondered just what the ‘extreme lengths’ would be. Yet every time he referred to the novel, Helen looked uncomfortable. In particular she did not want her mother to know what she was doing. Mrs Scott was a formidable woman, a bit dragonish. Tom could not work out how such a ferocious-looking lady was the parent of a girl like Helen. Now he said, ‘So what does your mother think that you are doing up in your room when you’re scribbling away?’

'Scribbling!’

‘Composing then. Writing. But what does she think you’re up to?’

‘Reading, or polishing up my French, or doing embroidery or something like that, I expect. But never writing. Tom, you are on no account to breathe a word to her.’

‘When will she know then?’

‘When I am published in three volumes and as famous as Mrs Braddon. Then my mother can know.’

‘Surely she ought to be aware she’s harbouring a genius under her roof?’

‘The time is not right, Tom, just as it isn’t right for. . whatever it was you wanted to say to me. The conversation.’

He was tempted to tease her some more but seeing her expression he relented and delivered some guff about sealed lips, and in reward she stretched up and put her lips to his. He drew her closer. She was soft and her breath was sweet. But they were both aware of the door, not quite closed, and the probable nearness of servants, to say nothing of Mrs Scott herself. Besides, it was a grey morning with the drizzle coming down on Athelstan Avenue and the rest of Highbury, and Tom had to be on his way to Waterloo and before that he had to visit the office in Furnival Street to pick up some papers. So he broke away and promised to call again as soon as he’d returned to town.

Now, sitting in the train compartment, he thought of Helen in her room, scribbling (or rather composing) in solitude. He was almost sorry he’d teased her that morning. He resolved to take her more seriously. The train began to shuffle forward again and then picked up speed. Tom abandoned his book altogether, put it in his coat pocket and put his thoughts of Helen to one side too, in order to concentrate instead on his forthcoming business in Salisbury. ‘A strange business,’ David Mackenzie had called it, one requiring ‘tact and discretion’. Well, he’d see about that. Tom did not think he lacked for tact and discretion.

Fairly soon the train slowed once more and the wheels clacked over points. Looking out, Tom saw a platform gliding slowly past before coming to a complete halt. Fogshrouded lamps were burning overhead. If it hadn’t been that his compartment stopped almost opposite the sign announcing Salisbury with, in smaller lettering below, Fisherton he might have doubted where he was.

Tom Ansell hoisted his case from the rack and stepped on to the platform. It was the end of the line or, rather, anyone wishing to go further westwards had to change both trains and railway companies on account of the different gauges. Only a few people got out. A trio of porters had positioned themselves at the point where the first-class carriages drew up but none approached Tom, probably seeing that he was a youngish man and not carrying much luggage. Tom put down his suitcase and intercepted one of them. He asked whether it was far to the Poultry Cross. His inn was near the Poultry Cross, he’d been told. The porter said rapidly, ‘Half a mile at least, sir,’ before scurrying off to help a small elderly gentleman in a shovel-hat.

After the best part of two hours in stuffy train compartments, Tom felt his head needed clearing and would usually have chosen to walk such a short distance. But he had no idea of the layout of the city or the direction of the centre where, he presumed, the cathedral close must be. Nor, if he was being cautious, was it a very sensible notion to set off on foot during the dark and fog in a strange town in the region of a railway station, since stations were rarely built in what Helen might have called the salubrious area of a town.

He looked up and down the platform. Wisps of fog eddied under the glass roof. The platform opposite looked as distant as a foreign shore. No one lingered in the open. The windows of the waiting room and the refreshment room were fugged over. Porters and passengers were making for the ticket hall and the exit. There would be cabs outside the station to collect elderly gents and respectable matrons. Tom bent to pick up his case and noticed that the strap securing it had come undone. He crouched down and discovered that the strap had broken. It must have caught on the rack or the foot-plate. The strap was necessary because the lock was broken and the lock was broken because the case was old and battered. Good quality hide, it had belonged to his father and been made to last by Barrets, but it was showing its age now. His father had been dead many years.

Tom improvised a knot to the strap in place of the useless buckle. As he was crouching on the platform, there was a roar at his back and a flare of light and heat while the monstrous engine trundled past him, reversing out of the station. Tom straightened up and blinked as the smoke from the locomotive mingled with the fog.

When he looked around again he saw that he was alone on the platform.

Well, not quite alone. About twenty yards away, as far as he could see before the fog became an impenetrable curtain, a figure suddenly materialized from an unlighted area of the station buildings and rushed to the edge of the platform. Tom thought that it was about to throw itself off the edge but the figure — no more than a black silhouette — halted just before, seeming to teeter there like a suicide on the brink of a cliff. Tom opened his mouth to call out but something prevented him. He did not want to draw attention to his presence. He glanced in the opposite direction, down the line. The train was still puffing on its backward course. And, at once, Tom realized how absurd was the notion that this individual was about to commit suicide since you’d hardly throw yourself into the path of a train which was retreating from you. Nevertheless, he wished one of the station workers would appear and take charge of matters. If there were any matters to take charge of.

He glanced again at the black shape and the skin on his scalp begin to crawl as a second figure detached itself from the station offices and started a diagonal approach towards the person who was at the platform’s edge. This one didn’t rush but nor did he move normally. There was a creeping quality to his walking like that of a stage villain. No more than half a dozen paces separated the buildings from where the silhouette stood but it seemed to take an age for the second individual to cross this space. His arms were stretched out in front of him as if he were feeling his way in the gloom — or as if he were about to give a final push to the first man teetering on the brink. This time Tom did manage to call out. Afterwards he wasn’t sure exactly what he said. It might have been nothing more than a cry or a fog-strangled yelp. But it was enough.

The creeping figure stopped and turned his head in Tom’s direction. The silhouetted man already on the brink also swivelled sharply to his right and then looked over his shoulder. The movement was sufficient to unbalance him and, with a wild swirl of his arms, he toppled sideways on to the track. Now Tom sensed a movement behind him, a uniformed employee coming out of the ticket hall. Calling out, ‘A man’s fallen on the line!’ he ran to the spot. As he did so he was aware of the second figure, the one who’d been approaching slantwise, shrinking back into the darkness of the buildings.

When he reached the place where the man had plunged off the platform Tom looked down, expecting to see a blackclad figure lying on the track, injured, perhaps unconscious or even dead. But there was no one there, no one lying on or between the rails which glinted dully in the light.

‘What is the trouble, sir?’

‘I saw a man fall on to the line here.’

The railwayman adjusted his cap and came to stand next to Tom. Together they peered down as if a more careful scrutiny might reveal what hadn’t been apparent at first glance.

‘A man on the line?’

‘Yes, down there.’

‘You are sure now, sir?’

The porter, a lugubrious-looking fellow whose face expressed a natural scepticism before he’d even uttered a word, was standing close to Tom. He was only an inch or so less tall than the lawyer. He sniffed the air. Tom wondered if he was sniffing for drink.

‘Of course I’m sure,’ he said. ‘I know what I saw.’

Tom spoke more sharply than he’d intended. He heard the tension in his voice and realized how much the incident had shaken him. The porter said, ‘Well, whatever happened, there’s no damage done, that’s plain. The person you saw must’ve upped and scarpered.’

‘He wasn’t alone, the man who fell, there was someone else on this part of the platform.’

‘Someone. . else?’ said the other, drawing out the words. ‘This is a public place, sir. There is generally someone else.’

‘But this one was about to. .’ Tom paused. He was getting nowhere. Gesturing at the closed doors and shuttered windows, he said, ‘What offices are these behind us?’

‘Storerooms and the like.’

Tom had no authority to request a search of the rooms. No crime had been committed. The worst that had occurred was a minor accident, a man falling from the station platform but sufficiently unharmed to scramble up and disappear from the scene within a few seconds. And even that simple sequence of events was not credited by the railwayman.

‘Will that be all, sir?’ said the porter, scarcely bothering to conceal his impatience.

‘Thank you,’ said Tom. ‘I am sorry to have troubled you.’

‘No trouble is too great for an employee of the London and South Western line,’ said the man, though without sounding as if he believed a word of it.

Tom Ansell walked back to where his case stood, forlorn on the platform, with the improvised repair to its strap. He picked it up and went through the ticket hall. The entire business on the platform had scarcely occupied more than a couple of minutes. Some of the individuals who’d disembarked from the London train were still milling outside by a diminished line of cabs and carriages, even a cart or two (for this was the country). Among them was the porter he’d first spoken to, who was about to assist the elderly gentleman in the shovel-hat to climb into a cab, the last in the line.

This passenger was fumbling in his coat to tip the porter before boarding but as he drew out his purse a shower of coins tumbled on to the ground. The man looked around helplessly while the porter crouched to scoop them up. The cabman surveyed the scene from his perch behind his vehicle but did not get down to assist. Tom, who was standing closest, groped for a couple of sovereigns which had rolled by his feet. He retrieved the book which had fallen from his own coat pocket as he was stooping and pressed the coins into the outstretched palm of the aged passenger, who was wearing a dog collar under a loosely tied muffler. The clergyman said, ‘Thank you, thank you.’

The porter meanwhile had completed his task of gathering up the rest of the coins which he handed back to the cleric with a rather ostentatious flourish, as if to demonstrate his honesty in returning every bit of scattered money. In return the cab passenger gave the porter a large enough tip for the man to touch his cap with a soldier’s smartness. Noticing Tom and wanting to do the world a favour, the porter now said, ‘This gentleman wants to go in the direction of the close too, I believe, sir. The Poultry Cross.’

‘Then he should share my cab,’ said the cleric.

‘I would be grateful,’ said Tom.

‘I told him it wasn’t a night for walking,’ said the porter, who’d said no such thing. Tom clambered in after the older man, and the porter stowed his case and the clergyman’s bags. He closed the small double doors, which protected the travellers’ lower limbs, at the same time calling to the cabman, ‘The cathedral close, Alfred.’

The driver waited until the vehicle in front had drawn off before he rattled the reins and the cab creaked and swayed away from the lights of the railway station. The inside space was limited and even though Tom’s companion was thin and small-boned with age, they were pressed together by the motion of the cab. They were surrounded by wet fog, interrupted by the occasional smudge of light from an uncurtained window. Even the clopping of the horse’s hooves seemed muffled by the dankness. The animal must have known his route by instinct.

‘Something is amiss?’ said the old clergyman, tapping Tom Ansell on the arm. Tom was surprised at the familiarity of the gesture and only just prevented himself from giving a start. Then he realized how his posture must be giving him away. His coat was unbuttoned and he was gripping his knees tightly. His back was rigid.

‘Surely a young man like you — a lawyer from London — doesn’t fear a spill from a provincial carriage? You can relax.’

‘No, there is nothing wrong, sir. It’s merely that I saw something which. . disturbed me on the station platform.’

As he said these last words, the scene flashed before his eyes again: the silhouette at the platform’s edge, the other man sneaking up to push him over. Then his mind caught up with his companion’s ‘lawyer’ comment. He turned to look at the individual beside him in the backwash from the carriage lights. Apart from a clean-shaven roundness to the elderly cleric’s face, Tom couldn’t make out much between the brim of the shovel-hat and the muffler. What he’d glimpsed moments earlier by the cab rank might have suggested a rather unworldly figure, an impression strengthened by his helplessness over the dropped money. But the impression was evidently wrong.

Without waiting to be asked how he knew about Tom’s line of work, the cleric now said, ‘Forgive me, I know it is impolite of me to claim a profession for you when we haven’t even been introduced. I am Canon Eric Selby.’

‘Thomas Ansell. And, yes, I plead guilty to being a lawyer. Is it so obvious?’

‘Well, I could say that there are not so many professions open to an educated young man who must earn his living. There is the Church. . ‘business’ perhaps. . the army. . the law. I might claim, without offence I hope, that you don’t appear to be cut from the same cloth which makes a clergyman. As for ‘business’, I think not. Nor do you have a soldier’s bearing. Which more or less leaves us with the law. But, my dear sir, the conclusive proof is that I noticed you clutching a copy of Baxter’s On Tort when you were kind enough to pick up my scattered money just now. No sane man would read Baxter for pleasure.’

This was the book which had so comprehensively failed to capture Tom’s interest on the journey. He could feel the bulk of the thing in his coat-pocket. He laughed and said, ‘I should have packed some other reading matter for the train. On Tort is not very diverting at the best of times. You’re obviously familiar with it, Canon Selby.’

‘I had a friend who swore by it. Indeed I considered the law myself for a brief time before plumping for the Church,’ said the other. ‘Just as you considered the army, Mr Ansell.’

This time Tom really did start. He said nothing but waited for the cleric to explain himself. Did this man have second sight?

‘No miracle, sir,’ said Canon Selby, not trying to keep the pleasure at the success of his deductions out of his voice. ‘When I mentioned the army as a possible profession you gave a slight sigh and pulled away, which told me that the subject had. . crossed your mind in some way. Not a very favourable way, perhaps.’

‘Then I must be more careful of my sighs,’ said Tom, feeling slightly put out and thinking how absurd it was to be having this conversation — given the oddly intimate turn it was taking — with an elderly cleric while driving in a cab through a fog-bound and unfamiliar town. ‘You are right though. I did consider the army as a career.’

‘I knew it!’ said Canon Selby. He spoke with such delight that it was impossible to feel irritated with him.

Tom said, ‘You are a loss to my profession, sir. No one in a court of law would have a chance against you.’

‘If you’ve been listening to people for as long as I have, Mr Ansell, you learn that what is said in words is only the half of it, less than half indeed. One looks at the little movements we all make, one listens for the suppressed sighs and unexpected stresses underlying the words. Now tell me what happened on the Salisbury station platform which so disturbed you.’

There was something in the man’s voice and manner which encouraged trust so Tom gave an account of what he’d witnessed. It didn’t take long. To his surprise, Canon Selby accepted his story straightaway.

‘You say that the railwayman didn’t believe you?’

‘From his attitude, no. He probably thought I’d been drinking or that the fog was making me see things.’

‘It might be worth reporting this to the authorities,’ said the cleric. ‘The police are not up to very much in this place but there is at least one good man in the force. Inspector Foster can be relied on.’

‘I am not sure there’s anything to be reported,’ said Tom. ‘No harm has been done. There was no sign of a body on the tracks — or of any assailant either.’

‘Well then, it might be better to leave it, I suppose. But remember Foster is the man to go to.’

As they’d been talking the cab had entered a more densely populated area of the town. There were passers-by, singly or in muffled groups, shifting shapes in the fog, as well as other carriages. There were glimpses of shop-fronts and chop houses and inns.

‘You are going to the Poultry Cross?’ said Canon Selby.

‘To an inn nearby. The Side of Beef, it’s called.’

‘One of the town’s oldest hostelries. We have had an establishment called The Haunch of Venison since medieval times and the common belief is that The Side of Beef was set up in opposition to it by a disgruntled pot-man from the Haunch. Jenkins is the proprietor now. He chatters away. Well, we are all but there.’

The old man rapped on the side of the cab and they slowed. As if on cue, an inn sign proclaimed itself as The Side of Beef in light thrown from the parlour window.

‘I will not ask you your business here, Mr Ansell, but perhaps we shall meet again. Salisbury is not a large place.’

Tom was about to say that he had an appointment at a house in the close the next morning, but some lawyerly caution prevented him from doing more than returning Canon Selby’s wish and thanking him for his company and advice. The cleric lifted a hand in acknowledgement before adjusting his shovel-hat and settling back into the corner of the cab. Tom climbed down, retrieved his case and paid the driver. He watched while the cab pulled away into the fog. He looked up at the inn sign as if there might be some question whether he had come to the right place. The image of a bloodied carcass of beef hanging on a frame looked more like a sacrifice than an invitation to dine. The inn was a timber-frame building with a lopsided look and first-floor windows that projected slightly over the street.

While his attention was elsewhere, a woman walking briskly along the pavement banged into him. She was of middle height, was wearing a large hat and had her head down. Taken by suprise, Tom found himself thrown into her shoulder and well-padded collar. ‘Oops,’ she said. The word was curiously drawn out: ‘ooops’. Tom mumbled his apologies, expecting the woman to walk on, but she took a pace back. Quick dark eyes looked him up and down. She was well dressed, a little garishly too with a red band round her hat and a billow of yellow skirt showing beneath her coat, and though not young she was not so far into middle age either.

‘My fault, madam,’ said Tom quickly. ‘I was, er, looking at the inn sign.’

‘I thought perhaps you wanted to sniff at my nosegay,’ said the woman. She sounded amused.

‘Nosegay?’

‘Yes. To sniff at it.’

She raised a gloved hand towards a bunch of flowers attached to her coat collar. Tom couldn’t make out what they were, violets perhaps with a sprig of green. The woman wasn’t English, had a slight accent (almost saying ‘per’aps’, ‘sneef’), although he was unable to place it. Her voice was attractively low. Now, if such a remark about ‘sniffing nosegays’ had come from a woman in parts of central London — round Haymarket, say, or in Leicester Square in the early evening — Tom Ansell wouldn’t have had any doubts about the nature of such a meeting. Nor would the woman’s colliding with him have been an accident. But he was in a strange town on a foggy night and did not know his way round. The woman continued to assess him by the faint light from The Side of Beef. She glanced at the case he was holding and then at the inn sign. She might have been in a hurry before but seemed reluctant to move now.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No nosegays tonight. It’s too foggy.’

The woman’s mouth, wide and mobile, flickered with renewed humour. ‘Ah, no nosegays tonight because it is too foggy,’ she said, mimicking him. She dipped her head slightly and moved off down the road. Tom wanted to watch her retreating back but he was afraid she might turn round to look at him and did not want to show that much interest. Was she a judy or what his friends might have half-mockingly called a fille de joie? Was that her profession? He couldn’t tell. After the incident at the railway station, this encounter left him not so much unsettled as feeling a bit foolish. Why had he made such a nonsensical comment about the foggy night?

Shrugging, he climbed the steps to the porticoed entrance to the inn and pushed at the door. A small man hovering in the lobby whom he at first took for a servant turned out to be Mr Jenkins, the proprietor. Jenkins had slicked-back grey hair and a full moustache which was, incongruously, jet black. The landlord was expecting Tom, who had written on the previous day to reserve a room.

‘Ah, the gentleman from Messrs Scott, Lye amp; Mackenzie in London,’ said Jenkins, rolling the names round his tongue. ‘You had a pleasant journey from London, sir? I expect you’ll want to warm up. There’s a good fire in your room. And there’s hot water upstairs too. A bathroom with a geyser, no less. Nasty night out, isn’t it. Goes to one’s chest, this weather, I find. Let me show you to your quarters. Can I take your case? No, rather carry it yourself, would you? Quite understand. On business here? But then you must be on business, coming from Messrs Scott, Lye amp; Mackenzie in London.’

Tom regretted having made the reservation on the firm’s notepaper and wondered whether the landlord was about to ask him exactly what his business was in Salisbury. But, without pausing for a reply, Jenkins continued his monologue as they ascended stairs which twisted and tilted in every direction. He prattled on about the antiquity of his hostelry and the snugness of its parlour and the quality of the food and the attentiveness of the servants until they reached a landing on the first floor. A plain young woman, a servant, stood to one side to let them pass. She sneezed and the landlord said, ‘Bless you, Jenny,’ sounding as though he meant the opposite. Then he led Tom along a passageway to a door which he opened with a flourish. ‘There, sir!’ he said, with as much pride as if he’d finished decorating the room himself that very morning.

Once he’d got rid of the landlord with the assurance that, yes, everything was fine and that, yes, he’d be down to supper as soon as he’d settled himself and unpacked, Tom surveyed the room. The walls were covered with linen-fold panelling and the uncarpeted floor sloped towards an oriel window below which ran a seat so that one could watch what was happening in the street in comfort. There was a large old-fashioned bed, a four-poster with hangings, and furniture so dark and cumbersome that it might have dated from the Middle Ages. A fire was burning in an elaborate grate. It was the kind of room which should have been illuminated with candles or flaming torches but, in a concession to modernity, there was a gasolier hanging from the centre of the carved ceiling.

It would do, thought Tom, for a couple of days. In fact it was more spacious than his lodgings in Islington and, since he was here on his firm’s business, he would not have to pay for his stay. He put down his case and took off his coat. He walked across to the window recess. The curtains had been drawn to keep the warmth in. Tom parted them and could almost feel the damp fog nuzzling at the diamond-shaped panes. The covered porch of The Side of Beef was to his left and the pavement where he had encountered the woman was directly below him. There was a single figure standing there now, a woman. She was gazing up at this very window. Tom drew back sharply. Despite the fog, he was almost sure that it was the same woman, unless there happened to be two females in Salisbury who were wearing large hats decorated with a band, and trolling in the same area of town.

He tugged the curtains together with more force than necessary. He wondered if she’d recognized him as he, almost certainly, had recognized her. He thought that, with the gas light behind him, he probably appeared as no more than a shadow. He could be any newly arrived traveller at the inn. Then Tom grew irritated with himself. What did it matter if she had seen him? Why shouldn’t he be looking out of the window in his room? And if she was what he supposed her to be, then there was nothing more natural than that she would be hanging around in the neighbourhood of the town centre looking for customers. Though, he knew, such activities in provincial towns tended to be confined to run-down areas and the lodging houses called padding-kens where less reputable travellers and even tramps would put up for the night.

Putting all such considerations to the back of his mind, Tom unpacked his case, visited the bathroom at the end of the passageway and descended the twisting, uneven stairs to the supper room on the ground floor.

The rest of the evening passed uneventfully. To Tom’s slight surprise, the supper was good and the service as attentive as Jenkins the landlord had promised. He chose the lamb cutlets rather than the broiled fowl and was served by a motherly woman who fussed about him. There were a pair of clerics in close conference at a table in a corner, and a couple more men who were sitting, like Tom, with only themselves for company and reading newspapers while they ate. There was a larger group of men and women at the biggest table who, to judge by the laughter and raised voices, had already fed and drunk thoroughly. They had the plush, self-important look of burghers and burghers’ wives, of the town notables.

The landlord appeared at the door of the room and seemed to be heading in Tom’s direction but he was waylaid by the large group who insisted that he help finish one of the several bottles which they’d ordered during their meal. Jenkins looked gratified. He tugged his moustache and smoothed his hair and took a spare chair from another table. At some point, Tom saw one of the diners in the large group looking at him with interest. He had arrived late, and had turned his head sharply as he passed Tom, who was sitting close to the door. Now Jenkins was whispering to this individual, a stout man who was leaning back in his chair and tapping the side of his nose.

From their glances in his direction, Tom knew they were talking about him. The landlord had probably identified him as a notary from London, and no doubt made something of Messrs Scott, Lye amp; Mackenzie too. It was aggravating but there was nothing he could do about it except look displeased and turn his attention back to Baxter’s On Tort, which he’d brought down to occupy him during supper. The book was as unappetizing as it had been on the train. What had Canon Selby said? ‘No sane man would read Baxter for pleasure.’ Tom hoped that he’d meet Canon Selby again. He wished he’d brought a news-paper, like the other gentlemen dining by themselves. Or a novel. Though he wouldn’t have been quite comfortable to be seen reading a novel. Unless it was one written by Helen, of course. If she ever finished writing her sensation novel. And if she did finish writing it, then he suppposed that he’d have to read it.

While he was eating, he noticed the same man, the nose-tapper, at the other table continuing to glance at him from time to time. The landlord had torn himself away from this elevated company but whatever he’d said had obviously been sufficient to provoke the diner’s curiosity. Tom could not think that visitors from London were so unusual but he shrugged off the attention. After he had finished, he considered taking a stroll outside by the Poultry Cross — whatever that was exactly — but the thought of the dank fog and an uneasy if ridiculous sense that he might find the mysterious woman still standing outside the hotel prevented him. Besides, it was getting late.

Tom retreated up the twisty stairs to his first-floor room. He passed the plain young servant who bade him goodnight in a nasal voice. He noticed her mournful eyes. He was tired. He’d drunk more than he thought at supper. Either that or he was stupefied by Baxter. It was only as he lay in the darkness of the curtained four-poster that he remembered the scene at the railway station. The silhouette at the platform’s edge, the black figure creeping up on it. He hoped there’d be no more of that kind of thing in Salisbury. He did not sleep particularly well that night, whether on account of what he’d eaten and drunk or because, having thought of it again, he could not get the station scene out of his head.