The Salisbury Manuscript

Salisbury Station

Or the sound of a body, rather than bodies, and one striking not the ground but a lower roof.

A single corpse was recovered that afternoon as the sun fell and darkness rose in the cathedral close. It was badly battered and disfigured, like a mariner thrown from a ship and tossed among the rocks before arriving on shore. The damage to the mortal remains of Adam Eaves — or Adam Fawkes as he should more properly be called — had been caused by the force of impact against the stone outcrops, the buttresses and finials, in the lower stretches of the cathedral. The black shape which Tom saw plunging to its doom had soared outwards as it went down and then must have bounced and tumbled like a climber falling from a precipice, before landing finally on the roof of the cloisters.

There could not be much doubt that the remains were those of the gardener to Canon Slater. There was Tom’s evidence, that he had seen an improvised weapon (the trowel) in the hands of Eaves’s assailant, and that it was those hands which were responsible for throwing the other off the spire. But, more conclusively, there was a statement, almost a confession, which was found in a pocket of the dead man’s clothing.

It was brief and ill written but clear enough. It told how he, that is Adam Fawkes (also known as Adam Eaves), had murdered both the Slater brothers. Felix had been killed when Eaves had been surprised in the act of stealing the papers from the chest in the Canon’s study, searching for documents and plans which would show the whereabouts of a supposed hoard of ancient treasure buried in the Slater estate at Northwood House in Downton. Slater was sitting down, about to write a note of dismissal, unwisely taking his eyes off the gardener. Then a few days later Percy Slater, the owner of Northwood House, had died not by his own hand but killed by Adam as he was attempting to dig up the place where this treasure was rumoured to be, a spot known as Hogg’s Corner.

There was no mention in the confession of the so-called Salisbury manuscript, whose disappearance (in Tom’s eyes at least) might have been a motive for the murder. But the handwritten memoir of the Slater brothers’ father was discovered among various items in the queer little lodging occupied by Adam in the garden of Venn House. The lock which secured the book from prying eyes had been forced by Eaves. The other items in his stash included bits and pieces of tarnished gold — rings, bracelets, brooches — which had undoubtedly been excavated from burial sites around the town.

With the discovery of Eaves’s body, it was equally beyond doubt that the gardener had been responsible for the death of Andrew North, the sexton. If North had been seized by the mania — which he’d caught from Felix Slater — for digging up old items, stealing them if necessary, then Eaves had obviously seen a way in which he might take a short cut, by thieving from the thief. Even if he had to commit a murder in the process. North, who’d worked for Felix Slater, must have encountered Adam Eaves, must have grown to fear him and to identify the gardener with Atropos, the wielder of shears.

And more bizarrely, the stolen hoard found in the gardener’s lodge also contained toasting forks and jelly moulds together with other kitchen implements which dated back not thousands of years but no further than a few months.

Inspector Foster scratched his head and tugged his side-whiskers over this but he was able to offer some explanation to Tom Ansell and Helen Scott while he was bidding them goodbye on the platform at Salisbury station.

‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that this Eaves fellow was a thoroughly bad lot and had been ever since his birth. A walking example of Original Sin, if you like. We’ve established that he was born at Downton to a God-fearing family and that he was brother to Seth Fawkes. He ran into trouble early on in Salisbury — one of the men in the police house has an old cousin as remembers him — and then he disappeared God knows where. To foreign countries maybe. God knows why he came back here either. But he got himself a job as a gardener at Venn House. He enjoyed dressing up and playing a part. And all the time he was on the lookout for ways to make mischief and mayhem.’

‘Mischief!’ said Helen. ‘I’d hardly call murder mischief.’

‘No more would I, miss. But he liked causing trouble and he liked murdering, did Mr Adam Eaves, liked the thrill of it. Mr Ansell here has confirmed he said as much when he overheard Eaves and his brother exchanging insults up the tower.’

‘I don’t know about the thrill of it,’ said Tom, ‘but it didn’t seem to hold terrors for him as it would for most of us. Yes, he probably enjoyed it.’

‘It’s my belief he liked the thrill of thieving too,’ continued the Inspector. ‘It was him as broke into those other houses in West Walk and stole small items that were almost worthless, and he did the robberies just for the hell of it — begging your pardon, Miss Scott.’

Tom nodded. ‘That’s why he didn’t trouble to conceal the burglaries. Wasn’t one of the householders actually woken up by the clatter of pans being dropped in the kitchen, as if the thief wanted to alert everyone to his presence?’

‘Just so,’ said Foster. ‘Mischief and mayhem, you see.’

There were still some mysteries attached to the business. The principal object which Eaves had been seeking in the mound in the grounds of Northwood House had apparently been a solid golden torque or neck-piece. Tom recalled that Felix Slater had made some passing reference to it at their first meeting. But it transpired that it was all moonshine, and well known to be moonshine in the locality. The piece never existed or, if it ever had, was thieved long ago. There was a mention of it in the Salisbury manuscript, which Tom had had the leisure to look through more carefully and which was now safe inside his valise, to be deposited in accordance with the dead man’s instructions at the London office of Scott, Lye amp; Mackenzie.

Old George Slater described how he had even done a bit of digging himself, and turned up nothing. If Adam Eaves had perused the manuscript more carefully, he might have realized this. But perhaps he had read about it, as he skimmed the stories about Byron and Shelley, and refused to believe that there was no treasure. Eaves had also stolen from the Canon’s study some papers and plans which he believed would guide him to the precise spot. Plans which Felix had retained from his own younger days of fossicking about in the family grounds.

A greater mystery was what had happened to Seth Fawkes, once he had succeeded in throwing his brother from the heights of the cathedral. If apprehended and tried, he might have been found guilty of manslaughter or perhaps acquitted because he was acting in self-defence. Who could say? But the coachman to Percy Slater had not been apprehended. Indeed, it was as if he was gone from the face of the earth. Had Tom Ansell not seen with his own eyes the struggle between the two brothers — and had other people in and around the cathedral precincts not also testified to the presence of a pair of men, one seemingly in pursuit of the other — he might have believed that Adam had flung himself off the tower, by himself.

This was the story as reported in the Gazette, that the gardener to Canon Slater, overcome with guilt and remorse at his prior acts of murder, had done away with himself in the most public and dramatic fashion. He had conveniently provided a written account of his crimes, as discovered in his clothing. It was the simplest version to credit and it was enthusiatically peddled by Inspector Foster. It wrapped everything up nicely, it accounted for two killings (three, when you included the sexton Andrew North) and it brought the murderer’s own tale to a satisfactory resolution.

There was a rumour to the effect that a second man had been up the tower but when questioned by the newspaper the Inspector cast doubt on it, without going as far as an absolute denial. As he said to Tom later on the evening of the events on the spire, ‘I take you at your word, Mr Ansell. You are a lawyer, after all. But the fact remains that there was no one to be found up aloft apart from your good self. Oh yes, there were two men chasing each other all round the houses, we have other witnesses to that, but the cathedral is a big place with many holes and corners. Who’s to say that this Seth Fawkes did not sneak off into one of them?’

‘In that case, where is he now?’ said Tom.

‘He may turn up and then we shall see what is to be done with him,’ said the Inspector. ‘But remember that if he has killed his brother, as you believe, he may have gone on the run. He may even have done away with himself as well.’

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.

‘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.