The Salisbury Manuscript (5 page)

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 & 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.

Mackenzie’s Castle

If David Mackenzie hadn’t got a little too well-oiled after dinner at his club, he would most likely have made a safe descent from his cab after a night out and kept his leg in one piece. If he hadn’t broken his leg and been laid up for several weeks, then he would never have instructed Thomas Ansell to go to Salisbury in his place. And if Tom hadn’t gone to Salisbury, he would never have become involved in that fatal business over the manuscript.

But the only active partner in Scott, Lye & Mackenzie did slip and break his leg as he was leaving the cab and Tom Ansell did have to go to the city of Salisbury, with everything else that followed. It was Mr Ashley the clerk who told Tom that Mr Mackenzie’s fall was probably the result of a half bottle of port too much. Tom must have looked surprised for Ashley said, ‘I suppose you think I’m talking out of turn, Mr Ansell, to refer to our employer in that way. To suggest that he might have over-indulged at his club.’

‘It’s not my place to comment on him – or on you,’ said Tom Ansell.

‘Spoken with the proper caution of a fledgling lawyer,’ said Ashley.

Tom grew slightly red in the face and shifted in his chair on the other side of the senior clerk’s desk. Ashley continued, ‘But, you see, when one has been with a firm as long as I have, one is allowed a certain latitude. I remember when Mr Lye was a young man and Mr Scott hardly grown into middle age.’

Scott, who was Helen’s father, had been dead a good while now and although Mr Lye occasionally shuffled into the office his only activity was to scrawl his signature on correspondence placed in front of him. So Ashley’s memory stretched back to the early years of the Queen’s reign when these two men must have been in their prime. He had a fine memory too. Ansell had heard him correct Mr Mackenzie over some detail of a long-ago case. ‘I think you’ll find that the uncle’s name was Daven
ant
, not Davenport, sir,’ or, to Tom Ansell himself soon after he joined the firm and went to him with a small problem, ‘If you look up
Carstairs
v.
Smith
in the archives, you will discover some helpful pointers to what you are dealing with in this situation, Mr Ansell. Carstairs was an impossible man even if he was our client. If my memory serves me right, it was the September of 1848. The early part of that month. We lost the case and I cannot say that I was altogether sorry we lost.’

Ashley was a walking archive himself. He had a high, corrugated forehead to contain all that information. Tom Ansell visualized his brain as a honeycomb of pigeon-holes, not sweet but dry as dust. It was on account of this memory combined with his long service that he had the licence to comment on everybody, the firm’s clients and partners as well as junior members. Another mark of his status was that he had a separate office which no one would have dreamed of entering without tapping on the door first.

‘Well, Mr Ansell, however it happened, Mr Mackenzie has broken his leg and he will be out of commission for some time. This is unfortunate because he was due to visit a client – a clerical gentleman – later this week. The client lives outside London. He lives in Salisbury. Now he, that is Mr Mackenzie, has told me that he wishes
you
to go to Salisbury in his place. But he – that is Mr Mackenzie again – wants to see you in person first. He has written to me about this and other matters.’

Tom wondered why the senior clerk couldn’t have passed on Mackenzie’s instructions himself. As if guessing his thoughts, Ashley picked up the top page of a letter from a neatly arranged pile on the desk. He put on his glasses and peered at it.

‘He says, ‘There are circumstances which are best conveyed to Ansell in conversation and not by letter. Accordingly, would you kindly request him to call on me at home this afternoon.’’

‘Does he say anything else?’

‘Not to your purpose,’ said Ashley, putting the young man in his place. ‘You know where Mr Mackenzie lives?’

‘I have been to supper at his house.’

‘He does that with all the new employees, you know, Mr Ansell, invites them to supper. Well, if you’ve no more questions – and if you have I am not sure I should be able to answer them – then perhaps you’d better be on your way.’

So a couple of hours later Tom Ansell was standing outside the door of David Mackenzie’s ample house in Highgate village. It was a November afternoon. Lower down the basin of the city was submerged in a grey-brown fog which would not shift before evening, if then. Up here the view was clearer but everything looked the more forlorn for being exposed. A few leaves clung by threads to trees and hedges. Passers-by scurried along, muffled up against the dank air. Tom opened the gate and walked up the gravelled path past low bushes of laurel. It was the first time he’d seen the house by daylight.

There was something a touch baronial about the Mackenzies’ house and he mentally contrasted it with the less ornate house where Helen Scott lived with her mother, the dragon-lady. Tom knew that David Mackenzie had had it built soon after becoming a partner in what was then Scott & Lye. The red brickwork still looked raw. Perhaps he had instructed his architect to design a building that would remind him of a Scottish stronghold, for there was a miniature turret to one side which was surmounted with battlements and covered with tendrils of ivy. The front door had a Gothic solidity while the windows on either side in the vestibule were almost as narrow as arrowslits. Tom tugged at the bell and heard it echo inside. He waited. There was no sound except the dripping of the laurel bushes.

The door opened and a maid, sourfaced, ageless, looked at him as warily as though he was a hawker or beggar. Tom explained that he was there to see the master of the house, by invitation. The maid continued to regard him with suspicion but said nothing.

A tall woman appeared in the lobby behind the maid.

‘Ah, Mr Ansell, isn’t it? Mary Mackenzie. You’ve come to see my husband.’

Tom was gratified that Mrs Mackenzie remembered him after what had been only a single supper visit.

‘That’ll do, Bea. Take Mr Ansell’s coat and hat and I will show our guest in.’

‘Very well, ma’am,’ said the servant without much grace. She took the overcoat and hat, then moved off down the hall.

Mary Mackenzie extended her hand. She had a strong, bony grasp, which suited her height and slightly masculine features.

‘Mr Mackenzie’ll be glad to see you. He doesn’t take well to being shut up all the time.’

‘I am sorry that he’s laid up,’ said Tom.

‘Not as sorry as I am. I’m used to having the house to myself during the day.’

She gave a barking laugh so that Tom was unsure whether she was genuinely irritated. She gestured him to follow her. In keeping with the castle-like exterior of the house, the hall beyond the lobby was panelled in dark oak on which were arranged small circular shields and pairs of crossed swords which Tom recalled from his first visit and which, to his eye, had a distinctly Scottish look. They had their own special name. Claymores, was it?

‘I suppose you imagine that these are all heirlooms, Mr Ansell?’ she said, noticing his glance. ‘These swords and shields which are all dinted and tarnished. All this military paraphernalia.’

‘They certainly look, ah, well established,’ he said.

‘Well, I can tell you that Mr Mackenzie bought them all in one fell swoop from a Scottish gentleman who had gone bankrupt. My husband has made only one trip north of the border in his entire life and that was to purchase these items. Mr Mackenzie would like to think that he has military forebears, martial ancestors. But you can take it from me that he does not.’

Tom was faintly surprised at the disrespectful tone in Mrs Mackenzie’s voice but he was accustomed enough to the way that wives talked about their husbands, and vice versa. He wondered if Helen would ever talk like that about him after they’d been married for as many years as the Mackenzies had been. He hoped not. He vowed he would never refer to her disparagingly. First of all, naturally, they had to get married. Or rather, Helen had to agree to marry him. And before that, he had to propose. The dragon-lady’s acquiescence would be desirable though not essential. As for Helen, Tom thought she was on the verge of agreeing . . .

‘What? I beg your pardon.’

He realized that Mrs Mackenzie had said something to him. He was so wrapped up in visions of Helen consenting to marry him that he hadn’t been listening.

‘I asked whether your father was a military man. He was, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes, he was,’ said Tom. He wondered how Mrs Mackenzie was aware of this. ‘But I scarcely recall my father. He died when I was small. I can remember a tall man in a blue uniform but not much more.’

‘How romantic,’ said Mrs Mackenzie. ‘Did he die on campaign?’

‘In a manner of speaking. He was on his way to the Dardanelles when he caught a fever on board ship. He was buried at sea.’

‘Perhaps I should not say this but that also sounds romantic. You were not tempted to follow your father and serve your country?’

‘My father’s profession sometimes seems to belong to another age,’ said Tom. ‘The war in the Crimea was a long time ago.’

‘To you perhaps. But you are young, Mr Ansell. So, the age of heroes being past, you decided to take up the dry business of law?’

‘There can be blood and fury and death in the law too, Mrs Mackenzie. All the emotions of a battlefield but drawn out and buttoned up.’

‘No blue uniforms though?’

‘Not those, no.’

Mrs Mackenzie nodded her long face, though Tom could not tell whether it was in agreement or mild mockery. ‘Well, each to his own. You will find my husband in his snuggery if you go up those stairs there at the end. The first door you come to. Knock loudly for he may be napping.’

Thanking Mrs Mackenzie, Tom went down a short passageway which led off the hall and up a flight of spiral stone steps. He was in the turreted area of the house. Gas lights set in elaborate sconces reinforced the impression of being in a corner of a cramped castle. On a landing Tom rapped at an oak door whose stout ribs and redundant ironwork might have been designed to repel a siege by a bunch of medieval marauders. If David Mackenzie had been asleep it must have been a light one for almost straightaway there was an answering ‘Come in.’

At first Tom thought that a portion of the London fog had been piped up from town and into the room since he could hardly see to the far side. As his eyes adjusted and as the pipe smoke began to eddy through the open door, he made out the figure of the only active partner in Scott, Lye & Mackenzie sitting in a wing-chair close to an open fire.

‘Be quick, Ansell!’ said Mackenzie. ‘Shut the door. Keep the warmth in. Sit down. Have a drink.’

Tom wondered that his employer could recognise him through the fug. David Mackenzie levered himself slightly upwards on the arms of his chair. His right leg, encased in a plaster cast, was resting on a stool. He was well equipped for a prolonged siege with a pipe in one hand, a glass in the other and a newspaper on his lap, and further supplies of tobacco, brandy and water on a table next to the wing-chair. Tom made some comment about how sorry he was to see him in this state.

‘It’s nothing, dear boy,’ said David Mackenzie, seeming pleased at Tom’s concern. ‘The result of a foolish accident. The ground was slippery, you know.’

The only active partner in Scott, Lye & Mackenzie looked like a favourite uncle with his broad face and monk’s tonsure of white hair. But Tom knew that appearances could be deceptive. Mackenzie was sharp enough when it came to law business. He nodded benevolently but his ears missed nothing. He outlined a client’s chances succinctly.

‘Have a drink, I say. Help yourself to a glass from over there and then help yourself from this.’

Mr Mackenzie picked up the decanter and poured himself a generous measure. Tom would have preferred to drink tea or water or nothing at all – the debris of a pie which he’d bought at a coster’s stall on the way up to Highgate sat greasily in his stomach – but it wouldn’t do to refuse his employer. He fetched a glass from the sideboard and lined the bottom with brandy, adding plenty of water. He sat down on the opposite side of the fire to Mackenzie. Feeble daylight penetrated through the leaded window but a stronger illumination came from the gas jets on either side of the fireplace.

‘What d’you make of this?’ said Mackenzie, tapping the newspaper on his lap with the stem of his pipe. ‘Of the Claimant case?’

The criminal trial of the Tichborne Claimant was drawing to a close during these autumn days. At least, it was generally believed that it must be drawing to a close soon since it had begun in the spring and had already broken records for occupying court-time with a single case. But Tom sometimes wondered why it shouldn’t go on for ever. Just as things seemed to be winding down, the Claimant’s counsel introduced some sensational claim or wild accusation against the presiding judge. The case was amusing to those engaged in the law, not least because the judge who was on the receiving end of counsel’s accusations was the Lord Chief Justice, but it had extensive appeal beyond the law and could be relied on to sell the papers.

‘Is he genuine or isn’t he?’ said Mackenzie.

‘Surely there can be no question that he isn’t,’ said Tom.

‘Not a
niggling
doubt?’ said Tom’s employer, tapping the paper for emphasis. ‘Doubt is our business, you know. Doubt is the lever which can move legal mountains.’

Tom nodded. He sometimes felt that he should produce a notebook and write down David Mackenzie’s little asides, or perhaps it was rather the feeling that Mackenzie would have liked him to do so.

‘However, I haven’t summoned you here today to chew over the Tichborne Claimant case, Tom,’ said Mackenzie, folding the paper and dropping it on the carpet. While Tom was waiting to hear why he had been summoned, his employer picked up a back-scratcher from the table by his elbow. He inserted the end into the gap at the top of the plaster that encased his leg, and wiggled it around. Judging by the look of satisfaction, almost of ecstasy, that wreathed his round face, he must have succeeded in reaching the itch. He replaced the back-scratcher on the side table and said, ‘How are you on the Church?’