‘More than a hundred feet on to the floor of the tower.’ Mr Ratcliffe had returned to normal. ‘The poor fellow must have been killed outright.’
It occurred to me that five or six hours earlier I must have walked across the very spot where Mr Goldsworthy’s body had lain.
‘It was an accident, of course,’ Mr Ratcliffe said. ‘That’s what they decided. There was nothing to show it had been suicide, after all, and a verdict of accidental death meant that he could have a Christian burial.’
‘Someone must have looked for the anthem,’ Faraday said.
I wondered why Rabbit was so concerned about a bit of music. What did it matter, after all, beside the fact of a man’s death? But then I have never been able to understand the value that people place on music. It’s nothing but a series of sounds, sounds without meaning.
‘They searched his pockets. It wasn’t there, though they did find a pen and a portable inkwell. They looked among his papers. They looked in the tower, as well. But they didn’t find any trace of it. The anthem had vanished, if it had ever existed.’
‘Perhaps it hadn’t,’ I said.
‘The lady who was engaged to Mr Goldsworthy had actually seen the manuscript. He had played her some of the melodies. She said it was a thing of a ravishing beauty, that it would draw the heart out of an angel. But I suppose in the circumstances she would be inclined to have a high opinion of the piece.’
Mr Ratcliffe rose stiffly from his chair and knocked out his pipe. He looked down at us in our chairs.
‘It’s long past time for you boys to be in bed.’
‘But, sir,’ I protested. ‘What about the ghost?’ I could not help thinking of the person I had glimpsed in the west tower this afternoon. ‘Do people see him? Does he haunt the tower?’
‘Poor Goldsworthy?’ Mr Ratcliffe shook his head. ‘Not as far as I know. No, it’s his music that people hear. Or they say they do. Fragments of melody, just a few notes.’ He waved his pipe in the direction of the Cathedral. ‘It’s as if the anthem was broken into many pieces in the fall. And all the notes it contained were thrown up into the air. They are still there. Looking for each other. Trying to come together again.’
9
The next day, Saturday, 27 December, was grey and blustery, with showers of rain that attacked from unexpected angles and worked their way through the crevices of one’s clothing to the naked skin beneath.
I explained my problem about the lost cap to Mr Ratcliffe. He considered the matter gravely and gave it as his opinion that it would not be considered a beatable offence if I were caught outside the College without a school cap during the holidays. If I had any trouble, I was to refer the complainant to himself.
But I could not go out without a hat. That would not be seemly or indeed good for my health. He lent me one of his own, a battered, shapeless thing of tweed, with a trout fly fixed to the band. It was too large for my head and rested loosely on my ears. But it kept me decent, according to the standards of those days, and it kept me dry. It smelled powerfully of mothballs, with a hint of stale tobacco.
In the morning, Faraday and I went into the town. He waited outside while I tried my luck with three tobacconists in turn. The first two refused to serve me but in the third, a little shop in an alley between the High Street and Market Street, I struck lucky. The proprietor had left the establishment in the temporary charge of his elderly mother, who was very short-sighted. I put on my gruffest voice when I asked for ten Woodbine cigarettes — unlike Faraday’s, my voice had settled down to a sort of croak after the ups and downs of the previous year. That and Mr Ratcliffe’s hat seemed to allay any suspicions the woman might have had.
Once outside, I showed Faraday my booty. He reacted with gratifying horror.
‘If you’re caught, they’ll chuck you out,’ he whispered.
‘What does it matter?’ I said grandly. ‘I don’t care.’
He glanced at me under the brim of his cap and I felt reproved by the misery in his eyes. By buying cigarettes I was merely toying with the risk of expulsion. It was improbable I would be caught smoking and doubly improbable that I would be expelled for doing it, particularly in the school holidays. But Faraday almost certainly faced expulsion already: and if by any chance he was allowed to stay at school, the alternative he faced was almost worse — years of persecution. In either case I pictured the shame of the stolen postal order pursuing him through his blighted adult life until his miserable death.
In the meadows between the Cathedral and the river, there stood a steep, heavily wooded hill, which had once formed part of a little castle made of earth and wood. It was as safe as anywhere to smoke. I scrambled up it, with Faraday trailing after me because he had nothing better to do and my company was better than his own.
At the top was a clearing of rough grass with a rotting summerhouse that stank of foxes. I stood on the remains of the little verandah in front of it and smoked two Woodbines in swift succession. I tried my best to give the impression that I was enjoying an exquisite pleasure but in truth the cigarettes made me feel rather sick.
Meanwhile Faraday moved restlessly about the clearing. As I was smoking the second cigarette, he came back to my side.
‘I say,’ he said. ‘You know the anthem? The one that was lost?’
I squinted through the smoke at him. ‘Yes.’
‘It would be marvellous if it was found after all this time. Wouldn’t it?’
I shrugged. ‘I suppose so. For choirboys and chaps like that.’
‘Just because it hasn’t been found, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.’
My mind filled with a picture of all those lost notes, black blobs with little tails and other attachments, floating in the air like dead leaves in a strong breeze.
‘But where?’ I said. ‘I’m sure they looked everywhere.’
‘I think it’s in the tower,’ Faraday said. ‘I mean, that’s where he was when he fell. He had his pen and ink with him, remember.’
‘Don’t be an ass. They must have searched especially hard up there.’
‘But perhaps they didn’t look hard enough. Look — just suppose we looked for it, and we found it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? They’d make an awfully big fuss. I shouldn’t wonder if they put it in the newspapers. And we’d be — well, we’d be sort of heroes, wouldn’t we?’
He stared expectantly at me, his mouth open, the rabbit teeth displayed.
My imagination was beginning to stir, even though the idea had come from Faraday. It would make a huge stir at school if we found it. I imagined the news filtering through to my aunt, miraculously restored to full health for the purpose, and even to my parents in India. I imagined their delight, their pride.
‘What do you think?’ he said.
‘But we can’t get up there.’
‘I bet we could find a way. I’ve a plan.’
I was careful to preserve my dignity by not showing too much enthusiasm. ‘There’d be a beastly stink if they catch us.’
‘Not if we find it. They wouldn’t mind what we’d done. They’d wipe the slate clean.’
I understood at last what Faraday meant, what his motive was. He thought that the lost anthem was his chance of salvation, perhaps his only one. If he found it, it would neutralize the disgrace of the postal order; it would make up for his broken voice and for no longer being head of the choir. The school would come back next term to find him a hero. And I would be a hero, too.
If he found it.
I dropped the cigarette butt and ground it into the wet earth with my heel. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘At least it’ll give us something to do.’
In my heart of hearts, I didn’t believe that Faraday would do anything. It’s easy enough to come up with these schemes but quite another to put them into practice.