‘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?’
‘I, er, I. . am not quite sure what you mean.’
‘Can you tell your cope from your chasuble, and could you tell either of them from your alb?’
‘No, not even if my life depended on it.’
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ said Mackenzie. ‘In fact, I don’t think you’ll have much discusssion about copes and chasubles with Felix Slater. He’s a canon residentiary at Salisbury Cathedral, which is where you are to go. Slater is distinctly “low”. He’d probably flee at a whiff of incense. He’s a stiff, somewhat cold individual, to be honest. Still, he comes from a family which has a very long association with us and we can no more choose our older clients than. . than. .’
‘Than parents can choose their children,’ completed Tom.
‘Very good. Older clients can certainly be as trouble-some and demanding as children. Not that Felix Slater is particularly old. And I shouldn’t be too hard on him. He is a worthy and respectable man.’
‘So what am I to do in Salisbury, Mr Mackenzie? Is it connnected with a will?’
‘Why no, not directly, though there is something to be passed on, a ‘delicate’ something. Let me explain, but first why don’t you help yourself to another drink. And top up my glass while you’re about it, Tom.’
Once Tom had refilled their glasses, David Mackenzie proceeded to explain. It appeared that Canon Felix Slater’s father had died quite a few years ago at the age of ninety, died peacefully in his sleep. George Slater — also a client of Scott, Lye amp; Mackenzie — had not only reached a venerable age but was a venerable-looking figure too, twinkling, benign and white-haired (at this point Tom wondered whether Mackenzie was, consciously or otherwise, referring to himself). If you’d glimpsed old Mr Slater in the street, tapping his way along with a cheery greeting for his neighbours and a smile for the children, you’d have taken him for a retired clergyman. You’d have assumed that the son, Felix, was merely following in the family tradition by going into the Church. But George Slater was a far from devout individual. In fact, in his youth he’d had a reputation as a very dissolute man.
‘It was a time of dissolution, of course,’ said David Mackenzie, pulling complacently on his pipe. ‘Not long after the beginning of a new century, the period of the Regency. Why, they got up to things we could hardly imagine these days, let alone countenance. So you might say that George Slater was doing no more than was expected of him. He mixed with writers and poets and fellows like that, and you certainly can’t expect any better of them.’
‘But he settled down later?’ said Tom, wondering where all this was leading.
‘In a manner of speaking. George Slater settled down, if marriage is settling. And, if it is, then presumably the more marriages, the more settled. George got through three wives — nothing sinister there, I hasten to add. He outlived them all but they died of natural causes. Felix, who is now a Salisbury canon, was one of two surviving children of these matches and he never got on with George. He was the second son by the second wife. I have always suspected that he chose the Church as a kind of reproach to his father and his father’s way of life. George was a non-believer. He had a tendency to talk about his atheism as loudly as that Bradlaugh fellow does now. Father and son were opposites in other ways too. Certainly, Felix is a rather crabbed and priggish person. The name means ‘happy’ in Latin, you know, and I think he was called that in optimistic hope by his father. George was an expansive and good-humoured fellow — or so he seemed to me in his later days. By the time I knew him, he was married to his third wife. There was quite a difference in age. He seemed attentive enough to her while she seemed fond enough of him. But who can tell with a marriage, who can tell, eh?’
Tom pulled some vaguely sympathetic face while wondering, again, whether Mr Mackenzie was referring to himself (and Mrs Mackenzie).
‘I’m telling you this, Tom, not because it has any immediate bearing on your task but because I think that you need to know something of Canon Slater’s history and the history of the family. This is a strange business, one that requires tact and discretion. Normally, I’d travel down to Salisbury myself but as things are. .’
David Mackenzie glanced down at the leg propped up on the stool. Outside it grew gloomier, or perhaps it was that the air in the room was becoming more opaque on account of smoke from the pipe.
‘George Slater had an estate in Wiltshire, outside Salisbury. It’s an old house, goes back earlier than the Civil War. The family money came from wool originally. Almost everybody’s money in Wiltshire came originally from wool, you know. The estate has now passed to his older son, Percy, who was the older son by his second wife, the only one who produced children. Percy was a son in the mould of the father though I fear he’s gone into decline. A lifetime of drinking and idling on the expectation of coming into money has done him no favours. He was a client of our firm at one time but he had a falling-out with Scott or possibly with Lye. I don’t know what it was about, before my time, but he was encouraged to take his business elsewhere.
‘Anyway Percy too has got through a couple of wives and it is the present one, Elizabeth, who would be the lady of the manor if she chose to spend much time down there. But I believe she doesn’t like the country and spends all the year in town.
‘Felix, the younger son, the Salisbury cleric, did not receive very much after the death of father George, and almost everything which was left went to Percy. But one of the items that Felix took — or that was bequeathed to him, I am not certain which — was a trunkful of old documents and papers. I have the impression it has taken several years since their father’s death for this trunk to travel the few miles to Salisbury. There was nothing of much value or importance in the trunk. I imagine that Percy Slater one day got around to glancing inside it, and decided that the contents might as well go to his younger brother, who takes an interest in history and tradition. You are with me so far, Tom? You look. . distant.’
‘Yes, sir. It’s just that it’s rather warm in here. And I was thinking that from what you are saying. . there must have been an article of value inside the trunk after all.’
Tom had been thinking no such thing but felt he had to make some response. The atmosphere inside Mackenzie’s snug was soporific and he wondered when his employer was going to get to the point.
‘There was an article of value in the trunk,’ said Mackenzie. ‘If this was a story, it would have been a revised will bequeathing the estate to Felix. A dramatic codicil which changed everything. But instead it was a handwritten manuscript. A kind of life story.’
‘Whose life story?’
‘George Slater’s. At some point the old man had decided to pen an account of his early days, or at any rate those days before his latter period of respectability. Now, I said that George had been friendly with writers and the like. He’d known Lord Byron and Percy Shelley and the rest of that gang. In fact, I think that Percy Slater had been christened in honour of the poet. But George Slater had mixed with other people apart from titled poets. Others less reputable, men and women both. He seems to have, er, sown quite a few wild oats in his youth, a whole field of them, as it were. Then, recollecting all this in tranquillity, he decided to write it down. It was this account which Felix Slater found among his father’s effects in the trunk.’