A shadow fell across the doorway. A man whom Tom had never seen in his life planted himself on the threshold of the study. He cast his eyes up and down Tom, hardly seeming to register the stick which the other had raised to head height. He looked in the direction of the desk across which Canon Slater lay slumped. The man, who was thickset and wearing a raincape, nodded his head as if in answer to an unspoken question and folded his arms across his chest. He stood blocking the way out. There was someone else standing to one side of the doorway, Tom could see another shadow.
For a time neither man moved, then the individual in the doorway said, ‘Put that stick down, there’s a good fellow.’
Tom was ushered out of Canon Slater’s study by Inspector Foster and Constable Chesney, although at that stage he knew neither of the policemen by name. Foster had relieved him of the walking stick, deftly slipping it from Tom’s hand and grasping it in his own.
They walked down the hall towards the lobby. In the lobby and around the covered porch, there was a cluster of people. Tom recognised all of them, even in his confused and distracted state. It was as if almost everyone he’d met since arriving in Salisbury two evenings ago had been gathered together to witness his capture and disgrace.
There was Amelia Slater and her nephew Walter, together with several of the household servants, including the girl whom Slater had rebuked for having a crooked collar and Eaves the gardener. All of these might have been expected to be on the scene. But there were others whose presence was more surprising and whom Tom noted, half unawares. There was Canon Eric Selby, wearing his shovel-hat. There was Percy Slater, his ruddy face looking pale in the swirling mist. Near Percy was the odd coachmancum-factotum, whose name Tom couldn’t recall in the stress of the moment. And, oddest of all, there was Henry Cathcart, the old friend to Tom’s father. What was he doing here?
No one spoke a word. They either looked at the ground or fastened their eyes on him in a manner that was both frightened and accusatory, so that Tom wanted to say, ‘I didn’t do this thing! It is a terrible mistake.’
But no one spoke and so he kept silent too.
Even though they were now outside, in the cold and misty night, Tom felt intolerably hot. His face was burning. He was suddenly conscious of the bloodstains on his hands and wanted to hide his hands in his pockets but he kept them stiff by his sides. He felt a nudge at his back.
‘That way, if you please, sir. Down the path.’
Tom walked between the dripping yew trees. He was in the lead, with Inspector Foster and Constable Chesney behind him. Tom heard an outbreak of comment and whispers from the onlookers. He might have made a break for it, might have run through the gate, but the thought was dismissed as soon as it occurred. Just as well since there was a second constable stationed outside the gate of Venn House.
They moved off together, a foursome, going up West Walk. Foster walked at a steady pace beside Tom with the two constables in close attendance. He was still holding the walking stick. Tom had no idea where they were going or, rather, he struggled to suppress the idea which he did have.
‘No carriage, I’m afraid, sir,’ said Inspector Foster, ‘but it’s not too far and if we walk briskly we will soon forget about the cold. Follow my lead now, Mr Ansell, we don’t want you going astray on a nasty night like this.’
The person who had murdered Canon Felix Slater watched as Tom Ansell walked down the garden path with the three policemen following at his heels, the Inspector grasping a walking stick. The young man looked stunned, as well he might. By the light of the lobby, the murderer had observed Tom’s bloody hands held rigidly at his sides. Caught red-handed, the murderer thought. The poor fellow must have come too close to Felix’s body and accidentally got his hands dirty. Almost involuntarily, the murderer whispered Tom’s name after he’d passed by and added for good measure, ‘He did it!’
Despite these signs of guilt, Felix Slater’s killer did not believe that Ansell would be detained long by the Salisbury constabulary. It would soon emerge that the lawyer had arrived at Venn House after the killing. The Inspector would question him and let him go.
But that would all take time. Time which the murderer could put to good use.
Fisherton Gaol
‘Well, sir, I hope you slept well.’
‘I did not sleep well, Inspector. In fact, I am not sure I slept at all.’
‘I told Griffiths to take good care of you, Mr Ansell. This is the best room in his establishment.’
For the hundredth time since he’d arrived at the county gaol in Fisherton Street, Tom glanced around his ‘room’. It was starkly furnished, with a narrow bed, a wash-stand, a simple table and chair. In an unsuccessful attempt to soften the hard edges of the accommodation, there was a strip of thin carpet running down the centre of the room and a framed sampler on the wall. The sampler read Bless this House. As Inspector Foster and Griffiths the gaoler had made clear the previous evening, this was a room reserved for the most privileged of guests. It was right next to the gaoler’s own lodgings and quite separate from the other prisoners. But, whatever you did to it, the place was still a cell. There was a single vertical bar in the centre of the glazed but uncurtained window, and a lock on the door which could only be opened from the outside.
‘I’ve no complaints about Mr Griffiths,’ said Tom. ‘He and his wife have been all consideration. His wife brought me a cooked breakfast this morning. But it is a question of what you are used to, Inspector Foster.’
‘As I said last night, sir, this is only temporary, very temporary. But you have to look at matters from my point of view. Is there any more coffee in that pot, by the way?’
Tom gestured that he should help himself to the coffee, which had been provided by Griffiths’ bustling wife at the same time as she ushered the Inspector into Tom’s cell. The Inspector himself had fetched another chair from outside and the two men were sitting on opposite sides of the little table. They might have been in a coffee house, apart from the hardness of the chairs and the absence of newspapers and the general grimness of Tom’s situation.
Inspector Foster was a stolid man with the look of a gentleman farmer. He had the long side-whiskers known as dundrearies. He seemed fresh and alert while Tom felt crumpled and stale. He’d slept in his shirt and had only a perfunctory wash that morning. He’d been too angry and distressed to eat the previous evening and left untouched the portion of supper which Mrs Griffiths had provided, to her disappointment. Rather than eating, Tom found himself mentally circling round and round those few minutes which covered his arrival at Venn House, his discovery of Felix Slater’s body in the study, the appearance of Inspector Foster on the threshold of the room, and that terrible walk out of the house and through the mistladen streets of Salisbury. He was thankful that there weren’t many people about and that, as the policeman had said, it was no great distance to the gaol. Tom remembered, fondly, his room at The Side of Beef and even the unctuous presence of Jenkins the landlord.
Tom might have been reassured by Foster’s saying that his incarceration (although the policeman had used the word ‘stay’) in Fisherton was only temporary and that everything would soon be cleared up. But when Foster left, and Mrs Griffiths had been in to collect the untouched plate of supper, and Tom had done his best to wash the last traces of Felix Slater’s blood from his hands, he lapsed into despondency. The room was still a cell, with its white-washed walls, its barred window and locked door, and he was still a prisoner. He thought of Mr Mackenzie — how would his employer react to a representative of Scott, Lye amp; Mackenzie spending a period of time, however short, in a county gaol? He thought of his mother.