Tom recalled the passion with which Canon Slater had spoken about the subject. The effect on Andrew North had obviously gone deep, becoming an obsession and even the ‘infection’ mentioned by Selby. But he trusted Mrs Banks’s view of her brother even if it was biased. There were simpler ways of making money than fossicking around old tomb sites with the distant expectation of coming across brooches and rings. Those who did such things must be motivated more by the excitement of the hunt rather than by any idea of profit.
‘Did your brother sell the bracelet?’ he said.
Mrs Banks answered more confidently. ‘I don’t believe so. It is probably still up in his room. I have not been to Andrew’s room since he — since he left — except to dust it and sweep it and air it. I would not dream of disturbing his things. He would be angry when he comes back.’
Once again, she looked towards the little hall with a forlorn expression.
‘Before Andrew. . disappeared. . did he give any indication of what he was doing?’ said Helen. ‘Still searching for hidden things, buried things?’
‘I dare say, miss. But if he was, he had stopped telling me about it. He knew I didn’t approve for all that Canon Slater said it was all right. Andrew turned a bit peculiar in the summer. He went off for long walks in the evening, after he’d done a full day’s work. He wouldn’t tell me where he was going but I think he was up to his old tricks because his clothes were sometimes dusty or muddy afterwards. He tried to pass it off as dirt from his ordinary work, but I knew better. The clothes had a fusty smell, not like you get from fresh, honest-turned soil. And he smelled of drink sometimes.’
‘Perhaps he was out getting oiled with some of his fellows,’ said Tom.
‘My brother did not get “oiled”, as you put it, Mr Ansell, with anyone. He preferred to drink by himself. He had a little flask containing brandy.’
There was an awkward silence after Tom was put in his place over the ‘oiled’ remark, before Helen said, ‘Was Canon Slater with him when he went out on these summer evenings?’
‘I do not think so, miss. My brother turned in on him-self and got impatient with the company of others, not that he’d ever been much of a one for company in the first place. Andrew made one or two remarks about Canon Slater which seemed to say the two weren’t as friendly any more. Andrew spent time poring over old books too — he was always a good reader, unlike me. In the old days, he used to read the Bible. He could recite it off by heart. But lately he has not seem so bothered with the scriptures. Instead he has been taken up by big books with maps and such inside. I came in here once to see him with a great volume open on his knees, his nose as close to it as if his life depended on it. He was making notes, always the methodical man. He glared at me so I left.’
‘Did you have a glance at the book?’
‘Like I say, it was maps and writing together on one page, but I could not see clearly.’
‘Where would he get such a book?’ said Helen.
‘There are books in the cathedral,’ said Mrs Banks, as if the question was a surprising one. ‘There is a whole library of old books in the cathedral somewhere.’
And there are old books in Felix Slater’s study, thought Tom. Perhaps North had borrowed from the Canon — or stolen — some volume which might lead him to more tombs and artefacts.
There seemed to be little more that Mrs Banks could tell them. Tom and Helen might have asked to look at North’s bedroom but, if the sexton’s sister was reluctant to do more than sweep in there, she certainly wouldn’t have allowed strangers to poke around the place.
Mrs Banks handed the handkerchief back to Helen, who said, ‘Thank you for seeing us, Mrs Banks. By the way, you said that your brother and Canon Slater had been somewhere near the city when they discovered a burial place. Do you know what direction it was in? North of here? South?’
‘I can’t tell you exactly where that was, miss. But I do know where Andrew was going more recently, at the end of the summer. He let it slip. It’s Todd’s Mound, outside the city.’
‘Did you tell the police?’ said Tom
‘Inspector Foster said he would send one of his men to look round up there, but I do not know whether he was speaking just to soothe me.’
‘We’ll have a look,’ said Helen, ‘and we will tell you what we have found. Even if it is nothing.’
‘Oh, I hope it is nothing,’ said Mrs Banks, tears forming afresh in her eyes. ‘I hope it is nothing!’
The Burial Chamber
Helen was dressed for rambling, with thick skirts and stout boots and a sensible hat. She had equipped herself with one of her godfather’s sticks and taken one for Tom as well. Less practically, Tom was wearing his hat and a smart overcoat, which, Helen joked, made him look fit only for the city street. They hired a cab to take them the mile or so north of the city boundary in the direction of Todd’s Mound. The pretence, which wasn’t altogether a pretence, was that they were out for a stroll. However, this was no brisk spring day or a balmy one in summer, but an overcast morning in late autumn.
They paid off the driver, explaining that he need not wait since they’d return to Salisbury on foot. The town was at their backs. Ahead of them rose the steep sides of the landscape feature known as Todd’s Mound, drab under the grey sky. There were, unsurprisingly, no other walkers in sight.
Access on the eastern side looked difficult since the land fell away steeply there. The couple set off on a rough track which ran in a westerly direction round the base of the mound.
‘Tom,’ said Helen, ‘you are a lawyer. I have a question but let me phrase it in a lawyerly way. If one were to stumble over treasure, would one have the right to take it?’
‘In principle, no. One has no right to take anything that is not one’s own property.’
‘Not even under the law of finder’s keepers?’
‘I’m not sure that law has ever been enacted in Parliament.’
‘So this man Andrew North and Canon Slater, they would not have been acting legally in taking items from a burial place?’
‘Probably not. On the other hand, if they picked up something which had been dropped on the way to a burial place and which had lain there over the centuries, then they would have been entitled to keep it.’
‘A clear distinction,’ said Helen. ‘I am so glad you are a lawyer, Tom, though others might consider it a rather dry profession.’
Thinking that this was more or less what Mrs Mackenzie had said to him, Tom pointed out, ‘The law was good enough for your father, Helen.’
‘Oh, he was a dry man. But we’ve wandered from the point. Did North and Canon Slater commit a crime in taking things from a burial chamber?’
‘Strictly speaking, they probably did. But the wronged party here is the Crown rather than the original owner of the property, and the Crown will not be very vigorous in pursuing a few bits of metal and flint, even assuming they have any value. Felix Slater for one wasn’t interested in these things because they might have been valuable but because they were evidence of past ages.’
‘Which is more or less what Mrs Banks said about her brother.’
‘Except in North’s case hunting hidden items had become a kind of obsession.’
By this time Tom and Helen had arrived at the western flank of Todd’s Mound. From here another path led off at right angles to the summit of the mound. They began the slightly steeper ascent, pausing for breath under a copse of beeches.
It was the sharp-eyed Helen who saw it. Something with a dullish glint which was not quite concealed under a pile of leaves below where they were standing. She bent forward and extracted a hip flask from the leaves. She turned it over several times.
‘It must be his.’
‘Whose?’
‘Andrew North’s. See here, Tom.’
On one side of the pewter flask a small set of initials had been inscribed, not professionally but neatly enough to suggest a careful hand.