‘Shall I draw the curtains, my dear?’ said Henry when they were alone. A spectacular autumnal sun was brushing the rooftops of the houses on the other side of the street.
‘Leave them, please, ‘ said Constance. ‘It is nice to see the outside world from time to time.’
Henry stood indecisively near the window. Eventually he came to sit on the edge of Constance’s bed. His wife shifted her attention away from the newspaper. Perhaps she sensed her husband was about to say something significant. He was wondering where to begin even though he had already told the story, or parts of it, to the Inspector earlier in the afternoon.
‘Constance, I. .’
‘Yes?’
‘I have been behaving rather foolishly, weakly, if you like. .’
And Henry Cathcart went on to describe how he had allowed himself to entertain occasional visits from Mrs Amelia Slater. Of how he had perhaps been more encouraging of them than he should have been. Of how, from the outside, such things might look compromising. Of how, in fact, he had compromised himself in a more dangerous sense by visiting Venn House on the very evening of the Canon’s murder. Had discovered the unlocked front door and paced up the silent passage and paused outside the closed door of Felix Slater’s study.
(He did not mention to Constance that he had dropped his monogrammed handkerchief somewhere near the study door — the handkerchief which was speckled with blood actually from a shavingcut and no more sinister source, and which had been seen by Bessie the maid and retrieved by her mistress.)
Henry said that he had slipped out of the Canon’s house with the sense that something indefinable was wrong, only to be drawn back a few minutes later by the brouhaha surrounding the murder. He was as amazed as anyone else to see that the haplesss individual being ecorted away by the local police was Tom Ansell, the son of his late comrade-in-arms. Henry hadn’t informed the police that he himself had walked into Venn House since he had seen nothing inside and didn’t want to muddy the waters of the investigation. Of course he did not believe that Ansell had committed the crime — what would be his motive, for one thing? — and assumed that it wouldn’t be long before the unfortunate young lawyer was released.
(Which assumption was correct. Cathcart neglected to say, though, that his first thought on hearing that the Canon had been murdered was to imagine the wife doing the deed. Hadn’t she talked, almost fondly, of widowhood?)
Now, however, things had taken a peculiar and even darker turn with the death of Percy Slater at his estate in Downton and the disappearance of Walter Slater and the hysterics of Mrs Slater. It was as if the whole family was labouring under some curse, like characters in an ancient tragedy. Accordingly, he had decided to tell the Inspector what he knew — which wasn’t much — and had referred to his visit to Venn House on the night of the first death. He wanted to have everything clear and out in the open.
(Or almost clear and out in the open. Cathcart had been frank with Foster, up to a point. He’d hinted, man to man, that he had a partiality for Mrs Slater, a partiality which had always stayed strictly within the bounds of respect-ability. He described how he had paid her the occasional visit, or she him, to discuss the stock in his store and the clothing catalogues, for he valued a lady’s perspective. He mentioned that he’d dropped a personal item in Venn House on the evening of the murder, a handkerchief which had subsequently been returned to him. He admitted this only so as to guard himself against further. . insinuations from Amelia. If the police were aware of the full story, then the widow could not exert any pressure on him. In truth, Foster had not been very interested and listened to Cathcart with scarcely concealed impatience. He had bigger business to attend to.)
Finally, Henry Cathcart described to Constance how he had ‘seen through’, as he put it, Mrs Amelia Slater. She was a — he hesitated before saying this — an unstable woman, perhaps a dangerous one. He had witnessed for himself her hysterics earlier that day. She seemed to be obsessed not so much with her dead husband but with her absent nephew. He didn’t know what to make of her or of the situation in general.
(Which was more or less true.)
Constance heard him out. It did not take very long, for Henry had not a great deal of substance to say. Her great eyes grew wider and she nodded once or twice as if what she was hearing wasn’t much of a surprise. Then, looking more animated than Henry had seen her in many months, she leaned forward and patted her husband’s hand where it lay on the bed-cover.
‘There, there, my dear,’ she said in a tone which suggested that he rather than she was the invalid. ‘I perhaps know more about what’s been going on than you think. Long ago I concluded that Mrs Slater was the kind of woman that you have just discovered her to be for your-self. I’m glad your eyes have been opened. Now perhaps we can talk about making that trip to London to see Mr Moody and Mr Sankey. . ’
Cathcart sighed, whether with relief or vexation he couldn’t have said. He half expected her to make some comment about there being more joy in heaven over a single sinner that repenteth, etc. Instead Constance glanced at the Gazette.
‘The authorities do not seem any nearer to discovering the murderer of Canon Slater.’
‘No. It is a mystery still.’
Although for Tom Ansell and Helen Scott, the mystery was almost solved.
The Spire
Tom and Helen were witness to a peculiar sight as they approached Venn House at a brisk walk. Far from having to search out Adam Eaves in his lair in the garden — as they expected to do if they were to find him at all — the very man appeared before them. He burst out of the gate in the wall when the couple were a hundred yards or so away. Instinctively they halted and Tom flung out his hand as if to protect Helen. Tom wasn’t quite so hot on the chase as he had been when he’d first grasped the gardener’s secret from what Jenny had revealed. The few minutes which it had taken him and Helen to cover the distance between The Side of Beef and the West Walk had given Tom the space to think of Helen’s warning of danger. Yes, it was dangerous. This was a likely murderer they were seeking. Yet, Tom told himself, the man had probably fled in the interim since they had glimpsed him that morning.
But, no, he was fleeing now, at the very instant when Tom and Helen arrived at the place. Another figure rushed out behind him, looking to neither right nor left but intent on the man in front. There was fury in his every movement. He was waving an arm in the air, almost shaking his fist. This person too looked familiar. It was — although this was hard to explain — the coachman to Percy Slater. Fawkes, he was called.
The two ran across the secluded lane like men in a race who are nearing the finishing line and putting on a final spurt. They were black shadows in the red twilight. Both men wore the little caps known as billycocks, which some-how added to their malevolent, pantomime look. Tom recalled that scene at Salisbury station on his arrival a few days earlier. Two figures, silhouettes in the fog, playing some peculiar game on the plaform, the way one of them had toppled on to the railway line while the other merged into the shadows. He couldn’t explain this either but he was convinced it was these two, Eaves and Fawkes, that he’d seen.
A low wall separated West Walk from the great stretch of lawn which fronted the western end of the cathedral, and this wall Adam Eaves now vaulted. There was something animal-like in his speed and agility. But the man at his heels was only a little less quick and lithe. He, too, cleared the wall and soon both men had the look of malevolent children cavorting on the lawn.
‘What is happening, Tom? I recognize your gardener but who’s the other one?’