Cyrus continues to work on his transmitting device in the workshop in the bottom of his garden. From time to time he remembers that a man was murdered in this very place, an unfortunate individual named Eric Fort who was on his way to see Cyrus when he was waylaid by Arthur Arnett. Fort seems to have been a decent enough individual, a toiler in the funereal field like himself, though at a less elevated level. Cyrus thinks that perhaps he ought to commemorate Fort’s passing in some way but he is not quite certain how to do this.
He has already invented a name for the telegraphic machine. It will be called ‘The Chase Communicator’. He believes that his father would be proud of him and he relishes the echo of ‘The Chase Coupler’ in his choice of name. He feels that a public statue, enshrining his contribution to mankind’s well-being (and well-dying!), is not such an absurd prospect after all. He even strikes statue-like poses every now and then in the privacy of his workshop.
Mr and Mrs Lye stayed together at Phoenix House in Upper Fen. Lydia, who was more sensible than Bella, remembered her friendship with her Tomlinson cousin with a slight shudder. The idea that he had cultivated her acquaintance partly to have a pretext to search for some non-existent treasure was unsettling. So Lydia looked more affectionately at her husband, a good man if not a very effectual one. Her attitude towards Ernest was coloured slightly by the fact that shortly after his step-brother’s death, he was also plunged into mourning for his step-sister, the aged Miss Edith, who fell asleep one afternoon during teatime and never woke up again.
Ernest was therefore the beneficiary not only of Alexander’s eventually discovered will but of Edith’s estate too. He gained the house in Regent’s Park as well as enough capital (in stocks and bonds) to afford the cost of repairs, even renovation, on Phoenix House. Possession of the Regent’s Park house provided that ‘little place in town’, in fact quite a big one, for which Lydia had always hoped. Ernest is happy enough to accompany Lydia on their stays in London. He doesn’t do a great deal while she goes out and about, but he reads widely and contemplates writing a book about the folklore of the fens.
As for the Reverend George Eames, he too stayed on in Upper Fen. He did not rejoice at the violent deaths of his old enemies, Charles Tomlinson and Arthur Arnett, although in his more indulgent moments he believed it might be an instance of higher judgement. The way Arnett had eliminated Tomlinson, and then himself, brought to mind the words of Psalm 37, specifically that verse (the twentieth) which describes the wicked as being like the fat of sacrificial lambs since ‘they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.’
Mr Eames had other and happier matters to occupy him. Within a few months of that unfortunate business in the St Ethelwine’s crypt he was surprised to find himself married. There’d been a wife on his doorstep all the time. Or rather, inside his door. It was either the widowed Mrs Walters or the young and shy housemaid Hannah. You may take your pick as to which he chose. Or which chose him. The result is that he is much more content. His sermons may not be gentle but they are less severe on human failings. In fact, he no longer toils over his sermons as he used to. He is even growing to like the backwater which is Upper Fen.
Nobody lost a great deal by the murders and the suicide. Eric Fort, the man who ran errands for Willow & Son, had no dependants or family, apart from his recently deceased wife. The ring that he put into pawn in Bartle & Co. in Cambridge is still there. Alfred Jenkins, the editor of Funereal Matters, was both excited and alarmed to discover that his popular columnist Mute had committed murder twice over. But all the bad publicity caused a temporary rise in the circulation of F.M., and he was able to pen a couple of articles along the lines of ‘The Murderer Dwelling in Our Midst’ for the more sensational papers.
Of course, the magazine The New Moon never appeared, and so Helen Ansell was deprived of the chance of publishing a portrait of Cambridge or Ely. She was not too troubled, however. The idea of having been commissioned, if unknowingly, by a murderer was disturbing. Besides, she had other things on her mind as Tom found out on Christmas Eve, when he made some casual, commiserating remark to her about it being a pity – in a way – that they would never see an issue of Mr Arnett’s periodical The New Moon. Helen, who was looking blooming, said, ‘Never mind, Tom. There is another issue I’m looking forward to seeing.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘One that takes only two authors. I expect it to come out around next July. It will be a summer issue.’
‘It will? What’s it called?’
‘Tom, you are very slow sometimes. I don’t know exactly what “it” will be called. The authors have yet to decide. But part of his name – or hers – will be Ansell.’
Summer, 1645
Anne paused by the edge of the fen. She looked at the diamond as it lay in her palm. As vivid as the object before her eyes was the sight of Mr Loyer fleeing from Stilwell Manor, stumbling over the wall, being surrounded in the churchyard and then cut down by the brutish Trafford. Anne shuddered. She wanted nothing to do with the precious stone that he had pressed into her hand, even if it came from King Charles. She wanted nothing more to do with worldly things. She closed her hand, raised her arm and threw the thing – a crystal which flashed red or blue or green wherever it caught the light – so that it arced through the air and landed somewhere, out of sight, gone for good.
The Ely Testament Page 28
