The Ely Testament Read online

  By now they had reached the Lion. The hotel was an old coaching inn that had not only survived the coming of the railway but was prospering because of its proximity to the cathedral and the High Street. Two porters were standing to one side of the hotel entrance. They barely acknowledged Tom and Helen but continued talking, their heads close together and eyes casting sidelong glances in the direction from which the Ansells had just come. Evidently, the news of the murder – or at least of some violent incident occurring only a few hundred yards away – was already spreading like a stain.

  Inside the lobby there was an air of suppressed excitement. Staff and a handful of guests stood in two distinct clusters. There was a low buzz of conversation. Every face turned towards Tom and Helen when the couple entered the lobby. When it became obvious that the newcomers had nothing to say, either because they couldn’t or they wouldn’t, the faces turned in again and the buzzing resumed.

  A middle-aged man hovering between the two groups, staff and guests, came towards them. To judge by his clothes and manner he was the manager or perhaps the proprietor of the Lion Hotel. His expectant expression said, How may I be of assistance? or perhaps, Have you really got no information for us? Tom explained they were at the hotel to meet Mr and Mrs Lye.

  ‘Oh a pity, you have just missed them. They went out a little while ago. For a walk, I believe. An evening stroll.’

  The man paused. He rubbed his palms down a rather greasy-looking waistcoat. He leaned forward as if to say something confidential.

  ‘Have you heard anything?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Helen. ‘What is there to hear?’

  ‘Never mind,’ said the manager or proprietor, put off by Helen’s cool tone. ‘If you would please to wait for Mr and Mrs Lye in there. I’m sure they’ll be back soon.’

  After asking their names, he ushered them into a snug off the dining room. There was no one else in the little room. A fire was blazing and, though it was too hot as well as airless, Tom was glad to be away from the curious glances in the lobby. What he had to report was for the ears of Ernest and Lydia Lye alone. Although the rumour of some shocking event on Palace Green had reached the hotel, he guessed that the people inside were prevented from seeing for themselves either by fear or a sense of propriety or because, as staff, they could not wander off the premises.

  ‘Perhaps Mr and Mrs Lye already know what has occurred,’ said Tom.

  ‘Not if they went for a walk, as we were told,’ said Helen. ‘You do not go for a walk if you know it will lead you to a body.’

  Helen and Tom might have sat in one of the several armchairs crowding an already small space but they were too tense, too distracted. They busied themselves keeping out of reach of the fire and examining the pictures – hunting scenes or views of the town in which the Lion Hotel generally figured somewhere – that hung on the walls.

  There was patterned glass in the upper part of the door separating the snug from the hotel lobby. The glass darkened and a man walked into the room. It was Ernest Lye. Immediately behind him came Mrs Lye.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Ansell,’ she said. ‘We were told you were in here. What a pleasure it is to see you once more.’

  Tom and Helen realized in an instant that the Lyes knew nothing, had discovered nothing. Wherever they had wandered in their early evening stroll, their route couldn’t have taken them anywhere close to the west front of the cathedral or Palace Green. Otherwise they would surely have . . .?

  ‘Has something happened?’ said Lydia Lye. She glanced over her shoulder. ‘What are all those people waiting for out there?’

  Helen looked at Tom. He said, ‘I have some bad news, I’m afraid.’

  Now Lydia looked towards her husband. Ernest had said not a word since coming into the snug, had not even uttered a perfunctory greeting. He stood there, his gaze switching anxiously between the Ansells. He did not return his wife’s glance. He was pale, strained. Does he already know? Tom thought.

  Tom was about to tell them that Mr Charles Tomlinson was dead, when another shape darkened the glass panel to the snug. A man opened the door and peered round. It was Inspector Francis, the policeman from Palace Green. By the better light indoors, Tom saw a short man with a slightly upturned nose which might have been created for sniffing the air. The police officer looked briefly at the two couples, before coming right inside the snug. He closed the door behind him and stood against it. There was nothing exactly threatening about his actions but, as if by instinct, the four people already inside moved back. The Inspector nodded at Tom and Helen before turning to the Lyes.

  ‘Mr Lye, Mr Ernest Lye?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am Inspector Francis of the Ely police force. May I speak to you, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I mean in private.’

  ‘Speak to me about what?’

  Ernest’s voice was subdued, not much above a whisper. Perhaps he was merely responding to the Inspector’s manner. The policeman was as calm and authoritative as he had been by the body on the cathedral green. Ernest Lye looked more drawn, older. Tom’s mouth was dry. He was conscious of a wave of heat emanating from the fire.

  ‘If you don’t mind, sir, I would rather not say in front of . . .’

  Tom shifted slightly to get away from the fire, but Ernest Lye must have thought he was going to leave for he raised his hand and said, ‘No, Mr Ansell. Do not go.’

  The policeman looked surprised. To Tom, he said, ‘Are you a friend of Mr Lye?’

  ‘I’m a lawyer. Thomas Ansell. This is my wife.’

  ‘Not with a local firm?’

  ‘A firm in London.’

  ‘You have just arrived in Ely?’

  ‘We have been here a couple of days,’ said Tom, wondering where this was leading. ‘We are staying in Cambridge.’

  ‘Well, a London lawyer is already in attendance,’ said the Inspector, half to himself. ‘But, just to clarify things, you are Mr Lye’s lawyer.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Tom.

  ‘Why are you here, Inspector?’ said Lydia Lye. It was her first comment since the policeman’s entrance. Her face was as drawn and pale as her husband’s. Inspector Francis ducked his head very slightly in acknowledgement of the question but he did not answer it. Instead he brought his hands together in a decisive gesture.

  ‘I must really request you to come with me, Mr Lye, request you for the second time.’

  He allowed a few seconds to pass and when it was plain that Ernest Lye, for whatever reason, was not going to comply, said, ‘Then, despite the present company, I must say what it is my duty to say. Ernest Lye, you are under arrest.’

  Lydia Lye grasped her husband’s arm. Helen gasped. Tom felt trickles of sweat running down his face. Of all of them, Ernest Lye seemed the least affected. He sighed and said, ‘Arrested on what charge, Inspector?’

  ‘On suspicion of murder. The murder of Mr Charles Tomlinson.’

  ‘Very well. Look to my wife, will you, Mr and Mrs Ansell?’

  He moved towards the Inspector, who still stood by the door. The officer opened it and ushered Lye past him. Moments later, there was a groan, and Lydia Lye crumpled to the floor. Helen at once moved to attend to her, indicating to Tom that he should call the others back. Tom went to the door of the snug. At first he thought the lobby was empty but, in fact, everyone was crowded into the hotel entrance, looking at the retreating figures of Inspector Francis and Ernest Lye.

  He turned back to see Helen sitting on the floor, cradling Lydia Lye’s head in her lap and wielding her vial of sal volatile. Tom’s wife carried smelling salts in her bag. Not for herself, she’d once told her husband, since she was not the sort of lady who felt an obligation to swoon or faint. No, she carried them for others who might need reviving. That covered men as well as women, she insisted, since even representatives of the male species had been known to faint from time to time. Now she uncapped the vial and held it under Mrs Lye’s nose.


  Lydia inhaled deeply and a shudder ran down her body. Her eyes opened. It took her a while to focus, to see Helen above her with Tom standing at a little distance.

  ‘What happened?’ she said.

  The Witness

  What happened was straightforward or seemed straightforward. Mr Grace, the witness from one of the houses overlooking Palace Green, informed Inspector Francis that he had not only seen the murderous attack which occurred by the Crimean cannon but that he knew the identity of the murderer. He told his story to the policeman while they stood together by the same Russian cannon. George Grace was a witness to be taken seriously, or at any rate he was one who took himself seriously.

  From his father Mr Grace inherited a leather-tanning factory on the edge of the city and, like many inheritors of manufactories, he was keen to put a little distance between himself and the source of his prosperity. He was a justice of the peace and a benefactor of the cathedral (in the company of his family he had already attended this Sunday’s Matins). George Grace was young, or at least not so far into middle age, and he considered that his senses were sharp. On this late Sunday afternoon he was sitting in his drawing room, reading the paper. He had positioned himself near the window in order to catch the fading light from outside, and also because he liked to look out at the view from time to time. Not that there was much to see on a dull autumn afternoon with the mist coming down.

  When it grew too dim for him to continue reading in comfort, George Grace got up to light the lamp. Pausing by the window, he glimpsed through the railings which formed the boundary between his property and the Green a figure that he recognized. It was, as he explained to Inspector Francis, a gentleman called Charles Tomlinson, whose acquaintance he’d recently made. (He didn’t add that he had first met Tomlinson in the Lion Hotel and had been struck by the other’s exotic tales.)

  Tomlinson was not out walking by himself. There was a figure on his far side. The two were pacing almost in step, so that the identity and even the outline of the second individual was obscured from George Grace. Nevertheless, as they passed his window, he heard Tomlinson clearly address the other man as Lye. The afternoon was still and Tomlinson had a resonant voice. Yes, he had definitely referred to his companion as Mr Lye. George Grace already knew of Ernest Lye since he was familiar with the names of any notable families who lived in the area. And he also recalled from his conversations with Charles Tomlinson that that interesting gentleman was related to Mrs Lye. It was one reason for his presence in Ely.

  Thinking no more about it, Mr Grace returned to his chair and his newspaper. But soon afterwards he heard a cry from the Green, a masculine cry of distress or pain. He returned to the window. It was, as he admitted to the Inspector, difficult to see clearly, but there were two individuals facing each other near the mouth of the cannon. One was tall, and unmistakably Charles Tomlinson. He was weaving about as if inebriated. The other figure, a shorter one, stood at a distance, not giving any assistance.

  George Grace observed Tomlinson sit on the ground and then seem to push himself backward into the shelter of the cannon. The second individual hesitated a moment, bent down and then walked rapidly away, soon to be lost in the gloom. Mr Grace waited for Tomlinson to emerge from beneath the great gun but he did not.

  Feeling increasingly uneasy, George Grace took up the light and emerged from his front door. As he stepped through the gate in the railings fronting his house, he was aware of other people converging on the same spot on the Green. The next few minutes were all confusion. Heads swivelling in every direction, hands gesticulating or pointing at random through the mist. Scarcely coherent comments. Then tentative approaches to the body, a full view of which was obscured by the way it was lodged under the cannon. What had happened? Was the person still alive? Could anything be done?

  No one was willing to approach the corpse. Individuals were despatched – or despatched themselves – to the police-house. From what he overheard, Mr Grace didn’t think that anyone had witnessed the actual moment of the attack. Like him, they were alerted by a man crying out. Two or three had also glimpsed a second person disappearing in the gloom, in the direction of the High Street. No one seemed to have thought of taking off in pursuit. No one seemed to know who it was. But George Grace knew. It was Mr Ernest Lye. He had witnessed Tomlinson and Lye passing his window moments before the assault, he’d heard Tomlinson call Lye by name.

  Mr Grace hung on to this important piece of information, actually two important pieces. The probable identity of the dead man and the probable identity of his murderer. He envisaged giving testimony in court, testimony treated with respect on account of his standing as a citizen of Ely, testimony which could deliver a man to the gallows. Then he decided to examine the body for himself, in case he might see something to add to his testimony. He heard the judge complimenting him on his sharp senses, his cool head, his quick wits.

  Mr Grace squatted down, with some difficulty, and inched closer to the body. Almost immediately he regretted his bravado. He felt his gorge rise when, with the aid of his lamp, he saw the damage inflicted on Tomlinson. Or at least he saw the dreadful, contorted expression on the man’s face, which was soaked in blood. There was more on his chest. George Grace observed a particularly severe wound to his forehead. That it was Charles Tomlinson, however, there could be no doubt. Somehow this also confirmed for Grace that Tomlinson’s companion, and murderer, had been Ernest Lye. Fortunately, Mr Grace was prevented from having to do or see anything more by the arrival of the constable, and then of Inspector Francis.

  The Inspector listened attentively to what Mr Grace had to say. It was his habit to listen attentively. And to observe carefully. It seemed that quite a bit of his work as a policeman had already been done. Grace’s identification of the body was quickly confirmed by the discovery of Tomlinson’s top hat. In addition, Francis himself was familiar with Tomlinson’s features. The probable murderer was also named. Now there remained only the small matter of apprehending him.

  In normal circumstances, insofar as a murder can ever be normal, he would have followed up George Grace’s account by interviewing Ernest Lye, establishing his whereabouts during the afternoon, probing his links with the dead man, and so on, before making any further move. Inspector Stephen Francis was a cautious man.

  But it happened that Inspector Francis’ wife was the sister to Mr Salter, the manager of the Lion Hotel, the man with the greasy waistcoat. Inspector Francis’ wife often passed on titbits of information, or even mere chit-chat, which she picked up from her brother, to whom she was close. Salter was a good hotel manager but he was a busybody and a gossip. His sister Mrs Francis was a helpless chatterer, and her husband was her involuntary listener. Stephen Francis listened to her (most of the time) as attentively as he listened to everyone else. The policeman did not disdain any information, even that provided by his wife.

  He was already familiar with Charles Tomlinson, or at any rate had glimpsed him going about the town. A queer-looking cove, he thought, one not entirely to be trusted. He knew that Tomlinson frequented the Lion Hotel. He was aware, too, of the friendship between Mrs Lye and Tomlinson, or at least aware that they’d been seen together on occasion. Nothing remarkable about their keeping company since they were cousins, weren’t they? But a comment which had been passed on to Francis by his wife, perhaps originating with Salter, to the effect that they made ‘a handsome couple’, stuck in the Inspector’s mind. Do cousins make a couple? Some do. So if one were to go looking for a reason for antagonism between Ernest Lye and Charles Tomlinson . . .

  By itself, this would have been sufficiently interesting for Inspector Francis to interview Ernest Lye. Interest would have turned to suspicion with the discovery that the two men had been seen together by a reliable witness only moments before the death of one of them. But even that would not have been enough to lead to Lye’s immediate arrest. There was another reason for the arrest, a detail that Francis had noticed in the snug of the Lion Hotel.
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  Not that Inspector Francis had gone to the Lion in pursuit of Ernest Lye. No, he went to pick up extra information about Tomlinson. He knew that the man was in the habit of staying there. He wanted to speak to his brother-in-law and his staff, to find out whether anyone had seen Tomlinson in the company of any individual, and not only Ernest Lye, at any period during the afternoon.

  So, choosing a single constable by the name of Collis to accompany him and leaving the rest to handle the aftermath of the scene on the Green, Inspector Francis strode the few hundred yards to the Lion. An extra reason for walking this way was that he’d heard from George Grace and others about the second person fleeing in this direction. It was possible that someone might have spotted something. Yet not likely. To the mist was added the gathering dark.

  When Francis and Collis arrived at the Lion they entered a lobby which was unusually crowded with staff and guests. The Inspector’s brother-in-law, Salter, greeted him warmly. The manager did not expect to prise any details out of the policeman, who was like a clam compared to his wife, but it was always gratifying to show off one’s connections in the upper reaches of the Isle of Ely constabulary. Without giving anything away, Inspector Francis established, within a few moments, that not only was Mr Charles Tomlinson presently a guest of the Hotel but that his cousin Mrs Lye, together with her husband, was also here. In fact, said Salter pointing to the snug, they are all in there now. All? said Francis. There are four of them, said Salter. Mr and Mrs Lye and two friends of theirs, I suppose.

  Telling Collis to remain outside, Inspector Francis entered the snug and saw four individuals, two of whom he recognized. He was a little thrown by the realization that there was a lawyer already on the spot. Up to that point he had politely asked Ernest Lye if he could speak to him. It was only when Lye put out his hand as if to detain Thomas Ansell from leaving that Francis changed tack. For Inspector Francis observed that the cuff of Mr Lye’s shirt was stained with something that looked very like blood. The man himself seemed unaware of it. The others hadn’t noticed either. Their attention was fixed on the Inspector.