The Magicians

by J. B. Priestley

  They finished shortly afterwards, and then Raven­street, at Tom’s urgent request, went home with him and ate some cold meat and salad and drank bottled ale, while he heard young Dick Hurdlow’s account of the shop proposition. He agreed to accompany Dick and his father to the Constitutional Club, where they found a fat little solicitor called Talban, who ordered more bottled ale, became more of a fat little solicitor than ever, and gave Ravenstreet further details of the shop proposition, all with a deeply impressive, sweating gravity that suggested the Suez Canal was about to change hands. The four of them then returned to the Hurdlows’, where the image of a smirking young woman was banished from the television screen and all female Hurdlows were told sternly either to keep quiet or leave the room, which by this time was very warm indeed and cried, not in vain, for more bottled ale. Young Dick Hurdlow was delighted by all this swift progress; old Tom, hugely solemn, craggy-browed, the Roman veteran turned capitalist, was tremendous; little Mr. Talban happily sweated away and gave a fine character performance as an infinitely cunning but friendly legal man; and Ravenstreet, rather sleepy after so much bottled ale, found he was having as pleasant an evening as he had known for some time. Something, if only a small electrical business, was being created; the glimpse of family life was reassuring; and people were people again, solidly there with all their absurdity, their pathos, their flashes of courage and faith that illuminated the darkness like lighthouses, real people instead of the bloodless creatures that existed only in statistics, theories, and discussions. Indeed, as he drove home slowly and sleepily, he almost envied old Tom Hurdlow and felt rather sorry for himself, a man alone. It was very late when he arrived home; if the Magicians were still awake, then they were talking quietly in one of their rooms; he went straight up to his own room and was soon asleep.

  Next morning he was confronted by a demand, as peremptory as a fire alarm, that he and one ‘Nicholas Pardurep’ should that day attend the inquest upon the bodies of Ernest and Nancy Sepman, which said inquest would be held in the Infants’ School at Feltcrow and presided over by T. Brigden Coss, Coroner.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” he told Perperek. “It’ll be like the other night all over again. And there’s something about the Coroner’s name that suggests he’ll be a pompous ass, but we’ll have to go.”

  Perperek looked dubious, pushing out his enormous lower lip. “As I tell you, I do not like official things. To such peoples, always I tell lies. Is only thing to do. I do not go, I think.” He caught Ravenstreet’s look. “Ah—is troble for you then, eh? So I go. But first I have some important conference with Marot and Wayland. When you call out I am ready to go.”

  He was, too; nevertheless, they were behind time arriving at Feltcrow, which Ravenstreet remembered as one of the places of call after the scene at the quarry. It looked no better in daylight than it had done in the middle of the night. The Infants’ School was a dingy brick building that appeared to have been designed with an idea of its possible use for inquests. Their late arrival created a bad impression at once. A police inspector pounced upon them as if they had broken parole. Ravenstreet remembered this inspector as a figure in the nightmare proceedings that began at the quarry; his name, it now appeared, was Triffett; he was a tall, wooden sort of man not unlike a ventriloquist’s doll on a very large scale, and he seemed to have an unusually limited range of facial expressions and tones of voice, beginning with bewilderment and ending with baffled rage. The Coroner, this Inspector Triffett told them, had been enquiring about them, and would probably have something pretty sharp to say to them.

  Seated in the schoolroom below some faded pictures of the Cow, the Sheep, the Pig, designed for the instruction of the infant, Mr. T. Brigden Coss was holding court, offering a companion picture of Man Triumphant or the Judicial Intellect. He was not an impressive figure, being a smallish bald man with a long indignant nose, an ant-eater type; but his manner suggested he was eight feet high and ruling Charle­magne’s empire. He was indeed, as the dismayed Ravenstreet recognised at once, one of those portentous donkeys too often found among the minor legal luminaries of this realm, conceited and opinionated little men who make the most of every moment of authority, catching the eyes of reporters and then immediately airing their prejudices and bad temper.

  “Inspector Triffett, are these the two missing witnesses?” he cried, glaring at Ravenstreet and Perperek. “They are? I believe one of them to be of—er—foreign extraction. I hope that it has been ex­plained to him that the Crown is represented here, and that although this is not a court of law in the ordinary sense, contempt of court may be charged against—er—persons—er——”

  “Yes, sir,” said the inspector.

  “Is very important official man,” murmured Perperek, beaming at T. Brigden Coss, the other witnesses, the jury, the reporters.

  “Silence!” shouted T. Brigden Coss, glaring all round as if everybody were talking. Then he turned to his witness, who was the doctor who had been called to the quarry.

  This doctor, who looked shockingly short of sleep, wholesome food, fresh air and exercise, now continued to explain the manifold injuries that must have brought instant death to the Sepmans. Unfortunately he had some impediment that gave his voice a hollow boom and made his highly technical evidence hard to under­stand. The Coroner compelled him to repeat several statements, which annoyed him by reminding him of his impediment, with the result that very soon the two of them were angrily shouting at each other. The children playing down the road could have heard what were the final indignities that life inflicted upon the Sepmans. As he looked at the two angry men, heard the querulous bark of the Coroner and the doctor’s irritated boom, Ravenstreet thought how all this brawling in a decayed schoolroom seemed typical of poor little Sepman, the last ironic stroke that completed the miserable pattern. He remembered Sepman in his sitting-room, flushed with whisky, excited in a likeable boyish fashion at the idea of having a tiny lab in his yacht; and he remembered too how he had known then, with a strange certainty, that there would never be any escape to far seas, that Sepman’s doom was already heavy upon him. And because he wondered at this knowledge, and at himself for acquiring it so unexpectedly, over and above the compassion he felt not only for Sepman but for all the races of men with their confusion and frustration and bright tantalising visions, there hovered a sense, a feeling, an obscure conviction, that our life was indeed a dream. A man’s heart might know suffering and joy, his mind terror and triumph, but the adventures of the day were hardly more definite than the fantasies of the night; and we injured ourselves by giving these things a false finality, disregarding the voice within that told us we were mistaking a shadow show for reality. Ernest and Nancy Sepman had made some bad moves in a rough game, but this was not life’s final settlement with them; it was what it appeared to be, a mournful farce. But while this seemed clear, he found himself wondering too if he thought so simply because he had been caught by the Magicians.

  But his name was being called, and T. Brigden Coss was glaring at him again. He went forward and com­posedly answered the preliminary questions, establishing his identity and so forth.

  “This witness is important,” the Coroner explained to the jury, who looked as if they had all been educated in that schoolroom and nowhere else, “because this—er—unfortunate couple had been guests at his house. He can therefore tell us something about—er—their state of mind. If Sepman genuinely mistook the turning—then his death was accidental—and you must bring in a verdict to that effect. This would mean, however, that the local authorities are at fault in not making sure that such accidents do not occur. And I understand that they—er—deny all liability. The police evidence suggests that Sepman could not have mistaken the turning—that—er—in fact he must have given way to some suicidal impulse—and so deliberately brought about the death of his wife and himself. You must therefore—consider most carefully the evidence of this witness.” He looked at his notes. “I gather, Sir Charles, fro
m what you have already stated, that in fact you did not know Sepman and Mrs. Sepman very well but had invited them to your house so that Sepman could meet some business associates of yours. Is that correct?”

  Ravenstreet said that it was, and explained briefly how he had stayed the previous night with the Sepmans and it had been agreed that there should be a business conference at his own house. “But we never had it,” he concluded.

  “And why not, if that was the purpose of the visit?”

  Ravenstreet hesitated.

  “Come, come, my dear sir. There must be some simple explanation. Was Sepman intoxicated?”

  “No. He’d been drinking fairly heavily, but he wasn’t drunk——”

  “He was sober, then?”

  “No, not quite——”

  “Come, come, either he was intoxicated or he was sober——”

  “It doesn’t follow, does it? He was neither drunk nor sober, like a great many people——”

  There was a laugh at this, which annoyed T. Brigden Coss, who immediately glared all round and demanded silence. “You’re not being very helpful. Are we or are we not to understand that Sepman had been drinking so heavily that it was impossible for you to discuss your business with him? We are concerned here with his state of mind. Now then!”

  “Sepman’s state of mind had nothing to do with the business he’d come to discuss. He had a violent quarrel with his wife, hurried her out of the room, and before the rest of us realised what he was doing, he had driven away.”

  “What brought about this—er—violent quarrel?”

  “Apparently he was very jealous—and considered that his wife had given him cause for jealousy——”

  T. Brigden Coss closed his eyes, allowed his nose to quiver in righteous indignation, then opened his eyes to stare meaningly at the foreman of the jury. As usual, the Judicial Intellect had felt outraged even by this glimpse of our warm, messy, mammalian existence. Now he looked at Ravenstreet with some disgust. “Was Mrs. Sepman’s behaviour on this particular evening—er—calculated to—er—arouse her husband’s jealousy?”

  “Possibly. He had lost his temper during dinner. She left the room. A little later, one of my other guests took her out in his car. It was when they returned that the scene I’ve described took place.”

  “What happened when your other guest took her out in his car?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But it must have been discussed between them, in your presence, on her return——”

  “No, I don’t think it was. He was jealous, suspicious, angry. She was angry too. Can’t we leave it at that?”

  “I am in charge of these proceedings, Sir Charles. That was a most improper observation. Kindly answer the questions I put to you.” He turned to the jury. “As we have to decide whether Sepman deliberately killed himself and his wife or was merely the victim of an accident, you can see the importance of this evidence as to his state of mind. Probably you will agree with me that this witness is not being co-operative and may—er—even be withholding valuable evidence——”

  “Certainly not,” said Ravenstreet.

  “I am not addressing you, sir, but the members of the jury.”

  Ravenstreet began walking back to his seat.

  “Where are you going, sir?” T. Brigden Coss was now bouncing up and down with fury.

  “I imagined that you’d finished with me—as you pointed out that you were now addressing the jury——”

  “Inspector Triffett?”

  “Sir?”

  “Make sure that this witness does not leave the court.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We will take the next witness—er—Mr.—er—Nicholas—er—Pardurep—who, I understand, was also a member of this—er—unfortunate house party—and so—er—can give us important evidence as to Sepman’s state of mind. Let us hope that he proves to be—er—more co-operative than the previous witness.” He gave Ravenstreet a final glare, and then surveyed Perperek with some suspicion. Perperek, deep in his fat old foreign clown act, beamed at him.

  “Your name is Nicholas Pardurep?”

  “What you like—anything.” Perperek waved a hand.

  There could not have been a worse beginning. “It is not a question of what I like or what anybody else likes. You are here to give evidence under oath. Is your name Nicholas Pardurep?”

  “No.” Then for good measure, smiling broadly: “No. No. No. No.”

  “Then what are you doing here? I want Nicholas Pardurep.”

  “If you want him, you find him.” Perperek’s tone suggested that he was trying to be helpful.

  “This is the man, sir,” the inspector called out. “Perhaps we haven’t got the name quite right.”

  “Is Perperek. Nicholas Perperek—Per-per-ek.”

  “Perperek,” the Coroner repeated, writing it down. Then he looked up angrily. “Why didn’t you say so at once?”

  “Am trying to please important official man. If you like Pardurep, all the same to me.”

  “Well, it isn’t all the same to me. That is not how we do things in this country. You are, I understand, a Greek citizen?”

  “Oh—yes. Greek citizen. Very nice.” Perperek’s tone suggested that any one of half-a-dozen citizenships would have done as well.

  T. Brigden Coss hesitated a moment, then decided wisely not to go into this question of nationality. He glanced at his notes. “You were staying with the deceased at the house belonging to Sir Charles Raven­street. You were one of the persons invited there, I suppose, to discuss business with Sepman?”

  “Is not so. Am there as friend of Sir Charles Rav-en-street. No business. In Greece, in Italy, plenty business—big merchant. If you like to know, I tell you of these things——”

  “No, no, we don’t need to go into all that——”

  Perperek looked disappointed. “Is very interest­ing——”

  “Yes, yes, but quite unnecessary. Now, Mr.—er—Perperek, you had an opportunity to observe Sepman during the course of the evening. What conclusion did you come to about him?”

  “Very unhappy man—this Sepman. I see at once he is very unhappy man.”

  “Because he was jealous of his wife?”

  “No, I think. Not unhappy because jealous. But jealous because unhappy.”

  “I see. And Mrs. Sepman?”

  Perperek spread out his hands. “If man is not right, woman is not right. When man is unhappy, then woman who is with him lives in bad weather every day. So she try other men for better weather.”

  “Yes, well I don’t think we need to go into all that. Sepman was unhappy because he was worried and anxious about his business—is that it?”

  “Anything you say.” Perperek’s indifference was enormous, like the blank moon face he turned to the indignant Coroner.

  “It’s not a question of anything I say. You must understand,” he continued very slowly, showing a certain forbearance towards this obtuse foreigner, “that you are here to give evidence and therefore must answer my questions properly.” He looked at his notes again. “When you heard Sepman driving off, why did you insist upon accompanying Sir Charles Ravenstreet? Why in fact did you both follow them?”

  “Is accident, I think.”

  “Ah—you thought there might be an accident, which of course you were anxious to prevent. But do you mean a genuine accident, due to careless driving, or a deliberate attempt at suicide on the part of Sepman?”

  “Yes, yes, yes.” And Perperek, smiling broadly, wagged his head.

  “You cannot have understood the question. I am asking what it was you wished to prevent when you followed them. Merely an accident—or an attempt at suicide?”

  “Is true—yes.”

  Somebody laughed, and this of course annoyed T. Brigden Coss all the more. “It must have been one or the other,” he shouted. “Do you know the meaning of the word accident—or the term suicide? You do? Good! Now we can get on. Did you think that Sepman might have an
accident—or did you think he might commit suicide?”

  “Is same thing.”

  “It is not the same thing. How can it be the same thing? And if you understand a reasonable amount of English, you ought to have realised by this time that this is exactly what we are trying to determine. The verdict of this court depends partly on your evidence. And let me add that if I thought you were deliberately trying to confuse the issue, perhaps withholding evidence, I would have you committed for contempt of court, which in this country, you had better understand, is a grave offence. Now will you give some thought to the questions I am putting to you, then answer them properly?”

  “Only one can talk. If you talk all the time, then I cannot talk.”

  “That will do. But if there’s anything relevant you wish to tell me——”

  “Yes, I say some things.” Perperek was masterful now. “I tell truth to official for once.” He flashed a look at Ravenstreet. “Sepman is unhappy man. He has passing-time and chemical view of life. All is foolish—no meanings—but we can forget by having some little satisfactions—nice food and new suits—go to other places in a boat—little woman admiring man of strength and power. Of course he has selfs that say there is something different—but other selfs know better. And some of these selfs hate—hate—like so many—make drugs—make atom bombs.”

  “I said anything relevant. I don’t want any speeches about atom bombs——”

  “I talk of Sepman. These little satisfactions—they are long time coming—and is in passing-time—tick-tock-tick-tock. And woman is not admiring. It is all bad. Like so many, he believes in death not life—and like so many, that is what he wishes. He goes in car to look for death—deep-sleep-death, very nice. I know these things.”

  “Yes, yes, my dear sir, but what exactly, from the point of view of this court, do you know?” T. Brigden Coss’s nose was shaping little circles of exasperation. “What was his intention?”