The Durham Deception

by Philip Gooden

  It was warm and Helen had brought a parasol although it was still furled. In front of them was a fulling mill and a line of dirty foam where the river level dropped and the water tumbled across rocks. For all the coal-black streaks which ran through it like threads, the water sparkled in the light.

  They’d spent most of the walk discussing the session of the previous evening. They thought they’d worked out how the thin white arms might have been done: Tom said it was significant he hadn’t been able to spot Kitty during the time when the limbs were being waggled through the muslin curtains. Although she’d appeared in front of the cabinet just as the arms were being withdrawn inside, perhaps some trickery had occurred. Make-believe limbs of wax or plaster which might be substituted for real ones at the last moment? The light was low and everyone was in a state of heightened expectation in which they might see what they wanted to see.

  But it was one thing to use common sense and discuss how it might have been done while walking along the riverbank on a bright summer’s morning, and another for Helen to persuade her aunt to see Eustace Flask for the fraud he really was. Indeed, she was wondering whether it was even right for her to try.

  ‘After all, Tom, we’ve already had an unhappy experience with the spiritualists. That man in London who drowned himself. Suppose Mr Flask did something so desperate.’

  ‘Flask isn’t like Smight. He is a – I don’t know – he’s a professional. If he fails here then he’ll go and try somewhere else. Besides, he is not failing, unfortunately, but doing rather well. Making money.’

  ‘I know it is my aunt’s money. But it is also her life. I do not think I can dictate to her how she should use them.’

  ‘Even though Flask is no better than a confidence trickster. It was very clever how he nudged your aunt into believing that he should be treated “like a son”.’

  ‘We can see that he is a trickster but no one else there last night was willing to accept it.’

  ‘Apart from the gentleman who exposed him,’ said Tom.

  ‘Who was he, do you think?’

  ‘I’ve no idea except that he is an outsider here, like us. But he was very accomplished with his own sleight of hand. Substituting the sticks of chalk and then knowing that Flask had flour hidden away at the bottom of his trousers.’

  There was something so absurd about the flour and the trousers that Tom and Helen laughed out loud. Then a thought occurred to Tom. It was to do with an outsider who was skilled with his hands . . . the techniques required by a fraudulent medium . . . or by a magician. Now Helen was saying something else and he wasn’t listening.

  ‘I said that the unknown man wasn’t the only person to be sceptical about Flask. There’s also my aunt’s lodger, Septimus Sheridan.’

  ‘It’s true he expressed just the tiniest doubt about Flask and he was looking a bit unhappy during the evening. But I noticed he was very quick to agree with Aunt Julia about everything.’

  ‘Here is a strange business, Tom. I was talking to Septimus and he let slip two or three things. In fact, he didn’t reveal them accidentally. I think that he wanted me to know them. He used to live in the city of Durham. He has been friends with my Aunt Julia for many years although there was a long period when they did not see anything of each other. While he was saying this, he let out a deep sigh as though he regretted that long absence. And from something else he said I understood that he had once been in the church . . .’

  ‘Had been in the church? I don’t understand. Doesn’t Mr Sheridan spend his time researching in the cathedral library?’

  ‘Yes, he does. But I mean that he was once a minister, that he was ordained.’

  ‘He’s been defrocked!’ said Tom.

  ‘No, no. Does he have the look of a man who’s done something scandalous? Septimus mentioned a ‘crisis of faith’. I believe that he quit the church but that he continues to do his work or research in its shadow. And I think too that he was the man that my aunt was engaged to, the man on whose account she first came to Durham.’

  ‘Aren’t you letting your imagination wander, Helen?’

  ‘Do not say so, Thomas, otherwise I shall push you into the river with the tip of my parasol, like this.’

  They were passing a section of the bank which dropped sheer to the river. Helen jabbed at Tom in a way that was almost entirely playful. Tom looked round. He noticed a tall man behind them who quickly averted his gaze.

  ‘Supposing you’re right,’ said Tom after a moment. ‘Does that mean that Septimus Sheridan has come back in the hope of marrying your aunt after all these years?’

  ‘He has no ambition that way as far as I can tell. Nor has she. Haven’t you noticed the weary manner in which she talks to him? On her side, it’s as if they’ve been married years already while he defers to her and then talks about her in a way that’s almost reverential.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Tom gloomily. ‘I didn’t know you were such a dissector of the right conditions for marriage. Weariness from the woman and deference from the man.’

  ‘Whatever is between my aunt and Septimus is not a marriage,’ said Helen. ‘Septimus is – I don’t now – he’s a mixture of a hermit and a lodger.’

  ‘It’s all very odd,’ said Tom.

  ‘That’s what you said about our journey before we started. The coincidence of Aunt Julia and the medium together with your Major Whatnot and his dagger. You must tell me what he says. Unless it’s confidential and legal and all those things.’

  ‘I think Major Marmont wants the world to know how he came by the dagger. Anyway I shall tell you everything after I’ve met him.’

  ‘Pardon me,’ said someone loudly.

  Helen and Tom stopped and looked back. A man was standing there, the same individual whom Tom had observed earlier.

  ‘Pardon me,’ he repeated. ‘I believe you may have dropped this, madam.’

  He was holding out a lilac-coloured handkerchief. Helen stepped closer to examine it. ‘No. I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Thank you but it doesn’t belong to me.’

  ‘I could have sworn you let it fall as you were walking. I saw it fluttering to the ground.’

  The man was tall and dressed in clothes that had been of good quality but now showed signs of wear. He was well-spoken. Since he was so insistent, Helen made a show of looking at the lilac handkerchief more carefully. She shook her head.

  ‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘I must be mistaken. Good day to you, madam, and to you, sir.’

  He touched his hat in salute and walked off in the opposite direction.

  ‘It might have been your handkerchief,’ said Tom. ‘He seemed very convinced.’

  ‘I recognize that man,’ said Helen. ‘Or not recognize exactly, but there was something familiar about him.’

  They both turned round again to watch the man striding along the riverside path. He had a rangy, loping walk.

  ‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Doesn’t look like anyone I know.’

  The Cathedral Precincts

  At about the same time as Helen and Tom were beginning their stroll along the riverside path below the cathedral, Eustace Flask was taking a walk on Palace Green, in the precincts of the cathedral itself. He reached the north porch where a man was waiting for him. They nodded to each other before entering the building. If they had been interested in such things they might have remarked on the great pillars in the nave which were incised with zigzags or lozenge patterns, or commented on the way the sun poured through the rose window in the east. But the two were not attracted by ecclesiastical architecture or the morning light. Instead, the cathedral served as a convenient meeting place where they might go unnoticed on account of the regular visitors and the coming and going of the masons and carpenters who were presently rebuilding the choir screen.

  Flask’s companion was a man of medium height with a florid complexion. His name was Frank Harcourt and he was a police superintendent, one of six holding that rank in the Durham City Constabulary. He was off-duty and so weari
ng civilian clothes, a three-piece suit which he would not normally have afforded but which his wife Rhoda had encouraged him to buy. Of the two men Harcourt might have been the more easily recognized, perhaps by one of the clerics who were walking purposefully about the building, but he avoided meeting anyone’s eye. By instinct the two kept their perambulations to the secluded or shadowed corners of the cathedral.

  They didn’t speak a word until they were standing in the north transept where Eustace Flask said, ‘How are you on this fine summer’s morning, Frank?’

  ‘I cannot hold them off for much longer,’ said Frank Harcourt who evidently had no time for pleasantries. He was sweating, despite the coolness of the place, and his red face was a contrast to Flask’s pallor. Nearby was the scuffling movement of workmen up and down ladders, the discreet tap of chisel on stone.

  ‘Hold them off? Whom do you mean?’ said Flask.

  ‘Whom do you think I mean?’ said Harcourt, imitating Flask’s oily tone. ‘I mean Alfred Huggins. I mean the Chief Constable.’

  ‘But you said them, which I took to be more than one person.’

  This time Harcourt answered with real irritation. ‘You know the situation, Mr Flask. There are quite a few people who do not care for your activities in this town or even your presence here.’

  ‘Which people?’

  ‘Do I need to spell it out? Some of them are probably in these precincts at this very moment. Men of the cloth. Not all of them approve of this spiritualist lark. They call it an offence against religion. Not to put too fine a point on it, they think that you are a fraud.’

  ‘Spiritualist lark? Lark?’ said Flask, putting his hand on his fine brocade waistcoat in the gesture he’d previously employed in Julia Howlett’s morning room. ‘Well, I suppose that true prophets and seekers of truth have always been mocked and persecuted.’

  ‘Spare me the indignation, Mr Flask. You do not have to pretend with me. These important people, men of the cloth and the rest of them, are putting pressure on the Chief Constable who in turn is putting pressure on me to do something about it.’

  ‘Frank, Frank, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am to hear you talk in this unfriendly fashion. For we are friends, you know. Besides I am not breaking any laws.’

  ‘Maybe not, but if I was to investigate I’m sure I could turn up something. And it’s not only you. There is that Ambrose Barker fellow and the woman, Kitty with the strange surname. I could certainly turn up something on them.’

  ‘If you were to investigate, perhaps you could. But you are not going to, are you?’

  ‘Like I said just now, I cannot hold the Chief Constable off forever.’

  ‘Keep your voice down, we are attracting attention.’

  And, indeed, a gaggle of visitors assembled in the crossing place who’d been staring upward at the soaring interior of the tower as well as admiring the new work on the choir screen were now turning to look at Flask and Harcourt. The two men moved away to the south end of the cathedral before walking out to the cloisters. When they were out of earshot of the few other people ambling round the area, Superintendent Harcourt went on the attack once more.

  ‘I heard there was trouble last night at that old lady’s house in South Bailey. Someone tried to expose you.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I am a policeman, Mr Flask. It is my duty to keep my ear to the ground.’

  ‘We must not forget you are a policeman, Frank. A pillar of the community. Yes, some troublemaker did try to “expose” me, as you put it. He did not succeed.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Your presence in Durham cannot be tolerated for much longer.’

  ‘How is your pretty new wife, Frank? How is Rhoda?’

  ‘She is well,’ said Harcourt, in a subdued voice.

  ‘Did she like the cameo I sent her? It was a nice piece. I know that she has fine tastes or should I say expensive ones.’

  ‘She appreciated the cameo, thank you.’

  ‘I wonder what Mr Alfred Huggins would say if he knew your wife had accepted gifts from a spiritualist. I wonder what he would say about the other little contributions I have made to your household economy?’

  This time Harcourt was silent.

  ‘All I require is a few more days to complete my, ah, work here,’ resumed Flask. ‘Then I shall move to pastures new. Why, only yesterday I took the train down to York to see the lie of the land.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ said Harcourt. ‘You can go to York or go to the moon for all I care but you must leave Durham very soon. Otherwise I shall have to begin an investigation of your activities. Only a few days, mind.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said Flask, apparently satisfied. ‘I think I shall have a look at the library here. They say it is one of the finest ecclesiastical libraries in the country. Do you know it? Are you familiar with the cathedral library?’

  ‘Do as you please,’ said Harcourt but he spoke the words under his breath to the retreating back of Eustace Flask, who, with a nonchalant farewell waggle of his hand, turned into a doorway leading off from the cloister.

  The superintendent of police made his way out of the cloisters. He was still sweating inside his new suit, sweating with heat and irritation at the conversation with Flask, and he went into the cool of the Galilee Chapel to recover. Idly, he gazed at the tomb of the Venerable Bede which stood isolated and flanked at each corner by ceremonial stone candleholders. There was an inscription in Latin on the black surface of the tomb. Frank Harcourt wondered at the meaning of the words. No doubt Eustace Flask could have told him. Flask was an educated man. A plausible educated fraud.

  Harcourt had encountered Flask a few months ago when the medium had first arrived in Durham and before he had set up with his retinue of Kitty and Ambrose Barker. In a moment of weakness the policeman had asked him if he might make contact with his late wife. Harcourt’s marriage to Rhoda was scarcely a year old but, for all her comparative youth and relative attractions, he found himself missing Florry who had passed away three summers before. Florence Harcourt was like one of the old, comfortable, familiar suits which Rhoda had forced him to discard. He missed the way that Florry had been satisfied with his rank and his pay, or at least the fact that she had never complained about it. It was no mean thing to be a police superintendent, one of only six in the city, and to be bringing home a weekly wage of forty-two shillings. No mean thing for him, who had worked his way up from the ranks, but yet not enough for Rhoda. She made not-so-casual remarks about promotion, she regularly inquired about the age and health of Alfred Huggins, the Chief Constable.

  So, after meeting Flask, he attended a séance without telling Rhoda and there he heard from Florry. Yes, she was more than content on the other side – oh, it was a place of such light and ease and wonder. A place where one breakfasted with angels and dined with the spirits of the departed. His first wife was also content that he had found happiness in the arms of another although she – or rather Eustace Flask – didn’t put it exactly in those terms. But Frank Harcourt was no fool. He had spent too much time questioning felons and listening to their denials and evasions to be incapable of smelling a rat. Once the initial delight at hearing from Florry had worn off, he quickly concluded that he had been taken in. He wondered why angels should need to eat breakfast, or why his late wife needed to eat at all for that matter.

  But by then it was too late. Flask was no fool either and he speedily realized how useful it would be to have a member of the Durham constabulary looking out for him while he pursued bigger game in the city. From hints dropped carelessly by Frank Harcourt, the medium understood the policeman’s resentment at his new wife’s nagging ambition.

  Under the guise of paying his respects to Rhoda, he called at their house in Hallgarth Street when he knew the superintendent was at work. When Harcourt got home that evening and heard that Flask had visited, he was first angry then fearful. He expected Rhoda to give him hell over his secret consultation with the medium, he thought
she would as good as accuse him of infidelity by wanting to be put in touch with Florence. But Rhoda Harcourt had been charmed by Flask. ‘A real gentleman, so educated and refined,’ she said. He had even given her a brooch as a token of his regard. It was the first of several gifts. Harcourt wasn’t sure that Rhoda was aware that Flask practised as a medium, since he had introduced himself as someone who had encountered her husband in the course of ‘civic affairs’. Perhaps she assumed that he had no need to earn money for it was well known that gentlemen, especially such educated and refined ones, could be idle all their lives.

  But the fatal error that Frank Harcourt committed was to take money for himself. Or for the ‘household economy’ as Flask expressed it. The medium, with his perception of others’ weak points, had seen that the police superintendent was strapped. One glance around the house in Hallgarth Street, with its furniture and curtains which were new but not quite expensive enough, was sufficient to tell him that. He presented the white five-pound note to Harcourt as a favour, one friend to another. To tide him over. Pay it back when you can. Best not to say anything about it to anyone.

  The superintendent reached out and felt the white paper. He closed his fingers on it. Even as he did so, he knew that he was lost. But the note amounted to more than two weeks’ wages! And he’d been having a particularly difficult time with Rhoda recently, who was insisting on the need for another housemaid. He tucked the note into his wallet and muttered something about repaying it as soon as possible. Once the money was secure, Flask produced a small black notebook and wrote down the amount and the date of the loan.

  ‘Why are you doing that?’ said Harcourt. ‘I’ve got a poor memory’, said Flask, ‘I note down everything. Don’t worry, we’re friends, aren’t we?’ Harcourt should have handed the money back there and then, he should have seized the notebook and torn out the offending page, but he did neither of these things. Instead the fiver lodged in his wallet like a lead weight while his hands hung heavy at his sides.