That Old Black Magic

by Cathi Unsworth

  The next day, when the prosecution produced DI Freddie Fraser, Loseby sought to ridicule Stanley’s testimony by enquiring as to the whereabouts of this fabric. Gonne stepped in with a suggestive line about the need to have a medic to search for it. Fraser, an individual who, to Swaffer, epitomised all the worst qualities a policeman could develop, gave a knowing smile before replying to that question in the affirmative.

  Because she had spent each evening of the trial being observed in test séance conditions by the SNU deputation, Loseby had hoped Helen would be allowed to demonstrate her psychic abilities to the courtroom. But the presiding Recorder of London, Sir Charles Carroll, ruled that – despite the legislation under which Helen was being tried – it would appear too much like a “medieval ordeal” for her to do so in a modern courtroom.

  Swaffer filed away these words for future reference.

  The only small triumph came on the fourth day, when the case was made against the Shadwells. Much to the relief of the defence, the chemist produced receipts for all the donations to charity he had made from séance profits. The main beneficiaries of the Temple’s generosity were the Wireless for the Blind Fund, which put the Shadwells’ pricing policies into a more positive state of illumination. The afternoon wore on with more testimonies in Helen’s favour, until Carroll interrupted a cross-examination to ask Loseby how many more witnesses he intended to call.

  “Let me see,” said the KC, appearing bewildered, “about forty? Fifty?”

  Without further comment, Carroll closed proceedings.

  Swaffer knew the Recorder had an ulterior motive for this. Like his learned colleagues, Robey and Gonne, Sir Charles Carroll also had a showbiz side. He liked to dabble in what he called humorous light musicals – and his latest offering, The Rebel Maid, was premiering in the West End that very night. Having been professionally obliged to sit through some of his Lordship’s previous efforts in his role as a theatre critic, Swaffer felt he had enough ammunition to seize the dramatic lead when it came to his turn in the dock.

  “I took with me to our initial meeting four professional stage magicians, two fully-trained doctors and two medical students,” Swaffer said, his eyes travelling to the opposite side of the room, where they came to rest on the grey eyes of prosecution witness Harry Price.

  “The two doctors tied Mrs Duncan with forty yards of sash-cord; she was handcuffed with regulation police handcuffs, her thumbs being tied tightly together with eight yards of thread – so tightly that it cut into the flesh. It took eight minutes to tie her up, but she was free again in less than three.” Swaffer continued to stare at Harry Price until the Ghost Hunter blinked. “I doubt even Houdini himself could have managed the feat so quickly.”

  “And how, in the opinion of yourself and those distinguished gentlemen, did Mrs Duncan achieve this feat?” enquired Loseby.

  Swaffer refocussed on the public gallery. “The spirits released her,” he said, catching sight of a familiar bouffant of copper curls. “Mrs Duncan was examined before and afterwards so that I could file a thorough report for my newspaper without misleading any members of the public who were not there to witness the spectacle for themselves. I have the signed medical documents here,” he tapped the sheaf of papers in front of him, turned his gaze back towards Harry Price. “And I have also brought with me a length of butter muslin, with which I intend to demonstrate the impossibility of the prosecution’s claims about regurgitation.” He pulled a length of filmy fabric from his top pocket. “If I may now demonstrate?”

  Gonne was on his feet in an instant. “Objection!” he barked.

  “Sustained,” Carroll growled. “Mr Swaffer, put that material down. There is no question of such an experiment being carried out here. I will not have the courtroom reduced to the level of an exhibition.”

  Swaffer waved the fabric before dropping it, so that it made a graceful plume as it drifted towards the floor. “Or a light musical drama perhaps?” he said, as he watched it fall.

  A murmur of laughter rippled across the public gallery. It had not escaped anyone’s attention that Carroll’s play had not opened to good notices in any of today’s papers.

  Loseby caught the material. “You have been a dramatic critic yourself, Mr Swaffer?”

  Swaffer lowered his eyes. “Unfortunately, yes,” he replied.

  Carroll peered darkly over his bench. “For whom?” he said.

  Swaffer raised his lamps. “For the Daily Herald, my Lord. My employers.”

  Carroll’s scowl deepened. “That’s not what I meant. You said ‘unfortunately’. For whom was it unfortunate?”

  “The poor critic who had to sit through it, my Lord.”

  “Mr Loseby,” The Recorder boomed over the sound of giggles, “I must ask you and your witness to restrict your comments to those that pertain to the case.”

  Swaffer took this as a cue to raise himself to his full height. His eyes travelled from the copper curls in the public gallery to the figure sat next to her in a dove-grey suit.

  “The case in front of us,” he said, “is of the gravest importance to those cherished ideals of freedom and democracy that we have been fighting for over the past five years. At the beginning of this week, my Lord was brave enough to say that he would not have Mrs Duncan going through the equivalent of a medieval ordeal in this room and yet this entire hearing is evidence that the orthodoxy has gone back to broomsticks. The establishment that charges this lady with the crime of witchcraft obviously cares little for the aspirations of tolerance laid down by Churchill and Roosevelt in the Atlantic Charter of 1941. Instead, it has turned to rekindling one of the great amusements of the Dark Ages – the persecution of working-class women. That is what the prosecution seek and at a time such as this they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.”

  He let his words resound around the silent Old Bailey, have time to sink into the minds of all present, before Loseby, in a rare instance of perfect timing, turned towards Carroll. “No further questions, my Lord.”

  Swaffer met Daphne a discreet distance away from the court, where they could avoid the throng that congregated each day on the steps to offer the accused condolences and jeers in equal measure. Her driver took them to her townhouse in Gloucester Place.

  Swaffer had been invited there many times since his initial meeting with Daphne in the bitter February of 1942. All those subsequent occasions had been happy times, with like-minded souls gathered together for dining and discussion. Today’s meeting would be nothing quite like those occasions, although he hoped it would prove as, or more, illuminating. His frustration with what was transpiring in court had finally led him to ask Daphne to make an introduction for him. She was the only person who could.

  After taking his coat and hat, she showed him up to the first-floor sitting room where she had told him the tragic story of her murdered friend. Waiting for him there now, standing in almost the exact spot by the fireplace where Daphne herself had that first night and smoking just as anxiously, was the mystery finally made flesh.

  “Mr Swaffer,” said their hostess, “Mr Spooner. Or, if you prefer, Swaff, this is Ross.”

  The young man that stepped towards him offering his hand was not the pale creature Swaffer’s memory recalled from DCI Greenaway’s office. Dressed in tweeds with a velvet waistcoat, red curls sprouting from his temples, he was every inch the bohemian, though the eyes behind his glasses held something of the sombre look of a policeman.

  “Swaff,” he said. “Glad to meet you at last.”

  “Ross,” Swaffer’s long fingers curled around the other man’s for an instant. “I’m glad that you could come. I hope I haven’t put you to too much trouble.”

  “Nae bother. It’s no’ much of a hop from here to Euston. I can get the last train back to Manchester and Ernest will be none the wiser. Well, I won’t tell him if you don’t.”

  “Gentlemen,” Daphne said, “help yourselves to drinks. I’ll leave you until dinner.”

  Both men tur
ned towards her, placed their hands over their hearts and bowed, neither realising they did so in perfect synchronicity. Daphne smiled as she closed the door.

  Swaffer moved to the drinks first. “What will you have?” he said.

  Spooner lifted his empty tumbler from the mantelpiece. “Scotch,” he said.

  The older man smiled. “Of course.” He poured their drinks, lit a cigarette and indicated the chairs by the fireplace. “Shall we?”

  Spooner sat down, took a sip of his whisky and came straight to the point. “I’m thinking you want to know what happened to the statements I took for Ernest, and why they’ve no’ been put forward as evidence?”

  “Well, it does seem a trifle odd,” Swaffer said, “given the way things are going. I should have thought Mrs Walker would have made a star witness for the defence.”

  Spooner nodded. “Aye, well she would. But let me try to explain.” He put his glass down, lacing his fingers together. “Just before the arrests were made, I had a call from a reporter on the Portsmouth Evening News, Richard Lexy. I met him when I first went down there, in the December of ’41. Back then he tried to convince me that the Shadwells were little more than a magic act. He disliked them intensely, mainly because Gladys had a friend who called himself a faith healer who’d gone down for child molesting in 1936.”

  “Ah,” said Swaffer. “Hard not to see his point, then.”

  “Aye,” Spooner concurred, “if they really were friends. But I’m no’ sure he wasn’t feeding me a line. See, Lexy was working on a story about Councillor Roberts, who, as you know, was undisputedly one of Grenville’s friends. He inspected the mediums before every séance, I saw him in action myself. For Lexy, the Shadwells were a small part of a bigger picture, which turned out to be this fraud Roberts had cooked up with his ship scaler’s company. Lexy’s main aim when I first met him was to try and put me off writing anything about the Temple, so as I didn’t do anything to blow his cover… Or, that’s what I thought at the time.”

  Swaffer frowned. “And what did he want with you this time?” he said.

  “He said he wanted to warn me about DI Fraser, which I thought was pretty rich. I can’t prove it, but there was a man who looked a hell of a lot like Fraser hanging round the hotel Lexy suggested I use when I first went to Portsmouth, so I’d come to the conclusion they were in cahoots. There’s also this,” Spooner reached into his briefcase to present Swaffer with a copy of the paper. “Councillor Roberts on one side, Fraser dragging Gladys out of the Temple on the other. See what I mean?”

  Swaffer stared at the two picture leads. It was hard not to agree with the analysis.

  “Lexy admitted they’d choreographed things,” Spooner went on. “Fraser helped him with his Roberts story in return for Lexy spying on the Temple and feeding him information on the Shadwells. This time, though, he said that Fraser had wanted to arrest the Shadwells years ago, at the time of the Barham séance, but he wasn’t allowed to – someone higher up was pulling his lead.”

  Swaffer looked up sharply. “Did he make any suggestions as to whom?”

  “Either MI5 or Naval Intelligence, he reckoned, which is why he wanted to warn me. He said Fraser would be gunning for me if this came to trial, and he’d have back-up way beyond his station. He suggested we could help each other by exchanging information and it was at that point I ended our conversation.”

  “Oh?” Swaffer rapidly tried to process all the angles. “And why was that?”

  “Well,” Spooner unlaced his fingers and spread the digits wide. “For all I knew, this could be another set-up with Fraser. It wasn’t, and I got out of Portsmouth with my life, as you can see – but it gave me pause for thought. What if Lexy was telling the truth?”

  The two men locked gazes. In Swaffer’s, Spooner could read understandable suspicion. In Spooner’s, Swaffer ascertained the qualities that had drawn his friends Daphne and Ernest towards this young man. The affable front that disguised a forensic ability to discern the real story was the hallmark of a good reporter – or a good detective. If he wasn’t telling the truth, then the line he was peddling was more audacious than Lexy’s.

  “I had the testimonies of all these good people,” Spooner went on. “These women who had faith in me and the organisation I represented. What if I was unwittingly putting them in danger by presenting their testimony in court? Because if it is true, then Helen’s going down whatever we try to do for her. I mean, why else is she being hauled up to the Old Bailey and not Portsmouth Assizes? And why else have they changed the legislation she’s been charged under and dug up this ancient law?”

  Swaffer put his fingertips together, and closed his eyes. He couldn’t argue with this thinking; it paralleled the conclusions he had drawn for himself.

  “That was my dilemma,” said Spooner. “So obviously, I talked it over with Ernest, laid out my fears the same way I’ve put it all to you. We came to the decision that it was better not to put those women at risk. We also thought it might be best for all concerned if I stayed away from the court and took care of business while Ernest came down to follow the trial.” He lifted his glass and took a sip. “Ach, but we could have been wrong. What do you think? Would you have advised differently?”

  Swaffer opened his eyes. “All things considered,” he said, exhaling smoke, “I think you came to the right decision. I can’t see myself acting otherwise, were I in your shoes.”

  He saw a flicker of relief pass over the other man’s face.

  “And now,” Swaffer raised his own glass. There was more than one reason why he had inveigled this meeting, and more than one method he could use to try and discern the truth about Spooner. “I have a question to put to you, which, in a way, comes directly from Helen.”

  “Oh yes?” Spooner leaned towards him, the earnest expression back in his eyes.

  “What do you know about Clara?”

  28

  NIGHT AND DAY

  Thursday, 30–Friday, 31 March 1944

  Spooner sat in an otherwise empty Two Worlds’ office, the wireless on low in the background, a dance band rendering of “A String of Pearls”. It wasn’t such a good version as Glenn Millar’s hit recording, but Spooner wasn’t really listening to the music. Nor was he studying the folder of classified information the Chief had given him to read and then destroy. Instead, he was back in Daphne’s sitting room with Swaffer.

  It had been his biggest bluff yet, agreeing to see the journalist and offering up the version of events he had presented: that it was Lexy’s warnings about Secret Service involvement in the Duncan case he was heeding in order to protect Mrs Walker, Mrs Dowson and the rest of his Portsmouth contacts. The Evening News reporter had unwittingly served Spooner the most plausible line to follow in his own clandestine rendering of events and he thought the shrewd old Fleet Street veteran had believed him. Or at least, been convinced enough to drop the subject and hold his peace on the matter.

  What he hadn’t reckoned on was what Swaffer had come out with next. That he had received a new message from Clara, via Helen, during a test séance the night before. Spooner was rendered almost speechless by this. Fortunately, as it had so many times before with the people he had met along this trail, his wide-eyed response that he wasn’t sure what Swaffer meant had elicited sympathy rather than suspicion.

  “I believe we have both encountered this spirit before,” Swaffer said, “during Helen’s séances for Miss Moyes’ circle in Holland Park. Or at least,” he added, “Daphne told me that you had a rather disturbing experience there when you first met. Perhaps it’s bold of me to assume it was the same spirit, but all the same, I should like to compare notes, if you wouldn’t mind indulging me.”

  The journalist rose to retrieve the whisky decanter, allowing Spooner time to gather his thoughts and deduce that he could gain a valuable insight by finding out exactly what had been observed at that previous séance.

  “The spirit I saw didn’t give me a name,” he said, as his companion refresh
ed their glasses. “And she wasnae someone I even knew in life. In fact, I only know it was a she because I heard her voice. The apparition was headless.”

  Swaffer sat back down. “Well, what I believe I saw there, on the night of the fourteenth of January 1941,” he said, “was a woman about to be murdered. Strangled, I think, or choked to death. Which could explain why it was she appeared to you that way.”

  Spooner felt a cold breath at his neck, prickles running down his spine.

  “I saw a beautiful woman,” the older man went on, “with cascades of hair, like Lizzie Siddal floating in Millais’ bathtub. She was singing, some kind of air, I couldn’t quite make it out.” Swaffer’s long fingers danced in the air between them as he attempted to recreate the tune. He had written songs for the music hall back in his youth and still had perfect pitch. “Lala lee, lala lay… You know the sort of thing I mean?”

  Spooner nodded, recognising the notes as the ones Anna had played when she was drawing her companion down from the ceiling of the Birmingham Hippodrome: “My Lodging is in the Cold Ground”.

  “I knew this wasn’t Peggy, Helen’s spirit guide,” Swaffer went on, “so I asked for her name. She replied that I already knew it, and referred to me as her ‘dearest’. She then said that it was a fine night for it – an echo of a thought I’d had on my way there.”

  “What did she sound like?” Spooner’s palm tightened around his glass.

  “Curious,” said Swaffer. “Sort of Brummie, Black Country. Only when she said ‘was’ she pronounced it ‘vas’. A speech impediment, perhaps?”

  “Perhaps,” said Spooner, not offering up the alternative: that this was how a German pretending to be English would pronounce the word. Swaffer smiled and continued.

  “She went on to describe her surroundings, the moon, the snow and the woods, quite happily at first. Then abruptly, she started to sob. She glimmered for a moment and I feared she was going to fade. Then her voice came back: ‘What is this?’ she said. ‘Why have you brought me here? This isn’t right!’ Well, I assured her that she was quite safe, we only invite those to our circle who wish to be heard. She cried out: ‘No!’ and there was a violent sound of choking…” Swaffer put a hand up to his throat.