The Durham Deception ta-2

by Philip Gooden

  He was conscious of the mattress against the back of his head, against his stockinged calves. He knew that the mattress was a rough, thin, cheap thing but just now it felt as soft as down. Doctor Tony was engulfed in a wave, a gradual wave, of warmth and safety. He sighed and gave himself up to his imaginings…

  But it was no piece of imagination when, at about one o’clock of that same night, he found himself standing on a street of solid respectable houses; found himself there as if transported through the air. He was clear-headed but still under the influence of the three pipes he had smoked in Penharbour Lane. The sensation was not unpleasant, not at all. Rather, it made him feel secure to the point of invincibility.

  So here he was, far from the riverside wharfs. Gaslights bloomed along the street and glistened off mud and stone that were still wet from the evening rain. Between the lights there were larger areas of darkness. The house he was interested in lay within one of these patches of dark.

  The Doctor was calm, convinced that what he was about to do was not merely a fitting act but also in accord with the laws of justice, the higher laws. He pulled his greatcoat tighter about him and, despite the weight which caused the coat to pull unevenly to one side, he moved smoothly along the street until he reached the house which he was looking for. He slowed for a moment to make sure there was no stray gleam of light anywhere from within. There was no light. The occupants were tucked up asleep like the other occupants of the other houses in this solid, respectable thoroughfare.

  Doctor Tony glided further along the street, counting as he did so, until he came to a narrow passage between two houses. He turned right, entered the alley and then turned right again when he reached the area behind the houses. There was a ragged stretch of ground here, neither cultivated nor wilderness. No doubt it would soon be parcelled into building plots and covered over with brick. Tony paused to let his eyes become accustomed to the greater dark on this side. Then he moved parallel to the direction in which he’d already come along the road, counting off the houses in the row one by one according to their chimney stacks. It would not do to enter the wrong dwelling.

  It was awkward walking back here and more than once he almost stumbled over a tussock of grass or kicked a lump of stone. When he arrived at the eleventh house, he scrambled across the wooden palings which separated the garden from the land beyond. By now he could see quite well. There were tent-like supports for runner beans and a faint sheen of light reflecting off what was probably a cucumber frame.

  Doctor Tony crept up to the rear of the house. He ignored the back door which led to the kitchen and pantry area and concentrated instead on an extension containing the water-closet. A small barred window was positioned at about head height. Tony drew from his greatcoat a length of thick rope and a steel rod. Working by touch rather than sight he passed the rope twice around two of the bars and inserted the rod between the strands. Holding the rope ends with his left hand, he turned the rod end over end with his right. After a few moments the traction on the ropes began to loosen the bars from their sockets. The row of houses might have been fairly new but the building work was not of high quality. George Forester had done a good job casing the back of the property.

  In a few more seconds, one of the bars popped right out with a shower of dust and plaster. Tony placed it on the ground and eased the other bar free with his hands alone. He put the ropes and the steel rod and the bars in a pile at the foot of the wall. Beyond the bars was a pane of opaque glass. The wood of the frame was half-rotten with damp. He worked at the area round the catch with the point of a knife and it did not take long for him to insert the blade and force the catch up. Then he pushed the window open.

  Tony was tall enough that he had to stoop slightly to operate on the window. But he was also thin as one of the beanpoles in the garden. Now there was a space of perhaps two-feet square through which he was able to scramble. He took off his coat, shoved it through the space and began to worm his way in. Someone as slight as George Forester would probably have accomplished the task even more quickly and easily but although Doctor Tony was prepared to borrow the little man’s kit and also to listen intently to his burgling tips, he was reluctant to involve the other man in the business itself. He knew that George was trying his best to keep on the right side of the law. More to the point, he knew that George would be horrified if he was aware of what the good Doctor was about to do. In fact, he’d probably attempt to stop him.

  Once through the window, Doctor Tony wriggled awkwardly to the floor of the closet. Then he was on his feet, brushing himself down, and so out of the closet and into the main part of the house. He was standing in the kitchen, his senses heightened to the degree that it was almost painful for him to hear and smell. He picked up the just audible ticks and creaks made by an occupied property at night. He thought of the married couple asleep upstairs. Innocent, oblivious. No, they were not innocent. The man and wife deserved what was about to happen to them. The Doctor dismissed them, the man and his wife, dismissed them with a metaphorical snap of the fingers.

  Now he could smell the smells of this dwelling-place, so distinct yet so like the smells of tens of thousands of other households. Lingering scents of cooking, of furniture polish, of flowers that should have been thrown out a day or two before. And the faintest odour of gas.

  Tony felt his way around the kitchen before going into the dining room, which was adjacent to it. The door was slightly ajar. With eyes well used to the dark, he moved towards the fireplace and examined the wallpaper and fittings on either side. Whatever he found evidently pleased him because he gave a small grunt of satisfaction. He repeated the process at various places in the parlour at the front of the house and then out in the hallway. After that he crept upstairs, keeping close to the wall where the treads were less likely to creak. Once on the landing he waited for several minutes, accustoming himself to the slightly different atmosphere of the first floor of the house. Different because there were human beings up here. He could hear a soft snoring from behind one of the three doors which opened off the landing. The door wasn’t quite closed. There was the creak of a bed as one of the sleepers shifted. It crossed Tony’s mind that he might actually enter the bedroom, but no, it would be enough if he just pushed the door a little wider… like so… and after he’d done that and one further thing he crept back downstairs.

  Now he was standing near the front door. There was a gleam of light coming through the stained glass of the fanlight. It was enough for him to see the shape of what he was looking for, near the fanlight and just above head-height, out of a child’s grasp. He reached out, then stopped, his hand poised in the darkness. From outside there was the sound of feet going by, a steady, heavy plod. A constable on patrol? What George Forester would have termed a ‘peeler’ or ‘crusher’? Doctor Tony waited while the footsteps passed the house. He heard a humming sound, a few slurred words. The man was singing under his breath. No, it was not a police constable but a drunk stomping home to bed. The noises faded.

  Tony realized he’d been holding his own breath all this while. His hand was where he’d left it, suspended near the fixture on the wall by the fanlight. He let out his breath in a long sigh. He lowered his arm and savoured the tension in his muscles. Then he reached up and pulled down the lever on the gas main until it was fully in the ‘open’ position.

  He waited a few seconds. Already he thought he could smell and taste it, the acrid smell of household gas as it poured out of the unlit jets in every room of the house. Some Tony had found carelessly unclosed, others he had opened. Like so many people, the couple who were sleeping soundly upstairs did not turn off the gas lights one by one as they went to bed every night. Perhaps they were fearful of leaks and tried to guard against them by shutting off the supply at the main. Perhaps the husband could not be bothered to turn off the gas lights one by one. Doctor Tony did not know whether the gas jets in the sleepers’ bedroom had been left open but, in any case, the poisonous fumes from downstairs wo
uld soon rise to the first floor, seeping through floorboards and creeping around doors.

  Clasping a handkerchief — lilac-coloured, with a woman’s scent — to his face, Doctor Tony swiftly paced to the back of the house. He did not make his exit via the water-closet but through the kitchen door which, he had already ascertained, was not locked but bolted. In fact he might have got into the house through the back door, he realized, although he had enjoyed the surreptitiousness of wriggling through a window, making use of George Forester’s simple equipment.

  The odour of gas penetrated the handkerchief which he still held to his nostrils. He shut the door behind him, and gathered up the rope and rod together with the bars from the closet window. Then he was striding past the beanpoles and the cucumber-frame and almost vaulting over the palings at the bottom of the garden. He paused to fling the objects out into the dark where they landed with a distant clatter.

  By the time he reached the street he was breathing hard. He went back up the street, past the house where he had been prowling only moments before. All was quiet, no light showed, no sound came from the occupants. No sound would ever come from those particular occupants again, thought the Doctor. There would be something appropriate about the way they died, deprived of breath, choking for good honest air. He might have gone about the business in a more straightforward way. He could have shot the sleeping couple, for instance. He carried a gun, which he had possessed for many years. But there was a crude aspect to a shooting. And, besides, the noise of gunshots might have alerted neighbours and made it harder for him to get away. Here he was, striding along the street, free as a bird flying by night.

  It was only after he had walked several hundred yards that he realized that he had left his greatcoat behind. He had taken it off before he wriggled through the window and then left it on the floor of the privy. He stopped in the middle of the street. Should he go back to get the coat? He did not want to break into the house all over again, especially a house that was filling up with choking gas. Doctor Tony did not think he could be traced or identified by the coat. It was as old and shabby as the rest of his garments, and any tailor’s or manufacturer’s mark had long disappeared.

  Tony decided to leave it. If it was discovered, let the police make of it what they would. Of course, they might never find the coat. The house, and the overcoat with it, might be blown to blazes if someone was careless enough to cause a spark in the vicinity.

  Tony was almost indifferent to his fate. He had a mission to accomplish, and once that was finished then he too was finished. There were more individuals to dispose of. But, that done, his work was over.

  Act Two

  The Major comes forward to the footlights. He says to the audience, ‘In my time I have brought to many audiences a veritable extravaganza of extraordinary feats deriving from the lands of the east, lands whose denizens have access to secrets of life which we in the west have long forgotten or never knew. But none, in my humble opinion, is so truly remarkable as what I am about to show you.’

  He claps his hands and the curtains behind him are parted to reveal a wide plank of wood resting on the backs of two chairs. The backdrop is as highly patterned as suburban wallpaper. Dull but not restful. An Indian gentleman comes on, dressed in a dark suit, western style. He is elderly and stooped, with flowing white hair. He acknowledges the audience with a slight inclination of the head. He does not smile.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ says the Major, ‘allow me to present to you the mystical Mahatma of Agra. He has made a lifelong study of the methods by which a privileged few may escape our earthly bounds, our mortal bonds. Even I do not know how the mystical Mahatma accomplishes the feat he is about to demonstrate. It quite contradicts all that we know of the laws of nature. Sit back, ladies and gentlemen — no, do not sit back but lean forward — perch with eagerness on the edge of your seats — and marvel!’

  With the Major’s help, the Mahatma clambers awkwardly on to the plank supported by the chair backs. He lies on his back, steepling his hands on his chest like an effigy on a tomb.

  Once more Major Marmont turns to confide in the audience.

  ‘The incantation I am about to utter was taught to me by the Mahatma himself. We were standing on the shores of the Ganges River as the sun was setting. I can remember the scene as if it was yesterday. You will not understand the words I say for I can scarcely understand them myself. But see their result!’

  Major Marmont swivels towards the figure on the plank, who is so still he might be in a trance. He mutters several sentences in a foreign language, very fast, at the same time raising his hands in the gesture of a blessing. Slowly, very slowly, the plank bearing the aged Mahatma of Agra lifts itself clear of the chairs. When the Mahatma is about three feet above these makeshift supports, the Major whisks away the chairs with the dexterity of a waiter. The plank and the man continue their steady ascent. The audience is split between wonder (this is indeed a denial of the laws of nature) and a futile attempt to discover how the trick is worked. They strain their eyes searching for cords and levers; they listen for the whirring of cogs and pulleys. They see nothing except the levitating Mahatma; they hear nothing apart from their own gasps of amazement.

  Once the Mahatma of Agra has reached a height of about fifteen feet above the stage there is a queer kind of shimmering in the air. He begins to come down again. The Major watches his descent. When the Mahatma — unmoving, hands still steepled — is at shoulder height, Marmont runs his own hands over and round the head and feet of the body. He is showing that there are no hidden supports here. The chairs are replaced in their original positions. The plank bearing the Mahatma settles itself on the chair backs once again. The Major utters a few more incomprehensible words and raises his arms.

  The Mahatma climbs quite nimbly off the plank, without Marmont’s aid, and stands on the stage. But what has happened? The man who floated up through the air was old and stooped. The one who now appears before them is upright and handsome. The hair that was white and flowing is now a gleaming black. Major Marmont seems almost as surprised as the audience. He bows at the applause but the Mahatma only inclines his head.

  Afterwards the audience conclude that the Mahatma has not merely travelled magically through space but also through time. He has shed his years.

  It is all a trick of course, somehow emphasized by the simplicity of the props and the wallpaper backdrop. It must be a trick. But who is to say that the sages of the East do not have access to secrets of life which we in the west have either long forgotten or never knew?

  On the Train to Durham

  It was only when they were travelling north by train that Tom Ansell thought to ask Helen why her aunt Julia Howlett had chosen to live in Durham. They had a compartment to themselves once they’d changed lines from the Midland to the North Eastern at Doncaster. Their thoughts were turning to the different missions with which they’d been entrusted.

  They were going to stay at Miss Howlett’s house for a few days. Helen had written asking whether they might visit. It had been many years since she’d seen her aunt and, besides, she wanted to show off her new husband. She said nothing about the main reason for her trip. Meanwhile Tom arranged through Scott, Lye amp; Mackenzie for a meeting with Major Marmont, who happened to be performing in Durham for a week.

  So, why had Helen’s aunt gone to Durham when the rest of the family lived in the south?

  ‘It’s rather a sad story as I understand it from the hints my mother has given,’ she said. ‘Many years ago Aunt Julia moved to Durham in pursuit of a man. She was engaged to be married to a curate but something went wrong. He was working in a parish somewhere in the city. I do not know whether things went wrong before or after she visited him but anyway the engagement was broken off and then the curate was moved to a different parish. Aunt Julia was reluctant to come back empty-handed, so to speak, and decided to prolong her stay in Durham. She must have fallen for the place because a few weeks turned into months and th
en became a year or two. At some point she acquired a fine house in the old part of the city on the bailey, where she has been living, a prosperous and respected spinster, these many years. I don’t suppose she’ll ever return to the south now.’

  ‘She must have an independent streak,’ said Tom.

  ‘Mother says I take after her but I am not certain whether it is altogether a compliment. It’s only recently that Aunt Julia and she have started corresponding again.’

  ‘I had the feeling that your mother was not so concerned about your aunt but more about — I don’t know — about family honour, the memory of her father.’

  ‘It is this business of the medium using grandfather Howlett to get what he wants from Julia that is so distasteful. I agree with mother there. But, Tom, I am not looking forward to this one bit.’

  ‘After the trouble in Tullis Street?’

  ‘It does not give me much of an appetite for confronting mediums.’

  Neither Tom nor Helen had talked a great deal about the apparent suicide of Ernest Smight. When they did discuss it, they tried to persuade themselves they had no share in the man’s death, that it was a result of his despair at the police action and imminent prosecution. But even so they felt twinges of guilt. They had been present at the seance; they were witnesses. Like the authorities, they too regarded Smight as a trickster who deserved exposure, for Helen had by now begun to revert to her old suspicion of mediums and Tom had almost forgotten the encounter with his father.