The Durham Deception (35 page)
A kind of gibbering sound emerges from the depths of the tree and a hairy arm protrudes from the foliage. The boy shakes his fist in the direction of the arm. The members of the audience have gasped at seeing the arm. Now they laugh at the boy's anger and wonder when they will see the monkey. A sudden bark, a human bark, from the side of the stage causes the servant to jump again.
This time a man strides on in a solar topi and a white suit. He is short and spruce and has a military manner. He has a complexion the colour of teak and a fine pair of moustaches which he tugs and twirls. The boy becomes all deference, smiling and bowing him to his chair. The Major settles himself down. Another boy, as slight as the first one, enters, carrying a great palmyra leaf with which he proceeds to fan the seated white man to keep him cool under the heat of what, to judge by the glare of light on stage, is the sun as it begins its decline. A few of the people in the audience who know a bit about India nod to themselves. They've heard of these servant fellows they call âpunkah-wallahs'.
The first boy, the one who brought in the basket chair, reappears with a tray on which is a glass of amber liquid that seems to gather to itself the rays of the setting sun. The same heads in the audience nod again. The famous chota peg, to be taken in liberal quantities at the end of the day, and a very necessary help to the British in India as they bear the burden of rule.
But things go wrong before the boy even reaches the seated Major. Another coconut (or whatever it is!) falls (or is thrown!) from the tree, causing the hapless boy to stumble. The glass spills from the tray, almost sending its contents over the Major's suit. The Major rises in fury, his complexion turning even darker, the colour of the spilled whisky. The punkah-wallah backs away in alarm.
The first servant indicates the overhanging tree and makes monkey gestures as if to explain the accident but Major Marmont is having none of it, thank you very much. In fact, he seems to think he is being mocked. He shakes his head. He stamps his foot. He tugs his moustaches. He signals to the punkah-wallah, who scampers off stage with his great leaf and returns a few seconds later tugging a circular wicker basket. It is large enough to contain a small human being as is demonstrated almost straightaway when the Major lifts the lid and invites â no, orders â the first boy to climb inside. The boy does so, folding himself up like a discarded piece of clothing.
The audience is uneasy but curious. Presumably this is some kind of punishment but what is to follow? The punkah-wallah has again been sent on an errand and reappears bearing â a sword in its scabbard. It is Major Marmont's, a thing reserved for ceremonial purposes surely. But no, because now the Major impatiently takes the scabbard from the boy and withdraws the sword. He examines the thin blade, which gleams in the light. Then, without warning, he turns and plunges it into the wicker basket. From within there comes a shriek which echoes round the audience. Again and again, like a man possessed, he plunges the sword into the basket, darting round to jab the point in from every side. All this while, the noises from inside diminish, turning from shrieks to cries to whimpers . . . to silence. Even worse than this, perhaps, blood starts to seep from the basket, dripping from between the wickerwork and gathering in a pool about the base. At last the Major's fury is sated. He stops. His bloody sword droops in his hand.
It is too much for several of the women in the audience who shriek themselves hoarse and too much for at least one man, who gets up from his seat in the stalls and starts to clamber over his neighbours although whether he means to leave the theatre and summon help or to intervene himself, who knows?
But Major Marmont turns a stern eye on the audience and shakes his head. He waves the sword in the air once more. He gestures to the punkah-wallah who has been standing by all this time, horror-struck. The second boy walks warily towards the basket which stands centre stage. He lifts the lid. He peers into the interior. He looks up, horror turning to puzzlement. The Major himself peers inside. Together they tilt and angle the basket so that its interior is visible to all points of the house.
The basket is empty. No horrific corpse, no lacerated remains. Thank God for that! Then a stir from the back of the auditorium and a boy in white clothing is running down the aisle and scrambling across the pit. He leaps nimbly on to the stage. It is the boy from the basket, unharmed. Such a relief! Even the Major seems pleased. A smile splits his stern features. He pats the boy on the head. The punkah-wallah claps his hands in delight. The audience applauds.
The trio on stage turn their attention to the basket once more. There is no sign of blood, no pool of red on the boards. But the basket is no longer empty for from within its depths Major Marmont now plucks a coiled rope. He takes one end and throws it up into the air. The rope seems to hover for a moment of its own accord before beginning a sinuous ascent to the renewed sound of flute music from the pit. It stretches in a quivering line from the ground to a point below the top of the proscenium arch, seemingly held aloft by nothing at all. The music stops. By now a gentle dusk is descending on the scene. The snow-capped mountains of the backdrop are bathed in a golden light.
Suddenly from out of the tree there leaps a monkey. The audience gapes. The creature bounces up and down, it howls and it gibbers. It bares its teeth. It bounces on all fours to the footlights and stares beyond them, as if trying to pierce the darkness of the house. It capers round the Major and his boys before seizing the sword which the Major is still grasping. This wretched monkey handles the sword with the dexterity of a fencer, darting in the direction of the others, daring them to come near. Then it makes a jump for the rope. The rope sways under the monkey's impact as, grasping the sword with one paw, it scrambles up the cord, a tangle of black fur and long limbs.
Major Marmont snaps his fingers at the punkah-wallah. His meaning is obvious. Follow that monkey! The boy does not hesitate but seizes the bottom of the rope and proceeds to climb hand over hand, fast enough but with less nimbleness than the monkey. The creature meantime has reached the point where the rope appears to terminate. And then an extraordinary thing occurs. The monkey continues its climb through the empty air until it vanishes into the shadows, its long prehensile feet waving in mockery below the proscenium arch. Urged on by the Major, the punkah-wallah follows until he seems to be climbing through nothing, and his bare feet too are the last sight the audience have of him.
There is a momentary pause in the action. A silence. Then the rope stretching up from the stage and into the shadows slackens and falls down in a coiled clatter. How is the boy (and the monkey) to get back down to the ground again? Without the rope it is a dangerous even fatal drop, at least twenty feet. But there are greater dangers. The monkey has the Major's sword while the punkah-wallah is unarmed. Grunting sounds and gasps come from the area out of sight above the arch. Swishing noises, as of a blade slicing through the air. Gibbering and howling too.
The audience fear the worst. They hope for the worst. They are not to be disappointed. A pale object falls from the skies and lands with a terrible soft thump on the stage. The Major and the remaining boy, who have been gazing up with fixed expressions, start back. It is â it looks like â yes, a limb. A leg severed above the knee, all gouty with blood. Not a monkey's leg but a delicate brown one. The punkah-wallah's. This is followed by a positive shower of limbs and parts. A foot, a pair of hands, an arm, something dreadful which might have been a torso. That monkey is as keen as a surgeon. The audience shriek as one. If they'd had time to think, they would have been worried for their own safety. What would happen if this dreadful monkey escaped from the stage and ran amok through the house? They have never seen anything so shocking. They are thoroughly enjoying themselves. It is ghastly. It is delightful.
Another Disappearance
Tom and Helen Ansell were sitting with Major Marmont in his dressing room at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly. He had sent them free tickets for the show, the wicker basket trick and the Indian rope trick. He insisted they join him afterwards, claiming that he wanted to speak to them. When the Ansells arrived after the show in the dressing room backstage, they saw an object they had not yet seen. It was, explained Marmont, the new disappearing cabinet he had been working on, a device even better than the Perseus. He called it the Goldoni.
âNamed after the famous Venetian magician of the eighteenth century. You've heard of him? No? Well, some say that he never existed.'
Tom and Helen were alone with the military magician. He had told Dilip Gopal to take himself and the boys to the nearest chop-house and to treat themselves to a slap-up supper to celebrate the end of the run. The Major lit a cigarette and poured a generous brandy for himself. He offered some to Tom and Helen but they refused, wanting to keep clear heads.
Like the rest of the audience, the Ansells were relieved to see the safe return of the punkah-wallah who'd ascended the rope. He appeared from the side of the stage, complete with all four limbs and quite unharmed. Tom recognized Alfred as the punkah-wallah (or perhaps Arthur) just as he thought it was probably Albert concealed inside the monkey costume. The monkey appeared from the opposite wing and he too took a bow.
The Ansells had been back in London for some weeks. Helen had horrified her mother all over again with a heavily edited account of what had happened up north, while Mrs Scott repeatedly blamed herself for despatching her daughter to persuade Aunt Julia against Eustace Flask. Tom gave a rather more detailed story to David Mackenzie and was pleased to see that even the sedate senior partner allowed his pipe to go out as he listened to the twists and turns of their adventures in Durham.
Events had brought about a kind of resolution to the double mission that Tom and Helen had been carrying out in the north. Sebastian Marmont never did complete the affidavit business since there was no chance of his recovering the Lucknow Dagger, the murder weapon used on Eustace Flask. The Dagger had been given by the Durham police for safe-keeping to Inspector Traynor (who brought it back to the Yard with the intention of donating it to the museum, whose delights he had promised to show to Rhoda Harcourt). And Aunt Julia's infatuation with the medium was over â although no one apart from Septimus Sheridan was aware of her new interest in Madame Blavatsky.
Now, in company with Sebastian Marmont, they surveyed the whole business of the Durham Deception. The Major, however, seemed uneasy. After they had complimented him on the Indian rope trick, Helen said, âBut it seems a rather ruthless departure for you, Major, that pretended killing in the basket, the limbs falling from the sky. My flesh crept.'
âIt was meant to, my dear,' said the magician. But he spoke without his usual relish. âYou would prefer me to do disappearances and read minds? You don't like to think of me killing people?'
âBut that is what you did, isn't it, Major?' said Tom, sensing the time had come for a final explanation. Helen and he had talked about this moment before they arrived at the theatre, wondering how to get round to the subject. Now Marmont was giving them an opening, perhaps deliberately, by his talk of killing people.
âIt was you and not Anthony Smight who killed Eustace Flask.'
Marmont nodded.
âI was present when he was killed. It was an accident, if you can believe me. On that morning after I'd called at his house I did indeed go in pursuit of him, though I didn't intend to. By chance I glimpsed his bright green coat as I was crossing the Elvet Bridge. He was walking down below on the river path. He saw me coming and turned aside. I confronted him in a kind of clearing in the woods and demanded he return to me the cursed Dagger. I was not frightened of Flask but I believe he was frightened of me. He drew out the Dagger and brandished it before my face. I moved to defend myself. It is many years since I was in the army, many years since my life has been in danger, but there are things which you learn and never forget. We tussled. Somehow in the struggle he was slashed across the throat. I have mentioned the dark history of the Lucknow Dagger. Lal had killed his own brother with it. It was why he fled his home. I have described before how the implement seemed to have a malign life of its own. And so it seemed in my struggle with Eustace Flask. I did not mean to kill him but he died nonetheless. I leaped back, horrified, as he tumbled to the ground with his fatal wound. I am afraid to confess that, in the heat and confusion of the moment, I did not do the honourable thing . . .'
âWhich was . . .?'
âI should have stood my ground and waited for the arrival of the law. Instead I seized the Dagger and wiped at it with a handkerchief which Flask had dropped. Then I ran, taking both Dagger and handkerchief. I made some feeble amends to Flask later by paying for the mourners at his funeral. But I had no idea you were anywhere near the scene of his death, Helen.'
âSmight was also nearby,' said Helen. âHe knew or suspected you had done it. He was going to meet Eustace Flask. He told me so when he was keeping me prisoner in the Palace of Varieties.'
âAnthony Smight was a rival of mine from the Lucknow days. He maintained I had stolen his girl from him. That girl, Padma, became my beloved wife and mother to my boys. Smight had always nursed a grudge against me. If he was having a rendezvous with Flask it was no doubt to help the medium in his strategy of revenge. But he arrived too late. Although he did steal Flask's cravat-pin, perhaps thinking to use it in an attempt to blackmail me.'
âI understand now why you sent the box with the Dagger to the police station,' said Tom.
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