The Durham Deception (4 page)

A kind of official frost settled over the room while Arthur Seldon noted down four names and three addresses. Mrs Miles lived in Bayswater. Miss Rosalind Minton lived in Camberwell but added that she worked in a shop on Oxford Street. Helen gave her and Tom's names and their address in Kentish Town. The policeman wrote all this down in a small hand while his wife looking on approvingly. When he'd finished he snapped the notepad shut and said, ‘Your details I do not need, Mr and Miss Smight. You two are already in our files.'

‘It's not fair,' said Ethel Smight. ‘It's not fair.' She was divided between anger and tears.

‘I don't make the law,' said Seldon. ‘I merely enforce it.'

With that he and his wife got up from the table and walked from the room. Moments later they heard the front door slam. There was silence round the table. Ernest Smight looked like a man who has been hollowed out while his sister, with her red face surmounted by the green-feathered cap, had the appearance of an angry and exotic bird. Mrs Miles looked as bland as before but Rosalind was dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. Helen's hand was still within Tom's.

Abercrombie Road

‘I don't see what's so wrong with it,' said Helen. ‘If that disguised policeman was right about the law then any fortune-teller at the funfair ought to be brought before the magistrate. But that doesn't happen, does it? You can be sure that quite a few policemen and even a magistrate or two go to have their palms read at the fair. And pay for it.'

Tom and Helen Ansell were walking home. It was still light and the earlier overcast skies had partially cleared to show the setting sun. The air was clearer than on a weekday because the factories were closed. Evensong had long finished but quite a few people were still strolling about in their Sunday best. Tom and Helen wanted fresh air after being confined in a front parlour which was somehow both chill and stuffy. They wanted time to talk about what they'd just seen, to talk out in the open and not shut up inside an omnibus or a hansom cab clattering its way towards north London.

The séance had broken up as soon as Arthur Seldon and Mrs Briggs – or rather Mrs Seldon – departed. Rosalind Minton and Mrs Miles were sympathetic to the Smights, telling them that
their
testimony would hardly be much use in court because they could not be sure of what they had seen. Besides, they knew Mr Smight and his sister for honest people. They said this, glancing defiantly towards Tom and Helen. Perhaps they would have said more if Tom had not been identified with the authorities in some way.

Tom was unable to make the same half-promise about any testimony. He was pretty sure that, in law, the medium had accepted money for services to be rendered. He felt sorry for the brother and sister but at the same time he was impatient with them and impatient to be away from this place. The slightly better light in the parlour revealed how worn and shabby was the furniture, and hinted at why Ernest Smight had fastened on the half-sovereigns.

Surprisingly it was Helen who was more distressed by what they'd seen. She had been the one looking for evidence of fraud under the table before Miss Smight's arrival. She'd speculated on how the fakery might be done and talked about tambourines, but now on the way home she sounded indignant rather than justified.

‘There's nothing wrong with fortune-tellers at funfairs,' said Tom. ‘They'll never be prosecuted. But Seldon was right, all the same. The law won't hold back. Smight won't get leniency if he's been hauled up in front of the bench before.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘The law was never meant to apply to a palm-reader at a fair. It's been dormant for years until it was brought back for individuals like Ernest Smight. Mediums can be prosecuted under the Vagrancy Act of eighteen-something-or-other, which was originally intended to deal with vagabonds and gypsies and such. People like that weren't supposed to make money by pretending to foretell the future. They weren't supposed to make a nuisance of themselves at all.'

‘But this is different, it is nothing to do with gypsies. It is getting in touch with the dead and hearing their messages. In fact, all their messages were reassuring. Did you notice, Tom? Everything was all right, everything was going to be all right.'

‘I thought you didn't believe, Helen. You're the sceptic. You're convinced none of it is true.'

‘I am still a sceptic. It will take more than this evening to unconvince me. But Tom, you have heard from the spirit of your father!'

‘My father? I don't know. How could it have been? A man in a blue uniform. It might have been a lucky guess by the medium.'

‘But the person he saw was soaked to the skin – and your father was buried at sea.'

‘Twenty years ago. He should have got out of those clothes by now. He'll catch his death.'

‘You are making jokes about it but I can tell you were affected by what Mr Smight saw. What he
said
he saw. Your hand was in mine, remember. You were sweating and tense.'

‘Let's be rational about it. How many people know some details of my father's death? Quite a few. Others could find out. It's probably written down in some army record. And there's your mother! She knows of course. And it was your mother who told us about Ernest Smight. She suggested we went to consult him. Probably she mentioned something about my father's death to him or to his sister. And there's another connection. Miss Smight used to know your aunt.'

‘But Miss Smight did not seem to have any warning we were coming.'

‘She's a good actress.'

‘Besides I don't think my mother has communicated at all with the Smights even though she might have known them once. Mother is not well disposed towards mediums and the spirit world. Why should she have said anything to a man she distrusts?'

‘Then why did she ask us to go and see him?' said Tom.

‘You know why,' said Helen. ‘Because of what she has asked me to do. She wants me to have some knowledge of the world I am entering.'

‘Like Daniel going into the lions' den.'

‘I hope not. Anyway, you'll be with me,' said Helen. ‘What will happen to him?'

‘Him? Oh, Ernest Smight. He'll be lucky if he is only fined. He could get a month or two in gaol, perhaps with hard labour.'

‘Hard labour? But that might kill him. He did not look strong.'

‘He'll only get that if he comes up before a magistrate who doesn't like mediums.'

‘What if we are called on to give testimony? That policeman took down all our details.'

‘He was doing it for effect, to show his authority.'

‘We could always say that we saw no money change hands. I would not like to be responsible for sending a man to prison. I didn't care for Mr Smight or his sister very much but they seemed harmless enough.'

‘I doubt if we'll have to testify. The word of the policeman and his wife will probably be enough, especially if Smight has performed these tricks before.'

‘I agree with Miss Smight. It still does not seem fair. Tom, I have had enough of walking.'

They hailed an omnibus which was going towards Kentish Town. They might have taken a hansom but two journeys by cab in one day seemed an extravagance. Tom, by himself, would have climbed to the roof of the bus but the exposed seating was not really suitable for ladies even if Helen had made a point of doing it a couple of times in fine weather. So the Ansells sat in the cramped interior which was oddly like the Smights' front room, stuffy and cold at the same time. It was like the Smights' too because there were half a dozen other people inside the compartment, strangers pushed up against each other.

The Ansells got out of the bus at the near end of Kentish Town Road. They walked the short distance to their terraced house in Abercrombie Road. Number 24, which they had taken on a three-year lease, was newer and in better condition than the houses in Tullis Street. This spot on the edge of town was about right for Tom and Helen. It was affordable, although they had to be careful with their money (saving on hansom cab journeys, for example). The air was good, or at any rate less dirty and smoky than the air in the centre. There was quite a bit of building going on as the suburbs spread north, and there was a sort of bustle associated with the whole area. The people moving into their street and the neighbouring ones were, by and large, professionals like Tom.

Tom and Helen employed a maid-of-all-work – an amiable, youngish and plain woman called Hetty – who helped with the cooking. They'd contemplated doing without anyone but it didn't seem right somehow. Tom was glad there was company in the house for Helen while he was at work. The place would do for a couple of years until they needed somewhere bigger when the children arrived, or until Tom increased his salary at the law firm of Scott, Lye & Mackenzie in Furnival Street.

Helen was born a Scott, as Miss Smight had accurately remembered from the marriage announcement. Her father, one of the original founders of Scott & Lye, had been dead these several years, and while Mr Alexander Lye occasionally shuffled into the office, his chief activity was to scrawl his signature on correspondence placed in front of him. That left David Mackenzie as the principal partner. Tom had hopes of becoming a partner in due course but he wanted to do it on his own merits and not because of his marriage.

Helen was not content merely to sit at home, presiding over a house which was much smaller than her family home in Highbury while she waited for the almost inevitable children to appear. Instead, she was writing a ‘sensation' novel, a three-decker along the lines of those penned by Mary Braddon. Helen's novel involved an heiress who had been cheated out of her property and abandoned by her fiancé because of the actions of a villain. The heroine, whose name was Louise Acton, was compelled to go to extreme lengths to regain her place in the world. Tom hadn't been allowed to see any of this unfinished book, although he did hear from time to time that his wife had enjoyed ‘quite a good day' at her desk or that she was reaching an awkward corner in the plot.

Recently, Helen had a short story published in
Tinsley's Magazine
. It was her first appearance in print. William Tinsley himself wrote a gracious note to accompany the cheque for five pounds. The story was called ‘Treasure' and Tom read it with admiration and a touch of amazement, hardly able to link the words on the page with the person who was sitting on the other side of the fireplace and pretending to read a book while covertly watching for his response.

Once inside number 24, they settled to a cold supper which Hetty had left for them. As she usually did on Sunday evenings, the maid was out visiting her sister who lived a few streets away. Tom and Helen's mood was subdued, mostly because of what they had seen and heard at Tullis Street. More than once, Helen mentioned Mr Smight's likely fate of a term in prison. After supper Tom tried to cheer her up. He mentioned Ethel Smight's attempts at phrenology, the science of reading character by feeling the bumps on the skull. Helen reminded him that his bumps of Conscientiousness and Hope were well developed.

‘And Secretiveness,' said Tom.

‘A useful trait in a lawyer.'

‘And don't forget my bump of Amativeness. It is unique, according to Ethel Smight. You may feel it. Feel my bump of Amativeness.'

‘Where is mine, I wonder?' said Helen.

Tom ran his fingers through Helen's fair curls and one thing began to lead to another. They were suddenly disturbed by the sound of the key in the door and the return of Hetty from her sister's. They giggled like children.

‘Later, oh amative husband,' said Helen.

The Mission

Tom and Helen Ansell had gone to visit Mr Smight at the suggestion of Helen's mother. A week before the séance the couple had been having tea with Mrs Scott at the Highbury house, an occasional Sunday ritual. Although Tom no longer regarded his mother-in-law as a dragon-lady, which was his view of her before the marriage, and although he had even caused her to break into a smile once or twice, he didn't enjoy these occasions much. Mrs Scott would quiz him about Scott, Lye & Mackenzie, in which she still felt a proprietorial interest, or she'd comment on Helen's appetite – which was either too feeble or too eager – as a roundabout way of establishing whether there might soon be a happy announcement.

This time, though, it was obvious that there was something more on her mind than the law or babies. They'd hardly made a start on the anchovy toast and the ham sandwiches before Mrs Scott said, ‘Helen, do you remember your Aunt Julia?'

‘Of course I do.'

‘You were always her favourite when you were little.'

‘It is many years since I saw her.'

‘She particularly mentioned you in her last letter. She hopes that married life suits you. She never married, you know, although she was the oldest of us.'

As Mrs Scott talked about her family, with an uneaten ham sandwich in her hand, she was looking not at her daughter but at Tom, who asked himself where this conversation was heading. Helen sometimes mentioned her aunt Julia Howlett in a fond but distant way.

‘Married life suits us very well, mother,' said Helen.

‘Your aunt will be glad to hear it when I next write to her. She was wondering when she might see the happy couple.'

‘Aunt Julia lives in Durham, doesn't she?'

‘Yes. They have a fine cathedral there, I believe.'

‘I don't think we have any plans to travel so far north at the moment,' said Tom, sensing that Mrs Scott had an axe to grind and that it would shortly emerge from its hiding place.

As a sign of her seriousness Mrs Scott replaced the ham sandwich, untouched, on the plate. She said, ‘To be honest, my dears, I was wondering whether you
could
make plans to travel so far north. There is a railway line from London. I don't think the city of Durham is inside the polar regions.'