The Durham deception

Philip Gooden
Act One

The curtain rises and the first reaction of the audience is puzzlement. They have been expecting something eastern, exotic. But there is no painted backdrop depicting snow-capped mountains and plunging ravines. There are no rocks or trees which might conceal apes and serpents. There is nothing at all, in fact, except a tent-like structure surrounded by patterned fabric on three sides and open to the audience on the fourth. In the centre of this space sits a three-legged table not much larger than one which would be used in a card game. The table is bare, without a cloth of any kind.

Then on to the stage strides Major Sebastian Marmont. He is a short man with the soldier’s swagger and a complexion long burnished by foreign suns. He wears a tropical suit and a solar topi. He is greeted by applause. Those who have not yet seen him and his Hindoo troupe are familiar with his reputation and, despite that unpromising card-table, they give him the benefit of the doubt. Major Marmont raises one hand to quieten the audience. He steps towards the footlights.

‘ Ladies and gentlemen, I appear before you tonight as a soldier – as a traveller – and most of all as a tireless seeker into those strange realms which lie tantalizingly beyond our reach – the realms of mist and mystery. It is well known that the source of everything which is truly wondrous and magical in our world lies to the east. Yet, through my endeavours, I am able to bring to all of you assembled here tonight an experience from the fabulous Orient such as has hitherto been vouchsafed only to the privileged few even in those antique lands. ’

The Major pauses to let this sink in. He turns slightly and claps his hands, once. On staggers one of his servant boys. The boy is cradling a black travelling case like a small hat box. The Major wags a finger at him to indicate that he must handle the case with particular care. The boy passes the case to the Major who accepts the burden in an almost reverential spirit before dismissing the boy with a nod of the head. Major Marmont places the case in the centre of the table. He stands back. He says, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, behold the Sage of Katmandu. ’

Major Marmont moves forward again to the case on the table and unfastens the lid, which is hinged. He folds the lid back so that the interior is revealed. It contains a human head. It is the head of a holy man set within folds of red silk. The head has flowing white hair and a seraphic expression. Its eyes are closed. The audience gasps. A few of them start to look at the Major with suspicion and alarm. (There has recently been a celebrated murder involving a head, a torso, two suitcases and the left-luggage department of a railway station. The murder filled the more sensational papers for weeks.) But this object, realistic as it seems, is surely made of wax.

In the meantime the Major has shifted to the side of the stage. He too is gazing at the disembodied head as if he had never seen such a thing in his life before. He is tugging at his moustaches. Now he claps his hands once more, not in the commanding style he used to summon the boy but in a way that is gentle, almost deferential. He says softly, ‘Sage, awake. ’

The eyes of the head flick open and move from side to side, then up and down, as if the head is ascertaining exactly where it finds itself. There are more gasps from the audience. Then the head of the Sage of Katmandu smiles, as if it is pleased to be here, in this very theatre on this very evening. The smile is not ghoulish or disturbing, it is actually quite benign.

‘ Sage,’ says the Major, ‘you have enjoyed a long rest, I hope, in your voyage across the continents of the world. ’

The head moves slightly up and down. It is nodding in agreement. Some of the wiser heads in the audience are nodding too. They can see how this trick is worked. It’s easy when you know. This is a head made out of wax or a similar substance, somehow operated by pumps or cords or other machinery, although the space beneath the table is absolutely bare. The head will open its eyes and smile. It will nod in agreement and even shake in denial but it will not be capable of speech.

Yet the mouth does open! The head does speak! It says, ‘I am content. ’

The voice is a curious strangulated sing-song. Is this how people speak in India? Perhaps it is.

The Major, still standing to one side so as to give the audience a clear view of the white-haired head within the box on the table, says, ‘Sage, are you prepared to answer questions from these good folk assembled here tonight? They are eager to hear your pearls of wisdom. ’

‘ They are welcome. ’

The Major looks round the audience. He shades his eyes with his hand and gazes across the stalls and up into the galleries. ‘Your questions, ladies and gentlemen? Ask anything you like. ’

No one wants to be the first to speak out. Then comes a screech from the gods: ‘Ask ’im where my ’usband is, the bastard! ’E walked out three weeks ago. ’

There is some guffawing from the upper reaches of the theatre, as well as plenty of tutting and shushing sounds from the more expensive seats down below. Major Marmont pretends not to understand the question. The Sage of Katmandu blinks slowly as if a response to that kind of query is beneath him. Soon a more sensible demand comes from a gentleman in the stalls (three shillings, reserved). The question is: ‘What is the secret of the universe? ’

The Major turns towards the head in the box. The head nods and the wide brow furrows slightly.

‘ The secret of the universe?’ it muses. ‘The answer lies all around us. But you will not find it by searching for it. You must wait for it to reveal itself… ’

The head continues in this vein for some time. The same individuals who thought they had the head worked out – it’s a waxwork animated by compressed air – now check to see whether Major Marmont is throwing his voice. He’s a ventriloquist. That must be the solution. But no, it cannot be, because Major Marmont is wiping his brow with a handkerchief and then drinking from a tumbler of water brought out by one of his boys. He is pretending to be hot and thirsty but, of course, he is really demonstrating that it is almost impossible for him to throw his voice several yards across the stage and simultaneously to be draining the tumbler to its dregs. Nor is there any change in the voice of the Sage of Katmandu as he continues to unravel the secret of the universe.

A couple of other questions are thrown at the Sage (‘Where is happiness to be found?’ ‘Above our heads, below our feet, within our grasp.’) before the Major brings proceedings to an end when he asks the disembodied head to show its esteem for the British nation by reciting from their greatest writer. So the Sage reels off most of the ‘To be or not to be’ speech from Hamlet in a voice that is not so strong as formerly. Since its powers seem to be fading, Marmont thanks the head, wishes it a peaceful sleep and closes up the lid of the case.

The Major lifts the case from the table and bears it towards the footlights. Once again he unlatches the lid and displays the interior to the audience. Cries of surprise. The case no longer contains the Sage’s head nor even the silk which had surrounded it. Instead there is a mound of reddish dust or ash.

‘ Do not trouble yourselves, ladies and gentlemen,’ says Major Marmont. ‘The Sage of Katmandu has the ability to dissolve and recreate himself time after time. It is a power beyond our understanding; it is the magic and the mystery of the East. The Sage of Katmandu will return in his own good time, with more wisdom from the Orient. ’

The Major tips a little of the red dust on to the stage floor in demonstration. Then he closes up the case for a final time and hands it to a boy who carries it offstage. There is a small pause while the audience struggle to take in what they have just seen, a talking head which could answer questions and recite from Shakespeare and which has now been reduced to a heap of dust. Then someone begins to clap, and then half a dozen more and, within seconds, the theatre is filled with volleying applause and wild cheering. The building seems to shake with the noise.

Major Marmont bows to every quarter of the house before striding off with the same manly soldier’s gait. For an instant the little table is left in its alcove illuminated by the lights, so that everyone can see that’s all it is – just a bare three-legged table – and then the curtain comes down.

67, Tullis Street

‘Are you nervous?’ said Tom.

‘Why do you ask?’ said Helen.

‘Because your arm through mine feels awkward, and you haven’t said very much for the last few minutes.’

‘I’ve been picking my way along the street with care,’ said Helen, ‘and I am holding on to you for support. It’s wet and slippery underfoot.’

It was an early Sunday evening in May but still overcast after the rain which had left a greasy deposit on the pavement. Church bells were ringing and couples were strolling to evensong or just taking the air after being shut up all day. Helen was right, you needed to be careful as you walked. But Tom thought that was just an excuse. She was nervous.

‘And you, Tom? Are you nervous?’

‘Me? No, more curious.’

‘Liar.’

‘Apprehensive then.’

‘I will settle for that,’ said Helen, tugging Tom so that he was closer to her. ‘Let’s be apprehensive together. It’s an adventure though, isn’t it.’

‘And good material for you.’

‘We’ll see.’

Tom and Helen Ansell were walking arm in arm along Tullis Street which lies to the north of the British Museum. They had taken a cab as far as Maple’s in the Tottenham Court Road and got down there because Tom said he wanted to walk the last few hundred yards, even though Helen complained her skirts would pick up the mud. Really Tom wanted to delay the moment before they reached number 67. Not for the first time he was regretting that he had said yes to Helen when she suggested this little outing. This adventure.

Tullis Street was rather dreary in the present weather, perhaps in any weather. The houses were flat and dun-coloured. The windows on the ground floor were smeary with the recent rain. Tom wondered what Mr Smight’s callers thought when they came to visit. The man was supposed to have had a distinguished list of clients once: a peer of the realm, Lady such-and-such, as well as a couple of MPs and a manufacturer or two. But perhaps his visitors weren’t concerned with appearances or even reassured by a plain style.

They arrived at number 67. Tom noticed a man and woman loitering on the other side of the street. The man looked at him curiously. Tom turned his head away. There were railed steps which led up to a peeling front door. Tom went ahead of Helen and knocked. A housemaid opened the door almost immediately as if she had been waiting on the other side.

‘Mr and Mrs Thomas Ansell,’ said Tom. It gave him pleasure to say ‘Mr and Mrs Thomas Ansell’. He went out of his way to say the words. They were like the ingredients in a pleasing recipe. Helen and he had been married at the beginning of the year.

‘You’re the first,’ said the maid in a familiar manner. She was a girl with pinched cheeks and dark rings under her eyes. She stood to one side of the narrow passage to allow them to enter and then shut the front door before taking Tom’s hat and his furled umbrella. She almost hurled the umbrella into the stand where it landed with a clatter. She took their coats and hung them up. Then she indicated the front room.

‘You’re to wait in there… if you please… sir and madam. That’s the waiting room.’

Tom and Helen went into the front parlour. In the centre was an oval table surrounded by half a dozen dining chairs, only one of them with arms. A large gilt-edged bible was set, unopened but prominent, on a lectern near the door. On the other side was a cottage-piano. Whether because of the bible or because of the musty smell of the room, Tom was reminded of the interior of a church on a wet afternoon. The furniture was heavy and the walls cluttered with pictures. Gaslights were burning low on either side of the fireplace but the lamps were dirty, and the gloom of the room was scarcely relieved by the evening light that filtered through the lace curtains.

Tom and Helen stood uncertainly in the dimness. They could see themselves in a large mirror which was set over the mantelpiece and seemed to be hanging at a dangerous angle. There was no one to overhear – the maid had shut the door firmly on them – but nevertheless Helen whispered into Tom’s ear, ‘It’s more dowdy than I expected.’

‘It’s very dowdy,’ said Tom. But he was pleased at the dowdiness. A bright and cheerful room would not have felt right. Helen paced about, manoeuvring between the furniture as silently and inquisitively as a cat. Tom was content to watch her. Eventually she went across to the oval table and lifted the green baize cloth which covered it. The cloth was too large for the table and its fringes lapped at the legs of the chairs. Helen stooped, peered underneath and then dropped the cloth back with a satisfied ‘hmm’.

‘What is it?’

‘Have a look beneath.’

Tom did so but saw nothing unusual although it was hard to make out much, given the shadows underneath and the general gloom of the front room.

‘Well?’ said his wife.

‘I don’t know. It’s just a table.’

‘Dear Tom. Although it’s got these dining chairs around, it’s not really a dining table, it’s too small. And it is resting on a single central column which means there’s much more give in it than there would be with a regular four-legged dining table. More play.’

To demonstrate, Helen pressed her hand a couple of times on an imaginary surface.

‘Easier for table-rapping and table-turning, you mean?’ said Tom.

Helen nodded and went on, her voice rising as she was caught up by the certainty of what she was saying, ‘If we were allowed to examine the underneath of that table properly and in a good light we’d probably find all sorts of things. Compartments and hidden drawers and sliding panels. And you see the glass over the mantel?’

‘I see you in the glass.’

‘Then look at how this chair is placed at the table. It’s the only carver out of the set so it’s probably where he sits.’

‘He?’

‘The gentleman we are here to see.’

‘Well? What’s the link between chair and table?’ said Tom. He had already guessed but he asked for the pleasure of hearing Helen make her deductions.

‘He can keep an eye on everyone else round the table by glancing up at the reflections in the glass. It hangs at a slant so it would be easy to see from the chair. While the sitters are all eyes on him, he’s watching them back, front and sides.’

‘You’re a suspicious person, Helen.’

‘I’d prefer to be called sceptical.’

‘A sceptical and imaginative person then.’

‘That’s better.’

As Tom was kissing Helen on the cheek, the door opened behind them. They swung round, slightly guilty. A large and alarming-looking woman swept in. She was dressed in black. Her complexion was strawberry-coloured and her hair stuck out from beneath a beaded cap surmounted by a single curled green feather.

‘Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr and Mrs Ansell?’ she said and then proceeded before Tom or Helen had the chance to nod agreement. ‘But of course I have. Even if the girl had not told me of your arrival I would have known you, my dear. You are Mrs Helen Ansell, nee Miss Helen Scott.’

She stretched out her heavily ringed hands and took one of Helen’s between them. Seized rather than took. Tom saw his wife’s delicate fingers and palm disappear into the clasp of hands which were as red and chapped as if their owner washed her own laundry. But Helen kept her self-possession and did not try to snatch her hand back.

‘I’m afraid you have the advantage of us,’ she said. ‘I am not sure I have ever had the pleasure of meeting you before, madam.’

‘Nor I you, though I knew who you were straightaway,’ said the woman. ‘I am Miss Smight, Miss Ethel Smight. Oh but I can see the likeness in you.’

‘Likeness?’

‘To Julia Howlett. Your aunt.’

‘Aunt Julia. I have not seen her for many years. How do you know my aunt?’

‘You are the very image of her,’ said the woman, finally letting go of Helen’s hand but not answering the question. ‘The image of her when she was younger, much younger of course.’

‘But how do you know her?’ persisted Helen. ‘And how do you know we are connected? I was never a Howlett but a Scott and I have another name now.’

She brushed her hand against Tom’s sleeve. Tom thought she was enjoying herself. The woman, presumably a sister to Mr Smight, pushed some of her straggling hair back beneath her cap before replying.

‘I knew your aunt well at one time. I knew your mother when she married Mr Scott. I am also a devoted reader of the marriage announcements in the newspaper. People of my age are sometimes said to prefer the death column, but I am all for life, yes all for life! When I saw at the end of last year that a Miss Helen Georgina Scott of Highbury was to marry a gentleman called Mr Thomas Edward Ansell, I said to myself that she must be the niece to my old friend, Julia Howlett. Said it over the breakfast table not only to myself but also to my brother Mr Smight. So when our maid told me that a Mr and Mrs Ansell had arrived, I put two and two together. I wonder what brought your feet to our door?’

‘Destiny?’ said Helen. Tom could tell she was speaking lightly, if not flippantly, but the woman treated the answer with seriousness. Miss Smight peered through the gloom at Helen.

‘Is it destiny? If you are able to say such a thing, then perhaps you have the gift.’

Helen looked sideways at Tom, who said, as a way of getting himself into the conversation, ‘What gift is that, Miss Smight?’

‘There is only one gift that matters,’ said the woman, leaving them not much the wiser. ‘You have favourable features, Mrs Ansell. Helen, if I may call you that. Blue eyes and fair hair are particularly conducive.’

‘That’s what my husband always says,’ said Helen, looking sideways again. Tom thought she was trying to stifle a giggle.

‘He is a wise man then,’ said Miss Smight, looking full at Tom for the first time. ‘A wise man, sir, to appreciate the value of blue eyes and fair hair. And a wise man altogether to judge by the shape of your head. If you will permit me…’

Miss Smight put out her podgy red hands and gently pressed the fingers into the sides of Tom’s head. As when she’d seized Helen’s hand, she acted as if it were her right to do so.

‘It’s a pity we have no time for the callipers; in order to take the exact dimensions of the skull, you know.’

‘I can do without the callipers,’ said Tom, as Ethel Smight continued to palp the sides of his head. She reached round the back of Tom’s head and then ran her hand over the top of it. Tom had almost had enough when she lowered her hands and stood back. She cocked her head and the attitude made Tom think of a great bird.

‘Ho hum,’ went Miss Smight, sounding like a doctor. ‘The organs of Conscientiousness and Hope are well developed in you, Mr Ansell. They are next to each other, you know. Secretiveness is quite prominent in you too. That property lies on either side of the head just above and behind the ears. Would you say you were a secretive man?’

‘What if I refuse to answer?’

‘Hah, good. But the most developed organ or bump is one which also happens to be unique. It is the site of Amativeness and it is the only organ in the skull which stands by itself. It has no mirror in the other hemisphere. As a newly married man, you are an individual with a well-developed organ of Amativeness. An amative husband.’

Helen, still standing near Tom, was gripped by a sudden fit of coughing and had to get out a handkerchief to cover her mouth. It was as well, perhaps, that the maid knocked on the door at this point to announce the next visitors.

‘Mr Seldon and Mrs Briggs.’

A man and woman were ushered into the front room. Tom thought he recognized them as the couple who had been hanging about on the other side of Tullis Street when Helen and he arrived at number 67. Their connection was quickly explained: they were engaged to be married. The man was slight with pointed facial features. Mrs Briggs, presumably a widow rather than divorced, was larger than her fiance and had a dull bovine stare. They looked awkward and uncomfortable at being here, but then, Tom reflected, that wasn’t so surprising. Perhaps they had been waiting on the street for others to arrive first before summoning up the nerve to come in themselves. Tom, too, felt uncomfortable, particularly after his skull inspection at the hands of Miss Ethel Smight.

She might have been about to try her technique on the newcomers but was prevented by the arrival of two more visitors in quick succession. Both of these women seemed to be known to Miss Smight and were not announced. There was a young, rather attractive one with a mass of lustrous dark hair, and a severe-looking one in middle age. The young woman was referred to by Miss Smight as Rosalind – if she was given a last name Tom didn’t hear what it was – while the older was plain Mrs Miles.

After brief introductions had been made, Miss Smight directed them to take their places at the oval table. She said that it would have been better to alternate the sexes but with two men and four women that was obviously not possible. Tom and Helen sat next to each other with Mr Seldon and Mrs Briggs facing them, and the two single women towards the narrower end. As Helen had predicted, the dining chair with arms, the one facing the mirror, was left empty.

Miss Smight went across to a sideboard, opened a drawer and brought back a collection of small objects, cradled in her arms. She placed them on the baize tablecloth apparently at random. They included a little handbell and a tambourine. Then she left the room.

‘It’s always a tambourine, isn’t it?’ said Tom to Helen in a half-whisper. He had never been to one of these events before but thought he should say something, should say anything, to show he wasn’t going to be easily taken in.

‘They use it because it’s small and it makes a noise when it flies about,’ whispered Helen.

The two women, Rosalind and Mrs Miles, looked vaguely disapproving at this while the engaged couple gazed straight ahead. The silence was broken by the opening of the door and the appearance of Mr Ernest Smight. He stood there for a moment as if he were making a stage entrance and ready to acknowledge any applause. He inclined his head with a slight smile at his guests. Behind him loomed Miss Smight.

The medium was an imposing man with pale, clear-cut features and a neat moustache. He wore a cravat which was the same green as the feather in his sister’s cap. He sat down at the head of the table while Ethel fussed over him, brushing a speck of dust now from one shoulder, now from the other. At first sight there didn’t seem any likeness between brother and sister. But the light was not good and it grew poorer still when Miss Smight went to draw the curtains and turn down the already dim gas lamps on either side of the fireplace. The room became sepulchral. Ethel Smight retreated to sit on an armchair in the corner.

‘My friends,’ said Ernest after a long pause. He steepled his hands like a man in ostentatious prayer. His voice was an actor’s voice, resonant and cultured. It was too big for the room. Tom’s suspicions were beginning to be confirmed. ‘We should join hands for a moment.’

Tom regretted that Helen was sitting between him and Mr Smight. But she put out her right hand willingly enough for the medium to take while she slipped her left into Tom’s, who gave it a squeeze. With his own left he clasped Mrs Miles’s right hand and wished it had been the dark-haired Rosalind’s. Mrs Miles’s hand was cool and dry. They all sat like that, in a hand-in-hand ring round the oval table. Ernest bowed his head for a few seconds. Then he looked up in the direction of his sister.

‘I require vibrations. Give me a verse please.’

His sister stood, edged her way round the room to the little upright piano, drew out a stool, sat down again and plinked out a few bars. The piano needed tuning. Tom thought he recognized the opening of Jesu, Thou art all our Hope. As the music started to play, Ernest nodded as if to show he was receiving the vibrations he wanted. The music stopped abruptly. Ethel sat back on the piano stool. There was another prolonged pause.

Tom was starting to wonder what, if anything, was due to happen next when his ear was caught by a chinking sound. It was coming from the surface of the table. In the very centre had been positioned the tambourine. Tom couldn’t be sure but the simple instrument seemed to be regularly rising and falling a few inches up and down above the baize cloth, giving itself a brisk shake each time it did so. He couldn’t be sure because the light in the room had grown even dimmer and his eyes seemed to be watering. Yet the tambourine was surely moving a few inches, now up, now down. Then it was time for a contribution from the handbell which made a few dinging noises although without moving.

All this while they sat hand in hand round the table. As the tambourine moved and the bell sounded, Tom felt Helen’s hand tighten in his own sweating grasp. Mrs Miles’s by contrast stayed cool and unmoving. She’d probably seen it all before. Holding hands was a guarantee that no one could be manipulating the objects on the table – yet the trick might be done with devices involving wires or extending tongs. And where was Ethel Smight? What was she doing? Still at the piano? Tom thought so but the room now seemed so hazy that it was hard to make out.

The noises stopped. Ernest Smight, who had been sitting with his chin sunk on his chest, suddenly looked up in the direction of Mrs Miles. When he spoke, his voice was different, not so resonant, more familiar.

‘There is a spirit appearing behind you, dear. A short gentleman with a tanned complexion. He is young but with lines on his face as if he was accustomed to spending a long time in the open.’

Mrs Miles shook her head in a sign that she didn’t recognize the description.

‘And his clothes are wet,’ continued Ernest. ‘He is holding something in his hand which I cannot quite discern. A piece of rock, perhaps.’

‘He is my brother, Robert,’ said the dark-haired Rosalind, speaking for the first time.

‘Ah, I see how he moves towards you now,’ said the medium. ‘He has visited us before. I did not remember him at first. There are so many spirits pressing in on me.’

‘Robert died three years ago in an accident in California,’ said Rosalind, partly to herself, partly to the others round the table. ‘He was prospecting for gold. He suffered an accident with a hydraulic sluice. Has he a message for me?’

She spoke in a matter-of-fact way as if she was describing a trip her brother had made to the shops. Tom noticed that she didn’t turn round to look behind her. He could see nothing there. Nevertheless he felt a tightness in his chest.

‘Yes, your brother Robert has a message for you,’ said Ernest. ‘He says that you are to follow your heart. Does that make sense? To follow your heart.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Rosalind with more animation now. She didn’t elaborate.

‘He is smiling and nodding with pleasure. He is pleased that you understand. Now he can depart.’

Mr Smight nodded with satisfaction himself. He let go of the hands on either side of him, Helen’s and Mrs Briggs’s, and rubbed his temples. Then he glanced round the table. His eyes fixed on Tom for an instant before darting behind the lawyer’s shoulder.

‘I can sense a presence behind you, sir.’

‘Me?’

Tom’s instinct was to turn round but he managed to conquer it. All the same, he felt cold air on the back of his neck as if someone were blowing on it.

‘Another young man, of about your own age I should say. And he is a soldier, to judge by his uniform.’

‘A soldier?’ said Tom, his voice sounding strained to his own ears. ‘But I don’t know any solders.’

‘This gentleman is wearing a blue uniform. He is smiling fondly down at you. This time I am not mistaken. It is you he is looking at.’

‘Oh God,’ said Tom. His head and body were rigid with struggle. Half of him wanted to turn round, the other half wanted to stay staring frontwards. As if sensing his discomfort, the medium said, ‘Keep still, sir. You would not be able to detect anyone. But from your response I take it that you know to whom I am referring.’

‘Possibly. I am not sure. Can you say more about… what you can see?’

‘It is a peculiar coincidence but this gentleman also is wet, as if he had been immersed in water. Yet his blue uniform is fresh and shining for all that. Are you acquainted with anyone who has drowned, my friend?’

‘No,’ said Tom. He was reluctant to say more but suddenly the words tumbled out of him. ‘I don’t know anyone who drowned. But my father was buried at sea many years ago. I hardly knew him. He was on his way to fight in the Russian War. He died on board ship before he could arrive and was buried near the Dardanelles. I was quite young.’

To Tom it seemed as if someone else was speaking these words, yet he recognized the voice for his own. He had heard the details of the death and sea-burial only recently from a former comrade of his father.

‘He has a message for you,’ said Ernest.

‘I did not know him,’ said Tom.

‘But he knew you, sir, and he continues to know you – from the other side of the veil which separates all that is mortal and perishable from that which endures for ever. Your father is proud of you and what you have accomplished. He has a warning though. His message is that you are to be careful. He sees danger ahead for you and your good lady.’

Tom had almost forgotten Helen’s presence beside him. Her hand still rested in his.

‘There is danger by some woods, danger near a stretch of water. That is why he has come in this guise, soaking wet in his blue uniform. There is danger, too, from an individual who is not what he seems to be.’

‘I can’t make sense of this,’ said Tom.

‘I am merely the conduit, the medium of the spirit world,’ said Ernest Smight. ‘I do not claim to understand all. Now he fades away, his blue uniform absorbed into the shadows.’

There was a pause. Tom realized he was soaked in sweat. What had he just witnessed? Was it real? Not really real, but really the spirit of his father?

If Tom had turned round in his chair, could he have seen the man he had last glimpsed when he was a child? No, he would not have been able to detect anyone. Only Ernest Smight could do that. If, indeed, the medium was being truthful. Part of Tom wanted to believe but the other part, the larger one perhaps, was highly sceptical.

Meanwhile attention had shifted round the table to the couple on the side opposite from Tom and Helen. Arthur Seldon, the individual with sharp features, had placed a coin on the table. It was a half-sovereign, its gold gleaming dully in the gloom. Ernest seemed to start back from it but Tom observed how his eyes fastened on the money. Seldon added a second half-sovereign. The medium’s hand hovered then stretched out to shift the coins closer to him.

‘Accept them as a love-offering,’ said the man. ‘They are yours whether you are able to help us or not.’

‘I will help you if I can.’

‘It’s not for me but for her,’ said Seldon curtly. The bovine woman nodded. When she spoke, her voice had a surprising sweetness of tone.

‘It’s my husband, my first husband I should say. He was run down by an omnibus. Can I be put through to him?’

‘Where did the accident occur?’

‘In the Fulham Road.’

‘I am not receiving any impressions,’ said Ernest Smight after perhaps half a minute. He rubbed his temples again. ‘Wait, I seem to have the sense of a name beginning with the letter E… Edward is it? Edmund maybe. Or even Ernest.’

‘That’s not it, none of them,’ said Mrs Briggs. ‘Does the name of Angus bring him to you?’

‘Angus?’ said the medium. ‘Possibly. It is hard to tell. There are figures in a mist, all clamouring for attention. However one is coming to the fore. Yes. A tall man, would you say?’

‘Why yes, you might say so,’ said Mrs Briggs. ‘Angus was large, unusually large.’

‘He wants to know why he has been summoned back to this mortal vale.’

‘I need his advice,’ said the woman. ‘I am about to be married to Mr Seldon here, and I want to know whether my previous husband – Mr Briggs – is content with that.’

Tom, still feeling the shock of apparently hearing from his father, wondered how the medium was going to answer this woman in the presence of her fiance. But Ernest Smight was all tact.

‘Not everything is revealed to us but, if it is Angus whom I can glimpse in the shadows, he is nodding his head. Your happiness is what matters to him. If you are content then so is he.’

‘ I have a question for him,’ said Arthur Seldon. ‘Her late husband, the one who was run over by an omnibus, he kept some savings in a cash box in the house. My question is, will we find the box? We have failed to find it so far. Should we keep looking?’

‘My dear sir,’ said Ernest Smight, ‘that is such a material question and you must know the spirits want nothing to do with earthly, material things. They have moved beyond that. What use is coin if one is fed and clothed by the ethereal powers? Nevertheless, Mr Angus Briggs – if indeed it is he – is again nodding his head in a way that I can only interpret as encouragement. Yes, you should keep searching for the cash box.’

There was a sudden stir from behind Tom and Helen. The gaslights flared and the room was illuminated more brightly than before. It was Ethel Smight who’d turned up the lamps. Tom had thought she was still at the piano but at some point in the proceedings she must have got up and moved round the room. Had she been responsible for that cold draught on the back of his neck?

The medium’s sister said, ‘We should stop this now, Ernest. Say nothing more. I do not trust these two.’

She was referring to Mr Seldon and Mrs Briggs. Her warning came too late. Seldon reached inside his jacket and produced an official-looking badge.

‘Despite my civilian clothes I am a policeman, Mr Smight.’

‘All are welcome at our table, whether they come in disguise or in plain honesty.’

The medium was doing his best to put on a brave front but, by the brighter light, his face had gone pale and pasty while his voice lost all its confidence. He was older than Tom had first taken him for. Miss Smight’s face, by contrast, was bright red. She stood glaring in outrage at Arthur Seldon.

‘A complaint has been laid against you…’

‘A complaint? Has it? By whom?’

‘I am not at liberty to say,’ continued Seldon.

Ernest Smight sighed and seemed to shrink in his chair. ‘What have I done?’

‘Money has changed hands.’

‘It has not changed hands,’ said Ethel Smight. ‘It hasn’t, has it?’

She was appealing to the others, to Tom and Helen, to Mrs Miles and Rosalind. The single women looked baffled and slightly frightened. All four gazed at the two half-sovereigns, lying golden on the green baize.

‘You seemed to accept the coins, Mr Smight,’ said Tom, though even as he spoke the words he wondered why he was getting involved. This was no business of his. Yet he persisted. ‘I am familiar with the law and you seemed to accept them.’

‘In return for services about to be rendered,’ said the disguised policeman Arthur Seldon, nodding at Tom as if grateful for this confirmation. ‘Services were duly rendered. You have told fortunes and you have predicted the future. You have predicted that I will find money but I can assure you there is no cash box left by Mr Briggs. If there had been, she would’ve have laid her hands on it straight away.’

‘I predicted that your fiancee would be happy with you,’ said the miserable medium. ‘Surely you do not hold the prediction of happiness against me?’

‘I do not,’ said the policeman although his tone suggested he resented the idea of happiness. He smiled for the first time that evening, and Tom was reminded of a sharp-toothed rodent. ‘But you see, sir, this lady who is assisting me in my enquiries is not my fiancee. She cannot be my fiancee for the simple reason that she is already my wife.’

‘Yes, I am now Mrs Seldon although my first husband was called Briggs,’ said the woman.

‘Angus, I suppose,’ said Ernest hopelessly.

‘Ha, no. I once had a cat called Angus. Several of the facts I provided were correct. Angus the cat was large and he was run over by an omnibus, a misfortune which occurred in the Fulham Road.’

‘My wife, Lizzie, she did not lie, you see,’ said Seldon. He reached over and took up the two half-sovereigns from where they lay on the table in front of the medium, who turned his head away. ‘These coins are not mine but will be returned to the police station. I will make a full report on this and I would be surprised if you do not find yourself up before the magistrates, Mr Smight. This is not the first time you have been caught out. Do not expect leniency.’

Seldon paused to let that sink in. He was thoroughly enjoying himself. He produced a notebook and pencil as he gazed at the other sitters round the table. ‘And as for you, ladies and gentleman, any or all of you may be called upon as witnesses to what occurred here this evening. To wit, how this person told my and my wife’s fortunes in return for a cash payment. Your names and addresses if you please.’

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 seance 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 amp; 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 amp; 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 fiance 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.