The Durham deception

The Palace of Varieties

Tom and Helen Ansell were chafing under their near confinement in Colt House. Inspector Traynor had suggested that they would be safer if they spent most of their time at Miss Howlett’s. A policeman, equipped with truncheon and rattle, was stationed inside the house and occupied himself bantering with the servants in the back quarters. Another constable was keeping a watch over the front by making regular patrols along the South Bailey. Aunt Julia was strangely excited by all the police activity but Septimus Sheridan seemed terrified, whether of the police or the threat of a murderer at large. He had stopped going to the cathedral library and spent most of the time shut up in his room.

If Tom and Helen went out it was with a uniform for company, which was irritating. They both took the threat from Smight seriously but having a policeman over your shoulder whenever you wanted to go out was like a form of open arrest. Tom wondered how long the Durham force could sustain the search for Doctor Anthony Smight. There were police detailed to cover the railway station as well as the ones concentrating on Colt House.

He had told Inspector Traynor that he and Helen would soon be returning to London, and the Great Scotland Yard man looked unhappy, saying something about the need for material witnesses in the murder of Eustace Flask. But Tom had the uneasy feeling that what he really required was for the two of them to remain in Durham as a lure for Smight. The image of a tethered goat or lamb left out for a lion flashed through Tom’s normally unimaginative mind. And when he suggested that it might be a good idea to publicize the search for Smight in the local newspaper, Traynor said with great authority that that would merely drive their quarry underground.

Then everything changed. Traynor came by the house a couple of mornings later.

‘We’ve got him,’ he said without preliminary. His voice was curiously flat.

‘Doctor Smight?’ said Helen, shutting the book she was reading.

‘Yes, we have the doctor. When I say we, I mean that the police in Newcastle have apprehended him. We sent them the picture and other facts. I believe that they caught up with Smight in some low dive by the docks. It all fits.’

Tom, who’d been gazing out of the window, heard the hint of disappointment in Traynor’s voice. Of course, the London man wanted to be the one to make the arrest. He’d been beaten to it.

‘But my original hunch was correct,’ continued the Inspector. ‘Smight must have been staying in Newcastle and coming down by train to Durham to do his nefarious work. We had a possible sighting of him at the station yesterday morning but it was a case of mistaken identity, it seems.’

‘Could the Newcastle police be wrong?’ said Tom.

‘Not a chance. I have it here in black and white, just received at the police-house,’ said Traynor, producing a white telegraphic form. He walked over to where Tom was standing and showed the message to him, as if to prove his words. ‘They have laid hands on Smight. His name is established. I am catching the next train to Newcastle. I have already telegraphed ahead. They are expecting us. Superintendent Harcourt will accompany me. Smight will be closely questioned and then brought back here under heavy escort.’

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ said Helen. She stood up. ‘We can get back to leading a normal life.’

‘I will ask Superintendent Harcourt to withdraw his men from inside the house and outside,’ said Traynor. ‘You will not be surprised to hear that this manhunt has stretched the Durham force to the limit. And, yes, Mrs Ansell, you may rest easy.’

When they were alone, Helen said, ‘I am tired of being cooped up here. I am going for a walk.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘You don’t need to, Tom. As the Inspector said, there is no danger now.’

There was something in Helen’s manner that made Tom uneasy. Helen seemed uncomfortable too. After a moment she said, ‘Oh very well. If you must know, Major Marmont has requested my assistance in rehearsing a trick that he wishes to put on stage soon.’

‘Helen, surely you are not going to appear in public?’

The trouble was that Tom could see his wife stepping out on the stage, in a reckless moment. Helen was quick to reassure him.

‘No, no, don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you. But I did receive a note this morning from the Major.’

‘A note?’

‘Yes, a note, Tom, on County Hotel paper. There are some pieces of apparatus which he needs to refine, and he says I can help. I enjoyed being made to disappear in the Perseus Cabinet.’

‘All right,’ said Tom. He knew that Major Marmont had taken a shine to Helen so the request was not so surprising. ‘But I’ll accompany you to the theatre.’

They set off through the older part of town, without a police escort. All the time there was something nagging at Tom, something about the telegram which Harcourt had shown him, briefly. Tom struggled to recall the wording. What was it now? Something along the lines of ‘Newcastle force in port arrest Smight. Have your man verify and collect.’

It sounded odd. He mentioned it to Helen, repeating the words as far as he remembered them. She said, ‘Telegrams have a special, contorted language all their own.’

‘There has been a mistake, I think,’ said Tom suddenly, stopping in the street. Helen looked at him. He was gazing fixedly at a shop window, a ladies’ dress shop.

‘Are you all right, Tom?’

‘I must see Traynor or Harcourt.’

‘They will surely have left for Newcastle by now.’

‘I might be able to catch them at the police-house.’

But Tom was undecided. He didn’t want to leave Helen. She saw this and said, ‘I’ll be safe, Tom. No harm can come to me with Major Marmont.’

‘No, it can’t, can it? I will join you at the theatre. I will only be a moment.’

He almost ran down the street towards the marketplace. It would take him only a few minutes to reach the police station in New Elvet. He would find Traynor or Harcourt and tell them that they were, almost certainly, on the wrong scent. He was excited by his discovery and wanted to pass it on.

For what Tom had suddenly understood was that the telegraphic message had been wrongly transcribed at the police station. He’d realized it when staring at the window sign. WOMENSWEAR, the dress-shop said in close-packed gilt letters. The apostrophe had been lost and so the two words read as one. ‘Women’s Wear’, of course. But also, and more mischievously, it might be read as ‘Women Swear’.

So it was with the telegram from the Newcastle police. It did not read ‘Newcastle force in port arrest Smight. Have your man verify and collect.’ but ‘Newcastle force in port arrests. Might have your man. Verify and collect.’

From his work, Tom was familiar with the way in which telegraphic messages could get mangled, not so much in transmission but in transcription when the clerk at the receiving end wrote down the wrong letter or misplaced a full stop. If the message had come direct to the police-house, where everybody knew they were searching for an individual called Smight, then it was very natural that ‘might’ could be transformed into ‘Smight’. Natural but careless. And enough to send Traynor and Harcourt off to Newcastle on a potential wild-goose chase.

Did it matter? thought Tom, as he walked rapidly across the river and towards the police-house in New Elvet. The policemen would discover soon enough that they were on a false errand and come back, tails between their legs. He slowed down. He considered going back to rejoin Helen. It was more the fear of looking a fool in her eyes than anything else that made him go on.

So he arrived at the police-house, identified himself and told the sergeant on duty he wanted to speak to Frank Harcourt or the detective from Scotland Yard. Too late. As Helen had predicted, they were already on their way to Newcastle. The sergeant said there were other superintendents in the building. Did he wish to speak with one of them? Tom said no. He was starting to regret his eagerness to share his discovery about the telegram. Was he doing anything except proving his own cleverness? Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps the Newcastle police had detained Smight after all. He hoped so.

Tom retraced his steps to the Assembly Rooms by a route which was now thoroughly familiar. Entering the ornate auditorium, he was relieved to hear from the stage the voice of Major Sebastian Marmont who was, indeed, presiding over arrangements for that evening’s performance, his last in Durham. With him were his three sons and Dilip Gopal. But there was no sign of Helen. Tom felt a chill which turned to deep unease when Marmont said he had not seen her.

‘But you wrote her a note asking for help in some trick.’

‘I haven’t written any note. Are you sure, Mr Ansell?’

Tom realized that Helen had not shown him the letter from the County Hotel. If he had seen it he might have recognized the writing, or at least recognized that it wasn’t from the magician. He cursed himself for his carelessness. He cursed himself for leaving her and racing to the police station to share his discovery about the telegram. So where was Helen? What in God’s name had happened to her?

When Tom set off at a brisk pace for the police-house, Helen Ansell had debated for a moment whether to follow him. But she was rather irritated that he had insisted on accompanying her in the first place and she was baffled by his talk of telegrams. He’d got some hold of some silly notion which he had not troubled to explain to her. She hardly listened to his promise to join her later.

Of course it was safe for her to call on Major Marmont. She did not have to be escorted everywhere by her husband, especially now they had Inspector Traynor’s assurance that the danger from Anthony Smight was over. Helen had the magician’s letter with her. She retrieved it from her purse and read it again, standing in the street. Marmont was requesting her assistance. In a letter on notepaper headed with the name of the County Hotel, he asked her to come not to the Assembly Rooms but to the Palace of Varieties behind the Court Inn. She knew this was where he stored his conjuring apparatus and where he prepared some of his acts.

The Palace of Varieties did not live up to its palatial name. It was a simple wooden building not far from the court house and the gaol, and a venue for acts such as trick cyclists or hypnotists, judging by the faded and torn bills displayed outside. Its audience would be drawn from the less prosperous areas of the city or the mining communities roundabout.

The outer doors were locked. Helen walked down the alley to one side of the building. There was another entrance here on which was painted ‘Performers Only’. This door was ajar. She pushed at it and then hesitated, suddenly not so sure of herself. It opened on to a narrow passage. Helen walked a few feet inside. There was a single gas-jet burning in the passage. She turned a corner and came to a short flight of wooden stairs. It was dim at the top but a draught of cooler air suggested she was somewhere backstage.

She listened hard but heard nothing except the hiss of the gas-jet. She trod softly up the steps. She would just make sure that Major Marmont was not here, and then she would go back. She came to a high-ceilinged but cramped area at the top of the stairs. She picked her way between wicker hampers and wooden crates and mounds of fabric, and pushed at some heavy drapes. At once Helen found herself standing on the stage of the Palace of Varieties. The light here was subdued but better than in the off-stage area. The footlights burned low, giving an effect of an autumn evening.

Near the front of the stage was a queer piece of apparatus. It was a quilted platform, with the dimensions of a very narrow single bed, and it seemed to be floating unsupported about four feet off the ground. As Helen moved towards it the light above the floating platform grew hazier and broke up, almost dissolving into splinters before her eyes. She reached out an experimental hand to touch the object. Her fingers struck against something as taut and metallic as a piano wire. She started back. Then she realized that there was a cluster of wires, very thin strands which held up the platform. The hazy effect was caused by the wires blocking and diffusing the light from the front of the stage.

She stretched out her hand again. The wires were coated in some substance which made them dull, almost invisible. Close to, though, she could see that they converged and ran through multiple points on the ‘floating’ board. Underneath they were attached to blocks on the stage floor. Overhead the wires fanned out and ran upwards into the dark space within the proscenium arch. Helen saw in the dimness above a device like a great roller suspended out of sight of the audience together with some sort of crank or winch which gleamed faintly in the light. So this was how the floating man trick was achieved!

She passed to one side of the hanging board and, holding her arm below her eyes to reduce the glare from the footlights, she looked out into the auditorium. This was a plainer space than the Assembly Rooms and the seating had a makeshift appearance. But where was Major Marmont? The levitation trick was set up and the footlights were burning low but there was no magician to perform it.

Helen felt a draught on the back of her neck. Her skin prickled and she understood in an instant how foolish she had been to come to the Palace of Varieties, how foolish to come here alone. She was almost too terrified to turn round but, as she was nerving herself to do so, an arm snaked about her neck and a rough cloth was clamped to her nose and mouth. She struggled to remove the hand but the person behind her was taller and stronger, and after a moment she felt her flailing arms grow feeble. Fearing she was about to suffocate, Helen instinctively concentrated on drawing breath through the prickly, strange-smelling fabric fastened across her mouth and nostrils. The footlights wavered and grew dimmer in front of her vision while the man’s fingers were hard and rigid, like the legs of an iron spider, and that was the last impression in her mind.

Levitation

There was a terrible burning sensation in her throat and Helen thought she was about to be sick. But the burning sensation subsided and the moment passed. Some time went by without any thoughts at all. Later on – it might have been two hours or two minutes later – she wondered whether she had her eyes shut. If she did it was odd because she was definitely awake. Yet all she was able to see was a black space interspersed with darting yellow streaks. So was she really awake or was she dreaming?

She was lying on her back, resting against a surface that was quite uncomfortable. Where was the iron spider that had leaped on to her face? She could still feel the impress of its horrible legs digging into her cheeks. And there was an unfamiliar, pungent scent in her nostrils and a sweetish taste in her mouth. Not an unpleasant taste or an unpleasant smell but not comforting ones either.

Now, were her eyes properly open or were they closed? It might be absurd but the only way to make sure was by the sense of touch. She went to raise her arm so as to feel her own face, but the arm did not respond even though it wanted to, she knew it wanted to. She was able to wiggle her fingers but not to move her hand. She made the same experiment with her other arm and that too she could not budge. Her arms seemed to be tethered.

With a rising sense of panic, Helen struggled back to what was almost full consciousness. She blinked rapidly but the scene before her eyes stayed the same, a deep well of darkness broken by some yellowish gleams. The gleams were easy to understand, they were caused by lights somewhere below her but reflecting off things above her. Machinery of some sort, metal handles and cogs. And at once Helen Ansell remembered where she was, in the Palace of Varieties, and why she had come here, to help Major Sebastian Marmont, and how foolish she had been to come alone.

She knew too that she was lying on the quilted platform used in Marmont’s levitation act. Not only lying on the platform but secured to it, tied to it. There was an array of fine wires next to her head. She could see them out of the corner of her eye. She made to raise her head, trying to guess how far she was above the stage, but an abrupt sensation of tightness round her throat made her lie back again. She sensed rather than saw that the platform was in the position where she’d first seen it on the stage, hovering about four feet above the ground. There would be no great harm in falling four feet, no danger if she had to tumble off her perch once she was free to move. The platform was stable too. She could not feel it giving or swaying beneath her.

Helen hoped Major Sebastian Marmont would soon come along to release her. She was willing to take part in his magic rehearsals and willing to help him refine his new tricks, but she really had had enough of lying here, had enough of feeling nauseous and terrified.

Then she heard his footsteps echoing on the bare boards.

A head appeared in her line of vision. But it was not Sebastian Marmont’s.

She recognized the man from a drawing that she’d seen somewhere recently. The lined, thin features, the malicious glint in the eyes. But what was his name? She couldn’t remember it, not for the moment.

‘Mrs Ansell, you are finally awake. Good.’

Helen wanted to say something but her tongue was thick and cumbersome in her mouth and she thought again that she was about to be sick. She concentrated on swallowing, on repressing the feeling.

‘Chloroform doses are tricky things,’ said the man, hanging over her. His voice was deep. He spoke like a gentleman. ‘Even a doctor or man of science may make a mistake with chloroform. It depends on the size and weight of the individual, and on the sex of course. Too little and no effect is produced, too much and death may result. Perhaps I administered more than I intended since you have been asleep a long time.’

Helen tried to raise her head once more and experienced the same tight sensation round her neck. A look of genuine concern passed across the face of the gentleman.

‘Please don’t move your head, Mrs Ansell. There is a wire cord fastened around your throat and it is secured to this floating bed. The wire is part of the magical apparatus belonging to Major Marmont which I have put to my own use. If you tug against it, you will do yourself no good.’

Helen fought to control her terror. She was in the hands of a madman and although every nerve in her body was screaming at her to flee she could not move. Yet, even in the middle of her terror, she understood she was being kept alive for a reason. This man, this Doctor Anthony Smight, had not killed her – if it was his intention to kill. It must be. She was familiar with his other crimes. But he had not killed her yet even though he might easily have delivered a fatal dose of chloroform or suffocated her or done some other dreadful thing while she was unconscious. She had to remain alive for as long as possible. Every saved moment meant that someone might find her. How to distract him? How to prevent him putting some final, terrible intention into effect?

‘You do not know who am I am, do you?’ said Smight, almost gently.

Helen was about to make the slightest nodding motion with her head, about to croak out that, yes, she did know his identity and that the police knew it too, when denial suddenly seemed the safer course.

So she whispered, ‘No. Who are you? Why are you holding me prisoner?’

‘Let me explain, Mrs Ansell. A few weeks ago you and your husband were present at a seance in London as a result of which a man died. He killed himself because he was afraid of persecution despite being an honest medium. Your evidence would have sentenced him to shame and disgrace so he took his own life. Do you know what I am talking about now?’

‘Ernest Smight,’ said Helen, surprised at the steadiness of her voice. ‘I read that he had drowned himself. I was sorry to read it.’

‘Your sorrow comes too late to help. Ernest was my beloved brother. I am Doctor Anthony Smight. It was your actions and the trickery of a policeman in disguise that caused Ernest to do away with himself. The coroner’s inquest pronounced that he had taken his life while the balance of his mind was disturbed, but I say, Mrs Ansell, that it is you and the others who are truly responsible for his death. As responsible as if you had personally seized him and bundled him beneath the waters of the Thames.’

Helen was gripped by a mixture of fury and indignation. She felt her face grow hot and tears sprang to her eyes. It is absurd, she wanted to scream at this lunatic. Nobody wanted your brother to die. He committed a small crime and he would have served a few weeks in prison, at the very worst. I even felt some pity for your brother. If it had been left to me, there would have been no case to answer. But she said not a word and Smight interpreted the furious workings of her face as more signs of fear. He reached out a hand and patted her shoulder. He was almost smiling. At least his thin mouth lengthened in a kind of grimace.

‘Do not worry, Mrs Ansell,’ said Doctor Anthony Smight. ‘Your suffering will not be as great as my brother’s. It will certainly be much shorter since you have not so much leisure to ponder your death. There, I can see that I have shaken you by referring to death. But there are two already dead, the policeman and his wife. Two more must die, you and your husband. Then justice will be done.’

Where was Tom? thought Helen. She’d last seen him sprinting off towards the police-house. But he did not know that she was coming here, to the Palace of Varieties. She hadn’t mentioned it to him, annoyed that he insisted on accompanying her in the first place. Tom would assume she had gone to the Assembly Rooms. When he didn’t find her there, what would he do? Did Anthony Smight know that the police were on his tail? He was behaving in a strangely relaxed and confident way, just as if he was a family doctor giving some consultation to an old friend. No, he must be surely unaware that the police had his picture and were searching for him. This gave her a little burst of hope. Then she remembered that Harcourt and Traynor had left for Newcastle.

‘Wait, wait,’ she said. ‘How did you know that I would be willing to help Major Marmont with his magic tricks? How did you manage to write to me on paper from his hotel?’

‘It’s easy enough to get hold of a sheet of hotel writing paper,’ said Smight. ‘And I was in the Assembly Rooms the other morning when the good Major was demonstrating the operation of the – what is it called? – the Perseus Cabinet. I was at the back of the auditorium, lurking in the shadows you would probably say. I saw how ready you were to enter into the spirit of things and what a nice understanding you had with the military magician. I thought it would not be so difficult to entice you here, where Marmont keeps some of his apparatus. I have been keeping watch on you, on all of you, keeping watch with my invisible eye. I have been planning this for many days.’

‘And what are you planning for my husband? Why don’t you content yourself with… with whatever you intend to do to me?’

‘Mrs Ansell, if you weren’t such an evident lady, I would be tempted to call you by male terms such as gallant or chivalrous. But your selflessness will not protect your husband. If I choose to dispose of you first it is because I consider that it will add to Mr Ansell’s own grief and distress. He will know something of what I have known. He must love you. I can see that you are lovable. Besides that, you are recently married, aren’t you, Helen?’

‘Married this year,’ said Helen. Smight’s use of her first name was intimate and horrible. She felt the tears flowing again, and this time her weakness served only to irritate her. If she could have torn herself free from this floating platform, she would not have attempted to run away. She would have battled for her life against Doctor Anthony Smight. She would have bitten and scratched and gouged him like a wild animal. She would have left her marks all over him.

But she had no weapon except time. Time, she told herself, keep playing for time.

‘What about Eustace Flask?’ she said. ‘He was a medium like your brother. And yet you…’

‘I killed him?’ said Smight. ‘Is that what you were going to say, Mrs Ansell?’

Helen gulped. It was foolish perhaps to talk about this man’s past murders. Smight stroked his jaw. He said, ‘Well, there is no harm in explaining, I suppose. You see, I had appointed to meet Mr Eustace Flask down by the river that morning…’

He carried on talking but Helen was listening with only half an ear for she thought she had detected some sound from the backstage area of the theatre, a shuffling sound. Her heart leaped. There was someone here with them in the theatre! She strained to hear more while keeping her expression absolutely fixed. Fortunately Smight was still speaking, oblivious to everything else.

But Helen heard no further noises and she grew very afraid. Afraid that she was imagining the sounds, afraid that it was no more than a draught of air pushing at a curtain. Afraid that she could not keep Smight distracted for much longer. His voice had now descended into a queer monotone and his eyes which had previously been lively had acquired a sort of stillness. She recalled that he took opium, and wondered whether she was witnessing some effect of the drug – or of its absence.

At once, Smight stopped whatever it was he’d been saying. He clapped his hands together in a soft, dismissive gesture.

‘Enough of this, Mrs Ansell. Time presses on me as it presses on you. As you are aware, you are secured to this platform by wire cords. Using the ingenuity of Major Marmont’s apparatus, I intend to raise the platform by a winching device which is to the side of the stage. The wires run over the rollers which are hanging above our heads. They are covered in felt so as to muffle sounds. It is an ingenious trick and I am sorry I shall never see it employed for the diversion of an audience. While you were asleep, I made some adjustments to the wiring. The cord round your neck is secured to the stage floor and will gradually tighten as I turn the winch. It is a modified form of the garrotte. They used it in Spain, they used it in India. So now I shall disappear from before your very eyes now, just like a magician, except that you will never see me again. Do not worry, Mrs Ansell, the process of being deprived of air will be brief. Briefer than drowning, I dare say.’

Helen surprised herself by laughing out loud. It might have been hysteria, she couldn’t have sworn she was not hysterical, but it sounded like genuine laughter in her own ears. The eyes in Doctor Smight’s elongated face stared at her in surprise. He patted her shoulder for one last time and then, as promised, he vanished.

She heard the doctor’s steps crossing the stage and after that there were no more sounds until a soft click as of some gear or ratchet being engaged. She closed her eyes tight when she felt an almost imperceptible shift in the platform on which she was lying. It was inching upwards. The pressure round her neck grew tighter, and she prayed that it would be quick.

All at once there were the noises of stamping feet and shouts and cursing and scuffling. A shot rang out and her ears rang. There was the bitter smell of cordite. The pressure around her neck did not relent but it did not grow any worse. She did not dare to open her eyes even when she felt a hand again on her shoulder. Someone said something but she couldn’t make out the words because her ears were still ringing. It was Doctor Smight come back again. Something must have gone wrong with the apparatus and he had returned to comfort her and to taunt her once more and it was too horrible to be endured any longer. Someone grasped her hand.

Helen Ansell opened her eyes.

Her husband Thomas was standing over her. Other faces crowded round. Some of the faces she recognized. Then the faces swam together in a kind of dancing frieze before fading away altogether into a blessed darkness.