Philip Gooden - The Durham Deception

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began in a style that was smooth as oil, ‘I customarily ask for a volunteer at this point to search my person and ascertain that I am not wearing any concealed devices. We live in such a suspicious age that all of us are forced to show ourselves beyond reproach, even Eustace Flask. I look around and I am delighted to see some familiar faces but it would be best if someone who was not known to me came forward for this personal examination. I might of course ask a lady here who is not known to me…’

His eyes lingered on Helen. Tom felt her shift on the chair next to him. But Flask was saying this only to tease for his glance then moved to Tom.

‘… but perhaps it would be more appropriate if an unknown gentleman volunteered. After all, we shall have no imputations of indelicacy here!’

Tom got up and walked the few paces to where Flask was standing in his waistcoat, shirt and trousers. Close to, Tom noticed a sheen of sweat on Flask’s pale face. He spoke quietly, hardly above a whisper.

‘Place your hands where you like, Mr..?’

‘Ansell.’

‘We have not been introduced before?’ said Eustace Flask speaking loudly enough for the whole room to hear.

‘No, we have not been introduced,’ said Tom. The man was quick, no doubt about it. They had met on the train but they hadn’t been introduced.

‘Place your hands where you like, sir, within the bounds of propriety.’

Flask looked out at the audience over Tom’s shoulder with a roguish twinkle in his eye. The voice was more brown and syrupy than ever. Tom put out his hands as if he were being invited to catch a ball. He felt uncomfortable and self-conscious, which was probably Flask’s intention. No doubt the medium counted on not being examined or searched thoroughly. God knows what he had concealed behind his waistcoat or inside his trousers.

Tom, suddenly provoked, decided that he would not be embarrassed. He would give this man as thorough a going-over as a criminal would receive in the police-house. So he ran his hands along the other’s extended shirtsleeves and over his sleek chest, he felt about his waist and up and down the trouser legs. To his slight disappointment, he felt nothing, not even a purse or a pocket-watch. Flask’s clothes were snug and well-fitting. They were also expensive. A fine stickpin topped by a pearl fastened his burgundy cravat. The thought crossed Tom’s mind that one of Aunt Julia’s cheques might have paid for the brocade waistcoat and, although it was really nothing to do with him, the idea irritated him.

He turned to face the people in the room. He shook his head and said,

‘As far as I can tell, Mr Flask is… clean.’

There were one or two titters from the audience, whether out of genuine amusement or from nervousness because Tom had shown a touch of disrespect towards Eustace Flask.

‘Thank you, Mr Ansell,’ said Flask from behind and then more quietly he spoke directly into Tom’s ear, ‘Your hands have such an expert touch that I thought you might be a tailor.’

Tom could have jabbed his elbow into the other’s gut at the little insult but he restrained himself and went back to sit beside Helen. Aunt Julia was beaming, gratified that Flask was acquitting himself so well. She was sitting beside Septimus Sheridan, who looked generally uncomfortable at the course of events.

Now Flask turned his back on the audience, his open hands stretched behind him. Ambrose produced a little bag from which he poured what appeared to be flour into Flask’s hands. The medium grasped the flour. Then Ambrose wound a coil of thin rope several times around Flask’s wrists. He made a show of knotting the cord tight and beckoned to a gentleman in the front of the audience to test the knots. This was quickly done and then Flask moved towards the wardrobe, where Kitty was standing by the open doors.

The interior was empty apart from a ledge or bench which ran along the back. Flask sat on this, rather awkwardly because of the position of his hands behind him. There were holes in the bench through which the ends of the rope were passed before being secured round Flask’s ankles by Ambrose. The same man from the front row was asked to test the new knots, which he did willingly. Now Flask was trussed up inside the wardrobe.

With a flourish, Kitty closed the double doors. She made sure that the windows were covered by the muslin curtains which hung on the inside. Within a few moments there was a stir from inside and an arm was thrust through the material. There was a collective noise from the people in the room, somewhere between a gasp and a sigh. The arm was bare and, for sure, it did not belong to any grown man. Judging by the thinness and pallor of it, the arm was a girl’s, even a child’s. Tom’s eyes automatically flicked sideways to see where Kitty had been standing but he could not immediately spot her. Now a second arm was thrust through the curtain covering the other hole in the other door. The two limbs were the same size but seemed to belong to two different bodies. In fact, they must do because the gap between the two holes was too wide even for a grown man to extend his arms any distance beyond the openings. The arms waggled their hands and the hands flexed their fingers, and the whole effect was unnerving.

All at once Kitty was in front of the cabinet again and the arms had scarcely time to disappear before she was unlatching the double doors and flinging them open to reveal — ah ha! — Eustace Flask sitting on his bench, the rope apparently securing his hands and feet, and with no sign of any bare arms floating about. But this was not the most extraordinary part of the manifestation. It was rather that Flask sat there quite still and calm, a seraphic smile on his face. There were noises of muted approval from the audience.

Helen whispered to Tom, ‘I’m impressed but I don’t see the point of it. What’s he trying to prove?’

‘That he is in touch with the spirit world, I expect,’ said Tom, wishing that he felt as calm as Flask looked.

The next part of the evening session followed when the various musical instruments — guitar, tambourine, violin and trumpet — were hung by Kitty upon hooks on the inner walls of the cabinet. All this while Flask had remained tied up, smiling benignly out at the room. The same man from the front row of chairs once more checked the knots and this time it was Ambrose who closed the doors to the cabinet. A few seconds passed before a terrible din emerged from within, the sounds of thumping and rattling, tooting and screeching. It was as if a pack of monkeys had got hold of the instruments and were doing their best to play them, or to destroy them. At one point the tambourine was thrown through one of the holes and almost struck a member of the audience in the face.

Ambrose now did duty by unfastening the doors as the cacophony faded away. Again Eustace Flask was revealed on the inside, securely trussed up on his bench, with the instruments hanging limply on their hooks. Ambrose untied him and the medium stood up, flexing his arms in front of him. He opened his hands so that a little shower of flour tumbled down from each of them. That proved — beyond a doubt, surely? — that his hands had been fully occupied grasping the flour all the time. Then he rubbed his chafed wrists and acknowledged the crowd in the room with little bows to left and right. He stood while Ambrose helped him back into his green frock-coat.

This concluded the second part of the evening. The trio of Flask, Kitty and Ambrose left the room whilst the medium paused to exchange a few words with Julia Howlett who was still beaming with pleasure at the success of it all. Tom observed that Septimus Sheridan, standing near her, looked less enthusiastic.

There was a gap like the interval in a play. Candles were relit and the gaslights turned up higher. Tea was brought in by a couple of housemaids and the visitors stood around chatting in small groups. Mr Sheridan came towards them. He said to Helen, ‘I understand, Mrs Ansell, that it is many years since you last saw your aunt.’