Philip Gooden - The Durham Deception

‘Ah, Ambrose,’ said Flask. ‘Everything tucked up for the night? Join us for a libation?’

There were glasses of some sticky pale brown stuff on a table. Sherry or something.

‘There’s a jug of porter in the kitchen. I’ll have some o’ that. Run and fetch it, Kitty Par-tout, there’s a good girl.’

Kitty hesitated for a second and Ambrose saw Flask nod almost imperceptibly before she scampered off to the kitchen. But he put his best face on it and said, ‘Find anything in York, Eustace? That’s where you was this afternoon, wasn’t it?’

‘A couple of likely prospects,’ said the medium. ‘One of them a widower.’

‘Thought you found women easier to work with than men, guv’nor. More — what’s the word? — pliant.’

‘It depends,’ said Flask.

Kitty returned carrying the jug of porter and a tankard. She made a show of pouring it out for Ambrose and not spilling more than a drop or two, as if she wanted to demonstrate what a careful girl she was. Then, picking up her own sticky brown libation, she flung herself into a battered armchair, one of a pair. Eustace Flask settled in the other while Ambrose had to content himself with an even more dilapidated rocking chair which was hard on the bum and pinched the hips.

‘We did well tonight. Here is a contribution for the cause,’ said Flask, producing the cheque which Julia Howlett had presented to him. Ambrose noticed that he didn’t let it out of his hands or even say how much the cheque was for.

‘Who was that terrible man with the moustache?’ asked Kitty.

‘I think I know who he is,’ said Flask, without enlarging on it.

‘He nearly spoiled everything.’

‘That’s where you are wrong, my dear Kit. He made an exhibition of himself and, far from convincing the congregation he was right, he made them feel I had been hard done by. I am sure that Miss Howlett gave us more than she would have done without his intervention.’

Eustace Flask sometimes referred to his audience as a ‘congregation’. He did it with a straight face, which you had to admire him for.

‘What about that other couple, Eustace?’ said Ambrose. ‘The tall, dark-haired geezer and the pretty piece with fair curled hair. What were they up to?’

‘I understand from Miss Howlett that the woman is her niece and the man is her husband. They are newly married and visiting Durham for the first time. As a matter of fact, I met them on the train from York. I don’t think there is any harm in them.’

‘Oh, we know all about nieces, don’t we Eustace?’ said Ambrose.

Eustace ignored the remark. He said, ‘We must tread very carefully over the next few days. That is why I responded with calm and dignity to the attack on me this evening. We have reached a critical moment. Miss Howlett is primed to provide me with an allowance so that I can continue with my good work for the cause. And I have high hopes of something more…’

Ambrose was wondering what the ‘something more’ could be when Kitty broke in. ‘Does that mean we’ll have to stay in Durham, Eustace? I am getting tired of the city.’

‘We shall not be staying here for much longer. I shall make it a condition of any allowance that I — or we, rather — would have to continue with our journeying, to spread the word. Now, Kit, we are ready for a little supper after our exertions. You purchased some pork chops earlier today, did you not? It must be time for you to go and cook them up.’

Kitty refilled her glass and then busied herself in the kitchen frying the chops. Eustace and Ambrose sat in silence in the parlour, drinking. By the time the food reached the table, all three of them were sozzled.

When he got Kitty to bed that night, Ambrose had more or less forgotten his earlier irritation at seeing Eustace and her so comfortable and familiar together in the street and the parlour. He did give her nipples a few extra twists but it was half-hearted, like her little shrieks in response. The two shared a room at the back of the house, with a view of the stern prison walls, while Mr Flask had the bigger room at the front.

The nipple-twisting had turned to stroking and fondling, and Kitty’s little shrieks to sighs. But before they got on to the main matter, Ambrose had something he wanted to ask her. ‘What’s the guv’nor hoping to squeeze out of the old maid? She’s going to give him an allowance — more fool her, if she does — but he was talking about something more. What’s he mean?’

‘I don’t know, Ambrose. Ah… yes that’s it. And I’ll just put my hand here…’

There was an extended pause but suddenly Kitty said, ‘Maybe he’s trying to get her to put him in her will.’

‘Who? What you talking about?’ said Ambrose, who was rather distracted at this point.

‘Eustace and Miss Howlett. He thinks she might leave him something in her will.’

‘She’s not dead yet.’

‘She’s old.’

‘Looks in good health to me.’

‘You never know with old maids though. They can go sudden.’

‘Or be pushed sudden.’

And the two, in the middle of their pleasure, giggled at the thought.

Ambrose Barker was familiar with the use of force. It was one of his attractions for Kitty Partout. She had first admired him while he was wearing no more than knee breeches and practising his trade at the Black Lion near Drury Lane. Miss Partout was keeping company with a young Corinthian or swell who enjoyed seeing men of a lower class beat each other to pulp. Usually Kitty enjoyed it too. Most of the fighters showed the marks of their trade in broken noses and ripped ears and swollen hands. Although Ambrose possessed a dented nose he still had a touch of youth about him. But that evening he came off badly at the hands of a negro called Turner. As he was being dragged from the ring — which was nothing more than a chalked-off square on the bare pine boards of a back room — he managed to exchange glances with Kitty. She felt a thrill go through her.

About an hour later, when ‘Ebony’ Turner had disposed of several more contenders and Kitty’s swell had drunk so much that he was staggering worse than the fighters, they left the Lion. Ambrose was waiting outside, lounging against a wall, holding a flannel to the side of his face where Turner had torn a great rent in it. Apart from that wound he had quite recovered as he demonstrated by what he did next. With his free hand he seized Kitty’s arm and said, ‘You’re coming with me.’

‘Where we going then?’ she said, as her Corinthian swell fell into the gutter without needing so much as a shove. ‘Where are we going? Gretna Green?’

It was such a good joke that she was still laughing as they stumbled, hand in hand, towards Covent Garden. They didn’t end up in Gretna Green but in a nethersken in Hackney — two pennies for a room to yourself — where they stayed for that first night and plenty more of the nights to come. When they eventually found time to talk, Ambrose explained that he’d had enough of the fancy or P.R. as he called it, meaning Prize Ring. The ring was on its last legs in these new respectable days; he’d come at it too late and maybe — he didn’t say this but Kitty guessed it — he was not quite ruthless enough or sufficiently indifferent to his own injuries. There must be safer means of getting by.

Ambrose and Kitty tried a couple of the safer means. He worked on the docks and in a carpenter’s while she tried her hand as a milliner’s assistant. But there was always the pull of something darker and more lucrative — and more dangerous. Ambrose had links with the fancymen who hung about the prize ring, and obligations to one in particular. It was suggested that, to fulfil one such obligation, that he work as a bearer-up — a robber — while Kitty would be the decoy. He might have done it; he wasn’t averse to a spot of outright robbery. But Kitty balked at being his accomplice. She had never, yet, broken the law, at least not so nakedly or violently.