Philip Gooden - The Durham Deception

‘I said that the unknown man wasn’t the only person to be sceptical about Flask. There’s also my aunt’s lodger, Septimus Sheridan.’

‘It’s true he expressed just the tiniest doubt about Flask and he was looking a bit unhappy during the evening. But I noticed he was very quick to agree with Aunt Julia about everything.’

‘Here is a strange business, Tom. I was talking to Septimus and he let slip two or three things. In fact, he didn’t reveal them accidentally. I think that he wanted me to know them. He used to live in the city of Durham. He has been friends with my Aunt Julia for many years although there was a long period when they did not see anything of each other. While he was saying this, he let out a deep sigh as though he regretted that long absence. And from something else he said I understood that he had once been in the church…’

‘Had been in the church? I don’t understand. Doesn’t Mr Sheridan spend his time researching in the cathedral library?’

‘Yes, he does. But I mean that he was once a minister, that he was ordained.’

‘He’s been defrocked!’ said Tom.

‘No, no. Does he have the look of a man who’s done something scandalous? Septimus mentioned a ‘crisis of faith’. I believe that he quit the church but that he continues to do his work or research in its shadow. And I think too that he was the man that my aunt was engaged to, the man on whose account she first came to Durham.’

‘Aren’t you letting your imagination wander, Helen?’

‘Do not say so, Thomas, otherwise I shall push you into the river with the tip of my parasol, like this.’

They were passing a section of the bank which dropped sheer to the river. Helen jabbed at Tom in a way that was almost entirely playful. Tom looked round. He noticed a tall man behind them who quickly averted his gaze.

‘Supposing you’re right,’ said Tom after a moment. ‘Does that mean that Septimus Sheridan has come back in the hope of marrying your aunt after all these years?’

‘He has no ambition that way as far as I can tell. Nor has she. Haven’t you noticed the weary manner in which she talks to him? On her side, it’s as if they’ve been married years already while he defers to her and then talks about her in a way that’s almost reverential.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Tom gloomily. ‘I didn’t know you were such a dissector of the right conditions for marriage. Weariness from the woman and deference from the man.’

‘Whatever is between my aunt and Septimus is not a marriage,’ said Helen. ‘Septimus is — I don’t now — he’s a mixture of a hermit and a lodger.’

‘It’s all very odd,’ said Tom.

‘That’s what you said about our journey before we started. The coincidence of Aunt Julia and the medium together with your Major Whatnot and his dagger. You must tell me what he says. Unless it’s confidential and legal and all those things.’

‘I think Major Marmont wants the world to know how he came by the dagger. Anyway I shall tell you everything after I’ve met him.’

‘Pardon me,’ said someone loudly.

Helen and Tom stopped and looked back. A man was standing there, the same individual whom Tom had observed earlier.

‘Pardon me,’ he repeated. ‘I believe you may have dropped this, madam.’

He was holding out a lilac-coloured handkerchief. Helen stepped closer to examine it. ‘No. I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Thank you but it doesn’t belong to me.’

‘I could have sworn you let it fall as you were walking. I saw it fluttering to the ground.’

The man was tall and dressed in clothes that had been of good quality but now showed signs of wear. He was well-spoken. Since he was so insistent, Helen made a show of looking at the lilac handkerchief more carefully. She shook her head.

‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘I must be mistaken. Good day to you, madam, and to you, sir.’

He touched his hat in salute and walked off in the opposite direction.

‘It might have been your handkerchief,’ said Tom. ‘He seemed very convinced.’

‘I recognize that man,’ said Helen. ‘Or not recognize exactly, but there was something familiar about him.’

They both turned round again to watch the man striding along the riverside path. He had a rangy, loping walk.

‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Doesn’t look like anyone I know.’

At about the same time as Helen and Tom were beginning their stroll along the riverside path below the cathedral, Eustace Flask was taking a walk on Palace Green, in the precincts of the cathedral itself. He reached the north porch where a man was waiting for him. They nodded to each other before entering the building. If they had been interested in such things they might have remarked on the great pillars in the nave which were incised with zigzags or lozenge patterns, or commented on the way the sun poured through the rose window in the east. But the two were not attracted by ecclesiastical architecture or the morning light. Instead, the cathedral served as a convenient meeting place where they might go unnoticed on account of the regular visitors and the coming and going of the masons and carpenters who were presently rebuilding the choir screen.

Flask’s companion was a man of medium height with a florid complexion. His name was Frank Harcourt and he was a police superintendent, one of six holding that rank in the Durham City Constabulary. He was off-duty and so wearing civilian clothes, a three-piece suit which he would not normally have afforded but which his wife Rhoda had encouraged him to buy. Of the two men Harcourt might have been the more easily recognized, perhaps by one of the clerics who were walking purposefully about the building, but he avoided meeting anyone’s eye. By instinct the two kept their perambulations to the secluded or shadowed corners of the cathedral.

They didn’t speak a word until they were standing in the north transept where Eustace Flask said, ‘How are you on this fine summer’s morning, Frank?’

‘I cannot hold them off for much longer,’ said Frank Harcourt who evidently had no time for pleasantries. He was sweating, despite the coolness of the place, and his red face was a contrast to Flask’s pallor. Nearby was the scuffling movement of workmen up and down ladders, the discreet tap of chisel on stone.

‘Hold them off? Whom do you mean?’ said Flask.

‘Whom do you think I mean?’ said Harcourt, imitating Flask’s oily tone. ‘I mean Alfred Huggins. I mean the Chief Constable.’

‘But you said them, which I took to be more than one person.’

This time Harcourt answered with real irritation. ‘You know the situation, Mr Flask. There are quite a few people who do not care for your activities in this town or even your presence here.’

‘Which people?’

‘Do I need to spell it out? Some of them are probably in these precincts at this very moment. Men of the cloth. Not all of them approve of this spiritualist lark. They call it an offence against religion. Not to put too fine a point on it, they think that you are a fraud.’

‘Spiritualist lark? Lark?’ said Flask, putting his hand on his fine brocade waistcoat in the gesture he’d previously employed in Julia Howlett’s morning room. ‘Well, I suppose that true prophets and seekers of truth have always been mocked and persecuted.’

‘Spare me the indignation, Mr Flask. You do not have to pretend with me. These important people, men of the cloth and the rest of them, are putting pressure on the Chief Constable who in turn is putting pressure on me to do something about it.’

‘Frank, Frank, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am to hear you talk in this unfriendly fashion. For we are friends, you know. Besides I am not breaking any laws.’