Philip Gooden - The Durham Deception

The soldier-magician asked after David Mackenzie in fond terms and enquired how long Tom had been with the law firm. He had discovered somehow that Tom was married to the daughter of Mr Scott, whom he had known. Tom found himself taking a liking to the Major. It was partly on account of the way he had shown up Eustace Flask but there was also an appealing straightforwardness to the other’s manner. Yet he was a professional magician. How straightforward could he be?

‘Why did you visit Miss Howlett’s yesterday evening, Major Marmont? You must have known that the other guests would not be, ah, sympathetic to what you were doing.’

‘Perhaps I went too far. I did not plan it. But there is something very provoking about that Flask. He’s an egregious character. I have been tracking his progress round the north-east like a hunter following a spoor. When I discovered that Miss Howlett was keeping open house for him, as it were, I could not resist the temptation to go and beard the fellow. Using a little of my own sleight of hand and the substituted chalk, I was able to show that he must have written the tablet answers himself.’

‘But my wife and her aunt were touching his hands all the time.’

‘Oh they are very clever, these people. I have known a foot covered with a dummy hand to be thrust up through a hole in a table. But that wasn’t what happened in this case. Did you observe how Flask gave a start when he was taken over by his ‘control’, the Indian maid?’

Tom nodded, fascinated but also surprised at the undercurrent of bitterness in Marmont’s words. It was plain that he despised the spiritualists or at any rate despised Eustace Flask.

‘I would wager a whole evening’s takings that both your wife and her aunt lost contact with Flask’s hands for an instant when he pretended to go into his trance. When they felt him again he was actually offering both of them the same hand. So all that time the other hand was free to scribble his nonsense on the slate.’

‘It is easy to see when you explain, sir. And I suppose the arms of the Indian maid were actually that woman’s, Kitty’s.’

‘Undoubtedly they were. But I could tell from your own attitude last night that you already had your suspicions about the medium.’

‘My wife and I both. Her Aunt Julia has no suspicions, she believes in Flask absolutely.’

‘A pity. Flask is very adept in his dealings with older women. Individuals like him bring honest, decent magicianship into disrepute. You should ask yourself why mediums need the paraphernalia of conjurers, why they require dim lighting and locked cabinets and rattling tambourines when they are trying to reach the departed. Isn’t it rather undignified of the dead to choose such ridiculous means to get in touch? We magicians own up to our tricks — or rather we own up that they are tricks. We might fear the discovery of our secrets but we don’t fear the exposure of our very selves as the mediums do. But I am running on, Mr Ansell.’

‘Not at all. I can see the depth of your feelings.’

‘I have good reason for feeling as I do.’

Tom waited attentively. If the Major wanted to give the reason, he would. If not, not. Marmont lit another cigarette and began to speak.

‘Some years ago I lost my darling wife. For a time in my grief and despair I believed I might make contact with her again. I consulted mediums, I attended seances, I willed myself to believe that we might still be able to talk to each other, to glimpse each other. But the harder I tried, the more she seemed to recede into the distance. I came to a simple conclusion, Mr Ansell. You know what that was?’

‘I can guess.’

‘It is that those who profess to put one in touch with the dead are imposters. The best of them do not know that they are imposters and are merely self-deluded. But the majority are out-and-out frauds. They deserve ridicule and shame and exposure, if not the full rigour of the law. And, as I say, Eustace Flask is the worst of a very bad bunch. The world would be a better place without his presence.’

Sebastian Marmont had stubbed out his cigarette even though it wasn’t finished. He was clenching his fists. He looked down at them as though they were the hands of another.

‘Where was I? Ah yes, my wife. I could not mourn her forever or waste my time and resources sitting in the stuffy parlours of the mediums because I had responsibilities. You see, she left me with three children, good lads all, to remember her by.’

Major Marmont gave a sudden, barking laugh. ‘Of course the desire to expose that charlatan Flask was not the only reason why I did what I did yesterday evening. When word gets round that I’ve invited Flask to attend one of my performances at the Assembly Rooms, you won’t be able to get a ticket for love or money. People will come in the hope of seeing a spat.’

It was oddly reassuring that Marmont had a practical or commercial reason for causing a stir, that he wasn’t just driven by fury. There were other questions that Tom would have liked to ask — where, for instance, did all the Major’s Hindoos stay? Surely they were not lodging in the comfort of the County Hotel? — but the soldier-magician indicated that they ought to get down to business, the reason Tom was visiting him at the hotel. Sebastian Marmont wished to make a formal statement, an affidavit, of how he had come into possession of the Lucknow Dagger.

He asked Tom to explain how an affidavit was prepared. It was fairly simple. Marmont simply had to produce a document with Tom’s help, topped and tailed in the appropriate legal fashion, and then the affidavit would have to be sworn to in the presence of a commissioner of oaths. Marmont went to a writing desk and produced an envelope from which he extracted a couple of sheets of paper filled with small, spidery handwriting.

‘I have written down the story here. You may read it.’

‘It may be necessary to recast it,’ said Tom after few minutes. As far as he could decipher it, Major Marmont’s account was somewhat disjointed and sensational. There were plenty of exclamation marks and expressions like ‘by the skin of our teeth’ and ‘shake a stick at’. The history of the Dagger seemed to be strange and bloody.

‘To recast it? To make it more lawyerly?’

‘I’m afraid so. Then you must affirm it as a true account.’

‘Perhaps you would like to see the Lucknow Dagger itself, Mr Ansell,’ said Marmont.

Major Marmont paused and with a showman’s instinct unfastened his cravat. He removed a loop of braided cord which hung around his neck and drew out a leather sheath from within his shirt. From the sheath he produced the very weapon. He handed it to Tom, who wished Helen was here to see this. It would have appealed to her writerly imagination. Now he took the Lucknow Dagger from its owner. He experienced a strange feeling of giddiness and for an instant clutched the edge of the table.

It was a finely worked object. The blade was about four inches long and the handle slightly shorter. The steel of the blade had a heavy bluish sheen to it, as though it had absorbed the lifeblood of its victims. The handle was decorated with ivory carvings. He peered at the largest of them. A figure with many arms was set sideways-on, trampling several much smaller figures underfoot. There were miniature skulls and what appeared to be spears and lances and arrows flying through the air. Tom had expected something conventionally valuable, a knife whose handle was encrusted with precious stones or worked in gold. He looked up to see the Major scrutinizing him.

‘Interesting, eh? The figure is Kali, the goddess of death and destruction. She is rightly held in awe.’

This information, together with the dark blade and the pale ivory work of the handle, was somehow unsettling. Not wanting to hold it any longer, he handed it back to Sebastian Marmont.