Philip Gooden - The Durham Deception

‘You’re wondering whether the right place for this is in a museum — or a bank vault?’

‘Yes, I was. Or rather I was wondering whether you always carried it about with you, Major Marmont.’

‘It was designed to be carried, Mr Ansell. It is for use and adornment. No Indian would dream of locking up such an item so why should I?’

‘Do you keep it for good fortune, for luck?’

‘Perhaps I keep it so that others should not get their hands on it,’ said the Major cryptically. ‘For luck, you ask? I am not especially superstitious, although you cannot spend years in the East without suspecting that “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy”, as Hamlet says. Nevertheless, there are scurrilous stories about how I came into possession of this object — that I took it from a dead man when his corpse was still warm, even that I killed him myself — and that is why I have asked to formally swear to the truth.’

‘Who’s responsible for these stories about you?’

‘Rumours, rumours,’ said Marmont with a wave of his hand. He got up from his cross-legged position in the window. ‘What I would like you to do, Mr Ansell, is to take the key facts in the account I have just given and write them up in the appropriate legal language. We can then proceed to the business of the affidavit.’

‘Of course, Major Marmont,’ said Tom, wondering whether anyone in the firm of Scott, Lye amp; Mackenzie had ever overseen a stranger, more exotic affidavit.

‘And I would be honoured if you and your wife were to be my guests at my next performance in the Assembly Rooms. It should be interesting because, as I said, I have written to invite that charlatan Eustace Flask. He will see a real magician at work. I may even invite him to assist me in one of my acts.’

The door opened and an Indian strolled into the room. Like the Major he was wearing a suit.

‘Ah Dilip,’ said Marmont. ‘May I present Mr Thomas Ansell. He comes to visit me from a London firm of lawyers — on that business you know about. Mr Ansell, Mr Dilip Gopal.’

They shook hands. The Indian was a handsome man with dark eyes and an incipient smile.

‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr Ansell.’

‘Dilip assists me in some of my performances. He is staying with my Hindoo assistants, the boys, keeping an eye on them.’

‘We are in a boarding house close by,’ explained Mr Gopal.

So that little mystery was solved. Tom supposed the Indians were lodging elsewhere for reasons of cost, perhaps also because they would not be altogether welcome in the city’s best hotel.

‘The lads hardly need an eye kept on them,’ said Mr Gopal. ‘They are very well behaved.’

‘I should say,’ said the Major, ‘that Dilip is also my brother-in-law.’

Tom couldn’t hide his surprise and confusion. The Major seemed pleased at the effect he had produced.

‘Yes, my wife, my late wife, was Indian. Didn’t I say?’

It was unfortunate that Ambrose Barker came back to the house in Old Elvet when he did. He ought to have stayed in the alehouse growing even more sozzled than he already was. Unfortunate for all three of them, Ambrose and Kitty and Eustace Flask. Ambrose had been drinking in one of the local alehouses and found it hard to align the key with the front-door keyhole. He succeeded at the sixth or seventh attempt and stumbled into the tiny hallway then through the kitchen and, after more fumbling with the back door, out to the privy in the yard. Here he enjoyed a prolonged piss, swaying slightly and clinging on to the rough whitewash of the wall with one hand. Back in the yard he glanced up at the sky. The day had been fine and there were still a few streaks of light in the west.

Having groped his way back into the hallway, he stood at the bottom of the stairs, grasping the banister. It was quite dark indoors. After a time his attention was roused by noises from the floor above. After a bit more time he recognized them. Little groans and squeals and sighs. Kitty, the bitch! His hand tightened round the banister knob. But instead of thundering up the stairs, Ambrose became all calmness and deliberation. He slipped off his shoes. He went back to the kitchen, found a kerosene lamp and lit it, adjusting the wick to reduce the amount of smoke.

He returned to the foot of the stairs and, holding the lamp in one hand, climbed up one tread at a time. He need not have bothered about keeping quiet. The noises from above were growing louder and more oblivious. Mingled with them were the fluting tones of Eustace Flask, uttering meaningless sounds that reminded Ambrose of a bleating goat. Ambrose paused on the cramped landing. There were three doors leading off it, one to the bedroom which he shared with Kitty, one to a space so small that it was more cupboard than boxroom, and one to the chamber which Flask occupied all by his long, lonely, weedy self. That was where the noises were coming from.

Standing outside the door, Ambrose took a deep breath. He had been drunk and now he was sober. Well, fancy that, he mouthed to himself. He gripped the knob, twisted it and kicked the door so hard it almost came off its hinges. Then he held the lamp aloft. It threw an incongruously soft glow across the occupants of the room. Ambrose might have laughed at the absurd spectacle before him. He might have laughed but he did not.

Kitty Partout was lying beneath Eustace Flask. They were slantwise on the medium’s spacious bed. Her chemise was bunched up and her legs splayed out either side of the spiritualist’s hindquarters. Those hindquarters had been pumping away like billy-oh but the crash of the door caused them to freeze like small animals caught out in lantern-light. Flask was still wearing a shirt but had gone so far as to remove his trousers. Ambrose saw legs as pale and thin as pipe cleaners.

Ambrose did not laugh. Neither was he angry, not yet. Instead he was conscious of an instant of high glee. So this was what the refined medium got up to when he thought no one was looking, the dirty bugger. He was no better than all the rest of them. In the few months since he and Kitty had met Flask he had suffered from a sense of inferiority. Ambrose was the brawny assistant, Flask was the one with brains while Kitty provided the ornamental trimmings. Now Ambrose Barker had the upper hand over both of them.

All this flashed through Ambrose’s head in the few moments it took for Flask and Kitty to jerk their heads round and realize there was a person standing in the doorway. Instinctively, they flinched away and blinked, unable to see properly. Then Flask leapt off Kitty, pulling down his shirt to conceal his member — which was thin and raw-looking like a dog’s — but leaving Miss Partout exposed. Her hands flew down to cover the black bush between her legs. Don’t bother, I’ve seen it all before, Ambrose was about to say, but he stopped himself. The remark did not rise the occasion. He felt as clear-headed and powerful as he had ever felt in his life, standing there in the upstairs doorway of the rented house in Durham’s Old Elvet and confronting this pair of… this pair of…

Something special was required, a remark that would put Eustace and Kitty in their places for a long time. Something to show that he too could be clever with words.

‘Oh my,’ he said, imitating (not very well) the fluting tones of Eustace Flask. ‘Oh my, Uncle Eustace. I am so sorry to disturb you when you are so busy with your niece.’

‘I’m not his niece, Ambrose,’ said Kitty. ‘You know that. Don’t be silly.’

She spoke quite composedly. Flask, for once, had nothing to say for himself but continued to kneel on the bed, looking absurd as he tugged his shirt down to hide his shrinking pizzle even though the movement served to reveal more of his flat buttocks.