Philip Gooden - The Durham Deception

‘If you’d just shift here, my dear chap, you’ll get a better view, you know.’

Tom couldn’t argue with that for he was now standing directly facing Helen who looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. Marmont nodded at the two boys who reached for the doors and swung them open with a simultaneous flourish. The interior of the Perseus Cabinet was just as it had been on the night of Flask’s disappearance. There was the empty space within, apart from the vertical wooden pole in the centre supporting a gas lamp which threw a clear illumination on to the red and gold paper of the internal walls.

Tom recalled that the magician had accompanied Eustace Flask into the cabinet but this time it was enough for Marmont to say, ‘Please step forward, my dear. Remember what I said.’

What was it the Major had said, Tom wondered, while he watched his wife step up and into the Perseus Cabinet. The ‘Hindoos’ promptly closed the doors after her and began to play on the flute and tambour.

Tom felt his mouth go dry. The Major continued to hold him by the upper arm. Was he doing that to show that he could not possibly be interfering with whatever was going on in the cabinet?

A few seconds went by. Without a word being said but as if at some unseen signal, the boy players put down their instruments and unfolded the doors once more. Tom saw the pole holding the gaslight, he saw the bright colours of the wallpaper. But of Helen there was no sign. He was standing about fifteen feet from the cabinet. He made to move forward, his unease turning to genuine anxiety. But the Major restrained him. He said, ‘Wait. All shall be well.’

The process was repeated. The doors closed, the monotonously hypnotic music was replayed, the instruments laid down again, the doors opened once more. And out stepped Helen Ansell.

Tom laughed in relief. Not that he thought anything had really happened to his wife. But she had definitely disappeared. And hadn’t they been toying with the possibility that the magician might also be a murderer?

‘How is it done?’ he said.

Marmont, all smiles and affability, tugged his moustaches.

‘I’ll let your wife explain. She is in on the secret now.’

Helen drew Tom right to one side so that they were almost in the wings. She told him to look at the cabinet from this angle. Did he notice anything odd about it? Yes, there was something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, an irregularity in the patterning of the wallpaper inside the booth. They walked back towards it at a diagonal. Helen said Tom should keep his eyes on the interior. There was an unexpected flicker of movement, a glimpse of a sleeve. When Tom stopped and stepped back a pace, the sleeve reappeared. It was his own sleeve, his own arm.

Light started to dawn. He went right up to the cabinet and, with Helen’s encouragement, stepped inside. He saw now that there were two full-length, hinged panels on the interior which could be swung in and out from the back corners of the cabinet and which met at the central point provided by the pole. The panels were mirrored on one side and covered with the red and gilt paper on the other. When the the mirror-faces of the panels were flush against the side walls they were indistinguishable from them because the back ‘wallpaper’ side was revealed. When they were opened at a diagonal angle the mirrors reflected the actual side walls, covered in the same paper.

He realized that the pole was necessary for the illusion. Its function was not to support the gaslight, which could have been suspended from the ceiling, but to hide the meeting point of the mirrored panels. If you looked at the Perseus Cabinet directly from the front or from any angle except the most oblique ones in the wings, the mirrored panels when in place gave viewers the illusion that they were looking at the back wall, patterned in identical red and gold swirls.

Behind the reflecting panels was a fairly confined area in the shape of a wide-angled V. It was big enough though to take one person. It was where Helen had been instructed to hide herself while the doors were shut, a process that would take only a matter of seconds, just as it would take only a fraction of a minute to make a reappearance.

‘Like all the best tricks it is clever and simple at the same time. But now I am working on a new disappearing cabinet to beat all disappearing cabinets, something which will be superior even to the Perseus.’

This was Major Marmont who had come to stand next to Helen. Both were peering at Tom as he put his fingertips to the mirrors and admired the neat way in which each panel fitted snugly against the central pole.

‘Don’t touch the mirrors,’ said Marmont. ‘They have to be absolutely clean. Any smudges or smears will catch the light and the audience might notice.’

Tom stepped down from the Perseus Cabinet. Both Helen and Major Marmont were smiling, not exactly at Tom but at the cleverness of the deception.

‘You would make an accomplished performer on stage, my dear,’ said the magician to Helen. ‘Perhaps you would be willing to help me prepare my tricks another time?’

‘I would be delighted,’ said Helen.

‘How did you persuade Eustace Flask to hide himself behind the mirrors?’ cut in Tom. ‘Why should he want to help you of all people, Major Marmont?’

‘He did not want to help me, not at all. But once I had him up on stage he couldn’t back out without looking like a spoilsport or a milksop, though in my view he was both.’

‘He said something to you,’ said Helen. ‘Everybody in the audience saw him whispering to you.’

‘Oh,’ said the Major airily, ‘it was nothing, a threat, a warning which I dismissed. I couldn’t tell him how the trick worked of course, otherwise he would probably have revealed it to the audience there and then. You’ll remember that I accompanied him inside the Perseus Cabinet, something I did not have to do with you, dear lady, because you already knew what to do. When the outer doors were closed upon Flask and me, it was the work of an instant to give him a hearty shove into the area at the back and fasten the panels to the pole. If you look carefully you’ll see that there are little catches at top and bottom to secure the panels. It wouldn’t take much to break them down but usually, of course, we are dealing with those who are willing to disappear, those who are in on the secret. I counted on Flask being sufficiently confused not to kick up a fuss — or to try and kick his way out. The boys were playing their drum and flute, and the purpose of the music is not merely to set the scene but to conceal any untoward noises which may be emerging from the Perseus Cabinet. There, I think you have it all now.’

‘Not really, Major,’ said Tom. ‘I understand the trick but what happened to Flask afterwards?’

‘Nothing whatsoever. We came forward to take a bow, I and my Hindoo lads, and the sound of applause must have been gall to Flask’s ears even while it was masking any fuss he was making. Then we wheeled the Perseus off stage in double-quick time and I personally released Flask from his captivity. He was looking mighty peeved, I can tell you, but slightly shamefaced as well. I’d certainly paid him back for his earlier deception at Miss Howlett’s and he knew it. But what was he going to do? Announce how a magician had tricked him into disappearing? Lay a complaint that I had manhandled him and show himself up for a milksop in the process. He followed me back to the dressing room and judging by his expression he would have liked to make a scene. He might even have thought of raising his fist at me. But he saw the folly of it and he scarcely opened his mouth. In fact, he couldn’t get out of the theatre fast enough.’

Tom had more to ask. The three of them were alone, Marmont’s boys having made themselves scarce. Even so he was conscious that they were standing on a stage in a public place. He gazed out at the auditorium and thought he detected a movement near the seats at the back. He called out, ‘Is anybody there?’ but there was no answer.