Philip Gooden - The Durham Deception

‘No doubt, but they must retain it as evidence for a time.’

An odd look passed between Marmont and Dilip Gopal. Tom could not interpret it. A warning? A sign of collusion? He felt more than ever out of his depth.

Miss Kitty Partout was visiting Superintendent Frank Harcourt at the station-house. She said that she had come to clear her name because of whisperings and rumours over the murder of Eustace Flask. He was the one to speak to, wasn’t he?

‘That’s right, Miss Partout,’ said Harcourt. ‘I am in charge of the investigation.’

Harcourt was the natural choice to take charge of the inquiry into Flask’s murder. He had practically volunteered himself. Hadn’t he been ordered by Chief Constable Huggins to deal with Flask when the medium was alive? Therefore he was the one to handle him when dead.

Normally Frank Harcourt would have enjoyed sitting in his cramped little office in the company of an attractive woman like Kitty. She was slight and dark-haired with a plump figure and quite a forward manner. But he was uneasily aware that Kitty was probably familiar with his own links to Eustace. Although his own early dealings with Flask — when he attempted to make contact with Florry — had been while the medium was operating alone in Durham, Harcourt knew of Kitty and Barker. Therefore she might know of him. Had the medium boasted of having one of the town officers under his thumb?

He wondered if he could discover how much she knew. Before he could utter a word, however, she began to tumble out her own story. He shushed her and said they would do things in the proper, orderly style. He started with a benign query.

‘I am sorry to see you have hurt your hand, Miss Partout. I hope it is not your good hand.’

‘It’s nothing,’ said Kitty, tucking the bandaged hand in her lap without answering the question directly. ‘I cut it on some glass is all. But thank you for asking. My name is pronounced “Partoo”, by the way.’

Harcourt fussed over his pad and pencil as he usually did so that he could make a covert assessment of those he was interviewing. Eventually he was ready.

‘Some preliminaries first, Miss Partout,’ he said, taking care to pronounce her name as instructed. ‘What was the nature of your connection with Mr Flask? I heard tell he was your uncle.’

Kitty might have been about to agree to that but she picked up on the sceptical, even slightly sneering tone in the Superintendent’s voice so she said, ‘He was not my uncle, no. I don’t know how that story got about. But we was as respectable as brother and sister. I helped him in his seances.’

‘And the other gentleman, the other helper. Ambrose Barker. Is he like a brother to you?’

‘Sometimes,’ said Kitty shifting on her seat, ‘’cept he’s no gentleman.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Dunno. We had a quarrel and he walked out a couple of days ago.’

‘What was the quarrel about?’

Kitty thought for a time. ‘Nothing much. A bit of property, you might say.’

‘You haven’t seen him since?’

‘No.’

‘You said just now that Mr Flask returned to the house which you shared on the evening after the performance in the Assembly Rooms.’

‘He came back very late. I was worried after that magician disappeared him. But Eustace, Mr Flask, came back late, yes, he came back in the small hours. He was angry coz he thought he’d been made a fool of. You ought to talk to that magician.’

‘I have talked to Major Marmont,’ said Harcourt, beginning to feel more confident. Perhaps this woman knew nothing at all of his own dealings with the dead man. ‘What you are saying confirms what he says, that Mr Flask left the theatre after the show.’

‘He didn’t come straight back, he must have been wandering round the town.’

‘Possibly. But Eustace Flask did come back, that’s the main point. And the next morning, the morning of his, er, death… what happened then?’

‘He left the house again.’

‘When did he leave?’

‘’Bout nine o’clock it must have been. Said he had a meeting with someone.’

‘Did he say who he was meeting?’

‘No.’

‘Or where?’

‘No.’

‘Did you see which direction he took?’

‘No.’

Harcourt’s hand was gripping the pencil tightly. His confidence had gone again when Kitty referred to Flask’s meeting ‘someone’. He realized he hadn’t yet made a single note of any of Kitty’s answers. He didn’t need to, of course, because he had himself seen Flask on the morning of the medium’s death and she was telling him nothing he was not already aware of. But, for the sake of form, he automatically scribbled down some words on his pad. The little display wasn’t necessary because Kitty suddenly sunk her head in her hands, one gloved, one bandaged. She said, between gulps, ‘I didn’t see him again and now I won’t coz he’s gone.’

‘There, there,’ said Harcourt. ‘We will catch the person who did this.’

‘Will you?’ said Kitty. She seemed to recover all at once. She gave him a curious look from beneath her lowered lashes, half flirtatious, half tearful. ‘Will you now? You really ought to talk to that magician again. He came round to the house too.’

‘Marmont did? I didn’t know that. When did he appear?’

‘That Major Marmont, he turned up on the doorstep shortly after Eustace, Mr Flask, had left. He asked where he’d gone as well. Like I just said, I didn’t know.’

‘So what did he do?’

‘Took off himself.’

‘In pursuit of Mr Flask?’

‘Dunno.’

Harcourt gave up the pretence of writing. He leaned back in his chair. It was baffling. Why had Marmont gone to visit Flask? Wasn’t he satisfied with having humiliated the medium on the previous evening? Had he come to inflict more pain? Or to apologize?

‘What was his manner, Major Marmont’s manner? How was he behaving?’

‘He wasn’t best pleased about something, I can tell you.’

‘This is significant information, Miss Partout,’ said the Superintendent. ‘I will certainly be talking to the Major again.’

There was little more to say after that. Harcourt indicated to Miss Partout that she could leave. Although he was still curious enough to ask her what she planned to do now that her employer — or protector — or brother — but not uncle — was gone.

Kitty stood up. She shrugged her pretty shoulders.

‘Dunno,’ she said for at least the third time, ‘’spect I’ll make my way. I usually do.’

When she had gone, Harcourt sat in thought. Did the unexpected appearance of Major Sebastian Marmont at the house on the morning of the murder help to clarify or muddy the waters? It muddied them, he concluded. Which was a state of affairs that suited him. Also, he might now add the name of Ambrose Barker to those who could plausibly be suspected of wanting to see Flask dead. The more potential murderers, the merrier. Harcourt would have bet a week’s salary that the quarrel that Kitty mentioned had involved a dispute between Ambrose and Flask. Perhaps the injury to her hand was related to it as well.

Even Kitty herself might be viewed in a suspicious light, as one of the last people to see Flask alive and someone whose relations with him were murky rather than uncle-like or brother-and-sisterly. The Superintendent, in his detective role, had tried to establish whether Kitty was right-handed (it was the right which was bandaged) by asking whether it was her good one but she hadn’t responded to his hint. If she happened to be a southpaw, she might have wielded the knife against Flask herself. At least that’s what a detective might think!

Harcourt was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Constable Humphries. He was carrying a telegram form. He most probably knew its contents since there was a telegraph wire direct to the police-house where messages were transcribed by a clerk. Nevertheless the excitement of its arrival caused Humphries to hover by Harcourt’s desk. The Superintendent waved him away and the constable went to the window and blocked the light while pretending to examine the view.