Philip Gooden - The Durham Deception

Harcourt unfolded the telegram and read:

Arriving Durham by 2.30 from London. Please arrange for someone to meet at railway station and escort to police-horse. Urgent and confidential business. Inspector William Traynor, Great Scotland Yard.

Harcourt was baffled, even after he had substituted ‘police-house’ for ‘police-horse’. But, more than being baffled, he was deeply worried. Why should a London police inspector be travelling — urgently, confidentially travelling — to Durham? He thought of the murder of Eustace Flask. But that had occurred yesterday and, even in the Durham paper, news of it was being circulated only this morning. Too soon, surely, for Scotland Yard to be alerted to take action? What was it to do with them anyway? This was Durham business.

Harcourt took out his watch. It was dinner time. An hour or so until Traynor was due in. Humphries cleared his throat. Harcourt looked up, he’d almost forgotten the constable’s presence. He needed some time alone, time for reflection. He ordered Humphries to go to the railway station and collect Inspector William Traynor of Great Scotland Yard. He laid emphasis on the last words and was gratified to see the expression of alarm, almost panic, on Humphries’ stolid face.

The constable bustled for the door and fumbled with the handle.

‘Beg pardon, sir.’

‘Yes.’

‘How’m I go’in to reckernise him?’

Harcourt thought. Would Traynor be wearing a uniform? He didn’t know how they did things in London. It was all a mystery. He said, ‘He’ll be wearing a — an air of authority. Anyway, you will be wearing a uniform and he will recognize you.’

When Constable Humphries had left, Harcourt tried to gather up his thoughts. But, since he had no idea why Traynor was visiting Durham, he did not get very far. He would find out soon enough. He remembered the recent interview with Kitty Partout and the one piece of fresh information which she had given him.

There was another knock at the door. For an instant he thought it was Humphries returning with Inspector Traynor before realizing that the constable would not even have reached the railway station yet.

‘Yes.’

The door opened timorously. A man in a shovel-hat which barely suppressed an unruly thatch of white hair poked his head round.

‘Superintendent Harcourt?’

‘What is it?’

‘I was directed to your office by the sergeant. May I come in?’

‘Who are you, sir?’

‘My name is Septimus Sheridan.’

Septimus Sheridan? Harcourt struggled to place the name. The face was vaguely familiar. Couldn’t he be left in peace?

‘Why do you want to see me, Mr Sheridan?’

‘It is to do with the… the murder of Eustace Flask.’

At once Harcourt was alert.

‘You have some information about Mr Flask?’

‘I do, yes I do.’

‘You had better come in and sit down, sir. Make yourself comfortable. If you’ll just wait while I get my pad and pencil. Oh dear, I see it needs sharpening.’

Harcourt fiddled with his clasp-knife and honed the pencil to a dagger-sharp tip. All the time he was studying the gent on the other side of his desk. He looked like a reverend, except that he was not wearing a collar. What connection could he possibly have to Flask? Eventually he was ready.

‘Tell me, Mr Sheridan,’ said Frank Harcourt. ‘Tell me everything.’

Kitty went straight from the police station back to the house in Old Elvet. She had said to Harcourt that she would ‘make her way’ but in truth she had no idea what to do next. She thought the rent on the house was paid for another week or so and she had a few pounds in hand but, for the first time in months, she was without a male protector. Eustace was dead — she went cold as she recalled the fact of his murder — and Ambrose Barker was gone. At least she hoped he was. She had known Ambrose for nearly two years and this was not how she had felt about him at first.

She had fallen head-over-heels for Barker when she had glimpsed him, battered and bleeding, as he was being helped from the sparring ring in the Black Lion near Drury Lane. There was something game about the man even though he couldn’t walk straight and blood was pouring from his cheek. Then she had been literally swept away when he seized her hand outside the pub and the next few days and nights passed in a physical oblivion.

The couple had thought they might make a go of it like respectable folk. They found jobs that didn’t pay much but were sufficient to provide food and shelter that was superior to the Hackney nethersken where they first lodged. But Ambrose still had his connections to the boxing underworld and he felt the lure of that kind of life. Somebody had called in a debt — Kitty didn’t know the details — and Ambrose was invited to use his fists and brawn in a robbery. Kitty refused to play her part and, at that stage, she had enough sway over Ambrose to make him think twice. They had to quit London though.

When they arrived by chance in Durham they were at their wits’ end. All Kitty’s scruples were vanishing fast and the attempt to rob Eustace Flask was a desperate throw. After they were taken up by the medium and trained in some of his arts, Kitty felt as happy as she had ever been. She knew from the off that Flask was a conman but he did it with such style! By comparison, Ambrose was not much more than a bruiser. She wasn’t exactly drawn to Flask, not in that way, but he was more entertaining company than Ambrose and he had been responsible for giving Kitty a whole new view of the world and herself.

They had not planned to fall into bed together but Kitty had been teasing him for days and letting him feel her tits in a companionable way until late one evening, when Ambrose was out drinking, it just happened. Kitty had not been much impressed by Flask’s efforts — in fact she wondered whether he was a virgin in the female department — but she had played along. It was unfortunate Ambrose picked that moment to make his drunken return and burst in on them. Kitty almost laughed when she remembered his remark about a ‘case of insects’. But the consequences had not been funny, not at all. The bedroom still smelled of singed feathers and burnt linen from the spilled oil-lamp. Her hand was still bandaged from the glass cuts.

From that instant everything had gone wrong. They had attended the performance at the Assembly Rooms and Eustace had been persuaded to go up on stage. Kitty had been genuinely worried because she recognized the magician as the man who caused such a stir at Miss Howlett’s house. After Eustace failed to emerge from the Perseus Cabinet she thought that Marmont had somehow done away with him. That was why she had pushed her way backstage, only to be told that it was all a trick. Even so…

When Flask returned to the house late that night, he was in a queer mood, half angry, half gleeful. She was almost asleep. He mentioned that he had got hold of something of Marmont’s, some item the magician would regret losing. He did not tell Kitty what it was and she had not passed on this particular bit of information to the police. Perhaps the item was what Major Marmont was looking for when he arrived at the house on the morning of Eustace’s death.

Otherwise she had told Harcourt everything she knew, which was not much. Eustace had left saying he was going to meet someone. Then, minutes later, Major Marmont had tipped up. If she was the police, she would have questioned the magician very closely. But that Superintendent had not seemed to be very concerned. He had asked her nothing much about Ambrose. In her book, they should be looking for Ambrose as well. Was he a murderer? Kitty didn’t believe it although he’d certainly looked capable of the deed when he burst into the bedroom. Was he still in Durham? Kitty thought she’d caught a glimpse of him over her shoulder once or twice. Was he still consumed with anger? Enough to commit murder? Had he followed Eustace yesterday morning, got him on his own and done for him? If so, would he come after her next? Strange to say, these ideas had not occurred to Kitty before. She knew that Ambrose was not so hard underneath, for all his fighting airs.