The Durham Deception Page 2

  ‘Nor I you, though I knew who you were straightaway,’ said the woman. ‘I am Miss Smight, Miss Ethel Smight. Oh but I can see the likeness in you.’

  ‘Likeness?’

  ‘To Julia Howlett. Your aunt.’

  ‘Aunt Julia. I have not seen her for many years. How do you know my aunt?’

  ‘You are the very image of her,’ said the woman, finally letting go of Helen’s hand but not answering the question. ‘The image of her when she was younger, much younger of course.’

  ‘But how do you know her?’ persisted Helen. ‘And how do you know we are connected? I was never a Howlett but a Scott and I have another name now.’

  She brushed her hand against Tom’s sleeve. Tom thought she was enjoying herself. The woman, presumably a sister to Mr Smight, pushed some of her straggling hair back beneath her cap before replying.

  ‘I knew your aunt well at one time. I knew your mother when she married Mr Scott. I am also a devoted reader of the marriage announcements in the newspaper. People of my age are sometimes said to prefer the death column, but I am all for life, yes all for life! When I saw at the end of last year that a Miss Helen Georgina Scott of Highbury was to marry a gentleman called Mr Thomas Edward Ansell, I said to myself that she must be the niece to my old friend, Julia Howlett. Said it over the breakfast table not only to myself but also to my brother Mr Smight. So when our maid told me that a Mr and Mrs Ansell had arrived, I put two and two together. I wonder what brought your feet to our door?’

  ‘Destiny?’ said Helen. Tom could tell she was speaking lightly, if not flippantly, but the woman treated the answer with seriousness. Miss Smight peered through the gloom at Helen.

  ‘Is it destiny? If you are able to say such a thing, then perhaps you have the gift.’

  Helen looked sideways at Tom, who said, as a way of getting himself into the conversation, ‘What gift is that, Miss Smight?’

  ‘There is only one gift that matters,’ said the woman, leaving them not much the wiser. ‘You have favourable features, Mrs Ansell. Helen, if I may call you that. Blue eyes and fair hair are particularly conducive.’

  ‘That’s what my husband always says,’ said Helen, looking sideways again. Tom thought she was trying to stifle a giggle.

  ‘He is a wise man then,’ said Miss Smight, looking full at Tom for the first time. ‘A wise man, sir, to appreciate the value of blue eyes and fair hair. And a wise man altogether to judge by the shape of your head. If you will permit me . . .’

  Miss Smight put out her podgy red hands and gently pressed the fingers into the sides of Tom’s head. As when she’d seized Helen’s hand, she acted as if it were her right to do so.

  ‘It’s a pity we have no time for the callipers; in order to take the exact dimensions of the skull, you know.’

  ‘I can do without the callipers,’ said Tom, as Ethel Smight continued to palp the sides of his head. She reached round the back of Tom’s head and then ran her hand over the top of it. Tom had almost had enough when she lowered her hands and stood back. She cocked her head and the attitude made Tom think of a great bird.

  ‘Ho hum,’ went Miss Smight, sounding like a doctor. ‘The organs of Conscientiousness and Hope are well developed in you, Mr Ansell. They are next to each other, you know. Secretiveness is quite prominent in you too. That property lies on either side of the head just above and behind the ears. Would you say you were a secretive man?’

  ‘What if I refuse to answer?’

  ‘Hah, good. But the most developed organ or bump is one which also happens to be unique. It is the site of Amativeness and it is the only organ in the skull which stands by itself. It has no mirror in the other hemisphere. As a newly married man, you are an individual with a well-developed organ of Amativeness. An amative husband.’

  Helen, still standing near Tom, was gripped by a sudden fit of coughing and had to get out a handkerchief to cover her mouth. It was as well, perhaps, that the maid knocked on the door at this point to announce the next visitors.

  ‘Mr Seldon and Mrs Briggs.’

  A man and woman were ushered into the front room. Tom thought he recognized them as the couple who had been hanging about on the other side of Tullis Street when Helen and he arrived at number 67. Their connection was quickly explained: they were engaged to be married. The man was slight with pointed facial features. Mrs Briggs, presumably a widow rather than divorced, was larger than her fiancé and had a dull bovine stare. They looked awkward and uncomfortable at being here, but then, Tom reflected, that wasn’t so surprising. Perhaps they had been waiting on the street for others to arrive first before summoning up the nerve to come in themselves. Tom, too, felt uncomfortable, particularly after his skull inspection at the hands of Miss Ethel Smight.

  She might have been about to try her technique on the newcomers but was prevented by the arrival of two more visitors in quick succession. Both of these women seemed to be known to Miss Smight and were not announced. There was a young, rather attractive one with a mass of lustrous dark hair, and a severe-looking one in middle age. The young woman was referred to by Miss Smight as Rosalind – if she was given a last name Tom didn’t hear what it was – while the older was plain Mrs Miles.

  After brief introductions had been made, Miss Smight directed them to take their places at the oval table. She said that it would have been better to alternate the sexes but with two men and four women that was obviously not possible. Tom and Helen sat next to each other with Mr Seldon and Mrs Briggs facing them, and the two single women towards the narrower end. As Helen had predicted, the dining chair with arms, the one facing the mirror, was left empty.

  Miss Smight went across to a sideboard, opened a drawer and brought back a collection of small objects, cradled in her arms. She placed them on the baize tablecloth apparently at random. They included a little handbell and a tambourine. Then she left the room.

  ‘It’s always a tambourine, isn’t it?’ said Tom to Helen in a half-whisper. He had never been to one of these events before but thought he should say something, should say anything, to show he wasn’t going to be easily taken in.

  ‘They use it because it’s small and it makes a noise when it flies about,’ whispered Helen.

  The two women, Rosalind and Mrs Miles, looked vaguely disapproving at this while the engaged couple gazed straight ahead. The silence was broken by the opening of the door and the appearance of Mr Ernest Smight. He stood there for a moment as if he were making a stage entrance and ready to acknowledge any applause. He inclined his head with a slight smile at his guests. Behind him loomed Miss Smight.

  The medium was an imposing man with pale, clear-cut features and a neat moustache. He wore a cravat which was the same green as the feather in his sister’s cap. He sat down at the head of the table while Ethel fussed over him, brushing a speck of dust now from one shoulder, now from the other. At first sight there didn’t seem any likeness between brother and sister. But the light was not good and it grew poorer still when Miss Smight went to draw the curtains and turn down the already dim gas lamps on either side of the fireplace. The room became sepulchral. Ethel Smight retreated to sit on an armchair in the corner.

  ‘My friends,’ said Ernest after a long pause. He steepled his hands like a man in ostentatious prayer. His voice was an actor’s voice, resonant and cultured. It was too big for the room. Tom’s suspicions were beginning to be confirmed. ‘We should join hands for a moment.’

  Tom regretted that Helen was sitting between him and Mr Smight. But she put out her right hand willingly enough for the medium to take while she slipped her left into Tom’s, who gave it a squeeze. With his own left he clasped Mrs Miles’s right hand and wished it had been the dark-haired Rosalind’s. Mrs Miles’s hand was cool and dry. They all sat like that, in a hand-in-hand ring round the oval table. Ernest bowed his head for a few seconds. Then he looked up in the direction of his sister.

  ‘I require vibrations. Give me a verse please.’

  His sister s
tood, edged her way round the room to the little upright piano, drew out a stool, sat down again and plinked out a few bars. The piano needed tuning. Tom thought he recognized the opening of Jesu, Thou art all our Hope. As the music started to play, Ernest nodded as if to show he was receiving the vibrations he wanted. The music stopped abruptly. Ethel sat back on the piano stool. There was another prolonged pause.

  Tom was starting to wonder what, if anything, was due to happen next when his ear was caught by a chinking sound. It was coming from the surface of the table. In the very centre had been positioned the tambourine. Tom couldn’t be sure but the simple instrument seemed to be regularly rising and falling a few inches up and down above the baize cloth, giving itself a brisk shake each time it did so. He couldn’t be sure because the light in the room had grown even dimmer and his eyes seemed to be watering. Yet the tambourine was surely moving a few inches, now up, now down. Then it was time for a contribution from the handbell which made a few dinging noises although without moving.

  All this while they sat hand in hand round the table. As the tambourine moved and the bell sounded, Tom felt Helen’s hand tighten in his own sweating grasp. Mrs Miles’s by contrast stayed cool and unmoving. She’d probably seen it all before. Holding hands was a guarantee that no one could be manipulating the objects on the table – yet the trick might be done with devices involving wires or extending tongs. And where was Ethel Smight? What was she doing? Still at the piano? Tom thought so but the room now seemed so hazy that it was hard to make out.

  The noises stopped. Ernest Smight, who had been sitting with his chin sunk on his chest, suddenly looked up in the direction of Mrs Miles. When he spoke, his voice was different, not so resonant, more familiar.

  ‘There is a spirit appearing behind you, dear. A short gentleman with a tanned complexion. He is young but with lines on his face as if he was accustomed to spending a long time in the open.’

  Mrs Miles shook her head in a sign that she didn’t recognize the description.

  ‘And his clothes are wet,’ continued Ernest. ‘He is holding something in his hand which I cannot quite discern. A piece of rock, perhaps.’

  ‘He is my brother, Robert,’ said the dark-haired Rosalind, speaking for the first time.

  ‘Ah, I see how he moves towards you now,’ said the medium. ‘He has visited us before. I did not remember him at first. There are so many spirits pressing in on me.’

  ‘Robert died three years ago in an accident in California,’ said Rosalind, partly to herself, partly to the others round the table. ‘He was prospecting for gold. He suffered an accident with a hydraulic sluice. Has he a message for me?’

  She spoke in a matter-of-fact way as if she was describing a trip her brother had made to the shops. Tom noticed that she didn’t turn round to look behind her. He could see nothing there. Nevertheless he felt a tightness in his chest.

  ‘Yes, your brother Robert has a message for you,’ said Ernest. ‘He says that you are to follow your heart. Does that make sense? To follow your heart.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Rosalind with more animation now. She didn’t elaborate.

  ‘He is smiling and nodding with pleasure. He is pleased that you understand. Now he can depart.’

  Mr Smight nodded with satisfaction himself. He let go of the hands on either side of him, Helen’s and Mrs Briggs’s, and rubbed his temples. Then he glanced round the table. His eyes fixed on Tom for an instant before darting behind the lawyer’s shoulder.

  ‘I can sense a presence behind you, sir.’

  ‘Me?’

  Tom’s instinct was to turn round but he managed to conquer it. All the same, he felt cold air on the back of his neck as if someone were blowing on it.

  ‘Another young man, of about your own age I should say. And he is a soldier, to judge by his uniform.’

  ‘A soldier?’ said Tom, his voice sounding strained to his own ears. ‘But I don’t know any solders.’

  ‘This gentleman is wearing a blue uniform. He is smiling fondly down at you. This time I am not mistaken. It is you he is looking at.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Tom. His head and body were rigid with struggle. Half of him wanted to turn round, the other half wanted to stay staring frontwards. As if sensing his discomfort, the medium said, ‘Keep still, sir. You would not be able to detect anyone. But from your response I take it that you know to whom I am referring.’

  ‘Possibly. I am not sure. Can you say more about . . . what you can see?’

  ‘It is a peculiar coincidence but this gentleman also is wet, as if he had been immersed in water. Yet his blue uniform is fresh and shining for all that. Are you acquainted with anyone who has drowned, my friend?’

  ‘No,’ said Tom. He was reluctant to say more but suddenly the words tumbled out of him. ‘I don’t know anyone who drowned. But my father was buried at sea many years ago. I hardly knew him. He was on his way to fight in the Russian War. He died on board ship before he could arrive and was buried near the Dardanelles. I was quite young.’

  To Tom it seemed as if someone else was speaking these words, yet he recognized the voice for his own. He had heard the details of the death and sea-burial only recently from a former comrade of his father.

  ‘He has a message for you,’ said Ernest.

  ‘I did not know him,’ said Tom.

  ‘But he knew you, sir, and he continues to know you – from the other side of the veil which separates all that is mortal and perishable from that which endures for ever. Your father is proud of you and what you have accomplished. He has a warning though. His message is that you are to be careful. He sees danger ahead for you and your good lady.’

  Tom had almost forgotten Helen’s presence beside him. Her hand still rested in his.

  ‘There is danger by some woods, danger near a stretch of water. That is why he has come in this guise, soaking wet in his blue uniform. There is danger, too, from an individual who is not what he seems to be.’

  ‘I can’t make sense of this,’ said Tom.

  ‘I am merely the conduit, the medium of the spirit world,’ said Ernest Smight. ‘I do not claim to understand all. Now he fades away, his blue uniform absorbed into the shadows.’

  There was a pause. Tom realized he was soaked in sweat. What had he just witnessed? Was it real? Not really real, but really the spirit of his father?

  If Tom had turned round in his chair, could he have seen the man he had last glimpsed when he was a child? No, he would not have been able to detect anyone. Only Ernest Smight could do that. If, indeed, the medium was being truthful. Part of Tom wanted to believe but the other part, the larger one perhaps, was highly sceptical.

  Meanwhile attention had shifted round the table to the couple on the side opposite from Tom and Helen. Arthur Seldon, the individual with sharp features, had placed a coin on the table. It was a half-sovereign, its gold gleaming dully in the gloom. Ernest seemed to start back from it but Tom observed how his eyes fastened on the money. Seldon added a second half-sovereign. The medium’s hand hovered then stretched out to shift the coins closer to him.

  ‘Accept them as a love-offering,’ said the man. ‘They are yours whether you are able to help us or not.’

  ‘I will help you if I can.’

  ‘It’s not for me but for her,’ said Seldon curtly. The bovine woman nodded. When she spoke, her voice had a surprising sweetness of tone.

  ‘It’s my husband, my first husband I should say. He was run down by an omnibus. Can I be put through to him?’

  ‘Where did the accident occur?’

  ‘In the Fulham Road.’

  ‘I am not receiving any impressions,’ said Ernest Smight after perhaps half a minute. He rubbed his temples again. ‘Wait, I seem to have the sense of a name beginning with the letter E . . . Edward is it? Edmund maybe. Or even Ernest.’

  ‘That’s not it, none of them,’ said Mrs Briggs. ‘Does the name of Angus bring him to you?’

  ‘Angus?’ said the medium. ‘Possibly.
It is hard to tell. There are figures in a mist, all clamouring for attention. However one is coming to the fore. Yes. A tall man, would you say?’

  ‘Why yes, you might say so,’ said Mrs Briggs. ‘Angus was large, unusually large.’

  ‘He wants to know why he has been summoned back to this mortal vale.’

  ‘I need his advice,’ said the woman. ‘I am about to be married to Mr Seldon here, and I want to know whether my previous husband – Mr Briggs – is content with that.’

  Tom, still feeling the shock of apparently hearing from his father, wondered how the medium was going to answer this woman in the presence of her fiancé. But Ernest Smight was all tact.

  ‘Not everything is revealed to us but, if it is Angus whom I can glimpse in the shadows, he is nodding his head. Your happiness is what matters to him. If you are content then so is he.’

  ‘I have a question for him,’ said Arthur Seldon. ‘Her late husband, the one who was run over by an omnibus, he kept some savings in a cash box in the house. My question is, will we find the box? We have failed to find it so far. Should we keep looking?’

  ‘My dear sir,’ said Ernest Smight, ‘that is such a material question and you must know the spirits want nothing to do with earthly, material things. They have moved beyond that. What use is coin if one is fed and clothed by the ethereal powers? Nevertheless, Mr Angus Briggs – if indeed it is he – is again nodding his head in a way that I can only interpret as encouragement. Yes, you should keep searching for the cash box.’

  There was a sudden stir from behind Tom and Helen. The gaslights flared and the room was illuminated more brightly than before. It was Ethel Smight who’d turned up the lamps. Tom had thought she was still at the piano but at some point in the proceedings she must have got up and moved round the room. Had she been responsible for that cold draught on the back of his neck?

  The medium’s sister said, ‘We should stop this now, Ernest. Say nothing more. I do not trust these two.’

  She was referring to Mr Seldon and Mrs Briggs. Her warning came too late. Seldon reached inside his jacket and produced an official-looking badge.