The Durham Deception (2 page)

Tullis Street was rather dreary in the present weather, perhaps in any weather. The houses were flat and dun-coloured. The windows on the ground floor were smeary with the recent rain. Tom wondered what Mr Smight's callers thought when they came to visit. The man was supposed to have had a distinguished list of clients once: a peer of the realm, Lady such-and-such, as well as a couple of MPs and a manufacturer or two. But perhaps his visitors weren't concerned with appearances or even reassured by a plain style.

They arrived at number 67. Tom noticed a man and woman loitering on the other side of the street. The man looked at him curiously. Tom turned his head away. There were railed steps which led up to a peeling front door. Tom went ahead of Helen and knocked. A housemaid opened the door almost immediately as if she had been waiting on the other side.

‘Mr and Mrs Thomas Ansell,' said Tom. It gave him pleasure to say ‘Mr and Mrs Thomas Ansell'. He went out of his way to say the words. They were like the ingredients in a pleasing recipe. Helen and he had been married at the beginning of the year.

‘You're the first,' said the maid in a familiar manner. She was a girl with pinched cheeks and dark rings under her eyes. She stood to one side of the narrow passage to allow them to enter and then shut the front door before taking Tom's hat and his furled umbrella. She almost hurled the umbrella into the stand where it landed with a clatter. She took their coats and hung them up. Then she indicated the front room.

‘You're to wait in there . . . if you please . . . sir and madam. That's the waiting room.'

Tom and Helen went into the front parlour. In the centre was an oval table surrounded by half a dozen dining chairs, only one of them with arms. A large gilt-edged bible was set, unopened but prominent, on a lectern near the door. On the other side was a cottage-piano. Whether because of the bible or because of the musty smell of the room, Tom was reminded of the interior of a church on a wet afternoon. The furniture was heavy and the walls cluttered with pictures. Gaslights were burning low on either side of the fireplace but the lamps were dirty, and the gloom of the room was scarcely relieved by the evening light that filtered through the lace curtains.

Tom and Helen stood uncertainly in the dimness. They could see themselves in a large mirror which was set over the mantelpiece and seemed to be hanging at a dangerous angle. There was no one to overhear – the maid had shut the door firmly on them – but nevertheless Helen whispered into Tom's ear, ‘It's more dowdy than I expected.'

‘It's very dowdy,' said Tom. But he was pleased at the dowdiness. A bright and cheerful room would not have felt right. Helen paced about, manoeuvring between the furniture as silently and inquisitively as a cat. Tom was content to watch her. Eventually she went across to the oval table and lifted the green baize cloth which covered it. The cloth was too large for the table and its fringes lapped at the legs of the chairs. Helen stooped, peered underneath and then dropped the cloth back with a satisfied ‘hmm'.

‘What is it?'

‘Have a look beneath.'

Tom did so but saw nothing unusual although it was hard to make out much, given the shadows underneath and the general gloom of the front room.

‘Well?' said his wife.

‘I don't know. It's just a table.'

‘Dear Tom. Although it's got these dining chairs around, it's not really a dining table, it's too small. And it is resting on a single central column which means there's much more give in it than there would be with a regular four-legged dining table. More play.'

To demonstrate, Helen pressed her hand a couple of times on an imaginary surface.

‘Easier for table-rapping and table-turning, you mean?' said Tom.

Helen nodded and went on, her voice rising as she was caught up by the certainty of what she was saying, ‘If we were allowed to examine the underneath of that table properly and in a good light we'd probably find all sorts of things. Compartments and hidden drawers and sliding panels. And you see the glass over the mantel?'

‘I see you in the glass.'

‘Then look at how this chair is placed at the table. It's the only carver out of the set so it's probably where
he
sits.'

‘He?'

‘The gentleman we are here to see.'

‘Well? What's the link between chair and table?' said Tom. He had already guessed but he asked for the pleasure of hearing Helen make her deductions.

‘He can keep an eye on everyone else round the table by glancing up at the reflections in the glass. It hangs at a slant so it would be easy to see from the chair. While the sitters are all eyes on him, he's watching them back, front and sides.'

‘You're a suspicious person, Helen.'

‘I'd prefer to be called sceptical.'

‘A sceptical and imaginative person then.'

‘That's better.'

As Tom was kissing Helen on the cheek, the door opened behind them. They swung round, slightly guilty. A large and alarming-looking woman swept in. She was dressed in black. Her complexion was strawberry-coloured and her hair stuck out from beneath a beaded cap surmounted by a single curled green feather.

‘Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr and Mrs Ansell?' she said and then proceeded before Tom or Helen had the chance to nod agreement. ‘But of course I have. Even if the girl had not told me of your arrival I would have known
you
, my dear. You are Mrs Helen Ansell, née Miss Helen Scott.'

She stretched out her heavily ringed hands and took one of Helen's between them. Seized rather than took. Tom saw his wife's delicate fingers and palm disappear into the clasp of hands which were as red and chapped as if their owner washed her own laundry. But Helen kept her self-possession and did not try to snatch her hand back.

‘I'm afraid you have the advantage of us,' she said. ‘I am not sure I have ever had the pleasure of meeting you before, madam.'

‘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.