disappeared.
Tony decided to leave it. If it was discovered, let the police make of it what they would. Of course, they might never find the coat. The house, and the overcoat with it, might be blown to blazes if someone was careless enough to cause a spark in the vicinity.
Tony was almost indifferent to his fate. He had a mission to accomplish, and once that was finished then he too was finished. There were more individuals to dispose of. But, that done, his work was over.
Act Two
The Major comes forward to the footlights. He says to the audience, ‘In my time I have brought to many audiences a veritable extravaganza of extraordinary feats deriving from the lands of the east, lands whose denizens have access to secrets of life which we in the west have long forgotten or never knew. But none, in my humble opinion, is so truly remarkable as what I am about to show you.’
He claps his hands and the curtains behind him are parted to reveal a wide plank of wood resting on the backs of two chairs. The backdrop is as highly patterned as suburban wallpaper. Dull but not restful. An Indian gentleman comes on, dressed in a dark suit, western style. He is elderly and stooped, with flowing white hair. He acknowledges the audience with a slight inclination of the head. He does not smile.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ says the Major, ‘allow me to present to you the mystical Mahatma of Agra. He has made a lifelong study of the methods by which a privileged few may escape our earthly bounds, our mortal bonds. Even I do not know how the mystical Mahatma accomplishes the feat he is about to demonstrate. It quite contradicts all that we know of the laws of nature. Sit back, ladies and gentlemen — no, do not sit back but lean forward — perch with eagerness on the edge of your seats — and marvel!’
With the Major’s help, the Mahatma clambers awkwardly on to the plank supported by the chair backs. He lies on his back, steepling his hands on his chest like an effigy on a tomb.
Once more Major Marmont turns to confide in the audience.
‘The incantation I am about to utter was taught to me by the Mahatma himself. We were standing on the shores of the Ganges River as the sun was setting. I can remember the scene as if it was yesterday. You will not understand the words I say for I can scarcely understand them myself. But see their result!’
Major Marmont swivels towards the figure on the plank, who is so still he might be in a trance. He mutters several sentences in a foreign language, very fast, at the same time raising his hands in the gesture of a blessing. Slowly, very slowly, the plank bearing the aged Mahatma of Agra lifts itself clear of the chairs. When the Mahatma is about three feet above these makeshift supports, the Major whisks away the chairs with the dexterity of a waiter. The plank and the man continue their steady ascent. The audience is split between wonder (this is indeed a denial of the laws of nature) and a futile attempt to discover how the trick is worked. They strain their eyes searching for cords and levers; they listen for the whirring of cogs and pulleys. They see nothing except the levitating Mahatma; they hear nothing apart from their own gasps of amazement.
Once the Mahatma of Agra has reached a height of about fifteen feet above the stage there is a queer kind of shimmering in the air. He begins to come down again. The Major watches his descent. When the Mahatma — unmoving, hands still steepled — is at shoulder height, Marmont runs his own hands over and round the head and feet of the body. He is showing that there are no hidden supports here. The chairs are replaced in their original positions. The plank bearing the Mahatma settles itself on the chair backs once again. The Major utters a few more incomprehensible words and raises his arms.
The Mahatma climbs quite nimbly off the plank, without Marmont’s aid, and stands on the stage. But what has happened? The man who floated up through the air was old and stooped. The one who now appears before them is upright and handsome. The hair that was white and flowing is now a gleaming black. Major Marmont seems almost as surprised as the audience. He bows at the applause but the Mahatma only inclines his head.
Afterwards the audience conclude that the Mahatma has not merely travelled magically through space but also through time. He has shed his years.
It is all a trick of course, somehow emphasized by the simplicity of the props and the wallpaper backdrop. It must be a trick. But who is to say that the sages of the East do not have access to secrets of life which we in the west have either long forgotten or never knew?
On the Train to Durham
It was only when they were travelling north by train that Tom Ansell thought to ask Helen why her aunt Julia Howlett had chosen to live in Durham. They had a compartment to themselves once they’d changed lines from the Midland to the North Eastern at Doncaster. Their thoughts were turning to the different missions with which they’d been entrusted.
They were going to stay at Miss Howlett’s house for a few days. Helen had written asking whether they might visit. It had been many years since she’d seen her aunt and, besides, she wanted to show off her new husband. She said nothing about the main reason for her trip. Meanwhile Tom arranged through Scott, Lye amp; Mackenzie for a meeting with Major Marmont, who happened to be performing in Durham for a week.
So, why had Helen’s aunt gone to Durham when the rest of the family lived in the south?
‘It’s rather a sad story as I understand it from the hints my mother has given,’ she said. ‘Many years ago Aunt Julia moved to Durham in pursuit of a man. She was engaged to be married to a curate but something went wrong. He was working in a parish somewhere in the city. I do not know whether things went wrong before or after she visited him but anyway the engagement was broken off and then the curate was moved to a different parish. Aunt Julia was reluctant to come back empty-handed, so to speak, and decided to prolong her stay in Durham. She must have fallen for the place because a few weeks turned into months and then became a year or two. At some point she acquired a fine house in the old part of the city on the bailey, where she has been living, a prosperous and respected spinster, these many years. I don’t suppose she’ll ever return to the south now.’
‘She must have an independent streak,’ said Tom.
‘Mother says I take after her but I am not certain whether it is altogether a compliment. It’s only recently that Aunt Julia and she have started corresponding again.’
‘I had the feeling that your mother was not so concerned about your aunt but more about — I don’t know — about family honour, the memory of her father.’
‘It is this business of the medium using grandfather Howlett to get what he wants from Julia that is so distasteful. I agree with mother there. But, Tom, I am not looking forward to this one bit.’
‘After the trouble in Tullis Street?’
‘It does not give me much of an appetite for confronting mediums.’
Neither Tom nor Helen had talked a great deal about the apparent suicide of Ernest Smight. When they did discuss it, they tried to persuade themselves they had no share in the man’s death, that it was a result of his despair at the police action and imminent prosecution. But even so they felt twinges of guilt. They had been present at the seance; they were witnesses. Like the authorities, they too regarded Smight as a trickster who deserved exposure, for Helen had by now begun to revert to her old suspicion of mediums and Tom had almost forgotten the encounter with his father.
‘Never mind,’ said Tom. ‘You will not have to confront this Flask fellow by yourself, if it comes to that. I’ll be there. And maybe you will be able to convince your aunt without any confrontation, maybe she’ll have had a change of heart by the time we arrive and be all for leaving her money to a local orphanage.’
‘I hope so,’ said Helen. She gave up any pretence of reading her book and gazed out of the window at the countryside rolling by. They had stopped at several great manufacturing conurbations, each announced by a pall of smoke not merely overhanging but spreading out into the surrounding countryside. In between the towns the landscape was largely low and level, stretching away in the summer’s afternoon.
‘I feel life must be more serious up here,’ said Helen after a time. ‘More earnest.’
‘Is that because the Bronte sisters and Mrs Gaskell tell you so?’
