limbs of wax or plaster which might be substituted for real ones at the last moment? The light was low and everyone was in a state of heightened expectation in which they might see what they wanted to see.
But it was one thing to use common sense and discuss how it might have been done while walking along the riverbank on a bright summer’s morning, and another for Helen to persuade her aunt to see Eustace Flask for the fraud he really was. Indeed, she was wondering whether it was even right for her to try.
‘After all, Tom, we’ve already had an unhappy experience with the spiritualists. That man in London who drowned himself. Suppose Mr Flask did something so desperate.’
‘Flask isn’t like Smight. He is a — I don’t know — he’s a professional. If he fails here then he’ll go and try somewhere else. Besides, he is not failing, unfortunately, but doing rather well. Making money.’
‘I know it is my aunt’s money. But it is also her life. I do not think I can dictate to her how she should use them.’
‘Even though Flask is no better than a confidence trickster. It was very clever how he nudged your aunt into believing that he should be treated “like a son”.’
‘We can see that he is a trickster but no one else there last night was willing to accept it.’
‘Apart from the gentleman who exposed him,’ said Tom.
‘Who was he, do you think?’
‘I’ve no idea except that he is an outsider here, like us. But he was very accomplished with his own sleight of hand. Substituting the sticks of chalk and then knowing that Flask had flour hidden away at the bottom of his trousers.’
There was something so absurd about the flour and the trousers that Tom and Helen laughed out loud. Then a thought occurred to Tom. It was to do with an outsider who was skilled with his hands… the techniques required by a fraudulent medium… or by a magician. Now Helen was saying something else and he wasn’t listening.
‘I said that the unknown man wasn’t the only person to be sceptical about Flask. There’s also my aunt’s lodger, Septimus Sheridan.’
‘It’s true he expressed just the tiniest doubt about Flask and he was looking a bit unhappy during the evening. But I noticed he was very quick to agree with Aunt Julia about everything.’
‘Here is a strange business, Tom. I was talking to Septimus and he let slip two or three things. In fact, he didn’t reveal them accidentally. I think that he wanted me to know them. He used to live in the city of Durham. He has been friends with my Aunt Julia for many years although there was a long period when they did not see anything of each other. While he was saying this, he let out a deep sigh as though he regretted that long absence. And from something else he said I understood that he had once been in the church…’
‘Had been in the church? I don’t understand. Doesn’t Mr Sheridan spend his time researching in the cathedral library?’
‘Yes, he does. But I mean that he was once a minister, that he was ordained.’
‘He’s been defrocked!’ said Tom.
‘No, no. Does he have the look of a man who’s done something scandalous? Septimus mentioned a ‘crisis of faith’. I believe that he quit the church but that he continues to do his work or research in its shadow. And I think too that he was the man that my aunt was engaged to, the man on whose account she first came to Durham.’
‘Aren’t you letting your imagination wander, Helen?’
‘Do not say so, Thomas, otherwise I shall push you into the river with the tip of my parasol, like this.’
They were passing a section of the bank which dropped sheer to the river. Helen jabbed at Tom in a way that was almost entirely playful. Tom looked round. He noticed a tall man behind them who quickly averted his gaze.
‘Supposing you’re right,’ said Tom after a moment. ‘Does that mean that Septimus Sheridan has come back in the hope of marrying your aunt after all these years?’
‘He has no ambition that way as far as I can tell. Nor has she. Haven’t you noticed the weary manner in which she talks to him? On her side, it’s as if they’ve been married years already while he defers to her and then talks about her in a way that’s almost reverential.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Tom gloomily. ‘I didn’t know you were such a dissector of the right conditions for marriage. Weariness from the woman and deference from the man.’
‘Whatever is between my aunt and Septimus is not a marriage,’ said Helen. ‘Septimus is — I don’t now — he’s a mixture of a hermit and a lodger.’
‘It’s all very odd,’ said Tom.
‘That’s what you said about our journey before we started. The coincidence of Aunt Julia and the medium together with your Major Whatnot and his dagger. You must tell me what he says. Unless it’s confidential and legal and all those things.’
‘I think Major Marmont wants the world to know how he came by the dagger. Anyway I shall tell you everything after I’ve met him.’
‘Pardon me,’ said someone loudly.
Helen and Tom stopped and looked back. A man was standing there, the same individual whom Tom had observed earlier.
‘Pardon me,’ he repeated. ‘I believe you may have dropped this, madam.’
He was holding out a lilac-coloured handkerchief. Helen stepped closer to examine it. ‘No. I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Thank you but it doesn’t belong to me.’
‘I could have sworn you let it fall as you were walking. I saw it fluttering to the ground.’
The man was tall and dressed in clothes that had been of good quality but now showed signs of wear. He was well-spoken. Since he was so insistent, Helen made a show of looking at the lilac handkerchief more carefully. She shook her head.
‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘I must be mistaken. Good day to you, madam, and to you, sir.’
He touched his hat in salute and walked off in the opposite direction.
‘It might have been your handkerchief,’ said Tom. ‘He seemed very convinced.’
‘I recognize that man,’ said Helen. ‘Or not recognize exactly, but there was something familiar about him.’
They both turned round again to watch the man striding along the riverside path. He had a rangy, loping walk.
‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Doesn’t look like anyone I know.’
The Cathedral Precincts
At about the same time as Helen and Tom were beginning their stroll along the riverside path below the cathedral, Eustace Flask was taking a walk on Palace Green, in the precincts of the cathedral itself. He reached the north porch where a man was waiting for him. They nodded to each other before entering the building. If they had been interested in such things they might have remarked on the great pillars in the nave which were incised with zigzags or lozenge patterns, or commented on the way the sun poured through the rose window in the east. But the two were not attracted by ecclesiastical architecture or the morning light. Instead, the cathedral served as a convenient meeting place where they might go unnoticed on account of the regular visitors and the coming and going of the masons and carpenters who were presently rebuilding the choir screen.
Flask’s companion was a man of medium height with a florid complexion. His name was Frank Harcourt and he was a police superintendent, one of six holding that rank in the Durham City Constabulary. He was off-duty and so wearing civilian clothes, a three-piece suit which he would not normally have afforded but which his wife Rhoda had encouraged him to buy. Of the two men Harcourt might have been the more easily recognized, perhaps by one of the clerics who were walking purposefully about the building, but he avoided meeting anyone’s eye. By instinct the two kept their perambulations to the secluded or shadowed corners of the cathedral.
They didn’t speak a word until they were standing in the north transept where Eustace Flask said, ‘How are you on this fine summer’s morning, Frank?’
‘I cannot hold them off for much longer,’ said Frank Harcourt who evidently had no time for pleasantries. He was sweating, despite the coolness of the place, and his red face was a contrast to Flask’s pallor. Nearby was the
