scuffling movement of workmen up and down ladders, the discreet tap of chisel on stone.
‘Hold them off? Whom do you mean?’ said Flask.
‘Whom do you think I mean?’ said Harcourt, imitating Flask’s oily tone. ‘I mean Alfred Huggins. I mean the Chief Constable.’
‘But you said them, which I took to be more than one person.’
This time Harcourt answered with real irritation. ‘You know the situation, Mr Flask. There are quite a few people who do not care for your activities in this town or even your presence here.’
‘Which people?’
‘Do I need to spell it out? Some of them are probably in these precincts at this very moment. Men of the cloth. Not all of them approve of this spiritualist lark. They call it an offence against religion. Not to put too fine a point on it, they think that you are a fraud.’
‘Spiritualist lark? Lark?’ said Flask, putting his hand on his fine brocade waistcoat in the gesture he’d previously employed in Julia Howlett’s morning room. ‘Well, I suppose that true prophets and seekers of truth have always been mocked and persecuted.’
‘Spare me the indignation, Mr Flask. You do not have to pretend with me. These important people, men of the cloth and the rest of them, are putting pressure on the Chief Constable who in turn is putting pressure on me to do something about it.’
‘Frank, Frank, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am to hear you talk in this unfriendly fashion. For we are friends, you know. Besides I am not breaking any laws.’
‘Maybe not, but if I was to investigate I’m sure I could turn up something. And it’s not only you. There is that Ambrose Barker fellow and the woman, Kitty with the strange surname. I could certainly turn up something on them.’
‘If you were to investigate, perhaps you could. But you are not going to, are you?’
‘Like I said just now, I cannot hold the Chief Constable off forever.’
‘Keep your voice down, we are attracting attention.’
And, indeed, a gaggle of visitors assembled in the crossing place who’d been staring upward at the soaring interior of the tower as well as admiring the new work on the choir screen were now turning to look at Flask and Harcourt. The two men moved away to the south end of the cathedral before walking out to the cloisters. When they were out of earshot of the few other people ambling round the area, Superintendent Harcourt went on the attack once more.
‘I heard there was trouble last night at that old lady’s house in South Bailey. Someone tried to expose you.’
‘How did you know?’
‘I am a policeman, Mr Flask. It is my duty to keep my ear to the ground.’
‘We must not forget you are a policeman, Frank. A pillar of the community. Yes, some troublemaker did try to “expose” me, as you put it. He did not succeed.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Your presence in Durham cannot be tolerated for much longer.’
‘How is your pretty new wife, Frank? How is Rhoda?’
‘She is well,’ said Harcourt, in a subdued voice.
‘Did she like the cameo I sent her? It was a nice piece. I know that she has fine tastes or should I say expensive ones.’
‘She appreciated the cameo, thank you.’
‘I wonder what Mr Alfred Huggins would say if he knew your wife had accepted gifts from a spiritualist. I wonder what he would say about the other little contributions I have made to your household economy?’
This time Harcourt was silent.
‘All I require is a few more days to complete my, ah, work here,’ resumed Flask. ‘Then I shall move to pastures new. Why, only yesterday I took the train down to York to see the lie of the land.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Harcourt. ‘You can go to York or go to the moon for all I care but you must leave Durham very soon. Otherwise I shall have to begin an investigation of your activities. Only a few days, mind.’
‘Good, good,’ said Flask, apparently satisfied. ‘I think I shall have a look at the library here. They say it is one of the finest ecclesiastical libraries in the country. Do you know it? Are you familiar with the cathedral library?’
‘Do as you please,’ said Harcourt but he spoke the words under his breath to the retreating back of Eustace Flask, who, with a nonchalant farewell waggle of his hand, turned into a doorway leading off from the cloister.
The superintendent of police made his way out of the cloisters. He was still sweating inside his new suit, sweating with heat and irritation at the conversation with Flask, and he went into the cool of the Galilee Chapel to recover. Idly, he gazed at the tomb of the Venerable Bede which stood isolated and flanked at each corner by ceremonial stone candleholders. There was an inscription in Latin on the black surface of the tomb. Frank Harcourt wondered at the meaning of the words. No doubt Eustace Flask could have told him. Flask was an educated man. A plausible educated fraud.
Harcourt had encountered Flask a few months ago when the medium had first arrived in Durham and before he had set up with his retinue of Kitty and Ambrose Barker. In a moment of weakness the policeman had asked him if he might make contact with his late wife. Harcourt’s marriage to Rhoda was scarcely a year old but, for all her comparative youth and relative attractions, he found himself missing Florry who had passed away three summers before. Florence Harcourt was like one of the old, comfortable, familiar suits which Rhoda had forced him to discard. He missed the way that Florry had been satisfied with his rank and his pay, or at least the fact that she had never complained about it. It was no mean thing to be a police superintendent, one of only six in the city, and to be bringing home a weekly wage of forty-two shillings. No mean thing for him, who had worked his way up from the ranks, but yet not enough for Rhoda. She made not-so-casual remarks about promotion, she regularly inquired about the age and health of Alfred Huggins, the Chief Constable.
So, after meeting Flask, he attended a seance without telling Rhoda and there he heard from Florry. Yes, she was more than content on the other side — oh, it was a place of such light and ease and wonder. A place where one breakfasted with angels and dined with the spirits of the departed. His first wife was also content that he had found happiness in the arms of another although she — or rather Eustace Flask — didn’t put it exactly in those terms. But Frank Harcourt was no fool. He had spent too much time questioning felons and listening to their denials and evasions to be incapable of smelling a rat. Once the initial delight at hearing from Florry had worn off, he quickly concluded that he had been taken in. He wondered why angels should need to eat breakfast, or why his late wife needed to eat at all for that matter.
But by then it was too late. Flask was no fool either and he speedily realized how useful it would be to have a member of the Durham constabulary looking out for him while he pursued bigger game in the city. From hints dropped carelessly by Frank Harcourt, the medium understood the policeman’s resentment at his new wife’s nagging ambition.
Under the guise of paying his respects to Rhoda, he called at their house in Hallgarth Street when he knew the superintendent was at work. When Harcourt got home that evening and heard that Flask had visited, he was first angry then fearful. He expected Rhoda to give him hell over his secret consultation with the medium, he thought she would as good as accuse him of infidelity by wanting to be put in touch with Florence. But Rhoda Harcourt had been charmed by Flask. ‘A real gentleman, so educated and refined,’ she said. He had even given her a brooch as a token of his regard. It was the first of several gifts. Harcourt wasn’t sure that Rhoda was aware that Flask practised as a medium, since he had introduced himself as someone who had encountered her husband in the course of ‘civic affairs’. Perhaps she assumed that he had no need to earn money for it was well known that gentlemen, especially such educated and refined ones, could be idle all their lives.
But the fatal error that Frank Harcourt committed was to take money for himself. Or for the ‘household economy’ as Flask expressed it. The medium, with his perception of others’ weak points, had seen that the police superintendent was strapped. One glance around the house in Hallgarth Street, with its furniture and curtains which were new but not quite expensive enough, was sufficient to tell him that. He presented the white five-pound note to Harcourt as a favour, one friend to another. To tide him over. Pay it back when you can. Best not to say anything about it to anyone.
The superintendent reached out and felt the white paper. He closed his fingers on it. Even as he did so, he knew that he was lost. But the note amounted to more than two weeks’ wages! And he’d been having a particularly difficult time with Rhoda recently, who was insisting on the need for another housemaid. He tucked the note into his
