‘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.
‘Despite my civilian clothes I am a policeman, Mr Smight.’
‘All are welcome at our table, whether they come in disguise or in plain honesty.’
The medium was doing his best to put on a brave front but, by the brighter light, his face had gone pale and pasty while his voice lost all its confidence. He was older than Tom had first taken him for. Miss Smight’s face, by contrast, was bright red. She stood glaring in outrage at Arthur Seldon.
‘A complaint has been laid against you…’
‘A complaint? Has it? By whom?’
‘I am not at liberty to say,’ continued Seldon.
Ernest Smight sighed and seemed to shrink in his chair. ‘What have I done?’
‘Money has changed hands.’
‘It has not changed hands,’ said Ethel Smight. ‘It hasn’t, has it?’
She was appealing to the others, to Tom and Helen, to Mrs Miles and Rosalind. The single women looked baffled and slightly frightened. All four gazed at the two half-sovereigns, lying golden on the green baize.
‘You seemed to accept the coins, Mr Smight,’ said Tom, though even as he spoke the words he wondered why he was getting involved. This was no business of his. Yet he persisted. ‘I am familiar with the law and you seemed to accept them.’
‘In return for services about to be rendered,’ said the disguised policeman Arthur Seldon, nodding at Tom as if grateful for this confirmation. ‘Services were duly rendered. You have told fortunes and you have predicted the future. You have predicted that I will find money but I can assure you there is no cash box left by Mr Briggs. If there had been, she would’ve have laid her hands on it straight away.’
‘I predicted that your fiancee would be happy with you,’ said the miserable medium. ‘Surely you do not hold the prediction of happiness against me?’
‘I do not,’ said the policeman although his tone suggested he resented the idea of happiness. He smiled for the first time that evening, and Tom was reminded of a sharp-toothed rodent. ‘But you see, sir, this lady who is assisting me in my enquiries is not my fiancee. She cannot be my fiancee for the simple reason that she is already my wife.’
‘Yes, I am now Mrs Seldon although my first husband was called Briggs,’ said the woman.
‘Angus, I suppose,’ said Ernest hopelessly.
‘Ha, no. I once had a cat called Angus. Several of the facts I provided were correct. Angus the cat was large and he was run over by an omnibus, a misfortune which occurred in the Fulham Road.’
‘My wife, Lizzie, she did not lie, you see,’ said Seldon. He reached over and took up the two half-sovereigns from where they lay on the table in front of the medium, who turned his head away. ‘These coins are not mine but will be returned to the police station. I will make a full report on this and I would be surprised if you do not find yourself up before the magistrates, Mr Smight. This is not the first time you have been caught out. Do not expect leniency.’
Seldon paused to let that sink in. He was thoroughly enjoying himself. He produced a notebook and pencil as he gazed at the other sitters round the table. ‘And as for you, ladies and gentleman, any or all of you may be called upon as witnesses to what occurred here this evening. To wit, how this person told my and my wife’s fortunes in return for a cash payment. Your names and addresses if you please.’
A kind of official frost settled over the room while Arthur Seldon noted down four names and three addresses. Mrs Miles lived in Bayswater. Miss Rosalind Minton lived in Camberwell but added that she worked in a shop on Oxford Street. Helen gave her and Tom’s names and their address in Kentish Town. The policeman wrote all this down in a small hand while his wife looking on approvingly. When he’d finished he snapped the notepad shut and said, ‘Your details I do not need, Mr and Miss Smight. You two are already in our files.’
‘It’s not fair,’ said Ethel Smight. ‘It’s not fair.’ She was divided between anger and tears.
‘I don’t make the law,’ said Seldon. ‘I merely enforce it.’
With that he and his wife got up from the table and walked from the room. Moments later they heard the front door slam. There was silence round the table. Ernest Smight looked like a man who has been hollowed out while his sister, with her red face surmounted by the green-feathered cap, had the appearance of an angry and exotic bird. Mrs Miles looked as bland as before but Rosalind was dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. Helen’s hand was still within Tom’s.
Abercrombie Road
‘I don’t see what’s so wrong with it,’ said Helen. ‘If that disguised policeman was right about the law then any fortune-teller at the funfair ought to be brought before the magistrate. But that doesn’t happen, does it? You can be sure that quite a few policemen and even a magistrate or two go to have their palms read at the fair. And pay for it.’
Tom and Helen Ansell were walking home. It was still light and the earlier overcast skies had partially cleared to show the setting sun. The air was clearer than on a weekday because the factories were closed. Evensong had long finished but quite a few people were still strolling about in their Sunday best. Tom and Helen wanted fresh air after being confined in a front parlour which was somehow both chill and stuffy. They wanted time to talk about what they’d just seen, to talk out in the open and not shut up inside an omnibus or a hansom cab clattering its way towards north London.
The seance had broken up as soon as Arthur Seldon and Mrs Briggs — or rather Mrs Seldon — departed. Rosalind Minton and Mrs Miles were sympathetic to the Smights, telling them that their testimony would hardly be much use in court because they could not be sure of what they had seen. Besides, they knew Mr Smight and his sister for honest people. They said this, glancing defiantly towards Tom and Helen. Perhaps they would have said more if Tom had not been identified with the authorities in some way.
Tom was unable to make the same half-promise about any testimony. He was pretty sure that, in law, the medium had accepted money for services to be rendered. He felt sorry for the brother and sister but at the same time he was impatient with them and impatient to be away from this place. The slightly better light in the parlour revealed how worn and shabby was the furniture, and hinted at why Ernest Smight had fastened on the half- sovereigns.
Surprisingly it was Helen who was more distressed by what they’d seen. She had been the one looking for evidence of fraud under the table before Miss Smight’s arrival. She’d speculated on how the fakery might be done and talked about tambourines, but now on the way home she sounded indignant rather than justified.
‘There’s nothing wrong with fortune-tellers at funfairs,’ said Tom. ‘They’ll never be prosecuted. But Seldon was right, all the same. The law won’t hold back. Smight won’t get leniency if he’s been hauled up in front of the bench before.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The law was never meant to apply to a palm-reader at a fair. It’s been dormant for years until it was brought back for individuals like Ernest Smight. Mediums can be prosecuted under the Vagrancy Act of eighteen-something- or-other, which was originally intended to deal with vagabonds and gypsies and such. People like that weren’t supposed to make money by pretending to foretell the future. They weren’t supposed to make a nuisance of themselves at all.’
