really were her son. She tells him he must take care of himself and wrap up warmly and eat properly, he is so thin and careworn. He may be thin but he does not look careworn to me in that photograph. It is sickening, I tell you, to see how she is being duped. In her last letter she said that she was considering making Flask an allowance because her father had indicated that was an appropriate course of action. Her father, our father, speaking through Mr Flask!’
‘Perhaps Aunt Julia will see the light,’ said Helen. ‘Perhaps she’ll suddenly see this man Flask for what he is.’
‘Julia is too trusting. She still believes that the last one, the preacher with several wives, was essentially a good man tempted by Jezebels. I fear there is worse to come in this crisis. Her most recent letter, the one in which she enclosed the photograph so that I might admire her angelic medium, talked about her own failing health. She hinted she was not much longer for this vale of tears. If Julia is really in a weakened condition — although I must say that her handwriting was quite firm — then there’s no saying what mischief Flask might wreak.’
‘You mean he might prevail on her to change the terms of her will.’
‘That is exactly what I mean, Thomas. It is bad enough her giving out a few hundred pounds here and there but to think of her whole estate falling into this trickster’s hands… well, that is too terrible to contemplate. The shame for the family, not to mention Julia herself. No, there is only one hope…’
‘What is that, mother?’
‘I would like you and dear Thomas here to undertake a mission for me. Will you travel up to Durham and see your Aunt Julia for yourselves? You were always her favourite, Helen, as I said. She would listen to you where she would turn a deaf ear to me. And Thomas, with his knowledge of the law, might be able to do something. Perhaps he could confront this dreadful Flask. Threaten him.’
The very vagueness of what Mrs Scott was suggesting showed her desperation. Tom was not very enthusiastic, not so much because he didn’t sympathize with his mother-in-law — though he didn’t, greatly — but because he thought any intervention might well make things worse. Fortunately Helen said, ‘I do not know how easily Tom could free himself from work. I could go by myself, I suppose?’
‘On no account, Helen,’ said her mother. ‘For all I know, Eustace Flask has a gang of ruffians and minions under his command despite his angelic countenance. No, you need a man with you.’
Normally this would have been the kind of remark to get Helen packing her bags and catching the first train north but she seemed curiously prepared to accept her mother’s ban. It seemed that something had to be done, however, so Tom and Helen eventually agreed to consider a Durham visit. They might, said Mrs Scott, make a bit of a holiday out of it. In any case, Aunt Julia would be delighted to see her niece after so many years. And her new husband, of course.
Mrs Scott’s mood brightened. She started on the cakes and urged the others to tuck in. She explained that she’d been thinking it might be good for Tom and Helen to get the measure of the enemy — those were the words she used, ‘the enemy’ — by attending a seance here in London before they travelled north. Tom noticed how what had been a possibility was now a fact: they were going to visit Durham. He listened as Helen’s mother talked about a medium who lived in Tullis Street, whose sister she and Julia had known many years ago. She had discovered that the man, Ernest Smight, held regular sessions every Sunday evening. Perhaps Tom and dear Helen might just look in on Tullis Street next week?
This was how it came about that Tom received a message from his long-dead father and how an equally dead cat, run over in the Fulham Road, was resurrected as the spirit of Mrs Seldon’s first husband. And soon after that other things occurred which made the Durham visit even more of a certainty.
Death by Water
It was a few days after the Sunday seance that Mr Ashley the senior clerk at Scott, Lye and Mackenzie told Tom that Mr David Mackenzie wished to see him. Ashley, the clerk, had been with the firm longer than anyone. As a mark of his status, he had a separate office which no one would have dreamed of entering without knocking first. Tom was told to go and see Ashley by another of the juniors, a pleasant chap called William Evers. This was how it worked at the firm. Someone told you to go and see Ashley, who in turn told you what you had to do next.
Tom duly knocked and walked in without waiting for permission. By now he was on quite good terms with Ashley. Marrying the daughter of one of the founding partners had, perhaps surprisingly, not counted against him. Tom sensed that Ashley didn’t actively disapprove of him, which was probably as enthusiastic an endorsement as he was going to get.
The senior clerk looked up from a pile of papers and folders. Gifted with a prodigious memory, he had a high forehead which was permanently creased. Tom thought of the interior of his head as an orderly storehouse with details from different years, different decades even, filed away on each level.
‘Mr Mackenzie wishes to see you at your earliest convenience, Mr Ansell. Which we may translate as straightaway.’
‘Do you know why?’
There was a time when Tom wouldn’t have asked such a question and Ashley wouldn’t have deigned to answer it. Now he said, ‘I do know why. A strange affair. Come and have a word with me when you’re finished if you like.’
Tom went along the passage to Mackenzie’s chamber. He knocked and this time waited to be told to enter. As usual, it was hard to make out much of the interior because of the pipe smoke. Mackenzie waved away a cloud or two and, his teeth gripping the pipe stem, gestured at Tom to sit down on the other side of his desk. With his tonsure of white hair and wide, benevolent face, Mackenzie looked like a monk or a universal uncle. But he was quick and canny.
‘How are you, Thomas? Married life suiting you, ha?’
Odd how often that question came up. Tom used his wife’s answer: ‘It suits us well.’
‘Good, good. Time will tell, you know. It usually does.’
Having dispersed a few more parcels of smoke, David Mackenzie got down to business. At least Tom assumed it was business despite the oddness of his next question.
‘Know any magicians?’
‘Magicians? No, I don’t know any magicians, sir. I’ve seen Dr Pepper’s Ghost and the Corsican Trapdoor in the theatre.’
‘The Trapdoor was Boucicault’s idea,’ said Mackenzie, showing an unexpected familiarity with stage magic. ‘So you have never seen Major Sebastian Marmont?’
‘Nor heard of him, I’m afraid.’
‘He has a touring show during which he displays some magic feats he learned in the orient.’
‘What they call “the mysterious east”,’ said Tom.
‘In the Major’s case his learning is as genuine as his rank. He is not like Stodare who was never in the army but still styled himself a Colonel. No, Marmont is the real thing. He served in India for many years. There was always something of the showman in him and when he quit the army he became a magician.’
‘It sounds as though you know him, Mr Mackenzie,’ said Tom, more and more surprised at Mackenzie’s knowledge of the world of magic.
‘Like his father before him, Major Marmont is one of the clients of Scott, Lye and Mackenzie. I’ve met Marmont on quite a few occasions. A most entertaining fellow, full of tales. You will enjoy your encounter with him.’
Well, it would make a change from dealing with codicils, probates and leaseholds. Tom waited for David Mackenzie to tell him more. But the lawyer seemed curiously uncomfortable. He fiddled with his pipe so that, when it was going again, he was almost obscured behind a cloud of smoke. Perhaps, Tom thought, he’s about to perform a vanishing trick himself. Eventually, when Mackenzie spoke, his tone was somewhere between the apologetic and the persuasive.
‘Tom, I don’t know why I should turn to you when the firm has an odd task to undertake. And this is odder than most, like something out of Wilkie Collins. But perhaps I am looking to you because of the way you conducted that business in Salisbury last year. Perhaps it is because I trust your shrewdness and judgement. You showed
