This was a new world for them. Flask instructed them in some of his methods. He demonstrated how one could write on a slate even while one’s hands were seemingly at rest on top of a table. He showed them how to tie knots which could easily be slipped. He taught them how to use two of the key techniques of the performer, which are expectation and distraction.
Kitty in particular took to her role as Running Brook, the Indian maid who was Flask’s ‘control’. She was an adept performer. Ambrose wasn’t so willing or useful but he acted as a combination of handyman and valet. He still believed that Flask was a molly but Kitty wasn’t so sure. Some day she would have to put it to the test, to put him to the test. But not yet. She was happy to be in bed with Ambrose, even if he was somewhat coarse and brutish compared to Eustace. She was happy that they were all together, that they had a roof over their heads and a bit of cash in their pockets. They were almost like a family.
By the River Wear
‘It felt like a real hand,’ said Helen, ‘though now I think about it I was only touching one of his fingers with one of mine, which is what the medium told me to do. And the lights were low.’
‘Well, we know that Flask somehow managed to write those words on the slate and at the same time make you and your aunt believe both his hands were resting on the table.’
‘Unless he’s got three hands,’ said Helen. ‘Or unless he was using his feet to write. Or unless there was a dwarf concealed beneath the table and busy scribbling away.’
‘That wouldn’t explain the blue chalk on his fingers,’ Tom couldn’t help pointing out, though he admired his wife’s skill and imagination in coming up with all these possibilities.
‘Whatever the explanation, whether it’s three hands or feet capable of writing or whether it’s dwarves, it is all rather horrid. I did not like the way he employed my name. Writing ‘BELIEVE HELEN’ on the slate.’
‘But you asked him a question,’ said Tom.
‘I felt that he wanted me to. It gave me goose-bumps.’
‘And he was using your name to show how familiar he is with the household,’ said Tom. ‘He’s clever all right.’
‘Clever and sinister. I’m glad we’ve got this romantic view all around to distract us from Mr Eustace Flask.’
It was the morning after their arrival in Durham. Helen and Tom Ansell were strolling beside the river and below the rise dominated by the castle and cathedral. They could feel the presence of those great edifices although the buildings themselves were hidden by the rise of the bank and thick tiers of summer foliage. A walk had been created under the overhanging oaks and chestnuts, and there were other people ambling along in the morning sun. Among the casual walkers was the individual who had alighted at Durham Station from the same train as Tom and Helen. Once again, his attention seemed to be fixed on the backs of the young couple who were perhaps fifty yards ahead of him.
It was warm and Helen had brought a parasol although it was still furled. In front of them was a fulling mill and a line of dirty foam where the river level dropped and the water tumbled across rocks. For all the coal-black streaks which ran through it like threads, the water sparkled in the light.
They’d spent most of the walk discussing the session of the previous evening. They thought they’d worked out how the thin white arms might have been done: Tom said it was significant he hadn’t been able to spot Kitty during the time when the limbs were being waggled through the muslin curtains. Although she’d appeared in front of the cabinet just as the arms were being withdrawn inside, perhaps some trickery had occurred. Make-believe 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.’