Helen felt a draught on the back of her neck. Her skin prickled and she understood in an instant how foolish she had been to come to the Palace of Varieties, how foolish to come here alone. She was almost too terrified to turn round but, as she was nerving herself to do so, an arm snaked about her neck and a rough cloth was clamped to her nose and mouth. She struggled to remove the hand but the person behind her was taller and stronger, and after a moment she felt her flailing arms grow feeble. Fearing she was about to suffocate, Helen instinctively concentrated on drawing breath through the prickly, strange-smelling fabric fastened across her mouth and nostrils. The footlights wavered and grew dimmer in front of her vision while the man’s fingers were hard and rigid, like the legs of an iron spider, and that was the last impression in her mind.
Levitation
There was a terrible burning sensation in her throat and Helen thought she was about to be sick. But the burning sensation subsided and the moment passed. Some time went by without any thoughts at all. Later on – it might have been two hours or two minutes later – she wondered whether she had her eyes shut. If she did it was odd because she was definitely awake. Yet all she was able to see was a black space interspersed with darting yellow streaks. So was she really awake or was she dreaming?
She was lying on her back, resting against a surface that was quite uncomfortable. Where was the iron spider that had leaped on to her face? She could still feel the impress of its horrible legs digging into her cheeks. And there was an unfamiliar, pungent scent in her nostrils and a sweetish taste in her mouth. Not an unpleasant taste or an unpleasant smell but not comforting ones either.
Now, were her eyes properly open or were they closed? It might be absurd but the only way to make sure was by the sense of touch. She went to raise her arm so as to feel her own face, but the arm did not respond even though it wanted to, she knew it wanted to. She was able to wiggle her fingers but not to move her hand. She made the same experiment with her other arm and that too she could not budge. Her arms seemed to be tethered.
With a rising sense of panic, Helen struggled back to what was almost full consciousness. She blinked rapidly but the scene before her eyes stayed the same, a deep well of darkness broken by some yellowish gleams. The gleams were easy to understand, they were caused by lights somewhere below her but reflecting off things above her. Machinery of some sort, metal handles and cogs. And at once Helen Ansell remembered where she was, in the Palace of Varieties, and why she had come here, to help Major Sebastian Marmont, and how foolish she had been to come alone.
She knew too that she was lying on the quilted platform used in Marmont’s levitation act. Not only lying on the platform but secured to it, tied to it. There was an array of fine wires next to her head. She could see them out of the corner of her eye. She made to raise her head, trying to guess how far she was above the stage, but an abrupt sensation of tightness round her throat made her lie back again. She sensed rather than saw that the platform was in the position where she’d first seen it on the stage, hovering about four feet above the ground. There would be no great harm in falling four feet, no danger if she had to tumble off her perch once she was free to move. The platform was stable too. She could not feel it giving or swaying beneath her.
Helen hoped Major Sebastian Marmont would soon come along to release her. She was willing to take part in his magic rehearsals and willing to help him refine his new tricks, but she really had had enough of lying here, had enough of feeling nauseous and terrified.
Then she heard his footsteps echoing on the bare boards.
A head appeared in her line of vision. But it was not Sebastian Marmont’s.
She recognized the man from a drawing that she’d seen somewhere recently. The lined, thin features, the malicious glint in the eyes. But what was his name? She couldn’t remember it, not for the moment.
‘Mrs Ansell, you are finally awake. Good.’
Helen wanted to say something but her tongue was thick and cumbersome in her mouth and she thought again that she was about to be sick. She concentrated on swallowing, on repressing the feeling.
‘Chloroform doses are tricky things,’ said the man, hanging over her. His voice was deep. He spoke like a gentleman. ‘Even a doctor or man of science may make a mistake with chloroform. It depends on the size and weight of the individual, and on the sex of course. Too little and no effect is produced, too much and death may result. Perhaps I administered more than I intended since you have been asleep a long time.’
Helen tried to raise her head once more and experienced the same tight sensation round her neck. A look of genuine concern passed across the face of the gentleman.
‘Please don’t move your head, Mrs Ansell. There is a wire cord fastened around your throat and it is secured to this floating bed. The wire is part of the magical apparatus belonging to Major Marmont which I have put to my own use. If you tug against it, you will do yourself no good.’
Helen fought to control her terror. She was in the hands of a madman and although every nerve in her body was screaming at her to flee she could not move. Yet, even in the middle of her terror, she understood she was being kept alive for a reason. This man, this Doctor Anthony Smight, had not killed her – if it was his intention to kill. It must be. She was familiar with his other crimes. But he had not killed her yet even though he might easily have delivered a fatal dose of chloroform or suffocated her or done some other dreadful thing while she was unconscious. She had to remain alive for as long as possible. Every saved moment meant that someone might find her. How to distract him? How to prevent him putting some final, terrible intention into effect?
‘You do not know who am I am, do you?’ said Smight, almost gently.
Helen was about to make the slightest nodding motion with her head, about to croak out that, yes, she did know his identity and that the police knew it too, when denial suddenly seemed the safer course.
So she whispered, ‘No. Who are you? Why are you holding me prisoner?’
‘Let me explain, Mrs Ansell. A few weeks ago you and your husband were present at a séance in London as a result of which a man died. He killed himself because he was afraid of persecution despite being an honest medium. Your evidence would have sentenced him to shame and disgrace so he took his own life. Do you know what I am talking about now?’
‘Ernest Smight,’ said Helen, surprised at the steadiness of her voice. ‘I read that he had drowned himself. I was sorry to read it.’
‘Your sorrow comes too late to help. Ernest was my beloved brother. I am Doctor Anthony Smight. It was your actions and the trickery of a policeman in disguise that caused Ernest to do away with himself. The coroner’s inquest pronounced that he had taken his life while the balance of his mind was disturbed, but I say, Mrs Ansell, that it is you and the others who are truly responsible for his death. As responsible as if you had personally seized him and bundled him beneath the waters of the Thames.’
Helen was gripped by a mixture of fury and indignation. She felt her face grow hot and tears sprang to her eyes. It is absurd, she wanted to scream at this lunatic. Nobody wanted your brother to die. He committed a small crime and he would have served a few weeks in prison, at the very worst. I even felt some pity for your brother. If it had been left to me, there would have been no case to answer. But she said not a word and Smight interpreted the furious workings of her face as more signs of fear. He reached out a hand and patted her shoulder. He was almost smiling. At least his thin mouth lengthened in a kind of grimace.
‘Do not worry, Mrs Ansell,’ said Doctor Anthony Smight. ‘Your suffering will not be as great as my brother’s. It will certainly be much shorter since you have not so much leisure to ponder your death. There, I can see that I have shaken you by referring to death. But there are two already dead, the policeman and his wife. Two more must die, you and your husband. Then justice will be done.’
Where was Tom? thought Helen. She’d last seen him sprinting off towards the police-h
ouse. But he did not know that she was coming here, to the Palace of Varieties. She hadn’t mentioned it to him, annoyed that he insisted on accompanying her in the first place. Tom would assume she had gone to the Assembly Rooms. When he didn’t find her there, what would he do? Did Anthony Smight know that the police were on his tail? He was behaving in a strangely relaxed and confident way, just as if he was a family doctor giving some consultation to an old friend. No, he must be surely unaware that the police had his picture and were searching for him. This gave her a little burst of hope. Then she remembered that Harcourt and Traynor had left for Newcastle.
‘Wait, wait,’ she said. ‘How did you know that I would be willing to help Major Marmont with his magic tricks? How did you manage to write to me on paper from his hotel?’
‘It’s easy enough to get hold of a sheet of hotel writing paper,’ said Smight. ‘And I was in the Assembly Rooms the other morning when the good Major was demonstrating the operation of the – what is it called? – the Perseus Cabinet. I was at the back of the auditorium, lurking in the shadows you would probably say. I saw how ready you were to enter into the spirit of things and what a nice understanding you had with the military magician. I thought it would not be so difficult to entice you here, where Marmont keeps some of his apparatus. I have been keeping watch on you, on all of you, keeping watch with my invisible eye. I have been planning this for many days.’
‘And what are you planning for my husband? Why don’t you content yourself with . . . with whatever you intend to do to me?’
‘Mrs Ansell, if you weren’t such an evident lady, I would be tempted to call you by male terms such as gallant or chivalrous. But your selflessness will not protect your husband. If I choose to dispose of you first it is because I consider that it will add to Mr Ansell’s own grief and distress. He will know something of what I have known. He must love you. I can see that you are lovable. Besides that, you are recently married, aren’t you, Helen?’
‘Married this year,’ said Helen. Smight’s use of her first name was intimate and horrible. She felt the tears flowing again, and this time her weakness served only to irritate her. If she could have torn herself free from this floating platform, she would not have attempted to run away. She would have battled for her life against Doctor Anthony Smight. She would have bitten and scratched and gouged him like a wild animal. She would have left her marks all over him.
But she had no weapon except time. Time, she told herself, keep playing for time.
‘What about Eustace Flask?’ she said. ‘He was a medium like your brother. And yet you . . .’
‘I killed him?’ said Smight. ‘Is that what you were going to say, Mrs Ansell?’
Helen gulped. It was foolish perhaps to talk about this man’s past murders. Smight stroked his jaw. He said, ‘Well, there is no harm in explaining, I suppose. You see, I had appointed to meet Mr Eustace Flask down by the river that morning . . .’
He carried on talking but Helen was listening with only half an ear for she thought she had detected some sound from the backstage area of the theatre, a shuffling sound. Her heart leaped. There was someone here with them in the theatre! She strained to hear more while keeping her expression absolutely fixed. Fortunately Smight was still speaking, oblivious to everything else.
But Helen heard no further noises and she grew very afraid. Afraid that she was imagining the sounds, afraid that it was no more than a draught of air pushing at a curtain. Afraid that she could not keep Smight distracted for much longer. His voice had now descended into a queer monotone and his eyes which had previously been lively had acquired a sort of stillness. She recalled that he took opium, and wondered whether she was witnessing some effect of the drug – or of its absence.
At once, Smight stopped whatever it was he’d been saying. He clapped his hands together in a soft, dismissive gesture.
‘Enough of this, Mrs Ansell. Time presses on me as it presses on you. As you are aware, you are secured to this platform by wire cords. Using the ingenuity of Major Marmont’s apparatus, I intend to raise the platform by a winching device which is to the side of the stage. The wires run over the rollers which are hanging above our heads. They are covered in felt so as to muffle sounds. It is an ingenious trick and I am sorry I shall never see it employed for the diversion of an audience. While you were asleep, I made some adjustments to the wiring. The cord round your neck is secured to the stage floor and will gradually tighten as I turn the winch. It is a modified form of the garrotte. They used it in Spain, they used it in India. So now I shall disappear from before your very eyes now, just like a magician, except that you will never see me again. Do not worry, Mrs Ansell, the process of being deprived of air will be brief. Briefer than drowning, I dare say.’
Helen surprised herself by laughing out loud. It might have been hysteria, she couldn’t have sworn she was not hysterical, but it sounded like genuine laughter in her own ears. The eyes in Doctor Smight’s elongated face stared at her in surprise. He patted her shoulder for one last time and then, as promised, he vanished.
She heard the doctor’s steps crossing the stage and after that there were no more sounds until a soft click as of some gear or ratchet being engaged. She closed her eyes tight when she felt an almost imperceptible shift in the platform on which she was lying. It was inching upwards. The pressure round her neck grew tighter, and she prayed that it would be quick.
All at once there were the noises of stamping feet and shouts and cursing and scuffling. A shot rang out and her ears rang. There was the bitter smell of cordite. The pressure around her neck did not relent but it did not grow any worse. She did not dare to open her eyes even when she felt a hand again on her shoulder. Someone said something but she couldn’t make out the words because her ears were still ringing. It was Doctor Smight come back again. Something must have gone wrong with the apparatus and he had returned to comfort her and to taunt her once more and it was too horrible to be endured any longer. Someone grasped her hand.
Helen Ansell opened her eyes.
Her husband Thomas was standing over her. Other faces crowded round. Some of the faces she recognized. Then the faces swam together in a kind of dancing frieze before fading away altogether into a blessed darkness.
The Trial
The jury was out for less than half an hour. The shortness of the time they had been deliberating, the sombre expression on their faces as they filed back in, the clear-cut nature of the crime committed, all of this meant that the verdict could hardly be in doubt. But the formalities had to be gone through.
The clerk of the court addressed the jury but looked steadily at the foreman.
‘Gentlemen, have you agreed upon your verdict?’
‘We have.’
‘Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty of wilful murder?’
‘Guilty.’
There was a sigh of satisfaction and a few whispered comments from the people crowded in the gallery, as if they had just witnessed some particularly successful trick on stage.
‘And is that the verdict of you all?’
‘It is.’
Turning towards the man in the dock, the clerk said, ‘Prisoner at the bar, you stand convicted of the crime of wilful murder. Have you anything to say why this court should not give you the judgement according to law?’
‘There is nothing to say.’
This prompted a fresh outbreak of whispering in the gallery for these were almost the only words which the prisoner had uttered during his brief trial. A court usher called for silence before going to stand next to Mr Justice Barnes. He placed a black cloth over the judge’s wig.
‘Anthony Smight,’ said the judge, ‘you have been found guilty of the heinous crime of murder upon evidence which is as stark and indubitable as any I have ever encountered in many years of passing judgement. You shot and killed a representative of the law as he was going about his duties. It was only the intervention of Superintendent Frank Harcourt and others that prevented you c
arrying out the wickedly planned murder of a lady, and we may say that Superintendent Harcourt gave his own life in the attempt to apprehend you. On the dreadful and abhorrent nature of the crime which you were about to commit and of other crimes which you have almost certainly committed in the recent past, I shall not dwell. I will only say that it must be particularly shocking to all honest men and women when a doctor who, by his oath, his training and, one would hope, his temperament, ought to be dedicated to the saving of life, turns to the destroying of it. Your counsel has done his best in your defence against almost impossible odds while you have chosen not to explain yourself in this court of law and instead maintained an almost Iago-like silence. I cannot but feel that your silence has been a mercy to us all since any attempt at explanation or mitigation would have been a further outrage to all decent feeling.
‘I tell you now, Anthony Smight, that you can and should entertain no expectations of evading the consequences of your actions. The sentence of this court is that you be taken from hence to a lawful prison and from thence to a place of execution, and that you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that your body be buried in the prison where you shall last have been confined. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul.’
Anthony Smight bowed his head slightly before he was led out of the dock by two uniformed constables. The public craned to get their last look at him. What was his expression? Was he distressed, angry, remorseful? They could tell nothing from those lined, sallow features. But Smight did glance upwards for a moment to where Tom and Helen Ansell were sitting. Was that a tiny nod he gave them, a sign of acknowledgement?
Helen gripped Tom’s arm but when she rose to her feet with the rest of the court as the judge departed, she was quite composed and steady. As soon as Mr Justice Barnes had left, there was an outbreak of chatter, even some subdued laughter. Several gentlemen of the press pushed their way through the door to be first in telegraphing news of the verdict to their papers.
The Durham Deception Page 24
