The Durham Deception Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.’
    â€˜It’s not fair,’ said Ethel Smight. ‘It’s not fair.’ She was divided between anger and tears.
    â€˜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
    â€˜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 séance 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.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜I don’t understand.’
    â€˜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