The Luminaries

MERCURY IN AQUARIUS

On the morning of the 20th of March Walter Moody rose before the dawn, rang for hot water, and washed standing at the window, looking over the rooftops as the navy pre-dawn sky faded to grey, then pale blue, then the splendid yellow of a fresh yolk—by which time he was dressed, and descending the stairs, and calling for his toast to be buttered, and his eggs boiled hard. En route to the dining room he lingered in the hallway, leaning his ear towards the door of a locked chamber at the foot of the stairs. After listening a moment he perceived a grainy, rhythmic sound, and continued on, satisfied that the room’s inhabitant was still very sound asleep.

The Crown dining room was empty save for the intermittent presence of the cook, who stifled a yawn as he brought Moody’s pot of tea, and another as he delivered the morning edition of the West Coast Times, the pages slightly damp from the chill of the night. Moody scanned the paper as he ate. The front page was composed chiefly of repeat notices. The banks offered competing terms of interest, each promising the very best price for gold. The hoteliers boasted the various distinctions of their hotels. The grocers and warehousemen listed a full inventory of their wares, and the shipping news reported which passengers had lately departed, and which passengers had lately arrived. The second page of the paper was taken over by a long and rather spiteful review of the latest show at the Prince of Wales (‘so poor in quality as to defy—because it is beneath—criticism’), and several gossipy correspondences from goldfield speculators in the north. Moody turned to the social notices as he finished his second egg, and his eyes came to rest upon a pair of names he recognised. A modest ceremony had been planned. No date had yet been determined. There would be no honeymoon. Cards and other expressions of congratulation could be addressed care of the prospective groom, who took his nightly lodging at the Palace Hotel.

Moody was frowning as he folded the paper, wiped his mouth, and rose from the table—but it was not the engagement, nor the fact of its announcement, that preoccupied his thinking as he returned upstairs to fetch his hat and coat. It was the matter of the forwarding address.

For Moody knew very well that Francis Carver no longer lodged at the Palace Hotel. His rooms at the Palace stood as before, with his frockcoat hanging in the armoire, his trunk set out at the foot of the bed, and his bedclothes mussed and strewn about. He still broke his fast in the Palace dining room every morning, and drank whisky in the Palace parlour every night. He still paid his weekly board to the Palace proprietor—who, as far as Moody had been able to ascertain, remained quite unaware that his most notorious guest was paying two pounds weekly for an unoccupied room. The fact of Carver’s nightly relocation was not commonly known, and were it not for the accident of their conjunction, Moody might have also remained ignorant of the fact that Carver had slept every night since the night of the widow’s séance at the Crown, in a small room next to the kitchen that afforded an unobstructed view up the rutted length of the Kaniere-road.

By seven-thirty Moody was striding eastward along Gibson Quay, dressed in a grey slouch hat, yellow moleskin trousers, leather knee-boots, and a dark woollen coat over a shirt of grey serge. He now donned this costume six days out of seven, much to the amusement of Gascoigne, who had asked him more than once why he had chosen to leave off the piratical red sash, which might have finished off the ensemble very nicely.

Moody had staked a claim close enough to Hokitika to permit his continued board at the Crown Hotel. This arrangement cut into his weekly earnings rather severely, but he preferred it to sleeping in a tent beneath the open sky, something he had attempted only once, to his great discomfort. It took him an hour and twenty minutes to walk to his claim from Hokitika; before the clock struck nine every morning, therefore, he was at his cradle at the creekside, hauling pails of water, whistling, and shovelling sand.

Moody was not, truth be told, a terribly skilful prospector: he was hoping for nuggets rather than panning for dust. Too often the ore-bearing gravel slipped through the netting at the bottom of the cradle, only to be washed away; sometimes he emptied his cradle twice over without finding any flakes at all. He was making what the diggers called ‘pay dirt’, meaning that the sum total of his weekly income was more or less equal to the sum total of his weekly expenditure, but it was a holding pattern he could not sustain. He knew that he ought to heed popular advice, and go mates with another man, or with a party. The chance of striking rich was doubled in a partnership, and the chances multiplied still further in a party of five, or seven, or nine. But his pride would not permit it. He persevered alone, visualising, every hour, the nugget with which he would buy his future life. His dreams at night began to glister, and he began to see flashes of light in the most unlikely places, such that he had to look again, and blink, or close his eyes.

Stepping across the small creek that formed the northern boundary of his claim, Moody was surprised to see the pale silhouette of a tent through the scrub, and beside it, the remains of a fire. He came up short. The Hokitika diggers typically spent their weekends in town, not returning to the field until mid-morning on Monday at the very earliest. Why had this digger not joined his fellows? And what was he doing on another man’s patch of land?

‘Hello there,’ Moody called, meaning to rouse the tent’s inhabitant. ‘Hello.’

At once there came a grunt, and a flurry of motion inside the tent. ‘Sorry,’ someone said. ‘Very sorry—very sorry—’

A Chinese face appeared at the opening, blurred with sleep.

‘No trouble,’ he said. ‘Very sorry.’

‘Mr. Sook?’ said Moody.

Ah Sook squinted up at him.

‘I’m Walter Moody,’ Moody said, placing his hand over his heart. ‘Do you—ah—do you remember me?’

‘Yes, yes.’ Ah Sook knuckled his eyes with his fist.

‘I’m so glad,’ said Moody. ‘This is my claim, you see: from this creek here to those yellow pegs on the southern side.’

‘Very sorry,’ Ah Sook said. ‘No harm done.’

‘No: of course,’ Moody said. ‘In any case, Ah Sook, I’m pleased to see you. Your absence from Kaniere has been noted by a great many people. Myself included. I am very pleased to see you—very pleased, not angry at all. We feared that something had happened to you.’

‘No trouble,’ the hatter said. ‘Tent only. No trouble.’ He disappeared from sight.

‘I can see you’re not causing trouble,’ Moody said. ‘It’s all right, Mr. Sook: I’m not worried about you making camp! I’m not worried about that at all.’

Ah Sook clambered out of the tent, pulling his tunic down as he did so. ‘I will go,’ he said. ‘Five minutes.’ He held up five fingers.

‘It’s all right,’ Moody said. ‘You can sleep here if you like; it’s of no consequence to me.’

‘Last night only,’ said Ah Sook.

‘Yes; but if you want to tent here tonight also, I don’t mind a bit,’ said Moody. His manner was alternating between bluff cheer and clumsy condescension, as it might if he were speaking to someone else’s child.

‘Not tonight,’ said Ah Sook. He began to strike his tent. Hauling the canvas fly, still wet with dew, from the rope over which it had been draped, he revealed the flattened square of earth where he had spent the night: the woollen blanket, twisted, and pressed flat with the tangled imprint of his body; a pot, filled with sand; his leather purse; a panning dish; a string bag containing tea and flour and several wrinkled potatoes; a standard-issue swag. Moody, casting his eye over this meagre inventory, was oddly touched.

‘I say,’ he said, ‘but where have you been, Mr. Sook, this month past? It’s been a full month since the séance—and no one’s heard a word from you!’

‘Digging,’ said Ah Sook, flattening the canvas fly across his chest.

‘You vanished so soon after the séance,’ Moody continued, ‘we rather thought you’d gone the same way as poor old Mr. Staines! No one could make heads or tails of it, you disappearing like that.’

Ah Sook had been folding the fly into quarters; now he paused. ‘Mr. Staines come back?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ Moody said. ‘He’s still missing.’

‘And Francis Carver?’

‘Carver’s still in Hokitika.’

Ah Sook nodded. ‘At the Palace Hotel.’

‘Well, in actual fact, no,’ said Moody, pleased to be given an opportunity to conspire. ‘He’s begun sleeping at the Crown Hotel. In secret. Nobody knows he’s staying there: he’s kept up the pretence that he’s staying at the Palace, and he still pays rent to the Palace proprietor—and keeps his rooms, just as before. But he sleeps every night at the Crown. He arrives well after nightfall, and leaves very early. I only know because I rent the room above.’

Ah Sook had fixed him with a penetrating look. ‘Where?’

‘Carver’s room? Or mine?’

‘Carver.’

‘He sleeps in the room next to the kitchen, on the ground floor,’ said Moody. ‘It faces east. Very near the smoking room—where you and I first met.’

‘A humble room,’ said Ah Sook.

‘Very humble,’ Moody agreed, ‘but he’s got a vantage down the length of the Kaniere-road. He’s keeping watch, you see. He’s watching out for you.’

Walter Moody knew virtually nothing about Ah Sook’s history with Francis Carver, for Ah Sook had not had the opportunity, at the Crown Hotel, to narrate the tale in any detail, and had not been seen since, save for his appearance at the Wayfarer’s Fortune one month ago. Moody wished very much to know the full particulars, but despite his best efforts of surveillance and inquiry—he had become an adept at turning idle conversation, discreetly, to provocative themes—his understanding had not developed beyond what he had learned in the smoking room of the Crown, which was that the history concerned opium, murder, and a declaration of revenge. Ah Quee was the only man to whom Ah Sook had narrated the tale in full, and he did not, alas, possess language enough to share it with any English-speaking man.

‘Every night, at the Crown Hotel?’ said Ah Sook. ‘Tonight?’

‘Yes, he’ll be there tonight,’ said Moody. ‘Though not until well after dark, as I’ve told you.’

‘Not the Palace.’

‘No, not the Palace,’ said Moody. ‘He changed hotels.’

‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook gravely. ‘I understand.’ He went to loose the knot of his guy-rope from the fork of a tree.

‘Who was he?’ said Moody. ‘The murdered man.’

‘My father,’ said Ah Sook.

‘Your father,’ said Moody. After a moment, he said, ‘How was he killed? I mean—forgive me, but—what happened?’

‘A long time ago,’ said Ah Sook. ‘Before the war.’

‘The opium wars,’ said Moody, prompting him.

‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook, but he did not go on. He began to reel in the guy-rope, using his forearm as a spool.

‘What happened?’ said Moody.

‘Profit,’ said Ah Sook, giving his explanation flatly.

‘Profit of what kind?’

Clearly Ah Sook thought this was a very stupid question; perceiving this, Moody rushed on to ask another. ‘I mean—was your father—was he in the opium business, as you are?’

Ah Sook said nothing. He withdrew his forearm from the loop of rope, twisted it into a figure-eight, and secured it onto his swag. Once it was affixed, he sat back on his haunches, regarded Moody coolly for a moment, and then leaned over and spat, very deliberately, into the dirt.

Moody drew back. ‘Forgive me,’ he murmured. ‘I ought not to pry.’

Walter Moody had told nobody at all that Crosbie Wells was the bastard brother of the politician Lauderback. He had decided, in the hours following this discovery, that the intelligence was not his to share. His reasons for this concealment were deeply felt, but vaguely articulated. A man should not be made to answer for his family. It was wrong to expose a man’s private correspondence without his consent. He did not want to perform this exposure himself. But these reasons, even when taken together, did not quite comprise the whole truth, which was that Moody had compared himself to both men many times over the past month, and felt a profound kinship with each of them, though in very different ways: with the bastard, for his desperation; with the politician, for his pride. This double comparison had become the habitual project of his meditations every day, as he stood in the chill water and ran clods of earth and metal through his hands.

Ah Sook stuffed the last of his possessions into his swag, and then sat down upon it to lace his boots.

Moody could not bear it any longer. He burst out, ‘You know you will be hanged. If you take Carver’s life, you will be hanged. They’ll take your life, Mr. Sook, if you take his, no matter what your provocation.’

‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook. ‘I understand.’

‘It will not be a fair trial—not for you.’

‘No,’ Ah Sook agreed. The prospect did not appear to distress him. He knelt by the fire, picked up a twig, and stirred the damp earth that he had placed over the embers the night before. Below the earth the coals were still warm, dark as matted blood.

‘What are you going to do?’ said Moody, watching him. ‘Shoot him down?’

‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook.

‘When?’ said Moody.

‘Tonight,’ said Ah Sook. ‘At the Crown Hotel.’ He appeared to be digging for something beneath the coals. Presently his stick struck something hard. Using the end as a lever, he flipped the object out onto the grass: it was a little tin tea caddy, black with soot. The box was evidently still hot: he wrapped his sleeve around his hand before he picked it up.

‘Show us your arms,’ said Moody.

Ah Sook looked up.

‘Go on and show us your arms,’ said Moody, suddenly flushed. ‘There are pistols and there are pistols, Mr. Sook: you have to know your powder, as my own father used to say.’

It was rare he quoted his father in company, Adrian Moody’s habitual phrases being, in general, unsuitable to civil conversation, and Walter Moody being, in general, disinclined to reference him.

‘I buy a pistol,’ said Ah Sook.

‘Good,’ said Moody. ‘Where is it?’

‘Not yet,’ said Ah Sook.

‘You haven’t bought it yet?’

‘Today,’ said Ah Sook. He opened the caddy, and poured a handful of golden flakes into his palm. Moody realised that he must have buried the box in the earth beneath his fire, in case he was robbed during the night.

‘What kind of pistol are you going to buy?’

‘From Tiegreen’s.’ With his free hand he reached for his purse.

‘What manufacturer, I meant. What kind.’

‘Tiegreen’s,’ said Ah Sook again. He opened the mouth of the purse one-handed, to transfer the gold into it.

‘That’s the name of the store,’ Moody said. ‘What kind of pistol are you going to buy? Are you a weapons man?’

‘To shoot Francis Carver,’ said Ah Sook.

‘Tiegreen’s won’t do for you,’ Moody said, shaking his head. ‘You might go there to buy a fowling piece … or a rifle of some kind … but they won’t furnish you with a pistol. A military weapon is what you want. Not every ball of shot will kill a man, you see, and the last thing you want is to do the job by halves. Heavens, Mr. Sook! A pistol is not just a piece of hardware—just as a horse is not merely a … mode of transport,’ he said, rounding off this comparison rather lamely.

Ah Sook did not reply. He had chosen Tiegreen’s Hardware and Supply for two reasons: firstly, because the store was located beside the Palace Hotel, and secondly, because the shopkeeper was sympathetic to Chinese men. The first consideration no longer mattered, of course, but the second consideration was an important one: Ah Sook had planned to ask Mr. Tiegreen to load the piece for him, in the store, so that the deed could be carried out the very same day. He had never fired a pistol. He knew the basic principles behind the design, however, and he guessed it was not a skill that required a great deal of practice.

‘Go to the outfitters on Camp-street,’ Moody said. ‘Right beside the Deutsches Gasthaus. The building that shows the peak of the roof behind the sham. The sign isn’t painted yet, but the proprietors are Brunton, Solomon & Barnes, and the door should be open. When you get there, ask for a Kerr Patent. Don’t let them sell you anything else: it’s a British military piece, very sound, and it will do the job. The cost for a Kerr Patent is five pounds even. Any more than five pounds, and they’re robbing you.’

‘Five pounds?’ Ah Sook looked down at the gold in his purse. He had had no idea that a pistol could be got for such a reasonable sum! He had been quoted a figure twice that much. ‘Kerr Patent,’ he repeated, to remember it. ‘Camp-street. Thank you, Mr. Moody.’

‘What are you going to do,’ Moody said, ‘when the deed is done? When Carver’s dead? Will you turn yourself in? Will you try to make a run for it?’ All of a sudden he felt absurdly excited.

But Ah Sook only shook his head. He closed the mouth of his purse and then wrapped the purse tightly in a square of cloth. At last he rose, swinging his swag onto his back as he did so, and tucking the bundled object very carefully into his pocket.

‘This claim,’ he said, gesturing. ‘Pay dirt only. Very small gold.’

Moody waved his hand. ‘Yes. I know.’

‘No ’bounders here,’ said Ah Sook.

‘No homeward-bounders,’ said Moody, nodding. ‘You needn’t spell it out, Mr. Sook: I know the truth of it.’

Ah Sook peered at him. ‘Go north,’ he said. ‘Black sands. Very lucky in the north. No nuggets here. Too close to town.’

‘Charleston,’ said Moody. ‘Yes. There’s fortunes to be made, in Charleston.’

Ah Sook nodded. ‘Black sands,’ he said. He stepped forward, and Moody saw that he was holding the soot-blackened tea caddy in both hands. He proffered it, and Moody, surprised, extended his own hands to receive it. Ah Sook did not release the gift at once: he bowed low over it, and Moody, copying him, bowed also.

‘Juk neih houwahn,’ said Ah Sook, but he provided no translation, and Moody did not ask for one. He straightened, tin box in hand, and watched the hatter walk away.

SUN IN PISCES

What was glimpsed in Aquarius—what was envisioned, believed in, prophesied, predicted, doubted, and forewarned—is made, in Pisces, manifest. Those solitary visions that, but a month ago, belonged only to the dreamer, will now acquire the form and substance of the real. We were of our own making, and we shall be our own end.

And after Pisces? Out of the womb, the bloody birth. We do not follow: we cannot cross from last to first. Aries will not admit a collective point of view, and Taurus will not relinquish the subjective. Gemini’s code is an exclusive one. Cancer seeks a source, Leo, a purpose, and Virgo, a design; but these are projects undertaken singly. Only in the zodiac’s second act will we begin to show ourselves: in Libra, as a notion, in Scorpio, as a quality, and in Sagittarius, as a voice. In Capricorn we will gain memory, and in Aquarius, vision; it is only in Pisces, the last and oldest of the zodiacal signs, that we acquire a kind of selfhood, something whole. But the doubled fish of Pisces, that mirrored womb of self and self-awareness, is an ourobouros of mind—both the will of fate, and the fated will—and the house of self-undoing is a prison built by prisoners, airless, doorless, and mortared from within.

These alterations come upon us irrevocably, as the hands of the clock-face come upon the hour.

Lydia Wells had not hosted a séance a second time. She was well apprised of the charlatan’s motto that one must never repeat the very same trick to the very same crowd—but when she was accused, because of this, of being a charlatan herself, she only laughed. She had admitted, in an open letter in the West Coast Times, that her attempt to communicate with the shade of Mr. Staines had been unsuccessful. This failure, as she reported, was unprecedented in her professional experience, an anomaly that suggested to her that the afterlife had been unable, rather than unwilling, to produce him. From this, she wrote, one could only conclude that Mr. Staines was not dead after all, and she signed off expressing her confident anticipation of the young man’s eventual return.

This statement confounded the men of the Crown considerably; it had the effect, however (common to all of the widow’s strategies), of enhancing the value of her enterprise, and following its publication the Wayfarer’s Fortune began to do a very good trade. The establishment was open every evening between the hours of seven and ten, offering cut-price brandy and conversation of the speculative sort. Fortune telling happened in the afternoons, by private appointment only, and Anna Wetherell, in continuance with former policy, was not seen.

Anna only left the Wayfarer’s Fortune to take her daily exercise, in which she was accompanied, invariably, by Mrs. Wells, who was not insensible of the myriad benefits of daily perambulation, and who often said that there was nothing she liked better than a stroll. Together, arm in arm, the two women walked the length of Revell-street every morning, setting out to the north, and returning down the opposite side. They examined the contents of each window box as they passed, purchased milk and sugar, when milk and sugar could be got, and greeted the Hokitika regulars very blandly and impassively indeed.

That morning they had taken their daily walk earlier than usual, for Lydia Wells had an appointment at the Hokitika Courthouse at nine. She had been summoned to appear before the Magistrate about a legal matter pertaining to the estate of her late husband, Crosbie Wells, and the wording of the summons had intimated that the news was likely good: at ten minutes before nine, the front door of the Wayfarer’s Fortune opened, and Lydia Wells, her copper hair shining splendidly against a gown of midnight blue, stepped out into the sunshine.

Cowell Devlin watched Mrs. Wells exit the hotel and descend the steps to the street, drawing her shawl tightly around her shoulders, and smiling at the men who paused in their daily business to stare at her. He waited until she had disappeared into the throng of the crowd, and then waited five minutes more, to be safe. Then he crossed the street to the Wayfarer’s Fortune, mounted the steps to the veranda, and, after glancing back at the blank façade of the Courthouse, knocked upon the door. He was holding his battered Bible against his chest.

The door opened almost at once.

‘Miss Wetherell,’ Devlin said, removing his hat with his free hand. ‘Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Cowell Devlin; I am the resident chaplain of the Hokitika Gaol. I have in my possession a document that I expect will be of great interest to you, and I hope to gain a private audience with you, in order to discuss it.’

‘I remember you,’ said Anna. ‘You were there when I woke up in gaol after my blackout.’

‘Yes,’ Devlin said.

‘You prayed for me.’

‘And I have prayed for you many times since.’

She looked surprised. ‘Have you?’

‘Fervently,’ the chaplain replied.

‘What did you say you wanted?’

Devlin repeated his intentions.

‘What do you mean, a document?’

‘I would prefer not to produce it here. May I come in?’

She hesitated. ‘Mrs. Wells is out.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Devlin said. ‘In fact I saw her entering the Courthouse just now, and hastened here with the precise hope that I might speak with you alone. I confess I have been waiting for just such an opportunity for some time. May I come in?’

‘I’m not supposed to receive guests when she’s not here.’

‘I have but one item of business to speak with you about,’ Devlin said calmly, ‘and I am a member of the clergy, and this is a respectable hour. Would your mistress deny you so little?’

Anna’s mistress would certainly her deny so little, and a great deal more—it being against the widow’s policy ever to admit exceptions to the regulations she imposed at whim. But in a moment Anna decided to be reckless.

‘Come through into the kitchen,’ she said, ‘and I’ll make us a pot of tea.’

‘You are most kind.’

Devlin followed her down the corridor to the kitchen at the rear of the house, where he waited, still standing, for Anna to fill the kettle and place it on the stove. She had certainly become extraordinarily thin. Her cheeks were hollow, and her skin had a waxy sheen; her wasted carriage bespoke malnourishment, and when she moved, it was with a trembling exhaustion, as though she had not eaten a decent meal in weeks. Devlin glanced quickly around the kitchen. On the washboard the plates from breakfast had been stacked to dry, and he counted two of everything, including two ceramic egg cups, printed with a raised blackberry design. Unless Lydia Wells had had a guest to dine early that morning—which was doubtful—then Anna must have eaten breakfast, at least. There was a half-round of bread on the breadboard, wrapped in a linen cloth, and the butter dish had not yet been put away.

‘Will you have a biscuit with your tea?’

‘You are most kind,’ Devlin said again, and then, embarrassed at having repeated the platitude, he rushed on: ‘I was gratified, Miss Wetherell, to learn that you had conquered your dependence upon the Chinese drug.’

‘Mrs. Wells won’t permit it in the house,’ Anna said, swiping a strand of hair from her face. She fetched the biscuit tin from the pantry shelf.

‘She is right to be strict,’ Devlin said, ‘but it is you who deserves congratulation. You must have shown great fortitude, in throwing off your dependency. I have known grown men who have not managed such a feat.’

Whenever Devlin was nervous, his speech became very formal and correct.

‘I just stopped,’ Anna said.

‘Yes,’ Devlin said, nodding, ‘an abrupt cessation is the only way, of course. But you must have battled every kind of temptation, in the days and weeks afterward.’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘I just didn’t need it any more.’

‘You are too modest.’

‘I’m not mincing,’ Anna said. ‘I kept going, for a while—until the lump ran out. I ate all of it. But I just couldn’t feel it any more.’

Devlin appraised her with a calculating look. ‘Have you found that your health has much improved, since your cessation?’

‘I expect it has,’ Anna said, fanning the biscuits in an arc over the plate. ‘I’m well enough.’

‘I am sorry to contradict you, Miss Wetherell, but you do not seem at all well.’

‘You mean I’m too thin.’

‘You are very thin, my dear.’

‘I’m cold,’ said Anna. ‘I’m always cold these days.’

‘I expect that is on account of your being very thin.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I expect so too.’

‘I have observed,’ Devlin said after a moment, ‘in persons of low morale—particularly those who have contemplated suicide—that the loss of appetite is a common symptom.’

‘I have an appetite,’ she said. ‘I eat. I just can’t seem to keep the weight on.’

‘Do you eat every day?’

‘Three meals,’ she said, ‘two of them hot. I manage the cooking for both of us.’

‘Mrs. Wells must be very grateful,’ Devlin said, speaking in a tone that made it clear he did not entirely believe her.

‘Yes,’ she said, vaguely. She turned away to fetch cups and saucers from the rack above the washboard.

‘Will you continue in your present circumstances after Mrs. Wells is married?’ Devlin inquired.

‘I expect so.’

‘I imagine that Mr. Carver will take up residence here.’

‘Yes, I believe he means to.’

‘Their engagement was announced in the West Coast Times this morning. It was a very modest announcement; even, one might have said, subdued. But a wedding is always a happy event.’

‘I love a wedding,’ Anna said.

‘Yes,’ said Devlin. ‘A happy event—no matter what the circumstances.’

It had been suggested, following the scandal precipitated by George Shepard’s letter to the editor of the West Coast Times one month ago, that only remarriage could ameliorate the damage the widow’s reputation had sustained. Mrs. Wells’s claim upon Crosbie Wells’s inheritance had been considerably weakened by the revelation that she had made him a cuckold in the years before his death, and her position had been weakened still further by the fact that Alistair Lauderback had made a full and very frank confession. In a public reply to George Shepard, Lauderback admitted that he had concealed the fact of the affair from the voting public, to whom he offered his sincere apologies. He wrote that he had never been more ashamed of himself, and that he accepted full responsibility for all consequences, and that until the day he died he would regret that he had arrived at Mr. Wells’s cottage half an hour too late to beg the man’s forgiveness. The confession had its desired effect; indeed, by the outpouring of sympathy and admiration that followed it, some even supposed Lauderback’s reputation to have been improved.

Anna had finished arranging the saucers. ‘Let us go into the parlour,’ she said. ‘I’ll hear the kettle when it boils.’

She left the tray, and padded back down the corridor to the parlour, which was set up for the widow’s afternoon appointments, with the two largest armchairs drawn very close to one another, and the curtains closed. Devlin waited for Anna to sit before he did so himself, and then he opened his Bible and withdrew the charred deed of gift from between its pages. He handed it to her without a word.

Anna took up the deed with a rather glazed look: she was all but illiterate, and did not expect to make sense of the words in a single glance. She knew her alphabet, and could sound out a line of print if she worked very slowly and in a very good light; it was a laborious task, however, and she made many errors. But in the next moment she snatched it up, and, with an exclamation of surprise, held it close to her eyes.

‘I can read this,’ she said, speaking almost in a whisper.

Devlin did not know that Anna had never learned to read, and this pronouncement was not remarkable to him. ‘I found this document in the bottom of Crosbie Wells’s stove the day after his death,’ he said. ‘As you can see, it is an extraordinary sum of money—still more because the sum is intended as a bequest—and I confess I do not know quite what to make of it. I must warn you at the outset that, in terms of legality, the document is not good. Mr. Staines did not sign his name, which, in turn, makes Mr. Wells’s signature invalid. The witness cannot sign before the principal.’

Anna said nothing. She was still looking at the paper.

‘Have you ever seen this document before?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Did you know of its existence?’

‘No!’

Devlin was alarmed: she had almost shouted the word. ‘What is it?’ he said.

‘I just—’ Her hand went to her throat. ‘May I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘Have you ever—I mean, in your experience—’ She stopped herself, bit her lip, and began again. ‘Do you know why I can read this?’

His eyes were searching hers. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

‘I never learned to read,’ Anna explained, ‘not properly. I mean—I can sound out a line of letters—and I know labels and signs; but that’s more like remembering than reading, because I see them every day. I could never read a paper. Not front to back. It would take me hours and hours. But this—I can read it. Without any effort, I mean. Quick as thinking.’

‘Read it out loud.’

She did, fluently.

Devlin was frowning. ‘Are you quite sure that you have never seen this document before?’

‘Quite sure,’ Anna said.

‘Did you know already that Mr. Staines intended to give you two thousand pounds?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘What about Mr. Wells? Did you ever speak with Mr. Wells about it?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m telling you: it’s the first I’ve seen of it.’

‘Perhaps,’ Devlin said, ‘if you had been told about it—but you had forgotten …’

‘I wouldn’t forget a dirty great fortune,’ said Anna.

Devlin paused, watching her. Then he said, ‘One hears stories of children with Continental nannies, waking up one day, and speaking fluent Dutch, or French, or German, or whatever it is—’

‘I never had a nanny.’

‘—but I have never heard of a person suddenly acquiring the ability to read,’ he finished. ‘That is most peculiar.’

There was a sceptical accent in his voice.

‘I never had a nanny,’ Anna said again.

Devlin sat forward. ‘Miss Wetherell,’ he said, ‘your name is associated with a great many unsolved crimes, including a possible murder, and I am sure that I do not need to impress upon you the gravity of a Supreme Court trial. Let us talk frankly—and in confidence.’ He pointed at the deed in Anna’s hand. ‘This bequest was written three months before Mr. Staines disappeared. It represents exactly half of the Wells inheritance. Mr. Wells died the very day that Mr. Staines vanished, and on the morning after his death I found this paper in the stove. The events are clearly related, and a lawyer will be able to join the dots, even if I cannot. If you are in a difficult position, I may be able to help you; but I cannot help you if you do not trust me. I am asking you to take me into your confidence, and tell me what you know.’

Anna was frowning. ‘This paper doesn’t have anything to do with the Wells inheritance,’ she said. ‘This is about Emery’s money, not Crosbie’s.’

‘You are right; but it is doubtful that the gold discovered in Mr. Wells’s cottage ever belonged to Mr. Wells,’ Devlin said. ‘You see, the ore was not discovered pure: it had been smelted by a goldsmith, and pressed into a kind of bullion. The smelting bears a signature, and by this signature the bank has been able to trace the gold back to a goldmine belonging to Mr. Staines. The Aurora.’

‘The what?’ said Anna.

‘The Aurora,’ Devlin said. ‘That’s the name of the goldmine.’

‘Oh,’ she said. She was clearly confused; feeling pity for her, Devlin explained it all again, more slowly. This time she understood. ‘So the fortune was Emery’s, all along?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Devlin, cautiously.

‘And he meant to give exactly half of it to me!’

‘This document certainly seems to imply that Mr. Staines meant to give you two thousand pounds—and that Mr. Wells, as of the night of the eleventh of October, knew about this intention, and possibly even endorsed it. But as I have already told you, the document is not valid: Mr. Staines never signed.’

‘What if he did sign it?’

‘Until Mr. Staines is found,’ Devlin said, ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done.’ He watched her for a moment, and then said, ‘It has taken me a very long time to bring this document to your attention, Miss Wetherell, and for that I ask your forgiveness. The reason is simply that I have been waiting for a chance to speak with you alone; as you know, those chances have been very hard to come by.’

‘Who knows about this?’ she said suddenly. ‘Besides you and me.’

Devlin hesitated. ‘Governor Shepard,’ he said, deciding to tell the truth, but not the whole truth. ‘I spoke with him about the matter perhaps a month ago.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He imagined that it must have been a joke of some kind.’

‘A joke?’ She looked crestfallen. ‘What kind of a joke?’

Devlin reached forward to take her hand, crushing her fingers slightly in his sympathy. ‘Don’t be disappointed, my dear. It is the poor in spirit who are blessed, and every one of us awaits a much greater inheritance than any that can be gifted in gold.’

There came a shrill piping from the kitchen, and a hiss as the hot water spouted onto the cast-iron plate.

‘There’s our kettle,’ said Devlin, smiling at her.

‘Reverend,’ Anna said, withdrawing her hand from his grip, ‘would you mind very much if I asked you to pour out the tea? I’m feeling a little strange, and I would like some time alone.’

‘Certainly,’ said Cowell Devlin with courtesy, and he left the room.

As soon as he was gone Anna rose and crossed the parlour in two quick steps, the charred deed of gift still in her hand. Her heart was beating fast. She stood unmoving for a moment, gathering confidence, and then, in one fluid motion, she went to the widow’s writing desk, laid the deed of gift upon the table, uncorked a pot of ink, picked up Mrs. Wells’s pen, wet the nib in the inkwell, leaned forward, and wrote:

Anna had never seen Emery Staines’s signature before, but she knew without a doubt that she had replicated the form of it exactly. The letters of Staines’s last name followed a careless diminution, and the letters of his first were cheerfully illegible; the signature was confidently sloppy, and underlined with a casual relish, as if to say that the shape had been formed so many times before as not to be disproved by any minor variation. There was a doubled curlicue preceding the E—a personal touch—and the S had a slightly flattened quality.

‘What have you done?’

Devlin was standing in the doorway with the tea tray in his hands and an expression of fearsome admonition on his face. He set the tray upon the sideboard with a clatter and advanced upon her, holding out his hand. Mutely, Anna passed the document to him, and he snatched it up. For a moment, his outrage was such that he could not speak; then he controlled himself, and said, very quietly,

‘This is an act of fraud.’

‘Maybe,’ said Anna.

‘What?’ Devlin shouted, suddenly furious. He rounded on her. ‘What did you say?’

He had expected her to cower, but she did not. ‘That’s his signature,’ she said. ‘The deed is good.’

‘That is not his signature,’ Devlin said.

‘It is,’ said Anna.

‘That is a forgery,’ Devlin snapped. ‘You have just committed forgery.’

‘Maybe I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Anna.

‘Your insolence is unbecoming,’ Devlin said. ‘Will you add the crime of perjury to the crime of fraud?’

‘Maybe I don’t know anything about fraud.’

‘The truth will bear out,’ said Devlin. ‘There are analysts, Miss Wetherell, who can tell a forgery at sight.’

‘Not this one,’ Anna said.

‘Do not delude yourself,’ Devlin said. ‘Shame on you.’

But Anna was feeling quite without delusion, and quite without shame; she was feeling, in fact, sharper than she had felt in many months. Now that Emery Staines’s signature was upon the deed of gift, it was no longer invalid. By the authority of this document, two thousand pounds must be given, as a present, to Miss Anna Wetherell, by Mr. Emery Staines; the deed had been signed, and witnessed, and the signature of the donor was a good one. Who could fault her word, when one of the signatories had vanished, and the other was dead?

‘Can I look at it again?’ she said, and Devlin, red-faced with anger, handed the deed back to her. Once it was in her hand, Anna darted away, loosed the bodice of Agathe Gascoigne’s dress, and slipped the paper between the buttons, so that it lay against her skin. Placing her hands over her bodice, she stood a moment, panting, her eyes searching Devlin’s—who had not moved. There was ten feet of space between them.

‘For shame,’ Devlin said quietly. ‘Explain yourself.’

‘I want a second opinion, that’s all.’

‘You have just falsified that deed, Miss Wetherell.’

‘That can’t be proved.’

‘By my oath, it can.’

‘What’s to stop me swearing an oath against you?’

‘That would be a falsehood,’ Devlin said. ‘And it would be a very grave falsehood, if you swore to it in court, which you would certainly be forced to do. Don’t be foolish.’

‘I’ll get a second opinion,’ she said again. ‘I’ll go to the Courthouse and ask.’

‘Miss Wetherell,’ Devlin said. ‘Calm yourself. Think. It would be the word of a minister against the word of a whore.’

‘I’m not whoring any more.’

‘A former whore,’ said Devlin. ‘Forgive me.’

He took a step towards her, and Anna retreated. Her hand was still pressed flat over her breast.

‘If you come one step closer,’ she said, ‘I’ll scream, and I’ll rip my bodice open, and say you did it. They’ll hear me from the street. They’ll rush in.’

Devlin had never before been threatened in this way. ‘I will come no closer,’ he said, with dignity. ‘I will retreat, in fact, and at once.’ He returned to the chair he had formerly occupied, and sat down. ‘I do not wish to brawl with you,’ he said, speaking quietly now. ‘I do wish to ask you several questions, however.’

‘Go on,’ said Anna, still breathing hard. ‘Ask.’

Devlin decided upon a direct approach. ‘Did you know that the gowns you purchased salvage last winter had once belonged to Lydia Wells?’

Anna gaped at him.

‘Kindly answer the question,’ Devlin said. ‘I am referring to the five gowns which Mrs. Wells used to blackmail Mr. Alistair Lauderback, with Francis Carver’s help.’

‘What?’ she said.

‘The gowns,’ Devlin went on, ‘which each contained a small fortune in pure ore, stitched into the lining, around the bodice, and around the hem. One of these dresses was made of orange silk; the other four were muslin, and coloured cream, grey, pale blue, and striped pink. These four are currently stowed in a box beneath the stairs at the Gridiron Hotel; the orange gown is in the possession of Mr. Aubert Gascoigne, at his private residence.’

He had her full attention now. ‘How do you know this?’ she whispered.

‘I have made it my business to find out a good deal about you,’ said Devlin. ‘Now answer the question.’

Her face was pale. ‘Only the orange gown had gold,’ she said. ‘The other four had makeweights—made of lead.’

‘Did you know that they had once belonged to Lydia Wells?’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘Not for sure.’

‘But you suspected it.’

‘I—I’d heard something,’ she said. ‘Months ago.’

‘When did you first discover what the gowns contained?’

‘The night after Emery disappeared.’

‘After you were gaoled for attempted suicide.’

‘Yes.’

‘And Mr. Gascoigne paid your bail, on promise, and together you took apart the orange gown at his cottage on Revell-street, and hid the tatters under his bed, thereafter.’

‘How—?’ she whispered. She looked terrified.

Devlin did not pause. ‘Presumably, after you returned to the Gridiron that evening, your first move was to go back to your wardrobe and check the four remaining gowns.’

‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘But I didn’t cut them open. I only felt along the seams. I didn’t know that it was lead that I was feeling: I thought it was more colour.’

‘In that case,’ Devlin said, ‘you must have believed that you were suddenly extraordinarily rich.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you did not open the hems of those dresses, in order to use that gold to repay your debt to Edgar Clinch.’

‘Later, I did,’ said Anna. ‘The following week. That’s when I found the makeweights.’

‘But even then,’ Devlin said, ‘you did not tell Mr. Gascoigne what you surmised. Instead, you pretended helplessness and ignorance, claimed to have no money, and begged him for aid!’

‘How do you know all this?’ Anna said.

‘I will ask the questions, thank you,’ Devlin said. ‘What were you intending to do with that gold?’

‘I wanted to keep it back,’ Anna said. ‘As a nest egg. And I didn’t have anywhere to hide the metal. I thought I might ask Emery about it. There was no one else I trusted. But by then he was gone.’

‘What about Lydia Wells?’ Devlin said. ‘What about Lydia Wells, who came to the Gridiron that same afternoon—who paid your debt to Mr. Clinch—and who has shown you every kind of hospitality ever since?’

‘No.’ Anna’s voice had become very small.

‘You never told her about those gowns?’

‘No.’

‘Because you suspected they had once belonged to her.’

‘I’d heard something,’ Anna said. ‘I never knew—not for certain—but I knew that there was something—and she was desirous to get them back.’

Devlin folded his arms. Anna was plainly fearful of how much he knew about her situation, and how he had come to know it. This pained him, but he reflected that, given the circumstances, it was better to keep her frightened, than to risk her becoming bold. It would not do, to have her flapping that forged signature about.

‘Where is Mr. Staines?’ he said next.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I think you do.’

‘No,’ she said.

‘I shall remind you that you have committed serious fraud by forging a signature in a dead man’s hand.’

‘He’s not dead.’

Devlin nodded; he had been hoping for a definite answer. ‘How do you know that?’

Anna did not reply, so Devlin said again, more sharply, ‘How do you know that, Miss Wetherell?’

‘I’ve been getting messages,’ Anna said at last.

‘From Mr. Staines?’

‘Yes.’

‘What kind of messages?’

‘They’re private.’

‘How does he communicate them?’

‘Not with words,’ said Anna.

‘How then?’

‘I just feel him.’

‘You feel him?’

‘Inside my head.’

Devlin exhaled.

‘I suppose you doubt my word now,’ Anna said.

‘I most certainly do,’ Devlin said. ‘It goes rather hand in hand with your being a fraudster, I’m afraid.’

Anna thumped a hand over the paper hidden in her breast. ‘You held onto this for a mighty long time,’ she said.

Devlin glared at her. He opened his mouth to make a retort, but before he could find the words, he heard brisk steps upon the porch, and the rattle of the door handle, and the sudden noise of the street as the front door swung inwards, and someone walked in. Anna looked at Devlin with frightened eyes. The widow had returned from the Courthouse, and she was calling Anna’s name.

SATURN IN VIRGO

George Shepard had spent the morning of the 20th of March supervising various deliveries of materials and hardware to the site of the future gaol-house at Seaview—which, two months into the project of its construction, was looking more and more imposing every day. The walls had gone up, the chimneys had been bricked, and inside the main residence the fortified doors had all been fitted and hung in their steel frames. There were still many details to be ironed out, of course—the lamps had yet to be delivered; the gaol-house kitchen still lacked a stove; there was still no glass in the gaoler’s cottage windows; the pit beneath the gallows had not yet been dug—but all in all everything had moved splendidly quickly, thanks to Harald Nilssen’s four-hundred pound ‘donation’, and additional funding, finally paid out, from the Westland Public Works Committee, the Hokitika Council, and the Municipal Board. Shepard had predicted that the felons could be moved from the Police Camp before the end of April, and several of them already spent their nights upon the Seaview premises, watched over by Shepard, who preferred, now that the prison was so near completion, to sleep there also, and to take his suppers cold.

When the bell in the Wesleyan chapel rang out noon Shepard was in the future asylum, digging an alternate pit for the latrine. As the sound of the bell drifted up from the town below the foreman called for the felons to break. Shepard put down his spade, wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve, and clambered bodily out of the hole—perceiving as he did so that a young ginger-haired man was standing on the far side of the iron gate, peering through the bars, and evidently waiting for an interview.

‘Mr. Everard,’ Shepard said, striding forward.

‘Gov. Shepard.’

‘What brings you up to Seaview this morning? Not idle curiosity, I think.’

‘I’d hoped to beg an audience with you, sir.’

‘I trust you haven’t been waiting long.’

‘Not at all.’

‘Do you wish to come in? I can call for the gate to be unlocked.’ Shepard was still perspiring from his recent exertion: he mopped his forehead a second time with his sleeve.

‘It’s all right,’ the man said. ‘I’ve only got a message.’

‘Deliver it,’ said Shepard. He placed his hands on his hips.

‘I’ve come on behalf of Mr. Barnes. Of Brunton, Solomon and Barnes.’

‘I do not know any of those men.’

‘They’re outfitters. They’ve a new warehouse,’ said Everard. ‘On Camp-street. Only the sign hasn’t been painted yet. Sir,’ he added hastily.

‘Continue,’ Shepard said, still with his hands on his hips.

‘A couple months back you made it known that you’d be very grateful for a watch to be placed on a certain Chinaman.’

Shepard’s expression sharpened at once. ‘You remember rightly.’

‘I’m here to report to you that a Chinaman bought a pistol this morning,’ the young man said.

‘From Mr. Barnes’s establishment, I presume.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Where is this Chinaman now?’

‘I couldn’t tell you that,’ said Everard. ‘I saw Barnes just now, and he said he’d sold a Kerr Patent to a Chinaman this morning, and I came straight to you. I don’t know if the Chinaman in question is your man or not … but I thought it would do well to advise you, either way.’

Shepard offered neither thanks nor congratulation for this. ‘How long ago did the sale occur?’

‘Two hours ago at least. Perhaps more. Barnes said that the fellow must have acted on a tip: he wouldn’t lay down any more than five pounds for the Kerr. Five pounds even, he kept saying, like he’d been tipped. He knew not to be overcharged.’

‘How did he pay for it?’

‘With a paper note.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes,’ said Everard. ‘He loaded the piece in the store.’

‘Who loaded it?’

‘Barnes. On the Chinaman’s behalf.’

Shepard nodded. ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Now. Listen closely. You go back to Hokitika, Mr. Everard, and you tell every man you see that George Shepard is on the lookout for a Chinaman called Sook. Let it be known that if anybody sees Johnny Sook in town today, no matter what for and no matter where, I’m to be sent for, at once.’

‘Shall you offer a reward for the man’s capture?’

‘Don’t say anything about a reward, but don’t deny it either, if anyone asks.’

The young man drew himself up. ‘Am I to be your deputy?’

Shepard did not answer at once. ‘If you come upon Johnny Sook,’ he said at last, ‘and you find a way to apprehend him without a great deal of fuss, then I shall turn a blind eye to whatever your method of capture might have been. That’s as much as I will say.’

‘I understand you, sir.’

‘There’s another thing you can do for me,’ said Shepard. ‘Do you know a man named Francis Carver by sight?’

‘The man with the scar on his face.’

‘Yes,’ said Shepard. ‘I want you to take him a message for me. You’ll find him at the Palace Hotel.’

‘What’s it to be, sir?’

‘Tell him exactly what you just told me,’ said Shepard. ‘And then tell him to buckle on his holsters.’

Everard sagged a little. ‘Is he your deputy, then?’

‘I don’t have a deputy,’ Shepard said. ‘Go on now. We’ll speak later.’

‘All right.’

Shepard raised his arms and placed his hands on the bars of the gate; he watched the youth’s retreating form. Then he called, ‘Mr. Everard!’

The young man stopped and turned. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do you want to be a lawman?’

He brightened. ‘One day, I hope, sir.’

‘The best lawmen can enforce the law without a badge,’ Shepard said, gazing at him coolly through the bars of the gate. ‘Remember that.’

Emery Staines had now been absent for over eight weeks, an interval judged by the Magistrate to be sufficient to nullify ownership of all gold-bearing ground. By the Magistrate’s ruling, all mines and claims owned by Mr. Staines had been returned to the Crown, a repossession that had taken effect on Friday of the previous week. The Aurora, naturally, was one of the many claims surrendered, and as a consequence of this surrender, Quee Long had been released, at long last, from his fruitless obligation to that barren patch of ground. He made for Hokitika first thing Monday, in order to inquire where he was to be indentured next, and to whom.

Ah Quee disliked going to the Company offices very much, for he was never treated courteously while he was there, and he was always made to wait. He bore the officials’ jeers with equanimity, however, and pretended not to notice as their junior clerks flicked him with pellets made of spit and paper, and held their noses whenever they passed the chair in which he sat. At length he was invited forward to explain his purpose to the bureaucrat at the front desk. After another long delay, the purpose of which was not explained to him, he was allocated another claim in Kaniere, given a receipt of the transfer, and sent on his way—by which time the ginger-haired Mr. Everard had reached Hokitika proper, and was dispensing George Shepard’s message left and right.

As Ah Quee exited the Company offices on Weld-street, clutching the paper proof of his indenture in his hand, he heard somebody shout. He looked up, confused, and saw to his alarm that he was being rushed at from both sides. He cried out, and flung up his arm. In the next moment he was on the ground.

‘Where’s the pistol, Johnny Sook?’

‘Where’s the pistol?’

‘Check in his waistband.’

There were hands on his body, patting and punching. Somebody aimed a kick at his ribs and he gasped.

‘Stashed it, most likely.’

‘What’s that you’ve got? Coolie papers?’

His indenture was wrenched from his hand, scanned briefly, and tossed aside.

‘Now what?’

‘Now what have you got to say for yourself, Johnny Sook?’

‘Ah Quee,’ said Ah Quee, managing to speak at last.

‘Got a tongue in his head, does he?’

‘You’ll speak in English if you speak at all.’

Another kick in the ribs. Ah Quee gave a grunt of pain and doubled up.

‘He’s not the right one,’ said one of his attackers.

‘What’s the difference?’ responded the other. ‘He’s still a Chinaman. He still stinks.’

‘He doesn’t have a pistol,’ the first man pointed out.

‘He’ll give us Sook. They’re all in thick.’

Ah Quee was kicked again, in the buttocks this time; the toe of the man’s boot caught his tailbone and shot a jolt of pain up his spine to his jaw.

‘You know Johnny Sook?’

‘You know Johnny Sook?’

‘You seen him?’

‘We want to talk to Johnny Sook.’

Ah Quee grunted. He attempted to raise himself up onto his hands, and fell back.

‘He’s not going to spill,’ observed the first man.

‘Here. Move away a bit—’

The second man danced away on light feet and then ran at Ah Quee like a kicker hoping to make a conversion. Ah Quee felt him coming at the last moment, and rolled fast towards him, to cushion the blow. The pain in his ribs was excruciating. He could only breathe with the topmost part of his lung. The men were laughing now. Their voices had receded into a throbbing haze of sound.

Then a voice thundered out over the street:

‘You’ve got the wrong man, my friends.’

The attackers turned. Standing in the open doorway of the Weld-street coffee house, his arms folded across his chest, was the magnate Dick Mannering. His bulk quite filled the doorway: he made for an imposing presence, despite the fact that he was unarmed, and at the sight of him the two men shrank away from Quee Long at once.

‘We’re under instructions to apprehend a Chinaman with the name of Johnny Sook,’ said the first man, sticking his hands into his pockets, like a boy.

‘That man’s name is Johnny Quee,’ said Mannering.

‘We didn’t know that, did we?’ said the second man, his hands stealing into his pockets also.

‘Instructions from the gaoler,’ said the first man.

‘The chink called Johnny Sook is on the loose,’ said the second.

‘He’s got a pistol.’

‘Armed and dangerous.’

‘Well, you’ve got the wrong man,’ said Mannering, descending the stairs to the street. ‘You know that because I’m telling you, and I’m telling you for the last time. This man’s name is Johnny Quee.’

Mannering seemed rather more menacing for the fact that he was advancing upon them, and at his approach the men finally balked.

‘Didn’t mean any trouble,’ the first man muttered. ‘Had to make

‘Yellow-lover,’ muttered the other, but quietly, so that Mannering didn’t hear.

Mannering waited until they had departed, and then looked down at Ah Quee, who rolled onto his side, checked his ribs for breakage, and clambered laboriously to his feet, picking up his trampled certificate of indenture as he did so, and brushing it clean of dust. His throat was very tight.

‘Thank you,’ he said, when he could breathe at last.

Mannering seemed annoyed by this expression of gratitude. He frowned, looking Ah Quee up and down, and said, ‘What’s this about Johnny Sook and a pistol?’

‘Don’t know,’ said Ah Quee.

‘Where is he?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Have you seen him? Anywhere at all?’

Ah Quee had not seen Ah Sook since the night of the widow’s séance, one month prior: late that night he had returned from the Wayfarer’s Fortune to find Ah Sook packing his few belongings and vanishing, with a grim efficiency, into the rustle of the night. ‘No,’ he said.

Mannering sighed. ‘I suppose you’ve been reassigned, now that Aurora’s gone back to the bank,’ he said after a moment. ‘Let’s have a look at your paper, then. Let’s see where they’ve placed you. Hand it over.’

He held out his hand for the certificate. The document was brief, and had been written without consultation with Ah Quee: it provided his ‘apparent age’ instead of his actual age; the origin of the ship he had arrived on, rather than his actual birthplace in Canton; and a brief list of his attributes as a worker. It was heralded with the numeral five, indicating that the length of his indenture was five years, and had been stamped with the Company seal. Mannering cast his eye down the document. In the box marked ‘present site of employment’ the word Aurora had been recently scratched out, and replaced with the words Dream of England.

‘Can’t get a bit of luck, can you?’ Mannering said. ‘That claim belongs to me! One of mine. Belongs to me.’ He tapped himself on the chest. ‘You’re working for me again, Johnny Quee. Just like the good old days. Back when you were running rings around me with your bloody crucible, and bleeding Anna Magdalena for dust.’

‘You,’ said Ah Quee, massaging his ribs.

‘Together again,’ said Mannering grimly. ‘Dream of England, my eye. English Nightmare, more like.’

‘Unlucky,’ said Ah Quee.

‘Unlucky for you or unlucky for me?’

Ah Quee did not reply to this, having not understood the question, and all of a sudden Mannering laughed and shook his head. ‘It’s the nature of indenture, I’m afraid, that you sign away your luck. Every chance to get lucky, you sign away. It’s the nature of any contract. A contract’s got to be fulfilled, you see: it’s got to come around on itself, sooner or later. A lucky man, I’ve always said, is a man who was lucky once, and after that, he learned a thing or two about investment. Luck only happens once and it’s always an accident when it does. It’s contracts that come back around. It’s investments and obligations; it’s paperwork; it’s business. I’ll tell you another thing I like to say. If a man wants any shot at making his fortune then he’ll never sign his name to any piece of paper that he didn’t write himself. I’ve done that, Johnny Quee. I’ve never signed my name to any contract that I didn’t write myself.’

‘Very good,’ said Ah Quee.

Mannering glared at him. ‘I don’t suppose you’d be so stupid as to try and run something funny past me again. That’s twice now that you’ve tried to bet against me: once on the Aurora, and once on Anna. I’m a man who knows how to count.’

‘Very good,’ said Ah Quee again.

Mannering passed the indenture back to him. ‘Well, you’ll be pleased to turn your back upon Aurora, I don’t doubt—and you needn’t worry about Dream of England. She’s as sound as a drum.’

‘Not a duffer?’ said Ah Quee, slyly.

‘Not this one,’ said Mannering. ‘I’ll give you my word on that. You’ll do all right on Dream of England. She’s been raked for nuggets, of course, but there’s plenty of dust in the tailings. Perfect for a man like you. Someone with two eyes in his head. You won’t make a fortune on her, Johnny Quee, but who among you ever does?’

Ah Quee nodded.

‘Get yourself back to Kaniere,’ said Mannering at last, and returned inside.

VENUS IN PISCES

‘But who is this?’ said Lydia Wells. ‘A man of God?’

She stood in the doorway, half-smiling, plucking at each of her fingertips in turn, to ease off her gloves; Anna and Devlin looked back at her in mute horror, as though apprehended in some gross act of fornication—though Anna was by the window, her palm still pressed flat against her breast, and Devlin was seated at the sofa, from which he now leaped up, blushing horribly.

‘Goodness me,’ said Lydia Wells, easing one milky hand out of her glove, and tucking it under her elbow to begin plucking off the other. ‘What a pair of sheep.’

‘Good morning, Mrs. Wells,’ said Devlin, finding his tongue at last. ‘My name is Cowell Devlin. I am the chaplain of the prospective gaol-house at Seaview.’

‘A charming introduction,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘What are you doing in my parlour?’

‘We were having a—theological discussion,’ said Devlin. ‘Over tea.’

‘You appear to have forgotten the tea.’

‘It’s still steeping,’ said Anna.

‘So it is,’ said Lydia Wells, without glancing at the tray. ‘Well, in that case, my arrival has been fortuitously timed! Anna, run and fetch another cup. I’ll join you. I have a great fondness for theological debate.’

With a desperate look at Devlin, Anna nodded, ducked her head, and slipped out of the room.

‘Mrs. Wells,’ whispered Devlin quickly, as Anna’s footsteps receded down the hallway, ‘may I ask you a very odd question, while we are alone?’

Lydia Wells smiled at him. ‘I make my living answering odd questions,’ she said, ‘and you of all people should know that we are hardly alone.’

‘Well, yes,’ said Devlin, feeling uncomfortable. ‘But here’s the question. Does Miss Wetherell know how to read?’

Lydia Wells raised her eyebrows. ‘That is a very odd question,’ she replied, ‘though not because of its answer. I wonder what prompted the asking.’

Anna returned with a cup and saucer, and set it beside the others on the tray.

‘What is the answer?’ Devlin said quietly.

‘You play mother, Anna,’ said Lydia Wells, her voice ringing out. ‘Reverend: be seated, please. There you are. How nice, to have a clergyman to tea! It makes one feel quite civilised. I will have a biscuit, I think, and sugar too.’

Devlin sat.

‘The answer, to the best of my knowledge, is no,’ the widow said, sitting down herself also. ‘And now I have an odd question of my own. Is it a different class of falsehood, when a minister of God tells a lie?’

He balked. ‘I do not see the pertinence of your question.’

‘But Reverend, you are not playing fair,’ the widow said. ‘I answered your question without begging to know the reason why; will you not now do the same for me?’

‘What was his question?’ said Anna, looking around—but she was ignored.

‘Is it a different class of falsehood, I ask,’ the widow went on, ‘when the liar is a minister of God?’

Devlin sighed. ‘It would be a different class of falsehood,’ he said, ‘only if the minister was using the authority of his office for ill. So long as the falsehood did not pertain to his office, there would be no difference. We are equal in the eyes of God.’

‘Ah,’ said the widow. ‘Thank you. Now. You said just now that you were talking of theology, Reverend. Would you care to count me in to the debate?’

Devlin flushed. He opened his mouth—and faltered: he did not have an alibi prepared.

Anna came to his rescue. ‘When I woke up in gaol,’ she said, ‘the Reverend Devlin was there. He prayed for me, and he has been praying ever since.’

‘Then you have been talking about prayer?’ the widow said, still addressing Devlin.

The chaplain recovered his composure. ‘Among other things,’ he said. ‘We have also been discussing acts of great providence, and unexpected gifts.’

‘Fascinating,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘And do you make it your habit, Reverend, to drop in on young women when their guardians are otherwise engaged, in order to discuss, without a chaperone, matters of theology?’

Devlin was offended by the accusation. ‘You are hardly Miss Wetherell’s guardian,’ he said. ‘She lived alone for months until you arrived in Hokitika; what sudden need has she of a guardian?’

‘A very great one, I should judge,’ said Lydia Wells, ‘given the degree to which she has been formerly exploited in this town.’

‘I wonder at your adverb, Mrs. Wells! You mean to say that she is exploited no longer?’

Lydia Wells seemed to stiffen. ‘Perhaps you do not think it a gladness,’ she said coldly, ‘that this young woman is no longer prostituting her body every night, and risking every kind of violence, and concussing herself daily with a contemptible drug. Perhaps you wish that she had her former life back again.’

‘Don’t perhaps me,’ Devlin said, flaring up. ‘That’s cheap rhetoric. It’s nothing better than bullying, and I won’t stand for a bully; I won’t.’

‘I am astonished by your accusation,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘In what way am I a bully?’

‘The girl has no freedoms, for heaven’s sake! She was brought here against her will, and you keep her on the shortest leash imaginable!’

‘Anna,’ said Lydia Wells, still addressing Devlin. ‘Did you come to the Wayfarer’s Fortune against your will?’

‘No, ma’am,’ Anna said.

‘Why did you come and take up lodgings here?’

‘Because you made me an offer, and I accepted it.’

‘What was my offer?’

‘You offered to pay my debt to Mr. Clinch up front, and you said that I could come and live with you as your companion, so long as I helped you on the business end.’

‘Did I keep my end of the bargain?’

‘Yes,’ Anna said, miserably.

‘Thank you,’ the widow said. She had not taken her eyes from Devlin’s, and nor had she touched her cup of tea. ‘As for the length of the girl’s leash, I find it very wonderful that you should protest a life of virtue and austerity, in favour of—what did you call them—“freedoms”? Freedoms to do what, exactly? Freedom to fraternise with those very men who once defiled and abused her? Freedom to smoke herself senseless in a Chinaman’s saloon?’

Devlin could not resist countering this. ‘But why did you make your offer, Mrs. Wells? Why did you offer to repay Miss Wetherell’s debts?’

‘Out of concern for the girl, naturally.’

‘Moonshine,’ said Devlin.

‘Pardon me,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘I have ample concern for Anna’s welfare.’

‘Look at her! The poor girl’s half the size she was a month ago; you can’t deny that. She’s starving. You’re starving her.’

‘Anna,’ said Lydia Wells, spitting out the girl’s name. ‘Do I starve you?’

‘No,’ said Anna.

‘Are you, in your own opinion, starving?’

‘No,’ Anna said again.

‘You can spare me the pantomime,’ said Devlin, who was becoming angry. ‘You don’t care two straws for that girl. You’ve no more concern for her than you do for anyone—and from what I have heard about you, that’s a paltry kind of concern indeed.’

‘Another terrible accusation,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘And from the chaplain of a prison, no less! I suppose I ought to try to clear my name. Anna, tell the good Reverend what you did while you were in Dunedin.’

There was a pause. Devlin glanced at Anna, his confidence faltering.

‘Tell him what you did,’ said Lydia Wells again.

‘I played the serpent in your household,’ said Anna.

‘Meaning what, precisely? Tell him exactly what it was you did.’

‘I lay down with your husband.’

‘Yes,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘You seduced my husband, Mr. Wells. Now tell the good Reverend this. What did I do, in retaliation?’

‘You sent me away,’ Anna said. ‘To Hokitika.’

‘In what condition?’

‘With child.’

‘With whose child, please?’

‘With your husband’s child,’ Anna whispered. ‘Crosbie’s child.’

Devlin was astonished.

‘So I sent you away,’ the widow said, nodding. ‘Do I still maintain that my reaction was the right one?’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘You have repented. You have begged for my forgiveness. More than once.’

‘Are you quite sure?’ said Mrs. Wells, feigning astonishment. ‘According to our good Reverend here, I have no concern at all for the welfare of others, and presumably still less for those who have played temptress beneath my roof! Are you quite sure that I am even capable of begging your forgiveness?’

‘Enough,’ said Devlin. He raised his hands. ‘Enough.’

‘It’s true,’ Anna said. ‘It’s true that she has asked for my forgiveness.’

‘Enough.’

‘Now that you have insulted my integrity in virtually every way imaginable,’ said the widow, picking up her teacup at last, ‘would you mind telling me, without falsehood this time, what you are doing in my parlour?’

‘I was delivering a private message to Miss Wetherell,’ Devlin said.

The widow turned to Anna. ‘What was it?’

‘You don’t have to tell her,’ Devlin said quickly. ‘Not if you don’t want to. You don’t have to say a single word to her.’

‘Anna,’ said Lydia Wells, dangerously. ‘What was the message?’

‘The Reverend showed me a document,’ Anna said, ‘by the authority of which, half of that fortune in Crosbie’s cottage belongs to me.’

‘Indeed,’ said Lydia Wells—and although she spoke coolly Devlin thought he saw a flash of panic in her eye. ‘To whom does the other half belong?’

‘Mr. Emery Staines,’ said Anna.

‘Where is this document?’

‘I hid it,’ said Anna.

‘Well, go and fetch it out,’ Lydia snapped.

‘Don’t,’ Devlin said quickly.

‘I won’t,’ said Anna. She made no move to touch her bodice.

‘You might at least do me the courtesy of telling me the whole truth,’ Lydia said. ‘Both of you.’

‘I’m afraid we can’t do that,’ Devlin said, speaking before Anna could have a chance. ‘This information, you see, pertains to a crime that has not yet been fully investigated. It concerns, among other things, the blackmail of a certain Mr. Alistair Lauderback.’

‘Pardon me?’ said Lydia Wells.

‘What?’ said Anna.

‘I’m afraid I can’t disclose anything further,’ Devlin said—observing, to his great satisfaction, that the widow had become very pale. ‘Anna, if you wish to go to the Courthouse directly, I will escort you there myself.’

‘You will?’ Anna said, peering at him.

‘Yes,’ Devlin said.

‘What on earth do you think you’ll be doing at the Courthouse?’ said Lydia Wells.

‘Seeking legal counsel,’ said Anna. ‘As is my civil right.’

Mrs. Wells fixed Anna with an impenetrable look. ‘I consider this a very poor way to repay my kindness,’ she said at last, and in a quiet voice.

Anna went to Devlin’s side, and took his arm. ‘Mrs. Wells,’ she said, ‘it is not your kindness that I mean to repay.’

JUPITER IN CAPRICORN

The Hokitika Courthouse, home of the Resident Magistrate’s Court, was a scene of robust but much-approximated ceremony. The courtroom had been cordoned with ropes, rather like a shearing yard. District officials sat behind a row of desks that protected them from the milling crowd; when the court was in session, these desks would form a kind of barricade between the figures of the court and the public, who was required to stand. The magistrate’s seat, currently vacant, was only a captain’s chair on a raised dais, though the chair had been draped with sheepskins to give it a more dignified aspect. Beside it stood an outsize Union Jack, hung on a stand that was rather too short for the size of the flag. The flag might have pooled on the dusty ground, had an enterprising soul not thought to place an empty wine cask beneath the bottom of the stand—a detail that served to diminish, rather than enhance, the flag’s effect.

It had been a busy morning in the petty courts. Mrs. Wells’s appeal to revoke the sale of Crosbie Wells’s estate had been approved at last, which meant that the Wells fortune, formerly held in escrow at the Reserve Bank, had been surrendered to the Magistrate’s purse. Harald Nilssen’s four-hundred-pound commission had not likewise been revoked, for two reasons: firstly, because the sum constituted his legal payment for a service adequately rendered; and secondly, because the commission had since been donated, in its entirety, to assist in the erection of the new gaol-house at Seaview. It was unseemly, the Magistrate declared, to revoke a gift of charity, especially when the gift was such a handsome and selfless one; he commended Nilssen, in absentia, for his benevolence.

There were sundry other legal expenses to be itemised, most of which reflected the many hours the Magistrate’s office had spent on the project of trying to find the late Mr. Wells’s birth certificate. These expenses would come out of Mrs. Wells’s inheritance also—which, less the estate taxes and fees, and after these many corrections had been made, now totalled a little over £3500. This sum was to be made payable to Mrs. Wells as soon as the fortune had been cleared by the Reserve Bank, in whatever form of currency the widow desired. Did Mrs. Wells have anything to say? No, she did not—but she gave Aubert Gascoigne a very broad smile as she swept away from the Courthouse, and he saw that her eyes were shining.

‘Oi—Gascoigne!’

Gascoigne had been staring into the middle distance. He blinked. ‘Yes?’

His colleague Burke was in the doorway, a fat paper envelope in his hand. ‘Jimmy Shaw tells me you’ve a flair for maritime insurance.’

‘That’s right,’ said Gascoigne.

‘Do you mind taking on another job? Something’s just come in.’

Gascoigne frowned at the envelope. ‘What kind of a “something”?’

‘Letter from a John Hincher Garrity,’ said the other, holding it up. ‘Regarding one of the wrecks on the bar. Godspeed is the name of the craft.’

Gascoigne held out his hand. ‘I’ll take a look at it.’

‘Good man.’

The envelope had been postmarked in Wellington, and slit already. Gascoigne opened it and withdrew its contents. The first document enclosed was a short letter from John Hincher Garrity, M.P. for the electoral district of Heathcote in Canterbury. The politician authorised a representative of the Hokitika Courthouse to act as his agent in drawing down funds from the Garrity Group’s private account at the Bank of New Zealand. He trusted that the enclosed documents would explain the matter sufficiently, and thanked the representative in advance for his efforts. Gascoigne put this letter aside and turned to the next document. It was also a letter, forwarded by Garrity; it had been addressed to the Garrity Group.

Gascoigne frowned. What did Carver mean by this? Crosbie Wells had certainly not purchased Godspeed; Carver had purchased the craft himself, using the alias Wells. Gascoigne shuffled through the remaining pages, which had evidently been forwarded by Carver to Mr. Garrity as evidence of the validity of his claim. He passed over the harbourmaster’s assessment of the wreck, a balance sheet of all the debts incurred, and sundry receipts and testimonials, until he found, at the bottom of the pile, a copy—presumably Carver’s personal copy—of Godspeed’s bill of sale. Gascoigne took up this last item and looked at the signature closely. It had been signed by a Francis Wells! What was Carver playing at? Looking at the signature a moment longer, however, Gascoigne perceived that the large loop on the side of the F could easily have been a C … why, yes! There was even a dot of ink, fortuitously placed, between the C and the F. The longer Gascoigne looked at it, the more the ambiguity became clear to him: Carver must have signed the false name with this future purpose in mind. Gascoigne shook his head, and then, after a moment, laughed aloud.

‘What’s tickled you?’ said Burke, looking up.

‘Oh,’ said Gascoigne, ‘nothing of consequence.’

‘You just laughed,’ said Burke. ‘What’s the joke?’

‘There is no joke,’ said Gascoigne. ‘I was expressing my appreciation, that’s all.’

‘Appreciation? What for?’

‘A job well done,’ said Gascoigne. He returned the letters to the envelope and stood, intending to take John Hincher Garrity’s letter of authorisation to the bank at once—but just as he did so the foyer door opened, and Alistair Lauderback walked in, shadowed at his heels by Jock and Augustus Smith.

‘Ah,’ said Lauderback, perceiving the letter in Gascoigne’s hand. ‘I’m just in time, then. Yes: I had a message from Garrity myself this morning. There’s been a mix-up, and I’m here to set it straight.’

‘Mr. Lauderback, I presume,’ said Gascoigne dryly.

‘I want a private interview with the Magistrate,’ Lauderback said. ‘It’s urgent.’

‘The Magistrate is taking his luncheon at present.’

‘Where does he take it?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ said Gascoigne. ‘The afternoon sessions begin at two o’clock; you are welcome to wait until then. Excuse me, gentlemen.’

‘Hold up,’ said Lauderback, as Gascoigne bowed, and made to exit. ‘Where do you think you’re going with that letter?’

‘To the bank,’ said Gascoigne—who could not bear officious rudeness of the kind that Lauderback had just displayed. ‘I have been deputised by Mr. Garrity to facilitate a transaction on his behalf. I beg you to excuse me.’

Again he made to leave.

‘Hold up a moment,’ said Lauderback. ‘Just hold up a moment! It’s on account of this very business that I want an audience here; you’re not to go off to the bank, before I’ve said my piece!’

Gascoigne stared at him coolly. Lauderback seemed to realise that he had begun on the wrong foot, and said, ‘Hear me out, would you? What’s your name?’

‘Gascoigne.’

‘Gascoigne, is it? Yes, I had you for a Frenchman.’

Lauderback held out his hand, and Gascoigne shook it.

‘I’ll speak to you, then,’ Lauderback said. ‘If I can’t get the Magistrate.’

‘I imagine you would prefer to do so in private,’ said Gascoigne, still without warmth.

‘Yes, good.’ Lauderback turned to his aides. ‘You wait here,’ he said. ‘I’ll be ten minutes.’

Gascoigne led him into the Magistrate’s office, and closed the door behind him. They sat down on the Windsor chairs that faced the Magistrate’s desk.

‘All right, Mr. Gascoigne,’ said Lauderback at once, sitting forward, ‘here’s the long and short of it. This whole business is a set-up. I never sold Godspeed to a man named Crosbie Wells. I sold it to a man who told me that his name was Francis Wells. But the name was an alias. I didn’t know it at the time. This man. Francis Carver. It was him. He took the alias—Francis Wells—and I sold the ship to him, under that name. You see he kept his Christian name. Only the surname changed. The point is this: he signed the deed with a false name, and that’s against the law!’

‘Let me see if I understand you correctly,’ Gascoigne said, pretending to be bemused. ‘Francis Carver claims that a man named Crosbie Wells purchased Godspeed … and you claim that this is a lie.’

‘It is a lie!’ said Lauderback. ‘It’s an out-and-out fabrication! I sold the ship to a man named Francis Wells.’

‘Who doesn’t exist.’

‘It was an alias,’ said Lauderback. ‘His real name is Carver. But he told me that his name was Wells.’

‘Francis Wells,’ Gascoigne pointed out, ‘and Crosbie Wells’s middle name was Francis, and Crosbie Wells does exist—at least, he did. So perhaps you were mistaken about the purchaser’s identity. The difference between Francis Wells and C. Francis Wells is not very great, I observe.’

‘What’s this about a C?’ said Lauderback.

‘I have examined the forwarded copy of the deed of sale,’ Gascoigne said. ‘It was signed by a C. Francis Wells.’

‘It most certainly was not!’

‘I’m afraid it was,’ said Gascoigne.

‘Then it’s been doctored,’ said Lauderback. ‘It’s been doctored after the fact.’

Gascoigne opened the envelope in his hand, and extracted the bill of sale. ‘On first inspection, I believed that it read merely “Francis Wells”. It was only on leaning closer that I saw the other letter, cursively linked to the F.’

Lauderback looked at it, frowned, and looked closer—and then a deep blush spread across his cheeks and neck. ‘Cursive or no cursive,’ he said, ‘C or no C, that deed of sale was signed by the blackguard Francis Carver. I saw him sign it with my own two eyes!’

‘Was the transaction witnessed?’

Lauderback said nothing.

‘If the transaction was not witnessed, then it will be your word against his, Mr. Lauderback.’

‘It’ll be the truth against a lie!’

Gascoigne declined to answer this. He returned the contract to the envelope, and smoothed it flat over his knee.

‘It’s a set-up,’ Lauderback said. ‘I’ll take him to court. I’ll have him flayed.’

‘On what charge?’

‘False pretences, of course,’ Lauderback said. ‘Impersonation. Fraud.’

‘I’m afraid that the evidence will bear out against you.’

‘Oh—you’re afraid of that, are you?’

‘The law has no grounds to doubt this signature,’ Gascoigne said, smoothing the envelope a second time, ‘because no other documentation survives Mr. Crosbie Wells, official or otherwise, that might serve as proof of his hand.’

Lauderback opened his mouth; he seemed about to say something, but then he shut it again, shaking his head. ‘It was a set-up,’ he said. ‘It was a set-up all along!’

‘Why do you think Mr. Carver saw the need to take an alias with you?’

The politician’s answer was surprising. ‘I’ve done some digging on Carver,’ he said. ‘His father was a prominent figure in one of the British merchant trading firms—Dent & Co. You might have heard of him. William Rochfort Carver. No? Well, anyway. Some time in the early fifties he gives his son a clipper ship—the Palmerston—and the son starts trading Chinese wares back and forth from Canton, under the banner of Dent & Co. Carver’s still a young man. He’s being coddled, really, becoming master of a ship so young. Well, here’s what I found out. In the spring of 1854 the Palmerston gets searched when it’s leaving the Sydney harbour—just a routine job—and Carver’s found to be foul of the law on several counts. Evading duty, and failing to declare, and a pile of other misdemeanours. Each small enough that a judge might turn a blind eye, but the charges come in all at once; when they’re stacked up like that, the law has to come down. He’s given ten years at Cockatoo, and that’s ten years of penal servitude, no less. A real dishonour. The father’s furious. Revokes the ship, disinherits the son, and as a final touch, makes sure to tarnish his name at every dock and shipyard in the South Pacific. By the time Francis Carver gets out of gaol, he has about as good a character as Captain Kidd—in seafaring circles at least. No shipowner’s going to lease a ship to him, and no crew’s going to take him on.’

‘And so he assumed an alias.’

‘Exactly,’ said Lauderback, sitting back.

‘I am curious to know why he only assumed an alias with you,’ Gascoigne said lightly. ‘He does not seem to have assumed the name Wells in any other context, save for when he purchased this ship. He introduced himself to me, for example, as Mr. Francis Carver.’

Lauderback glared at him. ‘You read the papers,’ he said. ‘Don’t make me spell it out to you. I’ve made my apology in public: I won’t do it again.’

Gascoigne inclined his head. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Carver assumed the alias Francis Wells in order to exploit your former entanglement with Mrs. Wells.’

‘That’s it,’ said Lauderback. ‘He said that he was Crosbie’s brother. Told me he was settling a score on Crosbie’s behalf—on account of my having made a bad woman of his wife. It was an intimidation tactic, and it worked.’

‘I see,’ said Gascoigne, wondering why Lauderback had not explained this so sensibly to Thomas Balfour two months ago.

‘Look,’ said Lauderback, ‘I’m playing straight with you, Mr. Gascoigne, and I’m telling you that the law is on my side. Carver’s break with his father is commonly known. He had a thousand provocations to assume an alias. Why, I could call in the father’s testimony, if need be. How would Carver like that?’

‘Not very well, I should imagine.’

‘No,’ cried Lauderback. ‘Not very well at all!’

Gascoigne was annoyed by this. ‘Well, I wish you luck, Mr. Lauderback, in bringing Mr. Carver to justice,’ he said.

‘Spare the bromide,’ Lauderback snapped. ‘Talk to me plain.’

‘As you wish,’ Gascoigne said, shrugging. ‘You know without my telling you that proof of provocation is not evidence. A man cannot be convicted simply because it can be proved that he had good reason to commit the crime in question.’

Lauderback bristled. ‘Do you doubt my word?’

‘No indeed,’ said Gascoigne.

‘You just think my case is weak. You think I don’t have a leg to stand on.’

‘Yes. I think it would be very unwise to take this matter to court,’ said Gascoigne. ‘I am sorry to speak so bluntly. You have my compassion for your troubles, of course.’

But Gascoigne felt no compassion whatsoever for Alistair Lauderback. He tended to reserve that emotion for persons less privileged than himself, and although he could acknowledge that Lauderback’s current situation was pitiable, he considered the politician’s wealth and eminence to be ample consolation for whatever inconveniences the man might be encountering in the short term. In fact, enduring a spot of injustice might do Lauderback a bit of good! It might improve him as a politician, thought Gascoigne—who was, in his private adjudications at least, something of an autocrat.

‘I’ll wait for the Magistrate,’ said Lauderback. ‘He’ll see sense.’

Gascoigne tucked the envelope into his jacket, next to his cigarettes. ‘I understand that Carver is now attempting to draw down funds from your protection and indemnity scheme, in order to finance the debts that he incurred in disposing of the shipwreck.’

‘That is correct.’

‘And you wish to refuse him access to this money.’

‘Also correct.’

‘On what grounds?’

Lauderback turned very red. ‘On what grounds?’ he cried. ‘The man has stiffed me, Mr. Gascoigne! He was planning this from the outset! You’re a fool if you think I’ll take it lying down! Is that what you’re telling me? To take it lying down?’

‘Mr. Lauderback,’ Gascoigne said, ‘I do not presume to give you any kind of advice at all. What I am observing is that no laws appear to have been broken. In his letter to Mr. Garrity, Mr. Carver made it very plain that he is acting on Mr. Wells’s behalf—for Mr. Wells, as you know, is dead. To all appearances Carver is merely doing the charitable thing, in settling matters as the shipowner’s proxy, because the shipowner is not able to do the job himself. I do not see that you have any evidence to disprove this.’

‘But it’s not true!’ Lauderback exploded. ‘Crosbie Wells never bought that ship! Francis Carver signed that bloody contract in another man’s name! It’s a case of forgery, pure and simple!’

‘I’m afraid that will be very difficult to prove,’ said Gascoigne.

‘Why?’ said Lauderback.

‘Because, as I have already told you, there is no proof of Crosbie Wells’s true signature,’ said Gascoigne. ‘There were no papers of any kind in his cottage, and his birth certificate and his miner’s right are nowhere to be found.’

Lauderback opened his mouth to make a retort, and again seemed to change his mind.

‘Oh,’ said Gascoigne, suddenly. ‘I’ve just thought of something.’

‘What?’ said Lauderback.

‘His marriage certificate,’ said Gascoigne. ‘That would bear his signature, would it not?’

‘Ah,’ said Lauderback. ‘Yes.’

‘But no,’ said Gascoigne, changing his mind, ‘it wouldn’t be enough: to prove a forgery of a dead man’s hand, you would need more than one example of his signature.’

‘How many would you need?’ said Lauderback.

Gascoigne shrugged. ‘I am not familiar with the law,’ he said, ‘but I would imagine that you would need several examples of his true signature in order to prove the abberations in the false one.’

‘Several examples,’ Lauderback echoed.

‘Well,’ said Gascoigne, rising, ‘I hope for your sake that you find something, Mr. Lauderback; but in the meantime, I’m afraid that I am legally obliged to carry out Mr. Garrity’s instruction, and take these papers to the bank.’

Upon quitting the Wayfarer’s Fortune the chaplain had not escorted Anna Wetherell directly to the Courthouse. He took her instead into the Garrick’s Head Hotel, where he ordered one portion of fish pie—the perennial lunchtime special—and one glass of lemon cordial. He directed Anna to be seated, placed the plate of food in front of her, and bid her to eat, which she did obediently, and in silence. Once her plate was clean, he pushed the sugared drink across the table towards her, and said,

‘Where is Mr. Staines?’

Anna did not seem surprised by the question. She picked up the glass, sipped at it, winced at the sweetness, and then sat for a moment, watching him.

‘Inland,’ she said at last. ‘Somewhere inland. I don’t know exactly where.’

‘North or south of here?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is he being held against his will?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You do know,’ said Devlin.

‘I don’t,’ Anna said. ‘I haven’t seen him since January, and I’ve no idea why he vanished like he did. I only know that he’s still alive, and he’s somewhere inland.’

‘Because you’ve been getting messages. Inside your head.’

‘Messages wasn’t the right way to describe it,’ Anna said. ‘That wasn’t right. It’s more like … a feeling. Like when you’re trying to remember a dream that you had, and you can remember the shape of it, the sense of it, but no details, nothing sure. And the more you try and remember, the more hazy it becomes.’

Devlin was frowning. ‘So you have a “feeling”.’

‘Yes,’ Anna said.

‘You have a feeling that Mr. Staines is somewhere inland, and that he is alive.’

‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘I can’t give you any details. I know it’s somewhere muddy. Or leafy. Somewhere near water, only it isn’t the beach. The water’s quick-moving. Over stones … You see: as soon as I try and put it into words, it trips away from me.’

‘This all sounds very vague, my dear.’

‘It’s not vague,’ Anna said. ‘I’m certain of it. Just as when you’re certain you did have a dream … you knew you dreamed … but you can’t remember any of the details.’

‘How long have you been having these “feelings”? These dreams?’

‘Only since I stopped whoring,’ Anna said. ‘Since my blackout.’

‘Since Staines disappeared, in other words.’

‘The fourteenth of January,’ said Anna. ‘That was the date.’

‘Is it always the same—the water, the mud? The same dream?’

‘No.’

She did not elaborate, and to prompt her Devlin said, ‘Well, what else?’

‘Oh,’ she said, embarrassed. ‘Just sensations, really. Snatches. Impressions.’

‘Impressions of what?’

She looked away from him. ‘Impressions of me,’ she said.

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand you.’

She turned her hand over. ‘What he thinks of me. Mr. Staines, I mean. What he dreams about, when he imagines me.’

‘You see yourself—but through his eyes.’

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Exactly.’

‘Ought I to infer that Mr. Staines holds you in high esteem?’

‘He loves me,’ she said, and then after a moment, she said it again. ‘He loves me.’

Devlin studied her critically. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Has he made an avowal of his love?’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘He doesn’t need to. I know it, just the same.’

‘Do you get these feelings frequently?’

‘Very frequently,’ she said. ‘He thinks of me all the time.’

Devlin nodded. The situation was at last becoming clear to him, and with this dawning clarity his heart was sinking in his chest. ‘Are you in love with Mr. Staines, Miss Wetherell?’

‘We spoke of it,’ she said. ‘The night he vanished. We were talking nonsense, and I said something silly about unrequited love, and he became very serious, and he stopped me, and he said that unrequited love was not possible; that it was not love. He said that love must be freely given, and freely taken, such that the lovers, in joining, make the equal halves of something whole.’

‘A passionate sentiment,’ Devlin said.

This seemed to please her. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘But he did not declare his love for you, after all that.’

‘He didn’t make any vows. I said that.’

‘And nor did you.’

‘I never got another chance,’ she said. ‘That was the night he disappeared.’

Cowell Devin sighed. Yes, he understood Anna Wetherell at long last, but it was not a happy understanding. Devlin had known many women of poor prospects and limited means, whose only transport out of the miserable cage of their unhappy circumstance was the flight of the fantastic. Such fantasies were invariably magical—angelic patronage, invitations into paradise—and Anna’s story, touching though it was, showed the same strain of the impossible. Why, it was painfully clear! The most eligible bachelor of Anna’s acquaintance possessed a love so deep and pure that all respective differences between them were rendered immaterial? He was not dead—he was only missing? He was sending her ‘messages’ that proved the depth of his love—and these were messages that only she could hear? It was a fantasy, Devlin thought. It was a fantasy of the girl’s own devising. The boy could only be dead.

‘You want Mr. Staines to love you very much, don’t you, Miss Wetherell?’

Anna seemed offended by his implication. ‘He does love me.’

‘That wasn’t my question.’

She squinted at him. ‘Everyone wants to be loved.’

‘That’s very true,’ Devlin said, sadly. ‘We all want to be loved—and need to be loved, I think. Without love, we cannot be ourselves.’

‘You’re of a mind with Mr. Staines.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘That is precisely the sort of thing that he would say.’

‘Your Mr. Staines is quite the philosopher, Miss Wetherell.’

‘Why, Reverend,’ Anna said, smiling suddenly, ‘I believe you’ve just paid yourself a compliment.’

They did not speak for a moment. Anna sipped again at her sugared drink, and Devlin, brooding, looked out across the hotel dining room. After a moment Anna’s hand went to her bosom, where the forged deed of gift still lay against her skin.

Devlin looked sharply at her. ‘You have ample time to reconsider,’ he said.

‘I only want a legal opinion.’

‘You have my clerical opinion.’

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘“Blessed are the meek”.’

She seemed to regret this impudence immediately; a violent blush spread across her face and neck, and she turned away. Suddenly Devlin wanted nothing more to do with her. He pushed his chair back from the table, and placed his hands on his knees.

‘I will accompany you to the Courthouse door and no further,’ he said. ‘What you do with the document in your possession is no longer my business. Know that I will not lie to protect you. I will certainly not lie in a court of law. If anyone asks, I shall not hesitate to tell them the truth, which is that you forged that signature with your own hand.’

‘All right,’ said Anna, rising. ‘Thank you very much for the pie. And the cordial. And thank you for all that you said to Mrs. Wells.’

Devlin rose also. ‘You oughtn’t to thank me for that,’ he said. ‘I let my temper get the better of me there, I’m afraid. I wasn’t at my best.’

‘You were marvellous,’ Anna said, and she stepped forward, and put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him very nicely on the cheek.

By the time Anna Wetherell arrived at the Hokitika Courthouse, Aubert Gascoigne had already departed for the Reserve Bank, the envelope from John Hincher Garrity snug in the inside pocket of his jacket; Alistair Lauderback had likewise long since left the building. Anna was received by a red-faced solicitor named Fellowes, whom she did not know. He directed her into an alcove at the far side of the hall, where they sat down on either side of a plain deal table. Anna handed him the charred document without a word. The lawyer placed it on the table before him, squaring it with the edge of the desk, and then cupped his hands around his eyes to read it.

‘Where did you get this?’ Fellowes said at last, looking up.

‘It was given to me,’ Anna said. ‘Anonymously.’

‘When?’

‘This morning.’

‘Given how?’

‘Someone slipped it under the door,’ Anna lied. ‘While Mrs. Wells was down here at the Courthouse.’

‘Down here at the Courthouse, receiving the news that her appeal has been revoked at last,’ Fellowes said, with a sceptical emphasis. He turned back to the document. ‘Crosbie Wells … and Staines is the fellow whom nobody’s heard from … and Miss Wetherell is you. Strange. Any idea who dropped it off?’

‘No.’

‘Or why?’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘I suppose someone wanted to do me a good turn.’

‘Anyone in mind? Care to speculate?’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘I only want to know whether it’s good.’

‘It seems all right,’ said Fellowes, peering at it. ‘But it’s not exactly a cash cheque, is it? Not with things being as they are—eight weeks on, and Mr. Staines still missing.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Well. Even if this deed is valid, our good friend Mr. Staines no longer has two thousand pounds to give away. All of his assets have been seized, on account of his absence. Effective last Friday. He’d be lucky to scrape together a few hundred from what he’s got left.’

‘But the deed is binding,’ Anna said. ‘Even so.’

The lawyer shook his head. ‘What I’m saying to you, my girl, is that our Mr. Staines can’t give you two thousand pounds—unless by some miracle he’s found alive, with a great deal of cash money on his person. His claims have been given over. Bought by other men.’

‘But the deed is binding,’ Anna said again. ‘It has to be.’

Mr. Fellowes smiled. ‘I’m afraid the law doesn’t quite work that way. Think on this. I could write you a cheque right now for a million pounds, but that doesn’t mean you’re a million pounds up, does it, if I’ve nothing in my pocket, and nobody to act as my surety? Money always has to come out of someone’s pocket, and if everyone’s pockets are empty … well, that’s that, no matter what anyone might claim.’

‘Mr. Staines has two thousand pounds,’ Anna said.

‘Yes—well, if he did, that would be a different story.’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘I’m telling you. Mr. Staines has two thousand pounds.’

‘How’s that?’

‘The gold in Crosbie Wells’s cottage belonged to him.’

Fellowes paused. He stared at her for several seconds, and then, in quite a different voice, he said, ‘Can that be proven?’

Anna repeated what Devlin had told her that morning: that the gold was found retorted, and bearing a signature that identified the origin of the gold.

‘Which mine?’

‘I can’t remember the name,’ Anna said.

‘What’s your source?’

She hesitated. ‘I’d rather not say.’

Fellowes was looking interested. ‘We could check the truth of it. The fortune was a component part of Wells’s estate, after all, so there should be a record somewhere at the bank. I wonder why it hasn’t come up before. Someone at the bank is keeping it back, perhaps.’

‘If it’s true,’ Anna said, ‘that means the fortune’s mine, does it not? Two thousand pounds of it belongs to me. By the authority of this piece of paper here.’

‘Miss Wetherell,’ Fellowes said, ‘this kind of money does not change hands so easily. I’m afraid it is never as simple as drawing down a cheque. But I will say that your coming here today is fortuitously timed. Mrs. Wells’s appeal has just been granted, and the share apportioned her is in the process of being released. I can place a hold on her claim very easily, while we figure out what to do with this paper of yours.’

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Will you do that?’

‘If you will consent to take me on as your solicitor, I will do all that I can to help,’ Fellowes said, sitting back. ‘My retainer is two pounds weekly, with expenses. I charge in advance, of course.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t pay you in advance. I don’t have any money.’

‘Perhaps you might draw down a loan of some kind,’ Fellowes said delicately, shifting his gaze away. ‘I’m afraid that I am very strict on all matters of finance; I make no exceptions, and take nothing on promise. It’s nothing personal; it comes with the training, that’s all.’

‘I can’t pay you in advance,’ Anna said again, ‘but if you do this for me, I can pay you treble your retainer, when the money comes in.’

‘Treble?’ Fellowes smiled gently. ‘Legal processes often take a very long time, Miss Wetherell, and sometimes without results: there is no guarantee that the money would come in at all. Mrs. Wells’s appeal took two months to verify, and as you’ve shown very well, that business is not over yet!’

‘Treble, up to a ceiling of one hundred pounds,’ Anna said firmly, ‘but if you clear the funds for me within the fortnight, I’ll pay you two hundred, in cash money.’

Fellowes raised his eyebrows. ‘Dear me,’ he said. ‘This is very bold.’

‘It comes with the training,’ Anna said.

But here Anna Wetherell made a misstep. Mr. Fellowes’ eyes widened, and he shrank away. Why, she was a whore, he thought—and then it all came back to him. This was the very whore who had tried to end her life in the Kaniere-road, the very day of Staines’s disappearance, and Wells’s death! Fellowes was new to Hokitika: he did not know Anna Wetherell by sight, and had not immediately recognised her name. It was only at her brazen remark that he suddenly knew her.

Anna had mistaken his discomfiture for simple hesitation. ‘Do you consent to my terms, Mr. Fellowes?’

Fellowes looked her up and down. ‘I shall inquire at the Reserve Bank about this alleged retortion,’ he said. His voice was cold. ‘If the rumour you heard was a good one, then we will draw up a contract; if it was not, then I’m afraid I cannot help you.’

‘You are very kind,’ Anna said.

‘None of that,’ said Fellowes, roughly. ‘Where might I find you, say in three hours’ time?’

Anna hesitated. She could not return to the Wayfarer’s Fortune that afternoon. She had no money on her person, but perhaps she could ask an old acquaintance to stand her a drink at one of the saloons along Revell-street.

‘I’ll just come back,’ she said. ‘I’ll just come back and meet you here.’

‘As you wish,’ Fellowes said. ‘Let us err on the side of caution and say five o’clock.’

‘Five o’clock,’ Anna said. She held out her hand for the charred document, but Fellowes was already opening his wallet, to slip the piece of paper inside.

‘I think I’ll hold onto this,’ he said. ‘Just for the meantime.’

MOON IN ARIES, CRESCENT

Te Rau Tauwhare was feeling very pleased as he leaped from stone to stone through the shallows of the Arahura River, making his way downriver towards the beach. He had spent the past month with a party of surveyors in the Deception Valley, and his purse was full; what’s more, that morning he had come upon a marvellous slab of kahurangi pounamu, the weight of which was causing his satchel to thump against his back with every step.

Back at Mawhera it would be time to dig the crop of kumara from the ground: Tauwhare knew it from the appearance of Whanui in the northern sky, the star low on the horizon, dawning well after midnight, and setting well before the dawn. His people called this month Pou-tu-te-rangi—the post that lifted up the sky—for at nights Te Ikaroa formed a milky arch that ran north to south across the black dome of the heavens. It hung between Whanui, in the north, and Autahi, in the south, and it passed through the red jewel of Rehua, directly overhead: for a moment, every night, the sky became a perfect compass, its needle a dusty stripe of stars. At the dawning of Whanui the crops would be unearthed from the ground; after this was Paenga-wha-wha, when the tubers would be piled upon the margins of the fields to be classified and counted, and then taken to the store pits and storehouses, to be stacked for the winter months ahead. After Paenga-wha-wha, the year came to an end—or, as the tohunga phrased, it, ‘to a death’.

He rounded a bend in the river, left the shallows, and mounted the bank. Crosbie Wells’s cottage was looking more forlorn with each passing day. The iron roof had rusted to a flaming orange, and the mortar had turned from white to vivid green; the small garden that Wells had planted had long since gone to seed. Tauwhare strode up the path, taking sorrowful note of these tokens of decay—and then halted suddenly.

There was somebody inside.

Slowly, Tauwhare came closer, peering through the open doorway into the gloom of the interior. The figure in question was curled on the floor, either dead or asleep. He was lying on his hip, with his knees angled close to his chest and his face turned away from the door. Tauwhare came closer still. He saw that the man was dressed in a jacket and trousers rather than digger’s moleskin, and as Tauwhare watched, the fabric over his rib moved very slightly, rising and falling with the motion of a breath. Asleep, then.

Tauwhare passed through the doorway, taking care that his shadow did not fall across the man’s body, and wake him. Moving softly, he edged around the wall behind him, to look down upon the sleeper’s face. The man was very young. His hair was darkly matted with dirt and grease; the skin of his face seemed almost white by contrast. His face would have been handsome had it not been so plainly ravaged by privation. The lids of his eyes were mottled purple, and there were deep shadows in the hollows beneath them. His breath was fretful and inconstant. Tauwhare cast his eye over the boy’s body. His dress had been worn almost to tatters, and apparently had not been changed in many weeks, for it was thick with mud and dust of all varieties. The coat had once been fine, however—that was plain—and the cravat, stiff with mud, was likewise of a fashionable cut.

‘Mr. Staines?’ Tauwhare whispered.

The boy’s eyes opened.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Hello, there.’

‘Mr. Staines?’

‘Yes, that’s me,’ the boy said, speaking in a voice that was high and very bright. He lifted his head. ‘Excuse me. Excuse me. Is this Maori land?’

‘No,’ said Tauwhare. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘It’s not Maori land?’

‘No.’

‘I need to be on Maori land,’ the boy said, struggling up into a sitting position. He was holding his left arm oddly across his chest.

‘Why?’ Tauwhare said.

‘I buried something,’ said Staines. ‘By a tree. But all the trees look the same to me and I’m afraid I’ve got myself into a bit of a muddle. Thank heavens you’ve come along—I’m ever so grateful.’

‘You disappeared,’ Tauwhare said.

‘Three days, perhaps,’ said the boy, sinking back again. ‘I think it was three days ago. I’ve been mixing up my days: I can’t seem to keep them in any sort of order. One forgets to mark the hours, when one’s alone. I say: will you have a look at this, please?’

He pulled down the neck of his shirt and Tauwhare saw that the soiled darkness on his cravat was in fact the sticky tar of old blood. There was a wound just above his collarbone, and even from his distance of several feet Tauwhare could see that it was a very grave one. It had begun to putrefy. The centre of the wound was black, and fingers of red speared away from it in rays. Tauwhare could see black speckles of powder-burn, dark against the white of his chest, and deduced that it could only be a gunshot wound. Evidently somebody had shot Emery Staines at very close range, some time ago.

‘You need medicine,’ he said.

‘Exactly,’ said Staines. ‘Exactly right. Will you fetch it for me? I’d be most exceedingly obliged. But I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’

‘My name is Te Rau Tauwhare.’

‘You’re a Maori fellow!’ said Staines, blinking, as though seeing him for the first time. His eyes crossed, and then focused again. ‘Is this Maori land?’

Tauwhare pointed east. ‘Up there is Maori land,’ he said.

‘Up there?’ Staines looked where Tauwhare pointed. ‘Why are you down here, then, if your patch is up there?’

‘This is the house of my friend,’ said Tauwhare. ‘Crosbie Wells.’

‘Crosbie, Crosbie,’ said Staines, closing his eyes. ‘He was euchred, wasn’t he? Lord, how that man can drink. Hollow legs, both of them. Where is he, then? Gone fossicking?’

‘He’s dead,’ said Tauwhare.

‘I’m exceedingly sorry to hear that,’ Staines mumbled. ‘What a terrible blow. And you were his friend—his very good friend! And Anna … You’ll accept my condolences, I hope … But I’ve forgotten your name already.’

‘It’s Te Rau,’ said Tauwhare.

‘So it is,’ said Staines. ‘So it is.’ He paused a moment, wretched with exhaustion, and then said, ‘You wouldn’t mind taking me there, would you, old fellow? You wouldn’t mind it?’

‘Where?’

‘To the Maori land,’ said Staines, closing his eyes again. ‘You see, I’ve buried a great deal of gold on Maori land, and if you help me, I wouldn’t be averse to giving you a pinch of it. I’ll stand you whatever you like. Whatever you like. I remember the place exactly: there’s a tree. The gold’s underneath the tree.’ He opened his eyes again and gave Tauwhare a beseeching, blurry look.

Tauwhare tried again. ‘Where have you been, Mr. Staines?’

‘I’ve been looking for my bonanza,’ said Staines. ‘I know it’s on Maori land … but there’s nothing to mark Maori land, is there? No kind of fence to mark it. They always said a man could never get lost on the West Coast, because there’s always mountains on one side, and ocean on the other … but I seem to have got myself a little muddled, Te Rau. It’s Te Rau, isn’t it? Yes. Yes. I’ve been lost.’

Tauwhare came forward and knelt. Up close the man’s wound looked even worse. In the centre of the blackness was a thick crust, showing through it the glint of yellow. He reached out his hand and touched the skin of Staines’s cheek, feeling his temperature. ‘You are sick with fever,’ he said. ‘This wound is very bad.’

‘Never saw it coming,’ said Staines, staring at him. ‘Fresh off the boat, I was, and green with it. Nothing shows like greenness, on a man. Never saw it coming. Heavens, you are a sight for sore eyes! I’m terribly sorry about this muddle. I’m terribly sorry about your mate Crosbie. I really am. What kind of medicine did you say you had about you?’

‘I shall bring it to you,’ said Tauwhare. ‘You wait here.’ He did not feel hopeful. The boy was not speaking sense, and he was much too sick to walk to Hokitika on his own; he would need to be carried there on a litter or a cart, and Tauwhare had seen enough of the Hokitika hospital to know that men went there to die, not to be cured. The place was canvas-roofed, and walled only with the simplest clapboard; the bitter Tasman wind blew through the cracks in the planking, giving rise to a new cacophony of coughing and wheezing with each gust. It stank of filth and disease. There was no fresh water, and no clean linen, and only one ward. The patients were forced to sleep in close quarters with one another, and sometimes even to share a bed.

‘Half-shares,’ the boy was saying. ‘Seemed fair enough to me. Half for you, half for me. What about it, he says. Going mates.’

Tauwhare was calculating the distance in his mind. He could make for Hokitika at a pace, alert Dr. Gillies, hire a cart or a trap of some kind, and be back, at the very earliest, within three hours … but would three hours be soon enough? Would the boy survive? Tauwhare’s sister had died of fever, and in her final days she had been very like the way that Staines was now—bright-eyed, both sharp and limp at once, full of nonsense and tumbling words. If he left, he risked the boy’s death. But what could he do, if he stayed? Suddenly decisive, he bowed his head to say a karakia for the boy’s recovery.

‘Tutakina i te iwi,’ he said, ‘tutakina i te toto. Tutakina i te iko. Tutakina i te uaua. Tutakina kia u. Tutakina kia mau. Tenei te rangi ka tutaki. Tenei te rangi ka ruruku. Tenei te papa ka wheuka. E rangi e, awhitia. E papa e, awhitia. Nau ka awhi, ka awhi.’

He raised his head.

‘Was that a poem?’ said Staines, staring. ‘What does it mean?’

‘I asked for your wound to heal,’ Tauwhare said. ‘Now I shall bring medicine.’ He took off his satchel, pulled out his flask, and pressed it into the boy’s hands.

‘Is it the smoke?’ the boy said, shivering slightly. ‘I’ve never touched the stuff, myself, but how it claws at one … like a thorn in every one of your fingers, and a string around your heart … and one feels it always. Nagging. Nagging. You’d stand me a mouthful of smoke. I believe you would. You’re a decent fellow.’

Tauwhare shucked his woollen coat, and draped it across the boy’s legs.

‘Just until I find this tree on Maori land,’ the boy went on. ‘You can have as many ounces as you please. Only it’s the good stuff I’m after. Are you going to the druggist? Pritchard’s got my account. Pritchard’s all right. Ask him. I’ve never touched a pipe before.’

‘This is water,’ said Tauwhare, pointing at the flask. ‘Drink it.’

‘How extraordinarily kind,’ said the boy, closing his eyes again.

‘You stay here,’ Tauwhare said firmly. He stood. ‘I go to Hokitika and tell others where you are. I shall come back very soon.’

‘Just a bit of the good stuff,’ said Staines, as Tauwhare left the cottage. His eyes were still closed. ‘And after you come back we’ll go and have a nose around for all that gold. Or we’ll start with the smoke—yes. Do it properly. What an unrequited love it is, this thirst! But is it love, when it is unrequited? Good Lord. Medicine, he says. And him a Maori fellow!’

MARS IN AQUARIUS

Sook Yongsheng, after making his five-pound purchase at Brunton, Solomon & Barnes that morning, had immediately gone into hiding. The shopkeeper who loaded the pistol had been very plainly suspicious of his intentions, though he had accepted Ah Sook’s paper note without complaint: he had followed Ah Sook to the door of his establishment, to see him off, and Ah Sook twice looked over his shoulder to see him standing, arms folded, scowling after him. A Chinaman purchasing a revolver with cash money, laying down that cash money all at once, refusing to pay more than five pounds even for the item, and requesting that the piece be loaded in the store? This was not the kind of suspicion that one kept to oneself. Ah Sook knew very well that by the time he reached the corner of Weld- and Tancred-streets the rumour mill would have begun to turn, and swiftly. He needed to find a place to hide until sundown, whereupon he would venture, under the cover of darkness, to the rearmost bedroom on the ground floor of the Crown Hotel.

There was no one in Hokitika Ah Sook trusted enough to ask for aid. Certainly not Anna: not any more. Nor Mannering. Nor Pritchard. He was not on speaking terms with any of the other men from the council at the Crown, except Ah Quee, who, of course, would be in Kaniere, digging the ground. For a moment he considered taking a room at one of the more disreputable hotels on the eastern side of town, perhaps even paying for the week in advance, to disguise his motivation … but even there he could not guarantee anonymity; he could not guarantee that the proprietors would not talk. His presence in Hokitika on a Monday morning was conspicuous enough, even without wagging tongues. Better not to trust in the discretion of other men, he thought. He resolved instead to take his pistol into the alley that ran in parallel between Revell-street and Tancred-street. The alley formed a rutted thoroughfare between the rear allotments of the Revell-street warehouses and hotels, which faced west, and the rear allotments of the Tancred-street cabins, which faced east. There was ample opportunity for camouflage, and the alley was central enough to allow points of entry and exit from all sides. Best of all, the space was frequented only intermittently, by the tradesmen and penny-postmen who serviced the hotels.

In the allotment behind a wine and spirit merchant’s Ah Sook found a place to hide. A piece of corrugated iron had been propped against an outhouse, creating a kind of lean-to, open at both ends. It was shielded from the alley by a large flax bush, and from the rear of the merchant warehouse by the outhouse pump. Ah Sook crawled into the triangular space, and sat down, cross-legged. He was still sitting in this way three hours later, when Mr. Everard came running down Revell-street, shouting the news to the bellmen that George Shepard had taken out a warrant for a Chinaman’s arrest.

At Mr. Everard’s words a thrill ran through Ah Sook’s body. Now he could be certain that Francis Carver had been forewarned. But Ah Sook had an advantage Carver did not—could not—suspect: thanks to Walter Moody’s confidence, he knew exactly where to find Carver, and when. Warrant or no warrant, George Shepard had not arrested him yet! Ah Sook listened until the cry up and down Revell-street had faded, and then, smiling slightly, he closed his eyes.

‘What are you doing down there?’

Ah Sook started. Standing over him, his hand on the outhouse door, was a dirty youth of perhaps five-and-twenty, wearing a sack coat and a collarless shirt.

‘You’re not allowed to squat here, you know,’ the youth said, frowning. ‘This is private land. It belongs to Mr. Chesney. You can’t just hole up where you please.’

Another voice, from the warehouse: ‘Who’s that you’re talking to, Ed?’

‘There’s a chink—just sitting here. Beside the outhouse.’

‘A what?’

‘A Chinaman.’

‘He’s using the outhouse?’

‘No,’ called the youth. ‘He’s just sitting beside it.’

‘Well, tell him to get a move on.’

‘Get on with you,’ said the youth, giving Ah Sook a gentle nudge with the toe of his boot. ‘Get on with you. You can’t stay here.’

The voice from the warehouse called again. ‘What did you say he was doing there, Ed?’

‘Nothing,’ the youth called back. ‘Just sitting. He’s got a pistol.’

‘A what?’

‘He’s got a pistol, I said.’

‘What’s he doing with it?’

‘Nothing. He’s not making any trouble, as far as I can see.’

A pause. Then, ‘Is he gone?’

‘Get on with you,’ Ed said again to Ah Sook, motioning. ‘Go on.’

Roused to motion at last, Ah Sook slipped out from beneath the corrugated iron, and hurried away—feeling the puzzled eyes of the youth on his back, as he did so. He ducked behind a laundry line, and into the oaty-smelling stables at the rear of the Hotel Imperial, keeping his head down and his pistol clasped tight to his chest. Above the whickering and stamping of the horses he could hear that the two men were still calling back and forth, discussing him. He knew that before long he would be pursued; he needed to hide himself, and quickly, before someone sounded the alarm. Ah Sook ran to the end of the stalls and peered over the half-door. He looked along the row of allotments, at the lean-to kitchens beyond them, the baize doors for the tradesmen, the privies, the pits for waste. Where would he be safest? His gaze came to rest upon the small cluster of buildings that formed the Police Camp, and among them, the wooden cottage in which George Shepard lived. His heart gave a sudden lurch. Well, why not? he thought, suddenly bold. It is the last place in Hokitika that anyone would think to find me.

He crossed the small track between the stables and the Police Camp fence, walked up to George Shepard’s kitchen door, and rapped smartly upon it. While he was waiting for a response he looked furtively about him, but the alley was quite empty, and there was nobody in the yards on either side of where he stood. Unless someone was watching from inside one of the hotels—which was very possible, the cockled glass shielding all view of the interior—then nobody could see him, standing in the shadow of George Shepard’s lean-to, pistol in hand.

‘Who is it?’ came a woman’s voice, through the door. ‘Who is it?’

‘For Margaret,’ said Sook Yongsheng, leaning his mouth close to the wood.

‘Who?’

‘For Margaret Shepard.’

‘But who is it? Who’s calling?’

It seemed to him that her mouth was very close to the wood also; perhaps she was leaning close, on the other side.

‘Sook Yongsheng,’ he said. And then, into the ensuing silence, ‘Please.’

The door opened, and there she was.

‘Margaret,’ said Ah Sook, full of feeling. He bowed.

Only when he rose from the bow did he allow himself to appraise her. Like Lydia Wells, she too seemed virtually unaltered since the scene of their last encounter, at the courthouse in Sydney, when she stepped forward with the testimony—the false testimony!—that had saved his life. Her hair now showed a strip of silver down the central part, and it had turned brittle, such that the few wisps that had escaped her hairnet formed a haze about her head. Apart from this small token of her advancing age, her features seemed more or less the same: the same frightened, watery eyes; the same buck teeth; the same broken nose, broad across the bridge; the same blurred lips; the same look of fearful shock and apprehension. How well the memory is stirred by the sight of a familiar face! All in a rush Ah Sook could see her sitting down in the witness chair, folding her gloved hands neatly in her lap, blinking at the prosecutor, coughing twice into a scrap of lawn, tucking it into the cuff of her dress, folding her hands again. Telling a lie to save his life.

She was staring at him. Then she hissed, ‘What on earth—’ and gave a laugh that was almost a hiccup. ‘Mr. Sook—what—what on earth? There is a warrant out for your arrest—did you know that? George has taken out a warrant!’

‘May I come in?’ said Ah Sook. He was holding the pistol against his hip, with his body half-turned to shield it: she had not seen it yet.

A gust of wind blew through the open door as he spoke, causing the interior walls of the cottage to shudder and thrum. The wind moved visibly over the stretched calico.

‘Quickly,’ she said. ‘Quickly, now.’

She hustled him into the cottage, and shut the door.

‘Why have you come?’ she whispered.

‘You are very kind woman, Margaret.’

Her face crumpled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No.’

Ah Sook nodded. ‘You are very kind.’

‘It’s a terrible position you’re putting me in,’ she whispered. ‘What’s to say I won’t send word to George? I ought to! There’s a warrant out—and I had no idea, Mr. Sook. I had no idea you were even here, before this morning. Why have you come?’

Ah Sook, moving slowly, brought out the pistol from behind his back.

She brought her hand up to her mouth.

‘You will hide me,’ he said.

‘I can’t,’ said Mrs. Shepard, still with her hand over her mouth. She stared at the revolver. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking, Mr. Sook.’

‘You will hide me, until dark,’ Ah Sook said. ‘Please.’

She worked her mouth a little, as though gnawing on her palm, and then snatched her hand away, and said, ‘Where will you go when it gets dark?’

‘Take Carver’s life,’ said Ah Sook.

‘Carver—’

She groaned and moved on quick feet away from him, flapping her hand, as though motioning him to put the gun away, out of sight.

Ah Sook did not move. ‘Please, Margaret.’

‘I never dreamed I’d see you again,’ she said. ‘I never dreamed—’

She was interrupted. There came a smart rap on the door: the front door, this time, on the far side of the cottage.

Margaret Shepard’s breath caught in her throat; for an instant, Ah Sook feared that she was going to vomit. Then she flew at him, pushing his chest with both hands. ‘Go,’ she whispered, frantic. ‘Into the bedroom. Get under the bed. Get out of sight. Go. Go. Go.’

She pushed him into the bedroom that she shared with the gaoler. It was very tidily kept, with two chests of drawers, an ironframed bed, and a single embroidered tract, stapled to the framing above the headboard. Ah Sook did not have time to look around him. He fell to his knees and slithered under the bed, still with the pistol in his hand. The door closed; the room darkened. Ah Sook heard steps in the passage, and then the sound of the latch being lifted. He turned to the side. Through the calico wall beside him a square of lightness widened, and a patch of blackness stepped forward into it, clouding the centre. Ah Sook felt the sudden chill of the wind.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs. Shepard. I’m looking for your husband. Is he at home?’

Ah Sook stiffened. He knew that voice.

Margaret Shepard must have shaken her head, for Francis Carver said, ‘Care to tell me where he might be found?’

‘Up at the construction site, sir.’ She spoke barely above a whisper.

‘Up at Seaview, is he?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Ah Sook cradled the Kerr Patent in both hands. There would be nothing easier than to slither out from beneath the bed, and stand, and press the muzzle to the wall. The cartridge would rip through the calico walls like nothing. But how could he be sure not to injure Mrs. Shepard? He looked at the patch of darkness, trying to see where Carver’s shadow ended, and Mrs. Shepard’s began.

‘The alert’s gone up,’ Carver was saying. ‘Shepard’s just put in for a warrant. Our old friend Sook’s in town. Armed and on the loose.’

The gaoler’s wife said nothing. In the bedroom, Ah Sook began to ease himself out from under the bed.

‘It’s me he’s after,’ Carver said.

No answer: perhaps she only nodded.

‘Well, your husband’s done me a good turn, in sounding the warning,’ Carver went on. ‘You let him know that I appreciate it.’

‘I will.’

Carver seemed to linger. ‘Rumour has it that he’s been in Hokitika since late last year,’ he said. ‘Our mutual friend. You must have seen him.’

‘No,’ she whispered.

‘You never saw him? Or you never knew?’

‘I never knew,’ she said. ‘Not until—not until this morning.’

In the bedroom, still with the pistol trained on the calico shadow, Ah Sook got to his knees, and then to his feet. He began to move towards the wall. If he angled the pistol sideways—if he shot obliquely, rather than head-on—

‘Well, George did,’ Carver was saying. ‘He’s known for a while now. Been keeping a watch upon the man. He didn’t tell you?’

‘No,’ whispered Mrs. George.

Another pause.

‘I suppose that figures,’ Carver said.

Ah Sook had reached the timber frame of the bedroom doorway. He was perhaps six feet away from the square of lightness that was the front door; the doubled sheet of calico was all that stood between him and Francis Carver. Was Carver armed? There was no way to tell, short of opening the door and confronting him face to face—but if he did so he would lose precious seconds, and he would lose the advantage of surprise. And yet he still did not dare shoot, for fear of hurting Mrs. Shepard. He peered at the shapes on the fabric, trying to see where the woman was standing. Did the door open to the left, or to the right?

The blackness of the calico shadow seemed to thicken slightly.

‘You’ve spent your lifetime paying for it,’ Carver said. ‘Haven’t you?’

Silence.

‘And it’s never enough.’

Silence.

‘He doesn’t want your penance,’ Carver said. ‘Mark my words, Mrs. Shepard. Your penance is not what he wants. He wants something that he can take for his very own. George Shepard wants revenge.’

Mrs. Shepard spoke at last. ‘George abhors the notion of revenge,’ she said. ‘He calls it brutish. He says revenge is an act of jealousy, not of justice.’

‘He’s right,’ Carver said. ‘But everyone’s jealous of something.’

The patch of blackness in the doorway faded and dissolved, and Ah Sook heard Carver’s footsteps retreating. The cottage door closed, and there came a rattling sound as Mrs. Shepard drew the bolt and chain. Then lighter footsteps, approaching, and the bedroom door opened. Mrs. Shepard looked at Ah Sook, startled, and then at the pistol in his hand.

‘You fool,’ she said. ‘In broad daylight! And with the sergeant five paces away!’

Ah Sook said nothing. Again Mrs. George seemed to hiccup. Her voice rose to a pitch that was partly a whisper, partly a shriek. ‘Are you in your right mind? What do you think would happen to me—to me—if you took that man’s life on my doorstep? How could—do you think—with the duty sergeant five paces away—without a—and George—! What on earth!’

Ah Sook felt ashamed. ‘Sorry,’ he said, letting his hands fall.

‘I’d be hanged,’ said Margaret Shepard. ‘I’d be hanged. George would see to it.’

‘No harm done,’ said Ah Sook.

The woman’s hysteria melted into bitterness at once. ‘No harm done,’ she said.

‘Very sorry, Margaret.’

And he did feel sorry. Perhaps he had lost his chance. Perhaps now she would turn him out into the street, or ring for her husband, or summon the sergeant … and he would be captured, and Carver would walk free.

She stepped forward and eased the revolver from his hand. She held it only a moment before setting it to the side, carefully, upon the whatnot, making sure the muzzle was turned away. Then she hovered a moment, not looking at him. She breathed several times, deeply. He waited. ‘You’ll stay here till after dark,’ she said at last, and quietly. Still she did not look at him. ‘You’ll stay under the bed until it’s dark, and it’s safe to leave.’

‘Margaret,’ said Ah Sook.

‘What?’ she whispered, shrinking away, darting a quick look at the lamp fixture, then at the headboard of the bed. ‘What?’

‘Thank you,’ said Ah Sook.

She peered at him, and then quickly dropped her gaze to his chest and stomach. ‘You stand out a mile in that tunic,’ she mumbled. ‘You’re a Chinaman through and through. Wait here.’

In ten minutes she was back with a jacket and trousers over her arm, and a soft-crowned hat in her hand. ‘Try these on,’ she said, ‘I’ll sew the trousers up for size, and you can borrow a jacket from the gaol-house. You’ll leave this place looking like an Englishman, Mr. Sook, or you won’t leave it at all.’

NGA POTIKI A REHUA / THE CHILDREN OF ANTARES

Te Rau Tauwhare reached Pritchard’s Drug Hall by half past three; by the stroke of four, he and Pritchard were sitting in a rented trap, driving a pair of horses northward as fast as the trap would allow. Pritchard was half-standing, bare-headed, reckless, whipping the horses into a froth. There was a bulge in his jacket pocket: a glass jar of laudanum, sloshing thickly, so that the rusty liquid left an oily wash of colour on the inside of the glass, that thinned, and then thickened, each time the wheels of the trap went over a stone. Tauwhare was gripping the seatback with both hands, doing his best not to be sick.

‘And it was me he said he wanted,’ Pritchard said to himself, exhilarated. ‘Not the doctor—me!’

Charlie Frost, queried by the lawyer Fellowes, told the truth. Yes, the fortune found on Crosbie Wells’s estate had been found already retorted. The smelting was the work of the Chinese goldsmith, Quee Long, who until that morning had been the sole digger employed to work Mr. Staines’s goldmine, the Aurora. Mr. Fellowes wrote this down in his pocketbook, and thanked the young banker very courteously for his help. Then he produced the charred deed of gift that Anna Wetherell had given him, and handed it wordlessly across the desk.

Frost, glancing at it, was astonished. ‘It’s been signed,’ he said.

‘Come again?’ said Fellowes.

‘Emery Staines has signed this document some time in the past two months,’ said Frost firmly. ‘Unless that signature is a fake, of course … but I know the man’s hand: that’s his mark. The last time I saw this piece of paper there was a space next to this man’s name. No signature.’

‘Then he’s alive?’ said the lawyer.

Benjamin Löwenthal, turning into Collingwood-street, was surprised to find that Pritchard’s Drug Hall was shut and locked, with a card in the window saying the establishment was closed. He walked around to the rear of the building, where he found Pritchard’s assistant, a boy named Giles, reading a paper on the back stoop.

‘Where’s Mr. Pritchard?’ he said.

‘Out,’ said the boy. ‘What is it that you’re wanting?’

‘Liver pills.’

‘Repeat prescription?’

‘Yes.’

‘I can sort you. Come on in the back way.’

The boy put aside his paper, and Löwenthal followed him inside, through Pritchard’s laboratory into the shop.

‘It’s not like Jo, to leave his office on a Monday afternoon,’ Löwenthal said, while the boy set about making up his order.

‘He went off with a native fellow.’

‘Tauwhare?’

‘Don’t know his name,’ the boy said. ‘He came by all in a bother. Not two hours ago. Gave his message to Mr. Pritchard, and then Mr. Pritchard packed me off to rent a trap for the both of them, and then they tore off to the Arahura like a pair of night riders.’

‘Indeed.’ Löwenthal was curious. ‘You didn’t find out why?’

‘No,’ the boy said. ‘But Mr. Pritchard took along a whole jar of laudanum, and a pocketful of powder, besides. The native man said, “He needs medicine”—I heard him say it. But he didn’t say whom. And Mr. Pritchard kept saying something I didn’t understand at all.’

‘What was that?’ said Löwenthal.

‘“The whore’s bullet”,’ said the boy.

‘Why—Anna Wetherell!’

Clinch’s tone was less astonishment than shock.

‘Hello, Edgar.’

‘But what are you doing here? Of course you are most welcome! But what are you doing?’ He came out from behind the desk.

‘I need a place to be,’ she said. ‘Until five o’clock. May I trespass upon your hospitality for a few hours?’

‘Trespass—there’s no trespassing!’ Clinch cried, coming forward to take her hands in his. ‘Why—yes—of course, of course! You must come into my office! Shall we take tea? With biscuits? How good it is to see you. How very lovely! Where is your mistress? And where are you going, at five o’clock?’

‘I’ve an appointment at the Courthouse,’ said Anna Wetherell, politely disengaging her hands, and stepping back from him.

Clinch’s smile vanished at once. ‘Have you been summoned?’ he said anxiously. ‘Are you to be tried?’

‘It’s nothing like that. I’ve engaged a solicitor, that’s all. Of my own volition.’

‘A solicitor!’

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘I’m going to contest the widow’s claim.’

Clinch was astonished. ‘Well!’ he said, smiling again, to cover his bewilderment. ‘Well! You must tell me all about it, Anna—and we must take tea together. I’m so very happy you’ve come.’

‘I’m glad to hear that,’ said Anna. ‘I feared you might resent me.’

‘I could never resent you!’ Clinch cried. ‘I could never—but why?’ In the next moment he understood. ‘You’re going to contest the widow’s claim—on that fortune.’

She nodded. ‘There’s a document that names me as an inheritor.’

‘Is there?’ said Clinch, wincing. ‘Signed, and everything?’

‘Found in his stove. In Crosbie Wells’s stove. Someone tried to burn it.’

‘But is it signed?’

‘Two thousand pounds,’ said Anna. ‘Oh—you have always been such a father to me, Edgar—I don’t mind telling you. He meant it as a present! Two thousand pounds, as a present, all at once. He loves me. He’s loved me all along!’

‘Who?’ said Edgar Clinch sourly, but he already knew.

As Löwenthal was returning to the newspaper offices on Weld-street he heard someone call his name. He turned, and saw Dick Mannering striding towards him, a paper folded beneath his arm.

‘I have a juicy piece of news for you, Ben,’ Mannering said. ‘Though you may have heard it already. Would you like to hear a juicy piece of news?’

Löwenthal frowned, distracted. ‘What is it?’

‘Rumour has it that Gov. Shepard’s taken out a warrant for Mr. Sook’s arrest. Apparently Mr. Sook turned up in Hokitika this morning, and laid down cash money for a military weapon! How about that?’

‘Does he mean to use it?’

‘Why would one buy a gun,’ said Mannering cheerfully, ‘except to use it? I dare say that we can expect a shoot-out in the thoroughfare. A shoot-out—in the American style!’

‘I have some news also,’ said Löwenthal, as they turned into Revell-street, and began walking south. ‘Another rumour—and no less juicy than yours.’

‘About our Mr. Sook?’

‘About our Mr. Staines,’ said Löwenthal.

Quee Long was slicing vegetables for soup at his hut in Chinatown when he heard hoof beats approaching, and then someone shouting hello. He went to the doorway, and pulled back the hessian curtain with one hand.

‘You there,’ said the man on the threshold, who had just dismounted. ‘You’ve been summoned by the law. I’m to take you to the Hokitika Courthouse.’

Quee Long put up his hands. ‘Not Ah Sook,’ he said. ‘Ah Quee.’

‘I bloody well know who you are,’ the man said, ‘and it’s you I want. Come along: quick as you’re able. There’s a buggy waiting. Come.’

‘Ah Quee,’ said Ah Quee again.

‘I know who you are. It’s to do with a fortune you dug up on the Aurora.’

‘The Arahura?’ said Ah Quee, mishearing him.

‘That’s right,’ the man said. ‘Now get a move on. You’ve been summoned by a Mr. John Fellowes, on behalf of the Magistrate’s Court.’

After leaving the Reserve Bank Mr. Fellowes paid a call upon Harald Nilssen, at Nilssen & Co. He found the commission merchant in his office, drawing up a balance sheet on George Shepard’s behalf. The work was dreary, and Nilssen was pleased to be roused from it—pleased, that is, until the lawyer handed him the charred contract bearing the signatures of Emery Staines and Crosbie Wells. Nilssen’s face drained of colour at once.

‘Have you ever seen this document before?’ said Fellowes.

But Nilssen was a man who learned from his mistakes.

‘Before I answer you,’ he said cautiously, ‘I’d like to know who sent you, and what’s your purpose with me.’

The lawyer nodded. ‘That’s fair,’ he said. ‘The girl Wetherell received this document this morning from an anonymous source. Slid under the front door while her mistress was out. It’s a tidy sum of money, and by all appearances it’s bound for her pocket, as you can see. But it stinks of a set-up. We don’t know who sent it—or why.’

Nilssen had already betrayed Cowell Devlin once; he would not do so a second time. ‘I see,’ he said, keeping his face impassive. ‘So you are working for Miss Wetherell.’

‘I’m not associated with any whores,’ Fellowes said sharply. ‘I’m just doing a bit of research, that’s all. Getting the lay of the land.’

‘Of course,’ Nilssen murmured. ‘Forgive me.’

‘You were the man who cleared Crosbie Wells’s estate,’ Fellowes went on. ‘All I want to know is whether this piece of paper was among his possessions, when you were called in to clear the place.’

‘No, it was not,’ said Nilssen, truthfully. ‘And we cleared that cottage top to bottom: you have my word on that.’

‘All right,’ Fellowes said. ‘Thanks.’

He stood, and Nilssen rose also. As they did so the bells in the Wesleyan chapel rang out the hour: it was a quarter before five.

‘Very fine donation you made, by the way,’ said Fellowes, as he made to leave. ‘Your support of the new gaol-house on Seaview. Very fine.’

‘Thank you,’ said Nilssen, speaking tartly.

‘It’s a rare thing in this day and age, to meet a truly charitable man,’ said the lawyer. ‘I commend you for it.’

‘Mr. Staines?’

The boy’s eyes fluttered open, blurred, focused, and came to rest on Joseph Pritchard, who was crouching over him.

‘Why, it’s Pritchard,’ he said. ‘The druggist.’

Pritchard reached out a gentle hand and pulled back the collar of Staines’s shirt, to expose the blackened wound beneath. The boy did not protest. His eyes searched Pritchard’s face as the chemist examined the wound.

‘Did you manage to scrape up a piece of it?’ he whispered.

Pritchard’s face was sombre. ‘A piece of what?’

‘A piece of the resin,’ the boy said. ‘You said you’d stand me a piece of it.’

‘I brought something to take the edge away,’ Pritchard said shortly. ‘You’ve found a thirst for the smoke, have you? That’s a nasty wound you’ve got there.’

‘A thirst,’ the boy said. ‘I said it was like a thorn. I never heard the shot, you know. I was in the coffin at the time.’

‘How long have you been here? When was the last time you ate?’

‘Three days,’ the boy said. ‘Was it three days? It’s very good of you. Excessively kind. I suppose it was midnight. I fancied a walk.’

‘He’s not talking sense,’ Pritchard said.

‘No,’ said Tauwhare. ‘Will he die?’

‘He doesn’t look too thin,’ Pritchard said, feeling Staines’s cheek and forehead with the back of his hand. ‘Someone’s been feeding him, at least … or he’s managed to scavenge, wherever he’s been. Christ! Eight weeks. Something more than prayers is holding this one together.’

Staines’s gaze drifted over Pritchard’s shoulder to Tauwhare, standing behind him. ‘The Maoris are the very best of guides,’ he said, smiling. ‘You’ll do beautifully.’

‘Listen,’ Pritchard said to Staines, pulling his collar over the wound again. ‘We’ve got to get you onto the trap. We’re going to take you back to Hokitika, so that Dr. Gillies can take that bullet out of your shoulder. Once you’re on the trap I’ll give you something to take the edge away. All right?’

The boy’s head had fallen forward. ‘Hokitika,’ he mumbled. ‘Anna Magdalena.’

‘Anna’s in Hokitika, waiting for you,’ said Pritchard. ‘Come on, now. The sooner the better. We’ll have you in town before dark.’

‘He wrote her an aria,’ said the boy. ‘As a token. I never made a vow.’

Pritchard lifted Staines’s good arm, draped it over his shoulder, and stood. Tauwhare grabbed the boy around the waist, and together the two men carried him out of the cottage and hauled him onto the trap. The boy was still mumbling. His skin was slick with sweat, and very hot. They arranged him on the seat of the trap in such a way that Pritchard and Tauwhare could sit on either side of him, and prevent him from falling forward, and Tauwhare tucked his woollen coat about the boy’s legs. At last Pritchard produced the jar of laudanum from his pocket, and uncorked it.

‘It’s very bitter, I’m afraid, but it’ll take the edge off,’ he said, cupping the back of Staines’s neck with one hand, and holding the bottle to his mouth. ‘There it is,’ he said. ‘There it is. Goes down easy, doesn’t it? One more swallow. There it is. One more. Now settle back, Mr. Staines, and close your eyes. You’ll be asleep in no time.’

Alistair Lauderback, upon quitting the Hokitika Courthouse, had gone immediately to the office of the shipping agent, Thomas Balfour. He flung his copy of Godspeed’s bill of sale onto Balfour’s desk, seated himself without invitation, and cried, ‘He’s still at it, Tom! Francis Carver is still at it! He’ll bleed me till the bloody day I die!’

It took Balfour a very long time to make sense of this theatrical statement, to understand in full the protection and indemnity scheme under which Godspeed had been insured, and to venture his own opinion, finally, that perhaps Lauderback ought to admit defeat, in this round at least. Francis Carver, it seemed, had bested him. The ambiguous signature was a piece of cleverness that Lauderback could not easily contest, and as for the matter of Godspeed’s insurance policy, Carver was legally entitled to draw down those funds, and Mr. Garrity had already seen fit to approve the transaction. But the politician was loath to accept such sensible advice, and persisted in sighing, clutching his hair, and cursing Francis Carver. By five o’clock Balfour’s patience was long since spent.

‘I’m not the man to talk to,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t know a scrap about the ins and outs of the law. You shouldn’t be talking to me.’

‘Who then?’

‘Go and talk to the Commissioner.’

‘He’s out of town.’

‘What about the Magistrate?’

‘On the eve of the elections! Are you mad?’

‘Shepard, then. Show this to George Shepard and see what he thinks.’

‘Mr. Shepard and I are not on good terms,’ Lauderback said.

‘Well, all right,’ Balfour said, exasperated, ‘but Shepard’s not on good terms with Carver, don’t forget! He might be able to give you a leg-up on that account.’

‘What’s Shepard’s beef with Carver?’ Lauderback asked.

Balfour frowned at him. ‘Carver did his time under Shepard,’ he said. ‘As a convict. Shepard was a penitentiary sergeant on Cockatoo Island at Port Jackson, and Carver did his time there.’

‘Oh,’ said Lauderback.

‘Didn’t you know that?’

‘No,’ said Lauderback. ‘Why should I?’

‘I just expected that you might,’ said Balfour.

‘I don’t know George Shepard from a stick of chalk,’ said Lauderback, stoutly.

Aubert Gascoigne had completed his business at the Reserve Bank in the mid-afternoon; when the clock struck five, he was back at the Courthouse, compiling a record of that day’s petty sessions for the West Coast Times. He was surprised when the foyer door opened and Anna Wetherell walked in.

She gave him only a cursory greeting, however, en route to shake Mr. Fellowes’ hand. They exchanged several words that Gascoigne could not hear, and then the lawyer gestured her into a private office, and closed the door.

‘What’s Anna doing with Fellowes?’ Gascoigne said to his colleague Burke.

‘Haven’t the foggiest,’ said Burke. ‘She came by earlier, while you were at the bank. Wanted to speak to a lawyer about something private.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because it wasn’t bloody news,’ said Burke. ‘Hello, there’s Gov. Shepard.’

George Shepard was striding across the hall towards them.

‘Mr. Gascoigne, Mr. Burke,’ he said. ‘Good afternoon.’

‘Good afternoon.’

‘I’ve come to collect a warrant for a Chinaman’s arrest.’

‘It’s ready for you, sir.’

Burke went to fetch the warrant. Shepard waited, with restrained impatience, his hands on his hips, his fingers tapping. Gascoigne was staring at Fellowes’ office door. Suddenly, from behind it, there came a muffled thump—rather like the sound of a body falling down stairs—and in the next moment Fellowes was shouting, ‘Give us a hand—give us a hand in here!’

Gascoigne crossed the hall to the office and opened the door. Anna Wetherell was lying prone, her eyes closed, her mouth half-open; the lawyer Fellowes was kneeling beside her, shaking her arm.

‘Out for the count,’ said Fellowes. ‘She just collapsed! Pitched forward, right over the table!’ He turned to Gascoigne, pleading. ‘I didn’t do anything! I didn’t touch her!’

The gaoler had come up behind them. ‘What’s going on?’

Gascoigne knelt and leaned close to her. ‘She’s breathing,’ he said. ‘Let’s get her up.’ He lifted her into a sitting position, marvelling at how thin and wasted her limbs had become. Her head lolled back; he caught it in the crook of his elbow.

‘Did she hit her head?’

‘Nothing like that,’ said Fellowes, who was wearing a very frightened look. ‘She just fell sideways. Looks like she’s drunk. But she didn’t seem drunk, when she walked in. I swear I didn’t touch her.’

‘Maybe she fainted.’

‘Use your heads, both of you,’ said Shepard. ‘I can smell the laudanum from here.’

Gascoigne could smell it too: thick and bitter. He slipped a finger into Anna’s mouth and worked her jaw open. ‘There’s no staining,’ he said. ‘If it were laudanum, her tongue would be brown, wouldn’t it? Her teeth would be stained.’

‘Take her to the gaol-house,’ Shepard said.

Gascoigne frowned. ‘Perhaps the hospital—’

‘The gaol,’ Shepard said. ‘I’ve had enough of this whore and her theatrics. Take her to the Police Camp, and chain her to the rail. And sit her upright, so she can breathe.’

Fellowes was shaking his head. ‘I don’t know what happened,’ he said. ‘One moment she was stone-cold sober, the next she came over all drowsy, and the next—’

The foyer door opened again. ‘A Mr. Quee for Mr. Fellowes,’ came the call.

Burke had come up behind them. ‘Excuse me, Mr. Shepard,’ he said. ‘Here’s your warrant for Mr. Sook’s arrest.’

‘Mr. Quee?’ said Gascoigne, turning. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘Take the whore away,’ the gaoler said.

Sook Yongsheng, lying on the bare boards beneath George Shepard’s bed, was listening to the bells in the Wesleyan chapel ring out half past five when there came another rap at the cottage door. He turned his head to the side, and listened for Margaret Shepard’s footsteps. She padded down the hall, lifted the latch, and drew the bolt, and then the square of lightness on the calico wall widened again, and he felt the cool breath of the outside air. The light was bluer now, and less intense, and the shadow in the doorway was a muted grey.

‘Mrs. Shepard, I presume.’

‘Yes.’

‘I wonder if I might have a word with your husband. Is he available?’

‘No,’ said Margaret Shepard, for the second time that day. ‘He’s gone down to the Courthouse on business.’

‘What a shame. Might I wait for him?’

‘You’d do better to make an appointment,’ she said.

‘I take it that he is not likely to return.’

‘He often spends his nights at Seaview,’ she said. ‘And sometimes he plays billiards in town.’

‘I see.’

Sook Yongsheng did not know Alistair Lauderback’s voice, but he could tell from the tone and volume that the man speaking was someone of some authority.

‘Forgive me for disturbing you,’ Lauderback went on. ‘Perhaps you might do me the favour of telling your husband that I came by.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘You do know who I am, don’t you?’

‘You’re Mr. Lauderback,’ she whispered.

‘Very good. Tell him that I should like to discuss a mutual acquaintance. Francis Carver is the man’s name.’

‘I’ll tell him.’

That man will be dead before the morning, thought Sook Yongsheng.

The door closed again; the bedroom darkened.

Cowell Devlin made room for Anna Wetherell in the corner of the Police Camp gaol-house, thinking, as he did so, that she made for a much more wretched picture than she had two months prior, following her attempt upon her own life. She was not feverish, as she had been then, and she did not mumble in her sleep, or lash about—but she seemed all the sorrier, for sleeping so peacefully, clad in her black mourning gown. She was so thin. Devlin manacled her with great regret, and as loosely as he was able. He asked Mrs. Shepard to bring a blanket to place beneath her head. This instruction was silently obeyed.

‘What’s the meaning of it?’ he said to Gascoigne, as he folded the blanket over his knee. ‘I saw Anna only this morning. I escorted her to the Courthouse myself! Did she go straight to Pritchard’s, and buy a phial of the stuff?’

‘Pritchard’s is closed,’ Gascoigne said. ‘It’s been closed all afternoon.’

Devlin slipped his palm beneath Anna’s head, and slid the folded blanket beneath. ‘Well then, where did she get her hands on a phial of laudanum, for heaven’s sake?’

‘Perhaps she’d had it all along.’

‘No,’ said Devlin. ‘When she left the Wayfarer’s Fortune this morning she wasn’t carrying a reticule or wallet of any kind. She didn’t even have any money on her person, as far as I’m aware. Someone must have given it to her. But why?’

Gascoigne wanted very much to know why Cowell Devlin had gone to the Wayfarer’s Fortune that morning, and what had happened there; as he was thinking of a polite way to ask, however, there came the rattle and clop of a trap approaching, and then Pritchard’s voice:

‘Hello in there! It’s Jo Pritchard, with Emery Staines!’

Devlin’s face was almost comical in its astonishment. Gascoigne had already rushed outside by the time he got to his feet; the chaplain hurried after him, and saw, in the courtyard, Joseph Pritchard, climbing down from the driver’s seat of a trap, and leading the horses to be tethered at the gaol-house post. On the seat of the trap Te Rau Tauwhare was sitting with both arms around a white-faced, sunken-eyed boy. Devlin stared at the boy. This was Emery Staines—this limp, inconsequential thing? The boy was much younger than he had envisaged. Why, he was but one-and-twenty—perhaps even younger. He was barely older than a child.

‘Tauwhare found him hiding out in Crosbie’s cottage,’ Pritchard said shortly. ‘He’s very sick, as you can see. Give us a hand getting him down.’

‘You’re not taking him to gaol!’ Devlin said.

‘Of course not,’ Pritchard said. ‘He’s going to the hospital. He needs to see Dr. Gillies at once.’

‘Don’t,’ said Gascoigne.

‘What?’ said Pritchard.

‘He won’t last an hour if you take him there,’ Gascoigne said.

‘Well, we can’t exactly take him back to his own rooms,’ said Pritchard.

‘Get him a hotel, then. Get him a room somewhere. Anywhere’s better than the hospital.’

‘Give us a hand,’ Pritchard said again. ‘And someone send for Dr. Gillies, while we’re at it. He’ll have the last word.’

They helped Emery Staines down from the trap.

‘Mr. Staines,’ said Pritchard. ‘Do you know where you are?’

‘Anna Magdalena,’ he mumbled. ‘Where’s Anna?’

‘Anna’s right here,’ said Cowell Devlin. ‘She’s right inside.’

His eyes opened. ‘I want to see her.’

‘He’s not talking sense,’ said Pritchard. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying.’

‘I want to see Anna,’ said the boy, suddenly lucid. ‘Where is she? I want to see her.’

‘He seems coherent to me,’ said Gascoigne.

‘Bring him inside,’ said Devlin. ‘Just until the doctor gets here. Come on: it’s what he wants. Bring him into the gaol.’

THE GREATER MALEFIC

Ah Sook crouched in the allotment behind the Crown Hotel, his back against the timber of the building, his knees bent, the Kerr Patent revolver cradled loosely in both his hands. He looked like an altogether different man from the one who had purchased the pistol that morning. Margaret Shepard had cut off his pigtail, shadowed his chin and throat with blacking, and thickened his eyebrows with the same; she had found a threadbare jacket for him, and a shirt of gaol-issue twill, and a red kerchief to tie about his neck. With the brim of his hat turned down, and the collar of his jacket turned up, he did not look Chinese in the slightest. Walking the three-hundred-yard distance from the Police Camp to the Crown, he had not attracted the least bit of attention from anyone at all; now, crouched in the allotment, he was all but invisible in the darkness.

Inside the hotel two people were talking: a man and a woman. Their voices came down to him quite clearly through the gap between the window shutter and the frame.

‘Looks like it’ll come off,’ the man was saying. ‘Protected and indemnified.’

‘You still sound uneasy,’ said the woman.

‘Yes.’

‘What are you doubting? The money’s in your hand, almost!’

‘You know I don’t trust a fellow without connexions. I couldn’t dig up anything on this Gascoigne at all. He arrived in Hokitika some time before Christmas. Landed himself a job at the Courthouse without any fuss. Lives alone. No friends to speak of. You say he’s nothing but a dandy. I say: how do I know that Lauderback hasn’t set him up?’

‘He does have one connexion. He brought a friend along to the opening of the Wayfarer’s Fortune, I recall. An aristocratic type.’

‘What does he go by? The friend.’

‘Walter Moody was his name.’

‘He can’t be Adrian Moody’s son?’

‘That was my first thought, too. He did speak with a Scottish lilt.’

‘Well, there you have it: they must be related.’

There was the clink of glasses.

‘I saw him just before I left Dunedin,’ the man went on. ‘Adrian, I mean. Tight as all get-up.’

‘And out for blood, no doubt,’ said the woman.

‘I don’t like a man beyond his own control.’

‘No,’ the woman agreed, ‘and Moody is of the worst variety—the kind of man who loves to be offended, so that he can vent his temper—for he knows not how to vent it, otherwise. He’s a decent man when he’s sober.’

‘But anyway,’ the man said, ‘if this chap Gascoigne is in thick with one of the Moody family, he ought to do us fine. His advice ought to be fine.’

‘The family resemblance is excessively slight. The mother’s features must have been strong.’

The man laughed. ‘You’re never short of an opinion, Greenway. An opinion is one thing you’ve always got on hand.’

There was another pause, and then the woman said, ‘He came over on Godspeed, in fact.’

‘Moody?’

‘Yes.’

‘No. He can’t have.’

‘Francis! Don’t contradict me. He told me himself, that evening.’

‘No,’ the man said. ‘There was no one with the name of Moody. There were only eight of them, and I looked the paper over. I would have remembered that name.’

‘Perhaps you overlooked it,’ said the woman. ‘You know I hate to be contradicted. Let’s not disagree.’

‘How would I overlook the name Moody? Why, that’s like overlooking Hanover, or—or Plantagenet.’

The woman laughed. ‘I would hardly compare Adrian Moody to a royal line!’

Ah Sook heard the squeak of a chair, and the shifting of weight over floorboards. ‘I only mean I’d have recognised it. Would you pass over the name Carver?’

The woman made a noise in her throat. ‘He most definitely said that he’d come over on Godspeed,’ she said. ‘I remember it vividly. We exchanged some words on the subject.’

‘Something’s not right,’ the man said.

‘Well, have you got the passenger list? Surely you’ve a copy of the Times—from when the ship came in. Why don’t you check it?’

‘Yes. You’re right. Hang a bit; I’ll go and look in the smoking room. They keep a stack of old broadsheets on the secretary.’

The door opened and closed.

The lamp in the next room came on, illuminating one corner of the allotment in a glow of muted yellow. Carver was in the smoking room of the Crown Hotel—and away from Lydia Wells at last. Ah Sook raised himself up slightly. He saw through the window that Carver had his back to the door, and was shuffling through the papers on the secretary. As far as he could see, there was nobody else in the room. In the bedroom, Lydia Wells began to hum a little ditty to herself.

Ah Sook got to his feet. Holding the Kerr Patent against his thigh, and moving as softly as he was able in his digger’s boots, he crept around the back of the house to the tradesman’s door. He turned into the alley—and froze.

‘Drop your arms.’

Standing on the far side of the alley, his face in shadow, a long-handled pistol in his hand, was the gaol’s governor, George Shepard. Ah Sook did not move. His eyes went to Shepard’s pistol, and then back to Shepard’s face.

‘Drop it,’ Shepard said. ‘I will shoot you. Drop the piece now.’

Still Ah Sook said nothing; still he did not move.

‘You will kneel down and place your revolver on the ground,’ Shepard said. ‘You will do that now, or you will die. Kneel.’

Ah Sook sank to his knees, but he did not release the Kerr Patent. His finger tightened on the hammer.

‘I will shoot you dead before you have time to cock and aim,’ Shepard said. ‘Make no mistake about it. Drop your arms.’

‘Margaret,’ said Ah Sook.

‘Yes,’ Shepard said. ‘She sent me a message.’

Ah Sook shook his head: he could not believe it.

‘She is my wife,’ Shepard said curtly. ‘And she was my brother’s wife before me. You remember my brother, I trust. You ought to.’

‘No.’ Again Ah Sook’s finger tightened on the hammer.

‘You do not remember him? Or you do not believe that you ought to remember?’

‘No,’ said Ah Sook, stubbornly.

‘Let me jog your memory,’ Shepard said. ‘He died at the White Horse Saloon at Darling Harbour, shot through the temple at close range. Do you remember him now? Jeremy Shepard was his name.’

‘I remember.’

‘Good,’ said Shepard. ‘So do I.’

‘I did not murder him.’

‘Still singing the same old tune, I see.’

‘Margaret,’ said Sook Yongsheng again, still kneeling.

‘Francis!’

‘Hush a moment. Hush.’

‘… What are you listening for?’

‘Hush.’

‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘Nor can I. That’s good.’

‘It was so close.’

‘Poor lamb. Did it alarm you?’

‘Only a bit. I thought—’

‘Never mind. Most likely it was just an accident. Someone cleaning their piece.’

‘I couldn’t help but imagine that horrible Chinaman.’

‘Nothing’s going to come of him. He’ll head straight to the Palace, and he’ll be rounded up before the morning.’

‘You’ve been so afraid of him, Francis.’

‘Come here.’

‘All right. All right. I’ve recovered now. Let’s see what you’ve found.’

‘Here.’ There was a rustling noise. ‘Look. McKitchen, Morely, Parrish. See? Eight in total—and no mention of a Walter Moody anywhere.’

There was a short period of quiet as she looked the paper over, and checked the date. Presently he said, ‘Strange thing to tell a lie about. Especially when his partner shows up out of nowhere, a few weeks later, and starts yammering to me about insurance. I’m just a chap who tells another chap about loopholes, he said.’

‘One of these names must be a false one. If your passengers truly numbered eight, and Walter Moody was truly among them.’

‘Eight—and all accounted for. They took the lighter in to shore that afternoon—six hours, maybe seven hours, before we rolled.’

‘Then he must have taken a false name.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Well, perhaps he was lying, then. About having come over on Godspeed.’

‘Why would he do that?’

Evidently Lydia Wells could not produce a response to this either, for after a moment she said, ‘What are you thinking, Francis?’

‘I’m thinking to write my old friend Adrian a letter.’

‘Yes, do,’ said Mrs. Wells. ‘And I shall make some inquiries of my own.’

‘The insurance money did come through. Gascoigne was as good as his word.’

Presently she said, ‘Let’s to bed.’

‘You’ve had a trying day.’

‘A very trying day.’

‘It’ll all come out right, in the end.’

‘She’ll get what she deserves,’ said Mrs. Wells. ‘I should also like to get what I deserve, Francis.’

‘It’s dreary for you, waiting.’

‘Frightfully.’

‘Mm.’

‘Are you not tired of it also?’

‘Well … I cannot show you off in the street as I would like.’

‘How would you show me off?’

Carver did not reply to this; after a short silence he said, low, ‘You’ll be Mrs. Carver soon.’

‘I have set my sights upon it,’ said Lydia Wells, and then nobody spoke for a long time.

EQUINOX

George Shepard directed Sook Yongsheng’s body to be brought into his private study at the Police Camp and laid out on the floor. The blacking on the man’s chin and throat seemed all the more gruesome in death; Mrs. George, as the body was brought in, breathed very deeply, as though steadying herself internally against a wind. Cowell Devlin, arriving from the Police Camp gaol-house, looked down at the body in shock. The hatter perfectly recalled the hermit, Crosbie Wells, who had been laid out in this very way, two months prior—on the very same sheet of muslin, in fact, his lips slightly parted, one eye showing a glint of white where the lids had not been properly closed. It was a moment before Devlin realised who the dead man really was.

‘The shot was mine,’ said Shepard, calmly. ‘He was drawing his pistol on Carver. Meaning to shoot him in the back, through the window. I caught him just in time.’

Devlin found his voice at last. ‘You couldn’t have—disarmed him?’

‘No,’ said Shepard. ‘Not in the moment. It was his life or Carver’s.’

Margaret Shepard let out a sob.

‘But I don’t understand,’ Devlin said, glancing at her, and then back at Shepard. ‘What was he doing, drawing a pistol on Carver?’

‘Perhaps you might clear up the chaplain’s confusion, Margaret,’ said George Shepard, addressing his wife, who sobbed a second time. ‘Reverend, I’ll be wanting you to dig another grave.’

‘Surely his body ought to be sent home to his people,’ Devlin said, frowning.

‘This one has no people,’ said Shepard.

‘How do you know that?’ said Devlin.

‘Again,’ said Shepard, ‘perhaps you ought to ask my wife.’

‘Mrs. Shepard?’ said Devlin, uncertainly.

Margaret Shepard gasped and covered her face with her hands.

Shepard turned to her. ‘Compose yourself,’ he said. ‘Don’t be a child.’

The woman took her hands from her face at once. ‘Forgive me, Reverend,’ she whispered, without looking at him. Her face was very white.

‘That’s quite all right,’ said Devlin, frowning. ‘You’re in shock, that’s all. Perhaps you ought to lie down.’

‘George,’ she whispered.

‘I consider that you did the ethical thing today,’ the gaoler said, staring at her. ‘I commend you for it.’

At this Mrs. Shepard’s face crumpled. She clapped her hands over her mouth, and ran from the room.

‘My apologies,’ said the gaoler to Devlin, when she was gone. ‘My wife has a volatile temperament, as you can see.’

‘I do not fault her,’ Devlin said. The relations between Shepard and his wife troubled him extremely, but he knew better than to give voice to his fears. ‘It is very natural to feel overcome in the presence of the dead. All the more so, if one has a personal history with the deceased.’

Shepard was staring down at Sook Yongsheng’s body. ‘Devlin,’ he said after a moment, looking up, ‘will you share a drink with me?’

Devlin was surprised: the gaoler had never made such an invitation before. ‘I would be honoured,’ he said, still speaking carefully. ‘But perhaps we might go into the parlour … or out onto the porch, where we will not disturb Mrs. Shepard’s rest.’

‘Yes.’ Shepard went to his liquor cabinet. ‘Do you have a taste for brandy, or for whisky? I have both.’

‘Well,’ Devlin said, surprised again, ‘it’s been an awfully long time since I had a drop of whisky. Some whisky would be very nice.’

‘Kirkliston is what I have,’ said Shepard, plucking out the bottle, and holding it up. ‘It’s tolerable stuff.’ He stacked two glasses, swept them up into his great hand, and gestured for Devlin to open the door.

The Police Camp courtyard was deserted, and chilly in the dark. All the buildings opposite were shuttered, their inhabitants abed; the wind had dropped at sundown, and it was almost perfectly quiet, the silence like the surface of a pond. The only sound came from the moths bumping against the glass globe that hung in a bracket beside the cottage door. There came a fizz of light each time a moth spiralled down into the flame, and then a dusty, acrid smell, as its body burned.

Shepard set out the glasses on the banister rail, and poured them both a measure.

‘Margaret was my brother’s wife,’ he said, handing one of the glasses to Devlin, and draining the other. ‘My older brother. Jeremy. I married her after Jeremy died.’

‘Thank you,’ Devlin murmured, accepting the glass, and holding the liquor to his nose. The gaoler had been too modest: the whisky was more than tolerable. In Hokitika a bottle of Kirkliston cost eighteen shillings, and double that whenever spirits were scarce.

‘The White Horse Saloon,’ the gaoler was saying. ‘That was the name of the place. A dockside tavern at Darling Harbour. He was shot through the temple.’

Devlin sipped at his whisky. The taste was smoky and slightly musty; it put him in mind of cured meats, and new books, and barnyards, and cloves.

‘So I married his wife,’ Shepard went on, pouring himself another measure. ‘It was the moral thing to do. I am not like my brother, Reverend, neither in temperament nor in taste. He was a dissolute. I do not mean to commend myself by contrast, but the difference between us was very often remarked. It had been remarked since our childhoods. I knew virtually nothing of his marriage to Margaret. She was a barmaid. She was not a beauty, as you know. But I married her. I did the dutiful thing. I married her, and provided for her, in her loss, and together we waited for the trial.’

Devlin nodded mutely, staring at his whisky, turning the small glass around in his hand. He was thinking of Sook Yongsheng, lying cold on the floor inside—his chin and throat smeared with bootblack; his eyebrows thickened, like a clown.

‘Poor, brutish Jeremy,’ Shepard said. ‘I never admired him, and to my knowledge, he never admired me. He was a terrible brawler. I expected that one of his brawls would turn fatal, sooner or later; they happened often enough. When I first learned that he had been murdered, I wasn’t terribly surprised.’

He drained his glass again, and refilled it. Devlin waited for him to go on.

‘It was a Johnny Chinaman who did it. Jeremy had kicked him about in the street, shamed him most likely. The chink came back to seek redress. Found my brother sleeping off a bottle in a rented room above the tavern. Picked up Margaret’s pistol from beside his bed, put the muzzle to his temple, and that was that. Then he tried to run, of course, but he was stupid about it. He didn’t get further than the edge of the quay. He was tripped up by a sergeant, and thrown in gaol that very night. The trial was scheduled for six weeks later.’

Again Shepard drained his glass. Devlin was surprised; he had never seen the gaoler drink before, except at mealtimes, or as medicine. Perhaps the death of Ah Sook had unsettled him.

‘The trial ought to have been straightforward,’ the gaoler went on, pouring himself a fourth measure. His face had become rather flushed. ‘First, of course, the suspect was a chink. Second, he had ample provocation to wish my brother harm. Third, he had not a word of English to defend himself. There was no doubt in anybody’s minds that the chink was guilty. They’d all heard the shot go off. They’d all seen him running. But then comes Margaret Shepard into the witness box. My new wife, don’t forget. We’ve been married less than a month. She sits down, and this is what she says. My husband wasn’t murdered by that Chinaman, she says. My husband was killed by his own hand, and I know it, because I witnessed his suicide myself.’

Devlin wondered whether Margaret Shepard was listening, from inside.

‘There wasn’t a word of truth to it,’ the gaoler said. ‘Complete fabrication. She lied. Under oath. She defiled her late husband’s memory—my brother’s memory—by calling him a suicide … and all to protect that worthless chink from the punishment that he deserved. He would have swung without a doubt. He should have swung. It was his crime, and it went unpunished.’

‘How can you be sure that your wife wasn’t telling the truth?’ said Devlin.

‘How can I be sure?’ Shepard reached for the bottle again. ‘My brother was not a suicidal type,’ he said. ‘That’s how. You’ll have another?’

‘Please,’ Devlin said, holding out his glass. It was rare that he tasted whisky.

‘I can see that you’re doubtful, Reverend,’ said Shepard, as he poured, ‘but there’s just no other way to say it. Jeremy was not a suicidal type. No more than I am.’

‘But what reason could Mrs. Shepard have had—to lie, under oath?’

‘She was fond of him,’ said Shepard, shortly.

‘This Chinaman,’ said Devlin.

‘Yes,’ said Shepard. ‘The late Mr. Sook. They had a history together. You can be sure I didn’t see that coming. By the time I found out, however, she was already my wife.’

Devlin sipped again at his whisky. They were silent for a long while, looking out at the shadowed forms of the buildings opposite.

Presently Devlin said, ‘You haven’t mentioned Francis Carver.’

‘Oh—Carver,’ said Shepard, swirling his glass. ‘Yes.’

‘What is his association with Mr. Sook?’ said Devlin, to prompt him.

‘They had a history,’ said Shepard. ‘Some bad blood. A trading dispute.’

This much Devlin knew already. ‘Yes?’

‘I’ve been keeping a watch on Sook since Darling Harbour. I got word this morning that he had bought a pistol from the outfitters on Camp-street, and I applied for a warrant for his arrest at once.’

‘You would arrest a man simply for purchasing a pistol?’

‘Yes, if I knew what he meant to do with it. Sook had sworn to take Carver’s life. He’d sworn to it. I knew that when he finally caught up with Carver, it would be murder or nothing. As soon as I heard about the pistol I called the alarm. Staked out the Palace Hotel. Sent word ahead to Carver, letting him know. Gave the message to the bellmen, to cry along the road. I was one step behind him—until the very last.’

‘And in the last?’ said Devlin, after a moment.

Shepard fixed him with a cold look. ‘I told you what happened.’

‘It was his life or Carver’s,’ Devlin said.

‘I acted inside the law,’ Shepard said.

‘I’m sure you did,’ Devlin said.

‘I had a warrant for his arrest.’

‘I do not doubt it.’

‘Revenge,’ said Shepard firmly, ‘is an act of jealousy, not of justice. It is a selfish perversion of the law.’

‘Revenge is certainly selfish,’ Devlin agreed, ‘but I doubt it has very much to do with the law.’

He finished his whisky, and Shepard, after a long moment, did the same.

‘I’m very sorry about your brother, Mr. Shepard,’ Devlin said, placing his glass on the banister.

‘Yes, well,’ said Shepard, as he corked the whisky bottle, ‘that was years ago. What’s done is done.’

‘Some things are never done,’ said the chaplain. ‘We do not forget those whom we have loved. We cannot forget them.’

Shepard glanced at him. ‘You speak as though from experience.’

Devlin did not answer at once. After a pause he said, ‘If I have learned one thing from experience, it is this: never underestimate how extraordinarily difficult it is to understand a situation from another person’s point of view.’

The gaoler only grunted at this. He watched as Devlin descended the steps into the shadows of the courtyard. At the horse-post the chaplain turned and said, ‘I’ll be at Seaview first thing in the morning, to begin digging the grave.’

Shepard had not moved. ‘Good night, Cowell.’

‘Good night, Mr. Shepard.’

The gaoler watched until Devlin had rounded the side of the gaol-house, and then he pinched the empty glasses between his finger and his thumb, picked up the bottle, and went inside.

The gaol-house door stood partway open, and the duty sergeant was sitting just inside the entrance, his rifle laid across his knees. He asked with his eyebrows whether the chaplain meant to step inside.

‘They’re all abed, I’m afraid,’ he said, his voice low.

‘That’s all right,’ said Devlin, also speaking quietly. ‘I’ll only be a moment.’

The bullet had been removed from Staines’s shoulder, and his wound had been stitched. His filthy clothes had been cut from his body, and the dirt washed from his face and hair; he had been dressed in moleskin trousers and a loose twill shirt, donated by Tiegreen’s Hardware on promise of payment the following day. Throughout all these ministrations the boy had drifted in and out of consciousness, mumbling Anna’s name; when he became aware, however, that the physician meant to install him at the Criterion Hotel opposite the Police Camp, his eyes snapped open at once. He would not leave Anna. He would not go anywhere that Anna did not go. He put up such a fuss to this effect that at length the physician agreed to placate him. A bed was made up for him at the gaol-house, next to where Anna lay, and it was decided that Staines would be manacled like the others, in the interests of preventing disharmony. The boy consented to the manacle without protest, lay down, and reached out a hand to touch Anna’s cheek. After a time his eyes closed, and he slept.

Since then he had not woken. He and Anna lay facing each other, Staines lying on his left hip, and Anna, on her right, both of them with their knees drawn up to their chests, Staines with one hand tucked beneath his bandaged shoulder, Anna with one hand tucked beneath her cheek. She must have turned towards him, some time in the night: her left arm was flung outward, her fingers reaching, her palm turned down.

Devlin came closer. He felt overcome—though by what kind of sentiment, he did not exactly know. George Shepard’s whisky had warmed his chest and stomach—there was a blurry tightness in his skull, a blurry heat behind his eyes—but the gaoler’s story had made him feel wretched, even chilled. Perhaps he was about to weep. It would feel good to weep. What a day it had been. His heart was heavy, his limbs exhausted. He looked down at Anna and Emery, their mirrored bodies, facing in. They were breathing in tandem.

So they are lovers, he thought, looking down at them. So they are lovers, after all. He knew it from the way that they were sleeping.