The Luminaries (75 page)

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.’

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.’