Текст книги "The Luminaries"

Автор книги: Eleanor Catton

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The muscle beneath Nilssen’s eye began to pulse. ‘He laughed when he read the letter? When he read the words?’

‘No,’ said Albert. ‘He only laughed before. When I said he had to burn it.’

‘He found it amusing, did he?’

‘That you’d told him to burn it,’ said Albert, nodding. He was fingering the edges of the letter in his hand. He wanted very much to ask his employer what all of this to-do was on account of, but he did not know how to ask without risking a rebuke. Aloud he said, ‘Do you want to read the reply?’

Nilssen held out his hand. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You didn’t read it, did you?’

‘No,’ Albert said, looking wounded. ‘It’s sealed.’

‘Oh, yes, so it is,’ said Nilssen. He took the note from Albert’s hand, turned it over, and broke apart the seal with his fingers. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he said, before he unfolded the paper. ‘You can go.’

‘Home?’ said Albert, in a voice of great regret.

‘Yes—home, you idiot,’ said Nilssen. ‘And you can leave the key on the desk before you do.’

But the boy lingered. ‘On the way back,’ he said, ‘when I passed the Prince of Wales, I saw there’s a new show opening tonight: a foreign spectacle. Mr. Mannering’s giving away tickets for free—on account of the opening—and I got one for you.’ He had spoken all of this very quickly; now he screwed up his face, and looked away.

Nilssen had not yet unfolded Pritchard’s letter. ‘What?’ he said.

‘Sensations from the Orient,’ the boy said. ‘It’s a gallery ticket—front and centre. The best. I asked for it special.’

‘You use it yourself,’ Nilssen said. ‘You go yourself. I don’t want a ticket to the theatre. Get along, now.’

The boy scuffed his shoe upon the boards. ‘I got myself one too,’ he said. ‘I thought—seeing as it’s Saturday—and the races have been postponed—’

Nilssen shook his head. ‘I can’t go to the theatre tonight,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ said Albert. ‘Why?’

‘I’m feeling poorly.’

‘Just for the first act,’ the boy said. ‘There’s supposed to be champagne. Champagne’s good if you’re feeling poorly.’

‘Take Henry Fuller with you.’

‘By the players’ door I saw a lady with a parasol.’

‘Take Henry.’

‘She was Japanese,’ said Albert, mournfully. ‘It didn’t look like greasepaint. It looked like she was really Japanese. Henry Fuller’s up the beach. Why won’t you come?’

‘I’m very ill.’

‘You don’t look ill. You’re smoking.’

‘I’m sure you can find someone to go along with you,’ Nilssen said, with mounting irritation. ‘Go down to the Star and wave that ticket around. How about that?’

Albert stared at the floorboards for a moment and worked his mouth. At length he sighed and said, ‘Well, I expect I’ll see you on Monday, Mr. Nilssen.’

‘Yes, I expect you will, Albert.’

‘Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye. You’ll have to tell me all about the show. All right?’

‘Maybe we can go again,’ Albert said. ‘Only the ticket’s for tonight. But maybe we can go again.’

‘Yes,’ Nilssen said. ‘Next week, perhaps. After I recover.’

He waited until the disappointed subordinate had padded from the room, and closed the door quietly behind him. Then he unfolded Pritchard’s letter, and stepped towards the window, for a better light.

H.—Can confirm. But listen: something odd happened this afternoon at Anna’s. Pistols involved. Will explain in full in person. Event witnessed by A.G. courthouse clerk. Perhaps you should speak to him, if you’re playing the detective. Whatever Anna’s mixed up in, I’m sure that A.G. knows about it. Do you trust him? Can’t say that I do: well, the jury’s still out, as the saying goes. Destroy this letter!—J.S.P.

Thomas Balfour had returned, in the late afternoon, to the Palace Hotel, with the intention of finding Cowell Devlin—the chaplain who had overheard his conversation with Lauderback that morning. He wished to apologise for his earlier rudeness, but also (and rather more urgently) to ask the chaplain about his connexion to the vanished prospector, Emery Staines. He was sure that Devlin’s inquiry at the office of the West Coast Times was connected, somehow, to the Crosbie Wells affair.

Devlin was not at the Palace Hotel, however; the kitchen staff informed Balfour that he had left the dining room several hours before. He was not in his tent upon the beachfront, nor at the Police Camp gaol-house, nor in any of the churches; he was not in any of the stores or billiard-halls, and he was not on the quay. Balfour wandered about Hokitika for several hours, dejected, and was about to give up and go home when he spied Devlin at last. The chaplain was walking down Revell-street, his hat and coat quite saturated; walking next to him was another man, a good deal taller and larger than he. Balfour crossed the street. He was already raising his arm to flag the other down when he recognised Devlin’s companion: it was the Maori man with whom he had also spoken, earlier that day, and to whom he had also been rather unforgivably rude.

‘Hi there,’ he called. ‘Reverend Devlin. Would you believe it! The very man I was looking to find! Hello, Ted: I’m glad to see you again, too.’

Tauwhare did not offer a greeting; Devlin, however, smiled. ‘I see that you have found out my surname,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I still do not know yours.’

Balfour thrust out his hand. ‘Tom Balfour,’ he said, beaming, and they shook hands. ‘Yes: I went to see Ben Löwenthal, over at the Times, and we had some words about you. Matter of fact I’ve been trying to track you down these past few hours. To ask you something.’

‘Then our meeting is doubly fortuitous,’ said Devlin.

‘It’s a question about Emery Staines,’ Balfour said, interrupting him. ‘I hear you’ve been asking after him, you see. Wanting to know who placed that notice in the paper, advertising his return. Ben told me that you’d been by. I’m wanting to know why you’re asking after him—Staines, I mean—and what’s your connexion to the man.’

Cowell Devlin hesitated. The truth, of course, was that Emery Staines was one of the three names written upon the deed of gift that he had taken from the ash-drawer of Crosbie Wells’s range, the day after the hermit’s death. He had not showed that deed to anyone, however, and he had resolved not to do so, until he knew a little more about the people it concerned. Ought he to lie to Balfour? He did not like to utter falsehoods, but perhaps he could tell a partial truth. He bit his lip.

Balfour had perceived the chaplain’s hesitation, and had mistaken it for reproof. He put up his hands. ‘Hark at me,’ he exclaimed, ‘asking questions in the street—and in the weather—when we’re getting wetter all the time! Look here. How about we share a meal together? Something hot. There’s no sense in talking out of doors—not when there are warm hotels on either side of us, and good cheer to be had.’

Devlin glanced at Tauwhare, who, despite his dislike of Balfour, had brightened considerably at the prospect of a meal.

Balfour coughed, and then thumped his chest with his fist, wincing. ‘I wasn’t myself this morning—out of sorts; I wasn’t myself. I’m sorry for it—and I mean to make it up—to both of you. I’ll stand us all a plate of something, and we’ll have a drink together—as friends. Come: let a man say he’s sorry, when he asks.’

The threesome was soon established at a corner table at Maxwell’s. Balfour, who was always very happy to play the role of the munificent host, ordered three bowls of clear soup, a round of bread, a fat black pudding, a hard cheese, sardines in oil, hot buttered carrots, a pot of stewed oysters, and a demijohn of stout. He had the prescience to delay any talk of Crosbie Wells or Emery Staines until both his guests were sated with food and drink, and talked instead of whaling, a subject of which all three men had a most romantic conception, and much to share. When Benjamin Löwenthal found them some three-quarters of an hour later, they were a very merry party.

‘Ben!’ cried Balfour, when he saw Löwenthal approaching. ‘But what about your Sabbath?’

He had become, for the second time that day, rather drunk.

‘Ends at starlight,’ Löwenthal said shortly. To Tauwhare he said, ‘I believe that we have not yet been introduced. I am Benjamin Löwenthal; I publish the West Coast Times.’

‘Te Rau Tauwhare,’ the Maori man replied, and shook his hand very firmly.

‘He also goes by Ted,’ said Balfour. ‘Very good friend of Crosbie Wells.’

‘Were you?’ said Löwenthal to Tauwhare.

‘His finest friend,’ said Devlin.

‘Better than brothers,’ said Balfour.

‘Well, in that case,’ said Löwenthal, ‘my business concerns all three of you.’

Benjamin Löwenthal had no authority to widen the invitation to the Crown Hotel council to include Devlin and Tauwhare. But as we have observed already, Löwenthal could be very forbidding when his ethical code was affronted, and Charlie Frost had affronted him, that afternoon, by suggesting that the Crown assembly ought to be restricted to an exclusive few. Löwenthal felt the need to rectify what he perceived to have been Frost’s moral error, and he extended the invitation to Tauwhare and Devlin now as an obscure act of reproach.

‘Capital,’ Balfour said. ‘Pull up a chair.’

Löwenthal sat down, placed the palms of his hands together, and, in a low voice, explained the purpose of the meeting that evening—to which Balfour acquiesced immediately, Tauwhare gravely, and Cowell Devlin after a long, judicious pause. The chaplain was thinking about the deed of gift that he had taken from the hermit’s stove, currently stored in his Bible, between the Old Testament and the New. He resolved to bring his Bible with him to the council that evening, and to produce the deed, if the occasion moved him, and the timing was right.

There was smoke issuing from Gascoigne’s chimney, and upon Mannering’s knock, the door opened promptly, and Gascoigne peered out. He was holding a freshly lit cigarette, and had exchanged his formal jacket for shirtsleeves and a woollen vest.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘I have it on good information that you’re holding on to some money,’ Dick Mannering said. ‘That money’s mine, and I’ve come to collect it.’

Aubert Gascoigne looked at him, then put his cigarette to his lips, inhaled, and blew a stream of smoke over Mannering’s shoulder, into the rain. ‘Who is the source of your good information?’ he said mildly.

‘Miss Anna Wetherell, by way of Mr. Edgar Clinch,’ Mannering said.

Gascoigne leaned against the doorframe. ‘And how did Miss Anna Wetherell, by way of Mr. Edgar Clinch, imagine that you would act, upon receiving this good information?’

‘Don’t play clever with me,’ Mannering said. ‘Don’t do it. I’ll only tell you once: I don’t like cleverness one bit. She says the money’s hidden under your bed.’

Gascoigne shrugged. ‘Well, if I am holding a fortune for Anna,’ he said, ‘I am doing it on promise, and see no reason why I should break that promise, and hand the money over to another man—just because he claims the money belongs to him. She certainly did not tell me to expect a visitor.’

‘It does belong to me.’

‘How so?’

‘It’s a debt,’ Mannering said. ‘She owes me.’

‘A debt is a private business,’ Gascoigne said.

‘A debt can be made public very easily. How would you like it if I spread the word that you were holding on to more than a hundred pounds in pure? Let me tell you. By midnight your door would be beaten down, by dawn the thief would be fifty miles away, and by this time to-morrow, you would be dead. Why, there’d be nothing easier—when you’ve no allegiances to speak of, and you live alone.’

Gascoigne’s expression darkened. ‘I am the custodian of that gold, and I will not hand it over without Miss Wetherell’s consent.’

Mannering smiled. ‘I’m going to take that as an admission of guilt.’

‘And I’m going to take that as proof of your logical inadequacy,’ Gascoigne said. ‘Good night. If Anna wants her money, she can come for it herself.’

He made to close the door, but Mannering stepped forward and put out his hand, halting him.

‘Strange, isn’t it?’ he said.

Gascoigne scowled. ‘What is strange?’

‘Strange how a common whore suddenly fronts up with gold enough to pay the sum total of her obligations—and then hides that sum total beneath the bed of a man who’s been in Hokitika barely long enough to learn her name.’

‘It is excessively strange.’

‘Perhaps I ought to introduce myself.’

‘I know who you are,’ Gascoigne said. ‘And I know what you do.’

Mannering unbuttoned his coat to reveal his pistols. ‘Do you know what these are? And do you know what they do?’

‘Yes,’ said Gascoigne coolly. ‘Those are percussion revolvers, and they can each fire six rounds in six seconds flat.’

‘Seven rounds, actually,’ said Mannering. ‘Second issue Smith & Wessons. Seven rounds each. But six seconds is right.’

Gascoigne took another draught of his cigarette.

Mannering placed his hands upon his holsters, smiling. ‘I must ask you to invite me into your home, Mr. Gascoigne.’

The Frenchman did not reply, but after a moment he crushed the end of his cigarette on the doorframe, dropped it, stepped to the side, and gestured with exaggerated courtesy for Mannering to enter. Mannering glanced to the corners of the room, letting his gaze linger pointedly on Gascoigne’s bed. Once Gascoigne had closed the door behind him, he rounded on his host and said,

‘Who has your loyalty?’

‘I am not sure I understand the question,’ Gascoigne said. ‘You wish me to make a list of my friends?’

Mannering glared at him. ‘Here’s my question,’ he said. ‘Does Anna have your loyalty?’

‘Yes,’ Gascoigne said. ‘Up to a point, of course.’ He sat down in his striped wingback armchair, but made no gesture to offer his guest a seat.

Mannering locked his hands behind his back. ‘So if you knew that she was mixed up in something, you wouldn’t tell me.’

‘Well, it would depend on the situation, of course,’ Gascoigne said. ‘What kind of “something” are you talking about?’

‘Are you lying on her behalf?’

‘I agreed to conceal a pile of money on her behalf,’ Gascoigne said. ‘I hid it underneath my bed. But you already know all about that. So I suppose the answer is no.’

‘Why does she have your loyalty? Up to a point?’

Gascoigne’s wrists were limp upon the armrests; he had arranged himself casually, like a king in a throne. He explained that he had cared for Anna when she was released from gaol two weeks prior, and had thereafter courted her friendship. He pitied her, for he believed that someone was using her for ill, but he could not say that he enjoyed any special intimacy with her, and had never paid to enjoy her company. The black dress, he added, had belonged to his late wife. He had given it to the whore as a gesture of charity, for her whoring gown had been ruined during her sojourn in gaol. He had not expected that she would enter a period of mourning, upon acquiring the dress, and in truth had been rather disappointed by this eventuation, for he thought her a very fine specimen of her sex, and would have very much liked to have taken his pleasure in the conventional way.

‘Your story doesn’t account for that gold underneath your bed,’ Mannering said.

Gascoigne shrugged. He felt too tired, and too angry, to lie. ‘The morning after Crosbie Wells died,’ he said, ‘Anna woke up in gaol with a great quantity of gold stashed about her person. The metal had been sewn around her corset. She had no idea how she had come to be in possession of such a sum, and was, naturally, quite frightened. She requested my help. I thought it best to hide it, for we did not know who had hidden the gold on her body, or for what purpose. We have not yet had it valued, but I would hazard its total worth at well over a hundred pounds—and in all likelihood, a great deal more. That, Mr. Mannering, is the whole truth—at least as far as I am concerned.’

Mannering was quiet. This explanation did not make any sense to him at all.

‘I must say,’ Gascoigne added, ‘you do me a great disservice by assuming my guilt before you have queried me on the subject of my innocence. I resent very much that you have trespassed upon my time and my privacy in such a belligerent way.’

‘You can leave off with that kind of talk,’ Mannering said. ‘Belligerent! Have I pointed a firearm in your face? Have I threatened you with violence?’

‘You have not—and yet I would be happier if you were to take off your belt.’

‘Take it off?’ Mannering looked contemptuous. ‘And lay it down in the middle of the table, I suppose—with each of us an equal distance away—until you make a move for it, and I’m too slow! I won’t fall for it: I’ve seen that trick before.’

‘Then I will make another request,’ Gascoigne said. ‘I request that your presence in my house is of as short a duration as possible. If you have further questions, you ought to make them now—but I have told you everything I know about that gold.’

‘Listen,’ Mannering said firmly. (He was rather bewildered that he had so swiftly lost the upper hand.) ‘I didn’t mean for us to start on the wrong foot.’

‘Certainly you meant it,’ said Gascoigne. ‘Perhaps now you regret it, but you meant it.’

Mannering swore. ‘I don’t regret anything!’ he cried. ‘I don’t regret anything at all!’

‘That accounts for your serenity.’

‘Let me tell you something,’ Mannering said—but he was prevented from saying anything further: just at that moment came a smart rap upon the door.

Gascoigne stood immediately. Mannering, who looked suddenly alarmed, stepped back several paces and withdrew one of his pistols from its holster. He held it against his thigh, to conceal it from view, and nodded for Gascoigne to lift the latch.

On the threshold, standing with his stick set at a rather rakish angle from his body and his hat tipped back from his brow, was Harald Nilssen. He bowed, and was just about to make his introduction to Gascoigne when he perceived, over the latter’s shoulder, Dick Mannering, standing awkwardly, with one arm held stiff at his side. Nilssen burst out laughing.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Seems I’m two steps behind you, Dick. Everywhere I go today—there you are, and you got there first! Hello, Mr. Gascoigne. My name’s Harald Nilssen. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance. I do hope I’m not interrupting anything.’

Gascoigne bowed courteously, though his expression remained cold. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Do come in.’

‘I had come to talk with you about Anna Wetherell,’ Nilssen said cheerfully, wiping his boots, ‘but I see I’ve been pipped at the post!’

Gascoigne closed the door and said, ‘What about Anna?’

At the same time, Mannering said, ‘Steady up, Mr. Nilssen.’

Nilssen answered Gascoigne. ‘Well, it concerns something rather peculiar,’ he said. ‘So perhaps it’s not for all ears. But listen: I don’t want to interrupt you. I can easily come back when you’re not otherwise engaged.’

‘No, please,’ Gascoigne said. ‘Mr. Mannering was just leaving; he just told me so himself.’

It vexed Mannering to be excluded in this way. ‘What’s it all about?’ he said to Nilssen.

Nilssen made a short bow. ‘It is a very delicate situation; I do apologise.’

‘Hang delicate,’ Mannering said. ‘You needn’t conceal anything from me, for God’s sake: we’re in this together! Is this about the widow? Or about the gold?’

Nilssen was uncomprehending. ‘The Wells fortune?’ He turned to Gascoigne. ‘Are you mixed up in that, then?’

Gascoigne was looking very amused all of a sudden. ‘It seems I am being interrogated from all quarters at once,’ he said. ‘Are you also wearing pistols, Mr Nilssen? You really ought to confess them, if you are.’

‘I’m not wearing pistols,’ Nilssen said. He glanced at Mannering, and saw the revolver in his hand. ‘What’s that for? What are you doing?’

But Mannering did not answer: he was caught, momentarily, between all that he wished to conceal from Nilssen, and all that he wished to conceal from Gascoigne. He hesitated, wishing that he had not already mentioned the widow and the gold.

‘Mr. Mannering was just showing me his second-issue Smith and Wesson,’ Gascoigne said conversationally. ‘That cylinder takes seven cartridges, apparently.’

‘Oh,’ Nilssen said—but he looked suspicious. ‘What for?’

Again Mannering’s explanation stalled in his throat. He did not wish Nilssen to know about the gold hidden beneath Gascoigne’s bed … but he did not wish Gascoigne to know about the Crosbie Wells debacle, and Ah Quee, and Ah Sook, and opium, and all that was to be discussed at the Crown Hotel that very evening.

‘It’s a delicate situation,’ Gascoigne said, putting in for the older man. He leaned towards Nilssen. ‘All I can tell you is that Mr. Mannering here has a source of very good information in Miss Anna Wetherell, and the information comes by way of Mr. Edgar Clinch.’

‘That’s enough out of you,’ said Mannering, finding his tongue at last. ‘Nilssen. What’s your news about Anna? What’s your business?’

But Nilssen misunderstood Mannering’s intention, in pressing him to speak upon this subject in front of Gascoigne. He remembered that Pritchard’s letter had mentioned pistols, and Anna, and indirectly, Edgar Clinch—for Pritchard had said a strange event had taken place in Anna’s rooms at the Gridiron Hotel that very afternoon. Of course! Nilssen thought suddenly. Their ‘delicate situations’ must be one and the same.

‘Look here,’ he said, holding up his hand. ‘I believe we’re talking about the same thing after all. If Mr. Gascoigne’s in on the secret, then we may as well wait until everyone’s assembled at the council, and share our stories then. Save telling everything twice. Shall I see you both at the Crown?’

Mannering exhaled.

‘I am afraid,’ Gascoigne said presently, ‘that I am not in on the secret, and I have not been invited to a council at the Crown.’

There was a silence. Gascoigne looked at Nilssen, and then at Mannering. Mannering looked at Gascoigne, and then at Nilssen. Nilssen was looking at Mannering. He had a very apologetic expression upon his face.

‘Now you’ve done it,’ the magnate said. He uttered an oath, put away his pistol, and then levelled his finger at Gascoigne. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing for it—though I’m d—ned if your presence is welcome, and I’ll be d—ned if I don’t keep you in my sights until the evening’s over, and beyond. Put your coat on. You’re coming along.’