Текст книги "The Luminaries"

Автор книги: Eleanor Catton

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Anna was frowning too. ‘Perhaps you’re thinking of a different man,’ she said to Mrs. Wells. ‘It’s often hard to tell Chinamen apart.’

‘Yes—perhaps,’ said Mrs. Wells. But she was still staring at Ah Sook. Whether she had placed him already or not, he could not tell. He cast about for something to say to Anna, but his mind was blank.

‘What do you want, Ah Sook?’ said Anna. She did not speak unkindly, but with longing; there was a pleading, almost fearful look in her eye.

‘What did you call him?’ said the older woman, quickly.

‘Ah Sook,’ Anna said. ‘Mister Sook, I suppose. He’s the dealer at Kaniere.’

‘Ah!’ Her gaze sharpened immediately. ‘Opium!’

So she had placed him. She had remembered who he was.

At once, Ah Sook changed his tack. He turned to Anna and announced, ‘I buy you. Top price.’

The widow laughed.

‘Oh,’ Anna said. She had flushed very red. ‘No. You can’t do that. I suppose nobody told you. I’m done with whoring now. I’m not a whore any longer. No selling. Not for sale.’

‘What you now?’ said Ah Sook.

‘Miss Wetherell is my assistant,’ said Mrs. Wells—but Ah Sook did not know the word. ‘She lives here now.’

‘I live here now,’ Anna echoed. ‘I don’t take opium any more. Do you understand? No more smoke. I—I’ve given it up.’

Ah Sook was bewildered.

‘Well, goodbye,’ Anna said. ‘Thank you for calling.’

Suddenly Mrs. Wells’s wrist shot out. She grabbed Ah Sook’s forearm in her milky hand, and squeezed it tight. ‘You must come to the séance this evening,’ she said.

‘He doesn’t have a ticket,’ Anna said.

‘An Oriental presence,’ said Mrs. Wells, ignoring her. ‘It will be just the thing! What did you call him again?’

‘Ah Sook,’ said Anna.

‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs. Wells. ‘Just think of it: an Oriental presence, at this evening’s séance!’

‘Is a séance an Oriental practice?’ Anna said, doubtfully.

Ah Sook did not know the word—but he knew Oriental, and guessed that he was the subject of their discussion, and the cause, presumably, of Lydia’s sudden look of greed. It was astonishing to him that she could have changed so little over the course of a decade, when Anna, over the course of a month, had altered so very much. Looking down at her hand, wrapped tight around his forearm, he was surprised to see a band of gold upon her finger.

‘Mrs. Carver,’ he said, and pointed to the ring.

The woman smiled—more broadly this time. ‘I fancy he has a touch of the prophet in him,’ she said to Anna. ‘How is that for a notion?’

‘What do you mean, Mrs. Carver?’ Anna said to Ah Sook. She was frowning.

‘Wife of Carver,’ said Ah Sook, unhelpfully.

‘He thinks you’re Carver’s wife,’ said Anna.

‘He’s only guessing,’ said Mrs. Wells. To Ah Sook she said, ‘Not Mrs. Carver. My husband is dead. I am a widow now.’

‘Not Mrs. Carver?’

‘Mrs. Wells.’

Ah Sook’s eyes widened. ‘Mrs. Wells,’ he repeated.

‘It is very well his English is so limited,’ the widow said to Anna, conversationally. ‘That way he will not get distracted. His composure will not falter. Isn’t he handsome! He will do us very well, I think.’

‘He knows Carver,’ Anna said.

‘I’m sure he does,’ said Mrs. Wells, with a breezy tone. ‘Captain Carver has a great many Oriental connexions. I expect they’ve done business with each other here in Hokitika. Come into the parlour, Ah Sook.’ She gripped his arm tighter. ‘Come along. Just for a moment. Don’t be a baby; I’m not going to hurt you! Come inside.’

‘Francis Carver—in Guangdong?’ said Ah Sook.

‘In Canton; yes, it’s very likely,’ said Mrs. Wells, mistaking Ah Sook’s question for a statement. ‘Captain Carver was based in Canton. He was based there for many years. Come along into the parlour.’

She shepherded Ah Sook into the parlour, pointing to the far corner of the room. ‘You will sit upon a cushion—there,’ she said. ‘You will observe the faces around you, and contribute a cool air of judgment to our mystical séance. We shall call you the Eastern Oracle—or the Living Statue of the Orient—or the Dynastic Spirit—or some such thing. Which do you prefer, Anna? The Statue—or the Oracle?’

Anna did not have a preference. It was clear to her that Lydia Wells and Ah Sook recognised each other, and that their shared history had something to do with Francis Carver, and that the widow did not wish to speak of it aloud. She knew better than to press the point, however, and asked, ‘What will be his purpose?’

‘Merely to observe us!’

‘Yes, but to what end?’

The widow waved her hand. ‘Didn’t you see the spectacle at the Prince of Wales? Nothing sells tickets like an Oriental touch.’

‘He’s not unknown in Hokitika, you know,’ Anna said. ‘He’ll be recognised.’

‘As will you!’ Mrs. Wells pointed out. ‘That won’t matter a jot.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Anna. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Anna Wetherell,’ said Mrs. Wells, with pretended annoyance. ‘Do you remember last Thursday, when I proposed hanging the sketch of the Bagatto at the top of the stairs, and you protested, claiming that the print would be shadowed by the attic landing, and then I hung it anyway, and the light was quite as perfect as I promised it would be?’

‘Yes,’ Anna said.

‘Well—there,’ said Mrs. Wells, and laughed.

Ah Sook had not understood a word of this. He turned to Anna and frowned very slightly, to show her that she needed to explain.

‘A séance,’ Anna said, uselessly.

Ah Sook shook his head. He did not know the word.

‘Let’s try it,’ said Mrs. Wells. ‘Come—come to the corner—Anna, get the man a cushion to sit upon. Or would a stool be more ascetic? No, a cushion: then he can fold his legs as the Eastern men do. Yes, come here—further—further. There.’

She pushed Ah Sook down upon the cushion, and took several quick steps backwards, to appraise him from the other side of the room. She nodded with delight.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Do you see, Anna? Do you not think it fine? How solemn he is! I wonder if we might ask him to smoke a pipe of some kind—for the curling smoke around his head would be rather nice indeed. But smoke indoors makes me ill.’

‘He has not yet given his consent,’ Anna observed.

Mrs. Wells looked faintly irritated; she did not protest this observation, however, but advanced upon Ah Sook, smiled, and peered down at him, her hands on her hips. ‘Do you know Emery Staines?’ she said, enunciating clearly. ‘Emery Staines? Do you know him?’

Ah Sook nodded. He knew Emery Staines.

‘Well,’ the woman said, ‘we are going to bring him here. Tonight. And speak with him. Emery Staines—here.’ She pointed at the floorboards with a lemon-scented hand.

A ray of understanding passed over Ah Sook’s face. Excellent: the prospector must have been found at last—and found alive! This was good news.

‘Very good,’ he said.

‘Tonight,’ said Mrs. Wells. ‘Here, at the Wayfarer’s Fortune. In this room. The party will begin at seven; the séance, at ten.’

‘Tonight,’ said Ah Sook, staring at her.

‘Precisely. You will be here. You will come. You will sit, as you are sitting now. Yes? Oh, Anna—does he understand? I can hardly tell; his face is such a perfect statue. You see what gave me the idea—the Living Statue!’

Slowly, Anna explained to Ah Sook that Lydia was requesting his presence, that evening, at a meeting with Emery Staines. She used the word séance several times; Ah Sook, who had no reason to have ever learned that word, deduced by context that it was a gathering or meeting of some scripted kind, which Emery Staines had been invited to attend. He nodded to show that he understood. Anna then explained that Ah Sook was invited to return, that evening, and take his place upon the cushion in the corner, exactly as he was sitting now. Other men had also been invited. They would sit in a circle, and Emery Staines would stand in the centre of the room.

‘Does he understand it?’ said Mrs. Wells. ‘Does he understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook, and then, to show her: ‘A séance with Emery Staines, tonight.’

‘Excellent,’ said Mrs. Wells, smiling down at him in the same way that one might smile at a precocious child after the recitation of a sonnet—which is to say, with an admiration that was a little distrustful, and somewhat contrived.

‘A whore in mourning and an Eastern mystic,’ she went on. ‘It is quite perfect; I am chilled simply thinking of it! Of course a séance is not an Oriental tradition’—in response to Anna’s earlier question—‘but have I not said every day this fortnight that in this business, the ambience is half the battle? Ah Sook will do us very well.’

Anna looked away, and said, lightly, ‘Of course he must be recompensed.’

The widow turned upon Anna with a very chilly look, but Anna was not looking at her, and could not receive it; in the next moment, her expression cleared again. Carelessly she said, ‘Of course! But you ought to ask him how much he thinks he deserves for such easy work. Ask him, Anna; seeing as you are his special friend.’

Anna did so, explaining to Ah Sook that the widow was willing to pay him a fee for his contribution to the séance that evening. Ah Sook, who had not yet understood that Emery Staines was going to be present in spirit only, thought this a wonderful proposition. He was rightly very suspicious of the offer, and made his suspicion known. A rather absurd negotiation followed, and at length Ah Sook agreed, more for her sake than for his own, to receive a fee of one shilling.

Ah Sook was no fool. He knew very well that he had not really comprehended what was to happen that evening. It was very strange to him that Anna had placed such a high emphasis upon the fact that Emery Staines would stand in the very centre of the room, with all the others ranged around him, and it was even stranger still that the widow was willing to pay him a wage for doing nothing at all. He concluded that he was to play a part in a scripted drama of some kind (in which guess, of course, he hit very close upon the mark) and reasoned that whatever humiliation he might suffer as a consequence, it was surely worth it, to get a chance to speak to Mr. Staines. He accepted the widow’s invitation, and her promise of payment, in the certainty that his uncertainties would resolve themselves in time.

With this, their negotiations were concluded. Ah Sook looked at Anna. They held one another’s gaze a moment, Ah Sook steadily, and Anna—it seemed—with a cool detachment that the hatter did not recognise at all. But was that even detachment? Or was he simply unused to the clarity of her expression, now that her features were not overlaid by opium’s thick veil? She was so changed. If he had not known her better he might have almost called her expression haughty—as though she fancied herself a cut above Chinese society, now that she was no longer a whore.

Ah Sook decided to take her cool expression as a cue to leave, and rose from his cushion. He had calculated that he had time enough to walk to Kaniere and back again before the sun went down, and he wished to inform his compatriot Quee Long that Emery Staines would be present, that very evening, at the Wayfarer’s Fortune on Revell-street. He knew that Ah Quee had long desired an audience with Staines, wishing to interrogate the young prospector upon the matter of the Aurora gold; he would be very pleased to discover that Staines was alive.

Ah Sook bowed to the widow, and then to Anna. Anna returned his bow with a shallow curtsey, the kind that bespoke neither longing nor regret, and then turned away at once, to straighten the lace on the arm of the sofa.

‘You’ll be back tonight—for the séance. Tonight,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘Say six o’clock.’

‘Six o’clock,’ Ah Sook echoed, and pointed at the cushion he had just vacated, to show that he understood. He glanced one last time at Anna, and then Lydia Wells gripped his arm and ushered him into the foyer. She reached around him and opened the door, flooding the space with the sudden light of the day.

‘Goodbye,’ said Ah Sook, and stepped over the lintel.

But the widow did not close the door behind him, as he had expected; instead she reached for her shawl, wrapped it around her shoulders, and followed Ah Sook out on to the veranda. To Anna she said, ‘I am going out for a spell; I’ll be back in an hour or so.’

Anna, from the parlour, looked up in astonishment. Then her expression closed. She nodded woodenly, crossed the parlour, and came to the door to latch it in Mrs. Wells’s wake.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs. Wells,’ she said, her hand on the frame. ‘Good afternoon, Ah Sook.’

They descended the steps to the street, where they parted ways: Ah Sook to the south, towards the river, and Lydia Wells to the north. After several steps Mrs. Wells cast a look over her shoulder, as if to appraise the building from the street, and Anna hurriedly moved to close the door.

She kept her hand upon the knob, however, and did not turn it; after a moment she opened it again, very quietly and carefully, and put her eye to the crack. Lydia was walking swiftly now; she had not turned, as Anna had expected she might, to pursue Ah Sook, and demand a private audience with him. Anna pulled the door open a little wider. Would she double back? Surely that was why she had left so abruptly—to talk in private with the man she so very plainly recognised! But presently Ah Sook rounded the corner on Gibson Quay and disappeared, and Lydia Wells, at almost the same moment, stepped over the ditch at the side of the road, and mounted the steps of—Anna squinted—which establishment? A two-storeyed building—beside Tiegreen’s Hardware and Supply. One of the saloons, perhaps? Evidently there was someone on the porch, for Lydia Wells lingered for a moment, exchanging words, before she opened the door of the establishment, and disappeared inside—and as the door swung to, Anna caught a flash of pale blue paint, and recognised the building. So Lydia Wells had gone to pay a social call. But upon whom? Anna shook her head in wonderment. Well, she thought, whoever it was, he was not a common digger by any measure. He must be a man of some consequence, for he was lodging at the Palace Hotel.

SATURN IN LIBRA

In which Harald Nilssen reneges upon a contract; the holy book is opened; Cowell Devlin is confounded; and George Shepard forms a plan.

Harald Nilssen had just brewed and steeped his four-o’clock pot of tea, and was sitting down to a plate of sugared biscuits and a book, when he received a summons in the penny post. It was from George Shepard, and marked ‘urgent’, though the gaoler did not specify a reason why. Doubtless it concerned some detail of infinitesimal consequence, Nilssen thought, with irritation: some piece of gravel in the gaol-house foundation, some drop of coffee on the gaol-house plans. Sighing, he fitted a quilted cosy around his teapot, exchanged his jersey for a jacket, and reached for his stick. It was jolly bad form to bother a man on a Sunday afternoon. Why, he had been working six days out of seven. He deserved a day of rest, without George Shepard plaguing him for receipts, or wage records, or quotes on salvage. The penny post was an added insult—for Shepard could not even trouble himself to walk the five short blocks from the Police Camp to Gibson Quay; instead he insisted that Nilssen come to him, as a servant to a liege! Nilssen was in a very bad temper as he locked the door of his office behind him, and strode off down Revell-street with his hat set at an angle and his coat-tails flared.

At the Police Camp Mrs. George answered the door. She directed Nilssen, with a very sorry aspect, into the dining room, and then fled before Nilssen could speak any words of politeness, pulling the door so firmly closed behind her that the calico wall gave a shudder, and Nilssen had the fleeting sensation of being at sea.

The gaoler was sitting at the head of the table, where he was making short work of a cold meal composed of jellied meats, various cold puddings of homogenous consistency, and a dense bread of some dark, large-crumbed kind. He held himself very straight as he stacked his fork, and did not offer Nilssen a chair.

‘So,’ he said, when the door had closed, and he had swallowed his mouthful. ‘You told somebody about our agreement; you broke your word. Whom did you tell?’

‘What?’ said Nilssen.

Shepard repeated his question; Nilssen, after a pause, repeated his bewilderment, at a slightly higher pitch.

Shepard’s expression was cold. ‘Do not lie to me, Mr. Nilssen. Alistair Lauderback is to publish a letter in the Times to-morrow morning, lambasting my character. He claims that a percentage of the fortune discovered on Crosbie Wells’s estate was invested in the Hokitika gaol-house. I do not know how he came upon this information, and I wish to know. At once.’

Nilssen faltered. How was it possible that Alistair Lauderback knew about his commission? One of the Crown men must have broken his word! Balfour, perhaps? Balfour and Lauderback were close familiars, and Nilssen had never seen Lauderback in the company of any of the rest. But what reason could Balfour have, to betray him? Nilssen had never wished him any kind of harm. Could it have been Löwenthal? Perhaps—if the letter was to be published in the paper. But Nilssen could not believe that Löwenthal had broken his word any more than he could believe it of Balfour. He watched Shepard assemble a forkful of jellied meats, pickled cucumber, and hash, and inexplicably (for Nilssen was not at all hungry) his own mouth began to water.

‘Whom did you tell?’ Shepard said. ‘Please mark this moment as the end of my patience: I will not ask you again.’ He put his mouth over his assembled forkful, slid the food off the fork, and chewed.

Nilssen did not know how to respond. The truth, of course, was that he had told twelve men—Walter Moody, plus the eleven others who had been summoned to the smoking room of the Crown. He could hardly admit to having betrayed Shepard’s secret to twelve men! Ought he to pretend that he had told no one at all? But it was obvious that he had broken his confidence to someone—if Lauderback knew! His mind was racing.

‘I can’t think how it might have happened,’ he said, in desperation. ‘I can’t think.’

Shepard was busy stacking another mouthful on the back of his fork. ‘Did you go to Lauderback yourself?’ he said, his eyes fixed intently upon his dinner. ‘Or did you go to another man—who went to Lauderback in his turn?’

‘I haven’t spoken five words to Lauderback in all my life,’ Harald Nilssen said, with much indignation.

‘Who, then?’ Shepard looked up, his utensils loose in his hands.

Nilssen said nothing. He had begun to perspire.

‘You are keeping a digger’s honour, I see,’ Shepard said with disapproval. ‘Well, at least someone has your loyalty, Mr. Nilssen.’

He turned back to his dinner, and did not speak for what Nilssen felt was a very long while. Shepard was dressed in his Sunday suit of black; he had flung his coat-tails to the sides of his chair so that they would not be creased beneath him while he ate. His high-waisted trousers and collarless vest had a disapproving, funereal look, and his wide cravat—somewhat out of fashion, Nilssen noticed with a touch of condescension; his own cravat was thin and loosely tied, following the style of the day—seemed to accent the gaoler’s aspect of admonishment still further. Even his cold supper was abstemious in its plainness. Nilssen himself had dined upon half a boiled chicken, served with mashed buttered turnip and a great deal of white sauce; he had drunk half a pitcher of a very nice wine, besides.

From elsewhere in the house, a clock sounded the quarter hour. Mrs. George moved beyond the flimsy walls, padding from room to room. Shepard remained fixated on his meal. Nilssen waited until Shepard had cleaned his plate of every last crumb, hoping that once his meal was concluded, the gaoler might begin to speak. When it became evident that this hope was a false one, he said, somewhat feebly, ‘Well—what are you going to do?’

‘My first action,’ Shepard replied, daubing his mouth with a table napkin, ‘will be to relieve you of all duties pertaining to the construction of the gaol-house. I will not be served by a man who breaks his word.’

‘The investment will be returned to me?’ said Nilssen.

‘Not at all,’ said Shepard. He tossed the table napkin onto his plate. ‘In fact I consider that a most unreasonable request, given that the work is already well underway.’

Nilssen worked his mouth. At length he said, ‘I understand.’

‘You will not break your digger’s code.’

‘No.’

‘Incredible.’

‘I am sorry.’

Shepard pushed his plate away, becoming brisk. ‘Mr. Lauderback’s letter will be published to-morrow in the Times; I have an advance copy here.’

Nilssen saw that there was an opened letter on the table next to the gaoler’s plate. He stepped forward, putting out his hand. ‘May I—?’

But Shepard ignored him. ‘The letter,’ he went on, raising his voice slightly, ‘does not refer to you by name. You should know that I will be writing to the editor myself tonight, in order to correct that omission. My response will be published below Mr. Lauderback’s, as a formal reply.’

Nilssen tried again. ‘May I read it?’

‘You may read it to-morrow in the paper, along with every other man in Westland.’ Shepard uttered the phrase with a dangerous emphasis.

‘All right,’ Nilssen said. He withdrew his hand. ‘I take your meaning.’

Shepard paused before adding, ‘Unless, of course, there’s something that you’d like to tell me.’

In a voice of loathsome dejection, Nilssen said, ‘Yes.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes—there’s something.’

Poor Harald Nilssen! Thinking that he might regain the gaoler’s trust by means of a second transgression, as though by committing a second disloyalty, he might reverse the fact of the first! He had conceded in a panic—for it crushed Nilssen’s spirit to be held in low esteem by other men. He could not bear to know that he was disliked, for to him there was no real difference between being disliked, and being dislikeable; every injury he sustained was an injury to his very selfhood. It was for reasons of self-protection that Nilssen dressed in the latest fashions, and spoke with affectation, and placed himself as the central character of every tale: he built his persona as a shield around his person, because he knew very well how little his person could withstand.

‘Pray continue,’ Shepard said.

‘It’s about—’ (Nilssen cast about wildly) ‘—Mrs. Wells.’

‘Indeed,’ Shepard said. ‘How so?’

‘She was Lauderback’s mistress.’

Shepard raised his eyebrows. ‘Alistair Lauderback was cuckolding Crosbie Wells?’

Nilssen thought about it. ‘Yes, I suppose he was. Well, it would depend on when Crosbie and Lydia got married, of course.’

‘Go on,’ Shepard said.

‘The thing is—the thing is—he was blackmailed—Lauderback, I mean—and Crosbie Wells took home the ransom. That’s the fortune, you see—in Crosbie’s cottage.’

‘How did this blackmail happen? And how do you know about it?’

Nilssen hesitated. He did not trust the gaoler’s expression, which had suddenly become very greedy and intense.

‘How do you know about it?’ Shepard demanded.

‘Somebody told me.’

‘Who?’

‘Mr. Staines,’ said Nilssen—settling upon the man to whom he could do the least damage, in the short term at least.

‘Was he the blackmailer—Staines?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Nilssen, momentarily confused. ‘I mean, yes, maybe.’

‘Are you with him, or against him?’

‘I—I don’t know.’

Shepard looked annoyed. ‘What have you got on him, then?’ he said. ‘You must have something on the man, if you’re not sure about your allegiance.’

‘There was a deed of gift,’ Nilssen said miserably. ‘In Crosbie Wells’s stove—partly burned, as though someone tried to destroy it. The chaplain found it. When he went to the cottage to collect the body, the day after his death. He didn’t tell you about it; he kept it for himself. He didn’t tell Dr. Gillies either.’

Shepard betrayed no flicker of emotion at all. ‘What kind of a deed of gift?’

Nilssen briefly detailed the particulars of the contract. He kept his eyes upon a spot some three feet to the left of the gaoler’s face, and squinted oddly—for a bubble of despair was growing in his chest, pushing out against his breastbone. He had meant to reassure the gaoler of his loyalty by betraying this secret; now he saw that he had only confirmed his disloyalty, and his worthlessness. And yet—despite his misery—there was something terribly relieving about speaking of the Crown conspiracy aloud. He felt that a great weight was being lifted off his shoulders, just as he felt that a terrible weightlessness was settling in its place. He glanced at the gaoler quickly, and then away.

‘Is Devlin your man?’ Shepard said. ‘Did you tell Devlin about this investment—and did he tell Lauderback?’

‘Yes,’ Nilssen said. ‘That’s right.’ (What kind of wretched man was he—to accuse a clergyman? But of course it was only half a lie … and better to accuse one man than all twelve.) ‘I mean,’ he added, ‘I only suppose he told Lauderback. I don’t know. I’ve never spoken to Lauderback about anything at all—as I told you.’

‘So Devlin is Lauderback’s man,’ Shepard said.

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Nilssen. ‘I don’t know about that at all.’

Shepard nodded. ‘Well, Mr. Nilssen,’ he said, rising from the table. ‘That concludes our discussion, I think.’

It panicked Nilssen still further to be dismissed. ‘The part about the deed,’ he said. ‘It’s just—if you’re going to mention it to the Reverend—’

‘I imagine that I will, yes.’

‘Well—can you leave my name out of it?’ said Nilssen, with a look of pure misery on his face. ‘You see: I can tell you where he’s keeping it—the deed, I mean—and that way you can come upon it yourself, and there’s no bridges broken on my end. Will you do that?’

Shepard studied him without pity. ‘Where does he keep it?’

‘I won’t tell you until you give your word,’ said Nilssen.

Shepard shrugged. ‘All right.’

‘Do you give your word?’

‘Upon my honour, I will not speak your name to the chaplain of the gaol,’ Shepard snapped. ‘Where does he keep it?’

‘In his Bible,’ said Nilssen, very sadly. ‘In his Bible, between the Old Testament, and the New.’

Since the construction of the gaol-house had begun in earnest Cowell Devlin and George Shepard had not seen a great deal of one another, save for in the evenings when Shepard returned from the construction site at Seaview to write his letters and tally his accounts. Devlin, who found the atmosphere of the temporary Police Camp much improved in Shepard’s absence, had not pursued a deeper intimacy with the other man. Had he been pressed to pass judgment on the gaoler’s character, he might, after a long pause, have conceded that he pitied Shepard’s rigidity, and mourned the evident displeasure with which Shepard seemed to regard the world around him; after another pause, he might have added that he wished Shepard well, but did not expect the relations between them to develop beyond their present capacity, which was strictly professional, and none too warm.

That day was a Sunday, however, and construction on the terrace had halted for the day. Shepard had spent the morning at chapel, and the afternoon in his study at the Police Camp, from which place Harald Nilssen was now very rapidly departing; Devlin, who had recently returned from the Kaniere camp, was in the temporary gaol-house, preaching to the felons on the subject of rote prayer. He had brought his battered Bible with him, as he always did whenever he left his tent, though the nature of that day’s sermon was such that he had had no cause to open it that afternoon; when Shepard stepped into the gaol-house it was lying, closed, upon a chair at Devlin’s side.

Shepard waited for a lull in the conversation, which came about within moments, owing to his imposing presence in the room. Devlin turned an inquiring face up at him, and Shepard said, ‘Good afternoon, Reverend. Hand me your Bible, would you please?’

Devlin frowned. ‘My Bible?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

The chaplain placed his palm over the book. ‘Perhaps you might simply ask me what it is you seek,’ he said. ‘I pride myself that I do know my scriptures rather well.’

‘I do not doubt it; and yet browsing is a pleasure to me,’ Shepard replied.

‘But of course you have a Bible of your own!’

‘Of course,’ Shepard agreed. ‘However, it is the hour of my wife’s devotions, and I do not like to disturb her.’

For a moment Devlin considered extracting the purloined deed himself—but its charred aspect would surely not escape the gaoler’s comment, and in any case, he was surrounded by felons; where would he hide the thing?

‘What is it that you are looking for, exactly?’ he said. ‘A verse—or an allusion—?’

‘You are very chary of your Bible, for a man of God,’ Shepard snapped. ‘Heavens, man! I only wish to look through the pages! You will deny me that?’

And Devlin was obliged to surrender it. Shepard, thanking him, took the book back to his private residence, and closed the door.

Devlin’s sermon on rote prayer was perversely applicable to the ensuing half hour, for it was with a ritual circularity that his attention kept straying to the gaoler’s study, where the man would be seated behind his desk, turning the thin pages of the book in his great white hands. Devlin did not guess that Shepard might have known about the deed that he had concealed between the testaments, for his nature was not a suspicious one, and he did not take pleasure, as some men did, in believing himself to have been betrayed. He hoped, as the minutes dragged by, that Shepard would restrict his reading to the more ancient parts of the text; he hoped that the book would be returned to him with the charred deed undiscovered and untouched. Devlin knew very well that Shepard’s faith was of a staunchly Levitican variety; it was not unreasonable to hope that he might confine his browsing to the Pentateuch, or to Chronicles and Kings. He was hardly likely to favour the minor prophets … but the Gospels were standard fare, most especially for a Sunday. He was very likely to turn there, whatever his persuasion, and in that case he would almost certainly come across the hidden page.

Finally the afternoon’s discussion came to an end, and Devlin, in a posture of some dread, took his leave of the felons in his spiritual charge. The duty sergeant nodded goodbye, stifling a yawn; Devlin let himself out; a hush fell over the gaol-house. He crossed the courtyard, mounted the steps to the porch of the gaoler’s cottage, and knocked upon the door.