Finally Charlie Frost, who had been hitherto very successfully ignored, suggested that perhaps the Chinese men had simply not understood Mannering’s line of questioning. He proposed instead that the questions be put to Ah Sook again, and this time in writing: that way, he said, they could be sure that nothing had been lost in the act of translation. Nilssen saw the sense in this idea, and approved of it. Mannering was disappointed—but he was in the minority, and presently he was forced to agree. He released Ah Quee, returned his revolver to its holster, and retrieved his pocketbook from his vest, in order to compose a question in Chinese script.
Mannering’s pocketbook was an artefact about which he was not unreasonably proud. The pages of the book had been laid out rather like an alphabet primer, with the Chinese characters written beneath their English meanings; Mannering had devised an index by which the characters could be placed together, to form longer words. There was no phonetic translation, and for this reason the pocketbook occasionally caused more confusion than it allayed, but on the whole it was an ingenious and helpful conversational tool. Mannering set the tip of his tongue in the corner of his mouth, as he always did when he was reading or writing, and began thumbing through the book.
But before Mannering found his question, Ah Sook answered it. The hatter stood up from where he had been seated, next to the forge—the hut seemed very small indeed, once he too was standing—and cleared his throat.
‘I know secret of Crosbie Wells,’ he said.
This was what he had discovered in Kaniere that very morning; this was what he had come to Ah Quee’s dwelling to discuss.
‘What?’ Mannering said. ‘What?’
‘He was in Dunstan,’ Ah Sook said. ‘Otago field.’
Mannering collapsed in disappointment. ‘What’s the use of that?’ he snapped. ‘What’s secret about that? Crosbie Wells—in Dunstan! When was Dunstan? Two years ago—three years ago! Why—I was in Dunstan! All of Hokitika was in Dunstan!’
Nilssen said to Mannering, ‘You didn’t encounter Wells there—did you?’
‘No,’ said Mannering. ‘Never knew him. I knew his wife, though. From Dunedin days.’
Nilssen looked surprised. ‘You knew his wife? The widow?’
‘Yes,’ Mannering said shortly, not caring to elaborate. He turned a page. ‘But never Crosbie. They were estranged. Now hush up, all of you: I can’t hear myself think without a patch of quiet.’
‘Dunstan,’ said Walter Moody. He was stroking his chin with his finger and thumb.
‘It’s an Otago field.’
‘Central Otago.’
‘Past its prime now, Dunstan. It’s all company dredges these days. But she was a shiner in her time.’
‘That is the second time this particular goldfield has been referenced this evening,’ Moody said. ‘Am I right?’
‘You are quite right, Mr. Moody.’
‘Steady on. How is he quite right?’
‘The gold that was used to blackmail Mr. Lauderback hailed from a Dunstan field. Lauderback said so.’
‘Lauderback said so: precisely,’ Moody said. He nodded. ‘I am wondering whether I trust Mr. Lauderback’s intentions, in referencing the name of that goldfield so casually to Mr. Balfour this morning.’
‘What do you mean by that, Mr. Moody?’
‘Don’t you trust him—Lauderback, I mean?’
‘It would be most irrational if I mistrusted Mr. Lauderback,’ Moody said, ‘seeing as I have never met the man in my life. I am very conscious of the fact that the pertinent facts of this tale are being relayed to me second-hand—and, in some cases, third-hand. Take the mention of the Dunstan goldfield, for example. Francis Carver apparently mentioned the name of that field to Mr. Lauderback, who in turn narrated that encounter to Mr. Balfour, who in turn relayed that conversation to me, tonight! You will all agree that I would be a fool to take Mr. Balfour’s words to be true.’
But Moody had misjudged his audience, in questioning so sensitive a subject as the truth. There was an explosion of indignation around the room.
‘What—you don’t trust a man to tell his own story?’
‘This is all as true as I can make it, Mr. Moody!’
‘What else can he tell you, except what he was told?’
Moody was taken aback. ‘I do not believe that any part of your story has been altered or withheld,’ he replied, more carefully this time. He looked from face to face. ‘I only wished to remark that one should never take another man’s truth for one’s own.’
‘Why not?’ This question came from several quarters at once.
Moody paused a moment, thinking. ‘In a court of law,’ he said at last, ‘a witness takes his oath to speak the truth: his own truth, that is. He agrees to two parameters. His testimony must be the whole truth, and his testimony must be nothing but the truth. Only the second of these parameters is a true limit. The first, of course, is largely a matter of discretion. When we say the whole truth we mean, more precisely, all the facts and impressions that are pertinent to the matter at hand. All that is impertinent is not only immaterial; it is, in many cases, deliberately misleading. Gentlemen,’ (though this collective address sat oddly, considering the mixed company in the room) ‘I contend that there are no whole truths, there are only pertinent truths—and pertinence, you must agree, is always a matter of perspective. I do not believe that any one of you has perjured himself in any way tonight. I trust that you have given me the truth, and nothing but the truth. But your perspectives are very many, and you will forgive me if I do not take your tale for something whole.’
There was a silence at this, and Moody saw that he had offended. ‘Of course,’ he added, more quietly, ‘I speak importunately; for you have not yet finished your story.’ He looked from man to man. ‘I ought not to have interrupted. I repeat that I meant no slight to anyone. Please: go on.’
Charlie Frost was looking at Ah Sook curiously. ‘Why did you say that, Mr. Sook?’ he said. ‘Why did you say that you knew a secret about Crosbie Wells?’
Ah Sook turned his gaze on Frost and appraised him. ‘Crosbie Wells strike big in Dunstan,’ he said. ‘Many very big nugget. Very lucky man.’
Nilssen turned. ‘Crosbie Wells made a strike?’
Mannering had also looked up. ‘What?’ he said. ‘A strike? How much?’
‘In Dunstan,’ Sook Yongsheng said again, still gazing at Frost. ‘Very lucky man. Big bonanza. Very rich.’
Nilssen stepped forward—which rather annoyed Frost, for he had been the one to introduce this new line of questioning, after all. But Nilssen and Mannering both seemed to have forgotten that Frost was there.
‘How long ago?’ Nilssen demanded. ‘When?’
‘Two.’ Ah Sook held up two fingers.
‘Two years ago!’ said Mannering.
‘How much? How much colour?’ said Nilssen.
‘Many thousand.’
‘How much—four?’ Nilssen held up four fingers. ‘Four thousand?’
Ah Sook shrugged; he did not know.
‘How do you know this, Mr. Sook?’ said Frost. ‘How do you know that Mr. Wells struck a ’bounder at Dunstan?’
‘I ask escort,’ said Ah Sook.
‘Didn’t trust the bank!’ said Mannering. ‘What do you think of that, Charlie? Didn’t trust the bank!’
‘Which escort—Gilligan’s? Or Gracewood and Spears?’ said Nilssen.
‘Gracewood and Spears.’
‘So Crosbie Wells made a strike at Dunstan, and then hired Gracewood and Spears to ship the bonanza from the field?’ said Frost.
‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook. ‘Very good.’
‘Then Wells was sitting on a fortune—all along!’ said Nilssen, shaking his head. ‘The money was his very own! None of us believed it.’
Mannering pointed at Ah Quee. ‘What about him?’ he said. ‘He knew about this?’
‘No,’ said Ah Sook.
Mannering exploded with irritation. ‘Then why in hell does any of it
matter? This is his work, remember—his work, in Crosbie’s cottage! Smelted by Johnny Quee’s own hand!’
‘Perhaps Crosbie Wells was in league with him,’ said Frost.
‘Was that it?’ said Nilssen. He pointed at Ah Quee, and said, ‘Was he in league with Crosbie Wells?’
‘He not know Crosbie Wells,’ said Ah Sook.
‘Oh, for the love of Christ,’ said Mannering.
Harald Nilssen was looking from one Chinese face to the other—searchingly, as if their countenances might betray some evidence of their collusion. Nilssen was very suspicious of Chinese men, having never known one personally; his were the kind of beliefs that did not depend upon empirical fact, and indeed, were often flatly disproved by it, though no disproof was ever enough to change his mind. He had decided, long ago, that Chinese men were duplicitous, and so they would be, whatever disproof he might encounter. Gazing at Ah Quee now, Nilssen recalled the theory of conspiracy that Joseph Pritchard had put to him earlier that afternoon: ‘If we are being framed, then perhaps he is, too.’
‘Someone else is behind this,’ he said. ‘There’s someone else involved.’
‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook.
‘Who?’ said Nilssen, eagerly.
‘You won’t get a grain of sense out of him,’ said Mannering. ‘It’s not worth your breath, I’m telling you.’
But the hatter did reply, and his answer surprised every man in the room. ‘Te Rau Tauwhare,’ he said.
VENUS IN CAPRICORN
In which the widow shares her philosophy of fortune; Gascoigne’s hopes are dashed; and we learn something new about Crosbie Wells.
Upon quitting the Gridiron, Aubert Gascoigne had crossed directly to the Wayfarer Hotel—so identified by a painted sign which hung on two short chains from a protruding spar. The sign boasted no words at all, but showed, instead, the painted silhouette of a man walking, his chin held high, his elbows cocked, and a Dick Whittington bundle on his shoulder. From the jaunty cut of the silhouette, it would not be unreasonable to assume that this was a male-only lodging house; indeed, the establishment as a whole seemed to suggest a marked absence of the feminine, as communicated by the brass spittoon on the veranda, the lean-to privy in the alley, and the deficiency of drapes. But in fact these were the tokens of thrift rather than of regulation: the Wayfarer Hotel did not discriminate between the sexes, having made a firm policy of asking no questions of its lodgers, promising them nothing, and charging them only the very smallest of tariffs for their nightly board. Under these conditions, one was naturally prepared to put up with a very great deal—or so Mrs. Lydia Wells, current resident, had reasoned, having no small genius for thrift.
Lydia Wells always seemed to arrange herself in postures of luxury, so that she might be startled out of them, laughing, when someone approached. In the parlour of the Wayfarer Hotel Gascoigne discovered her stretched out on the sofa with her slipper dangling free from her toe, one arm flung wide, and her head thrown back against a pillow; she was clasping a pocket-sized novel in her other hand, quite as if the book were an accessory to a faint. Her rouged cheeks and titillated aspect had been manufactured in the moments prior to Gascoigne’s entrance, though the latter did not know it. They suggested to him, as was the woman’s intention, that the narrative in which she had been engrossed was a very licentious one.
When Gascoigne rapped upon the doorframe (as a courtesy only, for the door was open) Lydia Wells roused herself, opened her eyes wide, and gave a tinkling laugh. She closed the book with a snap—but then tossed it onto the ottoman, so that its cover and title were in the man’s full view.
Gascoigne bowed. Rising from the bow, he let his gaze linger upon her, relishing the sight—for Lydia Wells was a woman of ample beauty, and a pleasure to behold. She was perhaps forty years of age, though she might have been a mature-seeming thirty, or a youthful fifty; the precise figure she would not disclose. She had entered that indeterminate period of middle age that always seems to call attention to its own indeterminacy, for when Lydia was girlish, that girlishness was made all the more visible by the fact of her age, and when she was wise, her wisdom was all the more impressive for having been produced in one so young. There was a vixen-like quality to her features: her eyes slanted slightly and her nose curved upward in a way that called to mind some alert and inquisitive creature. Her lips were full; her teeth, when she showed them, were delicately shaped, and spaced evenly. Her hair was a bright copper, that colour called ‘red’ by men and ‘auburn’ by women, that darkens with movement, like a flame. Currently it was pulled back into a chignon made of braids, an elaborate contour that covered both the nape and the crown of Lydia’s head. She was wearing a striped gown made of grey silk—a sombre hue, and yet it could not quite be called a mourning dress, just as Lydia’s expression could neither be called the expression of a woman, nor really, the expression of a girl. The dress sported a high buttoned collar, a ruffled bustle, and puffed leg-o’-mutton sleeves, ballooning shapes which served to accent Lydia’s ample bosom, and diminish her waist. At the ends of these enormous sleeves, her hands—clasped together now, to convey her rapture at the sight of Gascoigne standing in the doorway—seemed very small and very fragile, like the hands of a doll.
‘Monsieur Gascoigne,’ she said, relishing the name, drawing it out. ‘But you are alone!’
‘I convey regrets,’ Gascoigne said.
‘You convey regrets—and cause them, deeply.’ Lydia looked him up and down. ‘Let me guess: a headache?’
Gascoigne shook his head, and recounted as briefly as he was able the tale of Anna’s gun misfiring in her hand. He told the truth. Lydia made noises of alarm, and pressed him with questions, which he answered thoroughly, but with a deep exhaustion that showed as a tremor in his throat. At last she took pity on him, and offered him a chair and a drink, both of which he accepted readily, and with relief.
‘I only have gin, I’m afraid,’ she said.
‘Gin-and-water will do fine.’ Gascoigne sat down in the armchair nearest the sofa.
‘It’s putrid stuff,’ said Lydia, with relish. ‘You’ll have to grin and bear it. I ought to have brought a case of something with me from Dunedin—foolish, in hindsight. I’ve not yet found a dram of decent liquor in this town.’
‘Anna keeps a bottle of Spanish brandy in her room.’
‘Spanish?’ Lydia looked interested.
‘Jerez de la Frontera,’ said Gascoigne. ‘Andalusia.’
‘I am sure that I would adore Spanish brandy,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘I wonder how she came by the bottle.’
‘I am sorry that she could not be here to tell you herself,’ Gascoigne said, rather automatically—but as Lydia eased her foot back into her slipper, lifting her skirts to show the stockinged plumpness of her calves, Gascoigne reflected that he was not, in fact, particularly sorry.
‘Yes: we would have had the most delicious time together,’ said Lydia. ‘But the expedition is easily postponed, and I love to look forward to an outing. Unless you would like to come shopping in Anna’s place? Perhaps you cherish a passion for women’s hats!’
‘I could feign a passion,’ said Gascoigne, and Lydia laughed again.
‘Passion,’ she said, in a low voice, ‘is not to be feigned.’ She rose from the sofa and went to the sideboard, where a plain bottle and three glasses were set out on a wooden tray. ‘I’m not surprised, you know,’ she added, turning two of the glasses right side up, and leaving the third upended.
‘You mean—about the pistol? You’re not surprised she tried to take her life again?’
‘Oh heavens, no—not that.’ Lydia paused, the bottle in her hand. ‘I am not surprised to see you here alone.’
Gascoigne flushed. ‘I did as you asked,’ he said. ‘I did not give your name; I told her it was a surprise. Going with a woman to look at hats, I said. She was pleased by the idea. She would have come. It was only this business with the pistol. She was shaken by it—and she wasn’t in a fit state, after
wards.’
He felt that he was gabbling. What a fine woman she was—the widow Wells! How smartly the ruffled bustle curved away from her!
‘You have been ever so kind to humour my silliness,’ said Lydia Wells, soothing him. ‘I tell you: when a woman approaches my age, she likes to play the fairy godmother, once in a while. She likes to wave her wand about, and make magic, for the betterment of younger girls. No, no—I knew that you had not spoiled my surprise. I simply had a premonition that Anna would not come. I have premonitions, Aubert.’
She brought Gascoigne his glass, carrying with her the sharp-and-cloudy scent of fresh-cut lemons—for she had bleached her skin and nails with lemon juice that morning.
‘I did not break your confidence, as I swore I would not,’ Gascoigne repeated. He wanted, for some obscure reason, her continued approbation.
‘Of course,’ Lydia agreed. ‘Of course! You wouldn’t have!’
‘But I am sure that if she had known that it was you—’
‘She would have rallied—in a heartbeat!’
‘She would have rallied.’
(This conviction, rather weakly echoed, was formed on Lydia’s assurance, repeatedly made, that she and Anna had once been the best of friends. It was on the strength of this assurance that Gascoigne had agreed to engineer Lydia’s ‘surprise’, whereby the two women would reunite, and renew their intimacy at once—an offer that was an atypical one for Gascoigne. It was rare for him to perform tasks for others that they might just as well have done themselves, and social manoeuvring of any kind generally made him uncomfortable: he preferred to be manoeuvred than to move. But Gascoigne was, as will now be fairly evident, somewhat in love with Lydia Wells—a foolishness that was powerful enough to drive him not only to act against his inclinations, but also, to alter them.)