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.’
MERCURY IN SAGITTARIUS
In which Walter Moody meditates upon the mystery at hand; we learn what happened on his journey from Dunedin; and a messenger brings unexpected news.
There was a silence in the smoking room of the Crown Hotel—a silence that, for a moment, seemed to still the breath of every man, and still the smoke that rose in coils from the pipes, the cigarettes, the cheroots, and the cigars.
It was past midnight. The darkness had rounded the corners of the room, and the cones of light cast by the spirit lamps now seemed robust and warming, where before they had been faint and chill. Strains of Saturday night filtered in from the street—an accordion, distant shouting, an infrequent whoop, hoof beats. It had stopped raining, though the cloud had not yet cleared, and the gibbous moon showed only as a squarish patch of light in the lowering sky.
‘That’s it,’ said Thomas Balfour. ‘That’s it. That’s where we’d got to.’
Moody blinked and looked around him. Balfour’s narrative, disjunctive and chaotic as it was, had indeed accounted for the presence of every man in the room. There by the window was the Maori carver, Te Rau Tauwhare, who had been Crosbie’s loyal friend in life, though he had unwittingly betrayed him at the last. There in the farthest corner was Charlie Frost, the banker who had engineered the sale of Wells’s house and land, and opposite him, the newspaperman Benjamin Löwenthal, who had heard about the death within mere hours of its occurrence. Edgar Clinch, purchaser of Wells’s estate, was sitting on the sofa beside the billiard table, smoothing his moustache with his finger and thumb. There by the fire was Dick Mannering, whoremonger, theatre owner, and close associate of Emery Staines; there behind him was Ah Quee, his enemy. There with a cue in his hand was the commission merchant, Harald Nilssen, who had discovered in Crosbie Wells’s cottage not only an enormous fortune, but a corked phial of laudanum, half empty, which had been purchased at Joseph Pritchard’s drug hall. The latter, of course, was sitting nearest Moody; on his other side was Thomas Balfour, lackey to the politician Lauderback, whose shipping crate had lately disappeared. There in the wingback armchair next to Balfour was Aubert Gascoigne, who had paid Anna Wetherell’s bail, and had uncovered another, smaller fortune hoarded in her orange whoring gown. Behind him was Ah Sook, peddler of opium, keeper of the den at Kaniere, and former associate of Francis Carver, who had discovered, that very afternoon, that Crosbie Wells had once been rich. And there, finally, leaning against the billiard table with his arms folded across his chest, was the chaplain Cowell Devlin, who had committed the hermit’s body to its final resting place upon the terrace at Seaview.
It was, in Moody’s estimation, a confoundedly peripheral gathering. The twelve men were united only by their association to the events of the 14th of January, upon which night Anna Wetherell had nearly died, Crosbie Wells had died, Emery Staines had vanished, Francis Carver had sailed away, and Alistair Lauderback had arrived in town. It struck Moody that none of these people were present. The gaol warden, Governor Shepard, was likewise absent, as was the crafty widow, Lydia Wells.
Another thought struck Moody: the night of the 14th of January was the very evening that he himself had first set foot upon New Zealand soil. Disembarking the packet steamer that had conveyed him from Liverpool to Dunedin, he had cast his gaze skyward, and had felt for the first time the strangeness of where he was. The skies were inverted, the patterns unfamiliar, the Pole Star beneath his feet, quite swallowed. At first he searched for it, stupidly, wanting to measure his present latitude from the incline of his rigid arm, as he had done as a boy, on the other side of the earth. He found Orion—upended, his quiver beneath him, his sword hanging upward from his belt; Canis Major—hanging like a dead dog from a butcher’s hook. There was something very sad about it, Moody thought. It was as if the ancient patterns had no meaning here. At length he found the Southern Crux, and tried to recall the rule for locating the pole, for there was no equivalent star to mark it, here in the black of the antipodes, where everything was upended and unformed. Did one use the crossbar of the thing? Or the spar? He could not rememb
er. There was some kind of formula: the length of a knuckle, some equation. A matter of inches. It had bothered him extremely that there was no star to mark the pole.
Moody gazed into the fire, the coals of which had long since gone to ash. Thomas Balfour had not told his tale at all chronologically, and his narrative had been further convoluted by countless interruptions, clarifications, and echoes—all chasing one another, as endless circles, going round. What a convoluted picture it was—and how difficult to see, in its entirety! Moody turned his mind to all that he had heard that evening. He tried to place the recounted events into the order in which they had actually occurred.
Roughly nine months prior to the present day, the former convict Francis Carver had successfully cheated Alistair Lauderback out of his ship, the Godspeed. At some point thereafter, and by an unknown complication, he had then lost the shipping crate by which he had forced the politician’s hand. Inside this shipping crate was a trunk containing approximately four thousand pounds in pure gold, a fortune that had been meticulously sewn into the lining of five dresses. The seamstress was a woman named Lydia Wells, who was, at that time, posing as Francis Carver’s wife.
Four thousand pounds was a great deal of money, and Carver, naturally, wished to recover it, once he discovered that the thing had been lost. He sailed to Hokitika, presumably guessing that the crate had been delivered there by mistake, and placed an advertisement in the West Coast Times, offering a large reward for the crate’s safe return. He placed this advertisement under the name of Crosbie Francis Wells—producing a birth certificate to confirm this identity—though he was known, both beforehand and thereafter, by the name of Francis Carver. It was yet unknown why Carver’s blackmail of Lauderback had required him (or inspired him) to assume an alias. It was also unknown why Crosbie Wells’s birth certificate, if indeed genuine, had been in Carver’s possession at that time.