The Luminaries

  ‘No,’ said Anna.

  ‘Did he become injured, that evening?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ said Anna. ‘Last I saw him, he was fine. He was sleeping.’

  Broham picked up a muff pistol from the barristers’ desk. ‘Do you recognise this firearm, Miss Wetherell?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anna, squinting at it. ‘That’s mine.’

  ‘Do you carry this weapon on your person?’

  ‘I used to, when I was working. I kept it in the front of my dress.’

  ‘Were you carrying it on the night of the fourteenth of January?’

  ‘No: I left it at the Gridiron. Under my pillow.’

  ‘But you were working on the night of the fourteenth of January, were you not?’

  ‘I was with Mr. Staines,’ Anna said.

  ‘That was not my question,’ Broham said. ‘Were you working on the night of the fourteenth of January?’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna said.

  ‘And yet—as you allege—you left your pistol at home.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I didn’t think I’d need it,’ Anna said.

  ‘But this was an aberration: ordinarily it would have been on your person.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can anyone vouch for the pistol’s whereabouts that evening?’

  ‘No,’ Anna said. ‘Unless someone looked under my pillow.’

  ‘The cartridge found in Mr. Staines’s shoulder issued from a pistol of this type,’ Broham said. ‘Did you shoot him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know who did?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Broham coughed into his knuckles again. ‘Were you aware, upon the night of the fourteenth of January, of Mr. Staines’s net worth as a prospector?’

  ‘I knew he was rich,’ she said. ‘Everyone knows that.’

  ‘Did you discuss the fortune discovered in the cottage of Mr. Crosbie Wells with Mr. Staines, either on that night, or on any other night?’

  ‘No. We never spoke about money.’

  ‘Never?’ said Broham, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Mr. Broham,’ said the justice, tiredly.

  Broham inclined his head. ‘When did you first learn about Mr. Staines’s intentions, as described upon this deed of gift?’

  ‘On the morning of the twentieth of March,’ said Anna. She relaxed a little: this was a line she had memorised. ‘The gaol-house chaplain brought that paper to the Wayfarer’s Fortune to show me, and I took it straight to the Courthouse to find out what it might mean. I sat down with Mr. Fellowes, and he confirmed that the deed of gift was a legal document, and binding. He said that there might be something in it—that I might have a claim upon the fortune, I mean. Then he agreed to take the deed to the bank on my behalf.’

  ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘He said to meet back here at the Courthouse at five o’clock. So I came back at five, and we sat down as before. But then I fainted.’

  ‘What induced the faint?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Were you under the effects of any drug or spirit at that time?’

  ‘No,’ said Anna. ‘I was stone-cold sober.’

  ‘Can anyone vouch for your sobriety that day?’

  ‘The Reverend Devlin was with me in the morning,’ Anna said, ‘and I’d spent that afternoon with Mr. Clinch, at the Gridiron.’

  ‘In his report to the Magistrate, Governor Shepard described a strong smell of laudanum in the air at the time of your faint,’ Broham said.

  ‘Maybe he made a mistake,’ Anna said.

  ‘You have a dependency upon opiates, do you not?’

  ‘I haven’t smoked a pipe since before I moved in with Mrs. Wells,’ said Anna stoutly. ‘I gave it up when I went into mourning: the day I was released from gaol.’

  ‘Allow me to clarify: you attest that you have not touched opium, in any form, since your overdose upon the fourteenth of January?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And Mrs. Carver can vouch for this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you tell the Court what happened on the afternoon of the twenth-seventh of January in the hours before Mrs. Carver’s arrival at the Gridiron Hotel?’

  ‘I was in my room, talking to Mr. Pritchard,’ Anna recited. ‘My pistol was in the front of my dress, like it always is. Mr. Gascoigne came into the room very suddenly, and I was startled, so I took out the pistol, and it misfired. None of us could figure out what went wrong. Mr. Gascoigne thought the piece might be broken, so he had me reload it, and then he fired it a second time into my pillow, to make sure that it was working correctly. Then he gave the piece back to me, and I put it back in my drawer, and that was the last I touched it.’

  ‘In other words, two shots were fired that afternoon.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The second bullet lodged in your pillow,’ the lawyer said. ‘What happened to the first?’

  ‘It vanished,’ Anna said.

  ‘It vanished?’ said Broham, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘It didn’t lodge anywhere.’

  ‘Was the window open, by any chance?’

  ‘No,’ Anna said. ‘It was raining. I don’t know where the cartridge went. None of us could figure it out.’

  ‘It just—vanished,’ said Broham.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Anna.

  Broham had no further questions. He sat down, smirking slightly, and the justice invited Moody to cross-examine.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Moody. ‘Miss Wetherell, all three of today’s charges have been brought against you by Mr. George Shepard, governor of the Hokitika Gaol. Do you have a personal acquaintance with the man?’

  This was a conversation they had practised many times; Anna answered without hesitation. ‘None at all.’

  ‘And yet in addition to bringing the charges against you today, Governor Shepard has made numerous allegations about your sanity, has he not?’

  ‘Yes: he says that I am insane.’

  ‘Have you and Governor Shepard ever spoken at length?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you ever transacted business of any kind together?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘To your knowledge, does Governor Shepard have reason to bear ill-will towards you?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I haven’t done anything to him.’

  ‘I understand you share a mutual acquaintance, however,’ Moody said. ‘Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘Ah Sook. A Chinaman. He ran the dragon den at Kaniere, and he was my very dear friend. He was shot dead on the twentieth of March—by Governor Shepard.’

  Broham leaped up to object. ‘Governor Shepard had a warrant for that man’s arrest,’ he said, ‘and on that occasion he was acting in his capacity as a member of the police. Mr. Moody is casting aspersions.’

  ‘I am aware of the warrant, Mr. Broham,’ said Moody. ‘I raise the issue because I believe the mutual acquaintance is a pertinent point of connexion between plaintiff and defendant.’

  ‘Continue, Mr. Moody,’ said the justice. He was frowning.

  Broham sat down.

  ‘What was Governor Shepard’s connexion to Mr. Sook?’ Moody asked Anna.

  ‘Ah Sook was accused of murdering Governor Shepard’s brother,’ Anna said, speaking clearly. ‘In Sydney. Fifteen years ago.’

  All of a sudden the courtroom was very still.

  ‘What was the outcome of the trial?’ Moody said.

  ‘Ah Sook was acquitted at the last minute,’ said Anna. ‘He walked free.’

  ‘Did Mr. Sook ever speak of this matter to you?’ said Moody.

  ‘His English was not very good,’ said Anna, ‘but he often used the words “revenge”, and “murder”. Sometimes he talked in his sleep. I didn’t understand it at the time.’

  ‘On these occasions to which you refer,’ Moody said, ‘how did Mr. Sook appear to you?’


  ‘Vexed,’ Anna said. ‘Perhaps frightened. I didn’t think anything of it until afterwards. I didn’t know about Governor Shepard’s brother till after Ah Sook was killed.’

  Moody turned to the justice, holding up a piece of paper. ‘The defence refers the Court to the transcript of the trial, recorded in the Sydney Herald on the ninth of July, 1854. The original can be found at the Antipodean Archives on Wharf-street, where it is currently being held; in the meantime, I submit a witnessed copy to the Court.’

  He passed the copy along the bench to be handed up to the justice, and then turned back to Anna. ‘Was Governor Shepard aware of the fact that you and Mr. Sook were very dear friends?’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly a secret,’ said Anna. ‘I was at the den most days, and it’s the only den in Kaniere. I’d say that almost everyone knew.’

  ‘Your visits earned you a nickname, did they not?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘Everyone called me “Chinaman’s Ann”.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Wetherell,’ Moody said. ‘That will be all.’ He bowed to the justice, who was scanning the transcript from the Sydney Herald, and sat down.

  Broham, to whom this insinuation had come as a very unexpected surprise, petitioned to re-examine Anna on the subject that had just been raised by the defence. Justice Kemp, however, declined his request.

  ‘We are here this morning to consider three charges,’ he said, placing the account of Ah Sook’s acquittal carefully to the side, and folding his hands, ‘one of forgery, one of drunk and disorderly behaviour, and one of assault. I have made note of the fact that Miss Wetherell’s association with Mr. Sook was of a personal significance to the plaintiff; but I do not judge that these new developments warrant a re-examination. After all, we are not here to consider the plaintiff’s motivations, but Miss Wetherell’s.’

  Broham looked very put out; Moody, catching Anna’s eye, gave her a very small smile, which she returned in kind. This was a victory.

  The first witness to be called was Joseph Pritchard, who, interrograted by Broham, echoed Anna’s account of what had happened on the 27th of January in the Gridiron Hotel: the first bullet had vanished upon the event of the misfire, and the second had been fired into Anna’s pillow by Aubert Gascoigne, as an experiment.

  ‘Mr. Pritchard,’ said Moody, when he was invited to cross-examine. ‘What was your purpose in seeking an audience with Miss Wetherell on the afternoon of the twenty-seventh of January?’

  ‘I figured that there was another story behind her attempted suicide,’ said Pritchard. ‘I thought that perhaps her store of opium might have been poisoned, or cut with something else, and I wanted to examine it.’

  ‘Did you examine Miss Wetherell’s supply, as you intended?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you discover?’

  ‘I could tell by looking at her pipe that someone had used it very recently,’ Pritchard said. ‘But whoever that was, it wasn’t her. She was as sober as a nun that afternoon. I could see it in her eyes: she hadn’t touched the drug in days. Maybe even since her overdose.’

  ‘What about the opium itself? Did you examine her supply?’

  ‘I couldn’t find it,’ Pritchard said. ‘I turned over her whole drawer, looking for it—but the lump was gone.’

  Moody raised his eyebrows. ‘The lump was gone?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pritchard.

  ‘Thank you, Mr. Pritchard,’ said Moody. ‘That will be all.’

  Harrington was bent over his ledger, writing furiously. Now he ripped out the page upon which he had been scribbling, and thrust it down the bench for the other men to read. Broham, Moody saw, was no longer smirking.

  ‘Call the next witness,’ said the justice, who was writing also.

  The next witness was Aubert Gascoigne, whose testimony confirmed that the misfire had occurred, the bullet had vanished, and that the second shot had been fired, without incident, into the headboard of Anna’s bed. Questioned by Broham, he admitted that he had not suspected that Emery Staines might have been present in the Gridiron Hotel on the afternoon of the twenty-seventh of January; questioned by Moody, he agreed that the notion was very possible. He returned to his place below the dais, and once he was seated again, the justice called the gaol-house chaplain, Cowell Devlin.

  ‘Reverend Devlin,’ said Broham, once the clergyman had been sworn in. He held up the deed of gift. ‘How did this document first come to be in your possession?’

  ‘I found it in Crosbie Wells’s cottage, the morning after his death,’ Devlin said. ‘Mr. Lauderback had brought news of Mr. Wells’s death to Hokitika, and I had been charged by Governor Shepard to go to the cottage and assist in the collection of the man’s remains.’

  ‘Where exactly did you find this document?’

  ‘I found it in the ash drawer at the bottom of the stove,’ said Devlin. ‘The place had an unhappy atmosphere, and the day was very wet; I decided to light a fire. I opened the drawer, and saw that document lying in the grate.’

  ‘What did you do next?’

  ‘I confiscated it,’ said Devlin.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The document concerned a great deal of money,’ the chaplain said calmly, ‘and I judged it prudent not to make the information public until Miss Wetherell’s health had improved: she had been brought into the Police Camp late the previous night on a suspected charge of felo de se, and it was very plain that she was not in a fit state for surprises.’

  ‘Was that the only reason for your confiscation?’

  ‘No,’ Devlin said. ‘As I later explained to Governor Shepard, the document did not seem worth sharing with the police: it was, at that time, invalid.’

  ‘Why was it invalid?’

  ‘Mr. Staines had not signed his name to authorise the bequest,’ said Devlin.

  ‘And yet the document that I am holding does bear Mr. Staines’s signature,’ said Broham. ‘Please explain to the Court how this document came to be signed.’

  ‘I am afraid I can’t,’ Devlin said. ‘I did not witness the signing first-hand.’

  Broham faltered. ‘When did you first become aware that the deed had been signed?’

  ‘On the morning of the twentieth of March, when I took the deed to Miss Wetherell at the Wayfarer’s Fortune. We had been discussing other matters, and it was during our conversation that I first noticed the document had acquired a signature.’

  ‘Did you see Miss Wetherell sign this deed of gift?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  Broham was plainly flummoxed by this; to regain composure, he said, ‘What were you discussing?’

  ‘The nature of our discussion that morning was confidential to my status as a clergyman,’ Devlin said. ‘I cannot be asked to repeat it, or to testify against her.’

  Broham was astonished. Devlin, however, was in the right, and after a great deal of protestation and argument, Broham surrendered his witness to Moody, looking very upset. Moody took a moment to arrange his papers before he began.

  ‘Reverend Devlin,’ he said. ‘Did you show this deed of gift to Governor Shepard immediately after you discovered it?’

  ‘No, I did not,’ said Devlin.

  ‘How then did Governor Shepard become aware of its existence?’

  ‘Quite by accident,’ replied Devlin. ‘I was keeping the document in my Bible to keep it flat, and Governor Shepard chanced upon it while browsing. This occurred perhaps a month after Mr. Wells’s death.’

  Moody nodded. ‘Was Mr. Shepard alone when this accidental discovery occurred?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He advised me to share the deed with Miss Wetherell, and I did so.’

  ‘Immediately?’

  ‘No: I waited some weeks. I wanted to speak with her alone, without Mrs. Carver’s knowledge, and there were few opportunities to do so, given that the two women were living together, and very rarely spent any length of time apart.’

  ‘W
hy did you want your conversation with Miss Wetherell to happen without Mrs. Carver’s knowledge?’

  ‘At the time I believed Mrs. Carver to be the rightful inheritor of the fortune discovered in Mr. Wells’s cottage,’ Devlin said. ‘I did not want to drive a wedge between her and Miss Wetherell, on account of a document that, for all I knew, might have been somebody’s idea of a joke. On the morning of the twentieth of March, as you may remember, Mrs. Carver was summoned to the courthourse. I read of the summons in the morning paper, and made for the Wayfarer’s Fortune at once.’

  Moody nodded. ‘Had the deed remained in your Bible, in the meantime?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Devlin.

  ‘Were there any subsequent occasions, following Governor Shepard’s initial discovery of the deed of gift, where Governor Shepard was alone with your Bible?’

  ‘A great many,’ said Devlin. ‘I take it with me to the Police Camp every morning, and I often leave it in the gaol-house office while completing other tasks.’

  Moody paused a moment, to let this implication settle. Then he said, changing the subject, ‘How long have you known Miss Wetherell, Reverend?’

  ‘I had not met her personally before the afternoon of the twentieth of March, when I called on her at the Wayfarer’s Fortune. Since that day, however, she has been in my custody at the Police Camp gaol-house, and I have seen her every day.’

  ‘Have you had opportunity, over this period, to observe her and converse with her?’

  ‘Ample opportunity.’

  ‘Can you describe the general impression you have formed of her character?’

  ‘My impression is favourable,’ said Devlin. ‘Of course she has been exploited, and of course her past is chequered, but it takes a great deal of courage to reform one’s character, and I am gratified by the efforts she has made. She has thrown off her dependency, for a start; and she is determined never to sell her body again. For those things, I commend her.’

  ‘What is your opinion of her mental state?’

  ‘Oh, she is perfectly sane,’ said Devlin, blinking. ‘I have no doubt about that.’

  ‘Thank you, Reverend,’ Moody said, and then, to the justice, ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Next came the expert testimonies from Dr. Gillies; a Dr. Sanders, called down from Kumara to deliver a second medical opinion upon Anna’s mental state; and a Mr. Walsham, police inspector from the Greymouth Police.