swore.’
Balfour was looking panicked. ‘What about your boy?’ he said.
Nilssen shook his head. ‘He doesn’t know.’
‘Someone at the bank, maybe.’
‘No: it was a private agreement—and Shepard has the only copy of the deed.’ Nilssen sighed. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for having sprung it on you—for having asked, you know—and doubted you. But I knew you were Lauderback’s man—and, well, I had to make sure.’
‘Naturally you did…! Of course!’
Nilssen nodded gloomily. He looked through the drawing-room doorway to the crowd beyond—to Pritchard, who stood a clear head taller than any other man in the room—to Devlin, who stood in conversation with Clinch— to Lowenthal, who was talking to Frost—to Mannering, who was refilling his glass from the decanter on the sideboard, and laughing very freely at another man’s joke.
‘Hang tight,’ said Balfour suddenly. ‘You said that Shepard’s letter mentioned Lauderback and Lydia Wells.’
‘Yes,’ said Nilssen, uncomfortably. ‘He’s made their affair all but public knowledge—saying that Lauderback must come clean about her. That’s the—’
Balfour interrupted him. ‘But how in all heaven does Shepard know about the affair in the first place? I hardly think that Lauderback would have—’
‘I told him,’ Nilssen burst out. ‘I broke my oath. Oh, Mr. Balfour—he had me in a corner—and he knew I was hiding something—and I buckled. I couldn’t think fast enough. You’ve every right to be furious with me. You’ve every right. I don’t mind.’
‘Not at all,’ said Balfour—to whom this confession had come as a strange relief.
‘Now Lauderback will know you didn’t keep his confidence,’ Nilssen went on, miserably, ‘and by to-morrow morning all of Westland will know that he took a mistress in Mrs. Wells, and perhaps he’ll lose the seat in Parliament, and it’s all my fault. I’m ever so sorry—truly, I am.’
‘What else did you tell him?’ Balfour said. ‘About Anna—and the blackmail—and the gowns?’
‘No!’ said Nilssen, looking shocked. ‘And nothing about Carver, either. All I said was that Mrs. Wells had been Lauderback’s mistress. That was all. But now Governor Shepard’s gone and said as much—in the paper.’
‘Well, that’s quite all right,’ said Balfour, clapping Nilssen on the shoulder. ‘That’s quite all right! Governor Shepard might have found that out from anywhere. If Lauderback asks, I’ll tell him that I’ve never spoken two words to Shepard in all my life, and that will be the truth.’
‘I’m dreadfully sorry,’ said Nilssen.
‘Not a bit,’ said Balfour, patting him. ‘Not a bit of it.’
‘Well, you’re very kind to say so,’ said Nilssen.
‘Happy to help,’ said Balfour.
‘I still don’t know who sold me out to Lauderback in the first place,’ Nilssen said, after a moment. ‘I’ll have to keep asking, I suppose.’
He sighed, and turned again to scan the faces of the crowd.
‘I say, Mr. Nilssen,’ Balfour said, ‘I’ve thought of something. Apropos of … of … well, of nothing at all really. Here. Next time I have some commission work—next time something comes across my desk, you know—I might not go to Mr. Cochran after all. You know he’s had my business for a long time—but, well, I wonder if it might be time for a change. I’ll wager we’ll all come out of this business looking for a man to lean on. Looking for a man to trust. As I say—you’ll have it—my business—in the future.’
He did not look at Nilssen; he began to fish in his jacket pocket for a cigar.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Nilssen. He watched Balfour for a moment longer, and then, nodding slowly, turned away. Balfour found a cigar, unwrapped it, bit off its end, and placed it between his teeth; then he struck his match, angled it so the flame caught, and held the flame to the square end of the cigar. He puffed at it three times, blowing out his cheeks; then he shook out the match, plucked the cigar from his mouth, and turned it around, to make sure that the tobacco was burning.
‘Mr. Clinch.’
‘Yes,’ said Clinch. ‘What is it?’
‘I have a question,’ Tauwhare said.
‘Well then—ask.’
‘Why did you buy the cottage of Crosbie Wells?’
The hotelier groaned. ‘Not that,’ he said. ‘Let’s not talk about that. Not tonight.’
‘Why?’
‘Just leave it,’ Clinch snapped. ‘I’m out of humour. I’m not discussing Crosbie bloody Wells.’
He was watching the widow as she moved from guest to guest. Her crinoline was so wide that she parted the crowd wherever she walked, leaving an aisle of space behind her.
‘She has a cruel face,’ Tauwhare observed.
‘Yes,’ Clinch said, ‘I think so, too.’
‘Not a friend of Maori.’
‘No, I expect not. Nor of the Chinese—as we can very well see. Nor of any man in this room, I don’t doubt.’ Clinch drained his glass. ‘I’m out of humour, Mr. Tauwhare,’ he said again. ‘When I am out of humour, do you know what I like to do? I like to drink.’
‘That’s good,’ Tauwhare said.
Clinch reached for the decanter. ‘You’ll have another?’
‘Yes.’
He refilled both their glasses. ‘Anyway,’ he said, as he returned the decanter to the sideboard, ‘the appeal will go through, and the sale will be revoked, and I’ll get my deposit back, and that will be that. The cottage won’t belong to me any longer: it will belong to Mrs. Wells.’
‘Why did you buy?’ Tauwhare persisted.
Clinch exhaled heavily. ‘It wasn’t even my idea,’ he said. ‘It was Charlie Frost’s idea. Buy up some land, he said: that way nobody will ask any questions.’
Tauwhare said nothing, waiting for Clinch to go on; presently he did.
‘Here’s the argument,’ he said. ‘You don’t need a miner’s right if the land’s your very own, do you? And if you find a piece of gold on your own land, it’s yours, isn’t it? That was the idea—his idea, I mean: it wasn’t mine. I couldn’t take the gowns to the bank—not without a miner’s right. They’d ask where it came from, and then I’d be stuck. But if I had a piece of land for my very own, then nobody asks anything at all. I never knew about Johnny Quee, you see. I thought the gold had been in the dresses all along—still pure. So I saved up for a deposit. Charlie, he said to wait for either a deceased estate or a subdivision: either the one or the other, he said, for the sake of staying clean. So when the Wells tract came up for sale, I bought it first thing, thinking that—well, I don’t know. It was stupid. Settling there, with—I don’t know. Of course, Anna comes home from gaol in a different dress, the very next day—and then, after she quits the place, I find out the other dresses have been stripped. It was the leaden makeweights that I was feeling. The whole plan’s gone to custard. I’ve got a piece of land I don’t want, and no money to call my own, and Anna—well. You know about her.’
Tauwhare was frowning. ‘The Arahura is a very sacred place,’ he began.
‘Yes, well,’ said Clinch, waving a hand to silence him, ‘the law’s the law. If you want to buy the cottage back again, you’re more than welcome; but it’s not me you should be talking to. It’s her.’
They gazed across the room at Mrs. Wells.
‘The problem with beautiful women,’ Clinch said presently, ‘is that they always know it, and the knowing turns them proud. I like a woman who doesn’t know her own beauty.’
‘A stupid woman,’ Tauwhare said.
‘Not stupid,’ Clinch said. ‘Modest. Unassuming.’
‘I do not know those words.’
Clinch waved a hand. ‘Doesn’t say too much. Doesn’t speak about herself. Knows when to keep quiet, and knows when to speak.’
