The gaoler’s wife said nothing. In the bedroom, Ah Sook began to ease himself out from under the bed.
‘It’s me he’s after,’ Carver said.
No answer: perhaps she only nodded.
‘Well, your husband’s done me a good turn, in sounding the warning,’ Carver went on. ‘You let him know that I appreciate it.’
‘I will.’
Carver seemed to linger. ‘Rumour has it that he’s been in Hokitika since late last year,’ he said. ‘Our mutual friend. You must have seen him.’
‘No,’ she whispered.
‘You never saw him? Or you never knew?’
‘I never knew,’ she said. ‘Not until—not until this morning.’
In the bedroom, still with the pistol trained on the calico shadow, Ah Sook got to his knees, and then to his feet. He began to move towards the wall. If he angled the pistol sideways—if he shot obliquely, rather than head- on—
‘Well, George did,’ Carver was saying. ‘He’s known for a while now. Been keeping a watch upon the man. He didn’t tell you?’
‘No,’ whispered Mrs. George.
Another pause.
‘I suppose that figures,’ Carver said.
Ah Sook had reached the timber frame of the bedroom doorway. He was perhaps six feet away from the square of lightness that was the front door; the doubled sheet of calico was all that stood between him and Francis Carver. Was Carver armed? There was no way to tell, short of opening the door and confronting him face to face—but if he did so he would lose precious seconds, and he would lose the advantage of surprise. And yet he still did not dare shoot, for fear of hurting Mrs. Shepard. He peered at the shapes on the fabric, trying to see where the woman was standing. Did the door open to the left, or to the right?
The blackness of the calico shadow seemed to thicken slightly.
‘You’ve spent your lifetime paying for it,’ Carver said. ‘Haven’t you?’
Silence.
‘And it’s never enough.’
Silence.
‘He doesn’t want your penance,’ Carver said. ‘Mark my words, Mrs. Shepard. Your penance is not what he wants. He wants something that he can take for his very own. George Shepard wants revenge.’
Mrs. Shepard spoke at last. ‘George abhors the notion of revenge,’ she said. ‘He calls it brutish. He says revenge is an act of jealousy, not of justice.’
‘He’s right,’ Carver said. ‘But everyone’s jealous of something.’
The patch of blackness in the doorway faded and dissolved, and Ah Sook heard Carver’s footsteps retreating. The cottage door closed, and there came a rattling sound as Mrs. Shepard drew the bolt and chain. Then lighter footsteps, approaching, and the bedroom door opened. Mrs. Shepard looked at Ah Sook, startled, and then at the pistol in his hand.
‘You fool,’ she said. ‘In broad daylight! And with the sergeant five paces away!’
Ah Sook said nothing. Again Mrs. George seemed to hiccup. Her voice rose to a pitch that was partly a whisper, partly a shriek. ‘Are you in your right
Ah Sook felt ashamed. ‘Sorry,’ he said, letting his hands fall.
‘I’d be hanged,’ said Margaret Shepard. ‘I’d be hanged. George would see to it.’
‘No harm done,’ said Ah Sook.
The woman’s hysteria melted into bitterness at once. ‘No harm done,’ she said.
‘Very sorry, Margaret.’
And he did feel sorry. Perhaps he had lost his chance. Perhaps now she would turn him out into the street, or ring for her husband, or summon the sergeant … and he would be captured, and Carver would walk free.
She stepped forward and eased the revolver from his hand. She held it only a moment before setting it to the side, carefully, upon the whatnot, making sure the muzzle was turned away. Then she hovered a moment, not looking at him. She breathed several times, deeply. He waited. ‘You’ll stay here till after dark,’ she said at last, and quietly. Still she did not look at him. ‘You’ll stay under the bed until it’s dark, and it’s safe to leave.’
‘Margaret,’ said Ah Sook.
‘What?’ she whispered, shrinking away, darting a quick look at the lamp fixture, then at the headboard of the bed. ‘What?’
‘Thank you,’ said Ah Sook.
She peered at him, and then quickly dropped her gaze to his chest and stomach. ‘You stand out a mile in that tunic,’ she mumbled. ‘You’re a Chinaman through and through. Wait here.’
In ten minutes she was back with a jacket and trousers over her arm, and a soft-crowned hat in her hand. ‘Try these on,’ she said, ‘I’ll sew the trousers up for size, and you can borrow a jacket from the gaol-house. You’ll leave this place looking like an Englishman, Mr. Sook, or you won’t leave it at all.’
In which Mr. Staines takes his medicine, and Miss Wetherell takes a fall.
Te Rau Tauwhare reached Pritchard’s Drug Hall by half past three; by the stroke of four, he and Pritchard were sitting in a rented trap, driving a pair of horses northward as fast as the trap would allow. Pritchard was half-standing, bare-headed, reckless, whipping the horses into a froth. There was a bulge in his jacket pocket: a glass jar of laudanum, sloshing thickly, so that the rusty liquid left an oily wash of colour on the inside of the glass, that thinned, and then thickened, each time the wheels of the trap went over a stone. Tauwhare was gripping the seatback with both hands, doing his best not to be sick.
‘And it was me he said he wanted,’ Pritchard said to himself, exhilarated. ‘Not the doctor—
Charlie Frost, queried by the lawyer Fellowes, told the truth. Yes, the fortune found on Crosbie Wells’s estate had been found already retorted. The smelting was the work of the Chinese goldsmith, Quee Long, who until that morning had been the sole digger employed to work Mr. Staines’s goldmine, the Aurora. Mr. Fellowes wrote this down in his pocketbook, and thanked the young banker very courteously for his help. Then he produced the charred deed of gift that Anna Wetherell had given him, and handed it wordlessly across the desk.
Frost, glancing at it, was astonished. ‘It’s been signed,’ he said.
‘Come again?’ said Fellowes.
‘Emery Staines has signed this document some time in the past two months,’ said Frost firmly. ‘Unless that signature is a fake, of course … but I know the man’s hand: that’s his mark. The last time I saw this piece of paper there was a space next to this man’s name. No signature.’
‘Then he’s alive?’ said the lawyer.
Benjamin Lowenthal, turning into Collingwood-street, was surprised to find that Pritchard’s Drug Hall was shut and locked, with a card in the window saying the establishment was closed. He walked around to the rear of the building, where he found Pritchard’s assistant, a boy named Giles, reading a paper on the back stoop.
‘Where’s Mr. Pritchard?’ he said.
‘Out,’ said the boy. ‘What is it that you’re wanting?’
