The Luminaries

himself, was signed by a “C. Francis Wells”.’

‘It’s an out-and-out forgery,’ said Lauderback, still pointing at Carver. ‘He told me his name was Crosbie Wells, and he signed the deed as Crosbie Wells, and I sold him the ship believing all the while that I’d sold it to a man named Crosbie Wells. It wasn’t until eight, nine months later that I realised I’d been played for a fool.’

Moody dared not make eye contact with Carver—who had stiffened, very slightly, at Lauderback’s falsehood. Moody saw, in the corner of his eye, that Mrs. Carver had reached out a white hand to restrain him: her fingers had closed around his wrist. ‘Can you describe what happened?’ he said.

‘He played the jilted husband,’ said Lauderback. ‘He knew I’d been out and about with Lydia—everyone in this room knows it too: I made my confession in the Times—and he saw a chance to turn a profit on it. He told me his name was Crosbie Wells and I’d been out and about with his wife. I never even dreamed he might be telling a barefaced lie. I thought, I’ve done this man wrong, and I’ve made a bad woman of his wife.’

The Carvers had not moved. Still without looking at them, Moody said, ‘What did he want from you?’

‘He wanted the ship,’ said Lauderback. ‘He wanted the ship, and he got the ship. But I was blackmailed. I sold it under duress—not willingly.’

‘Can you explain the nature of the blackmail?’

‘I’d been keeping Lydia in high fashion, over the course of our affair,’ Lauderback said. ‘Sending her old gowns over to Melbourne every month to get stitched up, and then they’d come back with the latest frills or flounces or what have you. There was a shipment that went back and forth across the Tasman in my name, and of course I used Godspeed as my carrier. Well, he’d intercepted it. Carver had. He’d opened up the trunk, lifted out the gowns, and packed a small fortune underneath them. The trunk was marked with my name, remember, and the arrangement with the dressmaker’s in Melbourne was mine. If that bonanza shipped offshore, I’d be sunk: on paper, I’d be foul of the law on theft, evasion of duty, everything. Once I saw the trap he’d laid, I knew there was nothing to be done. I had to give him the ship. So we shook hands as men, and I apologised again—and then, in keeping with his sham, he signed the contract “Wells”.’

‘Did you ever hear from Mr. Carver, alias Wells, after that encounter?’

‘Not a peep.’

‘Did you ever see the trunk again?’

‘Never.’

‘Incidentally,’ said Moody, ‘what was the name of the shipping company you used to transport Mrs. Carver’s gowns to and from the dressmaker’s in Melbourne?’

‘Danforth Shipping,’ said Lauderback. ‘Jem Danforth was the man I used.’

Moody paused, to allow the crowd in the gallery to comprehend the full implication of this, and then said, ‘When did you realise Mr. Carver’s true identity?’

‘In December,’ said Lauderback. ‘Mr. Wells—the real Mr. Wells, I should say—wrote to me just before he passed. Just a voter introducing himself to a political man, that’s all it was. But from his letter I knew at once that he didn’t know the first thing about me and Lydia—and that’s when I put it all together, and realised that I’d been had.’

‘Do you have Mr. Wells’s correspondence with you?’

‘Yes.’ Lauderback reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a folded piece of paper.

‘The Court will note that the document in Mr. Lauderback’s possession is postmarked the seventeenth of December, 1865,’ said Moody.

‘Duly noted, Mr. Moody.’

Moody turned back to Lauderback. ‘Would you read out the letter, please?’

‘Certainly.’ Lauderback held the up the paper, coughed, and then read:

West Canterbury. December 1865

Sir I observe in the ‘West Coast Times’ that you mean to make the passage to Hokitika overland & therefore will pass through the Arahura Valley lest you make some deliberately circuitous route. I am a voting man and as such I would be honoured to welcome a politician at my home humble though the dwelling is. I shall describe it so that you might approach or direct your course away as you see fit. The house is roofed in iron & set back thirty yards from the banks of the Arahura on that river’s Southern side. There is a clearing of some thirty yards on either side of the cottage & the sawmill is some twenty yards further to the Southeast. The dwelling is a small one with a window & a chimney made of clay-fired brick. It is clad in the usual way. Perhaps even if you do not stop I shall see you riding by. I shall not expect it nor hope for it but I wish you a pleasant journey Westward & a triumphant campaign & I assure you that I remain,

With the deepest admiration,

CROSBIE WELLS

Moody thanked him. He turned to the justice. ‘The Court will note that the signature on Mr. Lauderback’s private correspondence exactly resembles the signature upon the deed of gift penned by Mr. Crosbie Wells upon the eleventh of October, 1865, in which a sum of two thousand pounds is to be given over to Miss Anna Wetherell by Mr. Emery Staines, with Crosbie Wells as witness; it also exactly resembles the signature upon Mr. Wells’s marriage certificate, submitted by Mrs. Lydia Carver, formerly Mrs. Wells, to the Magistrate’s Court two months ago. The Court will further note that these two signatures in no way resemble the signature upon the bill of sale for the barque Godspeed, submitted to the Court by Mr. Francis Carver. Suffice to prove that the signature upon this bill of sale is, indeed, a forgery.’

Broham was gaping at Moody, open-mouthed.

‘Just what do you mean by this, Mr. Moody?’ said the justice.

‘Simply that Mr. Carver obtained the barque Godspeed by methods of extortion, impersonation, and fraud,’ Moody said, ‘and used the same tactics in thieving a fortune of many thousands of pounds from Mr. Wells in May of last year—a theft he achieved, presumably, with Mrs. Carver’s help, given that she is now his wife.’

Broham, who was still struggling to place the events of the past five minutes in sequence in his mind, petitioned for a recess; but his request could hardly be heard above the commotion in the gallery. Justice Kemp, raising his voice to a shout, requested the immediate presence of both Mr. Broham and Mr. Moody in the Magistrate’s office; then he gave the instruction for all witnesses to be placed in custody, and adjourned the court.

THE HOUSE OF MANY WISHES

In which Lydia Wells is as good as her word; Anna Wetherell receives an unexpected visitor; and we learn the truth about Elizabeth Mackay.

The face that number 35, Cumberland-street presented to the thoroughfare was oddly blank: pale clapboard siding; a mullioned shop-window, papered over with butcher’s paper; a pair of curtained sash windows on the floor above. The establishments on either side—Number 37 was a bootmaker’s, and number 33, a shipping agency—had been built very close, masking any sense, from the street, of interior proportion. Walking past it, one might even have presumed the building to be unoccupied, for there were no signs or legends above the doorway, nothing on the porch, and no card in the plate above the knocker.

Mrs. Wells opened the front door with her own key. She led Anna down the silent passage to the rear of the house, where a narrow staircase led to the floor above. On the upstairs landing, which was as clean and blank as its counterpart below, she produced a second key from her reticule, unlocked a second door, and, smiling, gestured for Anna to step inside.