smelling cedar case, had been lost when the steamer ran aground—the berths first looted, then flooded, when the steamer fell at last upon her side, and the surf closed in. For Gascoigne the loss was a blessing. He had Agathe’s miniature: that was all he wished to keep. He would pay her memory due respect, but he was a young man, and still hot-blooded, and he meant to begin again.
By the time Anna had changed, the fire was lit. Gascoigne glanced sideways at the dress. It looked just as ill upon her as it had upon his late wife. Anna saw him looking.
‘Now I will be able to mourn,’ she said. ‘I never had a black dress before.’
Gascoigne did not ask her whom she was mourning, or how recent the death. He filled the kettle, and put it on the range.
Aubert Gascoigne preferred to initiate conversation, rather than fall in with another person’s theme and tempo; he was content to be silent in company until he felt moved to speak. Anna Wetherell, with her whore’s intuition, seemed to recognise this aspect of Gascoigne’s character. She did not press him to converse, and she did not watch or shadow him as he went about the ordinary business of the evening: lighting candles, refilling his cigarette case, exchanging his muddy boots for indoor shoes. She gathered up the gold-lined dress and conveyed it across the room to spread on Gascoigne’s table. It was heavy. The gold had added perhaps five pounds to the weight of the fabric, Anna guessed: she tried to calculate the value. The Crown would buy pure colour at a rate of around three sovereigns per ounce—and there were sixteen ounces in a pound of weight—and this was five pounds of weight, at least. How much did that total? She tried to imagine a column of sums in her mind, but the figures swam.
While Gascoigne banked the fire for the evening, and spooned tea leaves into a strainer, ready to steep, Anna examined her dress. Whoever had hidden the gold there evidently had experience with a needle and thread—either a woman or a sailor, she thought. They had sewn with care. The gold had been fitted up and down the bones of the corset, sewn into the flounces, and parcelled evenly around the hem—an extra weight she had not noticed earlier, for she often carried lead pellets around the bottom of her crinoline, to prevent the garment from blowing upward in the wind.
Gascoigne had come up behind her. He took out his bowie knife, to cut the corset free—but he began too like a butcher, and Anna made a noise of distress.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘You don’t know how—please let me.’
He hesitated, and then passed her the knife, and stood back to watch. She worked slowly, wanting to preserve the form and shape of the dress: first she took out the hem, then worked her way upward, along each flounce, snicking the threads with the point of the knife, and shaking the gold out of the seams. When she reached the corset, she made a little slice beneath each stay, and then reached up with her fingers to loose the gold from where it had been stuffed, in panels, between the bones. It was these lumpy parcels that had so reminded Gascoigne of chainmail, in the gaol-house.
The gold, shaken out of the folds, shone gloriously. Anna collected it in the centre of the table. She was careful not to let the dust scatter in the draught. Each time she added another handful of dust, or another nugget, she cupped her hands over the pile, as if to warm herself upon the shine. Gascoigne watched her. He was frowning.
At last she was done, and the dress was emptied.
‘Here,’ she said, taking up a nugget roughly the size of the last joint of Gascoigne’s thumb. She pushed it across the table towards him. ‘One pound one shilling: I haven’t forgotten.’
‘I will not touch this gold,’ said Gascoigne.
‘Plus payment for the mourning dress,’ Anna said, flushing. ‘I don’t need charity.’
‘You might,’ said Gascoigne. He sat down on the edge of the bed and reached into his breast pocket for his cigarettes. He flipped open the silver case, plucked out a cigarette, and lit it with care; only after it was lit, and he had taken several lungfuls, did he turn to her, and say,
‘Who do you work for, Miss Wetherell?’
‘You mean—who runs the girls? Mannering.’
‘I do not know him.’
‘You would if you saw him. He’s very fat. He owns the Prince of Wales.’
‘I have seen a fat man.’ Gascoigne sucked on his cigarette. ‘Is he a fair employer?’
‘He has a temper,’ Anna said, ‘but his terms are mostly fair.’
‘Does he give you opium?’
‘No.’
‘Does he know you take it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who sells you the stuff?’
‘Ah Sook,’ said Anna.
‘Who is that?’
‘He’s just a chink. A hatter. He keeps the den at Kaniere.’
‘A Chinese man who makes hats?’
‘No,’ Anna said. ‘I was using local talk. A hatter is a man who digs alone.’
Gascoigne paused in his line of questioning to smoke.
‘This hatter,’ he said next. ‘He keeps an opium den—at Kaniere.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you go to him.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘Alone.’ He spoke the word accusingly.
‘Most often,’ Anna said, squinting at him. ‘Sometimes I buy a little extra, to take at home.’
‘Where does
She shook her head. ‘Jo Pritchard sells it to him. He’s the chemist. Has a drug hall on Collingwood- street.’
Gascoigne nodded. ‘I know Mr. Pritchard,’ he said. ‘Well then, I am curious: why should you bother with Chinamen, if you could buy the stuff from Mr. Pritchard direct?’
Anna lifted her chin a little—or perhaps she merely shivered; Gascoigne could not tell. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘You don’t know,’ said Gascoigne.
‘No.’
‘Kaniere is a long way to walk for a mouthful of smoke, I think.’
‘I suppose.’
‘And Mr. Pritchard’s emporium is—what—not ten minutes’ walk from the Gridiron. Still less if one walked at a pace.’
She shrugged.
‘Why do you go to Kaniere Chinatown, Miss Wetherell?’
Gascoigne spoke acidly; he felt that he knew the probable answer to the question, and wanted her to say the words aloud.
Her face was stony. ‘Maybe I like it there.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Maybe you like it there.’
(For goodness’ sake! What had come over him? What did he care if the whore plied her trade with Chinamen or not? What did he care if she made the trip to Kaniere alone, or with an escort? She was a whore! He had met her for the first time that very evening! Gascoigne felt a rush of bewilderment, and then immediately, a stab of anger. He took refuge in his cigarette.)
‘Mannering,’ he said, when he had exhaled. ‘The fat man. Could you leave him?’
‘Once I clear my debt.’
‘How much do you owe?’
‘A hundred pounds,’ said Anna. ‘Maybe a little over.’
The empty dress lay between them, like a flayed corpse. Gascoigne looked at the pile, at its glimmer; Anna, following his line of sight, looked too.
‘You will be tried at the courts, of course,’ Gascoigne said, gazing at the gold.
