The Luminaries

around him, astonished. The collie-dog leaped upon him, sniffing at the hem of his jacket and his cuffs. Nilssen reached down and caught her behind the ears. ‘What is going on?’ he repeated. ‘For heaven’s sake, Dick—I could hear your voice from fifty paces! The celestials are all staring out of their windows!’

Mannering tightened his grip on Ah Quee’s pigtail. ‘Harald Nilssen,’ he cried. ‘Witness to the prosecution! You’re just the man to lend a hand.’

‘Quiet down,’ Nilssen said, lowering Holly to the floor and placing his hand upon her head, to calm her. ‘Quiet! You’ll bring in the sergeant in another moment. What are you doing?’

‘You went to Crosbie’s cottage,’ Mannering continued, without lowering his voice. ‘You saw that the gold had been retorted—did you not? This yellow devil’s playing us for fools!’

‘Yes,’ Nilssen said. Somewhat absurdly, he was attempting to brush the rain from his coat. ‘I saw that the gold had been retorted. That, in fact, is the reason why I’m here. But you might have asked me quietly. You’ve an audience, you know!’

‘See?’ Mannering was saying to Ah Quee. ‘Here’s another man, come to make you talk! Here’s another man to hold a pistol to your head!’

‘Excuse me,’ Nilssen said. ‘I did not come to hold a pistol to anybody’s head. And I wouldn’t mind asking again what it is that you are doing. It looks ugly, whatever it is.’

‘He won’t hear any kind of reason,’ said Frost, who was anxious not to be implicated in this ugliness.

‘Let a man speak for himself!’ Nilssen snapped. ‘What’s going on?’

We shall omit Mannering’s answer to this question, which was both inaccurate and inflammatory; we shall omit, also, the ensuing discussion, during which Mannering and Nilssen discovered that their purpose in journeying to Chinatown was one and the same, and Frost, who could intuit quite plainly that the commission merchant was holding him in some suspicion over the sale of the Wells estate, maintained a rather sullen silence. The clarifications took some time, and it was nearly ten minutes later that the conversation turned, at last, to the goldsmith Ah Quee, who was still being held by the nape of his neck in a posture of much discomfort and indignity. Mannering suggested that his pigtail be cut off altogether, in order to impress upon the man the urgency of the matter at hand; he tugged at Ah Quee’s head as he said it, taking evident pleasure in the motion, as if weighing a spoil. Nilssen’s code of ethics did not permit humiliation, however, just as his code of aesthetics did not permit ugliness; again he made his disapproval known, prompting a quarrel with Mannering that delayed Ah Quee’s release still further, and excited Holly to the point of riotous and irrepressible joy.

Finally Charlie Frost, who had been hitherto very successfully ignored, suggested that perhaps the Chinese men had simply not understood Mannering’s line of questioning. He proposed instead that the questions be put to Ah Sook again, and this time in writing: that way, he said, they could be sure that nothing had been lost in the act of translation. Nilssen saw the sense in this idea, and approved of it. Mannering was disappointed—but he was in the minority, and presently he was forced to agree. He released Ah Quee, returned his revolver to its holster, and retrieved his pocketbook from his vest, in order to compose a question in Chinese script.

Mannering’s pocketbook was an artefact about which he was not unreasonably proud. The pages of the book had been laid out rather like an alphabet primer, with the Chinese characters written beneath their English meanings; Mannering had devised an index by which the characters could be placed together, to form longer words. There was no phonetic translation, and for this reason the pocketbook occasionally caused more confusion than it allayed, but on the whole it was an ingenious and helpful conversational tool. Mannering set the tip of his tongue in the corner of his mouth, as he always did when he was reading or writing, and began thumbing through the book.

But before Mannering found his question, Ah Sook answered it. The hatter stood up from where he had been seated, next to the forge—the hut seemed very small indeed, once he too was standing—and cleared his throat.

‘I know secret of Crosbie Wells,’ he said.

This was what he had discovered in Kaniere that very morning; this was what he had come to Ah Quee’s dwelling to discuss.

‘What?’ Mannering said. ‘What?’

‘He was in Dunstan,’ Ah Sook said. ‘Otago field.’

Mannering collapsed in disappointment. ‘What’s the use of that?’ he snapped. ‘What’s secret about that? Crosbie Wells—in Dunstan! When was Dunstan? Two years ago—three years ago! Why—I was in Dunstan! All of Hokitika was in Dunstan!’

Nilssen said to Mannering, ‘You didn’t encounter Wells there—did you?’

‘No,’ said Mannering. ‘Never knew him. I knew his wife, though. From Dunedin days.’

Nilssen looked surprised. ‘You knew his wife? The widow?’

‘Yes,’ Mannering said shortly, not caring to elaborate. He turned a page. ‘But never Crosbie. They were estranged. Now hush up, all of you: I can’t hear myself think without a patch of quiet.’

‘Dunstan,’ said Walter Moody. He was stroking his chin with his finger and thumb.

‘It’s an Otago field.’

‘Central Otago.’

‘Past its prime now, Dunstan. It’s all company dredges these days. But she was a shiner in her time.’

‘That is the second time this particular goldfield has been referenced this evening,’ Moody said. ‘Am I right?’

‘You are quite right, Mr. Moody.’

‘Steady on. How is he quite right?’

‘The gold that was used to blackmail Mr. Lauderback hailed from a Dunstan field. Lauderback said so.’

‘Lauderback said so: precisely,’ Moody said. He nodded. ‘I am wondering whether I trust Mr. Lauderback’s intentions, in referencing the name of that goldfield so casually to Mr. Balfour this morning.’

‘What do you mean by that, Mr. Moody?’

‘Don’t you trust him—Lauderback, I mean?’

‘It would be most irrational if I mistrusted Mr. Lauderback,’ Moody said, ‘seeing as I have never met the man in my life. I am very conscious of the fact that the pertinent facts of this tale are being relayed to me second-hand—and, in some cases, third-hand. Take the mention of the Dunstan goldfield, for example. Francis Carver apparently mentioned the name of that field to Mr. Lauderback, who in turn narrated that encounter to Mr. Balfour, who in turn relayed that conversation to me, tonight! You will all agree that I would be a fool to take Mr. Balfour’s words to be true.’

But Moody had misjudged his audience, in questioning so sensitive a subject as the truth. There was an explosion of indignation around the room.

‘What—you don’t trust a man to tell his own story?’

‘This is all as true as I can make it, Mr. Moody!’

‘What else can he tell you, except what he was told?’

Moody was taken aback. ‘I do not believe that any part of your story has been altered or withheld,’ he replied, more carefully this time. He looked from face to face. ‘I only wished to remark that one should never take another man’s truth for one’s own.’

‘Why not?’ This question came from several quarters at once.

Moody paused a moment, thinking. ‘In a court of law,’ he said at last, ‘a witness takes his oath to speak the truth: his own truth, that is. He agrees to two parameters. His testimony must be the whole truth, and his testimony must be nothing but the truth. Only the second of these parameters is a true limit. The first, of course, is largely a matter of discretion. When we say the whole truth we mean, more precisely, all the facts and impressions that are pertinent to the matter at hand. All that is impertinent is not only immaterial; it is, in many cases, deliberately misleading. Gentlemen,’ (though this collective address sat oddly, considering the mixed company in the room) ‘I contend that there are no whole truths, there are only pertinent truths—and pertinence, you must agree, is always a matter of perspective. I do not believe that any one of you has perjured himself in any way tonight. I trust that you have given me the truth, and nothing but the truth. But your perspectives are very many, and you will forgive