me if I do not take your tale for something whole.’
There was a silence at this, and Moody saw that he had offended. ‘Of course,’ he added, more quietly, ‘I speak importunately; for you have not yet finished your story.’ He looked from man to man. ‘I ought not to have interrupted. I repeat that I meant no slight to anyone. Please: go on.’
Charlie Frost was looking at Ah Sook curiously. ‘Why did you say that, Mr. Sook?’ he said. ‘Why did you say that you knew a secret about Crosbie Wells?’
Ah Sook turned his gaze on Frost and appraised him. ‘Crosbie Wells strike big in Dunstan,’ he said. ‘Many very big nugget. Very lucky man.’
Nilssen turned. ‘Crosbie Wells made a
Mannering had also looked up. ‘What?’ he said. ‘A strike? How much?’
‘In Dunstan,’ Sook Yongsheng said again, still gazing at Frost. ‘Very lucky man. Big bonanza. Very rich.’
Nilssen stepped forward—which rather annoyed Frost, for he had been the one to introduce this new line of questioning, after all. But Nilssen and Mannering both seemed to have forgotten that Frost was there.
‘How long ago?’ Nilssen demanded. ‘When?’
‘Two.’ Ah Sook held up two fingers.
‘Two years ago!’ said Mannering.
‘How much? How much colour?’ said Nilssen.
‘Many thousand.’
‘How much—four?’ Nilssen held up four fingers. ‘Four thousand?’
Ah Sook shrugged; he did not know.
‘How do you know this, Mr. Sook?’ said Frost. ‘How do you know that Mr. Wells struck a ’bounder at Dunstan?’
‘I ask escort,’ said Ah Sook.
‘Didn’t trust the bank!’ said Mannering. ‘What do you think of that, Charlie? Didn’t trust the bank!’
‘Which escort—Gilligan’s? Or Gracewood and Spears?’ said Nilssen.
‘Gracewood and Spears.’
‘So Crosbie Wells made a strike at Dunstan, and then hired Gracewood and Spears to ship the bonanza from the field?’ said Frost.
‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook. ‘Very good.’
‘Then Wells was sitting on a fortune—all along!’ said Nilssen, shaking his head. ‘The money was his very own! None of us believed it.’
Mannering pointed at Ah Quee. ‘What about him?’ he said. ‘He knew about this?’
‘No,’ said Ah Sook.
Mannering exploded with irritation. ‘Then why in hell does any of it matter? This is
‘Perhaps Crosbie Wells was in league with him,’ said Frost.
‘Was that it?’ said Nilssen. He pointed at Ah Quee, and said, ‘Was he in league with Crosbie Wells?’
‘He not know Crosbie Wells,’ said Ah Sook.
‘Oh, for the love of Christ,’ said Mannering.
Harald Nilssen was looking from one Chinese face to the other—searchingly, as if their countenances might betray some evidence of their collusion. Nilssen was very suspicious of Chinese men, having never known one personally; his were the kind of beliefs that did not depend upon empirical fact, and indeed, were often flatly disproved by it, though no disproof was ever enough to change his mind. He had decided, long ago, that Chinese men were duplicitous, and so they would be, whatever disproof he might encounter. Gazing at Ah Quee now, Nilssen recalled the theory of conspiracy that Joseph Pritchard had put to him earlier that afternoon: ‘If
‘Someone else is behind this,’ he said. ‘There’s someone else involved.’
‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook.
‘Who?’ said Nilssen, eagerly.
‘You won’t get a grain of sense out of him,’ said Mannering. ‘It’s not worth your breath, I’m telling you.’
But the hatter did reply, and his answer surprised every man in the room. ‘Te Rau Tauwhare,’ he said.
VENUS IN CAPRICORN
In which the widow shares her philosophy of fortune; Gascoigne’s hopes are dashed; and we learn something new about Crosbie Wells.
Upon quitting the Gridiron, Aubert Gascoigne had crossed directly to the Wayfarer Hotel—so identified by a painted sign which hung on two short chains from a protruding spar. The sign boasted no words at all, but showed, instead, the painted silhouette of a man walking, his chin held high, his elbows cocked, and a Dick Whittington bundle on his shoulder. From the jaunty cut of the silhouette, it would not be unreasonable to assume that this was a male-only lodging house; indeed, the establishment as a whole seemed to suggest a marked absence of the feminine, as communicated by the brass spittoon on the veranda, the lean-to privy in the alley, and the deficiency of drapes. But in fact these were the tokens of thrift rather than of regulation: the Wayfarer Hotel did not discriminate between the sexes, having made a firm policy of asking no questions of its lodgers, promising them nothing, and charging them only the very smallest of tariffs for their nightly board. Under these conditions, one was naturally prepared to put up with a very great deal—or so Mrs. Lydia Wells, current resident, had reasoned, having no small genius for thrift.
Lydia Wells always seemed to arrange herself in postures of luxury, so that she might be startled out of them, laughing, when someone approached. In the parlour of the Wayfarer Hotel Gascoigne discovered her stretched out on the sofa with her slipper dangling free from her toe, one arm flung wide, and her head thrown back against a pillow; she was clasping a pocket-sized novel in her other hand, quite as if the book were an accessory to a faint. Her rouged cheeks and titillated aspect had been manufactured in the moments prior to Gascoigne’s entrance, though the latter did not know it. They suggested to him, as was the woman’s intention, that the narrative in which she had been engrossed was a very licentious one.
When Gascoigne rapped upon the doorframe (as a courtesy only, for the door was open) Lydia Wells roused herself, opened her eyes wide, and gave a tinkling laugh. She closed the book with a snap—but then tossed it onto the ottoman, so that its cover and title were in the man’s full view.
Gascoigne bowed. Rising from the bow, he let his gaze linger upon her, relishing the sight—for Lydia Wells was a woman of ample beauty, and a pleasure to behold. She was perhaps forty years of age, though she might have been a mature-seeming thirty, or a youthful fifty; the precise figure she would not disclose. She had entered that indeterminate period of middle age that always seems to call attention to its own indeterminacy, for when Lydia was girlish, that girlishness was made all the more visible by the fact of her age, and when she was wise, her wisdom was all the more impressive for having been produced in one so young. There was a vixen-like quality to her features: her eyes slanted slightly and her nose curved upward in a way that called to mind some alert and inquisitive creature. Her lips were full; her teeth, when she showed them, were delicately shaped, and spaced evenly. Her hair was a bright copper, that colour called ‘red’ by men and ‘auburn’ by women, that darkens with movement, like a flame. Currently it was pulled back into a chignon made of braids, an elaborate contour that covered both the nape and the crown of Lydia’s head. She was wearing a striped gown made of grey silk—a sombre hue, and yet it could not quite be called a mourning dress, just as Lydia’s expression could neither be called the expression of a woman, nor really, the expression of a girl. The dress sported a high buttoned collar, a ruffled bustle, and puffed leg-o’-mutton sleeves, ballooning shapes which served to accent Lydia’s ample bosom,
