The Luminaries (25 page)

‘But that’s not to say a word of the troubles
you’ve
been going through,’ Mannering added, as he sat down.

Frost looked pained. ‘My troubles—as you call them—are under control,’ he said.

‘I should say they are
not,
’ said Mannering. ‘What with the widow arriving Thursday—and now the whole town’s talking! I’ll tell you what it looks like from where I’m standing. It looks an awful lot like you
knew
that gold was planted in the hermit’s cottage, and once he died, you made d—ned sure the sale went through just as fast as could be.’

‘That’s not the truth of it,’ said the banker.

‘It looks like you’re in it together, Charlie,’ Mannering went on. ‘You and Clinch: you look like partners, to the hilt. They’ll bring in a judge, you know. They’ll send someone from the High Court. This kind of thing doesn’t just blow over. We’ll all be drawn into it—where we were on the night of the fourteenth of January, all of that. We’d better get our stories straight before that happens. I’m not accusing you. I’m describing it from where I stand.’

There was often a touch of the sovereign address about Mannering’s speech, for his self-perception was an unshakeable one, authoritarian and absolute. He could not view the world but from the perspective of commanding it, and he loved to declaim. In this he was the radical opposite of his guest—a difference that, in Mannering’s case, caused him some irritation, for although he
preferred deferential company, he was made peevish by those whom he considered unworthy of his attention. He was very
generous
to Charlie Frost, always sharing liquor and cigars with the young man, and gifting him gallery tickets to all the latest
entertainment
, but occasionally he found Frost’s quiet reserve grating. Mannering tended to cast his followers into roles, labelling them as one labels a man by his profession, terming him ‘the doctor’ or ‘the corporal’; his labels, internally made and never voiced aloud, described other men purely by way of their relation to him—which was how he saw everyone whom he encountered: as reflections of, or detractions from, his own authentic self.

Mannering, as has been already observed, was a very fat man. In his twenties he had been stout, and in his thirties, quite
pot-bellied;
by the time he reached his forties, his torso had acquired an almost spherical proportion, and he was obliged, to his private dismay, to request assistance in both mounting and dismounting his horse. Rather than admit that his girth had become an impediment to daily activity, Mannering blamed gout, a condition with which he had never been afflicted, but one that he felt had a soundly
aristocratic
ring. He very much liked to be mistaken for an aristocrat, an assumption that happened very often, for he had mutton-chop whiskers and a fair complexion, and he favoured expensive dress. That day his necktie was fastened with a gold stickpin, and his vest (the buttons of which were rather palpably strained) sported notched lapels.

‘We’re not in anything together,’ said Frost. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’

Mannering shook his head. ‘I can see you’re in a bind, Charlie—I can see it! You and Clinch both. If it comes to trial—it may come to trial, you know—then you’ll have to explain why the sale of the cottage was put through so quickly. That will be the crucial point—the point on which you’ll have to agree. I’m not suggesting perjury. I’m just saying your stories will have to square. What are you after—help? Do you need an alibi?’

‘An alibi?’ said Frost. ‘Whatever for?’

‘Come,’ said Mannering, with a paternal wag of his finger.
‘Don’t tell me you weren’t up to
something
. Just look at how fast the sale went through!’

Frost sipped at his brandy. ‘We ought not to discuss it in such a casual manner. Not when there are other men involved.’

(This was another of his policies: always to appear reluctant to divulge.)

‘Hang other men,’ Mannering exclaimed. ‘Hang “ought” and “ought not”! What’s the story? Give it up!’

‘I’ll tell you; but there was nothing criminal about it,’ Frost said—not without enjoyment, for he rather liked declaring that he was not at all to blame. ‘The transaction was perfectly legal, and perfectly sound.’

‘How do you explain it, then?’

‘Explain what?’

‘How it all
happened
!’

‘It’s perfectly explicable,’ Frost said calmly. ‘When Crosbie Wells died, Ben Löwenthal heard about it nearly straight away, because he went over to interview that political chap the very instant he got into town—so as to run a special in the paper the next morning. And the political chap—Lauderback’s his name; Alistair Lauderback—well,
he
had just come from Wells’s cottage;
he
was the one to find the fellow dead. Naturally he told Löwenthal all about it.’

‘Crafty Jew,’ said Mannering, with some relish. ‘Always in the right place at the right time, aren’t they?’

‘I suppose,’ Frost replied—for he did not wish to register an
opinion
one way or another. ‘But as I was saying: Löwenthal found out about Wells’s death before anybody. Before the coroner even arrived at the cottage.’

‘But
he
didn’t think to buy it up,’ said Mannering. ‘The land.’

‘No; but he knew that Clinch was on the lookout to make an investment, and so he did him a good turn, and let him in on the news—that the Wells estate would soon be up for sale, I mean. Clinch came to me the next morning with his deposit, ready to buy. And that’s all there is to it.’

‘Oh no it isn’t,’ said Mannering.

‘I assure you it is,’ said Frost.

‘I can read between the lines, Charlie,’ said Mannering. ‘“Did him a good turn”? From the goodness of his charitable heart, eh? Not him—not Löwenthal! That’s a tip-off, and it’s a tip-off about a great bloody pile. They’re in on it together—Löwenthal and Clinch. I’ll bet my hat.’

‘If they are,’ said Frost, shrugging, ‘I’m sure that I don’t know about it. All that I’m telling you is that the sale of the cottage was perfectly legal.’

‘Legal, the banker tells me! But you still haven’t answered my question. Why did it have to happen so bloody
quickly
?’

Frost was unruffled. ‘Simply because there was no paperwork in the way. Crosbie Wells had nothing: no debt, no insurance,
nothing
to resolve. No papers.’

‘No papers?’

‘Not in his cottage. Not a birth certificate, not a ticket, not a licence. Nothing.’

Mannering rolled his cigar in his fingers. ‘No papers,’ he said again. ‘What do you make of that?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps he lost them.’

‘How do you lose your papers, though?’

‘I don’t know,’ Frost said again. He did not like to be pressed to share his views.

‘Perhaps someone burned them. Got rid of them.’

Frost frowned slightly. ‘Who?’

‘That political fellow,’ said Mannering. ‘Lauderback. He was the first upon the scene. Maybe
he’s
mixed up in this business somehow. Maybe he told Löwenthal about the fortune hidden in the cottage. Maybe he saw the fortune—and told Löwenthal about it—and then Löwenthal told Clinch! But that’s foolish,’ he added, rebutting his own hypothesis. ‘There’s nothing in that for him, is there? And nothing for the Jew. Unless everyone’s getting a cut, somewhere along the line …’

‘Nobody got a cut,’ said Frost. ‘The fortune’s being held in escrow at the bank. Nobody can touch it. At least not until the
business
with the widow gets straightened out.’

‘Oh yes—the
widow,
’ said Mannering, with relish. ‘There’s a
turn of events for you! What do you make of
her
? She’s an
acquaintance
of mine, you know—an acquaintance. Greenway, that’s her maiden name. I never knew her as Mrs. Wells—the mistress Greenway, she was to me. How do you like her, Charlie?’

Frost shrugged. ‘She’s got paperwork on her side,’ he said. ‘If the marriage certificate turns out to be legal then the sale will be revoked, and the fortune will be hers. That’s in the hands of the bureaucrats now.’

‘But how do you like her, I said?’

Frost looked annoyed. ‘She cuts a fine figure,’ he said. ‘I think her very handsome.’ He stuck his cigar in the side of his mouth, and bit down upon it, lending to his expression the shadow of a wince.

‘She’s handsome all right,’ said Mannering happily. ‘Oh, she’s handsome all right! Plays a man like a pianoforte, and what a repertoire—indeed! I suppose that’s what happened to poor old Crosbie Wells: he got played, like all the rest of them.’

‘I cannot make sense of their union at all,’ Frost admitted. ‘What could an old man like Crosbie Wells have to offer—well, even a plain woman, let alone a handsome one? I cannot make sense of her attraction; though of course I can well imagine his.’

‘You are forgetting his fortune,’ Mannering said, wagging his finger. ‘The strongest aphrodisiac of all! Surely she married old Crosbie for his money. And then he hoarded it up, and she had nothing to do but wait for him to die. What else could explain it? When she popped up so soon after his death—like she’d been
planning
it, you know. Oh, Lydia Wells is a canny soul! She keeps her eyes on the pennies and her fingers on the pounds. She wouldn’t sign her name except to profit.’

Frost did not respond at once, for Mannering’s response had cued him to remember the reason for his visit, and he wished to collect his thoughts before he announced his business; after a moment, however, Mannering gave a bark of laughter, and thumped his fist upon the desk.

‘
There
it is!’ he exclaimed, with much delight. ‘I knew it! I knew you were in a fix one way or another—and I knew I’d smoke you
out! What is it, then? What’s your crime? What’s the rub? You’ve given it away, Charlie; it’s written all over you. It’s something to do with that fortune, isn’t it? Something about Crosbie Wells.’

Frost sipped his brandy. He had committed no crime, exactly—and yet there
was
a rub, and it
did
have to do with the fortune, and it
did
concern Crosbie Wells. His gaze slid over Mannering’s
shoulder
to the window, and he paused a moment, in contemplation of the view, deciding how best to phrase the matter.

After the fortune discovered in Wells’s cottage had been valued by the bank, Edgar Clinch had made Frost a very fine present, to acknowledge his role in facilitating the sale: a banknote made out to the sum of thirty pounds. The receipt of this banknote had a sudden and intoxicating effect upon Charlie Frost, whose income was devoted, in the main, to the upkeep of parents he never saw, and did not love. In a frenzy of excitement, unprecedented in his worldly experience, Frost determined to spend the entire sum of money, and at once. He would not inform his parents of the windfall, and he would spend every last penny on himself. He changed the note into thirty shining sovereigns, and with these he purchased a silk vest, a case of whisky, a set of leather-bound
histories,
a ruby lapel-pin, a box of fine imported candies, and a set of monogrammed handkerchiefs, his initials picked out against a rose.

Lydia Wells had arrived in Hokitika some days after this
prodigal
fit. Immediately upon her arrival she visited the Reserve Bank, announcing her intentions to revoke the sale of her late husband’s cottage and effects. If this revocation proved successful, Frost would be obliged, he knew, to recover those thirty pounds in turn. He could not sell the vest back again, except as worn goods; the books and the lapel-pin he could pawn, but only at a fraction of their worth; he had opened the case of whisky; the candies were gone; and what fool would want to buy a handkerchief embroidered with another man’s name? All in all he would be lucky to recover even half of the amount that he had spent. He would be forced to go to one of Hokitika’s many usurers, and beg for credit; he would bear his debt for months, perhaps even for years; and worst of all, he
would even have to confess the whole affair to his parents. The prospect made him sick.

But he had not come to Mannering to confess his humiliations. ‘I am not in a fix,’ he replied curtly, turning his gaze back to his host, ‘but it is my guess that someone else very well might be. You see: I do not believe that fortune belonged to Crosbie Wells at all. I believe that it was stolen.’ He leaned over to tap the ash of his cigar, and saw that the end had gone out.

‘Well—from whom?’ Mannering demanded.

‘That is precisely what I wish to speak with you about,’ the young banker said. There were lucifers in his vest pocket; he
transferred
his cigar to his right hand, to retrieve them. ‘I had a notion just now, this afternoon, and I wanted to run it by you. It’s about Emery Staines.’

‘Oh—no doubt
he’s
wrapped up in it all,’ Mannering said, throwing himself back into his chair. (Frost set about lighting his cigar a second time.) ‘Disappearing that very same day! No doubt he’s connected. I don’t hold out much hope for our friend Emery, I’m telling you that. We have a saying on the fields: it’s unlucky to be lucky for long. Have you heard that one? Well, Emery Staines was the luckiest man I’m ever likely to know. He went from rags to riches, that boy, and all without a helping hand from any quarter. I’m wagering that he was murdered, Charlie. Murdered in the river—or on the beach—and his body washed away. No man likes to see a boy make his fortune. Not before he’s thirty. And especially not when that fortune’s clean. I’m wagering whoever killed him was twenty years his senior, on the inside. At least twenty years. How about that for a bet?’

‘Forgive me,’ Frost said, and shook his head very slightly.

‘Oh yes,’ Mannering said, disappointed. ‘You don’t place your money, do you? You’re one of those sensible types. Never toss a coin except to lay it in your purse.’

Frost did not reply to this, having been put in mind,
uncomfortably
, of the thirty pounds he had recently squandered in such a profligate way; after a moment Mannering cried, ‘But don’t leave me waiting!’—feeling embarrassed, for his last remark had come
out rather more as an insult than he had intended it to seem. ‘Give it up! What’s your notion?’