The Luminaries

‘I see,’ said Gascoigne, wondering why Lauderback had not explained this so sensibly to Thomas Balfour two months ago.

‘Look,’ said Lauderback, ‘I’m playing straight with you, Mr. Gascoigne, and I’m telling you that the law is on my side. Carver’s break with his father is commonly known. He had a thousand provocations to assume an alias. Why, I could call in the father’s testimony, if need be. How would Carver like that?’

‘Not very well, I should imagine.’

‘No,’ cried Lauderback. ‘Not very well at all!’

Gascoigne was a

‘Spare the bromide,’ Lauderback snapped. ‘Talk to me plain.’

‘As you wish,’ Gascoigne said, shrugging. ‘You know without my telling you that proof of provocation is not evidence. A man ca

Lauderback bristled. ‘Do you doubt my word?’

‘No indeed,’ said Gascoigne.

‘You just think my case is weak. You think I don’t have a leg to stand on.’

‘Yes. I think it would be very unwise to take this matter to court,’ said Gascoigne. ‘I am sorry to speak so bluntly. You have my compassion for your troubles, of course.’

But Gascoigne felt no compassion whatsoever for Alistair Lauderback. He tended to reserve that emotion for persons less privileged than himself, and although he could acknowledge that Lauderback’s current situation was pitiable, he considered the politician’s wealth and eminence to be ample consolation for whatever inconveniences the man might be encountering in the short term. In fact, enduring a spot of injustice might do Lauderback a bit of good! It might improve him as a politician, thought Gascoigne—who was, in his private adjudications at least, something of an autocrat.

‘I’ll wait for the Magistrate,’ said Lauderback. ‘He’ll see sense.’

Gascoigne tucked the envelope into his jacket, next to his cigarettes. ‘I understand that Carver is now attempting to draw down funds from your protection and indemnity scheme, in order to finance the debts that he incurred in disposing of the shipwreck.’

‘That is correct.’

‘And you wish to refuse him access to this money.’

‘Also correct.’

‘On what grounds?’

Lauderback turned very red. ‘On what grounds?’ he cried. ‘The man has stiffed me, Mr. Gascoigne! He was pla

‘Mr. Lauderback,’ Gascoigne said, ‘I do not presume to give you any kind of advice at all. What I am observing is that no laws appear to have been broken. In his letter to Mr. Garrity, Mr. Carver made it very plain that he is acting on Mr. Wells’s behalf—for Mr. Wells, as you know, is dead. To all appearances Carver is merely doing the charitable thing, in settling matters as the shipowner’s proxy, because the shipowner is not able to do the job himself. I do not see that you have any evidence to disprove this.’

‘But it’s not true!’ Lauderback exploded. ‘Crosbie Wells never bought that ship! Francis Carver signed that bloody contract in another man’s name! It’s a case of forgery, pure and simple!’

‘I’m afraid that will be very difficult to prove,’ said Gascoigne.

‘Why?’ said Lauderback.

‘Because, as I have already told you, there is no proof of Crosbie Wells’s true signature,’ said Gascoigne. ‘There were no papers of any kind in his cottage, and his birth certificate and his miner’s right are nowhere to be found.’

Lauderback opened his mouth to make a retort, and again seemed to change his mind.

‘Oh,’ said Gascoigne, suddenly. ‘I’ve just thought of something.’

‘What?’ said Lauderback.

‘His marriage certificate,’ said Gascoigne. ‘That would bear his signature, would it not?’

‘Ah,’ said Lauderback. ‘Yes.’

‘But no,’ said Gascoigne, changing his mind, ‘it wouldn’t be enough: to prove a forgery of a dead man’s hand, you would need more than one example of his signature.’

‘How many would you need?’ said Lauderback.

Gascoigne shrugged. ‘I am not familiar with the law,’ he said, ‘but I would imagine that you would need several examples of his true signature in order to prove the abberations in the false one.’

‘Several examples,’ Lauderback echoed.

‘Well,’ said Gascoigne, rising, ‘I hope for your sake that you find something, Mr. Lauderback; but in the meantime, I’m afraid that I am legally obliged to carry out Mr. Garrity’s instruction, and take these papers to the bank.’

Upon quitting the Wayfarer’s Fortune the chaplain had not escorted A

‘Where is Mr. Staines?’

A

‘Inland,’ she said at last. ‘Somewhere inland. I don’t know exactly where.’

‘North or south of here?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is he being held against his will?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You do know,’ said Devlin.

‘I don’t,’ A

‘Because you’ve been getting messages. Inside your head.’

‘Messages wasn’t the right way to describe it,’ A

Devlin was frowning. ‘So you have a “feeling”.’

‘Yes,’ A

‘You have a feeling that Mr. Staines is somewhere inland, and that he is alive.’

‘Yes,’ said A

‘This all sounds very vague, my dear.’

‘It’s not vague,’ A

‘How long have you been having these “feelings”? These dreams?’

‘Only since I stopped whoring,’ A

‘Since Staines disappeared, in other words.’

‘The fourteenth of January,’ said A

‘Is it always the same—the water, the mud? The same dream?’

‘No.’

She did not elaborate, and to prompt her Devlin said, ‘Well, what else?’

‘Oh,’ she said, embarrassed. ‘Just sensations, really. Snatches. Impressions.’

‘Impressions of what?’

She looked away from him. ‘Impressions of me,’ she said.

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand you.’

She turned her hand over. ‘What he thinks of me. Mr. Staines, I mean. What he dreams about, when he imagines me.’

‘You see yourself—but through his eyes.’

‘Yes,’ A

‘Ought I to infer that Mr. Staines holds you in high esteem?’

‘He loves me,’ she said, and then after a moment, she said it again. ‘He loves me.’

Devlin studied her critically. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Has he made an avowal of his love?’