Страница 149 из 191
‘Take her to the gaol-house,’ Shepard said.
Gascoigne frowned. ‘Perhaps the hospital—’
‘The gaol,’ Shepard said. ‘I’ve had enough of this whore and her theatrics. Take her to the Police Camp, and chain her to the rail. And sit her upright, so she can breathe.’
Fellowes was shaking his head. ‘I don’t know what happened,’ he said. ‘One moment she was stone-cold sober, the next she came over all drowsy, and the next—’
The foyer door opened again. ‘A Mr. Quee for Mr. Fellowes,’ came the call.
Burke had come up behind them. ‘Excuse me, Mr. Shepard,’ he said. ‘Here’s your warrant for Mr. Sook’s arrest.’
‘Mr. Quee?’ said Gascoigne, turning. ‘What’s he doing here?’
‘Take the whore away,’ the gaoler said.
Sook Yongsheng, lying on the bare boards beneath George Shepard’s bed, was listening to the bells in the Wesleyan chapel ring out half past five when there came another rap at the cottage door. He turned his head to the side, and listened for Margaret Shepard’s footsteps. She padded down the hall, lifted the latch, and drew the bolt, and then the square of lightness on the calico wall widened again, and he felt the cool breath of the outside air. The light was bluer now, and less intense, and the shadow in the doorway was a muted grey.
‘Mrs. Shepard, I presume.’
‘Yes.’
‘I wonder if I might have a word with your husband. Is he available?’
‘No,’ said Margaret Shepard, for the second time that day. ‘He’s gone down to the Courthouse on business.’
‘What a shame. Might I wait for him?’
‘You’d do better to make an appointment,’ she said.
‘I take it that he is not likely to return.’
‘He often spends his nights at Seaview,’ she said. ‘And sometimes he plays billiards in town.’
‘I see.’
Sook Yongsheng did not know Alistair Lauderback’s voice, but he could tell from the tone and volume that the man speaking was someone of some authority.
‘Forgive me for disturbing you,’ Lauderback went on. ‘Perhaps you might do me the favour of telling your husband that I came by.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘You do know who I am, don’t you?’
‘You’re Mr. Lauderback,’ she whispered.
‘Very good. Tell him that I should like to discuss a mutual acquaintance. Francis Carver is the man’s name.’
‘I’ll tell him.’
That man will be dead before the morning, thought Sook Yongsheng.
The door closed again; the bedroom darkened.
Cowell Devlin made room for A
‘What’s the meaning of it?’ he said to Gascoigne, as he folded the blanket over his knee. ‘I saw A
‘Pritchard’s is closed,’ Gascoigne said. ‘It’s been closed all afternoon.’
Devlin slipped his palm beneath A
‘Perhaps she’d had it all along.’
‘No,’ said Devlin. ‘When she left the Wayfarer’s Fortune this morning she wasn’t carrying a reticule or wallet of any kind. She didn’t even have any money on her person, as far as I’m aware. Someone must have given it to her. But why?’
Gascoigne wanted very much to know why Cowell Devlin had gone to the Wayfarer’s Fortune that morning, and what had happened there; as he was thinking of a polite way to ask, however, there came the rattle and clop of a trap approaching, and then Pritchard’s voice:
‘Hello in there! It’s Jo Pritchard, with Emery Staines!’
Devlin’s face was almost comical in its astonishment. Gascoigne had already rushed outside by the time he got to his feet; the chaplain hurried after him, and saw, in the courtyard, Joseph Pritchard, climbing down from the driver’s seat of a trap, and leading the horses to be tethered at the gaol-house post. On the seat of the trap Te Rau Tauwhare was sitting with both arms around a white-faced, sunken-eyed boy. Devlin stared at the boy. This was Emery Staines—this limp, inconsequential thing? The boy was much younger than he had envisaged. Why, he was but one-and-twenty—perhaps even younger. He was barely older than a child.
‘Tauwhare found him hiding out in Crosbie’s cottage,’ Pritchard said shortly. ‘He’s very sick, as you can see. Give us a hand getting him down.’
‘You’re not taking him to gaol!’ Devlin said.
‘Of course not,’ Pritchard said. ‘He’s going to the hospital. He needs to see Dr. Gillies at once.’
‘Don’t,’ said Gascoigne.
‘What?’ said Pritchard.
‘He won’t last an hour if you take him there,’ Gascoigne said.
‘Well, we can’t exactly take him back to his own rooms,’ said Pritchard.
‘Get him a hotel, then. Get him a room somewhere. Anywhere’s better than the hospital.’
‘Give us a hand,’ Pritchard said again. ‘And someone send for Dr. Gillies, while we’re at it. He’ll have the last word.’
They helped Emery Staines down from the trap.
‘Mr. Staines,’ said Pritchard. ‘Do you know where you are?’
‘A
‘A
His eyes opened. ‘I want to see her.’
‘He’s not talking sense,’ said Pritchard. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying.’
‘I want to see A
‘He seems coherent to me,’ said Gascoigne.
‘Bring him inside,’ said Devlin. ‘Just until the doctor gets here. Come on: it’s what he wants. Bring him into the gaol.’
THE GREATER MALEFIC
In which Sook Yongsheng overhears the begi
Ah Sook crouched in the allotment behind the Crown Hotel, his back against the timber of the building, his knees bent, the Kerr Patent revolver cradled loosely in both his hands. He looked like an altogether different man from the one who had purchased the pistol that morning. Margaret Shepard had cut off his pigtail, shadowed his chin and throat with blacking, and thickened his eyebrows with the same; she had found a threadbare jacket for him, and a shirt of gaol-issue twill, and a red kerchief to tie about his neck. With the brim of his hat turned down, and the collar of his jacket turned up, he did not look Chinese in the slightest. Walking the three-hundred-yard distance from the Police Camp to the Crown, he had not attracted the least bit of attention from anyone at all; now, crouched in the allotment, he was all but invisible in the darkness.
Inside the hotel two people were talking: a man and a woman. Their voices came down to him quite clearly through the gap between the window shutter and the frame.
‘Looks like it’ll come off,’ the man was saying. ‘Protected and indemnified.’
‘You still sound uneasy,’ said the woman.
‘Yes.’
‘What are you doubting? The money’s in your hand, almost!’
‘You know I don’t trust a fellow without co