The Luminaries

There was often a touch of the sovereign address about Ma

Ma

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

Ma

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

‘Come,’ said Ma

Frost sipped at his brandy. ‘We ought not to discuss it in such a casual ma

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

‘Hang other men,’ Ma

‘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 Ma

‘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 Ma

‘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 Ma

‘I assure you it is,’ said Frost.

‘I can read between the lines, Charlie,’ said Ma

‘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.’

Ma

‘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 Ma

‘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 Ma

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 a

‘She’s handsome all right,’ said Ma

‘I ca

‘You are forgetting his fortune,’ Ma