The Luminaries

He paused.

‘Well, what was it?’ said Ma

‘Aurora,’ said Frost.

‘Aurora.’

‘That’s right.’

All of a sudden Ma

Frost nodded. ‘And then locked up in the vault, that very same day—once the commission merchant had taken his cut, and the estate taxes had been paid.’

‘So there’s no evidence of that name,’ Ma

‘Gone, yes,’ said Frost. ‘But I made a note of it, of course; it was officially recorded. Written down in my book, as I told you.’

Ma

Frost was surprised. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

‘Just answer the question. Could you make that one page disappear?’

‘I could,’ Frost said, ‘but I wasn’t the only one to notice that inscription, you know. Killarney saw it. Mayhew did too. One of the buyers saw it; Jack Harmon, I think it was. He’s off in Greymouth now. Any one of them might have mentioned it to any number of others. It was quite remarkable, of course—that inscription. Not something a man would easily forget.’

‘D—n,’ said Ma

‘But I don’t understand,’ Frost said again. ‘What’s this all about?’

‘What’s the matter with you, Charlie?’ Ma

Frost drew back. ‘I came to see you today because I thought this information might help recover Mr. Staines,’ he said, with dignity. ‘Given that this money very plainly belongs to him, and not to Crosbie Wells!’

‘Rot. You might have done that two weeks ago. Or any day since.’

‘But I only made the co

‘You got a cut,’ Ma

Frost flushed. ‘That’s hardly pertinent.’

‘Did you or did you not get a cut of Crosbie Wells’s fortune?’

‘Well—unofficially—’

Ma

Frost had a wounded look. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s not the reason. I only put the pieces together this morning. Truly I did. Tom Balfour came by the bank with this cock-and-bull story about Francis Carver, and asked me to look up his shares profile, and I found out—’

‘What?’

‘—that Carver had taken out shares against Aurora, soon after Mr. Staines purchased it. I didn’t know about that before this morning.’

‘What’s that about Tom Balfour?’

‘And when Mr. Balfour left I looked up the Aurora’s records, and I noticed that Aurora’s profits started to fall away right around the time that Carver took out his shares, and that’s when I remembered about the name in the smelting, and put it all together. Truly.’

Ma

‘He’s wanting to bring him to the law,’ Frost said.

‘On what account?’

‘He said that Carver lifted a fortune from another man’s claim, or something to that tune. But he was cagey about it, and he began with a lie.’

‘Hm,’ said the magnate.

‘I brought the matter to you directly,’ Frost went on, still hoping for praise. ‘I left the bank early, to come to you directly. As soon as I put all the pieces together.’

‘All the pieces!’ Ma

Frost was offended. ‘What does that mean?’

But Ma

‘Who?’ said Charlie Frost, before he remembered: Quee was the name of the digger who worked the Aurora. His name had been written on the record at the bank.

‘My Chinese problem—and now yours too, I’m afraid,’ said Ma

Frost looked down at his cigar. ‘With you, of course. I don’t see why you have to ask questions like that.’

Ma

Frost coloured slightly. He leaned forward and crushed out his cigar—taking his time about it, stabbing the blunt end three times against the dish, and then again, grinding the ash to a fine black dust.

Ma

‘I am not,’ said Frost, dropping the cigar butt at last. ‘To be perfectly honest with you, Dick, I have never fired a gun.’

‘Nothing to it,’ said Ma

Frost was watching him. ‘I should be a very poor second,’ he said presently, trying to keep his voice calm, ‘if I do not know the subject of your quarrel, and I do not have the means to end it.’

‘Never mind—never mind,’ said Ma

Frost looked at Ma

‘Outrageous, isn’t it?’ said Ma

‘I have no idea why,’ said Frost.

‘He knows why,’ said Ma

‘Stop a moment,’ said Frost. ‘Just let me—just tell me this. What is it exactly that you’re pla

‘We’re going to give a Chinaman a scare,’ said the magnate, thrusting his arms into his coat.

‘What kind of a scare?’ said Frost—who had registered the plural pronoun with trepidation. ‘And on what score?’

‘This Chinaman works the Aurora,’ said Ma

‘But what’s your grievance with him?’

‘Less of a grievance; more of a grudge.’

‘Oh!’ said Frost suddenly. ‘You don’t suppose that he killed Mr. Staines?’

Ma

‘Let’s go,’ said Ma

‘For heaven’s sake,’ the other burst out, ‘you might do me the courtesy of a plain speech. I’ll need to have my story straight, if we’re going to go storming in to bloody Chinatown!’

(Frost regretted this phrasing as soon as he spoke—for he did not want to storm into Chinatown under any conditions—with his story straight or otherwise.)