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Repetition is a fortification like no other. Over time Löwenthal’s conception of the story of his past had become fixed and (by virtue of its fixity) unassailable. He lost the capacity to talk about his life in any other terms but those he had prescribed: that he was a moral man; that he was a man confronted with paradox; that he was a man who had done the right thing, who did the right thing, who would do the right thing. All of his choices, in his mind, had been moral choices. He ceased to be able to distinguish between personal preference and moral imperative, and he ceased to accept that such a distinction was possible. It was as a consequence of all of this that he chastised Charlie Frost so freely now.
Frost’s eyes were lowered. ‘I can be discreet,’ he said quietly. ‘You needn’t worry about me.’
‘I will go and speak to Tom myself,’ Löwenthal said, crossing the room in two strides, and holding open the door for the banker to leave. ‘I thank you for the invitation. I shall see you tonight, at the Crown.’
Dick Ma
‘You look as if something’s on your mind—I declare it,’ said Ma
‘The widow was here,’ said Edgar Clinch, hollowly. ‘She had business with A
‘Lydia Wells?’
‘Lydia Wells,’ Clinch echoed. In his mouth her name was like a curse.
‘When?’
‘Just now,’ said Clinch. ‘They left together, the very moment before you got here.’ He fell silent again.
Ma
‘They know each other!’ Clinch burst out. ‘They know each other—Lydia and A
This revelation was not news to Ma
‘Thick as thieves,’ Clinch said mournfully. ‘And thieves is right, Dick. Thieves is what I mean.’
‘Who’s a thief?’
‘They’re in on it together!’ Clinch cried.
Really, Ma
‘You know what I’m talking about,’ Clinch said. ‘You know.’
‘What?’ Ma
‘Not the Wells fortune. The other fortune.’
‘What other fortune?’
‘You know!’
‘On the contrary: I have not the least idea.’
‘I’m talking about A
This was the first time Clinch had ever mentioned the gold he had discovered in A
But Ma
Clinch was scowling. ‘Don’t play stupid.’
‘Excuse me: I am doing no such thing,’ Ma
Studying him, Edgar Clinch felt a tremor of doubt. Ma
‘I meant that mourning gown,’ he said, clumsily. ‘The one with the stupid collar that she’s taken to wearing this past fortnight.’
Ma
‘I’m not so sure,’ Clinch said. ‘Last week, you see, I told her she had to make good her debts before she quit walking the streets—and we had words, and I suppose I got angry, and I threatened to turn her out of the hotel.’
‘What’s that got to do with Lydia Wells?’ said Ma
‘Lydia Wells just paid A
Ma
‘But that’s her debt to you,’ he said at last. ‘That’s just for rent. She owes me a hundred pounds—and then some! She’s in the red—and she’s in it deep—and she answers to me, d—n it! Not to you, and certainly not to Lydia bloody Wells! But what do you mean—won’t answer to the name of whore?’
‘Just that,’ said Edgar Clinch. ‘She’s done with the profession. So she says.’
Ma
‘That’s the—’
‘In mourning, she said!’ Ma
Clinch was looking at the magnate coldly. ‘She said to tell you that Aubert Gascoigne has the money for you,’ he said. ‘She said to tell you that it’s hidden underneath his bed.’
‘Who in hell is Obur Gaskwon?’
‘He’s a clerk at the Magistrate’s Court,’ Clinch said. ‘He filed the widow’s appeal on Crosbie Wells’s fortune.’
‘Aha!’ said Ma
‘There’s another thing,’ Clinch said. ‘Mr. Gascoigne was up in A