Eleanor Catton - The Luminaries

‘How does he communicate them?’

‘Not with words,’ said Anna.

‘How then?’

‘I just feel him.’

‘You feel him?’

‘Inside my head.’

Devlin exhaled.

‘I suppose you doubt my word now,’ Anna said.

‘I most certainly do,’ Devlin said. ‘It goes rather hand in hand with your being a fraudster, I’m afraid.’

Anna thumped a hand over the paper hidden in her breast. ‘You held onto this for a mighty long time,’ she said.

Devlin glared at her. He opened his mouth to make a retort, but before he could find the words, he heard brisk steps upon the porch, and the rattle of the door handle, and the sudden noise of the street as the front door swung inwards, and someone walked in. Anna looked at Devlin with frightened eyes. The widow had returned from the Courthouse, and she was calling Anna’s name.

In which George Shepard does not appoint a deputy; Quee Long is mistaken for another man; and Dick Mannering draws the line.

George Shepard had spent the morning of the 20th of March supervising various deliveries of materials and hardware to the site of the future gaol-house at Seaview—which, two months into the project of its construction, was looking more and more imposing every day. The walls had gone up, the chimneys had been bricked, and inside the main residence the fortified doors had all been fitted and hung in their steel frames. There were still many details to be ironed out, of course—the lamps had yet to be delivered; the gaol-house kitchen still lacked a stove; there was still no glass in the gaoler’s cottage windows; the pit beneath the gallows had not yet been dug—but all in all everything had moved splendidly quickly, thanks to Harald Nilssen’s four-hundred pound ‘donation’, and additional funding, finally paid out, from the Westland Public Works Committee, the Hokitika Council, and the Municipal Board. Shepard had predicted that the felons could be moved from the Police Camp before the end of April, and several of them already spent their nights upon the Seaview premises, watched over by Shepard, who preferred, now that the prison was so near completion, to sleep there also, and to take his suppers cold.

When the bell in the Wesleyan chapel rang out noon Shepard was in the future asylum, digging an alternate pit for the latrine. As the sound of the bell drifted up from the town below the foreman called for the felons to break. Shepard put down his spade, wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve, and clambered bodily out of the hole—perceiving as he did so that a young ginger-haired man was standing on the far side of the iron gate, peering through the bars, and evidently waiting for an interview.

‘Mr. Everard,’ Shepard said, striding forward.

‘Gov. Shepard.’

‘What brings you up to Seaview this morning? Not idle curiosity, I think.’

‘I’d hoped to beg an audience with you, sir.’

‘I trust you haven’t been waiting long.’

‘Not at all.’

‘Do you wish to come in? I can call for the gate to be unlocked.’ Shepard was still perspiring from his recent exertion: he mopped his forehead a second time with his sleeve.

‘It’s all right,’ the man said. ‘I’ve only got a message.’

‘Deliver it,’ said Shepard. He placed his hands on his hips.

‘I’ve come on behalf of Mr. Barnes. Of Brunton, Solomon and Barnes.’

‘I do not know any of those men.’

‘They’re outfitters. They’ve a new warehouse,’ said Everard. ‘On Camp-street. Only the sign hasn’t been painted yet. Sir,’ he added hastily.

‘Continue,’ Shepard said, still with his hands on his hips.

‘A couple months back you made it known that you’d be very grateful for a watch to be placed on a certain Chinaman.’

Shepard’s expression sharpened at once. ‘You remember rightly.’

‘I’m here to report to you that a Chinaman bought a pistol this morning,’ the young man said.

‘From Mr. Barnes’s establishment, I presume.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Where is this Chinaman now?’

‘I couldn’t tell you that,’ said Everard. ‘I saw Barnes just now, and he said he’d sold a Kerr Patent to a Chinaman this morning, and I came straight to you. I don’t know if the Chinaman in question is your man or not … but I thought it would do well to advise you, either way.’

Shepard offered neither thanks nor congratulation for this. ‘How long ago did the sale occur?’

‘Two hours ago at least. Perhaps more. Barnes said that the fellow must have acted on a tip: he wouldn’t lay down any more than five pounds for the Kerr. Five pounds even, he kept saying, like he’d been tipped. He knew not to be overcharged.’

‘How did he pay for it?’

‘With a paper note.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes,’ said Everard. ‘He loaded the piece in the store.’

‘Who loaded it?’

‘Barnes. On the Chinaman’s behalf.’

Shepard nodded. ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Now. Listen closely. You go back to Hokitika, Mr. Everard, and you tell every man you see that George Shepard is on the lookout for a Chinaman called Sook. Let it be known that if anybody sees Johnny Sook in town today, no matter what for and no matter where, I’m to be sent for, at once.’

‘Shall you offer a reward for the man’s capture?’

‘Don’t say anything about a reward, but don’t deny it either, if anyone asks.’

The young man drew himself up. ‘Am I to be your deputy?’

Shepard did not answer at once. ‘If you come upon Johnny Sook,’ he said at last, ‘and you find a way to apprehend him without a great deal of fuss, then I shall turn a blind eye to whatever your method of capture might have been. That’s as much as I will say.’

‘I understand you, sir.’

‘There’s another thing you can do for me,’ said Shepard. ‘Do you know a man named Francis Carver by sight?’

‘The man with the scar on his face.’

‘Yes,’ said Shepard. ‘I want you to take him a message for me. You’ll find him at the Palace Hotel.’

‘What’s it to be, sir?’

‘Tell him exactly what you just told me,’ said Shepard. ‘And then tell him to buckle on his holsters.’

Everard sagged a little. ‘Is he your deputy, then?’

‘I don’t have a deputy,’ Shepard said. ‘Go on now. We’ll speak later.’

‘All right.’

Shepard raised his arms and placed his hands on the bars of the gate; he watched the youth’s retreating form. Then he called, ‘Mr. Everard!’

The young man stopped and turned. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do you want to be a lawman?’

He brightened. ‘One day, I hope, sir.’

‘The best lawmen can enforce the law without a badge,’ Shepard said, gazing at him coolly through the bars of the gate. ‘Remember that.’

Emery Staines had now been absent for over eight weeks, an interval judged by the Magistrate to be sufficient to nullify ownership of all gold-bearing ground. By the Magistrate’s ruling, all mines and claims owned by Mr. Staines had been returned to the Crown, a repossession that had taken effect on Friday of the previous week. The Aurora, naturally, was one of the many claims surrendered, and as a consequence of this surrender, Quee Long had been released, at long last, from his fruitless obligation to that barren patch of ground. He made for Hokitika first thing Monday, in order to inquire where he was to be indentured next, and to whom.

Ah Quee disliked going to the Company offices very much, for he was never treated courteously while he was there, and he was always made to wait. He bore the officials’ jeers with equanimity, however, and pretended not to notice as their junior clerks flicked him with pellets made of spit and paper, and held their noses whenever they passed the chair in which he sat. At length he was invited forward to explain his purpose to the bureaucrat at the front desk. After another long delay, the purpose of which was not explained to him, he was allocated another claim in Kaniere, given a receipt of the transfer, and sent on his way—by which time the ginger-haired Mr. Everard had reached Hokitika proper, and was dispensing George Shepard’s message left and right.