The Luminaries

sound, and the situation is now resolved, as I have already told you.’
    Clinch narrowed his eyes. ‘Strange how many guns go off while being cleaned,’ he said. ‘Strange how many whores get it into their heads to clean their guns, when there’s gentlemen about. Strange how many times that’s happened, in my hotel.’
    ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer an opinion on that subject,’ Gascoigne said.
    ‘I think you can,’ said Edgar Clinch. He planted his feet a little wider apart, and folded his arms across his chest.
    Gascoigne sighed. He was in no mood for bullish displays of proprietorship .
    ‘What happened?’ Clinch said. ‘Did something happen to Anna?’
    ‘I suggest you ask her yourself,’ Gascoigne said, ‘and save us both some time. You can do that very easily, you know: she’s right upstairs.’
    ‘I don’t appreciate being made a fool in my own hotel.’
    ‘I wasn’t aware that I was making you a fool.’
    Clinch’s moustache twitched dangerously. ‘What’s your quarrel?’
    ‘I’m not sure that I have one,’ said Gascoigne. ‘What’s yours?’
    ‘Pritchard.’ He spat out the name.
    ‘You needn’t bring that to
me,
’ Gascoigne said. ‘Pritchard’s not
my
man.’ He felt trapped. It was useless pretending to reason with a man whose mind was already fixed, and Edgar Clinch, by the looks of things, was spoiling for a fight.
    ‘That’s a true fact,’ put in the valet, coming to Gascoigne’s rescue. He had also observed that his employer was out of sorts. The hotelier’s face was very red, and his trouser leg was twitching, as though he were bouncing his weight up and down upon his heel—a sure sign that he was angry. The valet explained, in soothing tones, that Gascoigne had only interrupted the argument between Pritchard and Anna; he had not been present for its origin.
    Clinch did not cut a terribly intimidating figure, even when poised in fighting stance, as he currently was: he seemed fretful rather than fearsome. His anger, though palpable, seemed to render him somehow powerless. He was occupied
by
his emotion; he was its servant, not its liege. Watching him, Gascoigne was put more in mind of a child preparing for a tantrum than a fighter preparing for a brawl—though of course the former was no less dangerous, when the provocation was the same. Clinch was still blocking the door. It was clear that he would not be rational—but perhaps, Gascoigne thought, he could be calmed.
    ‘What has Pritchard done to you, Mr. Clinch?’ he said—thinking that if he gave the man a chance to speak, his anger might run its course, and he might calm himself that way.
    Clinch’s reply was strangled and inarticulate. ‘To
Anna!
’ he cried. ‘Feeds her the very drug that’s killing her—sells it!’
    This was hardly explanation enough: there must be more. To coax him, Gascoigne said, lightly, ‘Yes—but when a man’s a drunk, do you blame the publican?’
    Clinch ignored this piece of rhetoric. ‘Joseph
Pritchard,
’ he said. ‘He’d feed it to her if he could, like a babe at suck; he’d do that.
You
agree with me, Mr. Gascoigne.’
    ‘Ah—you know me!’ said Gascoigne, in a tone of relief, and then, ‘I do?’
    ‘Your sermon in yesterday’s
Times.
A d—n fine sentiment, by the bye; a d—n fine piece,’ said Clinch. (Paying a compliment appeared to soothe him—but then his features darkened again.) ‘
He
might have done well to read it. Do you know where he gets it from? That filthy muck? The resin? Do you know? Francis Carver, that’s who!’
    Gascoigne shrugged; the name meant nothing to him.
    ‘Francis bloody Carver, who kicked her—
kicked
her, beat her—and it was his baby! His baby in her belly! Killed his own spawn!’
    Clinch was almost shouting—and Gascoigne was suddenly very interested. ‘What’s that you’re saying?’ he said, stepping forward. Anna had confided to him that her unborn baby had been killed by its own father—and now it appeared that this same man was connected to the opium by which she herself had nearly perished!
    But Clinch had rounded on his valet. ‘
You
,’ he said. ‘If Pritchard comes by again, and I’m not here, it’s
you
I’m counting on to turn him back. Do you hear me?’
    He was very upset.
    ‘Who is Francis Carver?’ said Gascoigne.
    Clinch hawked and spat on the floor. ‘Piece of filth,’ he said. ‘Piece of murderous filth. Jo Pritchard—
he’s
just a reprobate. Carver—
he’s
the devil