The Luminaries

and appraised him. ‘CrosbieWells strike big in Dunstan,’ he said. ‘Many very big nugget. Very lucky man.’
    Nilssen turned. ‘Crosbie Wells made a
strike
?’
    Mannering had also looked up. ‘What?’ he said. ‘A strike? How much?’
    ‘In Dunstan,’ Sook Yongsheng said again, still gazing at Frost. ‘Very lucky man. Big bonanza. Very rich.’
    Nilssen stepped forward—which rather annoyed Frost, for he had been the one to introduce this new line of questioning, after all. But Nilssen and Mannering both seemed to have forgotten that Frost was there.
    ‘How long ago?’ Nilssen demanded. ‘When?’
    ‘Two.’ Ah Sook held up two fingers.
    ‘Two years ago!’ said Mannering.
    ‘How much? How much colour?’ said Nilssen.
    ‘Many thousand.’
    ‘How much—four?’ Nilssen held up four fingers. ‘Four thousand?’
    Ah Sook shrugged; he did not know.
    ‘How do you know this, Mr. Sook?’ said Frost. ‘How do you know that Mr. Wells struck a ’bounder at Dunstan?’
    ‘I ask escort,’ said Ah Sook.
    ‘Didn’t trust the bank!’ said Mannering. ‘What do you think of that, Charlie? Didn’t trust the bank!’
    ‘Which escort—Gilligan’s? Or Gracewood and Spears?’ said Nilssen.
    ‘Gracewood and Spears.’
    ‘So Crosbie Wells made a strike at Dunstan, and then hired Gracewood and Spears to ship the bonanza from the field?’ said Frost.
    ‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook. ‘Very good.’
    ‘Then Wells was sitting on a fortune—all along!’ said Nilssen, shaking his head. ‘The money was his very own! None of us believed it.’
    Mannering pointed at Ah Quee. ‘What about him?’ he said. ‘He knew about this?’
    ‘No,’ said Ah Sook.
    Mannering exploded with irritation. ‘Then why in hell does any of it matter? This is
his
work, remember—
his
work, in Crosbie’s cottage! Smelted by Johnny Quee’s own hand!’
    ‘Perhaps Crosbie Wells was in league with him,’ said Frost.
    ‘Was that it?’ said Nilssen. He pointed at Ah Quee, and said, ‘Was he in league with Crosbie Wells?’
    ‘He not know Crosbie Wells,’ said Ah Sook.
    ‘Oh, for the love of Christ,’ said Mannering.
    Harald Nilssen was looking from one Chinese face to the other—searchingly, as if their countenances might betray some evidence of their collusion. Nilssen was very suspicious of Chinese men, having never known one personally; his were the kind of beliefs that did not depend upon empirical fact, and indeed, were often flatly disproved by it, though no disproof was ever enough to change his mind. He had decided, long ago, that Chinese men were duplicitous, and so they would be, whatever disproof he might encounter. Gazing at Ah Quee now, Nilssen recalled the theory of conspiracy that Joseph Pritchard had put to him earlier that afternoon : ‘If
we
are being framed, then perhaps
he
is, too.’
    ‘Someone else is behind this,’ he said. ‘There’s someone else involved.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook.
    ‘Who?’ said Nilssen, eagerly.
    ‘You won’t get a grain of sense out of him,’ said Mannering. ‘It’s not worth your breath, I’m telling you.’
    But the hatter did reply, and his answer surprised every man in the room. ‘Te Rau Tauwhare,’ he said.

VENUS IN CAPRICORN
    In which the widow shares her philosophy of fortune; Gascoigne’s hopes are dashed; and we learn something new about Crosbie Wells
.
    Upon quitting the Gridiron, Aubert Gascoigne had crossed directly to the Wayfarer Hotel—so identified by a painted sign which hung on two short chains from a protruding spar. The sign boasted no words at all, but showed, instead, the painted silhouette of a man walking, his chin held high, his elbows cocked, and a Dick Whittington bundle on his shoulder. From the jaunty cut of the silhouette , it would not be unreasonable to assume that this was a male-only lodging house; indeed, the establishment as a whole seemed to suggest a marked absence of the feminine, as communicated by the brass spittoon on the veranda, the lean-to privy in the alley, and the deficiency of drapes. But in fact these were the tokens of thrift rather than of regulation: the Wayfarer Hotel did not discriminate between the sexes, having made a firm policy of asking no questions of its lodgers, promising them nothing, and charging them only the very smallest of tariffs for their nightly board. Under these conditions, one was naturally prepared to put up with a very great deal—or so Mrs. Lydia Wells, current resident, had