The Luminaries

said Cowell Devlin. ‘Let us put the question to you. Do
you
believe the man inside the shipping case could have been Emery Staines?’
    The room fell quiet at once.
    ‘I have never met Mr. Staines, and so would not recognise him,’ Moody said stiffly, ‘but yes, that is my guess.’
    Pritchard was doing some calculation in his head. ‘If Staines had been inside that shipping case since Carver left for Dunedin,’ he said, ‘that makes thirteen days without water or air.’
    ‘Unlucky number,’ somebody muttered, and Moody was struck by the thought that thirteen was also the number of men currently assembled in the smoking room—and that he himself was the thirteenth man.
    ‘Is that possible—thirteen days?’ said Gascoigne.
    ‘Without water? Barely.’ Pritchard stroked his chin. ‘But without air, of course … impossible.’
    ‘But he might not have been in there since leaving Hokitika,’ Balfour pointed out. ‘He might have been put into the case in Dunedin—though whether by his own volition, or by force—’
    ‘I have not yet finished my story,’ Moody said.
    ‘Yes,’ said Mannering. ‘Quite right! He hasn’t finished. Hold your tongues.’
    The supposition ceased. Moody rocked on his heels again, and after a moment, resumed.
    ‘Once I had determined that the thing inside the crate was indeed a man,’ he said, ‘I helped him out—with difficulty, for he was very weak, and not breathing at all well. He seemed to have spent all of his strength upon the knocking. I loosed his collar—he was wearing a cravat—and just as I did so, his chest began to bleed.’
    ‘You cut him somehow?’ said Nilssen.
    But this time Moody did not answer; he closed his eyes and continued, as if in a trance. ‘The blood was welling up—bubbling, as from a pump; the man clutched at his chest, trying to staunch the flow, all the while sobbing that name,
Magdalena
,
Magdalena
… I watched him in horror, gentlemen. I could not speak. The volume—’
    ‘He scratched himself on the crate?’ Nilssen said again, persistently.
    ‘The blood was veritably pumping from his body,’ Moody said, opening his eyes. ‘It was most definitely not a scratch wound, sir.
I
could hardly have scratched him, except perhaps with a fingernail, and I keep my nails very close, as you can observe. And I repeat, the blood began to pump well
after
he was out of the crate, and seated upright. I thought perhaps there had been a stickpin in his cravat—but he was not wearing a stickpin. His cravat had been tied in a bow.’
    Pritchard was frowning. ‘He must have been already injured, then,’ he said. ‘Before you opened the crate. Perhaps he cut himself —before you arrived on the scene.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ said Moody, without conviction. ‘I’m afraid my understanding of the event is rather less …’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Well,’ Moody said, gathering himself, ‘let me put it this way. The injury did not seem—natural.’
    ‘Not natural?’ Mannering said.
    Moody looked embarrassed. He had faith in the analytic properties of reason: he believed in logic with the same calm conviction with which he believed in his ability to perceive it. Truth, for him,could be perfected, and a perfect truth was always utterly beautiful and entirely clear. We have mentioned already that Moody had no religion—and therefore did not perceive truth in mystery, in the inexplicable and the unexplained, in those mists that clouded one’s scientific perception as the material cloud now obscured the Hokitika sky.
    ‘I know this sounds very odd,’ he said, ‘but I am not altogether sure that the man inside the shipping case was even alive. By the light in the hold—and the shadows—’ He trailed off, and then said, in a harsher voice, ‘Let me say this. I am not sure if I would even call the thing a man.’
    ‘What else?’ said Balfour. ‘What else, if not a man?’
    ‘An apparition,’ Moody replied. ‘A vision of some kind. A ghost. It sounds very foolish; I know that. Perhaps Lydia Wells would be able to describe it better than I.’
    There was a brief moment of quiet.
    ‘What happened next, Mr. Moody?’ said Frost.
    Moody turned to address the banker. ‘My next action, I’m afraid, was a cowardly one. I turned, grabbed my valise, and swarmed back up the ladder. I left him there—still bleeding.’
    ‘I don’t suppose you saw the bill of lading—on the crate?’ said Balfour again, but Moody did not answer him.
    ‘Was that