The Luminaries

sceptic, of course, but with an open mind. Can I expect to see you there?’
    ‘No,’ Carver said, ‘you can’t.’
    ‘Perhaps your scepticism about
séances
exceeds even mine!’
    ‘I don’t have an opinion about
séances
,’ Carver said. ‘I might be there or I might not.’
    ‘In any case, I expect Mrs. Wells welcomed your return to Hokitika
very
gladly,’ said Löwenthal—whose conversational gambits were becoming tenuous indeed. ‘Yes: I am sure she must have been
very
pleased, to know that you had returned!’
    Carver was now looking openly annoyed. ‘Why?’ he said.
    ‘Why?’ said Löwenthal. ‘Because of all the fuss over his estate, of course! Because the legal proceedings have been halted precisely on account of Wells’s birth certificate! It’s nowhere to be found!’
    Löwenthal’s voice rang out rather more loudly than he had intended, and he worried briefly that perhaps he had overplayed his hand. What he had said was perfectly true, and what’s more, it was public knowledge: Mrs. Wells’s appeal to revoke the sale of Wells’s estate had not yet been heard by the Magistrate’s Court because no documentation had survived the dead man that might have served as proof of his true identity. Lydia Wells had arrived in Hokitika several days after her late husband had been buried, and therefore had not identified his body; short of digging his body up (the Magistrate begged the widow’s pardon) there was, it seemed, no way of proving that the hermit who had died in the Arahura Valley and the Mr. Crosbie Wells who had signed Mrs. Wells’s marriage certificate were the same man. Given the enormity of the inheritance in question, the Magistrate thought it prudent to delay the Court proceedings until a more definiteconclusion could be reached—for which pronouncement Mrs. Wells thanked him very nicely. She assured him that her patience was of the most stalwart female variety, and that she would wait for as long as necessary for the outstanding debt (so she conceived of the inheritance) to be paid out to her.
    But Carver was not provoked; he only looked the editor up and down, and then said, in a voice of surly indifference, ‘I want to place a notice in the
Times
.’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ Löwenthal said. His heart was beating fast. Drawing a sheet of paper towards him, he said, ‘What is it that you are wishing to sell?’
    Carver explained that the hull of the
Godspeed
would shortly be dismantled, and in advance of this event, he wished to sell her parts at auction on Friday, care of Glasson & Rowley Salvage. He gave his instructions very curtly. No part was to be sold prior to auction. No privilege would be given, and no correspondence entered into. All inquiries were to be directed, by post, to Mr. Francis Carver, at the Palace Hotel.
    ‘You see I am making careful note of it,’ Löwenthal said. ‘I will not make the mistake of omitting any part of your name—not this time! Say—I don’t suppose that you and Crosbie were related?’
    Carver’s mouth twisted again. ‘No.’
    ‘It’s true that Francis is a very common name,’ Löwenthal said, nodding. He was still making note of the name of Carver’s hotel, and did not look up for several seconds; when he did, however, he found that Carver’s expression had soured still further.
    ‘What’s
your
name?’ Carver demanded, accenting the fact that he had not bothered to use it before. When Löwenthal replied, Carver nodded slowly, as if committing the name to heart. Then he said, ‘You’ll shut your f—ing mouth.’
    Löwenthal was shocked. He received the payment for the advertisement and wrote up Carver’s receipt in silence—penning the words very slowly and carefully, but with a steady hand. This was the first time he had ever been insulted in his own office, and his shock was such that he could not immediately respond. He felt an exhilaration building within him; a pressure; an exultant, roaringsound. Löwenthal was the kind of man who became almost gladiatorial when he was shamed. He felt a martial stirring in his breast that was triumphal, even glad, as if a long-awaited call to arms had sounded somewhere close at hand, and he alone had felt its private resonation, drumming in his ribcage, drumming in his blood.
    Carver had taken up the receipt. He turned, and made to leave the shop without either thanking Löwenthal or bidding him goodbye —a discourtesy that released a surge of outrage in Löwenthal’s