The Luminaries

there,’ Moody called, meaning to rouse the tent’s inhabitant . ‘Hello.’
    At once there came a grunt, and a flurry of motion inside the tent. ‘Sorry,’ someone said. ‘Very sorry—very sorry—’
    A Chinese face appeared at the opening, blurred with sleep.
    ‘No trouble,’ he said. ‘Very sorry.’
    ‘Mr. Sook?’ said Moody.
    Ah Sook squinted up at him.
    ‘I’m Walter Moody,’ Moody said, placing his hand over his heart. ‘Do you—ah—do you remember me?’
    ‘Yes, yes.’ Ah Sook knuckled his eyes with his fist.
    ‘I’m so glad,’ said Moody. ‘This is my claim, you see: from this creek here to those yellow pegs on the southern side.’
    ‘Very sorry,’ Ah Sook said. ‘No harm done.’
    ‘No: of course,’ Moody said. ‘In any case, Ah Sook, I’m pleased to see you. Your absence from Kaniere has been noted by a great many people. Myself included. I am very pleased to see you—very pleased, not angry at all. We feared that something had happened to you.’
    ‘No trouble,’ the hatter said. ‘Tent only. No trouble.’ He disappeared from sight.
    ‘I can see you’re not causing trouble,’ Moody said. ‘It’s all right, Mr. Sook: I’m not worried about you making camp! I’m not worried about that at all.’
    Ah Sook clambered out of the tent, pulling his tunic down as he did so. ‘I will go,’ he said. ‘Five minutes.’ He held up five fingers.
    ‘It’s all right,’ Moody said. ‘You can sleep here if you like; it’s of no consequence to me.’
    ‘Last night only,’ said Ah Sook.
    ‘Yes; but if you want to tent here tonight also, I don’t mind a bit,’ said Moody. His manner was alternating between bluff cheer and clumsy condescension, as it might if he were speaking to someone else’s child.
    ‘Not tonight,’ said Ah Sook. He began to strike his tent. Hauling the canvas fly, still wet with dew, from the rope over which it had been draped, he revealed the flattened square of earth where he had spent the night: the woollen blanket, twisted, and pressed flat with the tangled imprint of his body; a pot, filled with sand; hisleather purse; a panning dish; a string bag containing tea and flour and several wrinkled potatoes; a standard-issue swag. Moody, casting his eye over this meagre inventory, was oddly touched.
    ‘I say,’ he said, ‘but where have you been, Mr. Sook, this month past? It’s been a full month since the
séance
—and no one’s heard a word from you!’
    ‘Digging,’ said Ah Sook, flattening the canvas fly across his chest.
    ‘You vanished so soon after the
séance
,’ Moody continued, ‘we rather thought you’d gone the same way as poor old Mr. Staines! No one could make heads or tails of it, you disappearing like that.’
    Ah Sook had been folding the fly into quarters; now he paused. ‘Mr. Staines come back?’
    ‘I’m afraid not,’ Moody said. ‘He’s still missing.’
    ‘And Francis Carver?’
    ‘Carver’s still in Hokitika.’
    Ah Sook nodded. ‘At the Palace Hotel.’
    ‘Well, in actual fact, no,’ said Moody, pleased to be given an opportunity to conspire. ‘He’s begun sleeping at the Crown Hotel. In secret. Nobody knows he’s staying there: he’s kept up the pretence that he’s staying at the Palace, and he still pays rent to the Palace proprietor—and keeps his rooms, just as before. But he sleeps every night at the Crown. He arrives well after nightfall, and leaves very early. I only know because I rent the room above.’
    Ah Sook had fixed him with a penetrating look. ‘Where?’
    ‘Carver’s room? Or mine?’
    ‘Carver.’
    ‘He sleeps in the room next to the kitchen, on the ground floor,’ said Moody. ‘It faces east. Very near the smoking room—where you and I first met.’
    ‘A humble room,’ said Ah Sook.
    ‘Very humble,’ Moody agreed, ‘but he’s got a vantage down the length of the Kaniere-road. He’s keeping watch, you see. He’s watching out for you.’
    Walter Moody knew virtually nothing about Ah Sook’s history with Francis Carver, for Ah Sook had not had the opportunity, at the Crown Hotel, to narrate the tale in any detail, and had notbeen seen since, save for his appearance at the Wayfarer’s Fortune one month ago. Moody wished very much to know the full particulars , but despite his best efforts of surveillance and inquiry—he had become an adept at turning idle conversation, discreetly, to provocative themes—his understanding had not developed beyond what he had