The Luminaries

learned in the smoking room of the Crown, which was that the history concerned opium, murder, and a declaration of revenge. Ah Quee was the only man to whom Ah Sook had narrated the tale in full, and he did not, alas, possess language enough to share it with any English-speaking man.
    ‘Every night, at the Crown Hotel?’ said Ah Sook. ‘Tonight?’
    ‘Yes, he’ll be there tonight,’ said Moody. ‘Though not until well after dark, as I’ve told you.’
    ‘Not the Palace.’
    ‘No, not the Palace,’ said Moody. ‘He changed hotels.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook gravely. ‘I understand.’ He went to loose the knot of his guy-rope from the fork of a tree.
    ‘Who was he?’ said Moody. ‘The murdered man.’
    ‘My father,’ said Ah Sook.
    ‘Your
father
,’ said Moody. After a moment, he said, ‘How was he killed? I mean—forgive me, but—what happened?’
    ‘A long time ago,’ said Ah Sook. ‘Before the war.’
    ‘The opium wars,’ said Moody, prompting him.
    ‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook, but he did not go on. He began to reel in the guy-rope, using his forearm as a spool.
    ‘What happened?’ said Moody.
    ‘Profit,’ said Ah Sook, giving his explanation flatly.
    ‘Profit of what kind?’
    Clearly Ah Sook thought this was a very stupid question; perceiving this, Moody rushed on to ask another. ‘I mean—was your father—was he in the opium business, as you are?’
    Ah Sook said nothing. He withdrew his forearm from the loop of rope, twisted it into a figure-eight, and secured it onto his swag. Once it was affixed, he sat back on his haunches, regarded Moody coolly for a moment, and then leaned over and spat, very deliberately , into the dirt.
    Moody drew back. ‘Forgive me,’ he murmured. ‘I ought not to pry.’
    Walter Moody had told nobody at all that Crosbie Wells was the bastard brother of the politician Lauderback. He had decided, in the hours following this discovery, that the intelligence was not his to share. His reasons for this concealment were deeply felt, but vaguely articulated. A man should not be made to answer for his family. It was wrong to expose a man’s private correspondence without his consent. He did not want to perform this exposure himself . But these reasons, even when taken together, did not quite comprise the whole truth, which was that Moody had compared himself to both men many times over the past month, and felt a profound kinship with each of them, though in very different ways: with the bastard, for his desperation; with the politician, for his pride. This double comparison had become the habitual project of his meditations every day, as he stood in the chill water and ran clods of earth and metal through his hands.
    Ah Sook stuffed the last of his possessions into his swag, and then sat down upon it to lace his boots.
    Moody could not bear it any longer. He burst out, ‘You know you will be hanged. If you take Carver’s life, you will be hanged. They’ll take your life, Mr. Sook, if you take his, no matter what your provocation.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook. ‘I understand.’
    ‘It will not be a fair trial—not for you.’
    ‘No,’ Ah Sook agreed. The prospect did not appear to distress him. He knelt by the fire, picked up a twig, and stirred the damp earth that he had placed over the embers the night before. Below the earth the coals were still warm, dark as matted blood.
    ‘What are you going to do?’ said Moody, watching him. ‘Shoot him down?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook.
    ‘When?’ said Moody.
    ‘Tonight,’ said Ah Sook. ‘At the Crown Hotel.’ He appeared to be digging for something beneath the coals. Presently his stick struck something hard. Using the end as a lever, he flipped theobject out onto the grass: it was a little tin tea caddy, black with soot. The box was evidently still hot: he wrapped his sleeve around his hand before he picked it up.
    ‘Show us your arms,’ said Moody.
    Ah Sook looked up.
    ‘Go on and show us your arms,’ said Moody, suddenly flushed. ‘There are pistols and there are pistols, Mr. Sook: you have to know your powder, as my own father used to say.’
    It was rare he quoted his father in company, Adrian Moody’s habitual phrases being, in general, unsuitable to civil conversation, and Walter Moody being, in general, disinclined to reference him.
    ‘I buy a pistol,’ said Ah Sook.
    ‘Good,’ said Moody. ‘Where is it?’
    ‘Not yet,’ said Ah Sook.
    ‘You haven’t bought it