The Luminaries

total—and no mention of a Walter Moody anywhere.’
    There was a short period of quiet as she looked the paper over, and checked the date. Presently he said, ‘Strange thing to tell a lie about. Especially when his partner shows up out of nowhere, a few weeks later, and starts yammering to me about insurance. I’m just a chap who tells another chap about loopholes, he said.’
    ‘One of these names must be a false one. If your passengers truly numbered eight, and Walter Moody was truly among them.’
    ‘Eight—and all accounted for. They took the lighter in to shore that afternoon—six hours, maybe seven hours, before we rolled.’
    ‘Then he must have taken a false name.’
    ‘Why would he do that?’
    ‘Well, perhaps he was lying, then. About having come over on
Godspeed
.’
    ‘Why would he do
that
?’
    Evidently Lydia Wells could not produce a response to this either, for after a moment she said, ‘What are you thinking, Francis?’
    ‘I’m thinking to write my old friend Adrian a letter.’
    ‘Yes, do,’ said Mrs. Wells. ‘And I shall make some inquiries of my own.’
    ‘The insurance money
did
come through. Gascoigne was as good as his word.’
    Presently she said, ‘Let’s to bed.’
    ‘You’ve had a trying day.’
    ‘A very trying day.’
    ‘It’ll all come out right, in the end.’
    ‘She’ll get what she deserves,’ said Mrs. Wells. ‘I should also like to get what I deserve, Francis.’
    ‘It’s dreary for you, waiting.’
    ‘Frightfully.’
    ‘Mm.’
    ‘Are you not tired of it also?’
    ‘Well … I cannot show you off in the street as I would like.’
    ‘How would you show me off?’
    Carver did not reply to this; after a short silence he said, low, ‘You’ll be Mrs. Carver soon.’
    ‘I have set my sights upon it,’ said Lydia Wells, and then nobody spoke for a long time.

EQUINOX
    In which the lovers sleep through much commotion.
    George Shepard directed Sook Yongsheng’s body to be brought into his private study at the Police Camp and laid out on the floor. The blacking on the man’s chin and throat seemed all the more gruesome in death; Mrs. George, as the body was brought in, breathed very deeply, as though steadying herself internally against a wind. Cowell Devlin, arriving from the Police Camp gaol-house, looked down at the body in shock. The hatter perfectly recalled the hermit, Crosbie Wells, who had been laid out in this very way, two months prior—on the very same sheet of muslin, in fact, his lips slightly parted, one eye showing a glint of white where the lids had not been properly closed. It was a moment before Devlin realised who the dead man really was.
    ‘The shot was mine,’ said Shepard, calmly. ‘He was drawing his pistol on Carver. Meaning to shoot him in the back, through the window. I caught him just in time.’
    Devlin found his voice at last. ‘You couldn’t have—disarmed him?’
    ‘No,’ said Shepard. ‘Not in the moment. It was his life or Carver’s.’
    Margaret Shepard let out a sob.
    ‘But I don’t understand,’ Devlin said, glancing at her, and then back at Shepard. ‘What was he doing, drawing a pistol on Carver?’
    ‘Perhaps you might clear up the chaplain’s confusion, Margaret,’ said George Shepard, addressing his wife, who sobbed a second time. ‘Reverend, I’ll be wanting you to dig another grave.’
    ‘Surely his body ought to be sent home to his people,’ Devlin said, frowning.
    ‘This one has no people,’ said Shepard.
    ‘How do you know that?’ said Devlin.
    ‘Again,’ said Shepard, ‘perhaps you ought to ask my wife.’
    ‘Mrs. Shepard?’ said Devlin, uncertainly.
    Margaret Shepard gasped and covered her face with her hands.
    Shepard turned to her. ‘Compose yourself,’ he said. ‘Don’t be a child.’
    The woman took her hands from her face at once. ‘Forgive me, Reverend,’ she whispered, without looking at him. Her face was very white.
    ‘That’s quite all right,’ said Devlin, frowning. ‘You’re in shock, that’s all. Perhaps you ought to lie down.’
    ‘George,’ she whispered.
    ‘I consider that you did the ethical thing today,’ the gaoler said, staring at her. ‘I commend you for it.’
    At this Mrs. Shepard’s face crumpled. She clapped her hands over her mouth, and ran from the room.
    ‘My apologies,’ said the gaoler to Devlin, when she was gone. ‘My wife has a volatile temperament, as you can see.’
    ‘I do not fault her,’ Devlin said. The