The Luminaries

head. ‘I’ll say it again: three masts is one too many.’
    ‘More speed than a barque, though.’ Augustus touched Lauderback’s elbow. ‘What about your
Flight of Fancy
? She was fore-and -aft rigged on the mainmast, was she not?’
    Balfour had not intuited the aides’ objective—to divert the conversation away from the subject he had introduced—and he thought that perhaps the politician had not heard him correctly. He raised his voice and tried again. ‘Your
Godspeed
—as I say. She’s a regular, these parts. Hell of an outfit. I’ve seen her over the bar a fair few times. Seems to me she’s got both speed
and
handling. My word, she’s a marvellous craft.’
    Alistair Lauderback sighed. He threw his head back and squinted up at the rafters, and a foolish smile trembled on his lips—the smile of a man who is unused to embarrassment, Balfour realised later. (He had never, before that morning, heard Lauderback confess a weakness of any kind.)
    At last Lauderback said, still squinting upward, ‘That barque is no longer in my possession.’ His voice was strained, as though his smile had made it thinner.
    ‘That so!’ Balfour said, surprised. ‘Made a swap, did you—something bigger?’
    ‘No: I sold her, outright.’
    ‘For gold?’
    Lauderback paused, and then said, ‘Yes.’
    ‘That so!’ Balfour said again. ‘Just like that—you sold her. Who’s buying?’
    ‘Her master.’
    ‘Hoo,’ said Balfour, exhaling cheerfully. ‘Can’t envy you there. We have heard some stories about that man around here.’
    Lauderback did not reply. Still smiling, he studied the exposed beams of the ceiling, the cracks between the floorboards of the rooms above.
    ‘Yes,’ Balfour repeated, sitting back, and tucking his thumbs beneath his lapels. ‘We have heard some stories around here. Francis Carver! Not a man I’d care to cross, all right.’
    Lauderback looked down in surprise. ‘Carver?’ he said, frowning . ‘You mean Wells.’
    ‘Master of the
Godspeed
?’
    ‘Yes—unless he sold it on.’
    ‘Burly fellow—dark brows, dark hair, broken nose?’
    ‘That’s right,’ said Lauderback. ‘Francis Wells.’
    ‘Well, I don’t mean to contradict you flat,’ Balfour said, blinking, ‘but that man’s name is Carver. Perhaps you’re confusing him with the old fellow who—’
    ‘No,’ Lauderback said.
    ‘The hermit—’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Who died—the man you came across, two weeks ago,’ Balfour said, persisting. ‘The dead man. His name was Wells, you know. Crosbie Wells.’
    ‘
No
,’ Lauderback said, for the third time. He raised his voice slightly. ‘I am not mistaking the name. Wells was the name on the papers, when I signed the barque across. It was always Wells.’
    They looked at each other.
    ‘Can’t understand it,’ Balfour said at last. ‘Only I do hope you didn’t get stiffed. Strange coincidence, isn’t it—Frank Wells, Crosbie Wells.’
    Lauderback hesitated. ‘Not quite a coincidence,’ he said carefully . ‘They were brothers, I thought.’
    Balfour gave a shout of laughter. ‘Crosbie Wells and Frank Carver, brothers? Can’t imagine anything more unlikely. Only by marriage, surely!’
    Lauderback’s foolish smile returned. He began stabbing with his finger at a crumb.
    ‘But who told you that?’ Balfour added, when the other did not speak.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Lauderback.
    ‘Carver mentioned something—when he signed the papers?’
    ‘Maybe that was it.’
    ‘Well! If you say so … but to look at them, I’d never have believed it,’ Balfour said. ‘One so tall and striking, the other such a wastrel—such a runt—!’
    Lauderback quivered; his hand made a compulsive movement on the table, as if to reach and grasp. ‘Crosbie Wells was a wastrel?’
    Balfour waved his hand. ‘You saw him dead.’
    ‘But only dead—never living,’ said Lauderback. ‘Strange thing: you can’t tell what a fellow really looks like, you know, without animation . Without his soul.’
    ‘Oh,’ Balfour said. He contemplated that idea.
    ‘A dead man looks created,’ Lauderback continued. ‘As a sculpture looks created. It makes you marvel at the work of the design; makes you think of the designer. The skin is smooth. Fine. Like wax, like marble—but not like either: it doesn’t hold the light, as a wax figure does, and it doesn’t reflect it, like stone. Has a matte finish, as a painter would say. No shine.’ Suddenly Lauderback seemed very