The Luminaries

connexion—or
any
kind of connexion!—to the notorious Francis Carver. Balfour could not believe it. And then there was thematter of the whore in the road. Was that event just a coincidence, or did it connect somehow to Crosbie Wells’s untimely passing? Why had Lauderback been so reluctant to speak of either encounter—reluctant, that is, until now?
    He said, partly to rekindle the conversation, and partly to keep his imagination from drifting to make unfounded accusations of his friend, ‘So you sold the barque to Carver—only you thought his name was Wells—and he told you, by the bye, that he had a brother Crosbie, squirrelled away.’
    ‘I can’t remember now,’ Lauderback said. ‘It was nearly a year ago. Long gone.’
    ‘But then you come across the same man’s brother—fresh dead—a year later!’ Balfour said. ‘On the other side of the Alps, no less … in a place you’ve never set foot before! There’s queer odds on that, wouldn’t you say?’
    Lauderback said, rather loftily, ‘Only a weak mind puts faith in coincidence’—for it was his habit, when under pressure, to assume a condescending air.
    Balfour ignored this maxim. ‘Alias Carver?’ he mused. ‘Or alias Wells?’ But he was watching the politician as he spoke.
    ‘Shall I fill us another pitcher, Mr. L?’ said Augustus Smith.
    Lauderback rapped the table. ‘Yes: fill us another. Good.’
    ‘
Godspeed
weighed anchor around two weeks back,’ said Balfour. ‘She goes back and forth from Canton, does she not—tea-trading? So I expect we won’t be seeing Carver around these parts for a while.’
    ‘Let’s drop the subject,’ Lauderback said. ‘I made a mistake with the names. I must have made a mistake with the names. It doesn’t signify.’
    ‘Hang tight,’ said Balfour. A new thought had struck him.
    ‘What?’ said Lauderback.
    ‘It
might
signify. Given that the sale of his estate has been appealed. It might signify to the widow, if Crosbie Wells had a brother tucked away.’
    Lauderback was smiling again, tremulously. ‘The widow?’
    ‘Ay,’ Balfour said darkly, and was about to go on, but Lauderbacksaid, all in a rush, ‘There was no sign of a wife at the cottage—no sign at all. To all appearances he—the fellow—lived alone.’
    ‘Indeed,’ Balfour said. Again he was about to elaborate, but Lauderback interrupted:
    ‘You said that it might signify—news about a brother. But a man’s money always goes to his wife, unless his will says otherwise. That’s the law! I don’t see how a brother could signify. I don’t see it.’
    He bent his head towards his guest.
    ‘There
is
no will,’ Balfour said. ‘That’s the problem. Crosbie Wells never made one. No one knew if he had any family at all. They didn’t even know where to send a letter, when he passed—they only had his name, you see, not a home address, not even a birth certificate, nothing. So his land and cottage are returned to the Crown … and the Crown has the right to sell it on, of course, so it goes on the market and it sells the very next day. Nothing stays long on the market around here, I can tell you. But
then
, with the ink still drying on
that
sale, a wife turns up! No one knew a scrap about a wife before that day—only she’s got the marriage papers—and she signs herself Lydia Wells.’
    Lauderback’s eyes bulged. Now, at last, Thomas Balfour had his complete attention. ‘
Lydia Wells
?’ he said, almost in a whisper.
    Augustus Smith looked at Jock, and then away.
    ‘This was on Thursday,’ Balfour said, nodding. ‘The Court can’t fault her papers—they’ve sent away to Dunedin, of course, just to verify. But something’s off. The way she pops up so quickly, wanting to get her hands on the estate—when Crosbie never spoke of her. And another thing is fishy: this lady is a d—n class act. How Crosbie Wells managed to get himself married to a lady like that—hoo!—is a mystery that I for one would pay to know the answer to.’
    ‘You’ve seen her—Lydia—here? She’s here?’
    The name was familiar in his mouth: so he knew her, Balfour thought; and he must have known the dead man, too. ‘Ay,’ he said aloud, careful not to let any trace of his suspicion show. ‘Coming off the packet steamer, Thursday. Dressed up to the nines, she was; swarming down the ladder like a regular salt. Dress in a knot overher shoulder, drawers gathered up in her hand. All the hoops and buckles on display. I’m blowed