The Luminaries

Gascoigne said, testing the depth of the hole with the end of his finger. ‘Those muff pistols, they’re not worth much.’
    ‘But where—’ Pritchard was at a loss. His tongue felt thick in his mouth.
    ‘What happened to the first?’ said Gascoigne, echoing him. They all stared at the second cartridge, the visible cartridge, misshapen in his hand. Then Gascoigne looked at Anna, and Anna at Gascoigne—and it seemed to Pritchard that a look of understanding passed between them.
    What a wretched thing it was, to behold one’s whore exchanging glances with another man! Pritchard wanted to despise her, but he could not: he felt dulled, even bewildered. There was a ringing in his ears.
    Anna turned to him. ‘Will you go downstairs?’ she said. ‘Tell Edgar I was playing with the gun, or cleaning it, and it went off by accident.’
    ‘He isn’t at the desk,’ Pritchard said.
    ‘Tell the valet, then. Just make it known. I don’t want anybody coming up; I don’t want any fuss. Please do it.’
    ‘All right. I will,’ Pritchard said. ‘And then—’
    ‘And then you should go.’ Anna was firm.
    ‘I want what I came for.’ He spoke quietly, glancing sideways at Gascoigne—but the other man’s eyes were discreetly lowered.
    ‘I can’t help you, Joseph. I don’t have what you want. Please go.’
    He looked into her eyes again. They were green, with a thick rind of darkness around the edge of the iris, and flecks of pebbled grey clustered around the pupil in rays. It had been months since he had seen the colour in her eyes, since he had seen her pupil as a point, a grain, and not as a blurred disc of blackness, dulled with sleep. She was sober—of this he had no doubt at all. So she was a liar, and maybe even a thief; so she was deceiving him. And her appointment, the man Gascoigne. There was another secret. Another lie. Going with a lady, to look at hats—!
    But Pritchard found that he could not renew his anger. He felt ashamed. He felt as though it had been
he
who had intruded, as though it had been
he
who had disturbed an intimate scene in the whore’s own chambers, between Anna and Gascoigne. The shame Pritchard felt was of a very crude and childish sort: it came upon him as a rush of bitter feeling, swelling in his throat.
    At last he turned on his heel and made to leave. In the doorway he reached back for the handle, to pull the door shut behind him—but he did it slowly, and watched them through the narrowing crack.
    Gascoigne began moving just before the door was quite closed. He spun towards Anna and opened his arms for an embrace, and Anna fell into him, her pale cheek rising to fit into the curve of his neck. Gascoigne wrapped his arms strongly about her waist, and Anna’s body went limp; he lifted her, so that her toes trailed on the floor; she was clasped against him; he lowered his head and pressed his cheek against her hair. His jaw was clenched; his eyes were open; he breathed fiercely through his nose. Pritchard, with his eye at the door, was overcome with loneliness. He felt that he had never loved, and that no soul had ever loved him. He shut the door as softly as he could, and padded down the stairs.

    ‘May I interject to ask a question?’
    ‘Yes, of course.’
    ‘Can you show me exactly how Miss Wetherell was holding the pistol?’
    ‘Certainly. Like this—with the heel of her hand right here. I was standing at an angle to her, about where Mr. Mannering is sitting now, in relation to me, and her body was half-turned, like this.’
    ‘And if the gun had fired as expected, what kind of injury would Miss Wetherell likely have sustained?’
    ‘If she was lucky, a flesh wound in the shoulder. If she was unlucky—well, perhaps a little lower. Her heart, maybe. The left side … The truly curious thing, of course, is even if the cartridge
was
a blank, she still should have been impacted by the empty casing, or burnt by the powder, or seared at the very least. We couldn’t make heads or tails of it.’
    ‘Thank you. I’m sorry to interrupt.’
    ‘Is there something you can share with us, Mr. Moody?’
    ‘Presently I will—when I have heard the rest of the story.’
    ‘I must say, sir—you’re looking awfully queer.’
    ‘I’m quite well. Please continue.’

    It was still early in the afternoon when Pritchard returned to his drug hall on Collingwood-street, but he felt that it ought to be much later—that night ought to be falling, to make sense of the