The Luminaries

Mannering. ‘“Did him a good turn”? From the goodness of his charitable heart, eh? Not him—not Löwenthal! That’s a tip-off, and it’s a tip-off about a great bloody pile. They’re in on it together—Löwenthal and Clinch. I’ll bet my hat.’
    ‘If they are,’ said Frost, shrugging, ‘I’m sure that I don’t know about it. All that I’m telling you is that the sale of the cottage was perfectly legal.’
    ‘Legal, the banker tells me! But you still haven’t answered my question. Why did it have to happen so bloody
quickly
?’
    Frost was unruffled. ‘Simply because there was no paperwork in the way. Crosbie Wells had nothing: no debt, no insurance, nothing to resolve. No papers.’
    ‘No papers?’
    ‘Not in his cottage. Not a birth certificate, not a ticket, not a licence. Nothing.’
    Mannering rolled his cigar in his fingers. ‘No papers,’ he said again. ‘What do you make of that?’
    ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he lost them.’
    ‘How do you lose your papers, though?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Frost said again. He did not like to be pressed to share his views.
    ‘Perhaps someone burned them. Got rid of them.’
    Frost frowned slightly. ‘Who?’
    ‘That political fellow,’ said Mannering. ‘Lauderback. He was the first upon the scene. Maybe
he’s
mixed up in this business somehow. Maybe he told Löwenthal about the fortune hidden in the cottage. Maybe he saw the fortune—and told Löwenthal about it—and then Löwenthal told Clinch! But that’s foolish,’ he added, rebutting his own hypothesis. ‘There’s nothing in that for him, is there? And nothing for the Jew. Unless everyone’s getting a cut, somewhere along the line …’
    ‘Nobody got a cut,’ said Frost. ‘The fortune’s being held in escrow at the bank. Nobody can touch it. At least not until the business with the widow gets straightened out.’
    ‘Oh yes—the
widow,
’ said Mannering, with relish. ‘There’s aturn of events for you! What do you make of
her
? She’s an acquaintance of mine, you know—an acquaintance. Greenway, that’s her maiden name. I never knew her as Mrs. Wells—the mistress Greenway, she was to me. How do you like her, Charlie?’
    Frost shrugged. ‘She’s got paperwork on her side,’ he said. ‘If the marriage certificate turns out to be legal then the sale will be revoked, and the fortune will be hers. That’s in the hands of the bureaucrats now.’
    ‘But how do you like her, I said?’
    Frost looked annoyed. ‘She cuts a fine figure,’ he said. ‘I think her very handsome.’ He stuck his cigar in the side of his mouth, and bit down upon it, lending to his expression the shadow of a wince.
    ‘She’s handsome all right,’ said Mannering happily. ‘Oh, she’s handsome all right! Plays a man like a pianoforte, and what a repertoire—indeed! I suppose that’s what happened to poor old Crosbie Wells: he got played, like all the rest of them.’
    ‘I cannot make sense of their union at all,’ Frost admitted. ‘What could an old man like Crosbie Wells have to offer—well, even a plain woman, let alone a handsome one? I cannot make sense of her attraction; though of course I can well imagine his.’
    ‘You are forgetting his fortune,’ Mannering said, wagging his finger. ‘The strongest aphrodisiac of all! Surely she married old Crosbie for his money. And then he hoarded it up, and she had nothing to do but wait for him to die. What else could explain it? When she popped up so soon after his death—like she’d been planning it, you know. Oh, Lydia Wells is a canny soul! She keeps her eyes on the pennies and her fingers on the pounds. She wouldn’t sign her name except to profit.’
    Frost did not respond at once, for Mannering’s response had cued him to remember the reason for his visit, and he wished to collect his thoughts before he announced his business; after a moment, however, Mannering gave a bark of laughter, and thumped his fist upon the desk.
    ‘
There
it is!’ he exclaimed, with much delight. ‘I knew it! I knew you were in a fix one way or another—and I knew I’d smoke youout! What is it, then? What’s your crime? What’s the rub? You’ve given it away, Charlie; it’s written all over you. It’s something to do with that fortune, isn’t it? Something about Crosbie Wells.’
    Frost sipped his brandy. He had committed no crime, exactly—and yet there
was
a rub, and it
did
have to do with the fortune, and it
did
concern Crosbie