The Luminaries

past. She’s a dear girl, Tom—very dear.’
    Balfour frowned: he did not like to be told that Anna Wetherell was a dear girl. ‘Can’t imagine it,’ he said aloud, and shook his head. ‘Can’t imagine it—the two of them. They’re as chalk and cheese.’
    ‘Chalk and cheese,’ echoed Löwenthal. He took pleasure in foreign idioms. ‘Who is the chalk? Staines, I suppose—because of his quarrying!’
    Balfour did not seem to have heard him. ‘Did Anna give you any indication as to
why
she was asking after Staines? I mean—why—’
    ‘She was attempting to make contact with him, of course,’ Löwenthal said. ‘But that is not your question, I think.’
    ‘I just meant—’ But Balfour did not go on.
    Löwenthal was smiling. ‘It is hardly a wonder, Tom! If that fellow showed her the smallest ounce of affection—
well.’
    ‘What?’
    The editor made a clucking noise. ‘Well, you must admit it: next to Mr. Staines, you and I are very grey indeed.’
    Balfour scowled. What was a bit of greyness? Grey hair dignified a man. ‘Here’s another question,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘What do you know about a man named Francis Carver?’
    Löwenthal raised his eyebrows. ‘Not a great deal,’ he said. ‘I’veheard stories, of course. One is always hearing stories about men of his type.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Balfour.
    ‘What do I know about Carver?’ Löwenthal mused, turning the question over in his mind. ‘Well, I know that he’s got roots in Hong Kong. His father was a financier of some kind—something to do with merchant trading. But he and his father must have parted ways, because he is not associated with a parent firm any longer. He is a lone agent, is he not? A trader. Perhaps he and his father parted ways after he was convicted.’
    ‘But what do you make of him?’ Balfour pressed.
    ‘I suppose that my impression of him is not an altogether good one. He is a rich man’s son first and a convict second, but it might just as well be the other way about: I believe he shows the worst of both worlds. He’s a thug, but he’s conniving. Or, to put it another way, his life is lavish, but it’s base.’
    (This character summation was a quintessential one for Benjamin Löwenthal, who, in his thinking, tended always to position himself as the elucidating third party between opposing forces. In his evaluations of other men, Löwenthal first identified an essential disparity in their person, and then explained how the poles of this disparity could only be synthesised in theory, and by Löwenthal himself. He was fated to see the inherent duality in all things—even in his own appraisal of the duality of all things—and was obliged, as a consequence, to adopt a strict personal code of categorical imperatives, as a protective measure against what he perceived to be a world of discrepancy and flux. This personal code was phlegmatic , reflexive, and highly principled; it was the only fixed seat from which he could regard these never-ending dualities, and he depended upon it wholly. He tended to be relaxed in his daily schedule , humorous in his religion, and flexible in his business—but upon his imperatives, he could not be mistaken, and he would not yield.)
    ‘Carver got me in a touch of hot water recently,’ he went on. ‘Around a fortnight ago, he left his mooring off-schedule—and in the middle of the night. Well, it was a Sunday, and so the shipping news had been published already, in Saturday’s edition. Butbecause
Godspeed
wasn’t scheduled to leave that day, and because she left well after sundown, somehow her departure wasn’t recorded in the customhouse log. Well, nobody told
me
anything about it, and so her departure was never recorded in the paper either. Quite as if the ship never left her mooring! The Harbourmaster was very upset about it.’
    ‘Last Sunday?’ said Balfour. ‘That’s the day Lauderback arrived.’
    ‘I suppose it was. The fourteenth.’
    ‘But Carver was in the Arahura Valley that very same night!’
    Löwenthal looked up sharply. ‘Who told you that?’
    ‘A Maori fellow. Tay something, his name is. Youngish chap; wears a big green pendant. I spoke with him in the street this morning.’
    ‘What is his authority?’
    Balfour explained that Te Rau Tauwhare and Crosbie Wells had been great friends, and that Tauwhare had observed Francis Carver entering the cottage on the day of the hermit’s death. As to whether Carver had been present in