He drained his glass again, and refilled it. Devlin waited for him to go on.
‘It was a Johnny Chinaman who did it. Jeremy had kicked him about in the street, shamed him most likely. The chink came back to seek redress. Found my brother sleeping off a bottle in a rented room above the tavern. Picked up Margaret’s pistol from beside his bed, put the muzzle to his temple, and that was that. Then he tried to run, of course, but he was stupid about it. He didn’t get further than the edge of the quay. He was tripped up by a sergeant, and thrown in gaol that very night. The trial was scheduled for six weeks later.’
Again Shepard drained his glass. Devlin was surprised; he had never seen the gaoler drink before, except at mealtimes, or as medicine. Perhaps the death of Ah Sook had unsettled him.
‘The trial ought to have been straightforward,’ the gaoler went on, pouring himself a fourth measure. His face had become rather flushed. ‘First, of course, the suspect was a chink. Second, he had ample provocation to wish my brother harm. Third, he had not a word of English to defend himself. There was no doubt in anybody’s minds that the chink was guilty. They’d all heard the shot go off. They’d all seen him running. But then comes Margaret Shepard into the witness box. My new wife, don’t forget. We’ve been married less than a month. She sits down, and this is what she says. My husband wasn’t murdered by that Chinaman, she says. My husband was killed by his own hand, and I know it, because I witnessed his suicide myself.’
Devlin wondered whether Margaret Shepard was listening, from inside.
‘There wasn’t a word of truth to it,’ the gaoler said. ‘Complete fabrication. She lied. Under oath. She defiled her late husband’s memory—my brother’s memory—by calling him a suicide … and all to protect that worthless chink from the punishment that he deserved. He would have swung without a doubt. He should have swung. It was his crime, and it went unpunished.’
‘How can you be sure that your wife wasn’t telling the truth?’ said Devlin.
‘How can I be sure?’ Shepard reached for the bottle again. ‘My brother was not a suicidal type,’ he said. ‘That’s how. You’ll have another?’
‘Please,’ Devlin said, holding out his glass. It was rare that he tasted whisky.
‘I can see that you’re doubtful, Reverend,’ said Shepard, as he poured, ‘but there’s just no other way to say it. Jeremy was not a suicidal type. No more than I am.’
‘But what reason could Mrs. Shepard have had—to lie, under oath?’
‘She was fond of him,’ said Shepard, shortly.
‘This Chinaman,’ said Devlin.
‘Yes,’ said Shepard. ‘The late Mr. Sook. They had a history together. You can be sure I didn’t see that coming. By the time I found out, however, she was already my wife.’
Devlin sipped again at his whisky. They were silent for a long while, looking out at the shadowed forms of the buildings opposite.
Presently Devlin said, ‘You haven’t mentioned Francis Carver.’
‘Oh—Carver,’ said Shepard, swirling his glass. ‘Yes.’
‘What is his association with Mr. Sook?’ said Devlin, to prompt him.
‘They had a history,’ said Shepard. ‘Some bad blood. A trading dispute.’
This much Devlin knew already. ‘Yes?’
‘I’ve been keeping a watch on Sook since Darling Harbour. I got word this morning that he had bought a pistol from the outfitters on Camp-street, and I applied for a warrant for his arrest at once.’
‘You would arrest a man simply for purchasing a pistol?’
‘Yes, if I knew what he meant to do with it. Sook had sworn to take Carver’s life. He’d sworn to it. I knew that when he finally caught up with Carver, it would be murder or nothing. As soon as I heard about the pistol I called the alarm. Staked out the Palace Hotel. Sent word ahead to Carver, letting him know. Gave the message to the bellmen, to cry along the road. I was one step behind him—until the very last.’
‘And in the last?’ said Devlin, after a moment.
Shepard fixed him with a cold look. ‘I told you what happened.’
‘It was his life or Carver’s,’ Devlin said.
‘I acted inside the law,’ Shepard said.
‘I’m sure you did,’ Devlin said.
‘I had a warrant for his arrest.’
‘I do not doubt it.’
‘Revenge,’ said Shepard firmly, ‘is an act of jealousy, not of justice. It is a selfish perversion of the law.’
‘Revenge is certainly selfish,’ Devlin agreed, ‘but I doubt it has very much to do with the law.’
He finished his whisky, and Shepard, after a long moment, did the same.
‘I’m very sorry about your brother, Mr. Shepard,’ Devlin said, placing his glass on the banister.
‘Yes, well,’ said Shepard, as he corked the whisky bottle, ‘that was years ago. What’s done is done.’
‘Some things are never done,’ said the chaplain. ‘We do not forget those whom we have loved. We cannot forget them.’
Shepard glanced at him. ‘You speak as though from experience.’
Devlin did not answer at once. After a pause he said, ‘If I have learned one thing from experience, it is this: never underestimate how extraordinarily difficult it is to understand a situation from another person’s point of view.’
The gaoler only grunted at this. He watched as Devlin descended the steps into the shadows of the courtyard. At the horse-post the chaplain turned and said, ‘I’ll be at Seaview first thing in the morning, to begin digging the grave.’
Shepard had not moved. ‘Good night, Cowell.’
‘Good night, Mr. Shepard.’
The gaoler watched until Devlin had rounded the side of the gaol-house, and then he pinched the empty glasses between his finger and his thumb, picked up the bottle, and went inside.
The gaol-house door stood partway open, and the duty sergeant was sitting just inside the entrance, his rifle laid across his knees. He asked with his eyebrows whether the chaplain meant to step inside.
‘They’re all abed, I’m afraid,’ he said, his voice low.
‘That’s all right,’ said Devlin, also speaking quietly. ‘I’ll only be a moment.’
The bullet had been removed from Staines’s shoulder, and his wound had been stitched. His filthy clothes had been cut from his body, and the dirt washed from his face and hair; he had been dressed in moleskin trousers and a loose twill shirt, donated by Tiegreen’s Hardware on promise of payment the following day. Throughout all these ministrations the boy had drifted in and out of consciousness, mumbling Anna’s name; when he became aware, however, that the physician meant to install him at the Criterion Hotel opposite the Police Camp, his eyes snapped open at once. He would not leave Anna. He would not go anywhere that Anna did not go. He put up such a fuss to this effect that at length the physician agreed to placate him. A bed was made up for him at the gaol-house, next to where Anna lay, and it was decided that Staines would be manacled like the others, in the interests of preventing disharmony. The boy consented to the manacle without protest, lay down, and reached out a hand to touch Anna’s cheek. After a time his eyes closed, and he slept.
Since then he had not woken. He and Anna lay facing each other, Staines lying on his left hip, and Anna, on her right, both of them with their knees drawn up to their chests, Staines with one hand tucked beneath his bandaged shoulder, Anna with one hand tucked beneath her cheek. She must have turned towards him, some time in the night: her left arm was flung outward, her fingers reaching, her palm turned down.
Devlin came closer. He felt overcome—though by what kind of sentiment, he did not exactly know. George Shepard’s whisky had warmed his chest and stomach—there was a blurry tightness in his skull, a blurry heat behind his eyes—but the gaoler’s story had made him feel wretched, even chilled. Perhaps he was about to weep. It would feel good to weep. What a day it had been. His heart was heavy, his limbs exhausted. He looked down at Anna and Emery, their mirrored bodies, facing in. They were breathing in tandem.