Löwenthal stroked his moustache. ‘This is very interesting news,’ he said. ‘Godspeed sailed late that evening, well after sundown. So Carver must have come straight back to Hokitika from the Arahura Valley, made his way directly for the ship, and weighed anchor, all before the dawn. That is a very hasty departure, I think.’
‘Rum to my eye,’ said Balfour. He was thinking about his vanished shipping crate.
‘And when one considers that Staines disappeared around the very same time—’
‘And Anna,’ said Balfour, cutting across him. ‘That was the night of her collapse—because Lauderback found her, you remember, in the road.’
‘Ah,’ said Löwenthal. ‘Another coincidence.’
‘You might say only a weak mind puts faith in coincidence,’ said Balfour, ‘but I say—I say—a string of coincidences cannot be a coincidence. A string of them!’
‘No indeed,’ said Löwenthal, distantly.
Presently Balfour said, ‘But young Staines. That’s a perfect shame, that is. There’s no use being soft about it, Ben—he’s been murdered, surely. A man doesn’t vanish. A poor man, maybe. But not a man of means.’
‘Mm,’ said Löwenthal—who was not thinking about Staines. ‘I wonder what Carver was doing with Wells in the Arahura. And what he was running away from, for that matter. Or running towards.’ The editor thought a moment more, and then exclaimed, ‘I say: Lauderback’s not mixed up with Carver, is he?’
Balfour expelled a long breath. ‘Well, that’s the real question,’ he said, with a show of great reluctance. ‘But I’d be breaking Lauderback’s confidence if I told you. I’d be breaking my word.’ He looked again at the wick of the candle, hoping that his friend would prompt him to continue.
Unhappily for Balfour, however, Löwenthal’s moral code did not accept the kind of violation that Balfour was proposing he indulge. After studying Balfour dispassionately for a moment, he sat back in his chair, and changed the subject. ‘Do you know,’ he said, speaking in a brisker tone, ‘you are not the first man to come by my office and ask me about that notice in the paper—the one about Emery Staines.’
Balfour looked up, both disappointed and surprised. ‘Why—who else?’
‘A man came by in the middle of the week. Wednesday. Or perhaps it was Tuesday. Irish. A clergyman by profession—but not a Catholic; he was a Methodist, I think. He’s to be the chaplain of the new gaol.’
‘Free Methodist,’ Balfour said. ‘I met him this morning. Strange looking. Very unfortunate teeth. What was his interest on account of?’
‘But I can’t remember his name,’ Löwenthal murmured, tapping his lip.
‘Why was he interested in Staines?’ Balfour asked again—for he did not know the chaplain’s name, and could not offer it.
Löwenthal folded his hands together again, on the tabletop. ‘Well, it was rather odd,’ he said. ‘Apparently he went along with the coroner to Crosbie Wells’s cottage, to collect the man’s remains.’
‘Yes—and then buried him,’ said Balfour, nodding. ‘Dug the grave.’
‘Devlin,’ said Löwenthal, striking the table. ‘That’s his name: Devlin. But I haven’t got the first name. Give me another moment.’
‘But anyway,’ said Balfour. ‘As I was asking. What’s he got to do with Staines?’
‘I don’t exactly know,’ Löwenthal admitted. ‘From our brief conversation I gathered that he needed to speak to Mr. Staines very urgently—either about the death of Crosbie Wells, or about something related to the death of Crosbie Wells. But I can’t tell you any more than that. I didn’t ask.’
‘It’s a shame you didn’t,’ said Balfour. ‘That’s a loose end, that is.’
‘Why, Tom,’ said Löwenthal, with a sudden smile, ‘you are sounding like a detective!’
Balfour flushed. ‘I’m not really,’ he said. ‘I’m only trying to figure something out.’
‘Figure something out—for your friend Lauderback, who has sworn you to silence!’
Balfour remembered that the clergyman had also overheard Lauderback’s story, that same morning, and this thought prompted a stirring of alarm: there was a real loose end, he thought. Really, Lauderback ought to have been more cautious, in speaking of such private matters in a public place! ‘Well,’ he said, bristling, ‘isn’t it odd? This chap—Devlin—’
‘Cowell Devlin,’ said Löwenthal. ‘That’s his name: I knew it would come to me. Cowell Devlin. Yes: unfortunate teeth.’
‘Whoever he is, I’ve never seen him before,’ Balfour said. ‘Why’s he so concerned about Emery Staines—out of nowhere? Doesn’t it strike you as odd?’
‘Oh, very odd,’ Löwenthal said, still smiling. ‘Very odd. But you’re getting hot under your collar, Tom.’
Balfour had indeed become very flushed. ‘It’s Lauderback,’ he began, but Löwenthal shook his head.
‘No, no: I won’t make you break your confidence,’ he said. ‘I was only teasing you. Let’s change the subject. I won’t ask.’
But Thomas Balfour was wishing very much that Löwenthal would ask. He was very ready to betray Alistair Lauderback’s confidence, and he had rather hoped that by pretending that he could not possibly divulge the politician’s secret, he could tempt Löwenthal to beg him to do exactly that. But evidently Löwenthal did not play this kind of game. (Perhaps he did not wish to, or perhaps he did not know that he might.) Balfour felt stifled. He wished that, at the outset, he had sat down and told the tale of Lauderback’s blackmail and proposed revenge, frankly and in full. Now he would have to leave without really having learned anything—for he could hardly offer to narrate the story now, after the editor had assured him he did not need to know it!
We will interject to observe that this was a regrettable censorship; for if Balfour had recounted Lauderback’s tale in full, the events of the 27th of January might have played out rather differently for him—and for a number of other men. Prompted by certain particulars of Lauderback’s story, Löwenthal would have remembered an event that he had not had reason to remember for many months: a memory that would have been of great assistance to Balfour’s investigations of Carver, helping to explain, in part at least, that man’s mysterious assumption of the surname Wells.
As it happened, however, Balfour did not narrate Lauderback’s tale, and Löwenthal’s memory was not jogged, and presently Balfour, rising from the spattered table, had no choice but to thank his friend and bid him goodbye—feeling, as Löwenthal also did, that their conversation had been something of a disappointment, having served only to raise his hopes, and then frustrate them. Löwenthal returned to the quiet contemplation of his faith, and Balfour to the slush of Revell-street, where the bells were ringing half past three; the day rolled on.
But onward also rolls the outer sphere—the boundless present, which contains the bounded past. This story is being narrated, with much allusion and repeated emphasis, to Walter Moody—and Benjamin Löwenthal, who is also present in the smoking room of the Crown Hotel, is hearing parts of the tale for the very first time. Suddenly he is put in mind of an event that occurred some eight months prior. When Thomas Balfour pauses to drink, as he is doing now, Löwenthal steps forward, around the billiard table, and raises his hand to indicate that he wishes to interject. Balfour invites him to do so, and Löwenthal begins to narrate the memory that has so recently returned to him, speaking with the hushed gravity of one conveying very important news.