Clinch was scowling. ‘Don’t play stupid.’
‘Excuse me: I am doing no such thing,’ Mannering said. ‘What are you talking about, Edgar? What do a whore’s fashions have to do with the price of anything at all?’
Studying him, Edgar Clinch felt a tremor of doubt. Mannering’s bewilderment seemed perfectly genuine. He was not behaving like a man exposed. Could that mean that he had not known about the gold hidden in Anna’s gowns? Could Anna have been colluding with quite another man—behind Mannering’s back? Clinch felt bewildered also. He decided to change the subject.
‘I meant that mourning gown,’ he said, clumsily. ‘The one with the stupid collar that she’s taken to wearing this past fortnight.’
Mannering waved his hand. ‘She’s just being pious,’ he said. ‘Giving herself airs. It’ll blow over.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ Clinch said. ‘Last week, you see, I told her she had to make good her debts before she quit walking the streets—and we had words, and I suppose I got angry, and I threatened to turn her out of the hotel.’
‘What’s that got to do with Lydia Wells?’ said Mannering impatiently. ‘So you lost your temper. What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Lydia Wells just paid Anna’s debt,’ Clinch said. At last he lifted his hands from the desk: beneath them, slightly damp from the pressure of his palms, lay a crisp banknote, made out for a sum of six pounds. ‘Anna’s gone over to the Wayfarer. Indefinitely. Got a new profession, she says. Won’t answer to the name of whore.’
Mannering looked at the banknote, and did not speak for a moment.
‘But that’s her debt to you,’ he said at last. ‘That’s just for rent. She owes me a hundred pounds—and then some! She’s in the red—and she’s in it deep—and she answers to me, d—n it! Not to you, and certainly not to Lydia bloody Wells! But what do you mean—won’t answer to the name of whore?’
‘Just that,’ said Edgar Clinch. ‘She’s done with the profession. So she says.’
Mannering’s face had turned purple. ‘You can’t just walk out on your own job. I don’t care if you’re a whore or a butcher or a bloody baker! You can’t just walk out—not when there’s a debt outstanding!’
‘That’s the—’
‘In mourning, she said!’ Mannering cried, leaping up. ‘For a time, she said! Give a girl an inch and she takes a bloody mile! Not on my watch, all right! Not with a hundred pounds against her name! No indeed!’
Clinch was looking at the magnate coldly. ‘She said to tell you that Aubert Gascoigne has the money for you,’ he said. ‘She said to tell you that it’s hidden underneath his bed.’
‘Who in hell is Obur Gaskwon?’
‘He’s a clerk at the Magistrate’s Court,’ Clinch said. ‘He filed the widow’s appeal on Crosbie Wells’s fortune.’
‘Aha!’ said Mannering. ‘So we’re coming back around to that, are we? I’ll be God-d—ned!’
‘There’s another thing,’ Clinch said. ‘Mr. Gascoigne was up in Anna’s room this afternoon, and shots were fired. Two shots. I asked him about it afterwards—and he countered by mentioning the debt. I went up to look. There’s a hole in Anna’s pillow. Right through the middle. The stuffing came out.’
‘Two holes?’
‘Just one.’
‘And the widow saw it,’ Mannering said.
‘No,’ Clinch said. ‘She came later. But when Mr. Gascoigne left, he did say that he was going to talk to a lady … and then she showed up about two hours after that.’
‘What’s the other fortune?’ Mannering said suddenly. ‘You said there was another fortune.’
‘I thought—’ Clinch dropped his gaze. ‘No. It doesn’t matter. I made a mistake. Forget it.’
Mannering was frowning. ‘What obligation does Lydia Wells have, to pay off Anna’s debt?’ he said. ‘Where’s her profit there?’
‘I don’t know,’ Clinch said. ‘But the two of them seemed very intimate this afternoon.’
‘Intimate—that’s not a profit.’
‘I don’t know,’ Clinch said again.
‘They were on each others’ arms? They were in good spirits? What?’
‘Yes,’ said Clinch. ‘They were linked at the elbow—and when the widow spoke, Anna leaned in close.’
He fell silent, dwelling on the memory.
‘And you let her go!’ Mannering barked suddenly. ‘You let her go—without asking me—without calling me over? She’s my best girl, Edgar! You know that without me telling you! The others aren’t a patch on Anna!’
‘I could hardly have detained her,’ Clinch said, looking sour. ‘What would I have done—locked her up? And anyway, you were in Kaniere.’
Mannering leaped up from his chair.
‘So Chinaman’s Ann is no longer any man’s Ann!’ He thumped his hat on his leg. ‘She makes it seem altogether simple—does she not? Quitting her profession! As if we could all just wake up one morning, and decide …!’
But Edgar Clinch did not care to pursue this rhetorical line. He was meditating, sorrowfully, upon the fact that to-morrow was Sunday, and the first Sunday in many months when he did not have the drawing of Anna’s bath to look forward to. Aloud he said, ‘Maybe you ought to go and speak to Mr. Gascoigne about that money.’
‘Do you know what makes me angry, Edgar?’ Mannering said. ‘Second-hand news makes me angry. Picking up after other men makes me angry. Hearing all this from you—it makes me angry. What does Anna want me to do? Knock on the door of a man I barely know? What would I say? “Excuse me, sir, I believe there’s a great deal of money under your bed, and Anna Wetherell owes it to me!” It’s disrespectful. Disrespectful is what it is. No: as far as I’m concerned, that girl is still in my employ. She is still very much a whore, and her debt to me is still very much unpaid.’
Clinch nodded. His energy had dissipated, and he wanted now to be alone. He picked up the banknote, folded it, and placed it inside his wallet, against his heart. ‘What time did you say, for the meeting tonight?’
‘Sundown,’ said Mannering. ‘Only you might want to arrive before or after, so we’re not all trooping in at once. You’ll find a fair clutch of men have come out of this business feeling like there’s someone to blame.’
‘Can’t say I care for the Crown,’ said Clinch, half to himself. ‘They skimped on glass, I think. The frontage windows ought to be wider—and there ought to be a roof over the porch.’
‘Well, it’ll be quiet, and that’s all that matters.’
‘Yes.’
Mannering put his hat on. ‘If you’d asked me last week who was to blame for all of this madness, I would have guessed the Jew. If you’d asked me yesterday, I would have guessed the widow. This afternoon, I would have told you Chinamen. And now? Well, Edgar, I’m d—ned if I don’t lay my money on that whore. You mark my words: Anna Wetherell knows exactly why that money turned up at Crosbie Wells’s, and she knows exactly what happened to Emery Staines—God rest his soul, though I do speak prematurely. Attempted suicide, my hat. Mourning dress, my hat. She’s in to the teeth with Lydia Wells—and together, they’re up to something.’
Sook Yongsheng and Quee Long stamped down the Kaniere-road towards Hokitika, identically clad in wide-brimmed felt hats, woollen capes, and canvas overshoes. Dusk was falling, bringing with it a rapid drop in temperature, and turning the standing water at the roadside from brown to glossy blue. There was little traffic save for the infrequent cart or lone rider making for the warmth and light of the town ahead—still some two miles distant, though one could hear the roar of the ocean already, a dull, pitchless sound, and above it, the infrequent cry of a sea-bird, the call floating thin and weightless above the sound of the rain.