Moody frowned. ‘Yes indeed,’ he said, ‘which means that I know very well that the gold in Mr. Wells’s cottage never came from the Aurora in the first place. It does not belong to Mr. Staines, whichever way one looks at it. You can’t be asking me to stand up in court, Reverend.’
‘That is precisely what I am asking,’ said Devlin. ‘There is a shortage of solicitors in Hokitika, and yours is a better mind than most.’
Moody was incredulous. ‘This is a civil court,’ he said. ‘Do you imagine me performing some sort of grand exposure of the whole story—dragging every last one of you into it—not to mention Lauderback, and Shepard, and Carver, and Lydia Wells?’
‘Lydia Carver, you ought to say now.’
‘Forgive me. Lydia Carver,’ said Moody. ‘Reverend, I do not see how I could be of any use at all, at a court of petty sessions. Nor do I see who would benefit, from a merciless exposure of the whole business—the fortune in the dresses, the blackmail, Lauderback’s personal history, everything.’
He was thinking about the bastard, Crosbie Wells.
‘I am not advocating for a merciless exposure,’ the chaplain said. ‘I am asking you to consider acting as Miss Wetherell’s counsel.’
Moody was surprised. ‘I thought Miss Wetherell had engaged a solicitor already.’
‘I’m afraid that Mr. Fellowes has turned out to be rather less congenial than his name suggests,’ Devlin said. ‘He declined to take Anna on as a client, following the laudanum debacle in the Courthouse last month.’
‘Citing what reason?’
‘He fears being fined for corruption, apparently. She had offered to pay his retainer out of the very same fortune that she was trying to claim, which was rather unwise, all things considered.’
Moody was frowning. ‘Is there not a duty solicitor at hand?’
‘Yes—a Mr. Harrington—but he is very deep in the Magistrate’s pocket, by all accounts. He will not do, if we are going to save Anna from a Supreme Court trial.’
‘A Supreme Court trial? You must be joking,’ said Moody. ‘This will all be resolved at the petty sessions—and in very short time, I am sure. I do not mean to patronise your intelligence, Reverend, but there is a great deal of difference between civil and criminal law.’
Devlin gave him a strange look. ‘Did you read the courthouse schedule in the paper this morning?’
‘Yes indeed.’
‘From start to finish?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Perhaps you ought to look it over once again.’
Frowning, Moody shook open his paper to the third page, flattened it, and cast his eye down the schedule a second time. And there, at the bottom of the column:
The charges levelled against Miss Anna Wetherell are as follows: firstly, forgery; secondly, public intoxication resulting in disorderly behaviour; thirdly, grievous assault. Hearing scheduled for Thursday 27th April at the Resident Magistrate’s Court, 9A.M., before his Hon. Mr. Justice Kemp.
Moody was astonished. ‘Grievous assault?’
‘Dr. Gillies confirmed that the bullet in Staines’s shoulder issued from a lady’s pistol,’ Devlin said. ‘I’m afraid that he let this piece of information slip while in the company of the Gridiron valet, who was reminded of the shots fired in Anna’s room, back in January, and fronted up with that story. They sent a man over to the Gridiron at once, and Mr. Clinch was obliged to hand over Anna’s pistol as evidence. The match between gun and cartridge has since been confirmed.’
‘But Mr. Staines cannot have been the one to bring this charge against her,’ Moody said.
‘No,’ Devlin agreed.
‘Then who’s behind it?’
Devlin coughed. ‘Unfortunately Mr. Fellowes is still in possession of that wretched deed of gift—the one in which Staines gives over two thousand pounds to Anna, with Crosbie Wells as witness. He has since shared it with Governor Shepard, who, as you will remember, first saw it when it was yet unsigned. Shepard asked me for the truth … and I had to admit that Staines’s signature had in fact been forged—and by Anna herself.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘They’ve got her in a corner,’ Devlin said. ‘If she pleads guilty to the assault, they will claim that it was an attempted murder: they can use the deed of gift to prove that she had decent provocation to wish him dead, you see.’
‘And if she pleads not guilty?’
‘They’ll still get her on the charge of fraud; and if she denies that, then they’ll get her on a charge of lunacy, which, as we all know, Shepard has long been keeping up his sleeve. I am afraid that he and Fellowes are very much united against her.’
‘Mr. Staines will testify in her defence, of course.’
Devlin winced. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but I fear that he does not really understand the gravity of the situation at hand. He has a sweet temper, but in his opinions he tends towards foolishness. When I raised the issue of Miss Wetherell’s lunacy, for example, he was perfectly delighted by the idea. He said he wouldn’t have her any other way.’
‘What is your opinion? Is the girl of sound mind?’
‘Sanity is hardly a matter of opinion,’ said Devlin, archly.
‘On the contrary, I’m afraid,’ said Moody. ‘Sanity depends for its proof upon the testimony of witnesses. Have you asked the physician to make a report?’
‘I was hoping that you might be the one to do that,’ Devlin said.
‘Hm,’ Moody said, turning back to the paper. ‘If I am to provide counsel to Miss Wetherell, I’ll need to speak to Mr. Staines as well.’
‘That is easily arranged; they are inseparable.’
‘In private—and at length.’
‘You shall have everything you need.’
Moody tapped his fingers. After a moment he said, ‘We shall have to ensure, first and foremost, that both sides of the story agree.’
The morning of the 27th of April dawned clear and bright in Hokitika. Walter Moody, rising with the dawn, took a very long time over his toilette. He shaved, combed and oiled his hair, and applied scent beneath his ears. The Crown maid had set his boots outside his door, freshly blackened; upon the whatnot she had laid out a burgundy vest, a grey cravat, and a standing collar with flared points. She had brushed and pressed his frock coat, and hung it up in the window so that it would not crease overnight. Moody took great care in dressing; so much so that the chapel bells were ringing out eight o’clock before he descended the stairs to breakfast, tapping the pockets of his vest to ensure his fob was correctly pinned. Half an hour later, he was striding north along Revell-street, his top hat set squarely on his brow, and his leather valise in his hand.
It seemed to Moody, as he approached the Courthouse, that all of Hokitika had turned out for the morning sessions: the queue to get into the building stretched halfway down the street, and the crowd on the portico had a breathless, eager look. He joined the shuffling queue, and in time he was shepherded into the building by a pair of grim-faced duty sergeants, who instructed him, roughly, to keep his hands to himself, not to speak unless spoken to, and to remove his hat when the justice was called. Moody shouldered his way through the gallery, holding his briefcase close to his chest, and then stepped over the rope to take his place on the barristers’ bench beside the prosecution lawyers.
As defence counsel, Moody had received the list of witnesses called by the plaintiff three days before the trial. The names had been listed in the order in which they would be called: Rev. Cowell Devlin; Gov. George Shepard; Mr. Joseph Pritchard; and Mr. Aubert Gascoigne—a sequence that had furnished Moody with a fair idea of the angle that the plaintiff’s laywer was likely to take, in the case against Anna. The witness list for the afternoon session was much longer: in the case of the District of Westland vs. Mr. Emery Staines, the plaintiff had called for the testimonies of Mr. Richard Mannering; Mr. John Long Quee; Mr. Benjamin Löwenthal; Mr. Edgar Clinch; Mr. Harald Nilssen; Mr. Charles Frost; Mrs. Lydia Carver; and Capt. Francis Carver. Moody, upon receiving these advance documents, had sat down at once to refine his two-part strategy—for he knew very well that the impression created in the morning would do much to shape the verdict delivered in the afternoon.