‘You did not witness the assault against Miss Wetherell first-hand, and nor, it seems, did anybody else; therefore you cannot know beyond a shadow of a doubt whether Mr. Carver truly was the author of that assault, or indeed, if an assault took place at all. Of course the loss of any child is a tragedy, and tragedy cannot be mitigated by circumstance; but in adjudicating your crime, Mr. Staines, we must put aside the tragic nature of the event, and consider it purely as a provocation—an indirect provocation, I should say—for your having committed the rather more cold-blooded crimes of embezzlement and fraud, in retaliation. Yes, you had provocation to dislike Mr. Carver, to resent Mr. Carver, even to despise him; but I feel that I state a very obvious point when I say that you might have brought your grievance to the attention of the Hokitika police, and saved us all a great deal of bother.
‘Your guilty plea does you credit. I also acknowledge that you have shown courtesy and humility in your responses this morning. All this suggests contrition, and deference to the proper execution of the law. Your charges, however, show a selfish disregard for contractual obligation, a capricious and decadent temperament, and a dereliction of duty, not only to your claims, but to your fellow men. Your poor opinion of Mr. Carver, however justified that opinion might be, has led you to take the law into your own hands on more than one occasion, and in more than one respect. In light of this I consider that it will do you a great deal of good to put away your grand philosophy for a time, and learn to walk in another man’s shoes.
‘Mr. Carver has been a shareholder of the Aurora for nine months. He has fulfilled his contractual obligation to you, and he has been ill rewarded. Emery Staines, I hereby sentence you to nine months’ servitude, with labour.’
Staines’s face betrayed nothing at all. ‘Yes, sir.’
The justice turned to Anna.
‘Miss Anna Wetherell,’ he said. ‘You have pleaded not guilty to all charges brought to bear against you, and in a civilised court we hold to the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty. I am sensible of the fact that aspersions cast by Mr. Moody upon Governor Shepard are aspersions only; however they have been duly recorded by this court, and may be productive in the future, pending investigations made upon Governor Shepard and others. In the meantime, I do not see that there is sufficient evidence to prove your guilt. You are acquitted of all charges. You shall be released from gaol, effective instant. I trust that from here you will continue on the righteous path to sobriety, chastity, and other virtues of a civilised kind; needless to say that I never wish to see you in this courtroom again, on any charge, least of all a charge of public intoxication and disorderly behaviour. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good.’ He turned to the barristers’ bench. ‘Now,’ he said heavily, but before he got any further, there came the sound of shouting in the street, and a terrible crash, and the high whinny of panicked horses—and then a terrible thump on the courthouse door, as though someone had thrown their bodily weight against it.
‘What’s going on?’ said the justice, frowning.
Moody had started up: he heard shouting from the porch, and a great clatter.
‘Open the door, someone. See what’s happening,’ the justice said.
The door was thrown open.
‘Sergeant Drake,’ exclaimed the justice. ‘What is it?’
The sergeant’s eyes were wild. ‘It’s Carver!’ he cried.
‘What about him?’
‘He’s dead!’
‘What?’
‘Some point between here and Seaview—someone must have opened the doors—and I never noticed. I was driving. I opened the doors to unload him—and there he was—and he’s dead!’
Moody whipped about, half expecting that Mrs. Carver might have fallen into a faint; but she had not. She was looking at Drake, white-faced. Quickly, Moody scanned the faces around her. All the witnesses had been remanded during the recess, including those who had testified in the morning: none of them had left the Courthouse. Shepard was there—and Lauderback—and Frost—and Löwenthal, and Clinch, and Mannering, and Quee, and Nilssen, and Pritchard, and Balfour, and Gascoigne, and Devlin. Who was missing?
‘He’s right outside!’ cried Drake, throwing out his arm. ‘His body—I came right back—I couldn’t—it wasn’t—’
The justice raised his voice above the commotion. ‘He took his own life?’
‘Hardly,’ cried Drake, his voice cracking into a sob. ‘Hardly!’
The crowd began crushing through the doors, past him.
‘Sergeant Drake,’ shouted the justice. ‘How in all heaven did Francis Carver die?’
Drake was now lost in the crowd. His voice floated up: ‘Somebody bashed his head in!’
The justice’s face had turned purple. ‘Who?’ he roared. ‘Who did it?’
‘I’m telling you I don’t know!’
There came a terrible shriek from the street, and then shouting; the courthouse emptied. Mrs. Carver, watching the last of the crowd fight its way through the doorway, brought her hands up to her mouth.
COMBUST
In which Mrs. Wells receives a false impression, and Francis Carver relays important news.
While Anna Wetherell entertained ‘Mr. Crosbie’ at the House of Many Wishes on Cumberland-street, Lydia Wells was doing some entertaining of her own. It was her habit, in the afternoons, to take her almanacs and star charts to the Hawthorn Hotel upon George-street, where she set up shop in a corner of the dining room, and offered to tell the fortunes of diggers and travellers newly arrived. Her sole customer, that afternoon, had been a golden-haired boy in a felt cap who, as it turned out, had also arrived on the steamer Fortunate Wind. He was a voluble subject, and seemed both delighted and fascinated by Mrs. Wells’s affinity for the arcane; his enthusiasm was flattering, and inclined her to be generous with her prognostications. By the time his natal chart was drawn, his past and present canvassed, and his future foretold, it was coming on four o’clock.
She looked up to see Francis Carver striding across the dining room towards her.
‘Edward,’ she said, to the golden-haired boy, ‘be a darling, would you, and ask the waiter to wrap up a pie with a hot-water crust? Tell him to put it on my account; I’ll take it home for my dinner.’
The boy obliged.
‘I’ve just had some good news,’ said Carver, when the boy was gone.
‘What is it?’
‘Lauderback’s on his way.’
‘Ah,’ said Lydia Wells.
‘He must have seen the shipping receipt from Danforth at long last. I hear from Billy Bruce that he’s bought his passage on the Active, sailing out of Akaroa. He arrives on the twelfth of May, and he sends an advance message that Godspeed is not to depart until then.’
‘Three weeks away.’
‘We’ve got him, Greenway. Like a fish in a trap, we’ve got him.’
‘Poor Mr. Lauderback,’ said Mrs. Wells, vaguely.
‘You might step over to the naval club this week and make an offer to the boys. A free night of craps, or double the jackpot, or a girl with every spin of the wheel. Something to tempt Raxworthy away from the ship that night, so that I can get a chance to get at Lauderback alone.’