‘I estimate that it will be at least April before the sale is successfully repealed,’ Shepard was saying, with the same perfect gravity. ‘In the meantime—immediately, in fact—I propose that you invest the entire sum of your commission into the building of my gaol-house.’
Nilssen raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘But the money is not mine,’ he said, for the second time that afternoon. ‘It has already been revoked de jure, if not de facto. Once the widow’s appeal has been granted, and the sale of the estate declared void, I shall have to pay my commission back in full.’
‘The Council can sponsor your loan, with interest,’ Shepard said. ‘The gaol is publicly funded, after all; by the time your commission is recalled, I will be able to draw down funds from the Reserve, and repay you. We shall have a contract drawn up; you may name your terms. Your investment will be secure.’
‘If you have public funding,’ Nilssen said, ‘then why propose this to me at all? What need do you have of these four hundred pounds?’
‘Yours is ready money, and will be privately invested,’ Shepard said. ‘My Council funding has been approved, but not paid out; if I wait for the sum to be apportioned, and deposited into the gaol’s account, I will be waiting for thirty bankers to push my contract across thirty desks, and back again. It will be March, or April, and the elections will be past.’
‘And Lauderback will have his convicts,’ Nilssen said.
‘Yes, and he will have siphoned off a great deal more of the district’s budget, besides.’
‘Very well,’ Nilssen said. ‘Let us suppose that I agree to this, and you get your gaol-house. You said that both of us would stand to gain.’
‘Well, yes,’ Shepard said, blinking. ‘You will have employment, Mr. Nilssen. You will get your standard commission on the labour, and the iron, and the timber, and the nails, and every small thing. Legal profit—that is how you stand to gain.’
Nilssen could not fault this (certainly, it had been many weeks since he had contracted work that promised this degree of yield), but Shepard’s method of proposition was making him very uncomfortable. The gaoler had used the word murder, and called that crime ‘sophisticated’; he had waited until Albert was present as a witness to ask about Emery Staines; and when he narrated the story of the Wells affair, he had made a great show of preventing Nilssen’s interruption, lest the commission merchant implicate himself by speaking too much or too soon—thereby assuming that he could implicate himself in some way. Shepard was treating his host as a guilty man.
Nilssen said, ‘And what if I refuse your offer—what then?’
Shepard pulled his lips back in a rare smile, the effect of which was rather gruesome. ‘You are determined to see this offer as a blackmail,’ he said. ‘I cannot imagine why that might be so.’
Nilssen could not hold the gaoler’s gaze for long. ‘I will grant you the loan, and offer my services on commission,’ he said at last. His voice was low. He pulled the architect’s plans towards him. ‘Please be so good as to wait a moment,’ he added, ‘while I make a record of the materials you require.’
Shepard inclined his head, and at last picked up the cup of coffee that was cooling on the desktop before him. He took up the saucer with great care; in his great hand the china seemed impossibly fragile, as if he might close his fist and with a single motion crush the vessel to a dust. He drained the cup and returned it to the exact position it had formerly occupied upon Nilssen’s desk. He then replaced his pipe in his mouth, folded his hands, and waited. The irregular scratch of Nilssen’s pen was the only sound between them.
‘I shall draw you down a cheque on Monday morning,’ Nilssen said at last, as he penned the final sum. ‘We can advertise for tender in Monday’s paper—I’ll send a note to Löwenthal direct. I shall recommend that the labourers meet here, in the Auction Yards, at ten sharp, to be signed—that will give the men a chance to read the paper and spread the word. By Monday noon, weather permitting, we can begin work on the land.’
Shepard’s eyes had narrowed. ‘You said Löwenthal? Ben Löwenthal—the Jew?’
‘Yes,’ Nilssen said, blinking. ‘We can’t advertise without the paper. You could do it by flyer and gazette if you wanted—but everybody reads the Times.’
‘I hope that we are understood that the investment of your commission is strictly a private matter.’
‘We are understood, sir.’ There was a pause. ‘On my oath,’ Nilssen added, and then immediately regretted the phrase.
‘Perhaps we ought to insert a clause into our contract to that tune,’ Shepard said lightly. ‘For peace of mind.’
‘You can trust my discretion,’ Nilssen said, blushing again.
‘I truly hope I can,’ said Shepard. He stood, and extended his hand.
Nilssen rose also, and they shook hands.
‘Mr. Shepard,’ Nilssen said suddenly, as Shepard made to depart. ‘The way you were speaking before—about the savage and the civil, the old world and the new.’
Shepard regarded him impassively. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m curious to hear how that line of thinking applies to all of this—the estate, the ’bounder, the widow Wells.’
Shepard took a long time to answer. ‘A homeward bounder is a chance for total reinvention, Mr. Nilssen,’ he said at last. ‘Find a nugget, and a man can buy his own life. That kind of promise isn’t offered in the civil world.’
Nilssen sat alone in his office for a long time after Shepard left, turning the gaoler’s proposition over and over in his mind. A feeling of doubt was seeding in his breast. He felt that he had missed a connexion somewhere—as if he had come across a knotted handkerchief, balled in the watch-pocket of an old vest, and could not for the life of him recall what the knot was supposed to prompt him to remember—what errand, what responsibility; where he’d been, even, when he tied the corners, and tucked the thing away against his heart. He drummed his fingers; he toyed with his lapel. The rain beat against the window. The grey shadows in the room changed places, as the sun sank behind the cloud.
Suddenly he got up, went to the door, and opened it a fraction. ‘Albert!’ he called, through the chink.
‘Yes, sir,’ Albert called back, from the outer office.
‘Crosbie Wells—the man who died.’
‘Sir.’
‘Who found his body? Remind me.’
‘A company of men, sir,’ Albert replied.
‘You recall the story?’
‘It was in the papers—I can find it for you, if you like.’
‘Just tell me what you remember.’
‘The party stopped in to refresh themselves, and found Mr. Wells fresh dead—that’s my understanding. Sitting at his kitchen table, the papers had it.’
‘Give us the name?’—But he already knew. He rested his head against the doorframe, and felt sick.
‘That fellow in contest for the Westland seat,’ said Albert. ‘The Canterbury man. You met him last week at the Star. Alistair Lauderback’s his name.’
Some ten minutes later Nilssen appeared in the doorway of the outer office, snapping out his top hat with such a tremendous crack that the clerk leaped out of his chair. He was holding his stick in a rather brutish fashion, gripping it halfway down its shaft, as if he meant to wield it as a cudgel. His face was very pale.
‘Shall I direct any callers to the Nonpareil?’ Albert called after him, as the commission merchant made for the door.
‘No—leave me be. Tell them to wait. Tell them to come back Monday,’ Nilssen snapped, without turning. He quitted the gatehouse and strode off down the quay, but when he reached his accustomed pie-house on the corner he did not stop. He drew his coat tighter across his body and turned inland, towards Kaniere, and the goldfields.