‘Emery Staines—on Carver’s ship!’ Mannering was saying. ‘Question is, of course, whether he stowed himself away—that’s one option; whether he was brought on board by accident—that’s another; or whether Carver captured him, and chose to lock him in a shipping crate, in full knowledge—that’s a third.’
Nilssen shook his head. ‘What did he say, though—that the lid was tacked down! You can’t do that from the inside!’
‘You may as well call it a coffin. How’s the man to breathe?’
‘There are slats in the pine—gaps—’
‘Not enough to breathe, surely!’
‘Tom: your shipping crate. Was there room enough inside it for a grown man?’
‘How big is a shipping crate, anyway?’
‘Don’t forget that Carver and Staines are business partners.’
‘About the size of a dray-cart. You’ll have seen them, stacked along the quay. A man could lie inside quite comfortably.’
‘Business partners on a duffer claim!’
‘Strange, though, that he’s still in the crate on the way back from Dunedin. Isn’t that strange? Seems almost to point to the fact that Carver didn’t know he was there.’
‘We ought to let Mr. Moody finish.’
‘That’s a way to treat your business partner—lock him up to die!’
The only men who had not joined this rabble of supposition were the two Chinese men, Quee Long and Sook Yongsheng, who were sitting very erect, with their eyes fixed very solemnly upon Moody—as they had been for the duration of the evening. Moody met Ah Sook’s gaze—and though the latter’s expression did not alter, it seemed to Moody that he conveyed a kind of sympathy, as though to say that he understood Moody’s feeling of impatience very well.
The lack of a common language had prevented Ah Sook from articulating the full story of his dealings with Francis Carver to the assembly that evening, and as a result, the English-speaking company remained quite ignorant of the particulars of this former association, beyond the fact that Carver had committed a murder, and Ah Sook had resolved to avenge it. Moody regarded him now, holding Ah Sook’s dark gaze in his pale one. He wondered at the history the two men had shared. Ah Sook had confided only that he had known Carver as a boy; he had divulged nothing else. Moody guessed that Ah Sook was around forty-five in age, which would mean he had been born in the early twenties; perhaps, then, he and Carver had known one another during the Chinese wars.
‘Mr. Moody,’ said Cowell Devlin. ‘Let us put the question to you. Do you believe the man inside the shipping case could have been Emery Staines?’
The room fell quiet at once.
‘I have never met Mr. Staines, and so would not recognise him,’ Moody said stiffly, ‘but yes, that is my guess.’
Pritchard was doing some calculation in his head. ‘If Staines had been inside that shipping case since Carver left for Dunedin,’ he said, ‘that makes thirteen days without water or air.’
‘Unlucky number,’ somebody muttered, and Moody was struck by the thought that thirteen was also the number of men currently assembled in the smoking room—and that he himself was the thirteenth man.
‘Is that possible—thirteen days?’ said Gascoigne.
‘Without water? Barely.’ Pritchard stroked his chin. ‘But without air, of course … impossible.’
‘But he might not have been in there since leaving Hokitika,’ Balfour pointed out. ‘He might have been put into the case in Dunedin—though whether by his own volition, or by force—’
‘I have not yet finished my story,’ Moody said.
‘Yes,’ said Mannering. ‘Quite right! He hasn’t finished. Hold your tongues.’
The supposition ceased. Moody rocked on his heels again, and after a moment, resumed.
‘Once I had determined that the thing inside the crate was indeed a man,’ he said, ‘I helped him out—with difficulty, for he was very weak, and not breathing at all well. He seemed to have spent all of his strength upon the knocking. I loosed his collar—he was wearing a cravat—and just as I did so, his chest began to bleed.’
‘You cut him somehow?’ said Nilssen.
But this time Moody did not answer; he closed his eyes and continued, as if in a trance. ‘The blood was welling up—bubbling, as from a pump; the man clutched at his chest, trying to staunch the flow, all the while sobbing that name, Magdalena, Magdalena … I watched him in horror, gentlemen. I could not speak. The volume—’
‘He scratched himself on the crate?’ Nilssen said again, persistently.
‘The blood was veritably pumping from his body,’ Moody said, opening his eyes. ‘It was most definitely not a scratch wound, sir. I could hardly have scratched him, except perhaps with a fingernail, and I keep my nails very close, as you can observe. And I repeat, the blood began to pump well after he was out of the crate, and seated upright. I thought perhaps there had been a stickpin in his cravat—but he was not wearing a stickpin. His cravat had been tied in a bow.’
Pritchard was frowning. ‘He must have been already injured, then,’ he said. ‘Before you opened the crate. Perhaps he cut himself—before you arrived on the scene.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Moody, without conviction. ‘I’m afraid my understanding of the event is rather less …’
‘What?’
‘Well,’ Moody said, gathering himself, ‘let me put it this way. The injury did not seem—natural.’
‘Not natural?’ Mannering said.
Moody looked embarrassed. He had faith in the analytic properties of reason: he believed in logic with the same calm conviction with which he believed in his ability to perceive it. Truth, for him, could be perfected, and a perfect truth was always utterly beautiful and entirely clear. We have mentioned already that Moody had no religion—and therefore did not perceive truth in mystery, in the inexplicable and the unexplained, in those mists that clouded one’s scientific perception as the material cloud now obscured the Hokitika sky.
‘I know this sounds very odd,’ he said, ‘but I am not altogether sure that the man inside the shipping case was even alive. By the light in the hold—and the shadows—’ He trailed off, and then said, in a harsher voice, ‘Let me say this. I am not sure if I would even call the thing a man.’
‘What else?’ said Balfour. ‘What else, if not a man?’
‘An apparition,’ Moody replied. ‘A vision of some kind. A ghost. It sounds very foolish; I know that. Perhaps Lydia Wells would be able to describe it better than I.’
There was a brief moment of quiet.
‘What happened next, Mr. Moody?’ said Frost.
Moody turned to address the banker. ‘My next action, I’m afraid, was a cowardly one. I turned, grabbed my valise, and swarmed back up the ladder. I left him there—still bleeding.’
‘I don’t suppose you saw the bill of lading—on the crate?’ said Balfour again, but Moody did not answer him.
‘Was that your last encounter with the man?’ said Löwenthal.
‘Yes,’ said Moody heavily. ‘I did not venture down into the hold again—and when we arrived at Hokitika, the passengers were conveyed by lighter to the shore. If the man in question was indeed real—if he was Emery Staines—then he is still aboard the Godspeed as we speak … as is Francis Carver, of course. They are both offshore, just beyond the river mouth, waiting for the tide. But perhaps I imagined it. The man, the blood, all of it. I have never suffered from hallucinations before, but … well; you see that I am very undecided. At the time, however, I was sure that I had seen a ghost.’