The Luminaries

by Eleanor Catton

  ‘Carver got me in a touch of hot water recently,’ he went on. ‘Around a fortnight ago, he left his mooring off-schedule—and in the middle of the night. Well, it was a Sunday, and so the shipping news had been published already, in Saturday’s edition. But because Godspeed wasn’t scheduled to leave that day, and because she left well after sundown, somehow her departure wasn’t recorded in the customhouse log. Well, nobody told me anything about it, and so her departure was never recorded in the paper either. Quite as if the ship never left her mooring! The Harbourmaster was very upset about it.’

  ‘Last Sunday?’ said Balfour. ‘That’s the day Lauderback arrived.’

  ‘I suppose it was. The fourteenth.’

  ‘But Carver was in the Arahura Valley that very same night!’

  Löwenthal looked up sharply. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘A Maori fellow. Tay something, his name is. Youngish chap; wears a big green pendant. I spoke with him in the street this morning.’

  ‘What is his authority?’

  Balfour explained that Te Rau Tauwhare and Crosbie Wells had been great friends, and that Tauwhare had observed Francis Carver entering the cottage on the day of the hermit’s death. As to whether Carver had been present in the cottage before or after Wells’s death, Balfour did not know, but Tauwhare had assured him that Carver’s arrival had occurred before Lauderback’s—and Lauderback, by his own testimony, had arrived at the cottage not long after the event of the hermit’s death, for when he entered the man’s kettle had been boiling on the range, and had not yet run dry. It stood to reason, therefore, that Francis Carver had been present in the cottage before Crosbie Wells passed away, and perhaps (Balfour realised with a chill) had even witnessed his death.

  Löwenthal stroked his moustache. ‘This is very interesting news,’ he said. ‘Godspeed sailed late that evening, well after sundown. So Carver must have come straight back to Hokitika from the Arahura Valley, made his way directly for the ship, and weighed anchor, all before the dawn. That is a very hasty departure, I think.’

  ‘Rum to my eye,’ said Balfour. He was thinking about his vanished shipping crate.

  ‘And when one considers that Staines disappeared around the very same time—’

  ‘And Anna,’ said Balfour, cutting across him. ‘That was the night of her collapse—because Lauderback found her, you remember, in the road.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Löwenthal. ‘Another coincidence.’

  ‘You might say only a weak mind puts faith in coincidence,’ said Balfour, ‘but I say—I say—a string of coincidences cannot be a coincidence. A string of them!’

  ‘No indeed,’ said Löwenthal, distantly.

  Presently Balfour said, ‘But young Staines. That’s a perfect shame, that is. There’s no use being soft about it, Ben—he’s been murdered, surely. A man doesn’t vanish. A poor man, maybe. But not a man of means.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Löwenthal—who was not thinking about Staines. ‘I wonder what Carver was doing with Wells in the Arahura. And what he was running away from, for that matter. Or running towards.’ The editor thought a moment more, and then exclaimed, ‘I say: Lauderback’s not mixed up with Carver, is he?’

  Balfour expelled a long breath. ‘Well, that’s the real question,’ he said, with a show of great reluctance. ‘But I’d be breaking Lauderback’s confidence if I told you. I’d be breaking my word.’ He looked again at the wick of the candle, hoping that his friend would prompt him to continue.

  Unhappily for Balfour, however, Löwenthal’s moral code did not accept the kind of violation that Balfour was proposing he indulge. After studying Balfour dispassionately for a moment, he sat back in his chair, and changed the subject. ‘Do you know,’ he said, speaking in a brisker tone, ‘you are not the first man to come by my office and ask me about that notice in the paper—the one about Emery Staines.’

  Balfour looked up, both disappointed and surprised. ‘Why—who else?’

  ‘A man came by in the middle of the week. Wednesday. Or perhaps it was Tuesday. Irish. A clergyman by profession—but not a Catholic; he was a Methodist, I think. He’s to be the chaplain of the new gaol.’

  ‘Free Methodist,’ Balfour said. ‘I met him this morning. Strange looking. Very unfortunate teeth. What was his interest on account of?’

  ‘But I can’t remember his name,’ Löwenthal murmured, tapping his lip.

  ‘Why was he interested in Staines?’ Balfour asked again—for he did not know the chaplain’s name, and could not offer it.

  Löwenthal folded his hands together again, on the tabletop. ‘Well, it was rather odd,’ he said. ‘Apparently he went along with the coroner to Crosbie Wells’s cottage, to collect the man’s remains.’

  ‘Yes—and then buried him,’ said Balfour, nodding. ‘Dug the grave.’

  ‘Devlin,’ said Löwenthal, striking the table. ‘That’s his name: Devlin. But I haven’t got the first name. Give me another moment.’

  ‘But anyway,’ said Balfour. ‘As I was asking. What’s he got to do with Staines?’

  ‘I don’t exactly know,’ Löwenthal admitted. ‘From our brief conversation I gathered that he needed to speak to Mr. Staines very urgently—either about the death of Crosbie Wells, or about something related to the death of Crosbie Wells. But I can’t tell you any more than that. I didn’t ask.’

  ‘It’s a shame you didn’t,’ said Balfour. ‘That’s a loose end, that is.’

  ‘Why, Tom,’ said Löwenthal, with a sudden smile, ‘you are sounding like a detective!’

  Balfour flushed. ‘I’m not really,’ he said. ‘I’m only trying to figure something out.’

  ‘Figure something out—for your friend Lauderback, who has sworn you to silence!’

  Balfour remembered that the clergyman had also overheard Lauderback’s story, that same morning, and this thought prompted a stirring of alarm: there was a real loose end, he thought. Really, Lauderback ought to have been more cautious, in speaking of such private matters in a public place! ‘Well,’ he said, bristling, ‘isn’t it odd? This chap—Devlin—’

  ‘Cowell Devlin,’ said Löwenthal. ‘That’s his name: I knew it would come to me. Cowell Devlin. Yes: unfortunate teeth.’

  ‘Whoever he is, I’ve never seen him before,’ Balfour said. ‘Why’s he so concerned about Emery Staines—out of nowhere? Doesn’t it strike you as odd?’

  ‘Oh, very odd,’ Löwenthal said, still smiling. ‘Very odd. But you’re getting hot under your collar, Tom.’

  Balfour had indeed become very flushed. ‘It’s Lauderback,’ he began, but Löwenthal shook his head.

  ‘No, no: I won’t make you break your confidence,’ he said. ‘I was only teasing you. Let’s change the subject. I won’t ask.’

  But Thomas Balfour was wishing very much that Löwenthal would ask. He was very ready to betray Alistair Lauderback’s confidence, and he had rather hoped that by pretending that he could not possibly divulge the politician’s secret, he could tempt Löwenthal to beg him to do exactly that. But evidently Löwenthal did not play this kind of game. (Perhaps he did not wish to, or perhaps he did not know that he might.) Balfour felt stifled. He wished that, at the outset, he had sat down and told the tale of Lauderback’s blackmail and proposed revenge, frankly and in full. Now he would have to leave without really having learned anything—for he could hardly offer to narrate the story now, after the editor had assured him he did not need to know it!

  We will interject to observe that this was a regrettable censorship; for if Balfour had recounted Lauderback’s tale in full, the events of the 27th of January might have played out rather differently for him—and for a number of other men. Prompted by certain particulars of Lauderback’s story, Löwenthal would have remembered an event that he had not had reason to remember for many months: a memory that would have been of great assistance to Balfour’s investigations of Carver, helping to explain, in part at least, that man’s mysterious assumption of the surname Wells.

  As
it happened, however, Balfour did not narrate Lauderback’s tale, and Löwenthal’s memory was not jogged, and presently Balfour, rising from the spattered table, had no choice but to thank his friend and bid him goodbye—feeling, as Löwenthal also did, that their conversation had been something of a disappointment, having served only to raise his hopes, and then frustrate them. Löwenthal returned to the quiet contemplation of his faith, and Balfour to the slush of Revell-street, where the bells were ringing half past three; the day rolled on.

  But onward also rolls the outer sphere—the boundless present, which contains the bounded past. This story is being narrated, with much allusion and repeated emphasis, to Walter Moody—and Benjamin Löwenthal, who is also present in the smoking room of the Crown Hotel, is hearing parts of the tale for the very first time. Suddenly he is put in mind of an event that occurred some eight months prior. When Thomas Balfour pauses to drink, as he is doing now, Löwenthal steps forward, around the billiard table, and raises his hand to indicate that he wishes to interject. Balfour invites him to do so, and Löwenthal begins to narrate the memory that has so recently returned to him, speaking with the hushed gravity of one conveying very important news.

  Here is his account.

  One morning in the month of June, 1865, a dark-haired man with a scar on his cheek entered Löwenthal’s small office on Weld-street and asked for a notice to be placed in the West Coast Times. Löwenthal agreed, took out his pen, and asked the man what he wished to advertise. The man replied that he had lost a shipping crate that contained items of great personal value. He would pay a sum of twenty pounds if the crate were to be returned to him—or fifty, if the crate were to be returned to him unopened. He did not say what was inside the crate, beyond the fact that its personal value was considerable; he spoke gruffly, and used very plain words. When Löwenthal asked his name, he did not answer. Instead he pulled a birth certificate from his pocket and laid it on the desk. Löwenthal copied down the name—Mr. Crosbie Francis Wells—and inquired, finally, where the man would like responders to be directed, if indeed his lost shipping crate was found. The man named an address on Gibson Quay. Löwenthal recorded this, filled out a receipt, collected his fee, and then bid the man good morning.

  One might well ask (and indeed, Moody did ask) how Löwenthal could be so certain of the precise details of this event, given that the memory had only just returned to him, nearly eight months later, and he had not had any opportunity to verify its particulars. How could Löwenthal be sure, firstly, that the man who placed this advertisement did indeed have a scar upon his cheek; secondly, that this event had taken place in June of the previous year, and thirdly, that the name upon the birth certificate was, without a shadow of a doubt, Crosbie Francis Wells?

  Löwenthal’s reply was courteous, but rather lengthy. He explained to Moody that the West Coast Times had been founded in May of 1865, roughly one month after Löwenthal’s first landing in New Zealand. At first printing, the newspaper’s print run was a mere twenty copies, one each for Hokitika’s eighteen hotels, one for the newly appointed magistrate, and one for Löwenthal himself. (Within a month, and following the purchase of a steam-powered press, Löwenthal’s print run had expanded to two hundred; now, in January 1866, he was printing nearly a thousand copies of every edition, and he had hired a staff of two.) In order to advertise to his subscribers that the Times had been Hokitika’s very first daily gazette, Löwenthal set the first edition of the paper behind glass and hung it in his front office. He therefore remembered the exact date of the newspaper’s establishment (the 29th day of May, 1865), for he saw this framed edition every morning. The man in question, Löwenthal explained, had certainly arrived at some point in June, for Löwenthal’s steam-powered press had been delivered on the first day of July, and he distinctly remembered processing the scarred man’s advertisement on his old hand-powered machine.

  How was it that his memory was so distinct upon this point? Well, upon setting the type, Löwenthal had discovered that two inches square (the standard size for a column advertisement, and the size for which the scarred man had paid) was not enough to contain the message: the advertisement was one word too long to fit in the column space available. Unless Löwenthal shuffled around his repeat notices and changed the format of the paper altogether, he would be forced to create what typographers call a ‘widow’: that is, the final word of the advertisement (which was ‘Wells’) would be marooned at the top of the third column, producing an undesirable and even confusing effect in the reader’s mind. By the time Löwenthal discovered this, the scarred man had long since left his office, and Löwenthal was disinclined to venture out into the streets to find him. Instead he looked for a word to remove, finally deciding to excise the man’s middle name, Francis. This omission would prevent the creation of a ‘widow’, and the format of his column would not be spoiled.

  The West Coast Times was published early the following morning, and well before noon, the scarred man returned. He insisted—though he did not give a reason—that it was of the utmost importance that his middle name was included. He resented very much that Löwenthal had altered his advertisement without his knowledge, and expressed his displeasure with the same plainspoken gruffness with which he had first entreated the editor’s assistance. Löwenthal, apologising profusely, printed the notice again—and five times after that, for the man had paid for a week’s worth of advertising, and Löwenthal thought it prudent, under the circumstances, to offer him a seventh printing for free.

  Therefore, as Löwenthal explained to Moody, he was certain both of the date of the event, and of the man’s full name, Crosbie Francis Wells. The event stood out in his mind: it is always his first mistake that an entrepreneur remembers, looking back upon the origins of his enterprise, and the displeasure of a patron is not easily forgotten, when one takes one’s business to heart.

  This only left the question of the man’s description—for how could Löwenthal be sure that the man in question did in fact possess a scar upon his cheek, as the ex-convict known as Francis Carver certainly did, and as the hermit known as Crosbie Wells certainly did not? Upon this final point, Löwenthal conceded that he could not be sure. Perhaps in remembering the event he had overlaid a different memory of a scar-faced man. But he wished to add that his powers of recollection were typically strong, and he could picture this man very vividly in his mind; he remembered that the man had been holding a top hat, and that he had pressed it between his palms as he spoke, as if he meant to compress the thing to a single sheet of felt. This detail, surely, could not be false! Löwenthal declared that he would be willing to wager a decent sum of money that the man he remembered had indeed possessed a scar, shaped like a sickle, upon his cheek—and that he had possessed, also, a birth certificate that bore the name Crosbie Francis Wells. Löwenthal did concede, however, that he had never known the hermit, Crosbie Wells, in life, and had no way to imagine his features, because no image or sketch of the dead man had survived him.

  This new information, as one can well imagine, gave rise to a veritable cacophony of interjection and supposition in the smoking room of the Crown Hotel, and the narrative did not resume for some time. But we shall leave them in the present, and bear onward, in the past.

  The ferry service that ran between Kaniere and the mouth of the Hokitika River had not been interrupted by the inclement weather, though their custom had slowed; the ferrymen, with no one to escort and no chores outstanding, were sitting about in the open warehouse adjacent to the quay, smoking cigarettes and playing at whist. They looked none too happy to abandon their game and venture out into the rain, and named a fare that reflected this displeasure. Mannering agreed to the sum at once, however, and the ferrymen were obliged to put away their cards, stub out their cigarettes, and set about carrying the boat down the ramp to the water.

  Kaniere was only some four miles upriver, a distance that would be covered in no time at all on the return journey, when the oarsmen no longer had to pull against
the current; the journey inland, however, could easily take up to an hour, depending on the river’s motion, the wind, and the pull of the tide. Diggers travelling back and forth between Kaniere and Hokitika usually covered that distance by coach, or on foot, but the coach had been and gone already, and the weather disinclined them to walk.

  Mannering paid the fare, and presently he and Frost were sitting in the stern of a painted dinghy (in fact it was a lifeboat, salvaged from a wreck) with the collie-dog Holly between them. The stroke-side oarsmen pushed off from the bank with the blades of their oars, and pulled strongly; soon the craft was on her way upstream.

  Sitting with their backs against the stern, Frost and Mannering found themselves face-to-face with the oarsmen, rather like a pair of outsized, well-dressed coxswains; the distance between them closed each time the oarsmen leaned forward to take another stroke. The two men therefore did not speak about the business they were about to perform, for to do so would have been to invite the oarsmen into their confidence. Instead Mannering kept up a steady flow of chatter about the weather, the Americas, soil, glass, breakfast, sluice mining, native timbers, the Baltic naval theatre, and life upon the fields. Frost, who was prone to seasickness, did not move at all, except to reach up periodically and wipe away the drips that formed beneath the brim of his hat. He responded to Mannering’s chatter only with clenched noises of agreement.