taking place on their periphery began to approach a kind of resolution, and the fat man’s patter subsided. The dark-haired man returned, sitting down in his former position on Moody’s left; Balfour came after him, carrying two sizeable measures of brandy. He passed one of the glasses to Moody, waved his hand at the latter’s thanks, and sat down.
‘I owe an explanation,’ he said, ‘for the rudeness with which I was questioning you just now, Mr. Moody—you needn’t demur, it’s quite true. The truth is—the truth is—well, the truth, sir, deserves a tale, and that’s as short as I can make it.’
‘If you would be so kind as to enter our confidence,’ Gascoigne added, from Balfour’s other side, in a rather nasty show of false politeness.
The dark-haired man sat forward in his chair suddenly and added, ‘Does any man present wish to voice his reservations?’
Moody looked around him, blinking, but nobody spoke.
Balfour nodded; he waited a moment more, as if to append his own courtesy to that of the other, and then resumed.
‘Let me tell you at once,’ he said to Moody, ‘that a man has been murdered. That blackguard of yours—Carver, I mean; I shan’t call him Captain—he is the murderer, though I’ll be d—ned if I could tell you how or why. I just know it, as sure as I see that glass in your hand. Now: if you’d do me the honour of hearing a piece of that villain’s history, then you might … well, you might be willing to help us, placed as you are.’
‘Excuse me, sir,’ Moody said. At the mention of murder his heart had begun to beat very fast: perhaps this had something to do with the phantom aboard the
Godspeed
, after all. ‘How am I placed?’
‘With your trunk still aboard the barque, is what he means,’ the dark-haired man said. ‘And your appointment at the customhouse to-morrow afternoon.’
Balfour looked faintly annoyed; he waved his hand. ‘Let us talk of that in a moment,’ he said. ‘I entreat you, first, to hear the story out.’
‘Certainly I will listen,’ Moody returned, with the slightest emphasis on the last word, as though to caution the other man against expecting, or demanding, anything more. He thought he saw a smirk pass over Gascoigne’s pale face, but in the next moment the man’s features had soured again.
‘Of course—of course,’ Balfour said, taking the point. He put down his brandy glass, laced his knuckles together, and cracked them smartly. ‘Well, then. I shall endeavour to acquaint you, Mr. Moody, with the cause of our assembly.’
JUPITER IN SAGITTARIUS
In which the merits of asylum are discussed; a family name comes into question; Alistair Lauderback is discomfited; and the shipping agent tells a lie
.
Balfour’s narrative, made somewhat circuitous by interruption, and generally encumbered by the lyrical style of that man’s speech, became severely muddled in the telling, and several hours passed before Moody finally understood with clarity the order of events that had precipitated the secret council in the hotel smoking room.
The interruptions were too tiresome, and Balfour’s approach too digressive, to deserve a full and faithful record in the men’s own words. We shall here excise their imperfections, and impose a regimental order upon the impatient chronicle of the shipping agent’s roving mind; we shall apply our own mortar to the cracks and chinks of earthly recollection, and resurrect as new the edifice that, in solitary memory, exists only as a ruin.
We begin, as Balfour himself began, with an encounter that had taken place in Hokitika that very morning.
Prior to the dawn of the West Coast rush—when Hokitika was no more than a brown mouth open to the ocean, and the gold on her beaches shone quiet and unseen—Thomas Balfour lived in the province of Otago, and conducted his business from a small shingle -roofed building on the Dunedin harbour front, under a calicobanner that bore the legend Balfour & Harnett,
‘I owe an explanation,’ he said, ‘for the rudeness with which I was questioning you just now, Mr. Moody—you needn’t demur, it’s quite true. The truth is—the truth is—well, the truth, sir, deserves a tale, and that’s as short as I can make it.’
‘If you would be so kind as to enter our confidence,’ Gascoigne added, from Balfour’s other side, in a rather nasty show of false politeness.
The dark-haired man sat forward in his chair suddenly and added, ‘Does any man present wish to voice his reservations?’
Moody looked around him, blinking, but nobody spoke.
Balfour nodded; he waited a moment more, as if to append his own courtesy to that of the other, and then resumed.
‘Let me tell you at once,’ he said to Moody, ‘that a man has been murdered. That blackguard of yours—Carver, I mean; I shan’t call him Captain—he is the murderer, though I’ll be d—ned if I could tell you how or why. I just know it, as sure as I see that glass in your hand. Now: if you’d do me the honour of hearing a piece of that villain’s history, then you might … well, you might be willing to help us, placed as you are.’
‘Excuse me, sir,’ Moody said. At the mention of murder his heart had begun to beat very fast: perhaps this had something to do with the phantom aboard the
Godspeed
, after all. ‘How am I placed?’
‘With your trunk still aboard the barque, is what he means,’ the dark-haired man said. ‘And your appointment at the customhouse to-morrow afternoon.’
Balfour looked faintly annoyed; he waved his hand. ‘Let us talk of that in a moment,’ he said. ‘I entreat you, first, to hear the story out.’
‘Certainly I will listen,’ Moody returned, with the slightest emphasis on the last word, as though to caution the other man against expecting, or demanding, anything more. He thought he saw a smirk pass over Gascoigne’s pale face, but in the next moment the man’s features had soured again.
‘Of course—of course,’ Balfour said, taking the point. He put down his brandy glass, laced his knuckles together, and cracked them smartly. ‘Well, then. I shall endeavour to acquaint you, Mr. Moody, with the cause of our assembly.’
JUPITER IN SAGITTARIUS
In which the merits of asylum are discussed; a family name comes into question; Alistair Lauderback is discomfited; and the shipping agent tells a lie
.
Balfour’s narrative, made somewhat circuitous by interruption, and generally encumbered by the lyrical style of that man’s speech, became severely muddled in the telling, and several hours passed before Moody finally understood with clarity the order of events that had precipitated the secret council in the hotel smoking room.
The interruptions were too tiresome, and Balfour’s approach too digressive, to deserve a full and faithful record in the men’s own words. We shall here excise their imperfections, and impose a regimental order upon the impatient chronicle of the shipping agent’s roving mind; we shall apply our own mortar to the cracks and chinks of earthly recollection, and resurrect as new the edifice that, in solitary memory, exists only as a ruin.
We begin, as Balfour himself began, with an encounter that had taken place in Hokitika that very morning.
Prior to the dawn of the West Coast rush—when Hokitika was no more than a brown mouth open to the ocean, and the gold on her beaches shone quiet and unseen—Thomas Balfour lived in the province of Otago, and conducted his business from a small shingle -roofed building on the Dunedin harbour front, under a calicobanner that bore the legend Balfour & Harnett,
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