The Luminaries

Tauwhare has been up north in Greymouth since January 27. He has just returned and goes to meet Löwenthal at his newspaper office to put an ad in looking for work. Löwenthal asks Tauwhare if he will be attending the séance Lydia Wells is holding that evening—she has newly renamed the hotel the Wayfarer’s Fortune hotel. At the séance, she intends to contact Emery Staines, who is still missing. Löwenthal tells Tauwhare that the Godspeed has been hauled out of the water and workers are needed to rescue the cargo. Tauwhare tells him that he isn’t interested in that work and that he won’t be attending the séance.

Then, Löwenthal tells Tauwhare that the barrister John Fellowes from the Greymouth has been brought to town to sort out the dispute over Crosbie’s death, the sale of his estate, and the claim on it made by Lydia Wells. Löwenthal believes this means there will be a murder trial. He also says Tauwhare should go to the séance that evening out of loyalty to his dead friend, Crosbie Wells.

Lauderback and Balfour are out hunting game. After the Godspeed was wrecked, Balfour told Lauderback that his crate had disappeared. However, Lauderback doesn’t care about it because he only needed it to prove that Carver had used a false name on the contract of sale of the Godspeed; now that the Godspeed is ruined, there is no point trying to get it back. Balfour insinuates to Lauderback that Nilssen had used his commission from the sale of Crosbie’s affairs to fund the construction of the new prison for Shepard. Lauderback insists that Shepard is a “thief” for spending Crosbie’s money, especially as the estate is still in dispute. They discuss where the gold might have come from, and Balfour observes that the amount of gold Carver smuggled in the Godspeed by having them sewn into the dresses is roughly the same amount as was found in Crosbie’s cottage after his death.

When he arrives home, Lauderback writes an open letter for Löwenthal to print in the newspaper, the West Coast Times. The letter states that Shepard is using Crosbie’s estate to privately fund the construction of the jail.

Moody and Gascoigne, who have become “cordial acquaintance[s]” since the January 27 meeting, are eating lunch together when Moody is informed that his trunk has been found on the Godspeed and delivered to his room. They discuss the séance, which they were not able to get tickets to, and Gascoigne tells Moody that Anna Wetherell will be there as an “assistant” to the medium, Lydia. They presume that Anna has not told Lydia that she has Lydia’s gold-filled dresses and that she hasn’t sent for the dresses from Clinch’s hotel since she moved into the Wayfarer’s Fortune hotel with Lydia.

Löwenthal is reviewing Lauderback’s letter and is preparing a copy to send to Shepard for a response when Francis Carver arrives in his office to place an advertisement. Löwenthal presses Carver about what his real name is, since in June 1865 he used a birth certificate in the name of Crosbie Francis Wells to publish another advertisement in the paper. Carver says he was placing the ad on Wells’s at that time behalf because he was an old friend. Löwenthal tells Carver that the dispute over Crosbie’s estate has been halted because Crosbie’s birth certificate can’t be found, and it is needed to identify Crosbie. Carver places an advertisement about an auction of the Godspeed’s parts on Friday.

Löwenthal confronts Carver about beating Anna when she was pregnant with his child until she miscarried. Carver denies that he was the father of the baby.

Ah Sook misses Anna and wants to see her. Because of the language barrier, he does not know that Carver has not sailed to Canton, but instead is still in Hokitika because the Godspeed is wrecked. Sook goes to the Wayfarer’s Fortune Hotel to see Anna. She looks sober, but thin. While they talk, Lydia appears; Sook and Lydia recognize each other. Lydia insists that Sook come to the séance that evening to add “an Oriental presence” to the proceedings (415). Sook asks Lydia if she is Carver’s wife, and he is surprised to learn that she is Crosbie’s wife. Lydia decides Sook will sit in the parlor during the séance as a kind of décor. He does not know what a séance is. After Lydia’s explanation, he decides it is a kind of theater performance where Emery Staines will appear. Since he wants to speak to Staines, he agrees to attend.

After Sook and Lydia leave the Wayfarer’s Fortune Hotel, Anna sees Lydia go into the Palace Hotel.

Nilssen is summoned to see Shepard. Shepard tells him that he has received a copy of Lauderback’s open letter that will be published in the newspaper the next day. He asks Nilssen who exactly he told about their arrangement. Nilssen refuses to give up the names of the men who met at the Crown Hotel. However, he tells Shepard that Lydia was Lauderback’s mistress and that someone, possibly Staines, had been blackmailing Lauderback over this. He also tells Shepard that Devlin has a copy of a contract documenting a gift of 4,000 pounds of gold from Staines to Anna, witnessed by Crosbie; Nilssen also says that Devlin probably told Lauderback about Nilssen and Shepard’s arrangement.

Shepard finds the contract in Devlin’s Bible and confronts him about it. Shepard tells Devlin to go to the séance to ask Anna about it. Then, Shepard writes an open response to Lauderback’s letter, describing Nilssen’s contribution to the jail as a donation and revealing Lauderback’s affair with Lydia.

Gascoigne tells Carver that the cost of recovery of the Godspeed might still be covered by the protection and indemnity insurance that Lauderback had taken out on the ship, since it has been less than a year since Carver has owned it. Gascoigne learned this while reviewing records to try and find a connection between Shepard, Lauderback, and Crosbie, although he had found nothing linking the men.

Sook returns to Kaniere to talk to Quee. The sight of Lydia makes him think about his long history with Carver. When Carver was 21 and Sook was 12, Carver worked with Sook’s father, a warehouse manager in Kwangchow (also known as Canton). In 1839, Sook’s father was executed when opium was found in his warehouse and Carver took over management of the business. Sook went to work for Carver, packing exports. In 1854, Carver told Sook he was leaving the export business and going into trade between Sydney and the goldfields in Victoria, Australia. Sook begged to go with Carver, and he begrudgingly agreed.

When they arrived in Sydney, Sook’s hat, which had all his money in it, was stolen. Sook went to the brothel where Carver was staying to ask for his help. There, Sook was beaten, and Carver ignored him. A barmaid treated Sook’s wounds and gave him opium for the pain. Sook noticed that the opium was stamped with his family name. He realized that Carver had been using his father’s warehouse to smuggle opium into China, which had led to Sook’s father’s execution. While Sook recovered from his injuries in a barn near the brothel, he often saw Carver with a woman with red hair—that was Lydia, the owner of the brothel. About a week later, he went into the brothel to kill Carver for his betrayal. When he burst into the bedroom, he saw the barmaid who had tended to his wounds being strangled by the man who had beaten him. There was a struggle and the woman shot the man in the head. Sook was arrested. At the trial, the barmaid, Margaret Shepard, insisted that her husband, Jeremy Shepard, shot himself, and Sook was acquitted.

Upon his release, Sook learned that Carver had been arrested for human trafficking and sentenced to 10 years in prison on Cockatoo Island. In 1864, Sook learned that Carver had gone to Dunedin, followed him there, and then wound up on the West Coast in Hokitika, where he found Carver again.

Back in the present, Sook asks Quee to go to the séance with him that evening. Despite his misgivings, Quee agrees, since he, too, wants to talk to Staines.

Moody returns to his room at the Crown Hotel and realizes that Lauderback’s trunk had been delivered to him instead of his own. In the trunk, he finds the contract of sale, which Carver had signed in an ambiguous way so it could be read as either “Francis Wells” or “C. Francis Wells.” He also finds a series of letters from Crosbie Wells to Lauderback, dating from March 1852 to a few weeks before Crosbie’s death. The letters reveal that Crosbie was Lauderback’s half-brother from an affair their father had with a sex worker named Sue Butcher. In June 1862, Crosbie writes that he had married Lydia. In a letter from March 1864, Crosbie says he has made a fortune in gold, but by June 1865 he has lost it. In his final letter, written in December 1865, he invites Lauderback to visit his cottage during his trip to Hokitika.

Moody concludes that Lydia, with whom Lauderback had an affair, had told Carver about Lauderback’s half-brother and they used this information to blackmail Lauderback. Carver probably used the surname “Wells” in the deal to suggest that he, too, was Lauderback’s half-brother. Moody replaces the letters in the trunk and has the maid take it away and look for his own.

Mannering arrives at the Wayfarer’s Fortune Hotel for the party before the séance. Lydia tells him he cannot speak with Anna. Sook and Quee are sitting in the parlor. By 8:00 pm, Frost, Pritchard, Balfour, Clinch, Tauwhare, Löwenthal, Gascoigne, Moody, and Nilssen are all gathered at the hotel. Löwenthal tells Clinch that Carver denied he was the father of Anna’s child, and they argue about it. Gascoigne tells Lydia that Moody arrived on the Godspeed. The séance begins.

Out of the 13 men who met at the Crown Hotel in Part 1, only Frost, Nilssen, Sook, and Quee are present at the séance itself. They, along with the five other men at the séance, arrange themselves in a circle. Lydia lights some candles and turns off the lamp. Then, Anna enters, and Frost thinks she looks like she is starving. Lydia goes into convulsions and in her “trance” says something to Sook in Cantonese. She falls onto the floor, knocking the candles onto the table, which goes up in flames. The men put out the fire. Sook translates the message into English: “One day I come back and kill you. You kill a man. He die—so you die. I come back and kill you, one day” (513). He explains that the message came from Carver. The men say Carver isn’t dead; he is at the Palace Hotel. Sook is surprised to learn of Carver’s whereabouts and leaves the Wayfarer’s Fortune. He recognizes the message as something he himself had said. He vows to kill Carver.