The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton Page B

why—just that it was on account of a murder that he was being pursued.’
    ‘Didn’t give you any names?’
    ‘No,’ said Lauderback. ‘None at all.’
    Balfour frowned. ‘Where do you figure in all that? I hear that as another man’s quarrel. Or another man’s boast. But in either case, nothing to do with you.’
    Lauderback drew closer. ‘Here’s the heart of it,’ he said. ‘He told me I’d been marked as his mate. As his associate. When this avenger caught up with him, and came to take
his
life … well, after that, the man would come for me.’
    ‘You’d been marked?’ Balfour said. ‘Marked how?’
    Lauderback shrugged and sat back. ‘I don’t know exactly. Of course I’d been at the gambling house a fair bit—and I’d been out and about with Lydia, here and there. I might have been spied upon.’
    ‘Spying’s one thing,’ said Balfour. ‘But how could a man be marked without his knowing? Marked—like a tattoo—without his knowing! Come—this is only half a tale, Mr. Lauderback! Where’s the meat of it?’
    Lauderback looked embarrassed. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Have you heard of a twinkle?’
    ‘A what?’
    ‘A twinkle. It’s a piece of glass, or a jewel, or a scrap of a mirror, that’s inserted into the end of a cigar. One can still smoke quite easily around it, and when the cigar’s in the mouth, like so, you can’t see it at all. Gamblers use them. The gambler’s smoking while he plays; he takes the cigar from his mouth, like this, and holds the thing in his hand in such a way that the twinkle shows him a reflection of another player’s cards. Or he uses it to show his partner his own hand, if he’s playing doubles. It’s a type of cheat.’
    Balfour held an imaginary cigar in his hand, splaying his first two knuckles, and extended his arm across the table.
    ‘Now,’ he said, ‘that seems like a d—ned inefficient way to cheat. So many ways it could fail! What if you were holding your cards close, now? What if you kept them flat on the table? Look: if I reached my arm across the table, like so … you’d pull your cards back, wouldn’t you? Go on—you’d shrink away!’
    ‘Never mind the details,’ said Lauderback. ‘The point is—’
    ‘And a fool of a risk,’ said Balfour. ‘How’s a man to make an excuse for a tiny mirror stuck into the end of his cigar?’
    ‘The point is,’ said Lauderback. ‘Never mind the details. The point is that Wells—Carver, I mean—said that he had a twinkle on me.’
    Balfour was still flexing his wrist and cocking his elbow, squinting at the invisible cigar in his hand. He stopped now, and closed his fist. ‘Meaning,’ he said, ‘some way to read your cards.’
    ‘But I don’t know what it was,’ said Lauderback. ‘I still don’t. It’s driven me mad.’ He reached for the pitcher of wine.
    Balfour was wearing a sceptical expression. What kind of leverage was this? A vague mention of revenge, no proper names, no context, and some rubbish about a gambler’s cheat? This was not enough to merit blackmail. Plainly, Lauderback was still concealing something. He nodded to indicate that Lauderback should fill his glass.
    Lauderback set the pitcher back on the table and resumed. ‘Before he left,’ he said, ‘he asked for one thing, and one thing only. Raxworthy was short a hand on the
Godspeed
—it had been advertised in the papers, and Wells had heard about it.’
    ‘Carver.’
    ‘Yes: Carver had heard about it. He asked me if I’d put in a word for him. He was going down to the quay in the morning to apply. Asked me the favour man to man.’
    ‘You did as he asked?’
    ‘I did,’ Lauderback said heavily.
    ‘There’s another twinkle on you, maybe,’ said Balfour.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Another connexion, now—the ship—between you both.’
    Lauderback thought about that for a moment, seeming verydejected. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But what could I have done? He had me tied up.’
    Balfour felt a sudden