‘It is a figure of speech.’

‘Yes, it is—but the sentiment behind it is very fine. Why did you say it, if not to say, simply, that you cared for the man, and loved him, as you would love your own? “Brother” is another word for love, I think. The love we choose to give—and gladly.’

Tauwhare thought about this, and then said, ‘Some brothers you cannot choose.’

‘Ah,’ said Devlin. ‘No indeed. We cannot choose our blood, can we? We cannot choose our families. Yes: you draw a nice distinction there. Very nice.’

‘And within a family,’ Tauwhare went on, encouraged by this praise, ‘two brothers can be very different men.’

Devlin laughed. ‘Right again,’ he said. ‘Brothers can be very unalike. I had only sisters, you know. Four sisters—and all of them older. They made quite a pet of me.’ He paused, meaning to give Tauwhare the opportunity to volunteer information about his own family, but Tauwhare only repeated his observation about brothers a second time, seeming well pleased with his own perspicacity.

‘I wonder, Te Rau, if I might ask you something about Crosbie Wells,’ said Devlin suddenly.

For he had not forgotten the story that he had overheard, that morning, in the dining room of the Palace Hotel. The politician Alistair Lauderback had been convinced, for some mysterious reason, that the late Crosbie Wells and the blackmailer Francis Carver had been brothers, despite the fact that they did not appear to share a name; why Lauderback believed this, however, he had refused to say. Perhaps Tauwhare, as Wells’s great friend, knew something about it.

Tauwhare was frowning. ‘Do not ask me about the fortune,’ he said. ‘I know nothing of the fortune. I have been questioned already, by the Magistrate, and by the police, and by the keeper of the gaol. I do not want to give my answers another time.’

‘Oh no—I’m not interested in the fortune,’ Devlin said. ‘I wanted to ask you about a man named Carver. Francis Carver.’

Tauwhare stiffened. ‘Why?’

‘I heard that he was an old acquaintance of Mr. Wells’s. Apparently there’s some unfinished business between the two of them. Something—criminal.’

Tauwhare said nothing. His eyes were narrowed.

‘Do you know anything about it?’ Devlin said.

When, on the morning of the 14th of January, Te Rau Tauwhare had told Francis Carver, for a price of two shillings, where Crosbie Wells was living, he had not felt as though he were placing his friend in any kind of danger. The offer itself was not unusual, and nor was the manner of its expression. Men often offered rewards for news of fellows who had been lost upon the goldfields: not only brothers, but fathers, uncles, sons, debtors, partners, and mates. There was the missing persons page in the newspaper, of course, but not every digger could read, and still fewer had the time or the inclination to keep abreast of the daily news. It was cheaper, and sometimes more efficient, to offer a reward by word of mouth instead. Tauwhare collected his two shillings quite happily; when, later that same evening, he saw Carver approach Wells’s cottage, knock, and enter, it did not occur to him to be suspicious. He decided that he would sleep the night on the ridge beside his snares, so that Carver and Wells might conduct their reunion in private. He assumed that Carver was an old associate from Wells’s years in Dunedin, and did not speculate beyond this assumption.

The following morning, however, Wells was found dead; on the day of his funeral, a phial of laudanum was discovered under his cot; some days after that, it was revealed that Carver’s ship, the Godspeed, had departed on the night of the 14th of January, off schedule, and under the cover of darkness. Tauwhare was horrified. All evidence seemed to point to the fact that Francis Carver had played a part in the hermit’s death—and if this was true, then it was Te Rau Tauwhare who had equipped him with the means to do so, by telling him explicitly where Wells could be found! Still more horrible: he had received payment for his betrayal.

Tauwhare’s sense of self-mastery, integral to his self-conception, did not permit unwitting action. The knowledge that he had betrayed his friend for money was deeply shaming to him, and this shame manifested as a disgusted outrage that was directed both inward and outward at once. He spent the days following Wells’s burial in a very black humour, grinding his teeth, pulling on his forelock, and cursing Francis Carver with every step.

Devlin’s inquiry prompted a renewal of this ill humour. Tauwhare’s eyes flashed, and his chin lifted. ‘If there is unfinished business between them,’ he said angrily, ‘it is finished now.’

‘Of course,’ Devlin said, raising his palms to pacify the other man’s temper, ‘but here: I heard a rumour somewhere that they were brothers. Crosbie Wells and Carver. It might only be a figure of speech, as you put it, but I wanted to make sure.’

Tauwhare was bewildered by this; to cover his bewilderment, he scowled at the chaplain very darkly.

‘Do you know anything about it?’

‘No,’ Tauwhare said, spitting out the word.

‘Wells never mentioned a man named Carver to you?’

‘No.’

Devlin, perceiving that Tauwhare’s mood had soured, decided to try a different approach. ‘How did Crosbie Wells get on, then—learning Maori?’

‘Not as good as my English,’ said Tauwhare.

‘That I do not doubt! Your English is extremely good.’

Tauwhare lifted his chin. ‘I have travelled with surveyors. I have led many men over the mountains.’

Devlin smiled. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I believe I feel a touch of the kindred spirit in you, Te Rau. I think that we are not so very different, you and I—sharing our stories, sharing our language, finding brothers in other men. I think that we are not so very different at all.’

Here Devlin spoke whimsically rather than perceptively. His years as a clergyman had taught him that it was prudent always to begin upon a point of connexion, or to forge one, if a connexion did not yet exist. This practice was not dishonest exactly, but it was true that, if pressed, Devlin would not have been able to describe this apparent similarity in any great detail, before devolving into generality.

‘I am not a man of God,’ said Tauwhare, frowning.

‘And yet there is much of God in you,’ Devlin replied. ‘I believe you must have an instinct for prayer, Te Rau—to have come here today. To pay respects at your dear friend’s grave—to pray over him, indeed.’

Tauwhare shook his head. ‘I don’t pray for Crosbie. I remember him.’

‘That’s all right,’ Devlin said. ‘That’s fine. Remembering is a very good place to start.’ Smiling slightly, he pressed the pads of his fingers together, and then tilted both hands downward—his clerical pose. ‘Prayers often begin as memories. When we remember those whom we have loved, and miss them, naturally we hope for their safety and their happiness, wherever they might be. That hope turns into a wish, and whenever a wish is voiced, even silently, even without words, it becomes a supplication. Perhaps we don’t know to whom we’re speaking; perhaps we ask before we truly know who’s listening, or before we even believe that listener exists. But I judge it a very fine beginning, to make a practice of remembering those people we have loved. When we remember others fondly, we wish them health and happiness and all good things. These are the prayers of a Christian man. The Christian man looks outward, Te Rau; he loves others first, himself second. This is why the Christian man has many brothers. Alike and unalike. For none of us are so dissimilar—would you not agree?—when perceived from a collective point of view.’

(We do perceive, from the advantage of this collective point of view, that Te Rau Tauwhare and Cowell Devlin are indeed very similar in a great many ways; the most pertinent of these, however, are to go both unobserved and unremarked. Neither man possesses curiosity enough to disturb the other’s prideful equanimity, nor truly to draw him out: they are to stand forever proximal, one the act of his own self-expression, the other, the proof of it.)