WHEN the gentlemen entered the
drawing-room a young lady was engaged in playing one
of those detestable pieces of the Morceau de
Salon order, in which an unoffending air is
taken, and variations embroidered on it, till it
becomes a perfect agony to distinguish the tune, amid
the perpetual rattle of quavers and demi-semi-quavers.
The melody in this case was "Over the Garden Wall,"
with variations by Signor Thumpanini, and the young
lady who played it was a pupil of that celebrated
Italian musician. When the male portion of the guests
entered, the air was being played in the bass with a
great deal of power (that is, the loud pedal was
down), and with a perpetual rattle of treble notes,
trying with all their shrill might to drown the tune.
"Gad! it's getting over the garden
wall in a hailstorm," said Felix, as he strolled over
to the piano, for he saw that the musician was Dora
Featherweight, an heiress to whom he was then paying
attention, in the hope that she might be induced to
take the name of Rolleston. So, when the fair Dora had
paralysed her audience with one final bang and rattle,
as if the gentleman going over the garden wall had
tumbled into the cucumber-frame, Felix was loud in his
expressions of delight.
"Such power, you know, Miss
Featherweight," he said, sinking into a chair, and
mentally wondering if any of the piano strings had
given way at that last crash. "You put your heart into
it and all your muscle, too, by gad," he added
mentally.
"It's nothing but practice," answered
Miss Featherweight, with a modest blush. "I am at the
piano four hours every day."
"Good heavens!" thought Felix, "what a
time the family must have of it." But he kept this
remark to himself, and, screwing his eye-glass into
his left organ of vision, merely ejaculated, "Lucky
piano."
Miss Featherweight, not being able to
think of any answer to this, looked down and blushed,
while the ingenuous Felix looked up and sighed.
Madge and Brian were in a corner of
the room talking over Whyte's death.
"I never liked him," she said, "but it
is horrible to think of him dying like that."
"I don't know," answered Brian,
gloomily; "from all I can hear dying by chloroform is
a very easy death."
"Death can never be easy," replied
Madge, "especially to a young man so full of health
and spirits as Mr. Whyte was."
"I believe you are sorry he's dead,"
said Brian, jealously.
"Aren't you?" she asked in some
surprise.
"De mortuis nil nisi bonum,"
quoted Fitzgerald. "But as I detested him when alive,
you can't expect me to regret his end."
Madge did not answer him, but glanced
quickly at his face, and for the first time it struck
her that he looked ill.
"What is the matter with you, dear?"
she asked, placing her hand on his arm. "You are not
looking well."
"Nothing nothing," he answered
hurriedly. "I've been a little worried about business
lately but come," he said, rising, "let us go
outside, for I see your father has got that girl with
the steam-whistle voice to sing."
The girl with the steam-whistle voice
was Julia Featherweight, the sister of Rolleston's
inamorata, and Madge stifled a laugh as she went on to
the verandah with Fitzgerald.
"What a shame of you," she said,
bursting into a laugh when they were safely outside;
"she's been taught by the best masters."
"How I pity them," retorted Brian,
grimly, as Julia wailed out, "Meet me once again,"
with an ear-piercing shrillness.
"I'd much rather listen to our
ancestral Banshee, and as to meeting her again, one
interview would be more than enough." Madge did not
answer, but leaning lightly over the high rail of the
verandah looked out into the beautiful moonlit night.
There were a number of people passing along the
Esplanade, some of whom stopped and listened to
Julia's shrill notes. One man in particular seemed to
have a taste for music, for he persistently stared
over the fence at the house. Brian and Madge talked of
divers subjects, but every time Madge looked up she
saw the man watching the house.
"What does that man want, Brian?" she
asked.
"What man?" asked Brian, starting.
"Oh," he went on indifferently, as the watcher moved
away from the gate and crossed the road on to the
footpath, "he's taken up with the music, I suppose;
that's all."
Madge said nothing, but she could not
help thinking there was more in it than the music.
Presently Julia ceased, and she proposed to go in.
"Why?" asked Brian, who was lying back
in a comfortable seat, smoking a cigarette. "It's nice
enough here."
"I must attend to my guests," she
answered, rising. "You stop here and finish your
cigarette," and with a gay laugh she flitted into the
house.
Brian sat and smoked, staring out into
the moonlight the while. Yes, the man was certainly
watching the house, for he sat on one of the seats,
and kept his eyes fixed on the brilliantly-lighted
windows. Brian threw away his cigarette and shivered
slightly.
"Could anyone have seen me?" he
muttered, rising uneasily. "Pshaw! of course not; and
the cabman would never recognise me again. Curse
Whyte, I wish I'd never set eyes upon him."
He gave one glance at the dark figure
on the seat, and then, with a shiver, passed into the
warm, well-lighted room. He did not feel easy in his
mind, and he would have felt still less so had he
known that the man on the seat was one of the
cleverest of the Melbourne detectives.
Mr. Gorby had been watching the
Frettlby mansion the whole evening, and was getting
rather annoyed. Moreland did not know where Fitzgerald
lived, and as that was one of the primary facts the
detective wished to ascertain, he determined to watch
Brian's movements, and to trace him home.
"If he's the lover of that pretty
girl, I'll wait till he leaves the house," argued Mr.
Gorby to himself, as he took his seat on the
Esplanade. "He won't long remain away from her, and
once he leaves the house it will be no difficult
matter to find out where he lives."
When Brian made his appearance early
in the evening, on his way to Mark Frettlby's mansion,
he wore evening dress, a light overcoat, and a soft
hat.
"Well, I'm dashed!" ejaculated Mr.
Gorby, when he saw Fitzgerald disappear; "if he isn't
a fool I don't know who is,
to go about in the very clothes he wore when he
polished Whyte off, and think he won't be recognised.
Melbourne ain't Paris or London, that he can afford to
be so careless, and when I put the darbies on him he
will be astonished. Ah, well," he went on, lighting
his pipe and taking a seat on the Esplanade, "I
suppose I'll have to wait here till he comes out."
Mr. Gorby's patience was pretty
severely tried, for hour after hour passed, and no one
appeared. He smoked several pipes, and watched the
people strolling along in the soft silver moonlight. A
bevy of girls passed by with their arms round one
another's waists. Then a young man and woman,
evidently lovers, came walking along. They sat down by
Mr. Gorby and looked hard at him, to hint that he need
not stay. But the detective took no heed of them, and
kept his eyes steadily upon the great house opposite.
Finally, the lovers took themselves off with a very
bad grace.
Then Mr. Gorby saw Madge and Brian
come out on to the verandah, and heard in the
stillness of the night, a sound weird and unearthly.
It was Miss Featherweight singing. He saw Madge go in,
shortly followed by Brian. The latter turned and
stared at him for a moment.
"Ah," said Gorby to himself as he
re-lit his pipe; "your conscience is a-smiting you, is
it? Wait a bit, my boy, till I have you in gaol."
Then the guests came out of the house,
and their black figures disappeared one by one from
the moonlight as they shook hands and said good-night.
Shortly after Brian came down the path
with Frettlby at his side, and Madge hanging on her
father's arm. Frettlby opened the gate and held out
his hand.
"Good-night, Fitzgerald," he said, in
a hearty voice; "come soon again."
"Good-night, Brian, dearest," said
Madge, kissing him, "and don't forget to-morrow."
Then father and daughter closed the
gate, leaving Brian outside, and walked back to the
house.
"Ah!" said Mr. Gorby to himself, "if
you only knew what I know, you wouldn't be so precious
kind to him."
Brian strolled along the Esplanade,
and crossing over, passed by Gorby and walked on till
he was opposite the Esplanade Hotel. Then he leaned
his arms on the fence, and, taking off his hat,
enjoyed the calm beauty of the hour.
"What a good-looking fellow," murmured
Mr. Gorby, in a regretful tone. "I can hardly believe
it of him, but the proofs are too clear."
The night was perfectly still. Not a
breath of wind stirred, for what breeze there had been
had long since died away. But Brian could see the
white wavelets breaking lightly on the sands. The long
narrow pier ran out like a black thread into the sheet
of gleaming silver, and away in the distance the line
of the Williamstown lights sparkled like some fairy
illumination.
Over all this placid scene of land and
water was a sky such as Doré loved a
great heavy mass of rain-clouds heaped one on top of
the other, as the rocks the Titans piled to reach
Olympus. Then a break in the woof, and a bit of dark
blue sky could be seen glittering with stars, in the
midst of which sailed the serene moon, shedding down
her light on the cloudland beneath, giving to it all,
one silver lining.
Somewhat to the annoyance of Mr.
Gorby, who had no eye for the picturesque, Brian gazed
at the sky for several minutes, admiring the wonderful
beauty of its broken masses of light and shade. At
length he lit a cigarette and walked down the steps on
to the pier.
"Oh, suicide, is it?" muttered Mr.
Gorby. "Not if I can help it." And he lit his pipe and
followed him.
He found Brian leaning over the
parapet at the end of the pier, looking at the
glittering waters beneath, which kept rising and
falling in a dreamy rhythm, that soothed and charmed
the ear. "Poor girl! poor girl!" the detective heard
him mutter as he came up. "If she only knew all! If
she "
At this moment he heard the
approaching step, and turned round sharply. The
detective saw that his face was ghastly pale in the
moonlight, and his brows wrinkled in anger.
"What the devil do you want?" he burst
out, as Gorby paused. "What do you mean by following
me all over the place?"
"Saw me watching the house," said
Gorby to himself. "I'm not following you, sir," he
said aloud. "I suppose the pier ain't private
property. I only came down here for a breath of fresh
air."
Fitzgerald did not answer, but turned
sharply on his heel, and walked quickly up the pier,
leaving Gorby staring after him.
"He's getting frightened,"
soliloquised the detective to himself, as he strolled
easily along, keeping the black figure in front well
in view. "I'll have to keep a sharp eye on him or
he'll be clearing out of Victoria."
Brian walked rapidly up to the St.
Kilda station, for on looking at his watch he found
that he would just have time to catch the last train.
He arrived a few minutes before it started, so,
getting into the smoking carriage at the near end of
the platform, he lit a cigarette, and, leaning back in
his seat, watched the late comers hurrying into the
station. Just as the last bell rang he saw a man rush
along, to catch the train. It was the same man who had
been watching him the whole evening, and Brian felt
confident that he was being
followed. He comforted himself, however, with the
thought that this pertinacious follower might lose the
train, and, being in the last carriage himself, he
kept a look out along the platform, expecting to see
his friend of the Esplanade standing disappointed on
it. There was no appearance of him, so Brian, sinking
back into his seat, lamented his ill-luck in not
shaking off this man who kept him under such strict
surveillance.
"Confound him!" he muttered softly. "I
expect he will follow me to East Melbourne, and find
out where I live, but he shan't if I can help it."
There was no one but himself in the
carriage, and he felt relieved at this because he was
in no humour to hear chatter.
"Murdered in a cab," he said, lighting
a fresh cigarette, and blowing a cloud of smoke. "A
romance in real life, which beats Miss Braddon hollow.
There is one thing certain, he won't come between
Madge and me again. Poor Madge!" with an impatient
sigh. "If she only knew all, there would not be much
chance of our marriage; but she can never find out,
and I don't suppose anyone else will."
Here a thought suddenly struck him,
and rising out of his seat, he walked to the other end
of the carriage, and threw himself on the cushions, as
if desirous to escape from himself.
"What grounds can that man have for
suspecting me?" he said aloud. "No one knows I was
with Whyte on that night, and the police can't
possibly bring forward any evidence to show that I
was. Pshaw!" he went on, impatiently buttoning up his
coat. "I am like a child, afraid of my shadow
the fellow on the pier is only some one out for a
breath of fresh air, as he said himself I am
quite safe."
At the same time, he felt by no means
easy in his mind, and as he stepped out on to the
platform at the Melbourne
station he looked round apprehensively, as if he half
expected to feel the detective's hand upon his
shoulder. But he saw no one at all like the man he had
met on the St. Kilda pier, and with a sigh of relief
he left the station. Mr. Gorby, however, was not far
away. He was following at a safe distance. Brian
walked slowly along Flinders Street apparently deep in
thought. He turned up Russell Street and did not stop
until he found himself close to the Burke and Wills'
monument the exact spot where the cab had
stopped on the night of Whyte's murder.
"Ah!" said the detective to himself,
as he stood in the shadow on the opposite side of the
street. "You're going to have a look at it, are you?
I wouldn't, if I were you it's
dangerous."
Fitzgerald stood for a few minutes at
the corner, and then walked up Collins Street. When he
got to the cab-stand, opposite the Melbourne Club,
still suspecting he was followed, he hailed a hansom,
and drove away in the direction of Spring Street.
Gorby was rather perplexed at this sudden move, but
without delay, he hailed another cab, and told the
driver to follow the first till it stopped.
"Two can play at that game," he said,
settling himself back in the cab, "and I'll get the
better of you, clever as you are and you are
clever," he went on in a tone of admiration, as he
looked round the luxurious hansom, "to choose such a
convenient place for a murder; no disturbance and
plenty of time for escape after you had finished; it's
a pleasure going after a chap like you, instead of
after men who tumble down like ripe fruit, and ain't
got any brains to keep their crime quiet."
While the detective thus soliloquised,
his cab, following on the trail of the other, had
turned down Spring Street, and was being driven
rapidly along the Wellington Parade, in the
direction of East Melbourne. It then turned up Powlett
Street, at which Mr. Gorby was glad.
"Ain't so clever as I thought," he
said to himself. "Shows his nest right off, without
any attempt to hide it."
The detective, however, had reckoned
without his host, for the cab in front kept driving
on, through an interminable maze of streets, until it
seemed as though Brian were determined to drive the
whole night.
"Look 'ere, sir!" cried Gorby's
cabman, looking through his trap-door in the roof of
the hansom, "'ow long's this 'ere game agoin' to larst?
My 'oss is knocked up, 'e is, and 'is blessed old legs
is agivin' way under 'im!"
"Go on! go on!" answered the
detective, impatiently; "I'll pay you well."
The cabman's spirits were raised by
this, and by dint of coaxing and a liberal use of the
whip, he managed to get his jaded horse up to a pretty
good pace. They were in Fitzroy by this time, and both
cabs turned out of Gertrude Street into Nicholson
Street; thence passed on to Evelyn Street and along
Spring Street, until Brian's cab stopped at the corner
of Collins Street, and Gorby saw him alight and
dismiss his cab-man. He then walked down the street
and disappeared into the Treasury Gardens.
"Confound it," said the detective, as
he got out and paid his fare, which was by no means a
light one, but over which he had no time to argue,
"we've come in a circle, and I do believe he lives in
Powlett Street after all."
He went into the gardens, and saw
Brian some distance ahead of him, walking rapidly. It
was bright moonlight, and he could easily distinguish
Fitzgerald by his light coat.
As he went along that noble avenue
with its elms in their winter dress, the moon shining
through their branches wrought a fantastic tracery, on
the smooth asphalte. And on either
side Gorby could see the dim white forms of the old
Greek gods and goddesses Venus Victrix, with
the apple in her hand (which Mr. Gorby, in his happy
ignorance of heathen mythology, took for Eve offering
Adam the forbidden fruit); Diana, with the hound at
her feet, and Bacchus and Ariadne (which the detective
imagined were the Babes in the Wood). He knew that
each of the statues had queer names, but thought they
were merely allegorical. Passing over the bridge, with
the water rippling quietly underneath, Brian went up
the smooth yellow path to where the statue of Hebe,
holding the cup, seems instinct with life; and turning
down the path to the right, he left the gardens by the
end gate, near which stands the statue of the Dancing
Faun, with the great bush of scarlet geranium burning
like an altar before it. Then he went along the
Wellington Parade, and turned up Powlett Street, where
he stopped at a house near Cairns' Memorial Church,
much to Mr. Gorby's relief, who, being like Hamlet,
"fat and scant of breath," found himself rather
exhausted. He kept well in the shadow, however, and
saw Fitzgerald give one final look round before he
disappeared into the house. Then Mr. Gorby, like the
Robber Captain in Ali Baba, took careful stock of the
house, and fixed its locality and appearance well in
his mind, as he intended to call at it on the morrow.
"What I'm going to do," he said, as he
walked slowly back to Melbourne, "is to see his
landlady when he's out, and find out what time he came
in on the night of the murder. If it fits into the
time he got out of Rankin's cab, I'll get out a
warrant, and arrest him straight off."
IN spite of his long walk, and
still longer drive, Brian did not sleep well that
night. He kept tossing and turning, or lying on his
back, wide awake, looking into the darkness and
thinking of Whyte. Towards dawn, when the first faint
glimmer of morning came through the venetian blinds,
he fell into a sort of uneasy doze, haunted by
horrible dreams. He thought he was driving in a
hansom, when suddenly he found Whyte by his side, clad
in white cerements, grinning and gibbering at him with
ghastly merriment. Then the cab went over a precipice,
and he fell from a great height, down, down, with the
mocking laughter still sounding in his ears, until he
woke with a loud cry, and found it was broad daylight,
and that drops of perspiration were standing on his
brow. It was no use trying to sleep any longer, so,
with a weary sigh, he arose and went to his tub,
feeling jaded and worn out by worry and want of sleep.
His bath did him some good. The cold water brightened
him up and pulled him together. Still he could not
help giving a start of surprise when he saw his face
reflected in the mirror, old and haggard-looking, with
dark circles round the eyes.
"A pleasant life I'll have of it if
this sort of thing goes on," he said, bitterly, "I
wish I had never seen, or heard of Whyte."
He dressed himself carefully. He was
not a man to neglect his toilet, however worried and
out of sorts he might happen to feel. Yet,
notwithstanding all his efforts the change in his
appearance did not escape the eye of his landlady. She
was a small, dried-up little woman, with a wrinkled
yellowish face. She seemed parched up and brittle.
Whenever she moved she crackled, and one went in
constant dread of seeing a wizen-looking limb break
off short like the branch of some dead tree. When she
spoke it was in a voice hard and shrill, not unlike
the chirp of a cricket. When as was frequently
the case she clothed her attenuated form in a
faded brown silk gown, her resemblance to that lively
insect was remarkable.
And, as on this morning she crackled
into Brian's sitting-room with the Argus
and his coffee, a look of dismay at his altered
appearance, came over her stony little countenance.
"Dear me, sir," she chirped out in her
shrill voice, as she placed her burden on the table,
"are you took bad?"
Brian shook his head.
"Want of sleep, that's all, Mrs.
Sampson," he answered, unfolding the
Argus.
"Ah! that's because ye ain't got
enough blood in yer 'ead," said Mrs. Sampson, wisely,
for she had her own ideas on the subject of health.
"If you ain't got blood you ain't got sleep."
Brian looked at her as she said this,
for there seemed such an obvious want of blood in her
veins that he wondered if she had ever slept in all
her life.
"There was my father's brother, which,
of course, makes 'im my uncle," went on the landlady,
pouring out a cup of coffee for Brian, "an' the blood
'e 'ad was somethin' astoundin', which it made 'im
sleep that long as they 'ad to draw pints from 'im
afore 'e'd wake in the mornin'."
Brian had the Argus
before his face, and under its friendly cover he
laughed quietly to himself.
"His blood poured out like a river,"
went on the landlady, still drawing from the rich
stores of her imagination, "and the doctor was struck
dumb with astonishment at seein' the Nigagerer which
burst from 'im but I'm not so full-blooded
myself."
Fitzgerald again stifled a laugh, and
wondered that Mrs. Sampson was not afraid of being
treated as were Ananias and Sapphira. However, he said
nothing, but merely intimated that if she would leave
the room he would take his breakfast.
"An' if you wants anythin' else, Mr.
Fitzgerald," she said, going to the door, "you knows
your way to the bell as easily as I do to the
kitching," and, with a final chirrup, she crackled out
of the room.
As soon as the door was closed, Brian
put down his paper and roared, in spite of his
worries. He had that extraordinary vivacious Irish
temperament, which enables a man to put all trouble
behind his back, and thoroughly enjoy the present. His
landlady, with her Arabian Nightlike
romances, was a source of great amusement to him, and
he felt considerably cheered by the odd turn her
humour had taken this morning. After a time, however,
his laughter ceased, and his troubles came crowding on
him again. He drank his coffee, but pushed away the
food which was before him; and looked through the
Argus, for the latest report about the
murder case. What he read made his cheek turn a shade
paler than before. He could feel his heart thumping
wildly.
"They've found a clue, have they?" he
muttered, rising and pacing restlessly up and down. "I
wonder what it can be? I threw that man off the scent
last night, but if he suspects me, there will be no
difficulty in his finding out where I live. Bah! What
nonsense I am talking. I am the victim of my own
morbid imagination. There is nothing to connect me
with the crime, so I need not be afraid of my shadow.
I've
a good mind to leave town for a time, but if I am
suspected that would excite suspicion. Oh, Madge! my
darling," he cried passionately, "if you only knew
what I suffer, I know that you would pity me
but you must never know the truth Never!
Never!" and sinking into a chair by the window, he
covered his face with his hands. After remaining in
this position for some minutes, occupied with his own
gloomy thoughts, he arose and rang the bell. A faint
crackle in the distance announced that Mrs. Sampson
had heard it, and she soon came into the room, looking
more like a cricket than ever. Brian had gone into his
bedroom, and called out to her from there
"I am going down to St. Kilda, Mrs.
Sampson," he said, "and probably I shall not be back
all day."
"Which I 'opes it 'ull do you good,"
she answered, "for you've eaten nothin', an' the sea
breezes is miraculous for makin' you take to your
victuals. My mother's brother, bein' a sailor, an'
wonderful for 'is stomach, which, when 'e 'ad done a
meal, the table looked as if a low-cuss had gone over
it."
"A what?" asked Fitzgerald, buttoning
his gloves.
"A low-cuss!" replied the landlady, in
surprise at his ignorance, "as I've read in 'Oly Writ,
as 'ow John the Baptist was partial to 'em, not that I
think they'd be very fillin', tho', to be sure, 'e 'ad
a sweet tooth, and ate 'oney with 'em."
"Oh! you mean locusts," said Brian now
enlightened.
"An' what else?" asked Mrs. Sampson,
indignantly; "which, tho' not bein' a scholar'd, I
speaks English, I 'opes, my mother's second cousin
'avin' 'ad first prize at a spellin' bee, tho' 'e died
early through brain fever, 'avin' crowded 'is 'ead
over much with the dictionary."
"Dear me!" answered Brian,
mechanically. "How unfortunate!" He was not listening
to Mrs. Sampson's remarks.
He suddenly remembered an arrangement which Madge had
made, and which up till now had slipped his memory.
"Mrs. Sampson," he said, turning round
at the door, "I am going to bring Mr. Frettlby and his
daughter to have a cup of afternoon tea here, so you
might have some ready."
"You 'ave only to ask and to 'ave,"
answered Mrs. Sampson, hospitably, with a gratified
crackle of all her joints. "I'll make the tea, sir,
an' also some of my own perticler cakes, bein' a
special kind I 'ave, which my mother showed me 'ow to
make, 'avin' been taught by a lady as she nussed thro'
the scarlet fever, tho' bein' of a weak constitootion,
she died soon arter, bein' in the 'abit of contractin'
any disease she might chance on."
Brian hurried off lest in her Poe-like
appreciation of them, Mrs. Sampson should give vent to
more charnel-house horrors.
At one period of her life, the little
woman had been a nurse, and it was told of her that
she had frightened one of her patients into
convulsions during the night by narrating to her the
history of all the corpses she had laid out. This
ghoul-like tendency in the end proved fatal to her
professional advancement.
As soon as Fitzgerald had gone, she
went over to the window and watched him as he walked
slowly down the street a tall, handsome man, of
whom any woman would be proud.
"What an awful thing it are to think
'e'll be a corpse some day," she chirped cheerily to
herself, "tho' of course bein' a great swell in 'is
own place, 'e'll 'ave a nice airy vault, which 'ud be
far more comfortable than a close, stuffy grave, even
tho' it 'as a tombstone an' vi'lets over it. Ah, now!
Who are you, impertinence?" she broke off, as a stout
man in a light suit of clothes crossed the road and
rang the bell, "a-pullin' at the bell as if it were a
pump 'andle."
As the gentleman at the door, who was
none other than Mr. Gorby, did not hear her, he of
course did not reply, so she hurried down the stairs,
crackling with anger at the rough usage her bell had
received.
Mr. Gorby had seen Brian go out, and
deeming it a good opportunity for enquiry had lost no
time in making a start.
"You nearly tored the bell down," said
Mrs. Sampson, as she presented her thin body and
wrinkled face to the view of the detective.
"I'm very sorry," answered Gorby,
meekly. "I'll knock next time."
"Oh, no you won't," said the landlady,
tossing her head, "me not 'avin' a knocker, an' your
'and a-scratchin' the paint off the door, which it
ain't been done over six months by my sister-in-law's
cousin, which 'e is a painter, with a shop in Fitzroy,
an' a wonderful heye to colour."
"Does Mr. Fitzgerald live here?" asked
Mr. Gorby, quietly.
"He do," replied Mrs. Sampson, "but
'e's gone out, an' won't be back till the arternoon,
which any messige 'ull be delivered to 'im punctual on
'is arrival."
"I'm glad he's not in," said Mr.
Gorby. "Would you allow me to have a few moments'
conversation?"
"What is it?" asked the landlady, her
curiosity being roused.
"I'll tell you when we get inside,"
answered Mr. Gorby.
She looked at him with her sharp
little eyes, and seeing nothing disreputable about
him, led the way upstairs, crackling loudly the whole
time. This so astonished Mr. Gorby that he cast about
in his own mind for an explanation of the phenomenon.
"Wants oiling about the jints," was
his conclusion, "but I
never heard anything like it, and she looks as if
she'd snap in two, she's that brittle."
Mrs. Sampson took Gorby into Brian's
sitting-room, and having closed the door, sat down and
prepared to hear what he had to say for himself.
"I 'ope it ain't bills," she said.
"Mr. Fitzgerald 'avin' money in the bank, and
everythin' respectable like a gentleman as 'e is,
tho', to be sure, your bill might come down on him
unbeknown, 'e not 'avin' kept it in mind, which it
ain't everybody as 'ave sich a good memory as my aunt
on my mother's side, she 'avin' been famous for 'er
dates like a 'istory, not to speak of 'er
multiplication tables, and the numbers of people's
'ouses."
"It's not bills," answered Mr. Gorby,
who, having vainly attempted to stem the shrill
torrent of words, had given in, and waited mildly
until she had finished; "I only want to know a few
things about Mr. Fitzgerald's habits."
"And what for?" asked Mrs. Sampson,
indignantly. "Are you a noospaper a-puttin' in
articles about people who don't want to see 'emselves
in print, which I knows your 'abits, my late 'usband
'avin' bin a printer on a paper which bust up, not
'avin' the money to pay wages, thro' which, there was
doo to him the sum of one pound seven and sixpence
halfpenny, which I, bein' 'is widder, ought to 'ave,
not that I expects to see it on this side of the grave
oh, dear, no!" and she gave a shrill, elfish
laugh.
Mr. Gorby, seeing that unless he took
the bull by the horns, he would never be able to get
what he wanted, grew desperate, and plunged in
medias res.
"I am an insurance agent," he said,
rapidly, so as to prevent any interruption, "and Mr.
Fitzgerald desires to insure his life in our company.
I, therefore, want to find out if he is a good life to
insure; does he live temperately? keep early hours?
and, in fact, all about him?"
"I shall be 'appy to answer any
enquiries which may be of use to you, sir," replied
Mrs. Sampson; "knowin' as I do, 'ow good a insurance
is to a family, should the 'ead of it be taken off
unexpected, leavin' a widder, which, as I know, Mr.
Fitzgerald is a-goin' to be married soon, an' I 'opes
'e'll be 'appy, tho' thro' it I loses a lodger as 'as
allays paid regler, an' be'aved like a gentleman."
"So he is a temperate man?" said Mr.
Gorby, feeling his way cautiously.
"Not bein' a blue ribbing all the
same," answered Mrs. Sampson; "and I never saw him the
wuss for drink, 'e being allays able to use his
latch-key, and take 'is boots off afore going to bed,
which is no more than a woman ought to expect from a
lodger, she 'avin' to do 'er own washin'."
"And he keeps good hours?"
"Allays in afore the clock strikes
twelve," answered the landlady; "tho', to be sure, I
uses it as a figger of speech, none of the clocks in
the 'ouse strikin' but one, which is bein' mended,
'avin' broke through overwindin'."
"Is he always in before twelve?" asked
Mr. Gorby, keenly disappointed at this answer.
Mrs. Sampson eyed him waggishly, and a
smile crept over her wrinkled little face.
"Young men, not bein' old men," she
replied, cautiously, "and sinners not bein' saints,
it's not nattral as latch-keys should be made for
ornament instead of use, and Mr. Fitzgerald bein' one
of the 'andsomest men in Melbourne, it ain't to be
expected as 'e should let 'is latch-key git rusty,
tho' 'avin' a good moral character, 'e uses it with
moderation."
"But I suppose you are seldom awake
when he comes in really late," said the detective.
"Not as a rule," assented Mrs.
Sampson; "bein' a 'eavy sleeper, and much disposed for
bed, but I 'ave 'eard 'im come in arter twelve, the
last time bein' Thursday week."
"Ah!" Mr. Gorby drew a long breath,
for Thursday week was the night upon which the murder
was committed.
"Bein' troubled with my 'ead," said
Mrs. Sampson, "thro' 'avin' been out in the sun all
day a-washin', I did not feel so partial to my bed
that night as in general, so went down to the kitching
with the intent of getting a linseed poultice to put
at the back of my 'ead, it being calculated to remove
pain, as was told to me, when a nuss, by a doctor in
the horspital, 'e now bein' in business for hisself,
at Geelong, with a large family, 'avin' married early.
Just as I was leavin' the kitching I 'eard Mr.
Fitzgerald a-comin' in, and, turnin' round, looked at
the clock, that 'avin' been my custom when my late
'usband came in, in the early mornin', I bein'
a-preparin' 'is meal."
"And the time was?" asked Mr. Gorby,
breathlessly.
"Five minutes to two o'clock," replied
Mrs. Sampson.
Mr. Gorby thought for a moment.
"Cab was hailed at one o'clock
started for St. Kilda at about ten minutes past
reached Grammar School, say, at twenty-five minutes
past Fitzgerald talks five minutes to cabman,
making it half-past say, he waited ten minutes
for other cab to turn up, makes it twenty minutes to
two it would take another twenty minutes to get
to East Melbourne and five minutes to walk up
here that makes it five minutes past two
instead of before confound it. 'Was your clock
in the kitchen right?'" he asked, aloud.
"Well, I think so," answered Mrs.
Sampson. "It does get a little slow sometimes, not
'avin' been cleaned for some time, which my nevy bein'
a watchmaker I allays 'ands it over to 'im."
"Of course it was slow on that night,"
said Gorby, triumphantly. "He must have come in at
five minutes past two which makes it right."
"Makes what right?" asked the
landlady, sharply. "And 'ow do you know my clock was
ten minutes wrong?"
"Oh, it was, was it?" asked Gorby,
eagerly.
"I'm not denyin' of it," replied Mrs.
Sampson; "clocks ain't allays to be relied on more
than men an' women but it won't be anythin'
agin 'is insurance, will it, as in general 'e's in
afore twelve?"
"Oh, all that will be quite safe,"
answered the detective, delighted with the information
he had obtained. "Is this Mr. Fitzgerald's room?"
"Yes, it is," replied the landlady;
"but 'e furnished it 'imself, bein' of a luxurus turn
of mind, not but what 'is taste is good, tho' far be
it from me to deny I 'elped 'im to select; but 'avin'
another room of the same to let, any friends as you
might 'ave in search of a 'ome 'ud be well looked
arter, my references bein' very 'igh, an' my cookin'
tasty an' if "
Here a ring at the front door bell
called Mrs. Sampson away, so with a hurried word to
Gorby she crackled downstairs. Left to himself, Mr.
Gorby arose and looked round the room. It was
excellently furnished, and the pictures were good. At
one end of the room, by the window, there was a
writing-table covered with papers.
"It's no good looking for the papers
he took out of Whyte's pocket, I suppose," said the
detective to himself, as he turned over some letters,
"as I don't know what they are, and I couldn't tell
them if I saw them; but I'd like to find that missing
glove and the bottle that held the chloroform
unless he's done away with them. There doesn't seem
any sign of them here, so I'll have a look in his
bedroom."
There was no time to lose, as Mrs.
Sampson might return at any moment, so Mr. Gorby
walked quickly into the bedroom, which opened off the
sitting-room. The first thing that caught the
detective's eye was a large photograph, in a plush
frame, of Madge Frettlby. It stood on the
dressing-table, and was similar to that one which he
had already seen in Whyte's album. He took it up with
a laugh.
"You're a pretty girl," he said,
apostrophising the picture, "but you give your
photograph to two young men, both in love with you,
and both hot-tempered. The result is that one is dead,
and the other won't survive him long. That's what
you've done."
He put it down again, and looking
round the room, caught sight of a light covert coat
hanging behind the door and also a soft hat.
"Ah," said the detective, going up to
the door, "here is the very coat you wore when you
killed that poor fellow wonder what you have in the
pockets," and he plunged his hand into them in turn.
There were an old theatre programme and a pair of
brown gloves in one, but in the second pocket Mr.
Gorby made a discovery none other than that of
the missing glove. There it was a soiled white
glove for the right hand, with black bands down the
back; and the detective smiled in a gratified manner
as he put it carefully in his pocket.
"My morning has not been wasted," he
said to himself. "I've found out that he came in at a
time which corresponds to all his movements after one
o'clock on Thursday night, and this is the missing
glove, which clearly belonged to Whyte. If I could
only get hold of the chloroform bottle I'd be
satisfied."
But the chloroform bottle was not to
be found, though he searched most carefully for it. At
last, hearing Mrs. Sampson coming upstairs again, he
gave up the search, and came back to the sitting-room.
"Threw it away, I suspect," he said,
as he sat down in his, old place; "but it doesn't
matter. I think I can form a chain
of evidence, from what I have discovered, which will
be sufficient to convict him. Besides, I expect when
he is arrested he will confess everything; he seems to
feel remorse for what he has done."
The door opened, and Mrs. Sampson
entered the room in a state of indignation.
"One of them Chinese 'awkers," she
explained, "'e's bin a-tryin' to git the better of me
over carrots as if I didn't know what carrots
was and 'im a-talkin' about a shillin' in his
gibberish, as if 'e 'adn't been brought up in a place
where they don't know what a shillin' is. But I never
could abide furreigners ever since a Frenchman, as
taught me 'is language, made orf with my mother's
silver tea-pot, unbeknown to 'er, it bein' set out on
the sideboard for company."
Mr. Gorby interrupted these domestic
reminiscences of Mrs. Sampson's by stating that, now
she had given him all necessary information, he would
take his departure.
"An' I 'opes," said Mrs. Sampson, as
she opened the door for him, "as I'll 'ave the
pleasure of seein' you again should any business on
be'alf of Mr. Fitzgerald require it."
"Oh, I'll see you again," said Mr.
Gorby, with heavy jocularity, "and in a way you won't
like, as you'll be called as a witness," he added,
mentally. "Did I understand you to say, Mrs. Sampson,"
he went on, "that Mr. Fitzgerald would be at home this
afternoon?"
"Oh, yes, sir, 'e will," answered Mrs.
Sampson, "a-drinkin' tea with his young lady, who is
Miss Frettlby, and 'as got no end of money, not but
what I mightn't 'ave 'ad the same 'ad I been born in a
'igher spear."
"You need not tell Mr. Fitzgerald I
have been here," said Gorby, closing the gate; "I'll
probably call and see him myself this afternoon."
"What a stout person 'e are," said
Mrs. Sampson to herself,
as the detective walked away, "just like my late
father, who was allays fleshy, bein' a great eater,
and fond of 'is glass, but I took arter my mother's
family, they bein' thin-like, and proud of keeping
'emselves so, as the vinegar they drank could testify,
not that I indulge in it myself."
She shut the door, and went upstairs
to take away the breakfast things, while Gorby was
being driven along at a good pace to the police
office, to obtain a warrant for Brian's arrest, on a
charge of wilful murder.
IT was a broiling hot day
one of those cloudless days, with the blazing
sun beating down on the arid streets, and casting
deep, black shadows a real Australian December
day dropped by mistake of the clerk of the weather
into the middle of August. The previous week having
been really chilly, it was all the more welcome.
It was Saturday morning, and
fashionable Melbourne was "doing the Block." Collins
Street is to the Southern city what Bond Street and
the Row are to London, and the Boulevards to Paris.
It is on the Block that people show
off their new dresses, bow to their friends, cut their
enemies, and chatter small talk. The same thing no
doubt occurred in the Appian Way, the fashionable
street of Imperial Rome, when Catullus talked gay
nonsense to Lesbia, and Horace received the
congratulations of his friends over his new volume of
society verses. History repeats itself, and every city
is bound by all the laws of civilisation to have one
special street, wherein the votaries of fashion can
congregate.
Collins Street is not, of course, such
a grand thoroughfare as those above mentioned, but the
people who stroll up and down the broad pavement are
quite as charmingly dressed,
and as pleasant as any of the peripatetics of those
famous cities. As the sun brings out bright flowers,
so the seductive influence of the hot weather had
brought out all the ladies in gay dresses of
innumerable colours, which made the long street look
like a restless rainbow.
Carriages were bowling smoothly along,
their occupants smiling and bowing as they recognised
their friends on the side walk. Lawyers, their legal
quibbles finished for the week, were strolling
leisurely with their black bags in their hands; portly
merchants, forgetting Flinder's Lane and incoming
ships, walked beside their pretty daughters; and the
representatives of swelldom were stalking along in
their customary apparel of curly brimmed hats, high
collars, and immaculate suits. Altogether, it was a
pleasant and animated scene, which would have
delighted the heart of anyone who was not dyspeptic,
or in love dyspeptic people and lovers
(disappointed ones, of course) being wont to survey
the world in a cynical vein.
Madge Frettlby was engaged in that
occupation so dear to every female heart
shopping. She was in Moubray, Rowan, and Hicks',
turning over ribbons and laces, while the faithful
Brian waited for her outside, and amused himself by
looking at the human stream which flowed along the
pavement.
He disliked shopping quite as much as
the majority of his sex, and though as a lover he felt
a certain amount of self-abnegation to be becoming in
him, it was difficult to drive away the thoughts of
his pleasant club, where he could be reading and
smoking, with, perchance, something cooling in a glass
beside him.
However, after she had purchased a
dozen or more articles she did not want, Madge
remembered that Brian was waiting for her, and hurried
to the door.
"I haven't been many minutes, have I,
dear?" she said, touching him lightly on the arm.
"Oh, dear no," answered Brian, looking
at his watch, "only thirty a mere nothing,
considering a new dress was being discussed."
"I thought I had been longer," said
Madge, her brow clearing; "but still I am sure you
feel a martyr."
"Not at all," replied Fitzgerald,
handing her into the carriage; "I enjoyed myself very
much."
"Nonsense," she laughed, opening her
sunshade, while Brian took his seat beside her;
"that's one of those social stories which every
one considers themselves bound to tell from a sense of
duty. I'm afraid I did keep you waiting though,
after all," she went on, with a true feminine idea as
to the flight of time, "I was only a few minutes."
"And the rest," said Brian,
quizzically looking at her pretty face, so charmingly
flushed under her great white hat.
Madge disdained to notice this
interruption.
"James," she cried to the coachman,
"drive to the Melbourne Club. Papa will be there, you
know," she said to Brian, "and we'll take him off to
have tea with us."
"But it's only one o'clock," said
Brian, as the Town Hall clock came in sight. "Mrs.
Sampson won't be ready."
"Oh, anything will do," replied Madge,
"a cup of tea and some thin bread and butter isn't
hard to prepare. I don't feel like lunch, and papa
eats so little in the middle of the day, and you
"
"Eat a great deal at all times,"
finished Brian with a laugh.
Madge went on chattering in her usual
lively manner, and Brian listened to her with delight.
Her pleasant talk drove away the evil spirit which had
been with him for the last three weeks. Suddenly Madge
made an observation as they were passing the Burke and
Wills' monument, which startled him.
"Isn't that the place where Mr. Whyte
got into the cab?" she asked, looking at the corner
near the Scotch Church, where a vagrant of musical
tendencies was playing "Just before the Battle,
Mother," on a battered old concertina.
"So the papers say," answered Brian,
listlessly, without turning his head.
"I wonder who the gentleman in the
light coat could have been," said Madge, as she
settled herself again.
"No one seems to know," he replied
evasively.
"Ah, but they have a clue," she said.
"Do you know, Brian," she went on, "that he was
dressed just like you in a light overcoat and soft
hat?"
"How remarkable," said Fitzgerald,
speaking in a slightly sarcastic tone, and as calmly
as he was able. "He was dressed in the same manner as
nine out of every ten young fellows in Melbourne."
Madge looked at him in surprise at the
tone in which he spoke, so different from his usual
nonchalant way of speaking. She was about to answer
when the carriage stopped at the door of the Melbourne
Club. Brian, anxious to escape any more remarks about
the murder, sprang quickly out, and ran up the steps
into the building. He found Mr. Frettlby smoking
complacently, and reading the Age. As
Fitzgerald entered he looked up, and putting down the
paper, held out his hand, which the other took.
"Ah! Fitzgerald," he said, "have you
left the attractions of Collins Street for the still
greater ones of Clubland?"
"Not I," answered Brian. "I've come to
carry you off to afternoon tea with Madge and myself."
"I don't mind," answered Mr. Frettlby
rising; "but, isn't afternoon tea at half-past one
rather an anomaly?"
"What's in a name?" said Fitzgerald,
absently, as they left the room. "What have you been
doing all morning?"
"I've been in here for the last
half-hour reading," answered the other, carelessly.
"Wool market, I suppose?"
"No, the hansom cab murder."
"Oh, d that thing!" said
Brian, hastily; then, seeing his companion looking at
him in surprise, he apologised. "But, indeed," he went
on, "I'm nearly worried to death by people asking
about Whyte, as if I knew all about him, whereas I
know nothing."
"Just as well you don't," answered Mr.
Frettlby, as they descended the steps together; "he
was not a very desirable companion."
It was on the tip of Brian's tongue to
say, "And yet you wanted him to marry your daughter,"
but he wisely refrained, and they reached the carriage
in silence.
"Now then, papa," said Madge, when
they were all settled in the carriage, and it was
rolling along smoothly in the direction of East
Melbourne, "what have you been doing?"
"Enjoying myself," answered her
father, "until you and Brian came, and dragged me out
into this blazing sunshine."
"Well, Brian has been so good of
late," said Madge, "that I had to reward him, so I
knew that nothing would please him better than to play
host."
"Certainly," said Brian, rousing
himself out of a fit of abstraction, "especially when
one has such charming visitors."
Madge laughed at this, and made a
little grimace.
"If your tea is only equal to your
compliments," she said lightly, "I'm sure papa will
forgive us for dragging him away from his club."
"Papa will forgive anything," murmured
Mr. Frettlby, tilting his hat over his eyes, "so long
as he gets somewhere
out of the sun. I can't say I care about playing the
parts of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery
furnace of a Melbourne hot day."
"There now, papa is quite a host in
himself," said Madge mischievously, as the carriage
drew up at Mrs. Sampson's door.
"No, you are wrong," said Brian, as he
alighted and helped her out; "I am the host in myself
this time."
"If there is one thing I hate above
another," observed Miss Frettlby, calmly, "it's a pun,
and especially a bad one."
Mrs. Sampson was very much astonished
at the early arrival of her lodger's guests, and did
not hesitate to express her astonishment.
"Bein' taken by surprise," she said,
with an apologetic cackle, "it ain't to be suppose as
miraculs can be performed with regard to cookin', the
fire havin' gone out, not bein' kept alight on account
of the 'eat of the day, which was that 'ot as never
was, tho', to be sure, bein' a child in the early
days, I remember it were that 'ot as my sister's aunt
was in the 'abit of roastin' her jints in the sun."
After telling this last romance, and
leaving her visitors in doubt whether the joints
referred to belonged to an animal or to her sister's
aunt or to herself, Mrs. Sampson crackled away
downstairs to get things ready.
"What a curious thing that landlady of
yours is, Brian," said Madge, from the depths of a
huge arm-chair. "I believe she's a grasshopper from
the Fitzroy Gardens."
"Oh, no, she's a woman," said Mr.
Frettlby, cynically. "You can tell that by the length
of her tongue."
"A popular error, papa," retorted
Madge, sharply. "I know plenty of men who talk far
more than any woman."
"I hope I'll never meet them, then,"
said Mr. Frettlby,
"for if I did I should be inclined to agree with De
Quincey on murder as a fine art."
Brian winced at this, and looked
apprehensively at Madge, and saw with relief that she
was not paying attention to her father, but was
listening intently.
"There she is," as a faint rustle at
the door announced the arrival of Mrs. Sampson and the
tea-tray. "I wonder, Brian, you don't think the house
is on fire with that queer noise always going on
she wants oil!"
"Yes, St. Jacob's oil," laughed Brian,
as Mrs. Sampson entered, and placed her burden on the
table.
"Not 'avin' any cake," said that lady,
"thro' not being forewarned as to the time of arrival
tho' it's not ofting I'm taken by surprise
except as to a 'eadache, which, of course, is
accidental to every pusson I ain't got nothin'
but bread and butter, the baker and grocer both bein'
all that could be desired, except in the way of
worryin' for their money, which they thinks as 'ow I
keeps the bank in the 'ouse, like Allading's cave, as
I've 'eard tell in the Arabian Nights, me 'avin'
gained it as a prize for English in my early girl'ood,
bein' then considered a scholard an' industrus."
Mrs. Sampson's shrill apologies for
the absence of cake having been received, she hopped
out of the room, and Madge made the tea. The service
was a quaint Chinese one, which Brian had picked up in
his wanderings. He used it only on special occasions.
As he watched Madge he could not help thinking how
pretty she looked, with her hands moving deftly among
the cups and saucers, so bizarre-looking with their
sprawling dragons of yellow and green. He half smiled
to himself as he thought, "If they knew all, I wonder
if they would sit with me so unconcernedly."
Mr. Frettlby, too, as he looked at his
daughter, thought of his dead wife and sighed.
"Well," said Madge, as she handed them
their tea, and helped herself to some thin bread and
butter, "you two gentlemen are most delightful company
papa is sighing like a furnace, and Brian is
staring at me with his eyes like blue china saucers.
You ought both to be turned forth to funerals like
melancholy."
"Why like melancholy?" queried Brian,
lazily.
"I'm afraid, Mr. Fitzgerald," said the
young lady with a smile in her pretty black eyes,
"that you are not a student of 'A Midsummer Night's
Dream.'"
"Very likely not," answered Brian;
"midsummer out here is so hot that one gets no sleep,
and, consequently no dreams. Depend upon it, if the
four lovers whom Puck treated so badly had lived in
Australia they wouldn't have been able to sleep for
the mosquitoes."
"What nonsense you two young people do
talk," said Mr. Frettlby, with an amused smile, as he
stirred his tea.
"Dulce est desipere in loco,"
observed Brian, gravely, "a man who can't carry out
that observation is sure not to be up to much."
"I don't like Latin," said Miss
Frettlby, shaking her pretty head. "I agree with
Heine's remark, that if the Romans had been forced to
learn it they would not have found time to conquer the
world."
"Which was a much more agreeable
task," said Brian.
"And more profitable," finished Mr.
Frettlby.
They chattered in this desultory
fashion for a considerable time, till at last Madge
rose and said they must go.
Brian proposed to dine with them at
St. Kilda, and then they would all go to Brock's
Fireworks. Madge consented to this, and she was just
pulling on her gloves when suddenly they heard a ring
at the front door, and presently Mrs.
Sampson talking in an excited manner at the pitch of
her voice.
"You shan't come in, I tell you," they
heard her say shrilly, "so it's no good trying, which
I've allays 'eard as an Englishman's 'ouse is 'is
castle, an' you're a-breakin' the law, as well as
a-spilin' the carpets, which 'as bin newly put down."
Some one made a reply; then the door
of Brian's room was thrown open, and Gorby walked in,
followed by another man. Fitzgerald turned as white as
a sheet, for he felt instinctively that they had come
for him. However, pulling himself together, he
demanded, in a haughty tone, the reason of the
intrusion.
Mr. Gorby walked straight over to
where Brian was standing, and placed his hand on the
young man's shoulder.
"Brian Fitzgerald," he said, in a
clear voice, "I arrest you in the Queen's name."
"For what?" asked Brian, steadily.
"The murder of Oliver Whyte."
At this Madge gave a cry.
"It is not true!" she said, wildly.
"My God, it's not true."
Brian did not answer, but, ghastly
pale, held out his hands. Gorby slipped the handcuffs
on to his wrists with a feeling of compunction,
despite his joy in running his Man down. This done,
Fitzgerald turned round to where Madge was standing,
pale and still, as though turned into stone.
"Madge," he said, in a clear, low
voice, "I am going to prison perhaps to death;
but I swear to you, by all that I hold most sacred,
that I am innocent of this murder."
"My darling!" She made a step forward,
but her father stepped before her.
"Keep back," he said, in a hard voice;
"there is nothing between you and that man now."
She turned round with an ashen face,
but with a proud look in her clear eyes.
"You are wrong," she answered, with a
touch of scorn in her voice. "I love him more now than
ever." Then, before her father could stop her, she
placed her arms round her lover's neck, and kissed him
wildly.
"My darling," she said, with the tears
streaming down her white cheeks, "whatever the world
may say, you are always dearest of all to me."
Brian kissed her passionately, and
moved away. Madge fell down at her father's feet in a
dead faint.
BRIAN FITZGERALD was arrested
at a few minutes past three o'clock, and by five all
Melbourne was ringing with the news that the
perpetrator of the now famous hansom cab murder had
been caught. The evening papers were full of the
affair, and the Herald went through
several editions, the demand being far in the excess
of the supply. Such a crime had not been committed in
Melbourne since the Greer shooting case in the Opera
House, and the mystery by which it was surrounded,
made it even more sensational. The committal of the
crime in such an extraordinary place as a hansom cab
had been startling enough, but the discovery that the
assassin was one of the most fashionable young men in
Melbourne was still more so. Brian Fitzgerald being
well known in society as a wealthy squatter, and the
future husband of one of the richest and prettiest
girls in Victoria, it was no wonder that his arrest
caused some sensation. The Herald, which
was fortunate enough to obtain the earliest
information about the arrest, made the best use of it,
and published a flaming article in its most
sensational type, somewhat after this fashion:
HANSOM CAB TRAGEDY.
ARREST OF THE SUPPOSED MURDERER.
STARTLING REVELATIONS IN HIGH LIFE.
It is needless to say that some of the
reporters had painted the lily pretty freely, but the
public were ready to believe everything that came out
in the papers.
Mr. Frettlby, the day after Brian's
arrest, had a long conversation with his daughter, and
wanted her to go up to Yabba Yallook Station until the
public excitement had somewhat subsided. But this
Madge flatly refused to do.
"I'm not going to desert him when he
most needs me," she said, resolutely; "everybody has
turned against him, even before they have heard the
facts of the case. He says he is not guilty, and I
believe him."
"Then let him prove his innocence,"
said her father, who was pacing slowly up and down the
room; "if he did not get into the cab with Whyte he
must have been somewhere else; so he ought to set up
the defence of an alibi."
"He can easily do that," said Madge,
with a ray of hope lighting up her sad face, "he was
here till eleven o'clock on Thursday night."
"Very probably," returned her father,
dryly; "but where was he at one o'clock on Friday
morning?"
"Besides, Mr. Whyte left the house
long before Brian did," she went on rapidly. "You must
remember it was when you quarrelled with Mr.
Whyte."
"My dear Madge," said Frettlby,
stopping in front of her with a displeased look, "you
are incorrect Whyte and myself did not quarrel.
He asked me if it were true that Fitzgerald was
engaged to you, and I answered 'Yes.' That was all,
and then he left the house."
"Yes, and Brian didn't go until two
hours after," said
Madge, triumphantly. "He never saw Mr. Whyte the whole
night."
"So he says," replied Mr. Frettlby,
significantly.
"I believe Brian before any one else
in the world," said his daughter, hotly, with flushed
cheeks and flashing eyes.
"Ah! but will a jury?" queried her
father.
"You have turned against him, too,"
answered Madge, her eyes filling with tears. "You
believe him guilty."
"I am not prepared either to deny or
confirm his guilt," said Mr. Frettlby, coldly. "I have
done what I could to help him I have engaged
Calton to defend him, and, if eloquence and skill can
save him, you may set your mind at rest."
"My dear father," said Madge, throwing
her arms round his neck, "I knew you would not desert
him altogether, for my sake."
"My darling," replied her father, in a
faltering voice, as he kissed her, "there is nothing
in the world I would not do for your sake."
Meanwhile Brian was sitting in his
cell in the Melbourne Jail, thinking sadly enough
about his position. He saw no hope of escape except
one, and that he did not intend to take advantage of.
"It would kill her; it would kill
her," he said, feverishly, as he paced to and fro over
the echoing stones. "Better that the last of the
Fitzgeralds should perish like a common thief than
that she should know the bitter truth. If I engage a
lawyer to defend me," he went on, "the first question
he will ask me will be where was I on that night, and
if I tell him all will be discovered, and then
no no I cannot do it; it would kill her,
my darling," and throwing himself down on the bed, he
covered his face with his hands.
He was roused by the opening of the
door of his cell, and on looking up saw that it was
Calton who entered. He was a
great friend of Fitzgerald's, and Brian was deeply
touched by his kindness in coming to see him.
Duncan Calton had a kindly heart, and
was anxious to help Brian, but there was also a touch
of self interest in the matter. He had received a note
from Mr. Frettlby, asking him to defend Fitzgerald,
which he agreed to do with avidity, as he foresaw in
this case an opportunity for his name becoming known
throughout the Australian colonies. It is true that he
was already a celebrated lawyer, but his reputation
was purely a local one, and as he foresaw that
Fitzgerald's trial for murder would cause a great
sensation throughout Australia and New Zealand, he
determined to take advantage of it as another step in
the ladder which led to fame, wealth, and position. So
this tall, keen-eyed man, with the clean shaven face
and expressive mouth, advanced into the cell, and took
Brian by the hand.
"It is very kind of you to come and
see me," said Fitzgerald; "it is at a time like this
that one appreciates friendship."
"Yes, of course," answered the lawyer,
fixing his keen eyes on the other's haggard face, as
if he would read his innermost thoughts. "I came
partly on my own account, and partly because Frettlby
asked me to see you as to your defence."
"Mr. Frettlby?" said Brian, in a
mechanical way. "He is very kind; I thought he
believed me guilty."
"No man is considered guilty until he
has been proved so," answered Calton, evasively.
Brian noticed how guarded the answer
was, for he heaved an impatient sigh.
"And Miss Frettlby?" he asked, in a
hesitating manner. This time he got a decided answer.
"She declines to believe you guilty,
and will not hear a word said against you."
"God bless her," said Brian,
fervently; "she is a true woman. I suppose I am pretty
well canvassed?" he added, bitterly.
"Nothing else talked about," answered
Calton, calmly. "Your arrest has for the present
suspended all interest in theatres, cricket matches,
and balls, and you are at the present moment being
discussed threadbare in Clubs and drawing-rooms."
Fitzgerald writhed. He was a
singularly proud man, and there was something
inexpressibly galling in this unpleasant publicity.
"But this is all idle chatter," said
Calton, taking a seat. "We must get to business. Of
course, you will accept me as your counsel."
"It's no good my doing so," replied
Brian, gloomily. "The rope is already round my neck."
"Nonsense," replied the lawyer,
cheerfully, "the rope is round no man's neck until he
is on the scaffold. Now, you need not say a word," he
went on, holding up his hand as Brian was about to
speak; "I intend to defend you, whether you like it or
not. I do not know all the facts, except what the
papers have stated, and they exaggerate so much that
one can place no reliance on them. At all events, I
believe from my heart that you are innocent, and you
must walk out of the prisoner's dock a free man, if
only for the sake of that noble girl who loves you."
Brian did not answer, but put out his
hand, which the other grasped warmly.
"I will not deny," went on Calton,
"that there is a little bit of professional curiosity
about me. This case is such an extraordinary one, that
I feel as if I were unable to let slip an opportunity
of doing something with it. I don't care for your
humdrum murders with the poker, and all that sort of
thing, but this is something clever, and therefore
interesting. When you are safe we will look together
for the real criminal, and the pleasure of the search
will be proportionate to the excitement when we find
him out."
"I agree with everything you say,"
said Fitzgerald, calmly, "but I have no defence to
make."
"No defence? You are not going to
confess you killed him?"
"No," with an angry flush, "but there
are certain circumstances which prevent me from
defending myself."
"What nonsense," retorted Calton,
sharply, "as if any circumstances should prevent a man
from saving his own life. But never mind, I like these
objections; they make the nut harder to crack
but the kernel must be worth getting at. Now, I want
you to answer certain questions."
"I won't promise."
"Well, we shall see," said the lawyer,
cheerfully, taking out his note-book, and resting it
on his knee. "First, where were you on the Thursday
night preceding the murder?"
"I can't tell you."
"Oh, yes, you can, my friend. You left
St. Kilda, and came up to town by the eleven o'clock
train."
"Eleven-twenty," corrected Brian.
Calton smiled in a gratified manner as
he noted this down. "A little diplomacy is all that's
required," he said mentally.
"And where did you go then?" he added,
aloud.
"I met Rolleston in the train, and we
took a cab from the Flinders Street station up to the
Club."
"What Club?"
"The Melbourne Club."
"Yes?" interrogatively.
"Rolleston went home, and I went into
the Club and played cards for a time."
"When did you leave the Club?"
"A few minutes to one o'clock in the
morning."
"And then, I suppose, you went home?"
"No; I did not."
"Then where did you go?"
"Down the street."
"Rather vague. I presume you mean
Collins Street?"
"Yes."
"You were going to meet some one, I
suppose?"
"I never said so."
"Probably not; but young men don't
wander about the streets at night without some
object."
"I was restless and wanted a walk."
"Indeed! How curious you should prefer
going into the heart of the dusty town for a walk to
strolling through the Fitzroy Gardens, which were on
your way home! It won't do; you had an appointment to
meet some one."
"Well er yes."
"I thought as much. Man or woman?"
"I cannot tell you."
"Then I must find out for myself."
"You can't."
"Indeed! Why not?"
"You don't know where to look for
her."
"Her," cried Calton, delighted at the
success of his craftily-put question. "I knew it was a
woman."
Brian did not answer, but sat biting
his lips with vexation.
"Now, who is this woman?"
No answer.
"Come now, Fitzgerald, I know that
young men will be young men, and, of course, you don't
like these things talked about; but in this case your
character must be sacrificed to save your neck. What
is her name?"
"I can't tell you."
"Oh! you know it, then?"
"Well, yes."
"And you won't tell me?"
"No!"
Calton, however, had found out two
things that pleased him; first, that Fitzgerald had an
appointment, and, second that it had been with a
woman. He pursued another line.
"When did you last see Whyte!"
Brian answered with great reluctance,
"I saw him drunk by the Scotch Church."
"What! you were the man who hailed the
hansom?"
"Yes," assented the other, hesitating
slightly, "I was!"
The thought flashed through Calton's
brain as to whether the young man before him was
guilty or not, and he was obliged to confess that
things looked very black against him.
"Then what the newspapers said was
correct?"
"Partly."
"Ah!" Calton drew a long breath
here was a ray of hope.
"You did not know it was Whyte when
you found him lying drunk near the Scotch Church?"
"No, I did not. Had I known it was he
I would not have picked him up."
"Of course, you recognised him
afterwards?"
"Yes I did. And, as the paper stated,
I dropped him and walked away."
"Why did you leave him so abruptly?"
Brian looked at his questioner in some
surprise.
"Because I detested him," he said,
shortly.
"Why did you detest him?"
No answer.
"Was it because he admired Miss
Frettlby, and from all appearances, was going to marry
her?"
"Well, yes," sullenly.
"And now," said Calton, impressively,
"this is the whole point upon which the case turns.
Why did you get into the cab with him?"
"I did not get into the cab."
"The cabman declares that you did."
"He is wrong. I never came back after
I recognised Whyte."
"Then who was the man who got into the
cab with Whyte?"
"I don't know."
"You have no idea?"
"Not the least."
"You are certain?"
"Yes, perfectly certain."
"He seems to have been dressed exactly
like you."
"Very probably. I could name at least
a dozen of my acquaintances who wear light coats over
their evening dress, and soft hats."
"Do you know if Whyte had any
enemies?"
"No, I don't; I know nothing about
him, beyond that he came from England a short time ago
with a letter of introduction to Mr. Frettlby, and had
the impertinence to ask Madge to marry him."
"Where did Whyte live?"
"Down in St. Kilda, at the end of Grey
Street."
"How do you know?"
"It was in the papers, and and
" hesitatingly, "I called on him."
"Why?"
"To see if he would cease his
attentions to Madge, and to tell him that she was
engaged to me."
"And what did he say?"
"Laughed at me. Curse him."
"You had high words, evidently?"
Brian laughed bitterly.
"Yes, we had."
"Did anyone hear you?"
"The landlady did, I think. I saw her
in the passage as I left the house."
"The prosecution will bring her
forward as a witness."
"Very likely," indifferently.
"Did you say anything likely to
incriminate yourself?" Fitzgerald turned away his
head.
"Yes," he answered in a low voice, "I
spoke very wildly indeed, I did not know at the
time what I said."
"Did you threaten him?"
"Yes, I did. I told him I would kill
him if he persisted in his plan of marrying Madge."
"Ah! if the landlady can swear that
she heard you say so, it will form a strong piece of
evidence against you. So far as I can see, there is
only one defence, and that is an easy one you
must prove an alibi."
No answer.
"You say you did not come back and get
into the cab?" said Calton, watching the face of the
other closely.
"No, it was some one else dressed like
me."
"And you have no idea who it was?"
"No, I have not."
"Then, after you left Whyte, and
walked along Russell Street, where did you go?"
"I can't tell you."
"Were you intoxicated?"
"No!" indignantly
"Then you remember?"
"Yes."
"And where were you?"
"I can't tell you."
"You refuse."
"Yes, I do."
"Take time to consider. You may have
to pay a heavy price for your refusal."
"If necessary, I will pay it."
"And you won't tell me where you
were?"
"No, I won't."
Calton was beginning to feel annoyed.
"You're very foolish," he said,
"sacrificing your life to some feeling of false
modesty. You must prove an alibi."
No answer.
"At what hour did you get home?"
"About two o'clock in the morning."
"Did you walk home?"
"Yes through the Fitzroy
Gardens."
"Did you see anyone on your way home?"
"I don't know. I wasn't paying
attention."
"Did anyone see you?"
"Not that I know of."
"Then you refuse to tell me where you
were between one and two o'clock on Friday morning?"
"Absolutely!"
Calton thought for a moment, to
consider his next move.
"Did you know that Whyte carried
valuable papers about with him?"
Fitzgerald hesitated, and turned pale.
"No! I did not know," he said,
reluctantly.
The lawyer made a master stroke.
"Then why did you take them from him?"
"What! Had he it with him?"
Calton saw his advantage, and seized
it at once.
"Yes, he had it with him. Why did you
take it?"
"I did not take it. I didn't even know
he had it with him."
"Indeed! Will you kindly tell me what
'it' is?"
Brian saw the trap into which he had
fallen.
"No! I will not," he answered
steadily.
"Was it a jewel?"
"No!"
"Was it an important paper?"
"I don't know."
"Ah! It was a paper. I can see it in
your face. And was that paper of importance to you?"
"Why do you ask?"
Calton fixed his keen grey eyes
steadily on Brian's face.
"Because," he answered slowly, "the
man to whom that paper was of such value murdered
Whyte."
Brian started up, ghastly pale.
"My God!" he almost shrieked,
stretching out his hands, "it is true after all," and
he fell down on the stone pavement in a dead faint.
Calton, alarmed, summoned the gaoler,
and between them they placed him on the bed, and
dashed some cold water over his face. He recovered,
and moaned feebly, while Calton, seeing that he was
unfit to be spoken to, left the prison. When he got
outside he stopped for a moment and looked back on the
grim, grey walls.
"Brian Fitzgerald," he said to himself
"you did not commit the murder yourself, but you know
who did."
MELBOURNE society was greatly
agitated over the hansom cab murder. Before the
assassin had been discovered it had been looked upon
merely as a common murder, and one of which society
need take no cognisance beyond the bare fact of its
committal. But now that one of the most fashionable
young men in Melbourne had been arrested as the
assassin, it bade fair to assume gigantic proportions.
Mrs. Grundy was shocked, and openly talked about
having nourished in her bosom a viper which had
unexpectedly turned and stung her.
Morn, noon, and night, in Toorak
drawing-rooms and Melbourne Clubs, the case formed the
principal subject of conversation. And Mrs. Grundy was
horrified. Here was a young man, well born "the
Fitzgeralds, my dear, an Irish family, with royal
blood in their veins" well-bred "most
charming manners, I assure you, and so very good-
looking" and engaged to one of the richest girls in
Melbourne "pretty enough, madam, no doubt, but
he wanted her money, sly dog;" and this young man, who
had been petted by the ladies, voted a good fellow by
the men, and was universally popular, both in drawing-
room and club, had committed a
vulgar murder it was truly shocking. What was
the world coming to, and what were gaols and lunatic
asylums built for if men of young Fitzgerald's calibre
were not put in them, and kept from killing people?
And then, of course, everybody asked everybody else
who Whyte was, and why he had never been heard of
before. All people who had met Mr. Whyte were worried
to death with questions about him, and underwent a
species of social martyrdom as to who he was, what he
was like, why he was killed, and all the rest of the
insane questions which some people will ask. It was
talked about everywhere in fashionable drawing-
rooms at five o'clock tea, over thin bread and butter
and souchong; at clubs, over brandies and sodas and
cigarettes; by working men over their mid-day pint,
and by their wives in the congenial atmosphere of the
back yard over the wash-tub. The papers were full of
paragraphs about the famous murder, and the society
papers gave an interview with the prisoner by their
special reporters, which had been composed by those
gentlemen out of the floating rumours which they heard
around, and their own fertile imaginations.
As to the prisoner's guilt, everyone
was certain of it. The cabman Royston had sworn that
Fitzgerald had got into the cab with Whyte, and when
he got out Whyte was dead. There could be no stronger
proof than that, and the general opinion was that the
prisoner would put in no defence, but would throw
himself on the mercy of the court. Even the church
caught the contagion, and ministers Anglican,
Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian, together with the
lesser lights of minor denominations took the
hansom cab murder as a text whereon to preach sermons
on the profligacy of the age, and to point out that
the only ark which could save men from the rising
flood of infidelity and immorality was their own
particular church. "Gad," as Calton remarked, after
hearing five or
six ministers each claim their own church as the one
special vessel of safety, "there seems to be a whole
fleet of arks!"
For Mr. Felix Rolleston, acquainted as
he was with all concerned, the time was one of great
and exceeding joy. He was ever to the fore in
retailing to his friends, plus certain garnishments of
his own, any fresh evidence that chanced to come to
light. His endeavour was to render it the more
piquant, if not dramatic. If you asked him for his
definite opinion as to the innocence or guilt of the
accused, Mr. Felix shook his head sagaciously, and
gave you to understand that neither he, nor his dear
friend Calton he knew Calton to nod to
had yet been able to make up their minds about the
matter.
"Fact is, don't you know," observed
Mr. Rolleston, wisely, "there's more in this than
meets the eye, and all that sort of thing think
'tective fellers wrong myself don't think Fitz
killed Whyte; jolly well sure he didn't."
This would be followed invariably by a
query in chorus of "who killed him then?"
"Aha," Felix would retort, putting his
head on one side, like a meditative sparrow; "'tective
fellers can't find out; that's the difficulty. Good
mind to go on the prowl myself, by Jove."
"But do you know anything of the
detective business?" some one would ask.
"Oh, dear yes," with an airy wave of
his hand; "I've read Gaboriau, you know; awfully jolly
life, 'tectives."
Despite this evasion, Rolleston, in
his heart of hearts, believed Fitzgerald guilty. But
he was one of those persons, who having either tender
hearts or obstinate natures the latter is
perhaps the more general deem it incumbent upon
them to come forward in championship of those in
trouble.
There are, doubtless, those who think that Nero was a
pleasant young man, whose cruelties were but the
resultant of an overflow of high spirits; and who
regard Henry VIII. in the light of a henpecked husband
unfortunate in the possession of six wives. These
people delight in expressing their sympathy with great
scoundrels of the Ned Kelly order. They view them as
the embodiment of heroism, unsympathetically and
disgracefully treated by the narrow understanding of
the law. If one half the world does kick a man when he
is down, the other half invariably consoles the
prostrate individual with halfpence.
And therefore, even while the weight
of public opinion was dead against Fitzgerald he had
his share of avowed sympathy. There was a comfort in
this for Madge. Not that if the whole countryside had
unanimously condemned her lover she would have
believed him guilty. The element of logic does not
enter into the championship of woman. Her love for a
man is sufficient to exalt him to the rank of a demi-
god. She absolutely refuses to see the clay feet of
her idol. When all others forsake she clings to him,
when all others frown she smiles on him, and when he
dies she reveres his memory as that of a saint and a
martyr. Young men of the present day are prone to
disparage their womenkind; but a poor thing is the
man, who in time of trouble has no woman to stand by
him with cheering words and loving comfort. And so
Madge Frettlby, true woman that she was, had nailed
her colours to the mast. She refused surrender to
anyone, or before any argument. He was innocent, and
his innocence would be proved, for she had an
intuitive feeling that he would be saved at the
eleventh hour. How, she knew not; but she was certain
that it would be so. She would have gone to see Brian
in prison, but that her father absolutely forbade her
doing so. Therefore she was dependent upon
Calton for all the news respecting him, and any
message which she wished conveyed.
Brian's persistent refusal to set up
the defence of an alibi, annoyed Calton, the
more so as he could conceive no reason sufficiently
worthy of the risk to which it subjected his client.
"If it's for the sake of a woman," he
said to Brian, "I don't care who she is, it's absurdly
Quixotic. Self-preservation is the first law of
nature, and if my neck was in danger I'd spare neither
man, woman, nor child to save it."
"I dare say," answered Brian; "but if
you had my reasons you might think differently."
Yet in his own mind the lawyer had a
suspicion which he thought might perhaps account for
Brian's obstinate concealment of his movements on the
fatal night. He had admitted an appointment with a
woman. He was a handsome young fellow, and probably
his morals were no better than those of his fellows.
There was perhaps some intrigue with a married woman.
He had perchance been with her on that night, and it
was to shield her that he refused to speak.
"Even so," argued Calton, "let him
lose his character rather than his life; indeed the
woman herself should speak. It would be hard upon her
I admit; yet when a man's life is in danger, surely
nothing should stop her."
Full of these perplexing thoughts,
Calton went down to St. Kilda to have a talk with
Madge. He intended to ask her to assist him towards
obtaining the information he needed. He had a great
respect for Madge, and thought her a really clever
woman. It was just possible, he argued, that Brian's
great love might cause him to confess everything to
her, at her urgent request. He found Madge awaiting
his arrival with anxiety.
"Where have you been all this time?"
she said as they sat
down; "I have been counting every moment since I saw
you last. How is he?"
"Just the same," answered Calton,
taking off his gloves, "still obstinately refusing to
save his own life. Where's your father?" he asked,
suddenly.
"Out of town," she answered,
impatiently. "He will not be back for a week
but what do you mean that he won't save his own life?"
Calton leaned forward, and took her
hand.
"Do you want to save his life?" he
asked.
"Save his life," she reiterated,
starting up out of her chair with a cry. "God knows, I
would die to save him."
"Pish," murmured Calton to himself, as
he looked at her glowing face and outstretched hands,
"these women are always in extremes. The fact is," he
said aloud, "Fitzgerald is able to prove an
alibi, and he refuses to do so."
"But why?"
Calton shrugged his shoulders.
"That is best known to himself
some Quixotic idea of honour, I fancy. Now, he refuses
to tell me where he was on that night; perhaps he
won't refuse to tell you so you must come up
and see him with me, and perhaps he will recover his
senses, and confess."
"But my father," she faltered.
"Did you not say he was out of town?"
asked Calton.
"Yes," hesitated Madge. "But he told
me not to go."
"In that case," said Calton, rising
and taking up his hat and gloves, "I won't ask you."
She laid her hand on his arm.
"Stop! will it do any good?"
Calton hesitated a moment, for he
thought that if the reason of Brian's silence was, as
he surmised, an intrigue with
a married woman, he might not tell the girl he was
engaged to about it but, on the other hand,
there might be some other reason, and Calton trusted
to Madge to find it out. With these thoughts in his
mind he turned round.
"Yes," he answered, boldly, "it may
save his life."
"Then I shall go," she answered,
recklessly. "He is more to me than my father, and if I
can save him, I will. Wait," and she ran out of the
room.
"An uncommonly plucky girl," murmured
the lawyer, as he looked out of the window. "If
Fitzgerald is not a fool he will certainly tell her
all that is, of course, if he is able to
queer things these women are I quite agree with
Balzac's saying that no wonder man couldn't understand
woman, seeing that God who created her failed to do
so."
Madge came back dressed to go out,
with a heavy veil over her face.
"Shall I order the carriage?" she
asked, pulling on her gloves with trembling fingers.
"Hardly," answered Calton, dryly,
"unless you want to see a paragraph in the society
papers to the effect that Miss Madge Frettlby visited
Mr. Fitzgerald in gaol no no
we'll get a cab. Come, my dear," and taking her arm he
led her away.
They reached the station, and caught a
train just as it started, yet notwithstanding this
Madge was in a fever of impatience.
"How slowly it goes," she said,
fretfully.
"Hush, my dear," said Calton, laying
his hand on her arm. "You will betray yourself
we'll arrive soon and save him."
"Oh, God grant we may," she said with
a low cry, clasping her hands tightly together, while
Calton could see the tears falling from under her
thick veil.
"This is not the way to do so," he
said, almost roughly, "you'll be in hysterics soon
control yourself for his sake."
"For his sake," she muttered, and with
a powerful effort of will, calmed herself. They soon
arrived in Melbourne, and, getting a hansom, drove up
quickly to the gaol. After going through the usual
formula, they entered the cell where Brian was, and,
when the warder who accompanied them opened the door,
they found the young man seated on his bed. He looked
up, and, on seeing Madge, rose and held out his hands
with a cry of delight. She ran forward, and threw
herself on his breast with a stifled sob. For a short
time no one spoke Calton being at the other end
of the cell, busy with some notes which he had taken
from his pocket, and the warder having retired.
"My poor darling," said Madge,
stroking back the soft, fair hair from his flushed
forehead, "how ill you look."
"Yes!" answered Fitzgerald, with a
hard laugh. "Prison does not improve a man does
it?"
"Don't speak in that tone, Brian," she
said; "it is not like you let us sit down and
talk calmly over the matter."
"I don't see what good that will do,"
he answered, wearily, as they sat down hand-in-hand.
"I have talked about it to Calton till my head aches,
and it is no good."
"Of course not," retorted the lawyer,
sharply, as he also sat down. "Nor will it be any good
until you come to your senses, and tell us where you
were on that night."
"I tell you I cannot."
"Brian, dear," said Madge, softly,
taking his hand, "you must tell all for my
sake."
Fitzgerald sighed this was the
hardest temptation he had yet been subjected to he
felt half inclined to yield, and chance the result
but one look at Madge's pure face steeled him
against doing so. What could his confession bring but
sorrow and regret to one whom he loved better than his
life.
"Madge!" he answered, gravely, taking
her hand again, "you do not know what you ask."
"Yes, I do!" she replied, quickly. "I
ask you to save yourself to prove that you are
not guilty of this terrible crime, and not to
sacrifice your life for the sake of of
"
Here she stopped, and looked
helplessly at Calton, for she had no idea of the
reason of Fitzgerald's refusal to speak.
"For the sake of a woman," finished
Calton, bluntly.
"A woman!" she faltered, still holding
her lover's hand. "Is is is that the
reason?"
Brian averted his face.
"Yes!" he said, in a low, rough voice.
A sharp expression of anguish crossed
her pale face, and, sinking her head on her hands, she
wept bitterly. Brian looked at her in a dogged kind of
way, and Calton stared grimly at them both.
"Look here," he said, at length, to
Brian, in an angry voice; "if you want my opinion of
your conduct I think it's infamous begging your
pardon, Miss Frettlby, for the expression. Here is
this noble girl, who loves you with her whole heart,
and is ready to sacrifice everything for your sake,
comes to implore you to save your life, and you coolly
turn round and acknowledge another woman."
Brian lifted his head haughtily, and
his face flushed.
"You are wrong," he said, turning
round sharply; "there is the woman for whose sake I
keep silence;" and, rising up from the bed, he pointed
to Madge, as she sobbed bitterly on it.
She lifted up her haggard face with an
air of surprise.
"For my sake!" she cried in a startled
voice.
"Oh, he's mad," said Calton, shrugging
his shoulders; "I shall put in a defence of insanity."
"No, I am not mad," cried Fitzgerald,
wildly, as he caught Madge in his arms. "My darling!
My darling! It is for your sake that I keep silence,
and I shall do so though my life pays the penalty. I
could tell you where I was on that night and save
myself; but if I did, you would learn a secret which
would curse your life, and I dare not speak I
dare not."
Madge looked up into his face with a
pitiful smile as her tears fell fast.
"Dearest!" she said, softly. "Do not
think of me, but only of yourself; better that I
should endure misery than that you should die. I do
not know what the secret can be, but if the telling of
it will save your life, do not hesitate. See," she
cried, falling on her knees, "I am at your feet
I implore you by all the love you ever had for me, to
save yourself, whatever the consequences may be to
me."
"Madge," said Fitzgerald, as he raised
her in his arms, "at one time I might have done so,
but now it is too late. There is another and stronger
reason for my silence, which I have only found out
since my arrest. I know that I am closing up the one
way of escape from this charge of murder, of which I
am innocent; but as there is a God in heaven, I swear
that I will not speak."
There was a silence in the cell,
broken only by Madge's convulsive sobs, and even
Calton, cynical man of the world as he was, felt his
eyes grow wet. Brian led Madge over to him, and placed
her in his arms.
"Take her away," he said, in a broken
voice, "or I shall forget that I am a man;" and
turning away he threw himself on his bed, and covered
his face with his hands. Calton did not answer him,
but summoned the warder, and tried to lead Madge away.
But just as they reached the door she broke
away from him, and, running back, flung herself on her
lover's breast.
"My darling! My darling!" she sobbed,
kissing him, "you shall not die. I shall save you in
spite of yourself;" and, as if afraid to trust herself
longer, she ran out of the cell, followed by the
barrister.
MADGE stepped into the cab,
and Calton paused a moment to tell the cabman to drive
to the railway station. Suddenly she stopped him.
"Tell him to drive to Brian's lodgings
in Powlett Street," she said, laying her hand on
Calton's arm.
"What for?" asked the lawyer, in
astonishment.
"And also to go past the Melbourne
Club, as I want to stop there."
"What the deuce does she mean?"
muttered Calton, as he gave the necessary orders, and
stepped into the cab.
"And now," he asked, looking at his
companion, who had let down her veil, while the cab
rattled quickly down the street, "what do you intend
to do?"
She threw back her veil, and he was
astonished to see the sudden change which had come
over her. There were no tears now, and her eyes were
hard and glittering, while her mouth was firmly
closed. She looked like a woman who had determined to
do a certain thing, and would carry out her intention
at whatever cost.
"I intend to save Brian in spite of
himself," she said, very distinctly.
"But how?"
"Ah, you think that, being a woman, I
can do nothing," she said, bitterly. "Well, you shall
see."
"I beg your pardon," retorted Calton,
with a grim smile, "my opinion of your sex has always
been an excellent one every lawyer's is; stands
to reason that it should be so, seeing that a woman is
at the bottom of nine cases out of ten."
"The old cry."
"Nevertheless a true one," answered
Calton. "Ever since the time of Father Adam it has
been acknowledged that women influence the world
either for good or evil more than men. But this is not
to the point," he went on, rather impatiently.
"What do you propose to do?"
"Simply this," she answered. "In the
first place, I may tell you that I do not understand
Brian's statement that he keeps silence for my sake,
as there are no secrets in my life that can justify
his saying so. The facts of the case are simply these:
Brian, on the night in question, left our house at St.
Kilda, at eleven o'clock. He told me that he would
call at the Club to see if there were any letters for
him, and then go straight home."
"But he might have said that merely as
a blind."
Madge shook her head.
"No, I don't think so. I did not ask
him where he was going. He told me quite
spontaneously. I know Brian's character, and he would
not tell a deliberate lie, especially when there was
no necessity for it. I am quite certain that he
intended to do as he said, and go straight home. When
he got to the Club, he found a letter there, which
caused him to alter his mind."
"From whom was the letter?"
"Can't you guess," she said
impatiently. "From the person, man or woman, who
wanted to see him and reveal
this secret about me, whatever it is. He got the
letter at his Club, and went down Collins Street to
meet the writer. At the corner of the Scotch Church he
found Mr. Whyte, and on recognising him, left in
disgust, and walked down Russell Street to keep his
appointment."
"Then you don't think he came back."
"I am certain he did not, for, as
Brian told you, there are plenty of young men who wear
the same kind of coat and hat as he does. Who the
second man who got into the cab was I do not know, but
I will swear that it was not Brian."
"And you are going to look for that
letter?"
"Yes, in Brian's lodgings."
"He might have burnt it."
"He might have done a thousand things,
but he did not," she answered. "Brian is the most
careless man in the world; he would put the letter
into his pocket, or throw it into the waste-paper
basket, and never think of it again."
"In this case he did, however."
"Yes, he thought of the conversation
he had with the writer, but not of the letter itself.
Depend upon it, we shall find it in his desk, or in
one of the pockets of the clothes he wore that night."
"Then there's another thing," said
Calton, thoughtfully. "The letter might, have been
delivered to him between the Elizabeth Street Railway
Station and the Club."
"We can soon find out about that,"
answered Madge; "for Mr. Rolleston was with him at the
time."
"So he was," answered Calton; "and
here is Rolleston coming down the street. We'll ask
him now."
The cab was just passing the Burke and
Wills' monument, and Calton's quick eye had caught a
glimpse of Rolleston walking down the left-hand side.
What first attracted Calton's attention was the
glittering appearance of Felix.
His well-brushed top hat glittered, his varnished
boots glittered, and his rings and scarf-pin
glittered; in fact, so resplendent was his appearance
that he looked like an animated diamond coming along
in the blazing sunshine.
The cab drove up to the kerb, and
Rolleston stopped short, as Calton sprang out directly
in front of him. Madge lay back in the cab and pulled
down her veil, not wishing to be recognised by Felix,
as she knew that if he did it would soon be all over
the town.
"Hallo! old chap," said Rolleston, in
considerable astonishment. "Where did you spring
from?"
"From the cab, of course," answered
Calton, with a laugh.
"A kind of Deus ex machina,"**
replied Rolleston, attempting a bad pun.
"Exactly," said Calton. "Look here,
Rolleston, do you remember the night of Whyte's murder
you met Fitzgerald at the Railway Station."
"In the train," corrected Felix.
"Well, well, no matter, you came up
with him to the Club."
"Yes, and left him there."
"Did you notice if he received any
message while he was with you?"
"Any message?" repeated Felix. "No, he
did not; we were talking together the whole time, and
he spoke to no one but me."
"Was he in good spirits?"
"Excellent, made me laugh awfully
but why all this thusness?"
"Oh, nothing," answered Calton,
getting back into the cab. "I wanted a little
information from you; I'll explain next time I see you
Good-bye!"
"But I say," began Felix, but the cab
had already rattled away, so Mr. Rolleston turned
angrily away.
"I never saw anything like these
lawyers," he said to himself. "Calton's a perfect
whirlwind, by Jove."
Meanwhile Calton was talking to Madge.
"You were right," he said, "there must
have been a message for him at the Club, for he got
none from the time he left your place."
"And what shall we do now?" asked
Madge, who, having heard all the conversation, did not
trouble to question the lawyer about it.
"Find out at the Club if any letter
was waiting for him on that night," said Calton, as
the cab stopped at the door of the Melbourne Club.
"Here we are," and with a hasty word to Madge, he ran
up the steps.
He went to the office of the Club to
find out if any letters had been waiting for
Fitzgerald, and found there a waiter with whom he was
pretty well acquainted.
"Look here, Brown," said the lawyer,
"do you remember on that Thursday night when the
hansom cab murder took place if any letters were
waiting here for Mr. Fitzgerald?"
"Well, really, sir," hesitated Brown,
"it's so long ago that I almost forget."
Calton gave him a sovereign.
"Oh! it's not that, Mr. Calton," said
the waiter, pocketing the coin, nevertheless. "But I
really do forget."
"Try and remember," said Calton,
shortly.
Brown made a tremendous effort of
memory, and at last gave a satisfactory answer.
"No, sir, there were none!"
"Are you sure?" said Calton, feeling a
thrill of disappointment.
"Quite sure, sir," replied the other,
confidently, "I went to
the letter rack several times that night, and I am
sure there were none for Mr. Fitzgerald."
"Ah! I thought as much," said Calton,
heaving a sigh.
"Stop!" said Brown, as though struck
with a sudden idea. "Though there was no letter came
by post, sir, there was one brought to him on that
night."
"Ah!" said Calton, turning sharply.
"At what time?"
"Just before twelve o'clock, sir."
"Who brought it?"
"A young woman, sir," said Brown, in a
tone of disgust. "A bold thing, beggin' your pardon,
sir; and no better than she should be. She bounced in
at the door as bold as brass, and sings out, 'Is he
in?' 'Get out,' I says, 'or I'll call the perlice.'
'Oh no, you won't,' says she. 'You'll give him that,'
and she shoves a letter into my hands. 'Who's him?' I
asks. 'I dunno,' she answers. 'It's written there, and
I can't read; give it him at once.' And then she
clears out before I could stop her."
"And the letter was for Mr.
Fitzgerald?"
"Yes, sir; and a precious dirty letter
it was, too."
"You gave it to him, of course?"
"I did, sir. He was playing cards, and
he put it in his pocket, after having looked at the
outside of it, and went on with his game."
"Didn't he open it?"
"Not then, sir; but he did later on,
about a quarter to one o'clock. I was in the room, and
he opens it and reads it. Then he says to himself,
'What dd impertinence,' and puts it into
his pocket."
"Was he disturbed!"
"Well, sir, he looked angry like, and
put his coat and hat on, and walked out about five
minutes to one."
"Ah! and he met Whyte at one,"
muttered Calton. "There's no doubt about it. The
letter was an appointment, and he was going to keep
it. What kind of a letter was it?" he asked.
"Very dirty, sir, in a square
envelope; but the paper was good, and so was the
writing."
"That will do," said Calton; "I am
much obliged to you," and he hurried down to where
Madge awaited him in the cab.
"You were right," he said to her, when
the cab was once more in motion. "He got a letter on
that night, and went to keep his appointment at the
time he met Whyte."
"I knew it," cried Madge with delight.
"You see, we will find it in his lodgings."
"I hope so," answered Calton; "but we
must not be too sanguine; he may have destroyed it."
"No, he has not," she replied. "I am
convinced it is there."
"Well," answered Calton, looking at
her, "I don't contradict you, for your feminine
instincts have done more to discover the truth than my
reasonings; but that is often the case with women
they jump in the dark where a man would
hesitate, and in nine cases out of ten land safely."
"Alas for the tenth!" said Miss
Frettlby. "She has to be the one exception to prove
the rule."
She had in a great measure recovered
her spirits, and seemed confident that she would save
her lover. But Mr. Calton saw that her nerves were
strung up to the highest pitch, and that it was only
her strong will that kept her from breaking down
altogether.
"By Jove," he muttered, in an admiring
tone, as he
watched her. "She's a plucky girl, and Fitzgerald is a
lucky man to have the love of such a woman."
They soon arrived at Brian's lodgings,
and the door was opened by Mrs. Sampson, who looked
very disconsolate indeed. The poor cricket had been
blaming herself severely for the information she had
given to the false insurance agent, and the floods of
tears which she had wept had apparently had an effect
on her physical condition, for she crackled less
loudly than usual, though her voice was as shrill as
ever.
"That sich a thing should 'ave
'appened to 'im," she wailed, in her thin, high voice.
"An' me that proud of 'im, not 'avin' any family of my
own, except one as died and went up to 'eaving arter
'is father, which I 'opes as they both are now angels,
an' friendly, as 'is nature 'ad not developed in this
valley of the shadder to determine 'is feelin's
towards is father when 'e died, bein' carried off by a
chill, caused by the change from 'ot to cold, the
weather bein' that contrary."
They had arrived in Brian's
sitting-room by this time, and Madge sank into a
chair, while Calton, anxious to begin the search,
hinted to Mrs. Sampson that she could go.
"I'm departin', sir," piped the
cricket, with a sad shake of her head, as she opened
the door; "knowin', as I do, as 'e's as innocent as an
unborn babe, an' to think of me 'avin' told that
'orrid pusson who 'ad no regard for the truth all
about 'im as is now in a cold cell, not as what the
weather ain't warm, an' 'e won't want a fire as long
as they allows 'im blankets."
"What did you tell him?" asked Calton,
sharply.
"Ah! you may well say that," lamented
Mrs. Sampson, rolling her dingy handkerchief into a
ball, and dabbing at
her red-rimmed eyes, which presented quite a
bacchanalian appearance, due, be it said in justice,
to grief, not to liquor. "'Avin' bin beguiled by that
serping in light clothes as wanted to know if 'e
allays come 'ome afore twelve, which I said 'e was in
the 'abit of doin', tho', to be sure, 'e did sometimes
use 'is latch-key."
"The night of the murder, for
instance."
"Oh! don't say that, sir," said Mrs.
Sampson, with a terrified crackle. "Me bein' weak an'
ailin', tho' comin' of a strong family, as allays
lived to a good age, thro' bein' in the 'abit of
wearin' flannels, which my mother's father thought
better nor a-spilin' the inside with chemistry."
"Clever man, that detective," murmured
Calton to himself. "He got out of her by strategy what
he never would have done by force. It's a strong piece
of evidence against Fitzgerald, but it does not matter
much if he can prove an alibi. You'll likely be
called as a witness for the prosecution," he said
aloud.
"Me, sir!" squeaked Mrs. Sampson,
trembling violently, and thereby producing a subdued
rustle, as of wind in the trees. "As I've never bin in
the court, 'cept the time as father tooked me for a
treat, to 'ear a murder, which there's no denyin' is
as good as a play, 'e bein' 'ung, 'avin' 'it 'is wife
over the 'ead with the poker when she weren't lookin',
and a-berryin' 'er corpse in a back garding, without
even a stone to mark the place, let alone a line from
the Psalms and a remuneration of 'er virtues."
"Well, well," said Calton, rather
impatiently, as he opened the door for her, "leave us
for a short time, there's a good soul. Miss Frettlby
and I want to rest, and we will ring for you when we
are going."
"Thank you, sir," said the lachrymose
landlady, "an' I
'opes they won't 'ang 'im, which is sich a choky way
of dyin'; but in life we are in death," she went on,
rather incoherently, "as is well known to them as 'as
diseases, an' may be corpsed at any minute, and as
"
Here Calton, unable to restrain his
impatience any longer, shut the door, and they heard
Mrs. Sampson's shrill voice and subdued cracklings die
away in the distance.
"Now then," he said, "now that we have
got rid of that woman and her tongue, where are we to
begin?"
"The desk," replied Madge, going over
to it; "it's the most likely place."
"Don't think so," said Calton, shaking
his head. "If, as you say, Fitzgerald is a careless
man, he would not have troubled to put it there.
However; perhaps we'd better look."
The desk was very untidy ("Just like
Brian," as Madge remarked) full of paid and
unpaid bills, old letters, play-bills, ball-
programmes, and withered flowers.
"Reminiscences of former flirtations,"
said Calton, with a laugh, pointing to these.
"I should not wonder," retorted Miss
Frettlby, coolly. "Brian always was in love with some
one or other; but you know what Lytton says, 'There
are many counterfeits, but only one Eros,' so I can
afford to forget these things."
The letter, however, was not to be
found in the desk, nor was it in the sitting-room.
They tried the bedroom, but with no better result.
Madge was about to give up the search in despair, when
suddenly Calton's eye fell on the waste-paper basket,
which, by some unaccountable reason, they had over-
looked. The basket was half-full, in fact; more than
half,
and, on looking at it, a sudden thought struck the
lawyer. He rang the bell, and presently Mrs. Sampson
made her appearance.
"How long has that waste-paper basket
been standing like that?" he asked, pointing to it.
"It bein' the only fault I 'ad to find
with 'im," said Mrs. Sampson, "'e bein' that untidy
that 'e a never let me clean it out until 'e told me
pussonly. 'E said as 'ow 'e throwed things into it as
'e might 'ave to look up again; an' I 'aven't touched
it for more nor six weeks, 'opin' you won't think me a
bad 'ousekeeper, it bein' 'is own wish bein'
fond of litter an' sich like."
"Six weeks," repeated Calton, with a
look at Madge. "Ah, and he got the letter four weeks
ago. Depend upon it, we shall find it there."
Madge gave a cry, and falling on her
knees, emptied the basket out on the floor, and both
she and Calton were soon as busy among the fragments
of paper as though they were rag-pickers.
"'Opin they ain't orf their 'eads,"
murmured Mrs. Sampson, as she went to the door, "but
it looks like it, they bein' "
Suddenly a cry broke from Madge, as
she drew out of the mass of paper a half-burnt letter,
written on thick and creamy-looking paper.
"At last," she cried, rising off her
knees, and smoothing it out; "I knew he had not
destroyed it."
"Pretty nearly, however," said Calton,
as his eye glanced rapidly over it; "it's almost
useless as it is. There's no name to it."
He took it over to the window, and
spread it out upon the table. It was dirty, and half
burnt, but still it was a clue. Here is a
fac-simile of the letter:
"There is not much to be gained from
that, I'm afraid," said Madge, sadly. "It shows that
he had an appointment but where?"
Calton did not answer, but, leaning
his head on his hands, stared hard at the paper. At
last he jumped up with a cry
"I have it," he said, in an excited
tone. "Look at that paper; see how creamy and white it
is, and above all, look at the printing in the corner
'OT VILLA, TOORAK.'"
"Then he went down to Toorak?"
"In an hour, and back again
hardly!"
"Then it was not written from Toorak?"
"No, it was written in one of the
Melbourne back slums."
"How do you know?"
"Look at the girl who brought it,"
said Calton, quickly. "A disreputable woman, one far
more likely to come from the back slums than from
Toorak. As to the paper, three
months ago there was a robbery at Toorak, and this is
some of the paper that was stolen by the thieves."
Madge said nothing, but her sparkling
eyes and the nervous trembling of her hands showed her
excitement.
"I will see a detective this evening,"
said Calton, exultingly, "find out where this letter
came from, and who wrote it. We'll save him yet," he
said, placing the precious letter carefully in his
pocket-book.
"You think that you will be able to
find the woman who wrote that?"
"Hum," said the lawyer, looking
thoughtful, "she may be dead, as the letter says she
is in a dying condition. However, if I can find the
woman who delivered the letter at the Club, and who
waited for Fitzgerald at the corner of Bourke and
Russell Streets, that will be sufficient. All I want
to prove is that he was not in the hansom cab with
Whyte."
"And do you think you can do that?"
"Depends upon this letter," said
Calton, tapping his pocket-book with his finger. "I'll
tell you to-morrow."
Shortly afterwards they left the
house, and when Calton put Madge safely into the St.
Kilda train, her heart felt lighter than it had done
since Fitzgerald's arrest.
THERE is an old adage that
says "Like draws to like." The antithesis of this is
probably that "Unlike repels unlike." But there are
times when individualism does not enter into the
matter, and Fate alone, by throwing two persons
together, sets up a state, congenial or uncongenial,
as the case may be. Fate chose to throw together Mr.
Gorby and Mr. Kilsip, and each was something more than
uncongenial to the other. Each was equally clever in
their common profession; each was a universal
favourite, yet each hated the other. They were as fire
and water to one another, and when they came together,
invariably there was trouble.
Kilsip was tall and slender; Gorby was
short and stout. Kilsip looked clever; Gorby wore a
smile of self-satisfaction; which alone was sufficient
to prevent his doing so. Yet, singularly enough, it
was this very smile that proved most useful to Gorby
in the pursuit of his calling. It enabled him to come
at information where his sharp-looking colleague might
try in vain. The hearts of all went forth to Gorby's
sweet smile and insinuating manner. But when Kilsip
appeared people were wont to shut up, and to retire
promptly, like alarmed snails, within their shells.
Gorby gave the lie
direct to those who hold that the face is ever the
index to the mind. Kilsip, on the other hand, with his
hawk-like countenance, his brilliant black eyes,
hooked nose, and small thin-lipped mouth, endorsed the
theory. His complexion was quite colourless, and his
hair was jet black. Altogether, he could not be called
fair to look upon. His craft and cunning were of the
snake-like order. So long as he conducted his
enquiries in secret he was generally successful; but
once let him appear personally on the scene, and
failure was assured to him. Thus, while Kilsip passed
as the cleverer, Gorby was invariably the more
successful at all events, ostensibly.
When, therefore, this hansom cab
murder case was put into Gorby's hands, the soul of
Kilsip was smitten with envy, and when Fitzgerald was
arrested, and all the evidence collected by Gorby
seemed to point so conclusively to his guilt, Kilsip
writhed in secret over the triumph of his enemy.
Though he would only have been too glad to say that
Gorby had got hold of the wrong man, yet the evidence
was so conclusive that such a thought never entered
his head until he received a note from Mr. Calton,
asking him to call at his office that evening at eight
o'clock, with reference to the murder.
Kilsip knew that Calton was counsel
for the prisoner. He guessed that he was wanted to
follow up a clue. And he determined to devote himself
to whatever Calton might require of him, if only to
prove Gorby to be wrong. So pleased was he at the mere
possibility of triumphing over his rival, that on
casually meeting him, he stopped and invited him to
drink.
The primary effect of his sudden and
unusual hospitality was to arouse all Gorby's
suspicions; but on second thoughts, deeming himself
quite a match for Kilsip, both mentally and
physically, Gorby accepted the invitation.
"Ah!" said Kilsip, in his soft, low
voice, rubbing his lean
white hands together, as they sat over their drinks,
"you're a lucky man to have laid your hands on that
hansom cab murderer so quickly."
"Yes; I flatter myself I did manage it
pretty well," said Gorby, lighting his pipe. "I had no
idea that it would be so simple though, mind
you, it required a lot of thought before I got a
proper start."
"I suppose you're pretty sure he's the
man you want?" pursued Kilsip, softly, with a
brilliant flash of his black eyes.
"Pretty sure, indeed!" retorted Mr.
Gorby, scornfully, "there ain't no pretty sure about
it. I'd take my Bible oath he's the man. He and Whyte
hated one another. He says to Whyte, 'I'll kill you,
if I've got to do it in the open street.' He meets
Whyte drunk, a fact which he acknowledges himself; he
clears out, and the cabman swears he comes back; then
he gets into the cab with a living man, and when he
comes out leaves a dead one; he drives to East
Melbourne and gets into the house at a time which his
landlady can prove just the time that a cab
would take to drive from the Grammar School on the St.
Kilda Road. If you ain't a fool, Kilsip, you'll see as
there's no doubt about it."
"It looks all square enough," said
Kilsip, who wondered what evidence Calton could have
found to contradict such a plain statement of fact.
"And what's his defence?"
"Mr. Calton's the only man as knows
that," answered Gorby, finishing his drink; "but,
clever and all as he is, he can't put anything in,
that can go against my evidence."
"Don't you be too sure of that,"
sneered Kilsip, whose soul was devoured with envy.
"Oh! but I am," retorted Gorby,
getting as red as a turkey-cock at the sneer. "You're
jealous, you are, because you haven't got a finger in
the pie."
"Ah! but I may have yet."
"Going a-hunting yourself, are you?"
said Gorby, with an indignant snort. "A-hunting for
what for a man as is already caught?"
"I don't believe you've got the right
man," remarked Kilsip, deliberately.
Mr. Gorby looked upon him with a smile
of pity.
"No! of course you don't, just because
I've caught him; perhaps, when you see him hanged,
you'll believe it then?"
"You're a smart man, you are,"
retorted Kilsip; "but you ain't the Pope to be
infallible."
"And what grounds have you for saying
he's not the right man?" demanded Gorby.
Kilsip smiled, and stole softly across
the room like a cat.
"You don't think I'm such a fool as to
tell you? But you ain't so safe nor clever as you
think," and, with another irritating smile, he went
out.
"He's a regular snake," said Gorby to
himself, as the door closed on his brother detective;
"but he's bragging now. There isn't a link missing in
the chain of evidence against Fitzgerald, so I defy
him. He can do his worst."
At eight o'clock on that night the
soft-footed and soft-voiced detective presented
himself at Calton's office. He found the lawyer
impatiently waiting for him. Kilsip closed the door
softly, and then taking a seat opposite to Calton,
waited for him to speak. The lawyer, however, first
handed him a cigar, and then producing a bottle of
whisky and two glasses from some mysterious recess, he
filled one and pushed it towards the detective. Kilsip
accepted these little attentions with the utmost
gravity, yet they were not without their effect on
him, as the keen-eyed lawyer saw. Calton was a great
believer in diplomacy, and never lost an opportunity
of inculcating it into young men starting in life.
"Diplomacy,"
said Calton, to one young aspirant for legal honours,
"is the oil we cast on the troubled waters of social,
professional, and political life; and if you can, by a
little tact, manage mankind, you are pretty certain to
get on in this world."
Calton was a man who practised what he
preached. He believed Kilsip to have that feline
nature, which likes to be stroked, to be made much of,
and he paid him these little attentions, knowing full
well they would bear their fruit. He also knew that
Kilsip entertained no friendly feeling for Gorby,
that, in fact, he bore him hatred, and he determined
that this feeling which existed between the two men,
should serve him to the end he had in view.
"I suppose," he said, leaning back in
his chair, and watching the wreaths of blue smoke
curling from his cigar, "I suppose you know all the
ins and the outs of the hansom cab murder?"
"I should rather think so," said
Kilsip, with a curious light in his queer eyes. "Why,
Gorby does nothing but brag about it, and his
smartness in catching the supposed murderer!"
"Aha!" said Calton, leaning forward,
and putting his arms on the table. "Supposed murderer.
Eh! Does that mean that he hasn't been convicted by a
jury, or that you think that Fitzgerald is innocent?"
Kilsip stared hard at the lawyer, in a
vague kind of way, slowly rubbing his hands together.
"Well," he said at length, in a
deliberate manner, "before I got your note, I was
convinced Gorby had got hold of the right man, but
when I heard that you wanted to see me, and knowing
you are defending the prisoner, I guessed that you
must have found something in his favour which you
wanted me to look after."
"Right!" said Calton, laconically.
"As Mr. Fitzgerald said he met Whyte
at the corner and hailed the cab " went on
the detective.
"How do you know that?" interrupted
Calton, sharply.
"Gorby told me."
"How the devil did he find out?" cried
the lawyer, with genuine surprise.
"Because he is always poking and
prying about," said Kilsip, forgetting, in his
indignation, that such poking and prying formed part
of detective business. "But, at any rate," he went on
quickly, "if Mr. Fitzgerald did leave Mr. Whyte, the
only chance he's got of proving his innocence is that
he did not come back, as the cabman alleged."
"Then, I suppose, you think that
Fitzgerald will prove an alibi," said Calton.
"Well, sir," answered Kilsip,
modestly, "of course you know more about the case than
I do, but that is the only defence I can see he can
make."
"Well, he's not going to put in such a
defence."
"Then he must be guilty," said Kilsip,
promptly.
"Not necessarily," returned the
barrister, drily.
"But if he wants to save his neck,
he'll have to prove an alibi," persisted the
other.
"That's just where the point is,"
answered Calton. "He doesn't want to save his neck."
Kilsip, looking rather bewildered,
took a sip of whisky, and waited to hear what Mr.
Calton had to say.
"The fact is," said Calton, lighting a
fresh cigar, "he has some extraordinary idea in his
head. He refuses absolutely to say where he was on
that night."
"I understand," said Kilsip, nodding
his head. "Woman?"
"No, nothing of the kind," retorted
Calton, hastily. "I thought so at first, but I was
wrong. He went to see a dying woman, who wished to
tell him something."
"What about?"
"That's just what I can't tell you,"
answered Calton quickly. "It must have been something
important, for she sent for him in great haste
and he was by her bedside between the hours of one and
two on Friday morning."
"Then he did not return to the cab?"
"No, he did not, he went to keep his
appointment, but, for some reason or other, he won't
tell where this appointment was. I went to his rooms
to-day and found this half-burnt letter, asking him to
come."
Calton handed the letter to Kilsip,
who placed it on the table and examined it carefully.
"This was written on Thursday," said
the detective.
"Of course you can see that
from the date; and Whyte was murdered on Friday, the
27th."
"It was written at something Villa,
Toorak," pursued Kilsip, still examining the paper.
"Oh! I understand; he went down there."
"Hardly," retorted Calton, in a
sarcastic tone. "He couldn't very well go down there,
have an interview, and be back in East Melbourne in
one hour the cabman Royston can prove that he
was at Russell Street at one o'clock, and his landlady
that he entered his lodging in East Melbourne at two
no, he wasn't at Toorak."
"When was this letter delivered?"
"Shortly before twelve o'clock, at the
Melbourne Club, by a girl, who, from what the waiter
saw of her, appears to be a disreputable individual
you will see it says bearer will wait him at
Bourke Street, and as another street is mentioned, and
as Fitzgerald, after leaving Whyte, went down Russell
Street to keep his appointment, the most logical
conclusion is that the bearer of the letter waited for
him at the corner of Bourke and Russell Streets. Now,"
went on the lawyer,
"I want to find out who the girl that brought the
letter is!"
"But how?"
"God bless my soul, Kilsip! How stupid
you are," cried Calton, his irritation getting the
better of him. "Can't you understand that paper
came from one of the back slums therefore it
must have been stolen."
A sudden light flashed into Kilsip's
eyes.
"Talbot Villa, Toorak," he cried
quickly, snatching up the letter again, and examining
it with great attention, "where that burglary took
place."
"Exactly," said Calton, smiling
complacently. "Now do you understand what I want
you must take me to the crib in the back slums
where the articles stolen from the house in Toorak
were hidden. This paper" pointing to the letter
"is part of the swag left behind, and must have
been used by someone there. Brian Fitzgerald obeyed
the directions given in the letter, and he was there,
at the time of the murder."
"I understand," said Kilsip, with a
gratified purr. "There were four men engaged in that
burglary, and they hid the swag at Mother
Guttersnipe's crib, in a lane off Little Bourke Street
but hang it, a swell like Mr. Fitzgerald, in
evening dress, couldn't very well have gone down there
unless "
"He had some one with him well-known
in the locality," finished Calton, rapidly. "Exactly,
that woman who delivered the letter at the Club guided
him. Judging from the waiter's description of her
appearance, I should think she was pretty well known
about the slums."
"Well," said Kilsip, rising and
looking at his watch, "it is now nine o'clock, so if
you like we will go to the old hag's place at once
dying woman," he said, as if struck by a sudden
thought, "there was a woman who died there about four
weeks ago."
"Who was she?" asked Calton, who was
putting on his overcoat.
"Some relation of Mother
Guttersnipe's, I fancy," answered Kilsip, as they left
the office. "I don't know exactly what she was
she was called the 'Queen,' and a precious handsome
woman she must have been came from Sydney about
three months ago, and from what I can make out, was
not long from England, died of consumption on the
Thursday night before the murder."
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