TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Obvious errors and omissions in punctuation have been fixed.
The book was published in 1893.
MY FRIEND
THE MURDERER
_AND OTHER MYSTERIES AND
ADVENTURES_
BY
A. CONAN DOYLE
AUTHOR OF
“THE WHITE COMPANY,” “THE FIRM OF GIRDLESTONE,” ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK
INTERNATIONAL BOOK COMPANY
310-318 SIXTH AVENUE
BY
UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY.
[_All rights reserved._]
CONTENTS.
PAGE
MY FRIEND THE MURDERER, 7
THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE, 31
THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH, 60
THE SILVER HATCHET, 79
THE MAN FROM ARCHANGEL, 99
THAT LITTLE SQUARE BOX, 129
A NIGHT AMONG THE NIHILISTS, 155
BONES, THE APRIL FOOL OF HARVEY’S SLUICE, 171
SELECTING A GHOST, 209
THE MYSTERY OF SASASSA VALLEY, 232
THE AMERICAN’S TALE, 248
OUR DERBY SWEEPSTAKES, 258
MY FRIEND THE MURDERER.
“Number 43 is no better, Doctor,” said the head-warder, in a slightly
reproachful accent, looking in round the corner of my door.
“Confound 43!” I responded from behind the pages of the _Australian
Sketcher_.
“And 61 says his tubes are paining him. Couldn’t you do anything for
him?”
“He’s a walking drug-shop,” said I. “He has the whole British
pharmacopœia inside him. I believe his tubes are as sound as yours are.”
“Then there’s 7 and 108, they are chronic,” continued the warder,
glancing down a blue slip of paper. “And 28 knocked off work
yesterday--said lifting things gave him a stitch in the side. I want
you to have a look at him, if you don’t mind, Doctor. There’s 31,
too--him that killed John Adamson in the Corinthian brig--he’s been
carrying on awful in the night, shrieking and yelling, he has, and no
stopping him either.”
“All right, I’ll have a look at him afterward,” I said, tossing my
paper carelessly aside, and pouring myself out a cup of coffee.
“Nothing else to report, I suppose, warder?”
The official protruded his head a little further into the room. “Beg
pardon, Doctor,” he said, in a confidential tone, “but I notice as 82
has a bit of a cold, and it would be a good excuse for you to visit him
and have a chat, maybe.”
The cup of coffee was arrested half-way to my lips as I stared in
amazement at the man’s serious face.
“An excuse?” I said. “An excuse? What the deuce are you talking about,
McPherson? You see me trudging about all day at my practice, when I’m
not looking after the prisoners, and coming back every night as tired
as a dog, and you talk about finding an excuse for doing more work.”
“You’d like it, Doctor,” said Warder McPherson, insinuating one of his
shoulders into the room. “That man’s story’s worth listening to if you
could get him to tell it, though he’s not what you’d call free in his
speech. Maybe you don’t know who 82 is?”
“No, I don’t, and I don’t care either,” I answered, in the conviction
that some local ruffian was about to be foisted upon me as a celebrity.
“He’s Maloney,” said the warder, “him that turned Queen’s evidence
after the murders at Bluemansdyke.”
“You don’t say so?” I ejaculated, laying down my cup in astonishment.
I had heard of this ghastly series of murders, and read an account of
them in a London magazine long before setting foot in the colony. I
remembered that the atrocities committed had thrown the Burke and Hare
crimes completely into the shade, and that one of the most villainous
of the gang had saved his own skin by betraying his companions. “Are
you sure?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, it’s him right enough. Just you draw him out a bit, and
he’ll astonish you. He’s a man to know, is Maloney; that’s to say, in
moderation;” and the head grinned, bobbed, and disappeared, leaving me
to finish my breakfast and ruminate over what I had heard.
The surgeonship of an Australian prison is not an enviable position.
It may be endurable in Melbourne or Sydney, but the little town of
Perth has few attractions to recommend it, and those few had been
long exhausted. The climate was detestable, and the society far from
congenial. Sheep and cattle were the staple support of the community;
and their prices, breeding, and diseases the principal topic of
conversation. Now as I, being an outsider, possessed neither the
one nor the other, and was utterly callous to the new “dip” and the
“rot” and other kindred topics, I found myself in a state of mental
isolation, and was ready to hail anything which might relieve the
monotony of my existence. Maloney, the murderer, had at least some
distinctiveness and individuality in his character, and might act as
a tonic to a mind sick of the commonplaces of existence. I determined
that I should follow the warder’s advice, and take the excuse for
making his acquaintance. When, therefore, I went upon my usual
matutinal round, I turned the lock of the door which bore the convict’s
number upon it, and walked into the cell.
The man was lying in a heap upon his rough bed as I entered, but,
uncoiling his long limbs, he started up and stared at me with an
insolent look of defiance on his face which augured badly for our
interview. He had a pale, set face, with sandy hair and a steely-blue
eye, with something feline in its expression. His frame was tall and
muscular, though there was a curious bend in his shoulders, which
almost amounted to a deformity. An ordinary observer meeting him in
the street might have put him down as a well-developed man, fairly
handsome, and of studious habits--even in the hideous uniform of the
rottenest convict establishment he imparted a certain refinement to
his carriage which marked him out among the inferior ruffians around
him.
“I’m not on the sick-list,” he said, gruffly. There was something in
the hard, rasping voice which dispelled all softer illusions, and made
me realize that I was face to face with the man of the Lena Valley and
Bluemansdyke, the bloodiest bushranger that ever stuck up a farm or cut
the throats of its occupants.
“I know you’re not,” I answered. “Warder McPherson told me you had a
cold, though, and I thought I’d look in and see you.”
“Blast Warder McPherson, and blast you, too!” yelled the convict, in
a paroxysm of rage. “Oh, that’s right,” he added, in a quieter voice;
“hurry away; report me to the governor, do! Get me another six months
or so--that’s your game.”
“I’m not going to report you,” I said.
“Eight square feet of ground,” he went on, disregarding my protest, and
evidently working himself into a fury again. “Eight square feet, and I
can’t have that without being talked to and stared at, and--oh, blast
the whole crew of you!” and he raised his two clenched hands above his
head and shook them in passionate invective.
“You’ve got a curious idea of hospitality,” I remarked, determined not
to lose my temper, and saying almost the first thing that came to my
tongue.
To my surprise the words had an extraordinary effect upon him. He
seemed completely staggered at my assuming the proposition for which
he had been so fiercely contending--namely, that the room in which we
stood was his own.
“I beg your pardon,” he said; “I didn’t mean to be rude. Won’t you
take a seat?” and he motioned toward a rough trestle, which formed the
headpiece of his couch.
I sat down, rather astonished at the sudden change. I don’t know that
I liked Maloney better under his new aspect. The murderer had, it is
true, disappeared for the nonce, but there was something in the smooth
tones and obsequious manner which powerfully suggested the witness of
the Queen, who had stood up and sworn away the lives of his companions
in crime.
“How’s your chest?” I asked, putting on my professional air.
“Come, drop it, Doctor, drop it!” he answered, showing a row of white
teeth as he resumed his seat upon the side of the bed. “It wasn’t
anxiety after my precious health that brought you along here; that
story won’t wash at all. You came to have a look at Wolf Tone Maloney,
forger, murderer, Sydney-slider, ranger, and Government peach. That’s
about my figure, ain’t it? There it is, plain and straight; there’s
nothing mean about me.”
He paused as if he expected me to say something; but as I remained
silent, he repeated once or twice, “There’s nothing mean about me.”
“And why shouldn’t I?” he suddenly yelled, his eyes gleaming and his
whole satanic nature reasserting itself. “We were bound to swing, one
and all, and they were none the worse if I saved myself by turning
against them. Every man for himself, say I, and the devil take the
luckiest. You haven’t a plug of tobacco, Doctor, have you?”
He tore at the piece of “Barrett’s” which I handed him, as ravenously
as a wild beast. It seemed to have the effect of soothing his nerves,
for he settled himself down in the bed and reassumed his former
deprecating manner.
“You wouldn’t like it yourself, you know, Doctor,” he said; “it’s
enough to make any man a little queer in his temper. I’m in for six
months this time for assault, and very sorry I shall be to go out
again, I can tell you. My mind’s at ease in here; but when I’m outside,
what with the Government and what with Tattooed Tom of Hawkesbury,
there’s no chance of a quiet life.”
“Who is he?” I asked.
“He’s the brother of John Grimthorpe, the same that was condemned on my
evidence; and an infernal scamp he was, too! Spawn of the devil, both
of them! This tattooed one is a murderous ruffian, and he swore to have
my blood after that trial. It’s seven year ago, and he’s following me
yet; I know he is, though he lies low and keeps dark. He came up to me
in Ballarat in ’75; you can see on the back of my hand here where the
bullet clipped me. He tried again in ’76, at Port Philip, but I got the
drop on him and wounded him badly. He knifed me in ’79, though, in a
bar at Adelaide, and that made our account about level. He’s loafing
round again now, and he’ll let daylight into me--unless--unless by some
extraordinary chance someone does as much for him.” And Maloney gave a
very ugly smile.
“I don’t complain of _him_ so much,” he continued. “Looking at it in
his way, no doubt it is a sort of family matter that can hardly be
neglected. It’s the Government that fetches me. When I think of what
I’ve done for this country, and then of what this country has done for
me, it makes me fairly wild--clean drives me off my head. There’s no
gratitude nor common decency left, Doctor!”
He brooded over his wrongs for a few minutes, and then proceeded to lay
them before me in detail.
“Here’s nine men,” he said; “they’ve been murdering and killing for
a matter of three years, and maybe a life a week wouldn’t more than
average the work that they’ve done. The Government catches them and
the Government tries them, but they can’t convict; and why?--because
the witnesses have all had their throats cut, and the whole job’s been
very neatly done. What happens then? Up comes a citizen called Wolf
Tone Maloney; he says ‘The country needs me, and here I am.’ And with
that he gives his evidence, convicts the lot, and enables the beaks to
hang them. That’s what I did. There’s nothing mean about me! And now
what does the country do in return? Dogs me, sir, spies on me, watches
me night and day, turns against the very man that worked so very hard
for it. There’s something mean about that, anyway. I didn’t expect them
to knight me, nor to make me Colonial Secretary; but, damn it! I did
expect that they would let me alone!”
“Well,” I remonstrated, “if you choose to break laws and assault
people, you can’t expect it to be looked over on account of former
services.”
“I don’t refer to my present imprisonment, sir,” said Maloney, with
dignity. “It’s the life I’ve been leading since that cursed trial that
takes the soul out of me. Just you sit there on that trestle, and I’ll
tell you all about it; and then look me in the face and tell me that
I’ve been treated fair by the police.”
I shall endeavor to transcribe the experiences of the convict in his
own words, as far as I can remember them, preserving his curious
perversions of right and wrong. I can answer for the truth of his
facts, whatever may be said for his deductions from them. Months
afterward, Inspector H. W. Hann, formerly governor of the jail at
Dunedin, showed me entries in his ledger which corroborated every
statement. Maloney reeled the story off in a dull, monotonous voice,
with his head sunk upon his breast and his hands between his knees.
The glitter of his serpent-like eyes was the only sign of the emotions
which were stirred up by the recollection of the events which he
narrated.
* * * * *
You’ve read of Bluemansdyke (he began, with some pride in his tone).
We made it hot while it lasted; but they ran us to earth at last, and
a trap called Braxton, with a damned Yankee, took the lot of us. That
was in New Zealand, of course, and they took us down to Dunedin, and
there they were convicted and hanged. One and all they put up their
hands in the dock, and cursed me till your blood would have run cold
to hear them--which was scurvy treatment, seeing that we had all been
pals together; but they were a blackguard lot, and thought only of
themselves. I think it is as well that they were hung.
They took me back to Dunedin jail, and clapped me into the old cell.
The only difference they made was, that I had no work to do and was
well fed. I stood this for a week or two, until one day the governor
was making his round, and I put the matter to him.
“How’s this?” I said. “My conditions were a free pardon, and you’re
keeping me here against the law.”
He gave a sort of a smile. “Should you like very much to go out?” he
asked.
“So much,” said I, “that unless you open that door I’ll have an action
against you for illegal detention.”
He seemed a bit astonished by my resolution.
“You’re very anxious to meet your death,” he said.
“What d’ye mean?” I asked.
“Come here, and you’ll know what I mean,” he answered. And he led me
down the passage to a window that overlooked the door of the prison.
“Look at that!” said he.
I looked out, and there were a dozen or so rough-looking fellows
standing outside in the street, some of them smoking, some playing
cards on the pavement. When they saw me they gave a yell and crowded
round the door, shaking their fists and hooting.
“They wait for you, watch and watch about,” said the governor. “They’re
the executive of the vigilance committee. However, since you are
determined to go, I can’t stop you.”
“D’ye call this a civilized land,” I cried, “and let a man be murdered
in cold blood in open daylight?”
When I said this the governor and the warder and every fool in the
place grinned, as if a man’s life was a rare good joke.
“You’ve got the law on your side,” says the governor; “so we won’t
detain you any longer. Show him out, warder.”
He’d have done it, too, the black-hearted villain, if I hadn’t begged
and prayed and offered to pay for my board and lodging, which is
more than any prisoner ever did before me. He let me stay on those
conditions; and for three months I was caged up there with every
larrikin in the township clamoring at the other side of the wall. That
was pretty treatment for a man that had served his country!
At last, one morning up came the governor again.
“Well, Maloney,” he said, “how long are you going to honor us with your
society?”
I could have put a knife into his cursed body, and would, too, if we
had been alone in the bush; but I had to smile, and smooth him and
flatter, for I feared that he might have me sent out.
“You’re an infernal rascal,” he said; those were his very words, to
a man that had helped him all he knew how. “I don’t want any rough
justice here, though; and I think I see my way to getting you out of
Dunedin.”
“I’ll never forget you, governor,” said I; and, by God! I never will.
“I don’t want your thanks nor your gratitude,” he answered; “it’s not
for your sake that I do it, but simply to keep order in the town.
There’s a steamer starts from the West Quay to Melbourne to-morrow, and
we’ll get you aboard it. She is advertised at five in the morning, so
have yourself in readiness.”
I packed up the few things I had, and was smuggled out by a back door
just before daybreak. I hurried down, took my ticket under the name
of Isaac Smith, and got safely aboard the Melbourne boat. I remember
hearing her screw grinding into the water as the warps were cast
loose, and looking back at the lights of Dunedin as I leaned upon the
bulwarks, with the pleasant thought that I was leaving them behind me
forever. It seemed to me that a new world was before me, and that all
my troubles had been cast off. I went down below and had some coffee,
and came up again feeling better than I had done since the morning
that I woke to find that cursed Irishman that took me, standing over me
with a six-shooter.
Day had dawned by that time, and we were steaming along by the coast,
well out of sight of Dunedin. I loafed about for a couple of hours, and
when the sun got well up some of the other passengers came on deck and
joined me. One of them, a little perky sort of fellow, took a good long
look at me, and then came over and began talking.
“Mining, I suppose?” says he.
“Yes,” I says.
“Made your pile?” he asks.
“Pretty fair,” says I.
“I was at it myself,” he says; “I worked at the Nelson fields for three
months, and spent all I made in buying a salted claim which busted up
the second day. I went at it again, though, and struck it rich; but
when the gold wagon was going down to the settlements, it was stuck up
by those cursed rangers, and not a red cent left.”
“That was a bad job,” I says.
“Broke me--ruined me clean. Never mind, I’ve seen them all hanged for
it; that makes it easier to bear. There’s only one left--the villain
that gave the evidence. I’d die happy if I could come across him. There
are two things I have to do if I meet him.”
“What’s that?” says I, carelessly.
“I’ve got to ask him where the money lies--they never had time to make
away with it, and it’s _cachéd_ somewhere in the mountains--and then
I’ve got to stretch his neck for him, and send his soul down to join
the men that he betrayed.”
It seemed to me that I knew something about that _caché_, and I felt
like laughing; but he was watching me, and it struck me that he had a
nasty, vindictive kind of mind.
“I’m going up on the bridge,” I said, for he was not a man whose
acquaintance I cared much about making.
He wouldn’t hear of my leaving him, though. “We’re both miners,” he
says, “and we’re pals for the voyage. Come down to the bar. I’m not too
poor to shout.”
I couldn’t refuse him well, and we went down together; and that was the
beginning of the trouble. What harm was I doing anyone on the ship?
All I asked for was a quiet life, leaving others alone and getting
left alone myself. No man could ask fairer than that. And now just you
listen to what came of it.
We were passing the front of the ladies’ cabins, on our way to
the saloon, when out comes a servant lass--a freckled currency
she-devil--with a baby in her arms. We were brushing past her, when she
gave a scream like a railway whistle, and nearly dropped the kid. My
nerves gave a sort of a jump when I heard that scream, but I turned and
begged her pardon, letting on that I thought I might have trod on her
foot. I knew the game was up, though, when I saw her white face, and
her leaning against the door and pointing.
“It’s him!” she cried; “it’s him! I saw him in the court-house. Oh,
don’t let him hurt the baby!”
“Who is it?” asked the steward and half-a-dozen others in a breath.
“It’s him--Maloney--Maloney, the murderer--oh, take him away--take him
away!”
I don’t rightly remember what happened just at that moment. The
furniture and me seemed to get kind of mixed, and there was cursing,
and smashing, and someone shouting for his gold, and a general stamp
round. When I got steadied a bit, I found somebody’s hand in my mouth.
From what I gathered afterward, I conclude that it belonged to that
same little man with the vicious way of talking. He got some of it out
again, but that was because the others were choking me. A poor chap can
get no fair play in this world when once he is down--still I think he
will remember me till the day of his death--longer, I hope.
They dragged me out on to the poop and held a damned court-martial--on
_me_, mind you; _me_, that had thrown over my pals in order to serve
them. What were they to do with me? Some said this, some said that; but
it ended by the captain deciding to send me ashore. The ship stopped,
they lowered a boat, and I was hoisted in, the whole gang of them
hooting at me from over the bulwarks. I saw the man I spoke of tying up
his hand though, and I felt that things might be worse.
I changed my opinion before we got to the land. I had reckoned on the
shore being deserted, and that I might make my way inland; but the
ship had stopped too near the Heads, and a dozen beach-combers and
such like had come down to the water’s edge and were staring at us,
wondering what the boat was after. When we got to the edge of the surf
the coxswain hailed them, and after singing out who I was, he and his
men threw me into the water. You may well look surprised--neck and crop
into ten feet of water, with shark as thick as green parrots in the
bush, and I heard them laughing as I floundered to the shore.
I soon saw it was a worse job than ever. As I came scrambling out
through the weeds, I was collared by a big chap with a velveteen coat,
and half a dozen others got round me and held me fast. Most of them
looked simple fellows enough, and I was not afraid of them; but there
was one in a cabbage-tree hat that had a very nasty expression on his
face, and the big man seemed to be chummy with him.
They dragged me up the beach, and then they let go their hold of me and
stood round in a circle.
“Well, mate,” says the man with the hat, “we’ve been looking out for
you some time in these parts.”
“And very good of you, too,” I answers.
“None of your jaw,” says he. “Come, boys, what shall it be--hanging,
drowning, or shooting? Look sharp!”
This looked a bit too like business. “No, you don’t!” I said. “I’ve got
Government protection, and it’ll be murder.”
“That’s what they call it,” answered the one in the velveteen coat, as
cheery as a piping crow.
“And you’re going to murder me for being a ranger?”
“Ranger be damned!” said the man. “We’re going to hang you for peaching
against your pals; and that’s an end of the palaver.”
They slung a rope round my neck and dragged me up to the edge of the
bush. There were some big she-oaks and blue-gums, and they pitched on
one of these for the wicked deed. They ran the rope over a branch, tied
my hands, and told me to say my prayers. It seemed as if it was all up;
but Providence interfered to save me. It sounds nice enough sitting
here and telling about it, sir; but it was sick work to stand with
nothing but the beach in front of you, and the long white line of surf,
with the steamer in the distance, and a set of bloody-minded villains
round you thirsting for your life.
I never thought I’d owe anything good to the police; but they saved me
that time. A troop of them were riding from Hawkes Point Station to
Dunedin, and hearing that something was up, they came down through the
bush and interrupted the proceedings. I’ve heard some bands in my time,
Doctor, but I never heard music like the jingle of those traps’ spurs
and harness as they galloped out on to the open. They tried to hang me
even then, but the police were too quick for them; and the man with the
hat got one over the head with the flat of a sword. I was clapped on to
a horse, and before evening I found myself in my old quarters in the
city jail.
The governor wasn’t to be done, though. He was determined to get rid of
me, and I was equally anxious to see the last of him. He waited a week
or so until the excitement had begun to die away, and then he smuggled
me aboard a three-masted schooner bound to Sydney with tallow and hides.
We got fair away to sea without a hitch, and things began to look a bit
more rosy. I made sure that I had seen the last of the prison, anyway.
The crew had a sort of an idea who I was, and if there’d been any rough
weather, they’d have hove me overboard, like enough; for they were a
rough, ignorant lot, and had a notion that I brought bad luck to the
ship. We had a good passage, however, and I was landed safe and sound
upon Sydney Quay.
Now just you listen to what happened next. You’d have thought they
would have been sick of ill-using me and following me by this
time--wouldn’t you, now? Well, just you listen. It seems that a cursed
steamer started from Dunedin to Sydney on the very day we left, and
got in before us, bringing news that I was coming. Blessed if they
hadn’t called a meeting--a regular mass meeting--at the docks to
discuss about it, and I marched right into it when I landed. They
didn’t take long about arresting me, and I listened to all the speeches
and resolutions. If I’d been a prince there couldn’t have been more
excitement. The end of all was that they agreed that it wasn’t right
that New Zealand should be allowed to foist her criminals upon her
neighbors, and that I was to be sent back again by the next boat. So
they posted me off again as if I was a damned parcel; and after another
eight hundred-mile journey I found myself back for the third time
moving in the place that I started from.
By this time I had begun to think that I was going to spend the rest
of my existence travelling about from one port to another. Every man’s
hand seemed turned against me, and there was no peace or quiet in any
direction. I was about sick of it by the time I had come back; and if I
could have taken to the bush I’d have done it, and chanced it with my
old pals. They were too quick for me, though, and kept me under lock
and key; but I managed, in spite of them, to negotiate that _caché_ I
told you of, and sewed the gold up in my belt. I spent another month in
jail, and then they slipped me aboard a bark that was bound for England.
This time the crew never knew who I was, but the captain had a pretty
good idea, though he didn’t let on to me that he had any suspicions.
I guessed from the first that the man was a villain. We had a fair
passage, except a gale or two off the Cape; and I began to feel like
a free man when I saw the blue loom of the old country, and the saucy
little pilot-boat from Falmouth dancing toward us over the waves. We
ran down the Channel, and before we reached Gravesend I had agreed with
the pilot that he should take me ashore with him when he left. It was
at this time that the captain showed me that I was right in thinking
him a meddling, disagreeable man. I got my things packed, such as they
were, and left him talking earnestly to the pilot, while I went below
for my breakfast. When I came up again we were fairly into the mouth of
the river, and the boat in which I was to have gone ashore had left us.
The skipper said the pilot had forgotten me; but that was too thin, and
I began to fear that all my old troubles were going to commence once
more.
It was not long before my suspicions were confirmed. A boat darted
out from the side of the river, and a tall cove with a long black
beard came aboard. I heard him ask the mate whether they didn’t need
a mud-pilot to take them up the reaches, but it seemed to me that he
was a man who would know a deal more about handcuffs than he did about
steering, so I kept away from him. He came across the deck, however,
and made some remark to me, taking a good look at me the while. I
don’t like inquisitive people at any time, but an inquisitive stranger
with glue about the roots of his beard is the worst of all to stand,
especially under the circumstances. I began to feel that it was time
for me to go.
I soon got a chance, and made good use of it. A big collier came
athwart the bows of our steamer, and we had to slacken down to dead
slow. There was a barge astern, and I slipped down by a rope and was
into the barge before anyone had missed me. Of course I had to leave my
luggage behind me, but I had the belt with the nuggets round my waist,
and the chance of shaking the police off my track was worth more than
a couple of boxes. It was clear to me now that the pilot had been a
traitor, as well as the captain, and had set the detectives after me. I
often wish I could drop across those two men again.
I hung about the barge all day as she drifted down the stream. There
was one man in her, but she was a big, ugly craft, and his hands were
too full for much looking about. Toward evening, when it got a bit
dusky, I struck out for the shore, and found myself in a sort of marsh
place, a good many miles to the east of London. I was soaking wet and
half dead with hunger, but I trudged into the town, got a new rig-out
at a slop-shop, and after having some supper, engaged a bed at the
quietest lodgings I could find.
I woke pretty early--a habit you pick up in the bush--and lucky for me
that I did so. The very first thing I saw when I took a look through
a chink in the shutter was one of these infernal policemen, standing
right opposite and staring up at the windows. He hadn’t epaulettes nor
a sword, like our traps, but for all that there was a sort of family
likeness, and the same busybody expression. Whether they’d followed me
all the time, or whether the woman that let me the bed didn’t like the
looks of me, is more than I have ever been able to find out. He came
across as I was watching him, and noted down the address of the house
in a book. I was afraid that he was going to ring at the bell, but I
suppose his orders were simply to keep an eye on me, for after another
good look at the windows he moved on down the street.
I saw that my only chance was to act at once. I threw on my clothes,
opened the window softly, and, after making sure that there was nobody
about, dropped out on to the ground and made off as hard as I could
run. I travelled a matter of two or three miles, when my wind gave out;
and as I saw a big building with people going in and out, I went in
too, and found that it was a railway station. A train was just going
off for Dover to meet the French boat, so I took a ticket and jumped
into a third-class carriage.
There were a couple of other chaps in the carriage, innocent-looking
young beggars, both of them. They began speaking about this and that,
while I sat quiet in the corner and listened. Then they started on
England and foreign countries, and such like. Look ye now, Doctor, this
is a fact. One of them begins jawing about the justice of England’s
laws. “It’s all fair and above-board,” says he; “there ain’t any secret
police, nor spying, like they have abroad,” and a lot more of the same
sort of wash. Rather rough on me, wasn’t it, listening to the damned
young fool, with the police following me about like my shadow?
I got to Paris right enough, and there I changed some of my gold, and
for a few days I imagined I’d shaken them off, and began to think of
settling down for a bit of rest. I needed it by that time, for I was
looking more like a ghost than a man. You’ve never had the police after
you, I suppose? Well, you needn’t look offended, I didn’t mean any
harm. If ever you had you’d know that it wastes a man away like a sheep
with the rot.
I went to the opera one night and took a box, for I was very flush.
I was coming out between the acts when I met a fellow lounging along
in the passage. The light fell on his face, and I saw that it was the
mud-pilot that had boarded us in the Thames. His beard was gone, but I
recognized the man at a glance, for I’ve a good memory for faces.
I tell you, Doctor, I felt desperate for a moment. I could have knifed
him if we had been alone, but he knew me well enough never to give me
the chance. It was more than I could stand any longer, so I went right
up to him and drew him aside, where we’d be free from all the loungers
and theatre-goers.
“How long are you going to keep it up?” I asked him.
He seemed a bit flustered for a moment, but then he saw there was no
use beating about the bush, so he answered straight:
“Until you go back to Australia,” he said.
“Don’t you know,” I said, “that I have served the Government and got a
free pardon?”
He grinned all over his ugly face when I said this.
“We know all about you, Maloney,” he answered. “If you want a quiet
life, just you go back where you came from. If you stay here, you’re a
marked man; and when you are found tripping it’ll be a lifer for you,
at the least. Free trade’s a fine thing, but the market’s too full of
men like you for us to need to import any!”
It seemed to me that there was something in what he said, though he
had a nasty way of putting it. For some days back I’d been feeling a
sort of homesick. The ways of the people weren’t my ways. They stared
at me at the street; and if I dropped into a bar, they’d stop talking
and edge away a bit, as if I was a wild beast. I’d sooner have had a
pint of old Stringybark, too, than a bucketful of their rotgut liquors.
There was too much damned propriety. What was the use of having money
if you couldn’t dress as you liked, nor bust it properly? There was no
sympathy for a man if he shot about a little when he was half-over.
I’ve seen a man dropped at Nelson many a time with less row than
they’d make over a broken window-pane. The thing was slow, and I was
sick of it.
“You want me to go back?” I said.
“I’ve my orders to stick fast to you until you do,” he answered.
“Well,” I said, “I don’t care if I do. All I bargain is that you keep
your mouth shut and don’t let on who I am, so that I may have a fair
start when I get there.”
He agreed to this, and we went over to Southampton the very next
day, where he saw me safely off once more. I took a passage round to
Adelaide, where no one was likely to know me; and there I settled,
right under the nose of the police. I’ve been there ever since, leading
a quiet life, but for little difficulties like the one I’m in for now,
and for that devil, Tattooed Tom of Hawkesbury. I don’t know what made
me tell you all this, Doctor, unless it is that being kind of lonely
makes a man inclined to jaw when he gets a chance. Just you take
warning from me, though. Never put yourself out to serve your country;
for your country will do precious little for you. Just you let them
look after their own affairs; and if they find a difficulty in hanging
a set of scoundrels, never mind chipping in, but let them alone to do
as best they can. Maybe they’ll remember how they treated me after I’m
dead, and be sorry for neglecting me. I was rude to you when you came
in, and swore a trifle promiscuous; but don’t you mind me, it’s only
my way. You’ll allow, though, that I have cause to be a bit touchy now
and again when I think of all that’s passed. You’re not going, are you?
Well, if you must, you must; but I hope you will look me up at odd
times when you are going your round. Oh. I say, you’ve left the balance
of that cake of tobacco behind you, haven’t you? No: it’s in your
pocket--that’s all right. Thank ye, Doctor, you’re a good sort, and as
quick at a hint as any man I’ve met.
* * * * *
A couple of months after narrating his experiences, Wolf Tone Maloney
finished his term, and was released. For a long time I neither saw
him nor heard of him, and he had almost slipped from my memory, until
I was reminded, in a somewhat tragic manner, of his existence. I had
been attending a patient some distance off in the country, and was
riding back, guiding my tired horse among the bowlders which strewed
the pathway, and endeavoring to see my way through the gathering
darkness, when I came suddenly upon a little wayside inn. As I walked
my horse up toward the door, intending to make sure of my bearings
before proceeding further, I heard the sound of a violent altercation
within the little bar. There seemed to be a chorus of expostulation or
remonstrance, above which two powerful voices rang out loud and angry.
As I listened, there was a momentary hush, two pistol shots sounded
almost simultaneously, and with a crash the door burst open and a pair
of dark figures staggered out into the moonlight. They struggled for a
moment in a deadly wrestle, and then went down together among the loose
stones. I had sprung off my horse, and, with the help of half a dozen
rough fellows from the bar, dragged them away from one another.
A glance was sufficient to convince me that one of them was dying
fast. He was a thick-set, burly fellow, with a determined cast of
countenance. The blood was welling from a deep stab in his throat, and
it was evident that an important artery had been divided. I turned
away from him in despair, and walked over to where his antagonist was
lying. He was shot through the lungs, but managed to raise himself up
on his hand as I approached, and peered anxiously up into my face. To
my surprise I saw before me the haggard features and flaxen hair of my
prison acquaintance, Maloney.
“Ah, Doctor!” he said, recognizing me. “How is he? Will he die?”
He asked the question so earnestly that I imagined he had softened at
the last moment, and feared to leave the world with another homicide
upon his conscience. Truth, however, compelled me to shake my head
mournfully, and to intimate that the wound would prove a mortal one.
Maloney gave a wild cry of triumph, which brought the blood welling
out from between his lips. “Here, boys,” he gasped to the little group
around him. “There’s money in my inside pocket. Damn the expense!
Drinks round. There’s nothing mean about me. I’d drink with you, but
I’m going. Give the Doc. my share, for he’s as good----” Here his
head fell back with a thud, his eye glazed, and the soul of Wolf Tone
Maloney, forger, convict, ranger, murderer, and Government peach,
drifted away into the Great Unknown.
* * * * *
I cannot conclude without borrowing the account of the fatal quarrel
which appeared in the columns of the _West Australian Sentinel_. The
curious will find it in the issue of October 4, 1881:
“FATAL AFFRAY.--W. T. Maloney, a well-known citizen of New Montrose,
and proprietor of the Yellow Boy gambling saloon, has met with his
death under rather painful circumstances. Mr. Maloney was a man who
had led a checkered existence, and whose past history is replete with
interest. Some of our readers may recall the Lena Valley murders, in
which he figured as the principal criminal. It is conjectured that
during the seven months that he owned a bar in that region, from twenty
to thirty travellers were hocussed and made away with. He succeeded,
however, in evading the vigilance of the officers of the law, and
allied himself with the bushrangers of Bluemansdyke, whose heroic
capture and subsequent execution are matters of history. Maloney
extricated himself from the fate which awaited him by turning Queen’s
evidence. He afterward visited Europe, but returned to West Australia,
where he has long played a prominent part in local matters. On Friday
evening he encountered an old enemy, Thomas Grimthorpe, commonly
known as Tattooed Tom, of Hawkesbury. Shots were exchanged, and both
were badly wounded, only surviving a few minutes. Mr. Maloney had the
reputation of being not only the most wholesale murderer that ever
lived, but also of having a finish and attention to detail in matters
of evidence which has been unapproached by any European criminal. _Sic
transit gloria mundi!_”
THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE.
A TRUE COLONIAL STORY.
Broadhurst’s store was closed, but the little back room looked very
comfortable that night. The fire cast a ruddy glow on ceiling and
walls, reflecting itself cheerily on the polished flasks and shot-guns
which adorned them. Yet a gloom rested on the two men who sat at either
side of the hearth, which neither the fire nor the black bottle upon
the table could alleviate.
“Twelve o’clock,” said old Tom, the storeman, glancing up at the wooden
timepiece which had come out with him in ’42. “It’s a queer thing,
George, they haven’t come.”
“It’s a dirty night,” said his companion, reaching out his arm for a
plug of tobacco. “The Wawirra’s in flood, maybe; or maybe their horses
is broke down; or they’ve put it off, perhaps. Great Lord, how it
thunders! Pass us over a coal, Tom.”
He spoke in a tone which was meant to appear easy, but with a painful
thrill in it which was not lost upon his mate. He glanced uneasily at
him from under his grizzled eyebrows.
“You think it’s all right, George?” he said, after a pause.
“Think what’s all right?”
“Why, that the lads are safe.”
“Safe! Of course they’re safe. What the devil is to harm them?”
“Oh, nothing; nothing, to be sure,” said old Tom. “You see, George,
since the old woman died, Maurice has been all to me; and it makes me
kinder anxious. It’s a week since they started from the mine, and you’d
ha’ thought they’d be here now. But it’s nothing unusual, I s’pose;
nothing at all. Just my darned folly.”
“What’s to harm them?” repeated George Hutton again, arguing to
convince himself rather than his comrade. “It’s a straight road from
the diggin’s to Rathurst, and then through the hills past Bluemansdyke,
and over the Wawirra by the ford and so down to Trafalgar by the bush
track. There’s nothin’ deadly in all that, is there? My son Allan’s as
dear to me as Maurice can be to you, mate,” he continued; “but they
know the ford well, and there’s no other bad place. They’ll be here
to-morrow night, certain.”
“Please God they may!” said Broadhurst; and the two men lapsed into
silence for some time, moodily staring into the glow of the fire and
pulling at their short clays.
It was indeed, as Hutton had said, a dirty night. The wind was howling
down through the gorges of the western mountains, and whirling and
eddying among the streets of Trafalgar; whistling through the chinks in
the rough wood cabins, and tearing away the frail shingles which formed
the roofs. The streets were deserted, save for one or two stragglers
from the drinking shanties, who wrapped their cloaks around them and
staggered home through the wind and rain toward their own cabins.
The silence was broken by Broadhurst, who was evidently still ill at
ease.
“Say, George,” he said, “what’s become of Josiah Mapleton?”
“Went to the diggin’s.”
“Ay; but he sent word he was coming back.”
“But he never came.”
“An’ what’s become of Jos Humphrey?” he resumed, after a pause.
“He went diggin’, too.”
“Well, did he come back?”
“Drop it, Broadhurst; drop it, I say,” said Hutton, springing to his
feet and pacing up and down the narrow room. “You’re trying to make a
coward of me! You know the men must have gone up country prospectin’
or farmin’, maybe. What is it to us where they went? You don’t think I
have a register of every man in the colony, as Inspector Burton has of
the lags.”
“Sit down, George, and listen,” said old Tom. “There’s something queer
about that road; something I don’t understand, and don’t like. Maybe
you remember how Maloney, the one-eyed scoundrel, made his money in
the early mining days. He’d a half-way drinking shanty on the main
road up on a kind of bluff, where the Lena comes down from the hills.
You’ve heard, George, how they found a sort of wooden slide from his
little back room down to the river; an’ how it came out that man after
man had had his drink doctored, and been shot down that into eternity,
like a bale of goods. No one will ever know how many were done away
with there. _They_ were all supposed to be farmin’ and prospectin’, and
the like, till their bodies were picked out of the rapids. It’s no use
mincing matters, George; we’ll have the troopers along to the diggin’s
if those lads don’t turn up by to-morrow night.”
“As you like, Tom,” said Hutton.
“By the way, talking of Maloney--it’s a strange thing,” said
Broadhurst, “that Jack Haldane swears he saw a man as like Maloney,
with ten years added to him, as could be. It was in the bush on Monday
morning. Chance, I suppose; but you’d hardly think there could be two
pair of shoulders in the world carrying such villainous mugs on the top
of them.”
“Jack Haldane’s a fool,” growled Hutton, throwing open the door and
peering anxiously out into the darkness, while the wind played with his
long grizzled beard, and sent a train of glowing sparks from his pipe
down the street.
“A terrible night!” he said, as he turned back toward the fire.
Yes, a wild, tempestuous night; a night for birds of darkness and for
beasts of prey. A strange night for seven men to lie out in the gully
at Bluemansdyke, with revolvers in their hands, and the devil in their
hearts.
* * * * *
The sun was rising after the storm. A thick, heavy steam reeked up from
the saturated ground and hung like a pall over the flourishing little
town of Trafalgar. A bluish mist lay in wreaths over the wide tract of
bushland around, out of which the western mountains loomed like great
islands in a sea of vapor.
Something was wrong in the town. The most casual glance would have
detected that. There was a shouting and a hurrying of feet. Doors
were slammed and rude windows thrown open. A trooper of police came
clattering down with his carbine unslung. It was past the time for Joe
Buchan’s saw-mill to commence work, but the great wheel was motionless,
for the hands had not appeared.
There was a surging, pushing crowd in the main street before old Tom
Broadhurst’s house, and a mighty clattering of tongues. “What was
it?” demanded the new-comers, panting and breathless. “Broadhurst has
shot his mate.” “He has cut his own throat.” “He has struck gold in
the clay floor of his kitchen.” “No; it was his son Maurice who had
come home rich.” “Who had not come back at all.” “Whose horse had come
back without him.” At last the truth had come out; and there was the
old sorrel horse in question whinnying and rubbing his neck against
the familiar door of the stable, as if entreating entrance; while two
haggard, gray-haired men held him by either bridle and gazed blankly at
his reeking sides.
“God help me,” said old Tom Broadhurst; “it is as I feared!”
“Cheer up, mate,” said Hutton, drawing his rough straw hat down over
his brow. “There’s hope yet.”
A sympathetic and encouraging murmur ran through the crowd.
“Horse ran away, likely.”
“Or been stolen.”
“Or he’s swum the Wawirra an’ been washed off,” suggested one Job’s
comforter.
“He ain’t got no marks of bruising,” said another, more hopeful.
“Rider fallen off drunk, maybe,” said a bluff old sheep-farmer.
“I kin remember,” he continued, “coming into town ’bout this hour
myself, with my head in my holster, an’ thinking I was a six-chambered
revolver--mighty drunk I was.”
“Maurice had a good seat; he’d never be washed off.”
“Not he.”
“The horse has a weal on its off fore-quarter,” remarked another, more
observant than the rest.
“A blow from a whip, maybe.”
“It would be a darned hard one.”
“Where’s Chicago Bill?” said someone; “he’ll know.”
Thus invoked, a strange, gaunt figure stepped out in front of the
crowd. He was an extremely tall and powerful man, with the red shirt
and high boots of a miner. The shirt was thrown open, showing the
sinewy throat and massive chest. His face was seamed and scarred with
many a conflict, both with Nature and his brother man; yet beneath his
ruffianly exterior there lay something of the quiet dignity of the
gentleman. This man was a veteran gold-hunter; a real old Californian
’forty-niner, who had left the fields in disgust when private
enterprise began to dwindle before the formation of huge incorporated
companies with their ponderous machinery. But the red clay with the
little shining points had become to him as the very breath of his
nostrils, and he had come half way round the world to seek it once
again.
“Here’s Chicago Bill,” he said; “what is it?”
Bill was naturally regarded as an oracle, in virtue of his prowess and
varied experience. Every eye was turned on him as Braxton, the young
Irish trooper of constabulary, said, “What do you make of the horse,
Bill?”
The Yankee was in no hurry to commit himself. He surveyed the animal
for some time with his shrewd little gray eye. He bent and examined
the girths; then he felt the mane carefully. He stooped once more and
examined the hoofs and then the quarters. His eye rested on the blue
weal already mentioned. This seemed to put him on a scent, for he gave
a long, low whistle, and proceeded at once to examine the hair on
either side of the saddle. He saw something conclusive apparently,
for, with a sidelong glance under his shaggy eyebrows at the two old
men beside him, he turned and fell back among the crowd.
“Well, what d’ye think?” cried a dozen voices.
“A job for you,” said Bill, looking up at the young Irish trooper.
“Why, what is it? What’s become of young Broadhurst?”
“He’s done what better men has done afore. He has sunk a shaft for gold
and panned out a coffin.”
“Speak out, man! what have you seen?” cried a husky voice.
“I’ve seen the graze of a bushranger’s bullet on the horse’s quarter,
an’ I’ve seen a drop of the rider’s blood on the edge of the saddle--
Here, hold the old man up, boys; don’t let him drop. Give him a swig of
brandy an’ lead him inside. Say,” he continued, in a whisper, gripping
the trooper by the wrist, “mind, I’m in it. You an’ I play this hand
together. I’m dead on sich varmin. We’ll do as they do in Nevada,
strike while the iron is hot. Get any men you can together. I s’pose
you’re game to come yourself?”