“Wish I knew,” the big man replied regretfully. “I told him I could play bluff-poker pretty well, and at that he smiled as though I were a kid telling a Test Match player that I could play cricket rather well.”
“Have you met Sir Victor?”
“Yes, old lad. We are father and son. We––”
“What is his opinion, please?”
“Says he is sure Austiline will be recaptured. He told me they had sent for Johns, the big Sydney ’tec.”
“Ah! He’ll work with Oakes. They make a formidable team. What is your opinion, Monty?”
“Oh, judge and prosecuting counsel and third degree expert! my views are without value,” Monty said half-mockingly.
“Nevertheless, I should like to know them,” came the gentle voice.
“Well, as I told Mary, I reckon that the feller clever enough to kidnap Austiline out of such a gaol is quite clever enough to keep her out. This evening’s paper is roaring about the inefficiency of our police and the number of murderers still at large. It said also in another place what a terrible fine bloke you are, and how glad the whole staff was to know of your complete recovery from illness.”
“But I am not completely recovered yet, O my brother!”
“To the outside world you’re full of energy, you are engaged in writing a brilliant series of articles, you are much annoyed to know that the police are watching this house, and you decline to see any friends. At least, that’s what to-night’s paper said. And, being editor of a paper, you know perfectly well that newspapers never tell lies.”
“You are not joking?”
“Not this once, old son,” Monty went on. “You see, Mary, being a woman, reckoned that Austiline, daring everything, would visit you, knowing how desperately ill you are. We had to warn her or her friends that the police thought as Mary did: so I went to Sir Victor, who promised to fix it. He fixed it all right, much to our heroic sleuth’s annoyance.”
“What next?”
The big man described his observation of the detective when he got Austiline to take her former position exactly, and the inference which Oakes drew from the fact that she was almost in line between him––in Peterson’s place––and the door. Then he described his shooting experiment of that afternoon, and his recent conversation with the detective-sergeant at the Café.
At this point the nurse entered and motioned him to leave, which he did a moment afterwards, promising to see Martin on the morrow.
The gaol raid captured the imagination of the entire Australian public. It would have terminated as a nine days’ wonder had Austiline been recaptured; but it was prolonged much beyond that time, and the brilliant Johns-Oakes combination was helped or hindered by countless enthusiastic amateurs.
Reports poured on the police from people who swore they recognized the fugitive in places as far apart as Geelong and Broome. One man declared that she was a stewardess on a ship sailing to America and that she disembarked at San Francisco––resulting in much money being spent on cablegrams. But all to no avail. Austiline Thorpe remained hidden “in smoke.”
Days and weeks passed with horrible monotony to one man most of all. Martin Sherwood recovered strength but slowly. In one respect the loss of his promised bride was of great benefit to him, because it kept him from brooding too much over his devastating affliction.
Sir Victor Lawrence was a constant visitor. He was one of the few such visitors to whom the popular editor of the Tribune at first was restricted. Although less constant, Detective-Sergeant Oakes was also a frequent and welcome caller. As Monty had stated, he was a baffling character. It was undoubted that his private liking for both Martin and the big man was sincere; it was undoubted, too, that in his official capacity he was as inhuman as Joubert in Les Misérables. His armour of vacuous indifference was always perfectly worn, being pervious only to the beady-eyed, sharp-tongued, yet lovable, Mrs. Montrose. Invariably she turned him inside out. Reading him as an open book, she dragged out of him the clues he and Johns had found, their deductions from them, their hopes and their plans; praising him one minute, scolding him the next, tactful always, making him fear her and yet regard her with respectful affection.
Hill, alias Bent Nose, with several others, they were obliged to release from prison, since nothing could be proved against anyone of them. The detective-sergeant had decided to keep his eye on Bent Nose especially, and was both mystified and angry when Bent Nose disappeared from human ken, not even his wife knowing his whereabouts, or pretending that she did not know.
And then came Christmas Day, and with it the breeze which began to blow away the black clouds of Monty Sherwood’s imagined sky. The breeze was inaugurated by Detective-Sergeant Oakes himself. They were eating their Christmas dinner on the veranda, for the day had been quiet and hot, when the garden-gate opened to admit a dark figure and a moment later the detective-sergeant entered the radius of lamplight whose centre was the table.
“Why, it is the dear old Sexton Blake himself!” Monty cried, jumping up and piloting Oakes to a chair.
“I have some news for you,” said the detective-sergeant, with absolute vacuity of expression.
“Oh! I hope it is not bad news, Mr. Oakes,” Mary murmured, with assumed brightness in her voice, but indicating to him Martin, who was sitting very upright, his face strained with sudden anxiety.
“I am afraid it is bad news––for me,” replied the detective.
“How so?” demanded the bushman, with a trace of excitement in his drawling voice.
“You’ll promise not to rub it in too much after I have told you?”
“Yes! yes! yes!”
“You especially, Mrs. Montrose?”
“I will decide when I have heard the news.”
“Well, last night in Flinders Street a man was knocked down by a motor-car.”
A disappointed “Oh!” from Mary.
“Not your old pal, Bent Nose?” Monty asked.
“No-not Bent Nose,” the detective-sergeant replied with a faint smile. “The man’s name is John Travers, and he died at the General Hospital at ten-twenty-four this morning. Before he died he sent for the police and made a confession. Really, you will promise––”
“Go on, man!” Mrs. Montrose almost screamed.
Again the faint smile came into the face of the Sphinx. One could imagine him saying: “Have you a match?” when he brought out his climax:
“The man Travers confessed to the murder of Peterson, the blackmailer!”
CHAPTER IX
A WORM THAT TURNED
THE news was so astounding that no one spoke for fully sixty seconds. Even the old lady was temporarily stunned. And then Monty Sherwood was on his feet with beaming face and pump-handling the faintly-smiling detective with all his might.
“My wonderful, dear old George Gale!” he roared. “I told Mrs. Webster once that I would end up by liking you. Real men and me get on well. I’m glad to know you.”
“Give the real man a glass of wine, Monty––he deserves it,” commanded Mrs. Montrose. “Set him a place, Mary. I know he came to get something to eat.”
“Thank you, but no!” the detective-sergeant said softly. “I am a poor harassed husband and father. My three children would combine with my wife to make things jolly unpleasant if I didn’t turn up at their Christmas feed. Not only that, but I am expected to consume an enormous quantity of each course, afterwards become a mettlesome steed, and finally put them to sleep with some of my fiercest detective stories.”
“Well, if you won’t eat, what about a drink?” inquired the big man. “Thank you!” said Oakes once more. “A glass of beer, if you have it.”
“Too true,” agreed the happy Monty.
“Mr. Oakes, tell us about the confession,” ordered Mrs. Montrose.
“The document itself is quite long, but the details of the man’s story can be put shortly and are absolutely convincing,” the visitor obediently drawled. “It appears that Travers also was a victim of th
e blackmailer, who by the way rented an office in the lower part of Little Burke Street and described himself as a Business Agent. Travers said that he went to this office at two o’clock on the day before the murder with fifty pounds as hush-money, taken from his employer’s safe for the purpose.
“The money paid, he left the office at the moment Miss Thorpe was about to enter it, holding open the door to allow her to pass, and closing it as he thought. Happening to glance back, he saw that the door was just ajar, and, creeping to it, overheard the following conversation:
“‘I received your letter, Mr. Peterson,’ he heard Miss Thorpe say haughtily. ‘What is your demand now?’
“‘I understand by this morning’s paper that you are to be married on Wednesday next,’ Peterson said. ‘As I am financially embarrassed just now, I am prepared, in consideration of your marriage, to hand over to you all the documents relating to your affair on payment of two hundred pounds.’
“‘All the documents?’ asked Miss Thorpe, stressing the first word.
“Peterson nodded, saying:
“‘All of them. I will call on you at the Flinders Hotel to-morrow afternoon at a quarter to four, when our final business will be transacted.’
“With a shrug of her shoulders, Miss Thorpe turned to the door, whereupon John Travers hurried away. He said that he walked about all that afternoon, wondering what action his employer would take when the money was missed from the safe.
“He went on to say that in the middle of the night he decided to call on Miss Thorpe at three-thirty, and by any means obtain a quarter of the money she would then have with her with which to pay the blackmailer. That would give him a chance to replace the money he had stolen before it was missed.
“Which of the chambermaids he was related to we do not know, and he would not say: but, through her connivance, he was let into Miss Thorpe’s suite at exactly half-past three. The tenant was not there, neither was her maid, whose absence was known, and John Travers turned burglar. If he could lay his hands on the money before Miss Thorpe returned, all the better.
“But in that he failed. He was in the bedroom when the corridor bell rang. It rang when he was examining Miss Thorpe’s revolver, which he had found in a drawer of her dressing-table. Feeling, I suppose, much like a rat in a wire-trap, he crept to the bedroom door, and, when just closing it, heard a key slipped into the lock of the outer door, saw the door open and Peterson enter. Peterson closed the door after him, pocketed the skeleton-key, and walked into the drawing-room. Travers’s chance of obtaining any of the hypothetical two hundred sank to zero.
“The man was faced by ruin final and complete, through the efforts of a lifetime being drained away by the bloodsucker in the next room.
“For a long time, so Travers said, he waited, thinking what he should do, as he stood by the partly-opened bedroom door. It was quite upon impulse, which came to him in a flash, that he decided to shoot the blackmailer.
“Opening wide the door, he was preparing to rush into the next room, when another key was thrust into the lock of the hall door which opened to admit Miss Thorpe just as Travers, drawing back, all but closed the bedroom door. When he saw her pass into the drawing-room he stepped into the hall.
“From the drawing-room doorway he saw Peterson standing near the table, just beyond Miss Thorpe, then standing with the left side of her face partly obscuring Travers’s view of Peterson. At this stage we were careful to have the confession perfectly clear. Travers saw that Peterson saw him. There was no time to spare then, no time to get Miss Thorpe out of danger. Travers saw the notes thrown on the table, he saw Peterson’s hand go out to pick them up, when he fired with the result we know. That is about all.”
“No, not quite all,” contradicted Mrs. Montrose sharply.
“How did he cross the veranda without leaving any footprints?”
The detective-sergeant sighed.
“Remember that you promised not to rub it in too much,” he said half-mockingly.
“Go on!” ordered the old lady severely.
“Well, he never crossed the veranda at all,” came the cool voice.
“Then how did he get out of the room?” Monty demanded.
“He never left the room.”
“What!” they chorused.
“He never left the room at all,” the detective-sergeant repeated, fully enjoying the effect of his bomb. “He says that he opened the French windows to effect an escape, realized how he would be seen by hundreds of people, probably including a policeman or two, if he climbed the veranda railings and, crossing the strip of lawn, jumped down into the street. No, he did not attempt it. Turning round, he saw Miss Thorpe standing with her back to him. He heard voices in the hall. You remember that a chiffonier stood across one corner of the room, near the French windows: it was behind that he hid,”
“And you never looked there?” Mrs. Montrose said accusingly.
“Not until the following morning, when we made a thorough examination of the room. Let me tell you why I believed Miss Thorpe shot Peterson. There were three witnesses who stated that they found Miss Thorpe standing near a shot man, and holding a revolver from which one cartridge had been fired. The man was dead, and the revolver belonged to Miss Thorpe.
“I induced Miss Thorpe, you remember, to occupy the exact place she did when––as she said––a man fired from the doorway killing Peterson. I took up Peterson’s position under Miss Thorpe’s direction, and, when looking at the door, I saw that anyone firing from there would do so only by placing Miss Thorpe in great danger of being hit.
“In the first place, it was not Miss Thorpe but the black-mailer who was the intended victim. In the second place, the shot was fired from a distance of twenty-eight feet, and the bullet must have passed Miss Thorpe’s face within three or four inches at most. Thirdly, one man intent on killing another wouldn’t run the risk of missing his victim: he would have made more certain by rushing forward, sweeping aside Miss Thorpe, and firing at hardly more than five feet.
“And then, after Miss Thorpe’s deliberate statement that the murderer left by the window, on examining the veranda we found no human tracks on the dusty floor, only those of a cat made some time previously: to my mind, and I think to the mind of any reasoning man, there was left no room for doubt that Miss Thorpe herself had fired the fatal shot.”
“I do not blame you, Oakes,” softly interjected the blind man, who had been a silent but absorbed listener hitherto.
“My reason told me that Austiline must have done it; my heart refused to believe her capable of so atrocious an act.”
The detective-sergeant sighed again and said:
“It is the most peculiar set of circumstances I ever had to deal with. In our profession one must reason on the law of averages. That Travers was an expert shot we learned only to-day, he having won many prizes for revolver-shooting. He was far above the average gunman, so took the risk without hesitation. If Miss Thorpe had not been so emphatic that the man escaped by the window, if she had stated the nature of the blackmail, if she had been uncertain of the position she occupied when the shot was fired, I would have examined the veranda with a more open mind, and would at least have examined the room at once instead of leaving it till later and giving Travers a chance to walk out of the window after dark.
“Believe me, although I would adopt the same course in a similar case, I sincerely regret that Miss Thorpe should have been played so scurvy a trick by fate. Here is the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds, the amount found on Travers when he entered the hospital. The remaining fifty pounds he evidently put back in place of the amount he stole from his employers. To-morrow I will hand the money to Miss Thorpe’s solicitors.
“But here I have something which I am going to ask you, Mr. Martin Sherwood, to hold in trust for Miss Thorpe,” the detective-sergeant went on, taking from his pocket a bulky envelope. “When the lady comes out of smoke, which naturally she will do directly Travers’s confession is broadcast, g
ive it her with my compliments. On the envelope in Peterson’s handwriting are the words: ‘Re A. Thorpe’.”
Martin took it, saying:
“What does this mean, Oakes?”
“I found it on the body of Peterson,” the detective-sergeant explained. “Without doubt it contains the documents she was to have received in exchange for her two hundred pounds. As she told us that she was being blackmailed by Peterson, I refrained from opening the sealed envelope and learning the nature of the blackmail, for the simple reason that the nature of the blackmail had nothing to do with the fact of blackmail itself. I hope my not having read the envelope’s contents and my having returned it intact will help me a little for the inconvenience Miss Thorpe has been caused.”
The detective pushed back his chair and rose to his feet, followed by Monty and Mary. He said to Monty:
“Do you know who carried out the gaol-raid?”
“No. I wish I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I would divide a thousand pounds among those who carried it out,” the bushman drawled with a smile. “When possible I always encourage good work.”
The detective-sergeant’s smile was bleak. Mrs. Montrose gurgled.
“Oh, Monty!”
“Why not pay out a portion to Bent Nose?” came the artful question.
“I leave his reward to you,” Monty replied, his eyes twinkling. “You owe him compensation for false arrest, you know.”
The visitor sighed. Stepping off the low veranda, he said:
“I am as yet not quite sure that Bent Nose was arrested without very good cause. Good night, everyone! When Miss Thorpe comes out of smoke, advise her to live a retired life in the country for a little while. Escaping custody is a crime, in spite of the fact that it is as natural to escape custody––given the chance––as to breathe. Again, good night and a Happy Christmas!”
He left with Monty escorting him to the gate. Mary Webster reseated herself next the blind man, saying to him: “Austiline will come soon now, Martin. Aren’t you happy?”
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