by Greg Pyers
Doolittle consulted his notebook a moment. ‘We opened the uterus and found it unimpregnated. We then examined the brain, and found it normal, without any effusion or disease of any kind. There was no indication of spiritous or fermented liquor in the stomach. I would judge that the deceased had been in a perfect state of health. I would go so far as to say you might examine a thousand and not find one in a more perfect condition.’
Stanbridge nodded and made a note. ‘And the cause of death?’
‘Severance of the carotid artery.’
‘Yes, you did say as much earlier. Please, continue.’
‘Next, I examined the nails of the deceased. There were indications of hairs attaching. I found in the grasp of the left hand two hairs, evidently not her own. They have the appearance of a man’s hair.’
‘You have the hairs?’
‘Not here, Sir. They are preserved, sealed up in an envelope.’
‘You examined the body of the deceased?’
‘In minuteness, Your Worship. I found no marks on the ribs nor the hips. There was blood on the left hand, from the cut there as the knife was pulled through.’ Doolittle paused here to clear a dry throat. ‘Pardon me, Sir, but might I have some water?’
‘Of course, Doctor.’ Stanbridge indicated with a finger and a raised eyebrow to the constable if he wouldn’t mind.
As the doctor sipped from the glass handed to him, Solicitor Dunne put a question to him.
‘Did you find the knife?’
‘A search was made by myself and a constable, but no knife could we find.’
Stanbridge nodded, and seeing that there were no further questions forthcoming, asked the witness whether he had concluded his evidence.
‘I have, Your Worship.’
‘Then, may I say, on behalf of the bench, how high an opinion we have of the zeal and interest, combined with the most observant care, exhibited by you, Sir, in these proceedings.’
‘Thank you, Your Worship,’ Doolittle said.
‘And might I add,’ Dunne said, ‘that in an experience of eleven years, I have never met with more professional ability and observation than that brought to bear by Dr Doolittle on the present occasion.’
‘Hear hear,’ chimed in Mayor Patterson and Stanbridge. Doolittle’s deposition was then read out to him, and, at a little before three o’clock, he was excused.
By now, Stanbridge had almost had enough for one day; indeed, he was feeling the burden of office more than he had at any other time in his two years as magistrate. ‘That poor, bloody woman,’ he muttered.
‘William?’ Patterson said.
‘I’m all right. Thank you, George. Has Mr Pitman arrived?’
‘He has.’
‘Good. It’s half-past three. We’ll adjourn for the day after his testimony.’
John Pitman had gone to some trouble to present as a respectable business proprietor, however unrespectable that business was. His dark-blond hair was clean and sharply parted down the middle, and his usually untidy beard had been neatly trimmed. Despite the heat of the day, he’d buttoned himself up in a smart vest and coat that the mayor himself might well have envied. When asked to state his name and occupation, he spoke as a man proud of his station.
‘John Pitman, Your Worship, owner and manager of Pitman’s Refreshment Rooms in Albert Street.’
‘And where were you, Mr Pitman, on the night of Wednesday last?’ Dunne asked.
‘I was in bed, Your Worship, about nine or ten.’
‘Can anyone vouch for that?’
Pitman was quick to answer, not pausing even a moment to recall whether there might have been someone.
‘No, Your Worship. My wife, and my employee Maria Molesworth, were out that night, at Jamieson’s Theatre to see the Christy Minstrels. They went out at eight o’clock, and came home at about five minutes past eleven.’
‘“About five past”?’ Stanbridge said. ‘That’s very precise, Mr Pitman. Tell the court what happened after five past eleven that night.’
‘Well, an hour later, at five past twelve, Mounsey came by. He wanted some ale. I let him in and went back to bed. I had a cold, you see, Your Worship. Then, about ten minutes later, there was a pounding on the door. I told the wife I’d see to it.’
Pitman paused here, looking across at George Stuart, sitting alone and expressionless.
‘And what happened then, Mr Pitman?’ Dunne said.
Pitman faced his questioner. ‘I heard George Stuart yelling, “Johnny, for God’s sake get up — my wife has had her throat cut.” He was agitated all right. He looked like he’d just come back from the mine, being in his work clothes. Anyway, I got up, put on my trousers, and went with him and Mounsey to his house.’ He paused, as if to give time for the bench to digest the story.
‘Go on, Mr Pitman,’ Stanbridge said, ‘and please face the bench when you’re speaking.’
‘Yes, Your Honour. Well, there was a candle burning on the table in the front room. George Stuart picked it up, and we followed him into the bedroom …’
‘Yes, Mr Pitman?’
‘Well, I saw the deceased on the bed. Her legs were over the bed, and her shirt was up to her breasts. Stuart pulled it down to hide her person. It wasn’t right that a lady should be so exposed. Whoever would do such a —’
‘What happened next, Mr Pitman?’
‘I went to the camp, for the police, and left the others behind. I saw Sergeant Telford and Doctor Doolittle, and we went back to Stuart’s house. Oh, and Constable Irwin came with us, too.’
‘Mr Pitman, did you hear any screams that night, around or before midnight?’
‘No, Your Worship. I should think I would have heard screams if there were any, because the wind was blowing towards my place, and I wasn’t asleep.’
At this point, with the clock showing four, Dunne leaned across to consult with his colleagues.
‘My main object today was the identification of the body, so the poor mother can get on and bury her daughter. So may I suggest that we now adjourn proceedings?’
The other two were of like mind. Stanbridge addressed the court, advising that the inquiry was adjourned till ten o’clock on Thursday next, January 5th.
IF CORONER WILLIAM DRUMMOND was irritated by Stanbridge and his so-called magisterial inquiry treading all over his territory, he didn’t spend time voicing it; he simply started his own inquest as soon as he reached town. Within an hour of the five o’clock coach from Castlemaine pulling in, he had empanelled a twelve-man jury and had taken them off to the Stuart house to view the body, by then in its forty-third hour post mortem. William Stanbridge, well satisfied with his day’s work, and more than happy to hand back responsibility to the usual authority, gave the coroner the witness depositions on their return from the murder scene.
‘Not much to see?’ Stanbridge said. ‘A damaged body in a coffin, and a clean cottage.’
‘Yes,’ Drummond said with some resignation, ‘it seems the post-mortem might have been delayed until my return.’
‘Well, there ought to have been a jury, and had I been informed, steps might have been taken earlier. Instead, the poor woman lay there corrupting all day in the summer heat —’
Drummond raised a hand in surrender. ‘Thank you, William. I do concede the point. Despite the delay, what we — I — need to do now is ensure that a proper inquest is undertaken as expeditiously and as thoroughly as can be done. I’ve called the jury for nine o’clock tomorrow morning. I am indebted to you, William, for making a start.’
SATURDAY 31st DECEMBER
A HOT NORTH WIND threw grit and dust across the flat and treeless grid of Daylesford cemetery. Maggie Stuart wouldn’t have known most of the mourners who defied the gusts to see her buried that last afternoon of 1864. They came, two hundred perhaps, because they knew her. Not just as a sister or d
aughter, or as a friend, or as a shy young waitress, but as the precious embodiment of all that was soft and sweet in a coarse town. They came in protest, to renounce violence and murder. A covered wagon had conveyed the coffin the mile and a half from house to grave, followed on foot by husband, mother, stepfather, and four half-siblings. The cortege swelled as it progressed down the very street along which, not five days before, a dray had taken Maggie and Louisa home from the Boxing Day picnic.
When the rites were done, Louisa was the first to empty a handful of dry, dark soil into the grave. Behind her stood the minister, exchanging nods, contorted smiles, and solemn looks with mourners. Joe Latham was silent and motionless, perhaps still subdued by George Stuart’s charge, or simply trussed up by a suit in want of letting out. Stuart stood off aways, receiving condolences and avoiding the Lathams. Some — Maria Molesworth, Mr and Mrs Rothery among them — had to leave promptly to give testimony at the inquest.
Louisa stood and took her uncle’s hand. The wind eased as the congregation began to unravel and disperse. There was calm in the blessed release that ritual brings, but it rendered the unearthly screaming that followed all the more disturbing. All turned to the grave, to a bereaved mother bent double at the lip of her daughter’s tomb. Latham went to his wife to restrain her, but she would not be restrained. She reached into the void and toppled, the hollow thud of her landing resonating with the depth of the grave, and the comedy of the action heightening the distress in all who saw it. Latham at last found his mettle and grasped his wife’s arms, as he had so many times before, but this time to lift her from the ground, and then to hold her as she sobbed and wailed. People turned away to leave her to her grief, but she pulled free to stand back at the graveside, and in a moment of unlikely composure, declared, ‘I pray to God the assassin of my poor Maggie is brought to justice.’
AT DAYLESFORD COURT HOUSE, the jury had heard testimony from various witnesses, but, with no further evidence to present, and with the police investigation proceeding, Coroner Drummond decided it was appropriate to adjourn his inquest for four days, to reconvene the following Wednesday January 4th at 9.00 a.m.
GEORGE STUART RETURNED TO his cottage late in the afternoon. For two nights he’d bunked at a workmate’s house while his dead wife had lain in her coffin above the bed on which they had held each other. The police had assured him the place had been kept secure until their investigations were done and the body removed. Well, he thought, now that he was back there, they might have secured the place for a few hours more, because from the state of the place now it had been royally turned over. The furniture, modest at best, was all gone — taken while poor Maggie was still on the wagon to the cemetery. So, too, the crockery and cutlery; all of it. He went through into the bedroom. The bed remained, stripped of its blood-soaked mattress and sheets. Maggie’s crinoline wasn’t there, nor her trunk. He spun around, as if it were possible that in a tiny, bare room it had escaped his notice. All her clothes she kept in that trunk! He sat on the slats of the bed. The wood creaked; a sound so familiar, a sound to remember her by. They took her clothes. Who would so deny a grieving man? What was there left of Maggie? Not a petticoat or a blouse in which to bury his face and breathe her in. He collapsed to the floor and let his agony contort him how it would.
12
SUNDAY, NEW YEAR’S DAY 1865
DAYLESFORD WAS ON EDGE. Police activity had increased; additional detectives and constables had been assigned to assist the local force. Victoria’s Superintendent of Detectives, Charles Nicolson, and even Chief Commissioner Frederick Standish, were up from Melbourne.
Sarah Spinks would always have considered her own life and the workings of the police to be on parallel paths, so the realisation that she might have a part to play in the apprehension of a murderer was a few days in coming. It was first thing Sunday morning that she presented herself at the police station in Camp Street.
Four mounted constables and Sergeant Telford were leaving the yard as she arrived, but still saddling his horse was trooper Tom Mansell. He was a tall man, twenty-six years of age, with dark eyes and the carriage of a soldier. He regarded her for a moment, long enough to know he didn’t fancy her. He continued attending to his horse while she spoke.
‘Excuse me, Constable. I have some information that may be important to the murder.’
Mansell tightened the last strap and faced her. ‘The Stuart murder?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Sarah said, before wondering whether there had been another.
‘And you are?’
‘Sarah Spinks, of Connell’s Gully. I was walking home —’
‘Can I help you?’ The question came from a man appearing from the timber building behind the horse yard. He ambled towards Sarah, loading a pipe. ‘I’m Detective Walker,’ he said, and stopped to light up. Smoke drifted up and around his bearded head as his lips worked the mouthpiece. ‘You’d better come inside and tell me what you know, Miss Spinks. Take notes, would you, Mansell.’
‘It’s Missus Spinks,’ she said, and followed the detective through the mounting yard, picking up her skirts to clear the dung. The air was warm, already thick with flies, and pungent with new manure. For now, in the still of morning, dust lay undisturbed. Inside the bare-floored station house, furnished with stove, chairs, and a central wooden table, Walker bade Sarah be seated. He preferred to stand, propped against the wall and sucking his pipe, the smoke going some way to masking the earthy aromas from outside. In appearance, he was an unremarkable man, Sarah considered, of normal height and build, and lank, light-brown hair. His ordinariness put her in mind of Angus Miller, her lover, but only by way of contrast, for Angus was a man who could never be described as ordinary.
Mansell came in, sat at the table, and dipped a pen in ink. His witness and scribe ready, the detective began.
‘Tell me everything you know, Mrs Spinks.’
‘I —’
‘One thing, before you begin. Why didn’t you come to the police before today? The woman’s been dead more than three days.’
‘And buried for two,’ Mansell said.
Walker rebuked his colleague, indicating with a look and by pointing his finger to keep to his writing, as Sarah began an explanation for the delay.
‘I wasn’t sure that what I’d seen was important, Detective. And I heard a rumour that a man had been arrested. For all I knew, the police already had a suspect —’
Walker was waving her to stop.
‘Never mind, Mrs Spinks. Please continue.’
And so she did, though with the sense that her interviewer was more sceptical than appreciative.
‘On Christmas Eve, I saw a man sitting with my children, not far from Stuart’s. He had a tent up there.’
‘Describe the man. Slowly, for the constable.’
‘He wore a drab felt hat, much slouched over the eye; he had long, dark hair, extending to the neck; his eyes were very large and dark; and he had dark whiskers, but I didn’t notice any moustache; he wore an imitation seal-skin coat —’
‘Trousers?’
‘I think his trousers were moleskin or corded. A pale colour, they were.’
‘Height?’
‘Not tall, Detective. About the same as you.’
Walker caught Mansell’s eye, and quickly looked away.
‘So, there was a man living in a tent near Mrs Stuart’s, and you saw him there with your children?’
‘Yes. And they had spoken with him once before, a few days earlier. They’d lost their dog, you see, and, well, anyway, my daughter told me —’
Walker put his pipe on the table, pulled up a chair, and sat forward in it, resting his elbows on his knees.
‘What makes you think this man has anything to do with the murder of Mrs Stuart?’
The tone was suspicious, and put Sarah in a mind to doubt her decision to come forward, or even to question he
r own thinking. She looked away, to Mansell, who, with the slightest tilt of the head, encouraged her to take no notice. She faced Walker again.
‘On the Wednesday evening, the night of the murder, I was at Jamieson’s Theatre, to hear Christy’s Minstrels.’
‘You went alone?’
‘I was with a neighbour.’
‘Name?’
‘Angus Miller.’
Walker raised his eyebrows.
‘My husband was home, Detective Walker. He’s not been well. Angus kindly —’
‘What time did you leave Jamieson’s? Are you getting this, Constable?’
‘Every word.’
‘Mrs Spinks?’
‘I left soon after ten-thirty. We waited a while to see if anyone else was walking our way and would like to join us.’
‘Yes, well, tongues would wag, you being out alone with a man not your husband.’
‘They do wag, Detective. And they can wag until they fall off, for all I care. Now, do you want me to continue?’
For the moment, Walker was speechless. He could feel Mansell’s eyes on him, feasting on his discomfort.
‘Please go on, Mrs Spinks,’ he said.
‘Well, our way home took us close by Mrs Stuart’s, and near there I saw a man. I thought it was a stump at first, but then he started walking towards the town.’
‘This is the same man with the tent, the man you saw with your children?’
‘I couldn’t swear to it, but I am confident from the hat and coat it was the same man. It was the hat and coat, you see.’
‘You can’t be more certain than that?’
‘It was dark that night; clear and starry, but there was no moon.’
‘How near was he?’
‘He passed me by about ten feet. I looked round, being suspicious of him, and saw he was walking slowly back in the direction of Mrs Stuart’s. I could see Mrs Stuart’s then. I was on a track that goes into the gully towards my house.’
‘You saw him go to Stuart’s house?’
‘No, I saw him go in that direction.’
‘Did you speak to him?’