After his day’s round, Mr. Hobbs returned home to his tea. For this meal he was glad to see a plate of pink prawns on the table. If he had one weakness of the epicure, it was in the direction of prawns, and Mrs. Hobbs, when in a specially good humour, was wont to indulge him. This happened with her perhaps the more rarely, as her husband was wont on these occasions, while praising the quality of the prawns, which he rated as being nearly equal to Gravesend shrimps, to inveigh against Colonial provisions generally.
“The meat was not equal to English meat—not the flavour—the vegetables were tasteless, and the fruit lacking in juice.”
These remarks on the products of her native land made Mrs. Hobbs mad and restive.
“If everything was so good in England, why in the name of fortune did you leave it?”
“I wish I had not, and that’s the truth,” Mr. Hobbs would reply.
“And I wish so too!” would retort his good lady.
Then would follow a domestic squall, during which Mrs. Hobbs launched forth in voluble Anglo-Saxon on the worthlessness of men in general, and this one in particular.
In the meantime her husband leisurely ate up the prawns.
This night was an exception. The meal passed without the customary equinoctial, and Mrs. Hobbs got her fair share of the shrimps.
“I can tell you what it is, Tom, if you go jumping in the water again with your uniform clothes on, and expect me to wash them and get them decent, you are very much mistaken; somebody else may do them, I won’t. Such a job, with all the nasty salt water in them. If that brazen-faced hussy wants to drown herself let her. Good riddance, I say, to bad rubbish. If it had been me, now, you would not have been so quick, I’ll be bound.”
“Now, draw it mild, Bell! It was you that were taking her part only last night.”
“How dare you say that, you aggravating man! Did I not say at once that it was she that killed her husband, and now are not my words proved true? Has not her guilty conscience driven her to try and drown herself? Why, it’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
“Don’t be so hasty; it proves nothing of the sort. You will admit that if she is the criminal, she must be a most daring and cold-blooded one. Now, daring criminals, particularly women criminals, are hardly ever known to display remorse of any kind. The mind of an innocent woman is only too likely to be upset by such a day as that passed by Mrs. Booth, but a criminal having expected it would remain quite unmoved.”
“So you still think she is innocent?”
“I am more convinced than ever.”
“And what have you done to-day?”
“To commence at the beginning—I thought the matter well over last night. You will remember that the doctor said the knife entering the back near the spine, between the ribs, pierced the heart, and caused instantaneous death; but violent muscular movements of the limbs and body were likely to have occurred for some moments afterwards, and the stab could not have been self-inflicted. I felt by no means sure of that. It seemed unlikely, certainly; but any solution of this problem must be an unlikely one, and this appeared at least as feasible and plausible as any. Then I tried to imagine how Mr. Booth could have carried out his purpose. The knife, as you know, had no proper handle, but only the thin pointed haft. Suppose he had stuck it in his bed, raised himself, and fallen backwards on the point, and then, in his pain, turned over—this would account for his position?”
“Why, of course, that’s it, Tom! It’s as plain as possible! Why, you have got more sense than I gave you credit for!”
“But that is not it, Bell. I have carefully examined the bed and the sheet he was lying on, and there is no perforation, such as the haft must have made. Giving up this idea, I had to find another solution. If Mrs. Booth was not the criminal, but some third party, who was that criminal likely to be? Clearly some one resident in the house; this was the more likely. They would be on the spot, and be acquainted with all the small details necessary to execute such a deed undetected. At the same time, it must not be overlooked that a person capable of entering, undisturbed, one locked room, might, perhaps, just as easily have entered a locked-up house.
“I considered the inmates in this order—There was Mrs. Delfosse, the landlady. She is a respectable lady, and known on the Shore for years. In regard to her, the crime could bring no conceivable benefit. Mr. Booth was almost a stranger to her, and his tragic death is likely to prove a serious loss, so I rule her out of the possibles. Next there is the servant girl. Here I thought there might be a clue. These betting men are mostly a fast lot; perhaps Booth had been tampering with her. But Eliza Smith is a quiet, decent girl, engaged to be married to a carpenter, and when she assured me Mr. Booth had not spoken half-a-dozen times to her in his life, I believed her. So I ruled her out. Then there are the other boarders—the two Germans, the brothers Schnider, on the first floor. I said to myself, ‘These foreign fellows are often the kind of men to fancy other men’s wives, and to take strange means to gratify their fancy.’
“Acting on this idea, I called on these gentlemen in town. They seem to be in a good way of business, fine warehouse, clerks, and all the rest of it; but the men themselves are a pair of ugly yellow devils, with big fat noses. Supposing Mrs. Booth to be a party to an intrigue with one of them, to say the least she has very bad taste. But then I reflected that women are very capricious.”
“Not more than men, I’m sure!”
“And, though the late Mr. Booth was at least in appearance worth half-a-dozen of these German sauerkrauts, yet we have the memorable example of Hamlet’s mother, that ugliness itself is sometimes an attraction to feminine taste.”
“Who was that Mrs. Hamlet? Did she live on the Shore? I never heard of her.”
“No, she is a character in a play.”
“Written by a man, I suppose?”
“Yes; William Shakespeare.”
“That explains it. I knew it would take a man to write foolery like that! And what did those Germans tell you?”
“I could get nothing out of them. They talked like two idiots, so I left them in disgust. But, coming home, and thinking the matter over in my mind, I began to doubt if they had not been acting a part with me to try perhaps to throw me off the scent. Is it likely now, that two dunderheads such as they pretended to be, could successfully carry on a Sydney wholesale business? They tell me, and I have no doubt it’s true, that it takes a man to be as sharp as a razor for that kind of work. And later, when crossing the ferry, I met one of the clerks I had seen in the office, I took the opportunity to pump him in a quiet way about his bosses, and he was not slow to talk.
“‘Are they fond of women!’ said the clerk. ‘Just terrors! I believe it’s all they think about, and they think no small beer of themselves. Why, there’s Jacob, that’s the eldest, to hear him you would think all the girls in Sydney were running after him, and the married women, too. Even this Mrs. Booth they are talking about so much now, he has often said she had made a dead set at him, wanted him to spark her about, and I don’t know what.’
“‘And did he?’ I asked.
“‘Not that I know of. He never told us that. But then he is such a terrible liar I never believe a word he says.’
“Here we arrived at Milson’s Point, and the clerk left me, but what he had said caused me to think more seriously of these Germans, particularly the elder one, Jacob. As you said yourself, Bell, the knife is not a woman’s weapon, and more than that, with the exception of a few sailors who carry a sheath knife, it is not an Englishman’s weapon. With many foreigners, on the other hand, it is their common mode of attack. Here we have a man stabbed in a house, probably by an inmate of that house. Two of these residents are foreigners, and one of them has an avowed passion for the wife of the murdered man. What is more likely than that he should be the criminal?”
“Of course, Tom, it’s as clear as daylight; it’s that Jacob! That’s the man!”
“Not so fast, Bell, not so fast. How did he open and close the locked and bolted door?”
“Why? why! she must have done it for him!”
“Then she is as guilty as he is, and we had decided she was innocent! Besides, how does this explain the robbery of Mr. Booth’s safe in Sydney? For, in spite of the newspapers, I am convinced there is some connection between the two events. Reviewing the evidence carefully, I think with the Germans it is so far a case of suspicion only. Another boarder was Professor Norris. He, you will remember, was the first to break open the door and enter the room. And mark this, he is an old friend of Mrs. Booth. I went to his shop in Park Street, where he appears to carry on a fortune-telling or character-reading business. As I expected, he was not there; but I found him at Mrs. Delfosse’s. He talked very freely, and I must admit seemed very straightforward in all he said. He may be a bit eccentric in his opinions, but I am bound to say appears as little like a murderer as any man I ever met. This is what he said, in answer to my questions—He had known Mrs. Booth about four years, when he first employed her to assist him in his lectures on phrenology and clairvoyance, which he gave in various towns of the colony. He finally gave up this work, because Mrs. Booth, who was a Miss Summerhayes at that time, got tired of the business, and preferred a life in Sydney. Here she took a place as barmaid, and after a time, against his advice, married the late Mr. Booth. Their married life, he said, was fairly happy, so far as it had gone; nevertheless, he still believes the match was an unsuitable one, and that later on it would have led to dissensions and misery. He is fairly convinced that Mrs. Booth had no hand in her husband’s death. She was still, he said, very fond of him. He could think of no enemy who could desire, or would have benefited in any way by Booth’s death; but he expressed the opinion that all men connected with horse-racing are more or less rogues, and Mr. Booth’s acquaintances were all of that class.
“I asked concerning Mrs. Booth’s relations to the German boarders. He said they were on no more than just speaking terms. They met sometimes at meals, but Mrs. Booth had often told him that she did not like their manners. ‘They ate their food like hogs,’ that was her expression. So that latterly she had done no more than nod to them. The Professor felt positive they had had no hand in the crime.
“‘Who has then?’ I asked. ‘Whom do you suspect?’ He said, ‘I have no suspicions. I have thought of nothing else for the last two days, day and night, and I cannot even form a theory, even a stupid theory, as to either how the crime was done, or who did it. I am pretty well acquainted, by reading, with the history of mysterious crimes, but this, so far as I know, is without a parallel. If I did not know Bertha—that is Mrs. Booth—so well, I should incline to the view that she must have had a hand in it; but I can assure you positively, that I would rather believe it was I myself did it say when I was asleep than that she ever dreamed of such a thing. I know her so well. She would not harm a fly, and the sight of blood at any time would make her faint right away. No, decidedly no, it was not Bertha, and who it was I cannot imagine.’
“With this I left him. The man may be a skilful liar, but I think not. It is not the action of a criminal to try and avert suspicion from others—the Germans, for instance. In Mrs. Booth’s case it might be understood. It is not the action of the criminal to leave no theory to explain his crime. So that I am inclined to believe the Professor, and rule him out, and for that matter, accepting his evidence, rule out Jacob Schnider.”
“But who is there left, Tom?” chimed in Mrs. Hobbs. “If the people in the house are not to be suspected, and the man did not kill himself, it must have been some one outside.”
“So I think. This is why I called at Mr. Booth’s Sydney office and interviewed his clerk. This young man’s story, as published, ran so pat I did not half like the look of it. In the first place, supposing him to be guilty, his story is such as a specious scoundrel would invent. The fact that three weeks ago he knew that thousands of pounds worth of securities were in the safe, while at the date of the robbery there was only a few hundreds in cash, looks a plausible enough suggestion till you come to examine it.
“What were these securities? Were they inscribed stock, mortgage deeds, or bonds? If so, however valuable to the owner they might have been, they would be quite useless to a thief. Cash, on the other hand, is useful to anybody, and there is nothing to show that the cash in the safe at this particular time was not as large as it had ever been. On the other hand, supposing David Israel to be the criminal, or cognisant of the crime, it is hard to understand why an apparently useless murder of great danger and difficulty was added to the comparatively easy crime of theft. Certainly the safe must have been opened by a strange key. Why, having the key, should the robber trouble himself about the life of Mr. Booth? Clearly, if there was any connection between the two crimes there must have been some other motive besides that of robbery.
“These were the thoughts in my mind when I questioned the clerk. He is a glib young man, very dapper in his dress, very voluble in talk, and this is what he said in answer to my questions—He was still carrying on the business, not opening any fresh accounts, but simply paying and receiving cash as it became due. In this he was acting according to instructions from Mrs. Booth, who desired that all her husband’s engagements should be honourably met. He had been in the employ of the late Mr. Booth for the past six months, his duty being to keep all the accounts and the books, Mr. Booth being a poor scholar. The business had been very profitable, no doubt of that, and, besides, his master had had a great run of luck. He could not remember such a run of ‘skinners’ as Booth had had lately. I asked him what a skinner was.
“He said it was a day that was bad for the public; when they were skinned, in fact. As he kept all the accounts, I asked him if he could tell me more exactly by referring to them, how much money had been left in the safe on Saturday. Israel seemed to me to hesitate a little; perhaps it was only my fancy, for he very quickly gave me a total—£374 10s.
“‘This is larger,’ I suggested, ‘than the amount that you first stated.’
“‘Yes, it is,’ he said; ‘but I then spoke hurriedly, without reference to the accounts.’
“‘Was it usual,’ I asked, ‘to have so much loose money?’
“‘Oh, yes,’ he answered, very sharply, ‘we often had a couple of hundred; but Saturday was a busy day, and there might have been a little extra.’
“‘As a matter of fact,’ I inquired, ‘is not this the first time in your experience that such a large sum in cash has been locked up in the safe?’
“‘Perhaps it is,’ he said.
“‘Is it not a fact, Mr. Israel’—and here I made a shot at a venture, an inspiration of the moment ‘that Mr. Booth was about to dispense with your services?’
“‘No such thing!’ he exclaimed; but his sallow face turned red, then very pale. ‘No such thing; he might have growled a bit, he did occasionally when “lively”; but he did not mean what he said.’
“‘He did give you notice then?’
“‘In a sort of way; but it was not serious, and he was half tight at the time.’
“‘And when would this notice expire?’
“‘The end of this week. But it was not serious, I tell you. I took no notice of it. As a matter of fact, Mr. Booth could not understood his own books, and knew he could not do without me.’
“At this point I turned the conversation, and asked him did he know if his master had any enemies, or any persons who would benefit by his death. Israel answered readily enough.
“No, he did not know any particular person; but a big betting man was likely enough to have bad blood with some people; and, as regards his death, that might no doubt lead to the scratching of all his horses in training by his widow; and of course those who had backed them would lose, and the chances of other horses in the race be so much the better.
“This was a new clue to me, and, bidding good-day to Mr. Israel, I came home. Carefully considering the evidence of this clerk, it appears to me the most important of all. In the first place, on his own statement there was ample motive for a robbery of the safe. And not only was there a motive, but he was the only person likely to know that such a large sum was locked up. Next, we have his own assertion that there was £374. But how much more may there have been, unentered by him in those books, over which he had full control? And this notice of dismissal that he was under which he now treats so easily—may, very likely, have been of serious consequence to him. And why was this notice given? Certainly a man in Booth’s position, ignorant of accounts, much of whose business was done on ‘the nod,’ and required an expert to recognize all his varied customers, would be very slow to dismiss a confidential clerk. Probably the cause was something serious—perhaps criminal? At any rate, it looks shady. If there was a spirit of revenge in this man we have a motive for his master’s death; but if we add to this the possibility, as he himself suggested, of a betting-book being so arranged as to gain largely by Mr. Booth’s death, we have a second and still stronger motive.”
“Well, I will say, Tom,” said Mrs. Hobbs, “you have more sense than I gave you credit for. You should arrest that Jew boy at once. I should not hesitate a minute.”
“Easy, my dear, easy. Remember you were equally persistent just now, first that Booth killed himself, then that Jacob Schnider did it.”
“I said nothing of the sort. It was you, you thick-headed numbskull! But there, that’s just like you, trying to put your own mistakes on my shoulders! Why, no one with a grain of sense could hesitate for a minute. I had my doubts from the first about that clerk!”
“Well, old woman, let us suppose it is the clerk, or some one helping him. How do you account for his passing through two locked and bolted doors, and re-passing, leaving them fastened behind him? That he should be able to open the doors is understandable, but that he should have troubled to relock and rebolt them after himself is incredible. The man who robbed the shop locked neither safe nor door, though the motive in that case would have been quite as strong and the job much easier, for in this case the locking was from the outside.”
“Then the murderer did not open the doors at all!”
“So I was inclined to think. But there are only two other possible entrances to the room—a chimney a cat could hardly crawl down, and a window fastened inside, barred without, and thirty-three feet from the ground.”
“Well, I don’t care what you say! That Israel did it, right enough! I never saw a man so aggravating as you are. You no sooner find the man that did it than you try and prove he didn’t!”
* * * * *
It was the evening of the next day. Mr. Hobbs had returned to his tea.
“Well, Tom!” said his wife; “how did the inquest go? Anything fresh?”
“Nothing fresh, Bell. Nothing I have not told you. Dobell, as I expected, has found out nothing. He is in a bit of a fix I can see plainly enough. He expected to find corroborative evidence against Mrs. Booth, but, so far, he has failed.”
“Then the jury acquitted her?”
“On the contrary; they committed her for wilful murder, and by this time she is in Darlinghurst. But that was only what was to be expected. A coroner’s jury have not got a judge to direct them. Their verdict is only tentative. With the evidence before them they did right.”
“And how did the poor woman take it?”
“You never saw any one look more astounded. She stared round the room as though she was looking at a ghost, and then swooned right away, with a loud shriek. The Professor was there to hold her up, and I could see him turn pale and tremble like a leaf. He told me himself that the shock of this affair is likely to send the poor girl out of her mind, and it is easy to see he is very much attached to her.”
“Poor dear creature, what she must suffer! You must help her, Tom. Now set your wits to work. I know you can if you like.”
“I will do my best, Bell; and if brains and ability, though I say it that should not, can solve the North Shore mystery, I will solve it!”
Three years earlier than the incidents related in the preceding chapters, the walls and fences of that moribund and derelict country town, Windsor, were ornamented by a series of posters that proclaimed the early appearance of the renowned Professor Norris, mesmerist, phrenologist, and magnetic healer; also the gifted clairvoyant, Bertha Summerhayes, reader of the past and future. And then followed numerous details of the wonders and signs common to such entertainments, the bill concluding with this parting advice—“Man, know thyself!”
Why men generally are invited to make the acquaintance of the very second-rate article referred to was not stated. Or, having found what an unmitigated fool that person generally is, what he was to do in the matter was also a blank.
Windsor took the posters very quietly. Nothing but a circus or a Hawkesbury flood will stimulate the languid circulation of a native of its mud flats. Professor Norris and his assistant, who had arrived at Mrs. Brown’s family hotel that morning, had returned from a round of inspection, and met in their sitting-room to compare notes.
“What do you think of the town, my dear? Is it not a fine, quaint old place?”
“I don’t know about being quaint, it is old enough. Why, half of the buildings seem to be empty, and the other half public houses? Whatever do the people do for a living?”
“Perhaps they drink in each other’s bars,” said the Professor simply.
“And do you know what Mrs. Brown asked me? She said we must pay each day’s hotel charges in advance!”
“It must be her large organ of Caution. This is very unusual.”
“So I told her, but she explained that shows had so often failed to make expenses in this ‘quaint’ old town of yours, that continued losses had forced them to make this stipulation. Nevertheless, she was kind enough to add that she would give something towards the subscription to pay our fare to Sydney when the time came.”
“That was her large organ of Benevolence, and very kind of her.”
“But what a place! I am sure I thought being a professional was something nice, that at any rate people would respect me; but it seems we are looked upon as little better than tramps. For my part I’m sick of it. Windsor is the last straw. Once catch me in Sydney again, and a team of bullocks shall not drag me out of it!”
“You are too impressionable, my dear. Remember our educational mission. It is not only for our own personal ends we travel, but more especially to awaken in men a more enlightened interest in those mesmeric and electric powers that invest them. Think of the cause, my dear, think of our mission.”
“Fiddlesticks for your mission! The ‘Cause’ will not clothe us, and feed us, and pay the Mrs. Browns their bills.”
“Now, don’t fret; we may have a good house to-night, our bills are really posted everywhere.”
“Of course they are; they are on the doors of all the empty houses.”
“And who can tell how many heads I may have? I have remarked some really interesting subjects in this place. The temperaments are largely lymphatic. I saw the largest alimentativeness standing at an hotel door that I have ever seen.”
The Professor, having got on his favourite theme, would have gone on indefinitely, had not a servant come to the door to announce the visit of a gentleman from the newspaper.
“Show him up by all means,” said the Professor. “It is always wise to stand well with the Press, and besides, he may want his character read. It would be a most excellent advertisement for us, most excellent.”
The gentleman from the newspaper was coming up the stairs with an aggressive step. As general utility in the office he had been dispatched to demand immediate cash payment of the printing bill, and he felt no hesitation in undertaking the task. He had been told to stand no humbug, and he meant to act up to instructions. Hubert Gosper was a tall, lank youth, with the Colonial looseness of limb, like wheels on an old axle that want screwing up; a narrow face, regular features, the eyes small and set back, as Australian eyes are wont to be, with the accompanying lines in the forehead, and contraction of the eyebrows, due to the glare of light. As he entered the room with careless confidence the Professor bowed to him, but before he could commence his abrupt demand, his eye caught the face of Bertha Summerhayes.
And she smiled at him graciously, and from her eyes came a fire that flashed through him, seared him in some way, making him, as it were, from that moment, and instantly, in some sort, another man. For the nonce he was almost dumb, and stumbled and stammered disconnected words.
The Professor in pity came to his assistance. “Ah; no doubt you wish to have your character read? I shall do so with the greatest pleasure. Of course, members of the Press are on my free list. Take a chair.”
Hubert, or Huey, as he was commonly called, mechanically obeyed.
“Really, a most remarkable head!” exclaimed the Professor, after his fingers had passed once or twice through the hair of the sitter. “Most remarkable? I find you have intellectual gifts, which, if properly cultivated, might make a first-class novelist or playwright. A wealth of language and imagery that promises the eloquence of a great orator. In the perceptive organs you have that analytical faculty that is required by the legal mind, and, should inclination lead you to mathematics, or the exact sciences, you have all the organs required, of the most ample development. On the side of morals, I find strict integrity and lofty veneration. The Church would in you gain an ornament and a bright light. Of what are—perhaps unfairly—termed the selfish organs, your share is a wise and proper balance, and the animal only such as is required to give the requisite energy and stimulant to the whole. I say, without hesitation, that to such an endowment of intelligence as you possess no path in life, however eminent, is closed. You may be a statesman, a prelate, a poet, artist, or engineer, and I would even venture so far as to say you might in time, by diligent study and observation, be a phrenologist.”
“Be a what?” exclaimed Huey, as though some insect had stung him.
“A phrenologist, my dear sir; one of the noblest careers open to our poor, frail humanity.”
“How much a week do they get?”
“If you mean how much in paltry coin is their share, the returns, I admit, are somewhat scant, but the wealth of gratitude from honest hearts made happier, and the noble exaltation in the spread of science and truth are illimitable.”
“I’m afraid the terms won’t suit!”
“Reflect, my dear friend. This day a path opens before you. Be my pupil; such talent as yours lies buried—let it burst forth and bloom.”
Huey’s eyes by this time had again wandered to Bertha, who sat apart, and the feeling was strong within him that he must see again and talk with this girl. This proposal of the Professor’s, though idiotic from his own point of view, would form an excuse for further visits.
So when they parted a little later, without one word being said of the printing account, it was understood that Huey was to think the matter over and call again.
An empty wood dray was going up the main street, Windsor, a young man seated on the side rail, carelessly resting after bringing in a second load of firewood from Pitt Town Common.
He was well-proportioned, muscular and hard with work, and black tanned by the sun.
Professor Norris, had he given an honest chart of this man’s character, would have found little for exultant rapture; and, on the other hand, little to condemn. A mind uncultivated, stunted by hard physical labour, he sat in his dray with a stolid, bovine content, for he had dined heartily on his midday meal of damper, corned beef, and a billy of black tea.
So he jolted on his road, as happy for the time being as a hungry cow in a lucerne paddock; but looking up his eye caught sight of a newly-pasted bill on a wall, and he pulled up his horse to read it. Seeing an acquaintance and old school-fellow close by, be hailed him—
“Hullo, Huey! what’s all this about on this bill? Mesmerism and clairvoyance! What sort of fake is that? Is there any circus in it, or horses?”
“No, Alec,” replied Huey; “it’s a man that feels your bumps and tells you, you are an awfully clever fellow, and a girl that reads you your fortune, and all kinds of things besides.”
“Oh, that sort of rot! I thought it might have been something worth seeing.”
“The show’s not up to much, but the girl’s a ripper—the prettiest girl in the world, I do believe! Straight wire, and no joke!”
“Is it worth a bob now, to go and see her?”
Little thinking how much hung on his answer, little knowing to how large a degree that answer would shape his own life and that of others, Huey answered—
“Pay a bob! Why, it’s worth a quid, man, and cheap at the price!”
* * * * *
On his second visit to the Professor, Huey got on speaking terms with Bertha, and that young lady, instinctively seeing, or feeling, the conquest she had made, added more gracious smiles and still more gracious words to ensnare her victim. And yet there was a certain haughtiness and reserve about her that repelled familiarity, and perhaps added to her charm.
“It must be very nice for you,” said Huey at this interview, “to be travelling about the country, seeing all the different towns and people; not confined, a poor creature like myself, to one dull little place.”
“So I thought,” replied Bertha, “when the Professor persuaded me to make this journey with him, but I am heartily tired of it. Out of Sydney you are buried, fairly buried, and what is there to see but the same old bush and the same old stupid people wherever you go. It is all very well for the Professor; he finds wonderful ‘subjects,’ as he calls them, everywhere. I don’t know how many possible Shakespeares and Miltons he has not discovered. To hear him, you would think the bush was just running over with talent. He says it is only accident that brings great men to the front, and that for one that is known, hundreds are lost to themselves and everybody else. Now what is the good, I want to know, of being as clever as clever can be, if you have to waste it all on wallabies and cockatoos?”
And here it seemed to Huey that Bertha’s words had a personal address, that she already felt an interest in him, and, in this indirect way, was summoning him to a new life.
“But what is a fellow to do—one of those clever men you speak of, I mean? How is he to get out of the rut? What is the good of being clever, anyway? Like the Professor, for instance. He is not very rich, I suppose?”
“Oh, poor old Pro! Rich?—no! And never will be. His one desire is to spread what he calls the ‘Light of Modern Research’; but it’s my belief that people don’t want his ‘Light,’ or anybody else’s. Every one thinks himself so clever, you know. And when you try and prove to them they are just ignorant and stupid, they don’t like it.”
“And what do you think of it all, Miss Summerhayes?”
“I am afraid I am one of the stupid, ignorant people! I just want to be like everybody else—no better, no worse. Only let me be where there is somebody—some life. This is my last appearance on the platform. Once in Sydney, there I stop. Dear old Sydney! I had no idea what a delightful place it was till I had spent twelve months amongst gum-trees, post-and-rail fences, and bark huts.”
“And where do you live in Sydney?” Huey asked, but before the answer came the Professor burst into the room.
“I have found it out, my dear. Really it’s the most simple thing in the world as plain as the nose on your face, so to speak and no one has ever seen it before. It’s a scientific discovery of the highest importance, and will rank with the laws of gravity and natural selection. Really the law is self-evident.”
“What law, Pro? What are you excited about?”
“You know, my dear, I have often told you that, valuable as phrenology is as a guide to character, it yet only tells a man’s possibilities, not what a man is. This must be looked for in other directions, and I have always held that physiognomy was the clue. But although we all acknowledge that character is shown by the face, no one has yet pointed out the simple rule by which we are all, even a little child, more or less guided. Now, that rule I have just thought out, and I venture to predict it will revolutionize our social organization.”
“Well, what is the rule? Tell us, Pro, quickly, or you will have found out something else and forgotten all about it.”
“The rule, my dear, is this—That where those changes, that take place in the face of every person to express the varied emotions, are found as a permanent part of the face when in repose, then that person has that emotion in a correspondingly high degree, and it follows that as the character is changeable, so is the face. One is an exact index of the other. Let me illustrate. You yourself, who have large love of admiration, an organ becoming and proper of your sex, have the mouth depressed between the nose and chin. Now, when you smile, as you are now doing, the corners of the mouth are drawn back, as it were, giving to any mouth a slight appearance of what, to you, is a permanent feature. And when a person is resolute or determined, is it not a fact, Mr. Gosper, that the teeth are clenched and the jaw projected? Are not these also the signs of resolution and determination? And so on, all through. I could multiply instances indefinitely, but one has only to stand before a mirror, and like an actor, express the different sentiments, to learn the whole key to physiognomy in a few minutes.”
“But what do you mean to do about it, Pro?” inquired Bertha, smiling incredulously.
“When we get back to Sydney I will write a book. I am inclined to think you are right as to the want of sympathetic appreciation of the public for lectures. Literature is the teacher of to-day. To literature I will turn my energies.”
Huey, who was in no ways interested in the “new law,” here found means to escape, and with a smile of adieu from Bertha that haunted him for many days to come, descended the stairs, and as he descended there seemed to be a light going out of his life.
She would leave the next morning; how much that meant he commenced to realize. The flames of a new hope, brightened in her presence, flickered and dimmed as he left her. With the descending stairs the hope grew smaller and smaller, and once descended, seemed to go right out.
What could he, odd man in a country printing office, hope to offer? Even George Street, that up to this time had appeared a right and proper kind of thoroughfare for a country town, now looked mean and squalid, and Windsor itself a grave for youth and energy. He could not stand it. He felt sure he could not stand it. Better far to starve in a city than vegetate amidst the Hawkesbury flats, animate and inanimate.
And joined with this thought was a passionate resolve to see Bertha Summerhayes again, to strive for her, to fight for her if need be, but to possess her at any cost.
* * * * *
On Pitt Town Common, the following morning, Alexander Booth was having an inward experience, not unlike that of his chum, Huey. He had been twice to the lecture, and though not mesmerized by the Professor, he was affected in a most strange manner by his fair assistant.
He had not spoken to her, he had only seen her as one of a small audience, yet she already filled his thoughts in a way that was engrossing and irresistible, almost painful. It was as though his mind had been a clean slate and she the first to write on it, not in part, but over the whole surface.
So it came about that the logs would not split that day; they might have been tough or fuzzy, or crossed in the grain. He had never found his judgment so mistaken as to how a tree would run. Then he took to cursing the logs, the wedges, and the maul, then by progression to damn the common, the life he was leading, and himself for a fool for following it. He who was used to whistle at his work, like a magpie on a stump, never piped a note, and though the sun glared down through the shadeless forest of box and ironbark on the brown grass and dusty track, it seemed to him a dark cloud was in the sky.
Going into Windsor at last, he flogged the horse in a way unusual to him, and seeing Huey in George Street, hailed him with a sense of relief.
“I’m full up, Huey.”
“Full of what?”
“Full of this dog’s life, of slogging all day for a mere nothing. I’m going to give it best and clear.”
“So am I. I told the boss this morning this would be my last week; I’m off for Sydney. Windsor may be good enough for old men to die in, but for a young man who wants to live Sydney’s the place.”
“Then I’ll go with you, I’m blest if I don’t. I’ll tell the old man to-night. Young George is big enough now to do my work, and if the old man does not like it he can just do the other thing.”
So the bargain was concluded, and the two young men, each turned to discontent by a pretty face, decided to explore the unknown, and plunge in the maelstrom of Sydney life.
The two lads had been to Sydney before as holiday visitors, but to actually live there, to depend for their future on what the city might offer, was a new, and at first, delightful experience. Huey did not own to himself that he was following in Bertha’s footsteps. He satisfied his mind that he was only acting from the wise desire to better his prospects and enlarge his opportunities. As the time came that saw them at last alighting on Redfern platform, his ambition had soared into wild dreams of what the metropolis might hold out. Why should he not be sub-editor of one of the important dailies? Or editor, perhaps, of some minor paper? What the Professor had said about his capabilities was, no doubt, exaggerated; but he felt there was a substratum of truth. Once let him get his foot on the ladder, as high of course as possible to start with, and he felt all the power to climb to the top. Parliament and the Ministerial bench all shone before him in a dim vista of future greatness. He had perhaps too much common-sense to take those dreams quite seriously, yet there was pleasure in the nursing of them and Youth and Hope sat by to fool him.
Alec, in his own more stolid, matter-of-fact way, had his dreams too. A well-paid billet, with little to do but drive about in a buggy and have unlimited drinks at the wayside pubs, was nearly his ideal, if put in words. He was not brought to Sydney in a hope to renew the sight of Bertha; he did not know she had gone there; for Huey, with an instinctive jealousy, had not told him.
The sight of this girl had acted on him as a species of revelation that the good things of life were not confined to a timber-getter on Pitt Town Common. That in fact much that was desirable, this girl, for instance, was, for a firewood-getter, hopelessly cut off. So he had thrown down his tools, careless of his father’s displeasure, and taken the train with Huey.
To an arrival from the country George Street, Sydney, is an everlasting wonder and delight. The throng of passengers and vehicles all rushing along, the multitude of strange faces, and smartly dressed shop-windows, causes him to wander up and down, with mouth half open and staring eyes, devouring, as it were, the scene before him. Huey and Alec were not quite new chums to the city, and passed successfully the numerous door men on Brickfield Hill, who, perhaps attracted by their tanned faces, or the country clothes, or some other sign that their dog-like instinct finds in the Bushman, solicited their patronage on terms the most pressing.
It was only after their second day, when they had first made inquiries in the direction of their hopes, that those hopes became more shadowy and indistinct.
Huey found no possible opening for a sub-editor who was not qualified by previous experience in the same kind of work.
Alec, who had pitched on the occupation of brewer’s traveller as his ideal, at least to commence with, found on the most casual inquiry that not only experience, but influence, was required to secure the billet. He was, however, consoled for the loss, for a time, by a visit he paid casually to a horse sale-yard, where the heavy gold watch-chain and imposing air of the auctioneer took his fancy. He would be a horse salesman at all costs. He invited an habitué of the yard to take a drink, hoping to get some useful information.
He did.
“You understand horses—perhaps you know a good beast when you see one?”
“I should think I did; and a bad one, too.”
“That’s just it; you know the bad points about a horse. Now, an auctioneer doesn’t; he just sees in every animal ‘The finest beast that ever came into this yard!’ And you think, I suppose, he just has to stand there and take bids, and knock it down to the highest bidder?”
“Well, I should think so.”
“You are a soft one, and no mistake. Where did you come from? Damper must be cheap in your part. Why, you mug, the auctioneer just bids himself, and keeps her going if he sees a mug about, and then runs him as far as he thinks he will go before he knocks him down. Now, could you run a mug and not be caught ‘on the rocks’?”
Alec had to own to himself that at present that prospect was closed to him.
On the third day, ambition having cooled, they tried for more humble posts, Huey as reporter and Alec as ’bus driver, but here also they found the door closed on them.
By the end of the week their ardour had so cooled that Huey was hunting round job offices for a place as printer’s devil, and Alec found the dignity of driving a tip-dray one to be desired. But they found even in these humble walks those more qualified than themselves before them. So they spent a great part of the day walking about the Domain or sitting on the seats, resting after their tramps for work. They did not tell each other much of their experience after the first day or so. Their day’s fortune on a re-meeting was all summed up in the mutual ejaculation—
“No luck!”
“No luck!”
Taken up with their own cares, the two friends had, these last few days, paid little heed to those about them, yet more than once they had noticed a rather stout old gentleman, clean-shaved, white-haired, with a babyish, chubby face, like a cherubim gone to seed, with a pair of big blue eyes that looked wonderingly about. There was generally a cluster of children about him, whom he incited to foot races, long jumps, and other sports, he himself seeming more gay and childish than all the rest. One morning two of these small boys began fighting, and, to the surprise of the young men, the old gentleman, far from interfering, was urging them on, with eager instructions as to how to hold their fists and strike their blows. Huey went forward to interfere. Alec, for his part, thought the sport rather interesting than otherwise. But the old gentleman pulled Huey up by exclaiming—
“Let the young roosters have it out; it makes them game! Watch the little fellow—he is trying the La Blanche I taught him yesterday!”
The bigger boy now retreated, howling, with a bleeding nose, but the old gentleman sent a threepenny-piece after him by another boy, and in like manner rewarded the victor. The children then left in a bee-line for the main entrance gate, probably, as the old gentleman suggested, “To blue their swag.”
So it came about that they all fell talking together, and in course of conversation the old gentleman learned some of the young men’s experiences.
“So you have come to Sydney to make your fortunes, my boys? Nothing like it; I admire pluck. But how are you going about it? Making fortunes wants understanding, like everything else. You want to know the ropes, and if you don’t get on the right track soon, you waste all your time, and perhaps never find it at all.”
“Well, can you tell us the ropes?” interjected Alec.
“That is as it may be. I don’t give all my experience away to the first comer just for the asking. Let us hear what your ideas are of making a fortune first.”
“Well,” said Huey, “I believe in getting into some firm, the bigger the better, and by steady industry and making myself useful, working my way up to the highest position—early to bed, early to rise, a penny saved is a penny got, and all that sort of thing.”
“No good,” was the laconic comment of the old gentleman. “Those sentiments might have been all right a hundred years ago, but they are not up to date. Honest Integrity, when he has been in a firm long enough, say all the best years of his life, gets promoted by getting the sack, because his salary looks too big, and they can get a younger man to do his work for half the money. As for the ‘early to bed’ racket, I never knew any one but labourers and poor devils who could not help it that stuck to that game. And the ‘penny saved’ is no better; you have not got the value of that penny till you have eaten it, or spent it in some other pleasing fashion. A penny saved and put of course, in a bank that goes bung is a mug’s game. Why, all this kind of foolishness you are talking is the ruin of hundreds of promising lads; and it’s just unlearning it all and reading it the other way about that is called experience.”
“But you don’t mean to say,” urged Huey, “that honesty is not the best policy?”
“Oh, no,” said the old gentleman, “honesty is a good line, particularly for a cashier or a trustee. Be as honest as the day, you gain confidence; and then sooner or later you can clear to America with a good swag. Yes, honesty is a paying game, properly conducted.”
Hubert smiled aside to Alec. The old gentleman was either wrong in his head or was trying to take a rise out of them.
“I don’t suppose you know who I am,” continued the old gentleman. “I am called Soft Sam, or Old Sam, and I have put more successful men on the right track than any other man in Sydney. Men as green as you are, some of them; now owning houses there” (pointing to Macquarie Street) “and stores there” (pointing to Circular Quay).
“And do all the chaps you help do well?” inquired Alec.
“No, they don’t; and I’ll tell you why. After getting along all right with the start I give them they get so cocky, they think they are too clever to come to me again, and sooner or later they make a hash of it. There are several of them over there” (jerking his thumb towards Darlinghurst); “but it’s all their own foolishness, and thinking they could run before they could walk. But this is dry work talking; let us go and have a wet.”
They went towards the gate, the young men wondering what kind of a man this Soft Sam might be. Presently the old man spoke again—
“Bless me!” and he clapped his hands in both his pockets. “I have not got a copper on me!”
“Ah, now we are coming to it,” thought Huey; “he will want to borrow money.”
But Soft Sam did nothing of the kind.
“Come along, boys, it’s all right. I’ll meet one of my lads before we have gone far.”
Even as he spoke a flash sulky, with a fast-trotting pony, driven by a superfine young swell, was dashing past. Old Sam put up his hand, and the vehicle stopped. He stepped forward, and this is what the young men heard—
“Give us a quid, Johnny.”
“A fiver if you like, Sam.”
“No, a quid will do.”
A pocket-book was brought out, the paper handed over, and with a mutual nod the sulky disappeared round the corner.
“A friend of yours?” inquired Huey.
“One of my pupils.”
“Then you are a kind of professor?”
“Well, I never went in for any fine name like that. I just show the ropes to young fellows as I think will benefit, and when I want a pound I just ask the first one handy.”
“But I suppose you will have a lot of money of your own?”
“Not a penny in the world. What do I want money for? It is all very well for young fellows like you, but I would not be bothered with more than I can put in my waistcoat pocket. I tried it once, but mates were always borrowing it, or worrying me to give or lend it, so I got clear of the lot, and a good job too.”
Soft Sam was now accosted by a man who crossed the street to speak to him, and Alec heard him whisper—
“Lend us a quid, Sam; I’ve got a mug!”
As though it was a matter of course, the hand of the old man went to his pocket, and the note so recently put there changed hands once more. With this the stranger hurried away and joined another.
“Now you see what it is to have money,” said Old Sam. “Now, that Jackson is no better than a fool, and I will wager he is trying to work the confidence trick on that new chum he is with. I told him times enough it is not in his line, but he is one of the clever ones, thinks he knows everything.”
The party had turned into George Street. Soft Sam pulled up before a draper’s window, flaming with posters, announcing “A Great Fire Sale.”
“My idea,” he said, pointing to the placards. “A month ago, Smallway was nearly a broker. He came to me. I told him to make a fire in his back-yard, call out the Brigade, and give a reporter a fiver to make half a column of it. Since then he has been coining money.”
“How is that?” said Huey. “I don’t see where the profit comes in.”
“Damaged goods, of course. The public will pay fifty per cent. more for smoky, soiled calico than they will for new. Why, he has got one man and three boys dipping rolls of goods in dirty water in the back-yard all the time. It is a little gold-mine while it lasts. I may as well go in and get a quid off him as any one else.”
So saying, the old man stepped into the shop, which was crammed with eager buyers, and in a little time sallied forth with a note in his hand.
“Would not give me less than a fiver. Said he owed me a hundred times as much. Now, that’s the sort of man I like—a man who knows where his success comes from, and does not gammon it is all his own cleverness. Come along, lads, and I’ll show you the finest sight and the finest girl in Sydney. Here we are; they call it the Golden Bar.”
The door swung behind them, and truly the young men were fairly dazzled. A spacious room, walled with mirrors, with pillars and panelling, fretwork and tracery, all of burnished gold—even the frescoed ceiling had a gilt cornice—the furniture, the ornate bar, and fairy-like shelves, all were gilt.
And the light that streamed in from the oriel roof was rose-coloured, and gave a halo of glory to the whole.
And behind the bar were three fair maidens, and behind them again the usual range of bottles and decanters.
Only for this familiar sight the lads would have taken the place for the dwelling of some genii or millionaire.
Soft Sam smiled as he saw their astonishment. It pleased him.
“Nice little crib to smoke a pipe, eh? What will you take? A bottle of Foster, my dear, and never believe me again if you are not the prettiest girl in the town! Yes, I call you the Queen of Sydney.”
The barmaid tossed her head contemptuously, served the drinks, and was about to turn away, when her eyes caught those of Huey.
“An old acquaintance! How are you? Come to stop in Sydney?”
And Bertha, for it was Bertha, glorified by the latest fashion in dress and coiffure—Bertha, morocco-bound and gilt-edged—smiled at him, bending her head on one side and looking slantwise with her eyes.
Huey drank in her smile like dew from Heaven; drank it in with a species of intoxication. He answered in words he was ashamed of, so halting and stumbling. Then the three sat down.
“Isn’t she a clinker?” said Sam.
“My word!” added Alec.
Huey said nothing.
“I’ll go and have a word with her,” said Alec, and, rising, he went to the bar, and started a conversation with Bertha.
Huey watched them, expecting with certainty that Bertha would receive the clumsy compliments and remarks of Alec with indifference, if not disgust. What was his surprise to see her answer graciously, and, could he believe his eyes, smile on Alec, with that same soul-devouring smile that she had bestowed on himself. He felt in a moment a great hatred for Alec, and he felt as though this old chum of his had basely robbed him of some dear treasure, and had any one noted Huey’s eyes at that moment, they would have seen a flash of hell-fire from them.
The moment passed,—it was all in a moment, but a bitterness remained, even though as Huey sat there he saw this smile bestowed not on one only, but half-a-dozen other favoured customers.
“Well, boys,” said Soft Sam, “you can stop and see the gals. I’m off. You know where to find me. So long.”
* * * * *
They had had tea at their coffee palace—Huey and Alec.
Huey said he would go upstairs and read. Alec said he would stroll down to Paddy’s Market. But no sooner had Alec gone out than Huey put down his paper, went out in the street, and made a straight line for the Golden Bar. He turned the corner and was about to enter, when he came nearly full-butt on Alec.
There was no explanation. They knew they had lied to each other, and they felt, not ashamed of themselves, but sore that the other should know. They entered together and drank together, and played dominoes to pass the time, while they watched each other and Bertha behind the bar, and she smiled on both of them when they came for drinks, with a uniform sweetness.
And the lads drank love and hate as they sat together, and though they spoke in the usual friendly tone, they knew the old friendliness and mutual confidence was buried for ever.
Where they sat the two young men could hear most of what Bertha said to the numerous customers that came to her. Amongst these was a small crowd of flash young men, full of loud talk and coarse jokes. One of them, leaning on the bar, looked up at Bertha—
“I tell you what it is, my dear. Say the word, and I’ll marry you.”
Bertha turned on him contemptuously—
“Marry you? You must think I want a husband badly. And what have you to marry on?”
“A few thousands.”
“What is that? The man that speaks to me must have twenty thousand to begin with.”
The whole conversation was doubtless a thoughtless jest on both sides, but one pair of ears at least did not take it so. Alec sealed the words in his memory. And the first question he asked Soft Sam when they met him next day was—
“How can I make twenty thousand pounds?”