BRITISH MYSTERIES - Fergus Hume Collection: 21 Thriller Novels in One Volume. Fergus Hume
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the hag, with a repulsive grin, tying the money up in a piece of her dress, which she tore off for the purpose. “I’m a forting to the public-‘ouse, I am, an’ it’s the on’y pleasure I ‘ave in my life, cuss it.”
The sight of money had a genial effect on her nature, for she held the candle at the head of the stairs, as they went down, so that they should not break their heads. As they arrived safely, they saw the light vanish, and heard the sick woman singing, “The Last Rose of Summer.”
The street door was open, and, after groping their way along the dark passage, with its pitfalls, they found themselves in the open street.
“Thank heaven,” said Calton, taking off his hat, and drawing a long breath. “Thank heaven we are safely out of that den!”
“At all events, our journey has not been wasted,” said the detective, as they walked along. “We’ve found out where Mr. Fitzgerald was on the night of the murder, so he will be safe.”
“That depends upon Sal Rawlins,” answered Calton, gravely; “but come, let us have a glass of brandy, for I feel quite ill after my experience of low life.”
Chapter XVI.
Missing
The next day Kilsip called at Calton’s office late in the afternoon, and found the lawyer eagerly expecting him. The detective’s face, however, looked rather dismal, and Calton was not reassured.
“Well!” he said, impatiently, when Kilsip had closed the door and taken his seat. “Where is she?”
“That’s just what I want to know,” answered the detective, coolly; “I went to the Salvation Army head-quarters and made enquiries about her. It appears that she had been in the Army as a hallelujah lass, but got tired of it in a week, and went off with a friend of hers to Sydney. She carried on her old life of dissipation, but, ultimately, her friend got sick of her, and the last thing they heard about her was that she had taken up with a Chinaman in one of the Sydney slums. I telegraphed at once to Sydney, and got a reply that there was no person of the name of Sal Rawlins known to the Sydney police, but they said they would make enquiries, and let me know the result.”
“Ah! she has, no doubt, changed her name,” said Calton, thoughtfully, stroking his chin. “I wonder why?”
“Wanted to get rid of the Army, I expect,” answered Kilsip, drily. “The straying lamb did not care about being hunted back to the fold.”
“And when did she join the Army?”
“The very day after the murder.”
“Rather sudden conversion?”
“Yes, but she said the death of the woman on Thursday night had so startled her, that she went straight off to the Army to get her religion properly fixed up.”
“The effects of fright, no doubt,” said Calton, dryly. “I’ve met a good many examples of these sudden conversions, but they never last long as a rule—it’s a case of ‘the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be,’ more than anything else. Good-looking?”
“So-so, I believe,” replied Kilsip, shrugging his shoulders.
“Very ignorant—could neither read nor write.”
“That accounts for her not asking for Fitzgerald when she called at the Club—she probably did not know whom she had been sent for. It will resolve itself into a question of identification, I expect. However, if the police can’t find her, we will put an advertisement in the papers offering a reward, and send out handbills to the same effect. She must be found. Brian Fitzgerald’s life hangs on a thread, and that thread is Sal Rawlins.”
“Yes!” assented Kilsip, rubbing his hands together. “Even if Mr. Fitzgerald acknowledges that he was at Mother Guttersnipe’s on the night in question, she will have to prove that he was there, as no one else saw him.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“As sure as anyone can be in such a case. It was a late hour when he came, and everyone seems to have been asleep except the dying woman and Sal; and as one is dead, the other is the only person that can prove that he was there at the time when the murder was being committed in the hansom.”
“And Mother Guttersnipe?”
“Was drunk, as she acknowledged last night. She thought that if a gentleman did call it must have been the other one.”
“The other one?” repeated Calton, in a puzzled voice. “What other one?”
“Oliver Whyte.”
Calton arose from his seat with a blank air of astonishment.
“Oliver Whyte!” he said, as soon as he could find his voice. “Was he in the habit of going there?”
Kilsip curled himself up in his seat like a sleek cat, and pushing forward his head till his nose looked like the beak of a bird of prey, looked keenly at Calton.
“Look here, sir,” he said, in his low, purring voice, “there’s a good deal in this case which don’t seem plain—in fact, the further we go into it,—the more mixed up it seems to get. I went to see Mother Guttersnipe this morning, and she told me that Whyte had visited the ‘Queen’ several times while she lay ill, and that he seemed to be pretty well acquainted with her.”
“But who the deuce is this woman they call the ‘Queen’?” said Calton, irritably. “She seems to be at the bottom of the whole affair—every path we take leads to her.”
“I know hardly anything about her,” replied Kilsip, “except that she was a good-looking woman, of about forty-nine—she come out from England to Sydney a few months ago, then on here—how she got to Mother Guttersnipe’s I can’t find out, though I’ve tried to pump that old woman, but she’s as close as wax, and it’s my belief she knows more about this dead woman than she chooses to tell.”
“But what could she have told Fitzgerald to make him act in this silly manner? A stranger who comes from England, and dies in a Melbourne slum, can’t possibly know anything about Miss Frettlby.”
“Not unless Miss Frettlby was secretly married to Whyte,” suggested Kilsip, “and the ‘Queen’ knew it.”
“Nonsense,” retorted Calton, sharply. “Why, she hated him and loves Fitzgerald; besides, why on earth should she marry secretly, and make a confidant of a woman in one of the lowest parts of Melbourne? At one time her father wanted her to marry Whyte, but she made such strong opposition, that he eventually gave his consent to her engagement with Fitzgerald.”
“And Whyte?”
“Oh, he had a row with Mr. Frettlby, and left the house in a rage. He was murdered the same night, for the sake of some papers he carried.”
“Oh, that’s Gorby’s idea,” said Kilsip, scornfully, with a vicious snarl.
“And it’s mine too,” answered Calton, firmly. “Whyte had some valuable papers, which he always carried about with him. The woman who died evidently told Fitzgerald that he did so; I gathered as much from an accidental admission he made.”
Kilsip looked puzzled.
“I must confess that it is a riddle,” he said at length; “but if Mr. Fitzgerald would only speak, it would clear everything up.”
“Speak about what—the man who murdered Whyte?”
“Well, if he did not go quite so far as that he might at least supply the motive for the crime.”
“Perhaps so,” answered Calton, as the detective rose to go; “but it’s no use. Fitzgerald for some reason or