The Mystery of a Hansom Cab Page 3

  At the conclusion of Royston’s evidence, during which Gorby had been continually taking notes, Robert Chinston was called. He deposed:—

  ‘I am a duly qualified medical practitioner, residing in Collins Street East. I made a post mortem examination of the body of the deceased on Friday.’

  Q. That was within a few hours after his death?

  A. Yes; seeing from the position of the handkerchief and the presence of chloroform that he had died through chloroform, and knowing how quickly that poison evaporates I made the examination at once.

  Coroner: Go on sir!

  Dr Chinston: Externally the body was healthy looking and well nourished. There were no marks of violence. The staining apparent at the back of the legs and trunk was due to post mortem congestion. Internally, the brain was hyperaemic, and there was a considerable amount of congestion, especially apparent in the superficial vessels. There was no brain disease. The lungs were healthy, but slightly congested. On opening the thorax there was a faint spirituous odour discernible. The stomach contained about a pint of completely digested food. The heart was flaccid. The right heart contained a considerable quantity of dark, fluid blood. There was a tendency to fatty degeneration of that organ.

  I am of the opinion that the deceased died from the inhalation of some such vapour as chloroform or methylene.

  Q. You say there was a tendency to fatty degeneration of the heart? Would that have anything to do with the death of deceased?

  A. Not of itself. But chloroform administered while the heart was in such a state would have a decided tendency to accelerate the fatal result. At the same time, I may mention, that the post mortem signs of poisoning by chloroform are mostly negative.

  Dr Chinston was then permitted to retire, and Clement Rankin, another hansom cabman, was called. He deposed:—

  ‘I am a cabman, living in Collingwood, and usually drive a hansom cab. I remember Thursday last. I had driven a party down to St Kilda, and was returning about half past one o’clock. A short distance past the grammar school, I was hailed by a gentleman in a light coat; he was smoking a cigarette, and told me to drive him to Powlett Street, East Melbourne. I did so, and he got out at the corner of Wellington Parade and Powlett Street. He paid me half a sovereign for my fare, and then walked up Powlett Street while I drove back to town.’

  Q. What time was it you stopped at Powlett Street?

  A. Two o’clock exactly.

  Q. How do you know?

  A. Because it was a still night, and I heard the Post Office clock strike two o’clock.

  Q. Did you notice anything peculiar about the man in the light coat?

  A. No! He looked just the same as anyone else. I thought he was some swell of the town out for a lark. His hat was pulled down over his eyes, and I could not see his face.

  Q. Did you notice if he wore a ring?

  A. Yes! I did. When he was handing me the half-sovereign, I saw he had a diamond ring on the forefinger of his right hand.

  Q. He did not say why he was on the St Kilda Road at such an hour?

  A. No! He did not.

  Clement Rankin was then ordered to stand down, and the coroner then summed up in an address of half an hour’s duration. There was, he pointed out, no doubt that the death of the deceased had resulted not from natural causes, but from the effects of poisoning. Only slight evidence had been obtained up to the present time regarding the circumstances of the case, but the only person who could be accused of committing the crime, was the unknown man who entered the cab with the deceased on Friday morning at the corner of the Scotch Church, near the Burke and Wills monument. It had been proved that the deceased, when he entered the cab, was, to all appearances, in good health, though in a state of intoxication, and the fact that he was found by the cabman Royston, after the man in the light coat had left the cab, with a handkerchief, saturated with chloroform, tied over his mouth, would seem to show that he had died through the inhalation of chloroform, which had been deliberately administered. All the obtainable evidence in the case was circumstantial, but, nevertheless, showed conclusively, that a crime had been committed. Therefore as the circumstances of the case pointed to one conclusion, the jury could not do otherwise than frame a verdict in accordance with that conclusion.

  The jury retired at four o’clock, and after an absence of a quarter of an hour, returned with the following verdict: ‘That the deceased, whose name there was no evidence to show, died on the 27th day of July, from the effects of poison, namely, chloroform, feloniously administered by some person unknown; and the jury, on their oaths, say that the said unknown person feloniously, wilfully, and maliciously did murder the said deceased.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ONE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD

  V.R.

  MURDER

  £ 100 REWARD

  ‘Whereas, on Friday, the 27th day of July, the body of a man, name unknown, was found in a hansom cab. and, whereas, at an inquest held at St Kilda, on the 30th day of July, a verdict of wilful murder, against some person unknown, was brought in by the jury. The deceased is of medium height, with a dark complexion, dark hair, clean shaved, has a mole on the left temple, and was dressed in evening dress. Notice is hereby given that a reward of £100 will be paid by the Government for such information as will lead to the conviction of the murderer, who is presumed to be a man who entered the hansom cab with the deceased at the corner of Collins and Russell streets, on the morning of the 27th day of July.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MR GORBY MAKES A START

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Gorby, addressing his reflection in the looking glass, ‘I’ve been finding out things these last twenty years, but this is a puzzler and no mistake.’

  Mr Gorby was shaving, and as was his usual custom conversed with his reflection. Being a detective, and of an extremely reticent disposition, he never talked outside about his business, or made a confidant of anyone. When he did want to unbosom himself, he retired to his bedroom and talked to his reflection in the mirror. This mode of proceeding was a safe one, and, moreover, relieved his overburdened mind of anything he wished to speak about yet wanted to keep secret. The barber of Midas, when he found out what was under the royal crown of his master, fretted and chafed over his secret, until he stole one morning to the reeds by the river, and whispered ‘Midas has asses ears.’ In the like manner Mr Gorby felt a necessity at times to let out his secret thoughts in talk, and as he did not care about chattering to the air, he made his mirror the confidant of his ideas, and liked to see his own jolly red face nodding gravely at him out of the shining glass, like a mandarin. If that cheap little looking glass which Mr Gorby stared at every morning could only have spoken, what revelations there would have been of Melbourne secrets and Melbourne morals. But then, luckily for some people we do not live in fairy land, and however sympathetic Mr Gorby found his mirror, it revealed nothing. This morning the detective was unusually animated in his talk with the looking glass, and at times a puzzled expression passed over his face. The hansom cab murder had been put into his hands in order to clear up the mystery connected therewith, and he was trying to think of how to make a beginning.

  ‘Hang it,’ he said thoughtfully strapping his razor, ‘a thing with an end must have a start, and if I don’t get the start, how am I to get the end?’

  As the mirror did not answer this question, Mr Gorby lathered his face, and started shaving in a somewhat mechanical fashion, for his thoughts were with the case and ran on in this manner:—

  ‘Here’s a man—well, say a gentleman—who gets drunk, and, therefore, don’t know what he’s up to. Another gent who is on the square comes up and sings out for a cab for him—first he says he don’t know him, and then he shows plainly he does—he walks away in a temper, changes his mind, comes back and gets into the cab, after telling the cabby to drive down to St Kilda. Then he polishes the drunk one off with chloroform, gets out of the cab, jumps into another, and after getting out at Powlett Street, vanishes—that�
�s the riddle I’ve got to find out, and I don’t think the Sphinx ever had a harder one. There are three things to be discovered—First, Who is the dead man? Second, What was he killed for? And Third, Who did it?

  ‘Once I get hold of the first, the other two won’t be very hard to find out, for one can tell pretty well from a man’s life whether it’s to anyone’s interest that he should be got off the hook. The man who murdered that chap must have had some strong motive, and I must find out what that motive was. Love? No, it wasn’t that—men in love don’t go to such lengths in real life—they do in novels and plays, but I’ve never seen it occurring in my experience. Robbery? No, there was plenty of money in his pocket. Revenge? Now, really it might be that—it’s a kind of thing that carries on most people further than they want to go. There was no violence used, for his clothes weren’t torn, so he must have been taken sudden, and before he knew what the other chap was up to. By the way, I don’t think I examined his clothes sufficiently, there might be something about them to give a clue, at any rate it’s worth looking after, so I’ll start with his clothes.’

  So Mr Gorby after he had finished dressing and had had his breakfast, walked quickly to the police station, where he asked for the clothes of the deceased to be shown to him. When he received them he went into a corner by himself and started to examine them. There was nothing remarkable about the coat, as it was merely a well-cut and well-made dress coat, so with a grunt of dissatisfaction Mr Gorby threw it on one side, and picked up the waistcoat.

  Here he found something which interested him very much, and that was a pocket made on the left hand side of the waistcoat, and on the inside.

  ‘Now, what the deuce is this for?’ said Mr Gorby, scratching his head; ‘it ain’t usual for a dress waistcoat to have a pocket on its inside as I’m aware of; and,’ continued the detective greatly excited, ‘this ain’t tailor’s work, he did it himself, and jolly badly he did it too. Now he must have taken the trouble to make this pocket himself so that no one else would know anything about it, and it was made to carry something valuable—so valuable that he had to carry it with him even when he wore evening clothes. Ah! Here’s a tear on the side nearest the outside of the waistcoat, something has been pulled out roughly— I begin to see now—the dead man possessed something which the other man wanted, and which he knew the dead one carried about with him. He sees him drunk, gets into the cab with him, and tries to get what he wants; the dead man resists, upon which the other kills him by means of the chloroform which he had with him, and being afraid that the cab will stop, and he will be found out, snatches what he wants out of the pocket so quickly that he tears the waistcoat, and then makes off. That’s clear enough, but the question is, what was it he wanted? A case with jewels? No! It could not have been anything so bulky, or the dead man would never have carried it about inside his waistcoat. It was something flat which could easily lie in the pocket—a paper—some valuable paper which the assassin wanted, and for which he killed the other.

  ‘This is all very well,’ said Mr Gorby, throwing down the waistcoat, and rising. ‘I have found number two before number one. The first question is: Who is the murdered man? He’s a stranger in Melbourne, that’s pretty clear, or else someone would be sure to have recognised him before now by the description given in the reward. Now, I wonder if he has any relations here? No, he can’t, or else they would have made enquiries before this. Well, there’s one thing certain, he must have had a landlady or landlord, unless he slept in the open air. He can’t have lived in an hotel, as the landlord of any hotel in Melbourne would have recognised him from the description, especially when the whole place is ringing with the murder. Private lodgings, more like, and a landlady who doesn’t read the papers, and doesn’t gossip, or she’d have known all about it by this time. Now, if he did live, as I think, in private lodgings, and suddenly disappeared, his landlady wouldn’t keep quiet. It’s a whole week since the murder, and as the lodger has not been seen or heard of, the landlady will naturally make enquiries. If, however, as I surmise, the lodger is a stranger, she will not know where to enquire, therefore, under these circumstances, the most natural thing for her to do would be to advertise for him; so I’ll have a look at the newspapers.’

  Mr Gorby got a file of the different newspapers, and looked carefully in the columns where missing friends, and people who will hear something to their advantage are generally advertised for.

  ‘He was murdered,’ said Mr Gorby to himself, ‘on a Friday morning, between one and two o’clock, so he might stay away till Monday without exciting any suspicion. On Monday, however, the landlady would begin to feel uneasy, and on Tuesday she would advertise for him. Therefore,’ said Mr Gorby, running his fat finger down the column, ‘Wednesday it is.’

  It did not appear in Wednesday’s paper, neither did it in Thursday’s, but in Friday’s issue, exactly one week after the murder, Mr Gorby suddenly came on the following advertisement:—

  ‘If Mr Oliver Whyte does not return to Possum Villa, Grey Street, St Kilda, before the end of the week, his rooms will be let again.—Rubina Hableton.’

  ‘Oliver Whyte,’ repeated Mr Gorby, slowly, ‘and the initials on the pocket handkerchief which was proved to have belonged to the deceased were “O. W.” So his name is Oliver Whyte is it? Now, I wonder if Rubina Hableton knows anything about this matter. At any rate,’ said Mr Gorby, putting on his hat, ‘as I’m fond of sea breezes, I think I’ll go down, and call at Possum Villa, Grey Street, St Kilda.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MRS HABLETON UNBOSOMS HERSELF

  Mrs Hableton was a lady with a grievance, as anybody who happened to become acquainted with her soon found out. It is Beaconsfield, who says, in one of his novels, that no one is so interesting as when he is talking about himself; and, judging Mrs Hableton by this statement, she was an extremely fascinating individual, as she never by any chance talked upon any other subject. What was the threat of a Russian invasion to her as long as she had her special grievance—once let that be removed, and she would have time to attend to these minor details which affected the colony.

  The grievance Mrs Hableton complained of, was want of money; not an uncommon one by any means, but on being reminded of this, Mrs Hableton would reply, snappishly, that she ‘know’d that, but some people weren’t like other people,’ the meaning of which mystical remark was simply this: She had come out to the colonies in the early days, when there was not so much difficulty in making money as now, but owing to a bad husband, had failed to make any.

  The late Mr Hableton—for he had long since departed this life—was addicted to the intemperate use of the flowing bowl, and at the time when he should have been earning money, was generally to be found in a drinking shanty, spending his wife’s earnings in standing treat for himself and his friends. The constant drinking, and the hot Victorian climate, soon carried him off, and when Mrs Hableton had seen him safely under ground in the Melbourne Cemetery, she returned home to survey her position and see how it could be bettered. She gathered together a little money from the wreck of her fortune, and land being cheap, purchased a small section at St Kilda, and built a house on it. She supported herself by going out charring, taking in sewing, and acting as a sick nurse. So, among this multiplicity of occupations, she managed to do fairly well, and even put a little money in the bank. But she was very bitter against the world for the treatment she had received, and often spoke of it. ‘I ought to ’ave bin in my kerrige and ’e in the ’Ouse,’ she would say bitterly, ‘if ’e ’adn’t bin sich a brute, but ye can’t make a man out of a beast whatever them Darwin folks say.’

  And, indeed, it was a hard case, for just at the time when she should have been resting and reaping the reward of her early industry, she had to toil for her daily bread, and all through no fault of her own. Depend upon it, that if Adam was angry at Eve for having eaten the apple and got them driven out of the pleasant garden, his descendants have amply revenged themselves on Eve’s daughters for he
r sin. Mrs Hableton is only the type of many women who, hardworking and thrifty themselves, are married to men who are a curse both to their wives and families. Little wonder it was that Mrs Hableton should have condensed all her knowledge of the masculine gender into the one bitter aphorism, ‘Men is brutes.’ This she firmly believed in, and who can say she had not good grounds for doing so. ‘They is brutes,’ said Mrs Hableton, ‘they marries a woman, and makes her a beast of burden while they sits at ’ome swillin’ beer and callin’ themselves lords of creation.’

  Possum Villa was an unpretentious-looking place with one bow window and a narrow verandah in front. It was surrounded with a small garden with a few sparse flowers in it which were Mrs Hableton’s delight. When not otherwise engaged she tied an old handkerchief round her head and went out into the garden where she dug and watered her flowers until they all gave up attempting to grow from sheer desperation at not being left alone. She was engaged in her favourite occupation about a week after her lodger had disappeared, and was wondering where he had gone.

  ‘Lyin’ drunk in a public ’ouse, I’ll be bound,’ she said, viciously pulling up a weed with an angry tug, ‘a-spendin’ ’is rent and a-spilin’ ’is inside with beer—ah, men is brutes, drat ’em.’

  Just as she said this, a shadow fell across the garden and, on looking up, she saw a man leaning over the fence looking at her.

  ‘Git out,’ she said, sharply, rising from her knees and shaking her trowel at the intruder. ‘I don’t want no apples today, an’ I don’t care how cheap you sells ’em.’

  Mrs Hableton evidently laboured under the delusion that the man was a hawker, but not seeing any handcart with him she changed her mind.