Sand on the Gumshoe: a century of Australian crime writing

mother. She was a small, pretty, colourless, little body, with a round, innocent looking face and an appealing look in her faded blue eyes. She took possession, as it were, of me as soon as I entered the room, and hung upon me all the trouble, as she had, doubtless, been in the habit of hanging troubles all of her life, like a weak, pretty parasite, helpless without its life-sustaining tree. She seemed to think that because I was a police-officer, I could do the impossible in the way of discovery, and offered me ‘everything she owned in the world’ if I would only find her ‘poor Bessie’ for her.

‘Archie says she is murdered, but I won’t believe it!’ she sobbed. ‘Who could have the heart to murder my darling girl? The best and the sweetest girl, Mr. Sinclair, that ever gladdened a mother’s heart. For God’s sake, don’t look so awfully serious! Don’t think it possible that Archie is right unless you want to see me die here under your very eyes!’

Women (especially young ones) are very pretty and very useful things sometimes, but they are also occasionally very silly and try a practical man’s temper immensely.

‘You don’t think Bessie is killed? Surely you don’t think anyone – anyone could be so wicked as to do my darling wrong?’

‘My, dear madam, how can I possibly form any opinion on the subject without knowing anything of the facts? Will you first tell me what occurred last night and then let me see Miss Elliot’s room?’

In a rambling sort of way she then told me pretty nearly the same story I had heard from Archie, but she was so incoherent that I called in Archie, and resigned her to his care, begging of him to take her in charge and see that she didn’t bother me while I made an examination and questioned the servant.

Having secured time to see and think uninterruptedly, I found my way to the little kitchen at the back, where, in a bewildered sort of way, I found the only female servant looking from the door idly yet with something of a fearful anxiety in her eyes. She was not a very young woman – perhaps thirty, and she was neither well-favoured or pleasant-looking. As I passed through the back door of the house toward that of the detached kitchen she looked at me half-wonderingly and half-frightened, as I thought, and opened her eyes and pursed her lips as I addressed her.

‘I want you to lead me to Miss Elliot’s bedroom, please, and to tell me what you know of her disappearance.’

‘What should I know of her disappearance?’ she asked sharply, and as she spoke with an impudent intonation, it seemed to me that her face was in some way familiar to me.

‘And who may you be that wants to get to see her room?’

‘You couldn’t guess, I suppose, miss?’

Her face flushed just slightly as she met my steady eye. ‘Yes, I think I could guess what you are, a policeman, I daresay. The mistress is making such a tune and cry, as if a young lady (with a sneering emphasis on the term) never left her mother’s house without leave before.’

‘When you were a young lady they doubtless did and didn’t go empty-handed. How’s your mother, Ann Dempsey?’

An ashy shade covered up, or rather replaced, the flush on her face, and it was delightful to me to see the terror in her face.

‘You are mistaken, sir. That is not my name,’ she managed to stammer.

‘I am not in the habit of making mistakes, and I took quite an interest in your handsome countenance the last time I had the pleasure of looking at it.’

‘Where was that?’

‘In the corridor at the City Police Court.’

‘It’s a black lie! I never was there in my life!’

‘That’ll do, Miss Dempsey,’ I said with a raised, warning finger. ‘I have no wish to interfere with you at present, so you’d better be civil. When I really want you I shall know how to lay my hand on you. No more talk, but show me the young lady’s apartment.

She went sulkily into the cottage, and I followed her. There was a little room at the end of the front verandah with a door window opening to the garden, and another door communicating with the little central passage. This had been poor Bessie Elliot’s room. Telling the woman to remain in the apartment while I examined it – a thing she seemed to do very unwillingly, by the way, – I looked around me.

The room was just such a pretty little chamber as you might expect a pretty and lovable girl of the middle class, and especially a pretty girl in love, to occupy. It was small and plainly furnished with plenty of ornamental bits of muslin and lace and ribbon about it. There were mosquito curtains to the tent bedstead, tied up with blue ribbons, and matting on the floor, and a large mirror decorated with lace on the lace-robed toilet. Many articles of feminine apparel lay about, but not untidily, and to my astonishment, the bed had not been disturbed, nor were there any articles of attire lying round that seemed to have been moved on the previous night.

‘Miss Elliot has not been to bed at all, then? Is this room just as she left it?’

‘Yes, at least I know of no one’s disturbing it.’

‘Oh, of course not – you are not likely to know much. Do you by any chance know who the man was who was hanging about this house late last night?’

Now I didn’t at all know that there had been a man about, but I knew the woman, and thought the guess a very safe one. That it was so could easily be seen from her face under my steady eye. She turned, as the saying is, all colours, but denied all knowledge of that or anything else at first.

‘Look here, my dear creature, you’d better tell the truth to me at least – you will find it pay you best. If you’ve been up to any of your old little games among Mrs. Elliot’s rings or brooches I’m sure to hear of it in the long run, and if you know anything about this affair, it will be in your favour to spit it out.’

‘What affair? Do you mean if I know anything about Miss Elliot running away?’

‘Running away, eh? Have you any reason to know that she ran away, as you call it?’

‘I think you’d better ask Mr Archie Hopeton that question. It’s my opinion he knows all about Bessie, where she went – ay, and where she is.’

I confess to being confounded with surprise. A policeman sees many queer things, but I thought I could have pinned my faith on my friend Archie’s truth and honesty of purpose concerning Bessie Elliot.

‘Do you know who I am? I asked as calmly as I could.

‘No, and I don’t much care.’

‘Oh, yes you do. I am Detective Sinclair and you’ve heard of me. Now will you tell me who the man was that was hanging about this at a late hour last night?’

‘Who saw him?’ was the return question put very sullenly.

‘That’s none of your business. Who was it?’

‘Well, it was Jack Sprague, and I don’t know what it is to anyone if I have a young man I’m keeping company with.’

‘I won’t ask you if Mrs Elliot allows followers, for I don’t care. What I want to know is where Jack Sprague hangs out. I want to see him. I have some idea that he can give me some information about this case. Now for two plain questions. Where can I lay eyes on the young gentleman? And what did you mean by saying that Mr Hopeton knew all about Miss Elliot’s running away?’

She paused for a moment, in doubt as to her safest course, and then she brazened it out.

‘Jack Sprague is stopping in Puntwater at the Commercial. I don’t care who knows it, and he don’t either. He came down to see me, and he was waiting about last night to see me.’

‘One question answered, now for the other, Miss Dempsey. What makes you pretend to suspect Mr Hopeton?’

‘Pretend, indeed! I don’t pretend anything. Jack was waiting for me last night, and as there was company, I couldn’t get out. When I did see him, they had all gone to bed and it was very late.’

‘About what time?’

‘Eleven or thereabouts.’

‘Well?’

‘Jack told me that, about an hour before, a woman in a boat had rowed up to the bank, and seeing him before he could get out of the way, had called him. She asked him if he would take a note from Mr Archie Hopeton to Miss Bessie, and she would give him half-a-crown. As he wanted to get an excuse to see me, he consented, and as it happened, Miss Bessie was standing at that door on the verandah when he came up to the house.’