CHAPTER XXVII
MR. HOBBS AT TEA
THOSE who had only seen P.-C. Hobbs in his official uniform would hardly have recognized the spruce and well-dressed gentleman, as he turned into the side entrance of his house to tea.
“My word! What a toff!” was his wife’s greeting.
But Tom smiled amiably, and produced from his tail-pocket a paper bag with a quart of his favourite prawns, which he proceeded to empty on to a plate on the table.
“Just like your extravagance, I’m sure! However I am going to make ends meet while you are squandering all your money on that rubbish I don’t know.”
“Only sixpence, Bell, and he gave me good measure.”
“That’s just like you! Only sixpence! But where is the money to come from, I should like to know? Any one would think we had a fortune by the way you go on.”
This was the way Mrs. Hobbs relieved her feelings when her pre-emptive right to be sole Chancellor of the Exchequer was infringed upon. Tom did not answer; he was already seated, decapitating in a masterly manner the pink fish.
“And where have you been?” continued Mrs. Hobbs, pouring out the tea. “One would think you had been to see some fancy girl.”
“And so I have, Bell,” said Tom, as calmly as possible.
“And you dare to come home and tell me to my face, you vagabond!”
“Take it easy, old girl! All in the way of business. You know my inquiries about Israel were a frost, so I determined to-day to try a fresh line. I would look up Mrs. Booth’s antecedents, and with this object I called at the Golden Bar, and did a bit of a mash with a barmaid there they call Ruby.”
“And you had the impudence to go talking to one of those brazen-faced painted hussies? I thought better of you, Tom.”
“In the way of business, my dear, I would talk to anybody. And she’s not half a bad sort,” said Hobbs provokingly, as his wife sniffed. “She as good as said she would meet me on Sunday if I would take her out for a drive.”
“And I suppose you are going to?”
“Well, I did think of it; but perhaps it is hardly necessary. She has told me pretty well all she knows about Mrs. Booth’s history.”
“And what did that amount to?”
“If you will listen quietly for a minute I will tell you. Mrs. Booth, while she was serving at the bar, appears to have been a regular rage amongst the men that frequent it; she had untold offers of marriage—one from one of the wealthiest men in Australia, a man they call the Squatter, the owner of Revolver, the favourite for the Cup. There were also two young fellows who came together from the Hawkesbury district, and were both sporting men. One of these young men was Alexander Booth, her future husband, the other Huey, probably Hubert Gosper. They were both, so Ruby said, mad after this Miss Summerhayes, and for a long time that young lady did not show any special preference. But after Alec won the Cup, and made a small fortune, she married him, which seemed to Ruby very sensible on her part.
“But before this marriage two strange incidents occurred which were never made public in the press or the police courts. The first was the abduction of Miss Summerhayes from the very door of the Golden Bar one night at ten o’clock, and her forcible taking away in a hansom cab by a man with bushy whiskers. He appears to have drugged her with chloroform to keep her quiet, and taken her to a lonely house at Bondi, for it was there that Mr. Booth found her the following day, locked up, but unharmed. Inquiries were made by Mr. Booth, but the culprits were never traced, and Miss Summerhayes opposed all application to the police. This affair was generally supposed to have been promoted by the man they call the Squatter, but it is pretty clear there was no proof of any kind except that he was fond of the girl, and money was no object to him.
“The next strange event was connected with Mr. Booth. According to his statement at the time, he was talking to an apparently drunken sailor on Circular Quay at half-past eleven one night, and was suddenly bonneted with a bag over his head that closed with a spring opening, and pushed over into the water, and he would have been most certainly drowned had he not fortunately risen to the surface amidst the piles of the quay, and there held himself up till a boat chanced to pass and come to his assistance. Booth never found the drunken sailor again. He made a complaint to the police, but they appear to have thought the whole story the fabrication of the mind of a man who had drunk too much and had incautiously fallen in the water.”
“And how do all these histories help you, Tom?” inquired his wife.
“In this way. I think I have found my clue at last.”
“It was about time.”
Constable Hobbs continued his statement to his wife and his prawn-eating simultaneously—
“You will notice that now I have found the jealous lover, the man I have been looking for all this time. And that was the only motive that seemed to me sufficient to account for the crime. I have, in fact, found two lovers; but, in spite of Ruby and the rest, I rule out the man they call the Squatter. He is wealthy and fond, no doubt; but he is a man well known, he has been a member of Parliament, and is about as dull and stupid as he is rich.
“Now the man I am after must be a smart, clever man, and the second lover, this Huey Gosper, seems to fill the bill very well. It is quite likely he was the bushy-whiskered man himself, for no disguise is more simple than to put a lot of false hair on your face. He may also have been the drunken sailor. If this crime ever occurred as told by Mr. Booth, it was no ordinary assault by a waterside thief, for, according to his statement, he was not robbed.
“You will notice that these two attempts were so cleverly contrived that, although they failed, their author was never discovered. There was originality of invention in both attempts, and does not this crime on the North Shore look to be in the same handwriting, to have originated in the same mind, to have been executed by the same hand?”
“You have found it out at last!” cried Mrs. Hobbs, with enthusiasm.
“On the contrary, Bell, I have found out nothing. So far, I only suppose. And Suppose never hanged a man yet; or, at least, he should not have done so. What I have done is to find a man and a motive. Here is a man who, in the hearing of several, had sworn to marry the girl, and who, if he was the author of the undiscovered crimes I have told you of, was quite capable of the third.
“But I am still in the dark as to how he could have committed it. Anyhow, it is the first hopeful sign I have got for days of labour, and on the strength of it, Bell, I bought the prawns. I must pat myself on the back sometimes.”