My friend the murderer, and other mysteries and adventuresDoyle, Arthur Conan
General
My friend the murderer, and other mysteries and adventures
Doyle, Arthur Conan
Detective and mystery stories, English
“FATAL AFFRAY.--W. T. Maloney, a well-known citizen of New Montrose,
and proprietor of the Yellow Boy gambling saloon, has met with his
death under rather painful circumstances. Mr. Maloney was a man who
had led a checkered existence, and whose past history is replete with
interest. Some of our readers may recall the Lena Valley murders, in
which he figured as the principal criminal. It is conjectured that
during the seven months that he owned a bar in that region, from twenty
to thirty travellers were hocussed and made away with. He succeeded,
however, in evading the vigilance of the officers of the law, and
allied himself with the bushrangers of Bluemansdyke, whose heroic
capture and subsequent execution are matters of history. Maloney
extricated himself from the fate which awaited him by turning Queen’s
evidence. He afterward visited Europe, but returned to West Australia,
where he has long played a prominent part in local matters. On Friday
evening he encountered an old enemy, Thomas Grimthorpe, commonly
known as Tattooed Tom, of Hawkesbury. Shots were exchanged, and both
were badly wounded, only surviving a few minutes. Mr. Maloney had the
reputation of being not only the most wholesale murderer that ever
lived, but also of having a finish and attention to detail in matters
of evidence which has been unapproached by any European criminal. _Sic
transit gloria mundi!_”
THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE.
A TRUE COLONIAL STORY.
Broadhurst’s store was closed, but the little back room looked very
comfortable that night. The fire cast a ruddy glow on ceiling and
walls, reflecting itself cheerily on the polished flasks and shot-guns
which adorned them. Yet a gloom rested on the two men who sat at either
side of the hearth, which neither the fire nor the black bottle upon
the table could alleviate.
“Twelve o’clock,” said old Tom, the storeman, glancing up at the wooden
timepiece which had come out with him in ’42. “It’s a queer thing,
George, they haven’t come.”
“It’s a dirty night,” said his companion, reaching out his arm for a
plug of tobacco. “The Wawirra’s in flood, maybe; or maybe their horses
is broke down; or they’ve put it off, perhaps. Great Lord, how it
thunders! Pass us over a coal, Tom.”
He spoke in a tone which was meant to appear easy, but with a painful
thrill in it which was not lost upon his mate. He glanced uneasily at
him from under his grizzled eyebrows.
“You think it’s all right, George?” he said, after a pause.
“Think what’s all right?”
“Why, that the lads are safe.”
“Safe! Of course they’re safe. What the devil is to harm them?”
“Oh, nothing; nothing, to be sure,” said old Tom. “You see, George,
since the old woman died, Maurice has been all to me; and it makes me
kinder anxious. It’s a week since they started from the mine, and you’d
ha’ thought they’d be here now. But it’s nothing unusual, I s’pose;
nothing at all. Just my darned folly.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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