12

SUNDAY, NEW YEAR’S DAY 1865

DAYLESFORD WAS ON EDGE. Police activity had increased; additional detectives and constables had been assigned to assist the local force. Victoria’s Superintendent of Detectives, Charles Nicolson, and even Chief Commissioner Frederick Standish, were up from Melbourne.

Sarah Spinks would always have considered her own life and the workings of the police to be on parallel paths, so the realisation that she might have a part to play in the apprehension of a murderer was a few days in coming. It was first thing Sunday morning that she presented herself at the police station in Camp Street.

Four mounted constables and Sergeant Telford were leaving the yard as she arrived, but still saddling his horse was trooper Tom Mansell. He was a tall man, twenty-six years of age, with dark eyes and the carriage of a soldier. He regarded her for a moment, long enough to know he didn’t fancy her. He continued attending to his horse while she spoke.

‘Excuse me, Constable. I have some information that may be important to the murder.’

Mansell tightened the last strap and faced her. ‘The Stuart murder?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Sarah said, before wondering whether there had been another.

‘And you are?’

‘Sarah Spinks, of Connell’s Gully. I was walking home —’

‘Can I help you?’ The question came from a man appearing from the timber building behind the horse yard. He ambled towards Sarah, loading a pipe. ‘I’m Detective Walker,’ he said, and stopped to light up. Smoke drifted up and around his bearded head as his lips worked the mouthpiece. ‘You’d better come inside and tell me what you know, Miss Spinks. Take notes, would you, Mansell.’

‘It’s Missus Spinks,’ she said, and followed the detective through the mounting yard, picking up her skirts to clear the dung. The air was warm, already thick with flies, and pungent with new manure. For now, in the still of morning, dust lay undisturbed. Inside the bare-floored station house, furnished with stove, chairs, and a central wooden table, Walker bade Sarah be seated. He preferred to stand, propped against the wall and sucking his pipe, the smoke going some way to masking the earthy aromas from outside. In appearance, he was an unremarkable man, Sarah considered, of normal height and build, and lank, light-brown hair. His ordinariness put her in mind of Angus Miller, her lover, but only by way of contrast, for Angus was a man who could never be described as ordinary.

Mansell came in, sat at the table, and dipped a pen in ink. His witness and scribe ready, the detective began.

‘Tell me everything you know, Mrs Spinks.’

‘I —’

‘One thing, before you begin. Why didn’t you come to the police before today? The woman’s been dead more than three days.’

‘And buried for two,’ Mansell said.

Walker rebuked his colleague, indicating with a look and by pointing his finger to keep to his writing, as Sarah began an explanation for the delay.

‘I wasn’t sure that what I’d seen was important, Detective. And I heard a rumour that a man had been arrested. For all I knew, the police already had a suspect —’

Walker was waving her to stop.

‘Never mind, Mrs Spinks. Please continue.’

And so she did, though with the sense that her interviewer was more sceptical than appreciative.

‘On Christmas Eve, I saw a man sitting with my children, not far from Stuart’s. He had a tent up there.’

‘Describe the man. Slowly, for the constable.’

‘He wore a drab felt hat, much slouched over the eye; he had long, dark hair, extending to the neck; his eyes were very large and dark; and he had dark whiskers, but I didn’t notice any moustache; he wore an imitation seal-skin coat —’

‘Trousers?’

‘I think his trousers were moleskin or corded. A pale colour, they were.’

‘Height?’

‘Not tall, Detective. About the same as you.’

Walker caught Mansell’s eye, and quickly looked away.

‘So, there was a man living in a tent near Mrs Stuart’s, and you saw him there with your children?’

‘Yes. And they had spoken with him once before, a few days earlier. They’d lost their dog, you see, and, well, anyway, my daughter told me —’

Walker put his pipe on the table, pulled up a chair, and sat forward in it, resting his elbows on his knees.

‘What makes you think this man has anything to do with the murder of Mrs Stuart?’

The tone was suspicious, and put Sarah in a mind to doubt her decision to come forward, or even to question her own thinking. She looked away, to Mansell, who, with the slightest tilt of the head, encouraged her to take no notice. She faced Walker again.

‘On the Wednesday evening, the night of the murder, I was at Jamieson’s Theatre, to hear Christy’s Minstrels.’

‘You went alone?’

‘I was with a neighbour.’

‘Name?’

‘Angus Miller.’

Walker raised his eyebrows.

‘My husband was home, Detective Walker. He’s not been well. Angus kindly —’

‘What time did you leave Jamieson’s? Are you getting this, Constable?’

‘Every word.’

‘Mrs Spinks?’

‘I left soon after ten-thirty. We waited a while to see if anyone else was walking our way and would like to join us.’

‘Yes, well, tongues would wag, you being out alone with a man not your husband.’

‘They do wag, Detective. And they can wag until they fall off, for all I care. Now, do you want me to continue?’

For the moment, Walker was speechless. He could feel Mansell’s eyes on him, feasting on his discomfort.

‘Please go on, Mrs Spinks,’ he said.

‘Well, our way home took us close by Mrs Stuart’s, and near there I saw a man. I thought it was a stump at first, but then he started walking towards the town.’

‘This is the same man with the tent, the man you saw with your children?’

‘I couldn’t swear to it, but I am confident from the hat and coat it was the same man. It was the hat and coat, you see.’

‘You can’t be more certain than that?’

‘It was dark that night; clear and starry, but there was no moon.’

‘How near was he?’

‘He passed me by about ten feet. I looked round, being suspicious of him, and saw he was walking slowly back in the direction of Mrs Stuart’s. I could see Mrs Stuart’s then. I was on a track that goes into the gully towards my house.’

‘You saw him go to Stuart’s house?’

‘No, I saw him go in that direction.’

‘Did you speak to him?’

‘No.’

Two riders entered the yard and dismounted. Someone spoke to them.

Walker looked up.

‘Telford’s here,’ he said to Mansell. He went to the door to tap out his pipe. ‘Well, thank you, Mrs Spinks. If you think of anything else …’

‘I can go?’

Walker nodded. ‘Oh, and a happy New Year to you.’

Sarah reached the doorway as Sergeant Telford arrived there. He made room for Sarah as she departed, touching his hat as she passed.

Walker brought the sergeant up to date. ‘She saw a man loitering by Stuart’s on the night.’

‘Italian?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Was he Italian?’

‘She didn’t say.’

‘He might be Italian, Sir,’ said Mansell, ‘from her description. Black hair and all.’

Telford continued. ‘I have a witness who said she saw an Italian leering at women, Mrs Stuart included, up at Wombat Park, Boxing Day. And, what’s more, I know an Italian whose whereabouts on the night of the 28th might be well worth our while investigating.’ Telford turned for the door and bawled out to the two constables in the yard. To Walker he said, ‘I’m sending Tandy and Dawson to bring him in.’

Walker nodded. ‘I’ll call Mrs Spinks back, too; he might be the same —’

Telford’s hand was up.

‘Let’s just hear what Mr Bonetti has to say for himself first, eh?’

IT WAS THE PREVIOUS afternoon, the Saturday, that Serafino Bonetti had come around to finish laying shingles and attend to the last of the weatherboards on the Telford extension. He finished early enough to attend to Mrs Telford, too, against the newly lined wall. By the time the sergeant returned home for his lunch, Bonetti was packing away his tools.

‘A fine job, Mr Bonetti,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think so, dear?’

Penelope Telford appeared from the open doorway, her face flushed and her manner uncertain.

Telford felt the hideous clench of jealousy in his gut, but reminded himself of what Johanna Hatson had told him not an hour earlier, and soothed himself with the knowledge that satisfaction would soon be his. But not just yet. He took himself on an inspection tour of the work, testing the floorboards with comical little jumps, lining up levels with an eye closed, feeling the finish with his fingers, and all the while nodding that he was pleased. He also took care to note the exchange of looks between wife and worker. Oh yes, he thought, I see all.

‘All is just as it should be, Mr Bonetti. If you will bring me an invoice next week, we can conclude our business.’

And so it was that he’d delayed acting on Johanna Hatson’s information until Bonetti had finished the job — a fool of a policeman he’d be to put his builder in gaol with the roof not finished. Telford was more than a little satisfied with himself; there was the sweet revenge he would exact on the man who would cuckold him, the embarrassment his wife would have to endure, and, who knows, perhaps a free extension to the police house. Whether Bonetti actually had anything to do with Margaret Stuart’s murder wasn’t important. Unknown to Telford was that even as his two constables were en route to question Bonetti, word was being put out on the telegraph all around Victoria to be on the lookout for a man fitting the description given by Sarah Spinks.

Talk of the man with the tent up by Stuart’s was getting around among the public, too. The absence of the tent now only confirmed in the minds of many that its occupant was surely the killer. There was no gossip entertaining the possibility that the two were merely coincidental. Besides, until the police determined otherwise, people were free to speculate as wildly as they liked.

MONDAY 2nd JANUARY

ON A BRIGHT MORNING of magpie song and busy streets, the first business day of the new year, Detective Walker and Constables Irwin and Tandy paid a visit to Rothery’s, specifically to speak to young Louisa.

‘We’ll have her home in an hour, Mrs Rothery,’ Walker said.

‘Please, Detective, no longer than that. It’s been only a few days, and —’

Walker showed his palms. ‘I quite understand, of course. You have my word Louisa will be home in good time for lunch.’

Suspicious activity was going on at the Stuart house as the police and their young assistant walked by.

‘Can’t you tell them to keep away?’ Louisa said. ‘People keep coming to nosey about.’

‘I’m afraid that’s up to Mr Stuart, Louisa,’ Walker said, which didn’t impress the girl.

Irwin saw as much, and took matters into his own hands. ‘Oi,’ he called out to the man and woman who had their hands at the window to peer in. They looked up.

‘Yes, you. Have you business there?’

They looked at each other. The man shrugged; the woman fidgeted.

‘Then piss off!’ Irwin said. And they did, to Louisa’s delight.

Louisa led the men to the gum trees where David Rose had tied the rope to support his tent. The remnant of the cooking fire drew Walker, who used a stick to scatter the ashes. Nothing like a weapon was uncovered — only empty tins, bones, and sundry pointy teeth in a remnant of a jaw.

The police now took Louisa a few streets away to where a tent had been erected in a manner similar to Rose’s.

‘Might this be the tent of the man you saw, Louisa?’

‘It is like his tent. But it’s not his tent.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. I want to go home now, please.’

‘All right,’ Walker said, incautiously enough that his disappointment was revealed to the girl. ‘One of the constables will take you. But, Louisa, it will be very important that you remember all that you know about this man, so that when we find him, we can be certain he is the right man. We all want to catch the man who killed Maggie, don’t we?’

DETECTIVE WALKER RETURNED TO the police station to the news that a suspect had just been arrested at Geelong Railway Station and had been remanded at Geelong watch-house.

‘Any other details, Tandy? Name? Appearance?’

‘James Mason’s the man’s name. As to his appearance, no word. He’s been remanded for 24 hours. Another thing, there’s a Serafino Bonetti in the lock-up. He was brought in this morning. He’s Italian —’

‘Is he really?’

Tandy ignored the sarcasm. ‘As Sergeant Telford said, the man can’t vouch for his whereabouts on the night of the 28th.’

‘I’ll have a word with him. What else?’

‘We have a report that some cove with a swag and miner’s clothing was on the Melbourne train to Malmsbury last Friday.’

‘And?’

‘Witnesses said the suspect was in an excited state, whatever that is, Sir. And the description is scant. The husband says he reckons the father-in-law Latham done it.’

‘He can reckon all he likes, because the mother’s given Latham an alibi.’

‘From what I’ve heard, she’d be too afraid not to.’

Walker narrowed his eyes. ‘My advice to you, Constable Tandy, is to leave pointless speculation well alone, and confine your attention to investigations that might actually lead to a conviction.’

THE LOCK-UP BEHIND THE police station was a solid block of a building, thick-walled of brick, with a gabled slate roof. Its three cells opened off a small vestibule, entered through an iron gate. Each cell, three yards by two, was fitted with an iron-panelled door, a bucket, and a bunk, and a vent beyond reach high in the wall allowed light and air. If there was any consolation for the only inmate that hot summer day, it was that no cooler refuge could be had in the district. Detective Walker observed as much to the prisoner once he’d been escorted across to the station for interview.

‘Now, Mr Bonetti, to business. I have a description of a man seen ogling women at the Boxing Day picnic. Good word that, “ogling”. You know what it means?’

‘I was not at the Boxing Day —’

Walker stopped his prisoner there with a raised finger. ‘I should have said, I have several witnesses, Mr Bonetti.’

‘Does that make a difference, seeing that I was not there?’

Walker continued. ‘I also have an eye-witness account of a man fitting your description lurking by the late Mrs Stuart’s house at around eleven on the night of December 28th. I’m wondering now, where were you that night, Mr Bonetti?’

Walker sat patiently, to give his suspect a little time to decide the most sensible course. Bonetti did seem to be mulling over what that might be. At last he spoke.

‘I can’t tell you that.’

‘Can’t, or won’t?’

Bonetti shrugged, as if he didn’t understand the distinction, or else he saw no point in making one.

‘Your lodgings will be searched, Mr Bonetti, for evidence.’

Bonetti shrugged again.

‘Do I need to remind you that, right at this moment, you are the main suspect in a murder investigation?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

Bonetti sighed. ‘No, Detective Walker, you don’t need to remind me. I know this.’

Walker shook his head, confounded. ‘Then why not take this opportunity to clear your name? Isn’t one night in here enough? Just tell me, for pity’s sake, where you were the night Margaret Stuart was murdered.’

The men stared at each other across the table, but it was the interrogator who grew tense. Bonetti read it in the unsteadiness of Walker’s eyes, the fidgeting of his fingers, the thickening of a vein in his neck.

‘Detective Walker, I do not have to prove I wasn’t at that woman’s house that night; you have to prove that I was. And you never will, because I was never there.’

Walker slapped the table hard, and stood up. ‘Then where were you, for Christ’s sake?’

Bonetti folded his arms and looked away.

‘Irwin!’ Walker called.

‘Sir.’

‘Take this stupid dago back to the cell.’

TUESDAY 3rd JANUARY

TROOPER HENRY BRADY WAS young, tall, blue-eyed, and Irish-born, and fancied himself as a man no fugitive could long evade. This was a fine attitude for a trap to have on a manhunt, and today he had every expectation that he would be bringing in the suspect before the day was out. With him was his antithesis, Constable Harry Wilkinson, a short Yorkshire newcomer with no ambition as a police officer other than to reach the end of each working day, with or without a suspect. Together this odd pairing had struck out along the Glenlyon Road at eight in the morning, in search of ‘the man in the tent’, the as-yet unnamed dark-featured individual who alarmed ladies and frightened little girls.

Encouraging information had come from William Stanbridge’s foreman that a man fitting the description had passed by Wombat Park the Tuesday before. As this man had mentioned Glenlyon as a place he might find work, the small hamlet was made prime hunting territory within the ten-mile search radius determined by Superintendent Nicolson and Chief Commissioner Standish. Accordingly, several teams of constables and detectives, local and from further afield, were conducting property-to-property searches of this area to the north-east of Daylesford.

Brady had some familiarity with the Glenlyon district, and decided their best bet was to the north of the village, where abundant cleared land offered the best opportunity for hay-harvesting work. The decision was promptly vindicated when they encountered John Sherman, out mending a perimeter stone wall on his property. Not only had Sherman actually spoken to a man so described, but he had directed him on to George Cheesbrough’s place.

‘I think we have him, Harry!’ Brady said, and with a wink spurred his mount to a canter. Wilkinson wanted to share in the excitement of the moment, but it had puzzled him from the moment they’d left Daylesford why a murderer would still be in the district, however good the work might be, or how desperately he might need it. It was a thought he just couldn’t air with Brady, fearing that his logic was somehow flawed — that fleeing only brings on suspicion, that the best bet for a murderer is to hang about. Anyway, he really didn’t care all that much; it was a hot day, but more than pleasant enough to be out riding. And so he gee’d up his bay and rode along in the dust of his partner.

JANE CHEESBROUGH POURED WILKINSON tea from her best china teapot.

‘Thank you, Mrs Cheesbrough,’ he said, with a smile. He took a sip. ‘Ooh, there’s nowt like a good cup o’char to quench —’

‘Just to be certain about this, Mrs Cheesbrough,’ Brady said, jotting down notes. ‘He called himself David Rose, and your husband gave him employment on the afternoon of Tuesday the 27th, but dismissed him on Thursday the 29th?’

‘That’s right, Constable. If you wait a minute, George will soon be here; he’ll be able to tell you —’

‘Rose was here on Wednesday the 28th?’

‘Yes.’

‘What time did you last see him on that day?’

‘Nine o’clock.’

‘In the evening?’

‘Yes, in the evening. Why —?’

‘And you saw him when the next day?’

‘In the morning, after breakfast. Maybe eight o’clock?’

Brady walked to the door and looked out over the stubble, which was standing stiff and golden in the very paddock where David Rose had been cutting hay a week ago.

‘Where did he say he was going, Mrs Cheesbrough?’

‘He didn’t.’

Brady turned to see a big man with sun-parched cheeks and a pallid, bald pate in the room. His wife poured him a cup and handed it to him. He took it with a fond smile, and turned to Brady. ‘He was late to turn out Thursday morning, so after he brought up the horses I sent him away.’

Brady’s eyes sparkled at hearing this information. He straightened to be front-on to Cheesbrough.

‘How late Thursday morning?’

‘He should have been up at half-five, six. I didn’t see him out till near eight. He was in the neighbour’s paddock. I sent him away around ten. Why, what’s he done?’

Brady was looking away, preoccupied with mental calculations. The Cheesbroughs looked to each other, and came to a realisation of their own. ‘My God, George! Is he the man from the tent we read about in the paper?’ They looked to Wilkinson.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘We have reason to suspect this David Rose for the murder of Margaret Stuart.’