Epilogue

WEDNESDAY 23rd AUGUST 1865

LINDEN’S GENTLEMEN’S SALON, COLLINS STREET MELBOURNE

The murderer had a very bad head. The forehead was low and retreating, there was very little crown, while the animal bumps at the back of the skull were largely developed.

Otto put down his newspaper, closed his eyes, and expected to yield to the rake of the comb across his scalp, the soft, padded leather beneath him, and the muffled rhythm of the street outside. Yet his troubled mind would not cease its wandering over the deflating disappointment of the week just past.

What profit, he wondered, was there to be salvaged from this failed mission to save a man? The knowledge that he had been right, his detractors wrong, and that he had stood by his conviction in the face of menace and ridicule? Yes, for this he could rightly be proud. He’d tried, but they wouldn’t listen. The telegram had been sent, but no one had read it. Otto sighed. So much incompetence! And so, there would be no accolade for exemplary detective work, no reflected commendation for his Private Inquiry Office. And no public condemnation of Joyce Pitman, nor justice for David Rose. No, all Otto’s good work of the past few days would remain forever unsung …

A thought struck him: this would be his penance, not just for bringing in an innocent man, but for the hubris that had been his motivation for doing so. Yes, from this he would profit, being reminded of the simple lesson never to mind what lesser men might think of him.

It was small consolation, but that’s all there was, so now he did surrender to the chair and thought of brighter things: of the friend he had made in Tom Chuck, and of his future. He would remain a detective, but one unencumbered, unhindered, unfettered by police department inefficiencies, pettiness, and ineptitude. He’d already decided long ago that while ever he remained a salaried employee, he would never be free of the likes of Telford and Walker. So why was he waiting?

Today he would write and tender his resignation, and tomorrow his very own Private Inquiry Office would officially open for business. There was nothing in the way of it; he already had his first commission to be getting on with. The minute he was back in his office, he would open the folder on his desk. A case of fraud; it would make a welcome change from bloody murder.

So yes, the future was bright, but Otto suspected that much time yet would have to pass before he could embrace it to the full.