THE SANDHURST MYSIERY

Dunstan Times, Issue 1259, 16 April 1886, Page 3

THE SANDHURST MYSIERY

The people of '-aiidliurst and refill boar ho nd 'continue to be exercised over the disappearance of Constable Ryan from the Chinese camp at Ironbark Gully, ne.aiv Sandhurst. Those en gaged in the investigation have' expended their energv and exerted their ingenuity to no purpose, and they are now at their wits’ end to account for the disappearance of their old comrade. The details of the case are now an open secret. Constable visited the Chinese camp on the night of Wednesday, the 6th of January last—a night as “ dark as Erebus”and when last seen alive he was standing in one of the narrow streets of the squalid camp, apparently watching a hovel occupied by three phinamen, whom he suspected of having been concerned in a daring robbery from a mine at Huntly. His subsequent proceedings, as well as. his present whereabouts, , are unknown.* The Sandhurst police, on being made aware with Ryan’s disappearance in the after* noon of the following day, started oh the assumption that he had either fallen into one of the numerous abandoned diggers’ holes which occupy the uneven country lyirg between the camp and White Hills Police station in attempting to reach his home or had tumbled into the Bendigo Creek and been covered up in the sludge; but they have since changed their opinion -and; arrived at a totally different conclusion. . An intimate knowledge of thelocality, and thirty years’ experience of the missing man, justified to a very great extent ihe change of opinion, uud warranted the assumption that his absence was in no way due to accident. It was known .that Ryan had been on the spree for several days prior to the 6ih of January, and that he was somewhat under the influence of drink pvevious to visiting the camp; hut all accounts agree upon the point that when in this condition ho was infinitely more cautious and more careful of Ins movements than on ordinary occasions. Ryan would not under ordinary circumstances have attempted a short cut home on such a night, and still less would he have essayed the task when fuddled, so the fact of his having been drunk during tbo afternoon should not be lightly accepted as' on element in the investigationDrunk or sober, the short cut was out of the question, and the supposition is confirmed by Ryan’s previous moves ments. When escorting his niece from the White Hills Police station to her home, at the foot of the rising ground on which the, Chinese camp stands, early in the evening, Ryan took the road which passes along beside the White Hills Cemetery, although the short cut would have saved nearly half a mi'e in the distance traversed, and would have brought him to his destination without the necessity of crossing the northern skirts of the camp ; and when last seen alive he was in a straight line with this road, and considerably out of the line that would have to bo tr ivelled to go, as the crow flies, across the creek. It is not reasonable, therefore, to suppose that once being on a level road with which he was well acquainted, and which led right up to his door, he would take a dangerous cross-country, perforated with pitfalls of the worst description, for the purpose of saving time. There is still another and more important point, however, which strongly supports this supposition. In consequence of the danger which Ryan believed lie incurred in visiting the camp late at night;, ho had an arrangement with an old man named Spellacy, who lived in a hut on tho roadside, near the cemetery, by which he never passed one way or the other without exchanging a salutation, and for years past the understanding has been acted upon Ryan never neglec ed to call one “ Good-night, Spellacy,” when going to the camp, and the old hut-keeper invaiiably remained awake, often, indeed, as late as three o’clock in the morning, until he heard Ryan’s voice as ho passed along the road homewards. Spellacy exchanged “ good-night” with Ryan when he pasoed with his niece in the direction ot the camp on the 6th January, and although he remained awake until dawn he never'heard the familiar voice again. Speflacy never knew Ryan to take the shore cut at night time, and he felt sure when he did not hear Ryan’s returning salutation, that “ a bad deed had been done that night.” What, then, became of Ryan 1 Senior constable Barry and his associates in the inquiry, Constables O’Farrell and Hayes, attribute his disappearance to foul play; while Senior-constable M'Hugh, a member of the Melbourne-plain-clothes police, who made a hasty inquiry into the cir cnmstauccs, says that “everything is in favor of the view that ho lost his life by losing his way in his attempt to return home on that pitch-dark, rainy night.” Inspector Kennedy, who was sent up to make an independent inquiry, thinks that Ryan, while under the influence of liquor, met Ids death accidentally by falling into a disused shaft.