Nine-day Wonders

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 46, 10 February 1894, Page 10

Nine-day Wonders

[AT.! EIGHTS EESEEVED.] A WRONG RIGHTED —BY POST. (Continued.) Lambton Quay, Wellington, 24th Aug., 188 —. To Dr. A. J. , The Parade, Leamington, England. My dear At last I can send information which •will relieve you of a great deal of your trouble. As I thought would be the case, your son has been proved innocent of the charge brought against him, and Kearsage has turned out to have been the blackguard people imagined he was. It was only yesterday that the documentary evidence establishing his innocence was completed, and I have waited for that before again writing to you; besides which I was afraid to write often, because of the increased risk of my letters getting into your wife’s hands. I hope to find that she is still ignorant of the events which led up to your son’s supreme act of folly, and when you have finished the reading of my report, I think you will agree with me> that it would be better for her to continue ignorant of those events. Nothing could be gained by enlightening her, and if by any extraordinary chance she should become aware of the truth, the originals of the docu-

ments, copies of which are embodied in this letter, will at any time be available on application to my London agents, Messrs and , Exeter street, Strand, who have been instructed to produce them at your order. Let me now go back to the time when I sent you the first intimation of your loss. You will remember that I was then about to pay another visit to Dunedin for the purpose of examining Kearsage under his insolvency, in order, if possible, to get from his own mouth, sufficient to upset his charge against Arthur. Weil, it wasn’t possible ; he was too clever. Ostensibly acting for one of the creditors, I pressed question after question upon the bankrupt, which I thought might lead to discoveries, but he replied to most of them with such apparent honesty, that I could see the meeting was being influenced against me, and when at length I got to close quarters, his simulated indignation was such, that everybody looked at me angrily, and even I began to feel doubtful as to whether I was not altogether on the wrong track. That meeting ended very much in Kearsage’s favour, though we were able, after a big fight, to secure an adjournment. There were those present who could see no good to be gained by keeping the proceedings open ; but if there was anything in B ’s (my detective’s) suspicion as to the bankrupt’s bona fides, that was precisely the course which would help us, when the groundwork for his suspicion became sufficiently strengthened to warrant fighting without gloves, You will see how far justified B was in his advice. The meeting was adjourned for a week, and from the time Kearsage left the official assignee’s office, a close watch was kept |on his movements. At the same time every exertion was put forth to trace the young jwoman with whom your son was walking at the time of his arrest. But day after day passed by, -with nothing substantial as a result of our labour, until the morning when Kearsage should have again submitted himself for examination. At nine o’clock that morning I had just sat down to breakfast when B called to tell me the bird had flown. He had been seen to enter the house he resided in on the previous night, but no trace could be found of his movements afterwards. B was considerably annoyed with his assistant’s failure, and for some time could not appreciate my readiness to overlook what appeared to him to be culpable negligence. The fact is, I was extremely doubtful about obtaining any information from the bankrupt himself that would .account for the loss of the money, other than that which he had already given, and consequently looked upon his flight as the next best thing that could have happened. At the same time I gave B instructions to spare neither time nor money in tracing bis man, and when the meeting of creditors took place a couple of hours afterwards, I bad no tiouble in inducing them to consent to my applying for a warrant of arrest. That issued, and in the hands of the regular police authorities, there was nothing to do but wait further developments. Of course all who bad up to then belie fed in your son’s guilt>

were now ready to speakjof him as one who had been cruelly wronged, and equally, o course, they were as ready now to vehemently denounce Kearsage as formerly they were ready to express pilyforhis misfoitune. Paragraphs appeared in each of the Dunedin papers in which the state of public opinion was reflected, and finding that I could do nothing more to further matters there, I returned to Wellington. About a week after my return, I received the following telegram from B ■: “K traced to Invercargill. Letter by post.” The following is a copy of the letter : Dunedin, 4th Aug., 18S— J. J. , Esq., Solicitor, Lambton Quay, Wellington, N.Z. Dear Sir, — On Monday last I went to Invercargill, being satisfied that Kearsage had not gone north, and was down that way somewhere waiting a chance to get away from the Bluff for Melbourne. I have been over all the likely ground I could think of, but could get not further than that a man closely resembling him stayed for one night only at the Club Hotel, where he represented himself as a traveller for an Auckland firm of booksellers on his way to Australia. He had only a hand-bag with him, and left early the next morning, saying he was going to the Bluff to catch the Manapoun. That man did not go to the Bluff and he was not a passenger by the Manapouri. Of that I am certain. Where he went, though, I cannot find out. Invercargill is not a very big place, but I can’t find him. Looking for a young woman that I can’t even describe is worse than looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, yet I firmly believe that Kearsage and that young woman are together somewhere. I still feel very much annoyed at letting him slip, though you have been kind enough not to blame me for that idiot’s carelessness. I have left my own business in good hands in Invercargill, and he will have to be smart if he gets away from the Bluff, with my agents, and the clever fellow' attached to the police force there, on the look out. He hasn’t got off yet, anyhow. I am sorry to have to ask for a cheque, but the last has been exhausted. Yours truly, W. K. B . In answer to this I sent B a further sum of money, and requested him to give hi s ow'n energies to the matter as soon as his other engagements permitted. The next news I received came just as I was leaving my office one evening ten days later, when the following telegram from B took me away south once more : —“ Found. Come, if you can, at once.” 1 crossed the water dividing the North and South Islands of New Zealand that night, and caught the express leaving Christchurch the next morning for Dunedin. The express does not arrive in Dunedin until a few minutes before nine in the evening, but an hour or two before that one is able to procure the evening papers published there at five. I procured a paper, and therein I found this :

THE KEAESAGE BANKRUPTCY CASE

Suicide of the Runaway, Late this afternoon our Invercargill correspondent telegraphed — “ The dead body of a man who had evidently shot himself was found early this morning in a secluded spot near . The body has since been identified as that of Mr Kcarsage, who recently left your town somewhat suddenly.” Ho further particulars have yet come to hand, but it is pretty safe to affirm that deceased found it impossible to get away from the colony as he intended, and he dreaded the punishment that would as a certainty hare followed his arrest and conviction, more than death. With the tragical result of his bankruptcy proceedings before us, it is only reasonable to conclude that the charge of theft, brought by him against the unfortunate young man Eowney, who hung himself in the gaol some weeks ago, was fabricated for the purpose of defrauding his creditors, and enabling him to get away with the fruits of his dastardly action. The whole affair is a most extraordinary and melancholy reflection upon the ruling tendency of the age, to follow the well-known advice said to have been given by a father to his son—“ Get money — honestly, if you can ; but get it.” You may easily understand how anxious I was, after reading that piece of information)

to get to the end of my journey. I quite expected to obtain some additional particulars when I reached the hotel I put up at when in Dunedin, but I was disappointed. There was only a short telegram from B stat. ing that he would meet me at the railway station, Invercargill. .At eight next morning I was again en route , and punctuality being a leading feature of the New Zealand railways, at ten minutes to four that afternoon I was shaking hands gratefully with B , who, beyond telling me that the death of Kearsage was a fact and that everything had come out all right, declined to say anything more until I hud had some refreshment, and got rid of the traces of anxiety and fatigue I was evidently unable to disguise. A warm bath, and a capital dinner at the before-mentioned Club Hotel, put me in what B .said was a better frame of mind to listen to his story. And what a story he had to tell! I have read of some wonderful things in those popular little volumes known as shilling shockers, but I don’t think anything 1 have ever read, could have struck me as being s 3 wildly improbablej as the incident which brought about the disclosure of Kearsage’s hiding-place. (TO BE CONTINUED.)