CHAPTER XVII. "SERGEANT USHER VISITS THE HOPBINE."

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2224, 9 October 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER XVII. "SERGEANT USHER VISITS THE HOPBINE."

Sergeant Uaher occupies a second floor in Spring Gardens. It is handy to tht Yard and to a good many other places which are in the ordinary routine of the Rergeant's business ; railway, station* like Charing Cnrai and Victoria within easy distance, Marylebone, Bow-street, and Westminister police courts specially ooraeatable, to say nothing of the Seven Dials, Drury Lane, Short's Garden's, Bedfordbury, and the slums of Westminister, all, bo to Bpoak, being under the sergeant's own eye. Mr Usher is a bitchelor, he has a mean opinion of the other sex, probably consequent on bad treatment received at the hands of one of them, although he professes it to be founded on professional experiences. A profounded believer Mr Usher in the theory of cherchcz lafemtnc. A woman he contends is at the bottom of most crimes, and when puzzled by an intricate case the Sorgeant invariably takes it that a woman, as yet undiscovered, is the probable motive factor. 'Having no fair partner to sharo hia home the sergeant is constrained in a gre it measure to do for himself,' and a defter bachelor is seldom come across. Having lot himself into his lodgings wifh hia latch key after his usually noiseless fashion on bin return from Bunbury, the sergeant proceeded to light the fire, throw off his boots, and then in the easy deshabille of slippers pud shirt sleeves, looked in the cupboard for a gridiron and a couple of chops j these obtained, and the fire "by this having sufficiently burnt up, Mr Usher proceeded first to broil his chops, and then to con.sumo them with the adjuncts of bread, pickles, &c, all furnished by the hame inexhaustible clipboard. Leaving the cleaving up to the charwoman next morning, Mr Usher next i produced a bottle of whisky, put the kettle on the fire, and having lit a long day pipe, sat down to smoke and ruminate over this Buubury case as far as he had carried it. 'It is a queer business that,' he muttered to himself, and it certainly begins to look awkward for Foxborough, 'and yet, after all, the strongest evidence against him is himself. If ho is not guilty, where is he P and Usher, my friend, I don't rain'd owning to you in confidence that's 'a rum un.' If anybody had told me a man like James Foxborough could openly leave Bunbury tor London, bo wanted within twelve hours, and have apparently vanished into space, I'd have called him a noddy ; but we can't find a trace of him from the time he left Bunbury platform. Until that girl recognised the dagger today, I was beginning to suspect we were in search of the wrong Foxborough ; and yet, if that is so, why does not James Foxborough come forward ? Everyone's talking about this murder ; he must have heard he's accused of it, and to prove an alibi if he was not the man at Bunbury must be as simple as falling off a log. It's perhaps a little early to speak, but it strikes me as somewhat odd that the theatrical agents seem all abroad about about him ns the maniger of touring countr) companies; they seem to know nothing about him in that lina, and yet any man who has anything to do with that sort of business is pretty well known right through the profession.' 1 No, this murJer— md I feel pretty clear now that it is a murder — is, as Mr Squeers said of nature," a rum 'un.' The why of it and the where of it ? for it is not at all clear to me that Fossdyke was killed in his bedroom, I'm candid, verys but I did not let on to Dr. Ingleby that my theory coincided with his, and that the man was stabbed in the sittingroom. I reckoned up the room, too, but could make nothing out of it ; the leaving the dagger in the wound, whether done by accident or design, of course stopped the effusion of blood ; still it is curious there were no traces whatever of it. Shrewd man, old Ingleby ; his theory about the direotion of the wound had stuff in it.' And here Mr Usher refilled hia pipe and mixed himself a jorum of hot whisky and water. Staring into the glowing coals, and and puffiug forth heavy clouds of smoke, the sergeant resumed his argument : 'There's that letter, the key to the whole business, I'd lay my life if I could but come by it, but that's not likely how ; Fossdyke probably destroyed it. Miss Hyde, now — I shouldn't wonder if that girl could throw some light upon the affair if she chose. She had heard and knew something of James Foxborough before the murder, I'd bet my life, but sho's not the young woman to commit herself, I fanoy. Once we lay hold of Foxborough and he is identified with the man at the Hopbine, it is simple enough, but as things stand at present no jury would find him guilty of murder, in ray opinion. To think him bo, and find him bo, are two different things in the minds of a juror, and in this case he'd be right. The evidence, if awkward, is not conclusive as yet. But how are we to get at Foxborough ? privately I own I'm boat. Watching the house in the Regent's Park neighbourhood is no good — ho has never been near it yet, and is not likely to make for that now. I'll 6ee the watoh is taken off to-morrow — it's useless, and leaving the nest unguarded might perchance snare our bird. A man like Foxborough would be well supplied with money and brains, and with them a man ought to beat all Scotland-yard in London. If we don't come upon James Foxborough in a fow days I shall begin to feel pretty confident that he is the man wo want, but as yet I've not quite made up my mind about it. Nice old man about a town that Totterdell. Shouldn't wonder if he don't cause a murder or so before ho dies. A daft, diffuse gabbler like that sets people pretty wild at times, and leads to the outting of the wrong throat. Hough, rough, very rough — just like turkeys — we never kill the old gobbler who makes all the cackle, but homo of his unfortunate followers who are weak enough to list«n to him, and with this profound moral reflection. Sergeant Uihor knocked the ashes out of hia pipe, finished his whisKy and water, and took himself off to bed. That a ooroner's jury had returned a verdiot of ' Wilful murder agaiust Jamos

J^oxborough " did not go for much in the eyes of Sergeant Usher ; people wore neither hung nor sentenced on the direction of a coroner's jury, arid a conviction that Tiad not that result were a mere blank cartridge affair compared to a regular 'battle in the sergeant's eyes. This man was an enthusiast in the vocation — he was not one whit blood- thirsty, he had no craving for any extreme Bentence against the unfortunate he had brought face to fftcs with the gallows, but be was keen for conviction. It was the pride of ii logician who desirea to wee his carefully thought-out argument endorsed. He was like that famous historical dog — the pointer who in a gamerabounding country did his devoir so nobly, but whose miserable employer missed shot after shot and brought nothing t6 hand. How that animal at last put its tail between It legs, roused tho welkin (whatever that may be) with its howl, and fled disgusted to its kennel, is it not recorded in the ' Lies about Dogs, ' lately publishod by the Society of * Animated Fiction.' Sergeant Ushor was much like that noble and hardly tried pointer ; when juries refused to ' run straight " and convict the quarry he had marked down and brought to their notice, the gallant officer betook himself to his private apartments in deep dudgeon, not as I have already said from toy fierce thirst for his victim's annihilation, but that his carefully worked-out chain of reasoning should be dnemed inooriolusive was gall and wormwood. Was it not Hazlitt who said in reference to the tumultuous ending of some stormy disputation, ' Tho blow was nothing, arid you'll admit I had the best of the aVgnment.' That ■was Rergrejvnt Usher's case exactly ; if you refu&ed to put faith in his inductive theory he waH distrusted, but to do him justice no man evet was more sceptical of evideuce or sifted it closer, and if that done he had satisfied himself he was unmistakably annoyed if others did not arrive at a similar conclusion. Tbo Press and the public meanwhile have no little to say about the lethargy and inefficiency of the police. No allowances is made for the difficulty of tackling a culprit who has onoe gained the shelter of thw gigantic warren of London with its multiplicity of burrows. The hunted deer is usually safe when he gains the herd, and that is pretty much tho case of the criminal who has once reached the metropolis, always premising two things, that he has command of money and i* no recognised unit of the Bedouin* of Babylon, in which latter case he suffers uuder the great disadvantage of his haunt*, habit*, and person being known to the police in the first place, and thp chance of being realised by his comrades in the spcond, that is betrayed for the reward. Still the public, and the Press as the echo of the public thought, are evor feverishly anxious for thu apprehension of the hero of a sensational crime, and no journal has yet even hinted that has taken place. (To he continued.)