MURDER WILL OUT.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3020, 21 November 1891, Page 5 (Supplement)

MURDER WILL OUT.

[BY C. CASEY.] Whkx we reachad the hotel, we found that tlio two policemen had already arrived, and were waiting for us. George spoke to tliem, and told thein to remain where they were, near the door, hut not to enter the house, unless, lie said: "You hear this," taking a small whistle from his pocket, and blowing softly into it: "I may lie able to manage without your help, though I hardly expect it, for I know he is a determined fellow, and as strong as a bull. Now Harry, he continued, turning to me: "I don't want to get you into trouble, old fellow, you can come with me if you like, and might be useful too ; but I won't press you to engage in what may be a, roughish job."

" Oh," I said, " lam not going to sneak out of it now, I'll stand by you, and you know I used to be a fairish hand at a rough and tumble." " All right, old boy," he said, and then turning to the policemen; "keep your ears open for the whistle, and be as smart as you can if you hear it.'

"Stay a moment," I said to George, laying my hand on his arm ns he was ahout to enter ; " let mo go in first, and see who is there, and what they are doing, he will have no suspicion of me, unless he sees us together ; and then when you come in to make the arrest; if I see any •ign of treachery on his part, I may be able to avert it."

"So bo it," said George, "I'll givo you t.hreo minutes to renew your acquaintance with tho gentleman before introducing myself." Accordingly Georgo romained outside while I entered, and walkod along a passage till I camo to a door with "Billiards" painted on it. I confess as I opened this door that my pulse boat considerably i'astor, lor I quito agreed with tho detective, that he was not likoly to bo taken without showing fight.

It was a good sized room, and held two tables, only one of which at tho far end was being used. Two men were playing at this in their shirt, slooves, and a lad about seventeen was marking. Bumpy himself was loaning against the mantlupieee looking on, and smoking a short pipe. Though not engaged in playing he was evidently betting in soma way on the game, for, us I entered, ho growled out: " If you can't do betior than that.

' T might a. J well give the captain the money " He eyed mo as I entored the room, find advancoil townrds him, and slid: I've seen your face h.'fnvo, sir." " Yes," I replied, smiling'; "you woi'o kind enough !o give me a pipo of tobacco at an hotel in Melbourne a Jew weeks ago." "To bo sure," ho said; "I thought I knew you; and you found a damned nail in the oako I remember ; queer thing to find in a stick of tobacco, wasn't it? Well, you would not play on that occasion, what say y.ai to a game now ? I said, " I had strolled in rather to look on than to play, but did not mind trying a game with him, " All right," lie replied ; "wo will play for drinks, and I'll back my game for fivo shillings if vou liko? I said I was agreeable, and ho then rang the bell for the waitor. lie was walking towards the cue rack whon the door opened and the detective entered. George's oyo glanced quickly round the room, taking in the number and position of its occupants, nnd then walking up to Neil ho said quietly : " Your name is Neil, and you are wanted for being in possession of stolen property. The two men looked at each sther for a few seconds without another word being said. Neil seemed at first profoundly astonished, and then a look of something like fear overspread his features ; his face paled visibly, I)ut the feeling quickly passed i way, the bl >od returned to his moeks, and his eyes fairly blazed is he said: "Who the hell are vou ? Yus! I think I know you now; and you have come all the way from Melbourne to look for :no have you ? Well, it would jiivu Leuu uuiixT for your health iiot to have undertaken the journey," and before I could interfere no advanced a step, and struck at hodetoetivo with all his force. George had been watching his •yes, and with wonderful quickness li'ld up his arm to parry the blow, browing his head slightly to one dde at tho same time ; but though ho succeeded in saving his face, the force with which Neil delivered the blow sent Lira staggering bask igainst tbe door, which was just being opened by the waiter. Ho would, I think, have fallen but for :he waiter catching him in his irrus, exclaiming at the same time, ' Hallo! What's up here ?" As George recovered his balance lie took the whistle from his pocket ind blew a shrill note. Bumpy at tho same time reached to the mantelpiece, and took from Id the light cane I had seen him with uefore. He held this about two feet From the handle, and then strode to the doorway. " Stand out of the way, you cur," lie said, "or I'll smash you, and send you to hell before your time." While still speaking, I heard a swish, as he aimed a fearful blow at the head of the detective. Again George's quickness saved him. Ho ducked, just in time to miss the head of the cane, which struck the door, and such was the force of the blow that the wood of the pannel was perforated as cleanly as it would have been by the bullet from a rifle. Nothing daunted, George sprang at him, and forced him backwards a step or two ; the cane slipped through Neil's fingers, and hung suspended in the door by its handle. The two men grappled with each other, and it would have fared ill with the detective had not help been at hand. Neil had caught him by the throat, when I seized one of his arms and tried to unloose his grasp. At this moment the two policemen entered, and the odds were now all against the murderer. One of them caught his other arm ; but in spite of all our efforts we could not wrench his fingers from the clasp of George's throat, whose (•yes were now blood-shot and seemed starring from his head. The tide, however, was turned in our favour by the other policeman, who slipped behind Neil, placed his hand on the collar of the murderer's coat and his knee against his back, and then by a sudden wrench brought him down on the flat of his buck. The sudden shockcaused him to relax his hold, and not any too soon, for George fairly "asped for breath when released.

All this time the men who had been playing billiards at the other end of the room stood looking on in astonishment, evidently not understanding what it all meant. The marker, too, was staring with mouth and eyes wide open, but not daring to interfere.

Wo had got our man down now, and it was pretty clear that Neil's career of crime was over ; but he still struggled like a madman, and at last, raising his head, caught one of tho policemen by the arm with his teeth. The man gave a howl of rage and pain, and sprang up, tearing his coat and flesh as he did so. Then leaping a couple of feet from the ground. In. 1 came down on his knees on the chest of the prostrate man. The ell'ect of this Mow on Neil was terrilic. It seemed to cause a sort of explosion as the air was forced from the lungs. For a moment his limbs became rigid, all colour left his cheelcs, his Hps shrunk back from his teeth, and the whites of the eves only were visulile, lie gasped t'Ao or three times, and a trembling shook the whole body ; then the eyelids closed over the

eyes, the limbs became flaccid, and he fainted.

I remember to have read that one I of the methods of torture adopted |by the Inquisition, when they | desired to extort a confession or [ evidence of any kind that milder measures failed to elicit, was to strike a heavy blow with ft wooden mallet or bludgeon just above the region of the heart, and that, the dreadful agony produced by this blow never failed to subdue the bravest and most refractory of their victims. Occasionally death resulted, liut the executioner from practice, usually managed so to regulate its force as to stop just short of killing. Very few would endure the agony a second time, and none a third ; but true or false, the evidence was obtained,

This was, I fancy, the kind of torture Neil brought upon himself' by tearing the policeman's arm with Ins teeth.

" I think that's quieted him for a bit anyhow," said the man (whose arm had been bitten, and who had taken the method of punishing the biter), but what a wild beast he is." George, who had by this time in a. great measure recovered from the effect of the choking he had undergone, took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket, and these were soon locked on the wrists of the now helpless Bumpy. The billiard players now came up and began to question George as to what crime the man had been guilty of.

He replied shortly that it was a case of robbery and murder, and that there was very little doubt but that Neil (who had now opened his eyes and begun to recover from the shock) was the guilty person.

Oni' of the policemen was then sent for a cab, and, on its almost immediate arrival, the prisoner (now quilt! subdued) was assisted to it. There was an evil look in his eyes, but his limbs still shook, and I think he was totally incapable of making any further resistance. He uttered no word, but submitted to he led to the cab, George and I following. As 1 went out, I noticed Neil's cane still sticking in the door, and drew it out As I did so, 1 could not refrain from uttering an exclamation of surprise at the enormous weight of tho apparently slight-looking handle. " In the name of all that is wonderful, what metal can this handle be made of?" I said as I handed it to George. He took it in his hand, and was as much astonished at its weight as myself. "It must be lead," he said. "Pooh! nonsense!" I replied. "It's not the colour of lead; and, besides, lead is soft, and this seems to bo as hard as iron, only it is three times as heavy as an iron one would be." Then the thought struck me that it must be made of platinum, ns that metal is really about three times the weight of iron, and at the same time somewhat resembles it in colour. I communicated what I thought to Georgo, who said: "Yes, in all probability you are right, and this is the weapon the murder was committed with ; its weight will amply account for tho extraordinary effect so slight looking an instrument has produced."

By this time Neil had been put into the cab, and tho two policemen squeezed thomselves one on each sido of him; then George himself got in, saying as he did so, " I will see you at the hotel in the course of an hour." The cab then drove off, and, as I did not want to be pestered with questions I walked on to another hotel to get a glass of brandy, for now that the excitement had passed off, I felt rather queer, although I had not taken any very prominent part in the capture.

My narrative is now drawing to a close, George and his prisoner left by the next boat for Melbourne ; another policeman being sent with him in case Neil should again become violent.

On parting with him be handed me a subpoena to ensure my attendance at the trial, which he said would tako place in about a month. In a fortnight I had finished my business in Sydney, and got back to Melbourne ten days before the sessions began.

Of courso, oil my arrival, I lost no time in calling on my friend the detective, and learned the following additional particulars of the case. The mate of the murdered man had been confronted with Neil, who.n he at once recognised as a man he had met a mile or two out of Melbourne on the evening he arrived there from Ballarat. Me was moreover identified by the roadmen, who found the body; they certifying to having seen him not more than a mile from the place where the murder had been committed, and dh the very evening that it took place. This evidence, in addition to what lie already possessed enabled George to obtain the release of the man first accused. Up to the time of the trial, Neil maintained a sullen demeanour ; he spoke little, would answer no questions, and asked none himself, so that when I appeared as a witness against him, and gave my evidence about the nail in the tobacco ; he was taken entirely by surprise. Up to that time he seemed to think that there would be a difficulty in proving him guilty, but when I had described the incident of the wire nail, and the idontilieation of the cake of tobacco found under the log by its means, lie evidently lost all hope. He. raised his manacled hands to his face, and uttered aloud the words:

" My God ! who could have droamed of this T' The evidence of tho doc tor too, was very decisive. When tln> can.' was placed in his hands, he said, that was precisely the kind of weapon, and perhaps f he only one, tint could have inflicted such a wound ; he said that ever since the post mortem examination he had been puzzled to conceive how a simple perforation such as he had found in the skull with no othor fracture of tho bone, I could have been produced by any ordinary weapons carried by man. The diameter of tho handle corres ponded exactly with the bore nf rhi: revolver which had been found near the body. The fact of the panel of the door, too, having been perforated in such a remarkable manner showed what such an instrument was capable of doing when wielded by a muscular arm. Ho was found guilty, and suffered the extreme penalty of the law. He heard the sentence of death pronounced upon him without a quiver, and during the interval between the trial and the execution never exhibited tho slightest contrition for the crime of which he had been guilty. Ho obstinately refused to listen to the chaplain, but the day before his execution voluntarily made the following confession in the presence o£ the Governor of the gaol and a Baptist minister who had visited him two or three times. He said he had come to his last note, and had become thoroughly tired of the girl lie had been living with, so he thought

he would try his luck at Ballarat. He started to go there, and, when a few miles from town, had met the digger he killed on the road. The man, he said, was more than half drunk at the time, and stopped him to ask how far it was to Melbourne ; that they talked together for some time, the man toiling him that lie had come from the diggings and was going to town to have a spree. That the thought then struck him he might replenish his purse without going so far as Ballarat, and that he raised his stick and threatened the digger unless he halved what gold ho had got with him, he would kill him and take it all, that tho man promised this and put his hand in his breast, as he thought to bring out his gold ; instead of which he drew a revolver and fired at him. The bullet went through his cap and slightly grazed his head, and then he said I let him have one clip which I knew would be enough. It was. He fired no more shots ; but down he went and neither spoke nor moved again. That he then searched him, and found the leather pouch, that he took this, and also 2 notes that he found in his purse, but left the silver. That he then got up and seeing the revolver lying close to his hand, and the small hole that had been made in his head, he thought he would not attempt to hide the body but leave it just as it was, and people would probably think the man had committed suicide. He never throught abouc the bullet not being found in the head giving the lie to the theory of self destruction. After walking about a quarter of a mile on the road back to Melbourne, he had sat down oti the log to examine his booty, and then the thought struck him to empty the gold into a large handkerchief he had got and hide the pouch under the tree, but how the cake of tobacco came to be left there he did not know, but if there was a devil, ho thought he must have had a hand in that. I did not want to kill the man, he said, but after he had produced his revolver and used it, there was no help for it; he might have fired again with better aim next time. When asked how he came by the platinum of which the handle of his stick was made, he said he had found it when golddigging a couple of years ago, and seeing what an awful weight it was he got a blacksmith (a friend of his) to forgo it into the handle for a cane. " Now," he said, " you know all about; it." With these words my fellow traveller brought his long narrative to a close ; aud then asked me if I did not think there had been in that case a special interference of Divine Providence to bring a criminal to justice; but before I could reply the train rolled into Euston station, and prevented all further discussion on the subject.

Now, this is the yarn, as it was told to mo on that memorable journey from Birmingham to iondon. It maj be true or it may be false. I have never sought to verify or disprove it. I jiay have put a little padding to the tale to present it in a more readable form, but that is all. If any of my readers have sufficient curiosity, the criminal calendar of Molbourne may be searched, and if that contains no record of this somewhat remarkablo case, he must put it down to a lovo of romancing on the part of my bald-headed traveller. [the end'|.