Sand on the Gumshoe: a century of Australian crime writing

Whatever the circumstances of Mrs Mary Fortune, her work remains and it is hoped that in the not too distant future she will assume her rightful prominence both within Australian literature and the international crime fiction genre.

The story which follows is an excellent Mark Sinclair story from Fortune’s early period. By this time Sinclair was fully established as a series character although he was considering, as he was to do for some time, resigning from the police department in order to go into private practice.

The Detectives Album: Hereditary

There wanted but a few days to Christmas, when one morning Archie Hopeton dashed into my office with an open letter in his hand. I say dashed, for scarcely any other word would effectually describe his abrupt and sudden entrance; and, as such a ma

‘I’ve got the invitation for you, Mark. Now, surely you won’t refuse to go with me. My aunt, Mrs Thorne, says she will be very much pleased to see you.’

‘I’m afraid you’ve been putting the screw on the old lady, Archie – threatening not to go yourself unless she invited me, or something of that sort?’

‘ ’Pon my honour, no. I simply said that I was trying hard to induce you to spend your holidays at Puntwater. You will go, won’t you, Mark, out of charity, if for no other reason?’

I looked up from my desk into the young fellow’s anxious and pleading face; it was the face of a fair, handsome youth of twenty-two or three, with a pair of fine, brown eyes lighting it up, and beautiful glossy, fair hair waving above it; but at the moment it looked really haggard and careworn.

‘I might as well go there as anywhere else, Archie,’ I returned, ‘that is to say if I get away at all. I’m so used to applying for leave, having it granted, and then cancelled again in consequence of a “very particular case,” that I quite expect to stop and work hard during holiday time.’

‘Why don’t you start at once? Your leave’s granted now. Will you come on Monday, Mark?’ he asked eagerly.

‘If I get through with this business today, I shall certainly take time by the forelock, and go on Monday, my son. But I can’t make out your great anxiety to have me go with you.’

‘That shows how little attention you’ve been paying to all my egotistical stories,’ he cried, ‘and indeed, Sinclair, it is as simple a piece of selfishness for me to wish you with me, I mean, as ever you accused me of; but I am positively afraid to go back to aunt’s, afraid is the word.’

‘Afraid of your aunt, or cousin? Which?’

‘Of both. Oh, I know I’m a soft fellow, Sinclair, but until you have seen them, and known them, you ca

‘And the young lady? Your cousin Hester, what will she say, or do? Is she so infatuated with you that she will never forgive you? What a lady-killer you must be, young chap. It’s well to be you.’

‘For mercy sake don’t chaff, Mark. I can’t stand it. Wait till you see them, and you will understand better. I was brought up by Aunt Thorne, and until I went to college, I had no idea that they were so peculiar and different from other people. Well, Mark, you will come, eh?’

‘I suppose I must. I suppose, to prove the entire unselfishness of my friendship for a young scatterbrains, I must place myself as a sort of buffer between him and the ladies who are foolish enough to wish to wed him against his will. But I’ve got a new idea, Archie. I’ll pay my addresses to Miss Thorne myself and see if I can’t cut you out. You say she has money?’

‘Yes, her father settled a tidy little fortune on Hester, but God forbid that you should think of spending your life with such a girl.’

‘I wish she heard you – I think she would be disenchanted.’

Archie shook his head with a shadow on his usually bright face that nothing but my faithful promise for Monday served to lighten.

For a wonder nothing intervened, and on the appointed day I found myself and portmanteau in company with Archie Hopeton, being whirled along the line to Puntwater. The weather was delightful, and we had every prospect of splendid holidays for outdoor amusements.

But I was considerably more occupied by thinking curiously of Archie’s relatives than of the fishing and shooting he promised me, and it was no wonder I had known him ever since he had commenced his career as a student of medicine, and considering the difference of our years, we had got on very well together. His fresh ideas of life, and his merry, good-humored freedom of conversation suited me, although what he had taken a fancy to in the hard-worked, cynical Detective Sinclair had often puzzled me.

I suppose it was the professional element ingrained in me that had made me so curious respecting these female relatives he so often spoke about. People with ample means, yet who lived so retired a life as to be almost strangers to their nearest neigbours – must have something peculiar about them; but there were many other things that I had become acquainted with through Archie that seemed at once odd and unaccountable to me.

One of them was the fact that Mrs Thorne had so set her heart on her daughter’s marriage with Archie. It was rather an unusual thing for a mother of Mrs Thorne’s stamp to insist on her girl marrying a pe

‘I see you are getting quite nervous, Archie,’ I said bantering-ly, as the train neared Puntwater.

‘I am,’ he said ‘and you needn’t laugh about it. It’s all sure to be found out before we go back, for I can’t and won’t be appropriated any longer, now that I am really engaged to Bessie – poor little girl! If she only knew how wild aunt will be she would be terrified out of her life. You see, Mark, I’ve been accustomed to take things easy at home, and let them do with me as they liked, for peace sake, but now it must be different and there’s sure to be scenes.

‘What sort of man was your uncle? Do you remember him at all?’

‘A little – he was peculiar, too, but kind withall. It is nine or ten years since he died, I think.’

‘In this colony?’

‘Yes, and rather suddenly. I was at school, but although aunt never speaks of him, Hester has done so occasionally. He was ill, and aunt took him to town for medical advice – he died there, and she came back a widow.’

There was no one in the compartment with us, and we could speak freely.

‘See here, mate,’ I said. ‘I don’t quite understand my role in this affair; what is it that you expect me to do in it? Am I to try and frighten your good aunt out of her anxiety for your alliance by declaring you to be incorrigibly dissipated, or what?’

‘That game won’t do,’ he answered with a laugh that came from his teeth only. ‘I’ve tried it myself, and it didn’t effect any good purpose. I don’t know what you’re to do for me, Mark, but I’ve every confidence in you. You’re such a clever chap, you see, that you’ll corner them up somehow. At all events, I depend on you to back me if there’s a regular row about Bessie.’

‘And get kicked out? Well I suppose it wouldn’t much matter if I did. We’ll see, old boy – if I’m not grateful for the dose of flattery you’ve given me, I ought to be.’