Sand on the Gumshoe: a century of Australian crime writing

‘Then,’ said the doctor, ‘I should get a quiet horse and ride. You needn’t use that hand.’

‘Can’t I go by train?’

‘You can and you can’t. You would still have to ride. I suppose you’re a horseman?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I should certainly ride all the way. It’s a delightful road, through Whittlesea and over the Plenty Ranges. It’ll give you some idea of the bush, Mr. Raffles, and you’ll see the sources of the water supply of this city, sir. You’ll see where every drop of it comes from, the pure Yan Yean! I wish I had time to ride with you.’

‘But where can I get a horse?’

‘The doctor thought a moment.’

‘I’ve a mare of my own that’s as fat as butter for want of work,’ said he. ‘It would be a charity to me to sit on her back for a hundred miles or so, and then I should know you’d have no temptation to use that hand.’

‘You’re far too good,’ I protested.

‘You’re A.J. Raffles,’ he said.

‘And if ever there was a prettier compliment, or a finer instance of even Colonial hospitality, I can only say, Bu

He sipped his whisky, threw away the stump of his cigarette, and lit another before continuing.

‘Well, I managed to write a line to W.F. with my own hand, which, as you will gather, was not very badly wounded. It was simply this third finger that was split and in splints. The next morning the doctor packed me off on a bovine beast that would have done for an ambulance. Half the team came up to see me start the rest were rather sick with me for not stopping to see the match out, as if I could help them to win by watching them. They little knew the game I’d got on myself, but still less did I know the game I was going to play.

‘It was an interesting ride enough, especially after passing the place called Whittlesea, a real wild township on the lower slopes of the ranges, where I recollect having a deadly meal of hot mutton and tea with the thermometer at three figures in the shade. The first thirty miles or so was a good metal road, too good to go half round the world to ride on, but after Whittlesea, it was a mere track over the ranges, a track I often couldn’t see and left entirely to the mare. Now it dipped into a gully and ran through a creek, and all the time the local colour was inches thick, gum trees galore and parrots all colours of the rainbow. In one place a whole forest of gums had been ringbarked and were just as though they had been painted white, without a leaf or a living thing for miles. And the first living thing I did meet was the sort to give you the creeps. It was a riderless horse coming full tilt through the bush, with the saddle twisted round and the stirrup irons ringing. Without thinking, I had a shot at heading him with the doctor’s mare, and blocked him just enough to allow a man who came galloping after to do the rest.

‘Thank ye, mister,’ growled the man, a huge chap in a red checked shirt, with a beard like W.G. Grace, but the very devil of an expression.

‘Been an accident?’ said I, reining up.

‘Yes,’ said he, scowling as though he defied me to ask any more.

‘And a nasty one,’ I said, ‘if that’s blood on the saddle!’

‘Well, Bu

‘As I’ve said already, Bu

‘I was looking for the bank when a fellow in a white suit ran down from the verandah.

‘Mr Raffles?’ said he.

‘Mr Raffles!’ said I, laughing, as I shook his hand.

‘You’re late.’

‘I was misdirected.’

‘That all? I’m relieved,’ he said, ‘Do you know what they are saying? There are some brand-new bushrangers on the road between Whittlesea and this – a second Kelly gang! They’d have caught a Tartar in you, eh?’

‘They would in you,’ I retorted, and my tu quoque shut him up and seemed to puzzle him. Yet there was much more sense in it than in his compliment to me, which was absolutely pointless.

‘I’m afraid you’ll find things pretty rough,’ he resumed, when he had unstrapped my valise and handed my reins to his man. ‘It’s lucky you’re a bachelor like myself.’

‘I could not quite see the point of this remark either, since, had I been married, I should hardly have sprung my wife upon him in this free-and-easy fashion. I muttered the conventional sort of thing, and then he said I should find it all right when I settled, as though I had come to graze upon him for weeks! ‘Well,’ thought I, ‘these Colonials do take the cake for hospitality!’ And still marvelling, I let him lead me into the private part of the bank.

‘Di

‘Not for me?’

‘Yes, didn’t you expect one?’

‘I certainly did not!’

‘Well, here it is.’

‘And as he lit me to my room, I read my own superscription of the previous day – to W.F. Raffles!

‘Bu

‘W.F. Raffles! We had mistaken each other for W.F. Raffles – for the new manager who had not yet arrived! Small wonder we had conversed at cross-purposes. The only wonder was that we had not discovered our mutual mistake. How the other man would have laughed! But I – I could not laugh. By Jove, no, it was no laughing matter for me! I saw the whole thing in a flash, without a tremor, but with the direct depression from my own single point of view. Call it callous if you like, Bu

‘I was in as big a hole as ever. What the devil was I to do? I doubt if I have sufficiently impressed upon you the absolute necessity of my returning to Melbourne in funds. As a matter of fact it was less the necessity than my own determination which I can truthfully describe as absolute.

‘Money I would have – but how – but how? Would this stranger be open to persuasion – if I told him the truth? No, that would set us all scouring the country for the rest of the night. Why should I tell him? Suppose I left him to find out his mistake… would anything be gained? Bu