The North Shore Mystery

“The usual quiet of North Shore was this morning rudely dispelled by the alarming rumour that a crime of an unusual kind had been committed in the house of Mrs. Delfosse, Lavend...

IT was Sunday night, or rather in the early darkness of the small hours of Monday morning, that Police-Constable Hobbs wended his slow and deliberate way down the vista of Walke...

IT was the custom of Mr. Hobbs when he had been on night duty to sleep till twelve noon on the following day, when he would awaken with a punctuality at the dinner hour which wo...

MRS. DELFOSSE had “seen better days.” How it is that the profession of boarding-house keeping is for ever associated with a vista of past splendours history recordeth not. Other...

CONSTABLE HOBBS, on duty outside Mrs. Delfosse’s, had for a long time nothing to break the monotony of his watch. He allowed the Professor to pass, knowing him well. Mr. Gosper...

AFTER his day’s round, Mr. Hobbs returned home to his tea. For this meal he was glad to see a plate of pink prawns on the table. If he had one weakness of the epicure, it was in...

THREE years earlier than the incidents related in the preceding chapters, the walls and fences of that moribund and derelict country town, Windsor, were ornamented by a series o...

AN empty wood dray was going up the main street, Windsor, a young man seated on the side rail, carelessly resting after bringing in a second load of firewood from Pitt Town Common.

THE two lads had been to Sydney before as holiday visitors, but to actually live there, to depend for their future on what the city might offer, was a new, and at first, delight...

THE door swung behind them, and truly the young men were fairly dazzled. A spacious room, walled with mirrors, with pillars and panelling, fretwork and tracery, all of burnished...

“THAT’S a pretty tidy sum,” said the old man; “not that the amount makes much difference while you are about it. It is just as easy to make twenty thousand pounds as twenty thou...

THE next week saw Alec fairly started on a Randwick tram, with an assistant recommended as clerk by Old Sam. As his pouch was devoid of any money but small silver, he had been p...

THE races at Clarendon caused quite a flutter of excitement in the adjacent town of Windsor. As many as three men and a dog might be seen all at one time in its main street, for...

HUEY GOSPER talked bravely to himself, but he was well aware that, however closely he might have gauged the capabilities of The Vengeance, he had as yet never seen the mare Bert...

RUBY and Florence, of the Golden Bar, were as pleased as a dog who has found a bone when they overheard Bertha promise a middle-aged, benevolent-looking gentleman, who was a cas...

“Of the horses you know, yes; but you don’t suppose you are the only owner who has nursed his mount? There may be half-a-dozen in that list as good as Bertha, and as lightly wei...

ONE afternoon the middle-aged man with bushy whiskers emerged from Huey’s lodgings, and walking to Elizabeth Street, took the tram to Randwick. And he was about that horsey subu...

THE Golden Bar looked brighter, more burnished, more glorified than usual. The gilt mouldings and inlaid work on the walls shone with added splendour. The yellow statuettes beam...

At an early hour the trams and ’buses were loaded with sightseers bound for Randwick. A stranger might regret, at the sight of these orderly and well-dressed groups, the absence...

IT was the day following the great race. Huey, who was seeking an interview with Bertha, had come to the Botanic Gardens. He knew it was her afternoon of liberty, and that was h...

A DAY later. It was ten o’clock at night. Bertha was busy serving the crowd of customers with drinks, when a lad came into the bar and asked for Miss Summerhayes. Bertha spoke t...

IT was Sunday morning. Bertha, with her old friend the Professor by her side, was walking in the Botanic Gardens. For the third or fourth time she had re-told the tale of her ab...

BERTHA had chosen her favourite Botanic Gardens for the scene of her courtship, and it was there that her daily meetings with Alec took place. She found, perhaps, in the surroun...

ALEC BOOTH was at his office looking over his letters that were handed to him by his clerk. He was not a quick reader, and a still slower writer, so his clerk was not only a con...

“NOW, Bertha, say the word, and let us be married at once. I have told you what Soft Sam has said. You know our position. At any moment this scoundrel may do us a mischief.”

AFTER the magisterial decision Bertha was removed to Darlinghurst Gaol. Her appearance at the Police Court was merely formal, and she was there committed to take her trial at th...

THOSE who had only seen P.-C. Hobbs in his official uniform would hardly have recognized the spruce and well-dressed gentleman, as he turned into the side entrance of his house...

“You go in the Domain—now’s just about his time—and on a seat near the cricket-ground you will find a white-haired old man acting the goat with a lot of kids. That’s him.”

It was apparent to him that this strange old man had read the secret and method of the murder at a glance. Not two minutes had he been in the room, and the tone of his involunta...

What should he do? Give up all, and fly like a child in a moment of panic? Was it not the action of a fool? And his plans so well laid, too! He was certain nothing could be trac...