by Jane Smith
‘What about the gold?’ Tommy asked. ‘Isn’t that enough to convict him? How did he have gold to sell? It must have been the gold that he stole from the bank!’
Then Tommy remembered the red neckerchief. He pulled it out of his pocket. ‘And this neckerchief! Moonlite was wearing it on the night of the robbery!’
‘A neckerchief?’ the detective waved his hand. ‘That proves nothing.’
‘You could get it DNA tested,’ Tommy suggested excitedly.
He’d heard all about DNA testing on a science programme on the TV. DNA, he knew, was the stuff that made up your cells; it was the stuff that made you you. Everyone had different DNA. If scientists found some of Andrew George Scott’s DNA that had rubbed off on the neckerchief, they could prove it was his, and Ludwig had already told him that the robber wore a neckerchief exactly like this one, and …. But the men were staring at him as if he’d gone mad. Martin frowned and shook his head. Idiot, he seemed to be saying. No one had even heard of DNA back in 1872.
‘What is this DNA test?’ Mr Sly asked.
‘Nothing,’ Tommy said, blushing. ‘Never mind.’
Mr Sly shrugged, clearly deciding to ignore Tommy’s strange remark. He leaned in to look hard at Tommy. ‘We need more evidence,’ he said. ‘We haven’t found the gun.’
Tommy shoved the neckerchief back into his pocket. He thought hard.
‘Can you think of anything, Tommy?’ Martin urged. ‘What can you remember?’
Tommy closed his eyes and tried to remember the events of that night. The glint of the moonlight on the gun, the boots crunching on the gravel. The voices in the schoolroom, the light of the match, the note. Captain Moonlite rushing past him out the door, the gun in his hand, striding down the moonlit path … suddenly, Tommy sat up straight. He saw it again: the armed robber hurrying down the road in the path of the moonlight, then veering off and hunching over a big dark shape by the side of the road. A splash.
Tommy leapt to his feet. ‘The well!’ he cried. ‘Have you searched the well?’
‘The well!’ cried Ludwig. ‘Of course!’
Ludwig and his father jumped up and rushed to the door. The private detective held them back
We have to do this properly,’ he said. ‘Fetch the police.’
They marched as a group to the police station and roused Constable Monckton. The policeman was not very happy to see Tommy again.
‘You! ’ he said, screwing up his nose as if someone had just tipped up a garbage bin at his feet. Then he squinted and looked Tommy up and down. ‘You’ve cleaned yourself up, boy,’ he said at last.
‘Never mind zat,’ Mr Bruun snapped. ‘Come, ve must search ze vell!’
They hurried out into the street together: Ludwig and his father, Mr Sly, Constable Monckton, Tommy and Martin. Tommy hopped from foot to foot in his eagerness.
‘This way!’ he cried, trotting off, with the others closely behind. The well was not far away, and they arrived in minutes.
‘Here!’ said Tommy, ‘Hurry!’
The policeman huffed. ‘All right, all right, boy,’ he said. He leaned over and peered into the well. Then he stood up again and turned to Tommy.
‘It’s a shallow well,’ he said. ‘Down you go, then.’
Tommy gulped. ‘Me? You want me to go down there?’
Tommy gazed into the well. It was dark and stale-smelling. He looked at the little group. They gazed back at him: the Constable’s face stern, Ludwig’s sad and pale, Mr Bruun’s hopeful, and Martin’s terrified. Ludwig was too frail to go down the well and Mr Bruun was too old. Martin was too frightened, and the policeman … well, he was too bossy. It had to be Tommy.
Tommy took a deep breath. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Here goes.’
Constable Monckton gave him a leg up and Tommy climbed onto the brim of the well. The policeman handed him a lamp and Tommy grasped its handle. Monckton struck a match and held it to the wick. The wick flared and Monckton lowered the glass around it.
‘I’ll tie the lamp to your belt,’ he said. ‘So your hands are free to climb.’
Tommy’s foot found the iron rung of a ladder, and he turned to face the cold stone wall. He grasped the lip of the well and lowered himself down the ladder. He hoped it wasn’t rusted through.
‘Take care, Tommy!’ Martin cried. His voice echoed down the dark shaft.
As Tommy descended, the darkness and cold closed around him. The kerosene lamp made an eerie circle of light. The walls were slimy and the rungs of the ladder rough with rust. Down he went: down, down, down. Down into cold, damp, echoey darkness.
Suddenly his foot splashed into icy water. ‘I’m here!’ he shouted.
‘I’m sending down a bucket!’ The Constable’s voice boomed down into the darkness. Tommy heard a creaking as the winch turned, and a bucket on a rope came hurtling down past him and splashed onto the water at his feet.
Tommy clung onto the ladder with one hand and unhooked the lamp from his belt with his free hand. He held the lamp high and peered into the water.
‘Can you see it?’ Mr Bruun’s voice tunnelled down the well.
‘Not yet!’ Tommy shouted. He moved the light around and squinted. His eyes were beginning to adjust to the dimness. Gradually a dark shape emerged at the bottom of the well.
‘Hold on!’ he cried. ‘I think I see it!’
Tommy hooked the lamp onto a rung of the ladder and stretched out to reach the bucket that was bobbing on the water. He tipped the bucket on its side and let it fill with water. He watched as it sunk to the bottom. The bucket lay on the floor of the well, only centimetres from the gun. Tommy grasped the rope and pulled it towards him, dragging the bucket across closer to the gun.
Come on, he whispered as he tried to scoop the gun into the bucket. The bucket chased the dark shape of the gun around as Tommy jiggled the rope, but the gun remained on the floor of the well.
‘It won’t go in!’ he yelled in frustration.
‘Keep trying!’ Ludwig begged.
He tried for ten more minutes, but he just couldn’t get the gun into the bucket. The rough ladder rung hurt his hand, and his arm ached as he stretched out across the water.
Tommy took a deep breath. There was only one solution.
‘I’m going into the water!’ he shouted.
‘No!’ cried Martin. ‘Tommy, it’s too dangerous!’
But Tommy had made up his mind. He released the rope and climbed down another rung. The icy water gripped his ankles and he gasped. He was just about to dive into the water when he remembered his hat. If it came off in the water, he’d be sent back to the present and he’d never find the gun! Tommy reached into his pocket and drew out the red neckerchief. Holding one end of it in his mouth, he wrapped the neckerchief up around his hat and back under his chin. With clumsy, trembling fingers, he tied the scarf into a knot under his chin, fastening the hat onto his head. He was ready to go.
Tommy let go his grip on the ladder and plunged into the water.
It was freezing! Tommy dove downwards into the darkness. He groped around on the slimy floor of the well. Where was the gun? He opened his eyes but the water was murky and dim. His fingers brushed against the bucket. He felt around it, finding the opening, and fumbling on the ground in front of the bucket where he knew the gun must be lying. Just as he felt that his lungs would burst, there it was! A cold, hard shape: a gun!
Tommy grabbed the gun and did a flip to put his feet on the floor of the well. He sprang, propelling himself up to the surface. He burst through, gasping for air.
‘I’ve got it!’ he shouted.
‘Hurray!’ cried Ludwig.
‘Woohoo!’ Martin hooted. ‘Now, come back, Tommy – please!’
Shaking with cold and relief, Tommy swam to the wall of the well and grasped the iron rung. He climbed up to the lamp, his arms and legs wobbling with the effort.
When he reached the lamp, Tommy put the gun between his teeth, untied the lamp and retied it to his belt. Then he ma
de the long slow climb back up to daylight, where a circle of faces peered down anxiously at him.
Even the Constable seemed pleased. ‘Well done, boy,’ he patted Tommy’s soggy shoulder as he hauled the shivering boy out of the well. ‘Good job!’ The policeman cocked his head to the side, a thoughtful look on his face. ‘Interesting,’ he went on, ‘that the gun was thrown into a well right next to Scott’s house! ’
‘We’ve got him!’ Mr Sly said, patting Tommy on the back. ‘Well done, Tommy!’
‘That’s it then,’ Constable Monckton said. ‘We’ve got enough evidence to prove that Andrew George Scott is “Captain Moonlite”. We’ve got enough to show that he was the one who robbed poor Ludwig!’
There was nothing more to be done, he assured Tommy and Martin. The boys were free to go. Ludwig shook Tommy’s hand; he was too emotional to speak. Mr Bruun hugged Tommy and tut-tutted when he felt how cold and wet Tommy was.
‘Go home and get into some warm clothes, my boy,’ he said.
Tommy was more than happy to do as he was told. The boys waved and waited until the adults were out of sight. Then they sat down so that Martin could remove his boots, and on the count of three, Tommy whisked the hat off his head and Martin slipped his feet out of the boots. And everything went dim.
Back at the motel, Martin munched on his muesli bar. When Tommy drew his sodden muesli bar out of his pocket, the red neckerchief tumbled out as well. Tommy picked it up and looked at it thoughtfully.
‘You know …’ he began. ‘I wonder …’
Martin took the cloth from Tommy and a smile lit his eyes. He knew what Tommy was thinking.
‘Do you think …?’
‘Francis …’
The boys looked at each other and grinned.
‘You have the hat,’ Martin said. ‘And I have the boots. Do you think this neckerchief will work for Francis?’
Tommy grinned. He had a cool bushranger’s hat and Martin had the hippest boots on the planet. And Francis? His ticket to the past would be a red hanky! The boys fell about laughing. They couldn’t wait to give it to him.
On 8 May 1869, a masked man held up the seventeen-year-old bank manager at Mt Egerton just as he did in this story. The victim was Danish-born Ludwig Bruun. Bruun believed that his attacker was Andrew George Scott, the lay preacher who had been his friend (until they had an argument). The robber made Bruun write the note that he dictated, and he signed it himself: ‘Captain Moonlite’.
A few days later, Bruun was arrested for stealing gold from the bank, but the jury at his trial found him not guilty. Just as he did in this story, Scott left town, spent up big, and went to jail in Sydney for using fake cheques. In the meantime, Bruun hired a private detective – whose name really was George Sly – to investigate Scott. When it was discovered that Scott had sold a large amount of gold – a very similar amount, in fact, to the amount stolen from the bank – Scott was re-arrested and tried for the Mt Egerton robbery.
Captain Moonlite
Three years after the robbery, he was tried, found guilty and sentenced to ten years in Pentridge Prison. The gun really was found in the well, but not by Tommy! It played an important part in the trial because the well was close to Scott’s home, even though the court could never prove that the gun belonged to him.
As far as I know, the neckerchief was never found; I made that bit up.
Scott always claimed that he was innocent of the robbery. He insisted that Ludwig Bruun had conspired with his friend James Simpson and set him up. He was a clever man, and while he was in jail – and afterwards – he campaigned strongly against the terrible conditions for prisoners. He was also a liar who liked to get his own way. When he was released from prison, Scott went on to commit another serious crime. But that is the subject of another book …
Why do you call yourself ‘Captain Moonlite’?
I don’t! It’s a vicious lie! I had nothing to do with that robbery. I wasn’t even in town when it happened.
But Ludwig Bruun recognised your voice …
He’s lying. He stole the gold himself and tried to pin it on me.
… and you tried to sell some gold … and it was the same amount of gold that was stolen from the bank. How do you explain that?
Ludwig gave it to me after he stole it.
Why on earth would he have done that?
I don’t know. Maybe he felt guilty. Maybe he was afraid of getting caught with it. Maybe he wanted me to get caught.
But –
He’s lying, I tell you! Did you see that note? Did you see the writing on it? That was the schoolteacher’s writing. Ludwig’s friend, that drunkard, James Simpson. Those two cooked this whole thing up between them. It was nothing to do with me. I’m a preacher, for goodness’ sake. I’m a man of God. I’d never do anything bad. Never!
Then how do you explain the forged cheques and all the debt you got into? Is that the sort of thing a preacher normally does?
Of course not, and I didn’t do any of that. You’ve got it all wrong. I’m innocent, and everyone is out to get me. I can explain it all. I just don’t see why I should have to explain it to you. I’ve had enough of these questions, if you’re not going to listen to me. Good bye!
Jane Smith is a librarian who likes books, history, chocolate and cats. Unlike Tommy Bell, she has never had a horse of her own, although she sometimes used to ride one at a trail riding school. His name was Pickpocket and he was nowhere near as clever as Combo.
