* * * * *
The brilliant morning of September 1st witnessed Princes Pier, Melbourne, crowded with people, waving and calling farewells to hundreds of others lining the deck-rails of the P. and O. steamer Mongolia.
The law had had its amusement with the farcical trial of Monty Sherwood for manslaughter, and was satisfied. He stood there, on the jetty, head above the crowd, carrying on his broad shoulder the flushed, excited Bubbles, whose little hands were entangled in half a dozen coloured streamers held at the other ends by Mr. and Mrs. Martin Sherwood on the liner’s top deck.
At Monty’s side, waving a handkerchief, was his wife, Mary. There, too, was the gaunt Mrs. Minter and her shriveled husband. Inspector Oakes, with never-flagging interest, watched the rows of faces looking down from the ship. Now and then he glanced at Bent Nose, who smiled at him crookedly but happily.
The ship was moving. The paper streamers broke one by one. Slowly it was pulled out into the fairway. Came Mrs. Minter for Master Frederick Minter, who scrambled willingly into her bony but hungry arms. Monty, looking down at his wife on their way to the train that would taken them to the city, said:
“Life! I love life, Mary.”
The House Of Cain Page 33
