One group of searchers arrived back in Nelson and requested permission from the search committee to take Phil Levy to the site with a rope around his neck to force him to show them where the bodies were. He was universally seen as the most likely to talk, as well as the most likely to be innocent—or at least less guilty than the other three. But the search committee refused to comply with the request. Some members of the Hebrew faith sent a rabbi into the gaol to talk with Levy because it was assumed he was the one who had been sent off to shoot the horse; everyone knew it was an historical and statistical fact that Jews were averse to the shedding of men’s blood, although strangulation was apparently still an option, if it was done cleanly. Levy swore a sacred oath on the bodies of his parents that he had not shed the blood of any kind of beast at all.
Mr. Kempthorne’s brother published an offer in the Nelson paper of a two-hundred-pound reward for information about his brother’s whereabouts; the government also offered a reward for information, adding that anyone not directly involved with the murders but with knowledge of it would receive a pardon for other crimes. The searchers would find the bodies and be given the reward, but it would not go to any of the murderers—at least that was what everyone hoped.
In Greymouth, it was widely assumed that the gang who had killed the four men had also killed George Dobson, and the Argus openly speculated not only that Dobson had been murdered, but also that he had been murdered by the Burgess gang. Commissioner Shearman posted a notice in the Grey River Argus offering a reward and a free pardon for any information pertaining to the disappearance of George Dobson, which James attached to the wall above the Davenport in his study. Perhaps the notice would bring someone forward - one of the many hangers-on and confederates. If not, perhaps one of the gang members would confess.
It came as a surprise to everyone when that someone was Joseph Thomas Sullivan.
James and Elizabeth were spending a rare night out together at the Kilgour Theatre to watch a play: The Octoroon, which had been much celebrated in America and played successfully around the country. The story of the doomed love affair between the heir to a plantation and the daughter of the plantation owner and one of his slaves (the said daughter being the titular octoroon) did not end happily; the young woman, Zoe, took poison and died in the arms of her lover just as he was about to learn that he had inherited the plantation, preventing her sale into slavery. The women of Greymouth, including Elizabeth, left the theatre at the end of the evening with tears streaming down their faces, causing some men to comment that the town was in danger of flooding yet again.
The reporter from the Argus was standing outside shivering, his collar turned up and his overly-large bowler hat pulled down below his ears.
“Mr. Inspector James,” he called, as they left the theatre. “They’re saying that Wilson has confessed and has told you where Dobson’s body is buried, even though he wasn’t there at the time.”
James had been about to walk on and ignore him, but instead asked, “Confessed? Wilson? Who is saying that?”
“The Nelson Examiner,” said the reporter, holding out a newspaper. “The Argus wondered if you’d had a confession because you went up to drag the river…”
James took the paper, skimmed through it quickly, then returned it to the reporter.
“All they say is there was a rumour - a rumour mind you - that they were unable to substantiate,” he said. “Something said to have come over the telegraphic wires from Picton, which were shown to have been disrupted at the time, so therefore the story could not be true.”
“Is it true, as they say, that Wilson told you the gang had dug a grave in advance?”
“No, it certainly is not true,” said James sharply. “And neither is it true that they mistook him for Mr.….”
He stopped, but the reporter was onto him immediately.
“You don’t think he was mistaken for Mr. Fox? Why not. Everyone is saying that.”
“Everyone is wrong,” said James. He had just realized that himself. He turned to Elizabeth, who was standing beside him wrapped in a shawl, her face pale and blotchy from the crying bout she had just suffered. “My wife is feeling unwell, I’m sorry. We have to leave.”
“I’m not feeling unwell,” said Elizabeth, holding tight to his arm as they marched off through the mud towards Arney Street. “Actually, I feel better than I have for ages. A good cry is a wonderful way to cheer a person up.”
“Why have they not published the numbers and marks on the bank notes,” the reporter called after them. “Surely that would connect them to some of the crimes…”
“He got that one from the Examiner,” muttered James as they continued walking.
A dark shadow was waiting for them on the verandah of their home, and for a minute James thought it was Wilson, come from the lockup in ghostly form to beg for his freedom. But the shadow stepped forward and revealed itself to be Sergeant Walsh.
“I’ve been waiting here for some time, walking up and down,” he said, unintentionally echoing the words spoken by Wilson. “I’m just back from Hokitika. Inspector Broham has received a telegram and he wanted me to bring it to you immediately.”
James took the telegram from Walsh.
“Thank you. Would you like to come in for a warm drink?”
Walsh shook his head, obviously not tempted by the offer of a “warm” drink, as James had known he would not be…a strong drink perhaps…and left in the direction of the Quay, probably with the intention of finding some other source of warmth.
James opened the telegram.
“What does he say?” asked Elizabeth.
“Sullivan has told them where George Dobson’s body is buried,” he said. He folded the paper and put it into his pocket. “I’ll get a search party tomorrow and we’ll go out and fetch him home.”
Elizabeth clasped her hands together. “At last,” she said. “His mother will be so relieved.”
But of course, it did not prove as easy as they assumed.
First, Inspector Broham arrived from Hokitika in the wake of his telegram determined to lead the search. He was a young man, a good dozen-years younger than James, with a tall healthy physique, dark, curly red-hair and red whiskers around his jaw that had the effect of masking a slightly receding chin. He’d been known to ride over a hundred miles in one day and was famous for his strength and resolve, as well as for his tightly controlled discipline. He always made a point of arriving first at a new rush, so that any miners who arrived subsequently would see him there and understand that they should be on their best behaviour. James found him most annoying.
Broham arrived early in the morning the day after his telegram, having left Hokitika before dawn. He was already at the station when James arrived, and looked askance at James, making a show of pulling out his watch and checking the hour.
“Good morning James,” he said. “Have you gathered a search party yet?”
James was forced to acknowledge that he hadn’t; there was no point in mentioning that he hadn’t received Broham’s message until late the previous evening. Broham was his superior officer and was therefore always right.
Sergeant Slattery came to his rescue. “I have the list of names here, Inspector James. If you remember, you mentioned to me a few days ago that it would be wise to have some names ready in the event…”
“Of course,” said James. “Thank you for reminding me, Sergeant. Inspector Broham, perhaps you could walk down to the Quay and find a breakfast somewhere while we gather the team.”
“Now then,” he said, as Broham left, walking briskly off along Gresson Street. “Whom do we have available?”
Slattery handed him the duty list. “Three of the constables are available today,” he said. “They’re going on street duty but they’re still in the mess hall I believe. Also, Mr. Todhunter and Mr. Bain are keen to direct another search, and the lads from the survey department want to participate—only they couldn’t be here for a couple of days.”
&
nbsp; “Hmm,” said James. “Send word to Mr. Todhunter telling him we have a possible burial site and asking him to gather a group. Let him know about Bain. I’ll take the three constables and head out this morning. No doubt Inspector Broham will want to be along when we find the body…I’ll tell you what. I’ll head out while he’s having breakfast and when he returns tell him to ride up after us.”
He was boarding a flat boat on Mawhera Quay with his three constables when Broham tracked him down, apparently after having eaten his breakfast at a rapid speed. He climbed into the boat and began issuing orders to the boatmen, who exchanged glances. The Grey ran in two directions—up-stream and down-stream—and they thought they knew enough to tell which direction they were supposed to take.
The boatmen began pushing on their poles, moving the flat boat upstream. To distract Broham from telling them more about how they should proceed, James said, “It’s a pity we weren’t able to warn the Nelson force in time for them to stop the murders.” The thought had been weighing on his mind for some time.
Broham stared at him, his pale blue eyes bulging. “I sent officers with warrants in plenty of time - on the Kennedy. But the Kennedy was delayed by bad weather, else the gang would have been stopped and arrested sooner.”
“You told them of my suspicions…”
“Your suspicions? Oh, you mean that they may have murdered Mr. Dobson? No. The warrants were for robbery. I’d heard from one of my sources that they intended to rob a bank in Collingwood, up in Golden Bay. As they had possibly already robbed the Bank of New Zealand in Okarita on May 22nd it seemed likely to be true. In fact, they were heading for Collingwood when they were apprehended.”
“Yes. I arrested Henry Jones for feloniously receiving some of the gold from that robbery…you heard about that? He said two men named Sullivan and Banner sold him the gold…”
Broham nodded, his eyes narrowed as he watched the boatmen maneuver their way around a rocky island in the middle of the river, ready to advise them if he thought they weren’t doing it correctly. “I suspected it was them from the start, but now Sullivan has confessed to it. Or at least, confessed on behalf of the other desperadoes. We have the porter of the bank up on charges, thanks to Sullivan. He also said they had a confederate in the police, which would be Carr, of course.” He leaned forward and spoke to the lead boatman. “You’ll be stopping about a mile and a half below the coal pits.”
“Constable Carr?” asked James. “The constable who stole the guns from your camp?”
“Exactly. And we knew he was connected to Burgess, because…hey there, mind the rocks. Time for a couple of you to hop out and pull.” Two of the boatmen, who had been about to do that exact thing, jumped from the boat into the shallow water holding ropes, and began to pull it into deeper water.
James was confused. There was too much to absorb. Why had he not been told about Carr earlier? And why had Broham not mentioned before that he believed Sullivan and Burgess were involved in the bank robbery? He said nothing, watching the boatmen silently until in due course they pulled the flat boat up on a sandy beach on the Canterbury side of the river. He jumped out onto the sand, and said, “Three of you come with me. The other two can stay here with the boat until we return.” The three jumped out onto the sand, while the other two lounged in the boat and lit up their clay pipes, watching Inspector Broham with amused expressions, as if waiting for another irrelevant command. Broham contented himself with repeating James’ instruction for the constable and the three boatmen to go with him.
By mid-afternoon James, his three constables, the boatmen and Broham were on the track below the coal pits ready to search. They headed away from the pits towards Greymouth, looking for markers mentioned by Sullivan. After searching carefully in every gully and creek for a half mile down the track, Broham ordered them to head back towards the coal pits. “We’re too far west,” he said, and James concurred. He was standing not far from a high terrace, studying the area around it, seeing very little, and gestured for the constables to follow him. They had trodden down some of the fern by the look of it, but obviously not found anything. As they moved towards the coal pits he had a stronger and stronger feeling that the body was close by. He could feel it in his bones. The track was narrow and shaded by trees, and there were several possible places he could imagine Burgess, Kelly and Wilson sitting in wait for Mr. Fox, pretending to put up a canvas shanty.
Unfortunately, the light began to fail. It was not much past the shortest day of the year and sun started to set soon after the search began. A fine mist had fallen on the river and it was impossible for a searcher to see more than a few feet ahead. They walked in a line, each man guided by the back of the man in front. Little could be seen on either side of the track. James sent the boatmen back to the boat and carried on, without much hope of finding anything.
“We’d best be getting on to the coal pits, find a place for the night,” James said eventually, when it was clear that Inspector Broham was not going to be the one to suggest that they give up the search. Broham agreed readily enough, but it was another hour before they reached the ferry across to the coal pits, an hour of slogging their way over ground that was worse than a swamp. This was the stretch of track that George Dobson was intending to check when he left Mr. Fox, and James could see why. It was in a terrible state, thick with mud interspersed with stumps of trees and huge boulders, and all of them, except for Broham, had at least one fall and were covered in mud and scratches by the time they arrived at the ferry landing. When the ferry loomed out of the dusk, candles flickering, they were all relieved. They could find shelter at the coal pits for the night and start anew the next day.
The next morning, at first light, they were on the search again, but with no more luck.
And on the third day, special constable O’Brian arrived from Nelson on the S.S. Claud Hamilton with a tracing done by one of the Nelson surveyors based on Sullivan’s instructions. Yet again they searched and found nothing.
Inspector Broham headed back downstream to Greymouth, but James determined to give it one more day. The shelter he and his constables found at the coal pits that night was abysmal. The small cottage and the tents at the coal pits were occupied, and they lay on the ground outside, warmed by a small coal fire. Without the opportunity to change his clothes, and with the sandflies assaulting him, he awoke on the fourth day with a throbbing head and a stiff body. But he also woke with a vision: the report from the couple who had passed the ruffians on the track, and who said they arrived at the coal pits in the dark. He decided to search further down-stream, below the rocky island, around where they had turned back on the first day of the search.
And there it was. The toe.
16
Wanganui, 1888: The Maungatapu Murders
James was exhausted. The walk and the reminiscing had leeched the energy from him and he could feel pains shooting down his calves. Perhaps it had been time for him to retire.
“Would you like to stop for refreshments?” he asked Crozier. “My shout, only I’m feeling weary and need a pick-me-up.” He wished he’d thought of food earlier; he could have stopped at the pie shop on Ridgeway Street. He’d always been fond of pie shops.
“I could hop back up to Woolley’s on the Avenue and fetch a couple of a coconut ices,” said Crozier. “My wife and I are very partial to Woolley’s ices. You sit on the bench over there and I’ll go fetch them.”
James sat down on the bench overlooking the river and felt the ache in his calves abate. He would have to see a doctor about the pain. He’d felt it for the first time a few months ago and it was coming regularly now. “An excellent suggestion, Crozier,” he said. He held out a pound note. “Take this. I’ll have a cheese and onion sandwich, if you don’t mind, rather than an ice. I find they hurt my teeth. And bring a ginger beer for me. You have one of their ices if you wish—or whatever you would like. On me.”
Crozier returned a twenty minutes later holding a lemon ice, a cheese and onion
sandwich and a bottle of ginger beer. “It’s been some time since I had a ginger beer,” he said as he handed it to James. “My mother used to make it, but my wife never learned how. Her mother gave her ginger beer plants many times, but she…”
James untwisted the wire, pulled out the cork from the bottle and held it up. “Do you remember how there used to be competitions for tying these?”
Crozier looked at him blankly.
“Perhaps you don’t,” said James. “Before your time. Two or more men would compete to see who could tie the most ginger beer corks into bottles within a specified time - usually an hour. Watchers would make bets on their favourite man. A wonderful thing to watch. You could hardly see their hands moving.”
“How many could a man tie in an hour?” asked Crozier, scooping out a spoonful of his ice from the fold of greased paper. “As many as a hundred, perhaps?”
“A hundred?” said James. “More like a thousand. I recollect a contest in Greymouth between two fellows where they each tied close to a thousand—an average of seventeen bottles per minute, I seem to remember—and that included tying each cork properly, with the ends of the twine cut off neatly…” January 1867, that contest had been held, during the trial. The month that had seared itself into his memory.
“And there was gambling on the winner?” asked Crozier. His tone indicated he did not approve of gambling. He should have been in Greymouth in the old days…
“Some,” admitted James.
“Gambling leads to crime,” said Crozier. “In my experience. About those murders you mentioned…”
“By the Burgess gang?”
A Cold Wind Down the Grey Page 12
