AN UNDISCOVERED MURDER.

Observer, Volume 3, Issue 62, 19 November 1881, Page 152

AN UNDISCOVERED MURDER.

A TRUE STORY. Whest I was a little boy of ten there was great excitement in our village. I had been sent there to acquire the rudiments of an English education under the tution of a certain doctor of divinity, who had become worn out in the service of the church, and was now driven to maintain a sort of cross between an English boarding school and a high school to eak out a living for himself and his large family. The cause of the excitement was that one of his daughters, Milly, had eloped with the gardener. I was too young then to understand anything about love, except such as I was permitted to read of in carefully selected goody-goody books, and that, of course, was love of the most mildly platonic kind. Indeed, with all my subsequent experience of the world, I doubt whether I know much about the subject now. I doubt if anybody can say he has mastered it. But there were features about the elopement that appeared, even to my unsophisticated mind, to be somewhat incongruous. The young lady was not more than sixteen, highly educated, an accomplished musician, artist and botanist. She was a tall, handsome blonde, with fine features and sweet blue eyes.' The man was more than double her age, a rough, uneducated, and by no means handsome pci'son of the average English Hodges class, about as fit to mate with Milly as a satyr with a Venus. Even at my age I felt that i the fellow deserved to be horsewhipped for his [ presumption. The whole country side thought ' the same. There was a hue and cry after the gardener, but the pair had so cleverly arranged their plans that they got clear away — to Botany Bay, or some other horribly outlandish place, it I was said.

Gradually the recollection of this tiling had ! passed out of my mind, when one day, in Wellington, in this colony, it was recalled -with startling suddenness. I was on a visit to the place, and had taken lodgings at one of the leading hotels. My bedroom window commanded a very pretty view of the country, but in the immediate foreground was a small cottage surrounded by a garden. I was looking out of the window one day to judge the prospects of the weather, when happening to cast my eyes down upon the neighbouring garden, I saw Miss Milly again, looking almost exactly as I had seen her in the village where I was at school, in Kent, twentyycars before, only she appeared the slightest bit older, and perhaps rather darker in complexion. I watched her through my glass as she weeded the garden, and every line of the well-remembered features was vividly recalled. Not many minutes later the mystery was explained, when there came out from the house a woman of nearly 40, exactly the same in height and genera] appearance, but bronzed to the brownness of a halfcaste. Examining this woman closely, I became convinced that this was the real Milly , and the other and younger lady her daughter. I looked in vain for the appearance of the old gardener. From enquiries that I made about the neighborhood, I learned that the family had come from the Cape of Good Hope, but the name was altogether different from that which the old gardener had borne. This was not a little puzzling, but yet I remembered the features so well, that I felt convinced it was not a case of mistaken identity. I said to myself, " Why not call on her ? She will surely be glad to see an old acquaintance." I went to the house, knocked, was shewn into- a modest, plainly-furnished sitting-room, and sat in a position to command a view of the window. About a minute afterwards the mother came in. I opened my business smilingly and without ceremony. I noticed, however, at the outset, that the lady was much darker than I had supposed, but about the features there could be no mistake at all. Even the voice was familiar. The hair, however, was no longer blonde. She did not seat herself, but remained standing, and in such a position, it occurred to me afterwards, as to keep her face in the shadow. At the first mention of the old Kentish village she gave a violent start, at the mention of her father she clenched her hands, contorted her features, and loaned suddenly over the table towards me in a menacing attitude. I think that as I proceeded, I never saw an expression so absolutely fiendish on any woman's face, before or since, except on the stage, of course. The face, the hands clenched, and the figure in an attitude ready to spring, gave me quite a little start, in fact, disturbed my nerves more than a score of batteries in full blaze had been wont to do. I was proceeding to murmur something in the shape of an apology, about mistaken identity (though I knew it wasn't) and so forth, when, with the same tigerish look and attitude she hissed out : " Sir, it's a lie ! You had some other motive in coming here." " Madame, I — " " You had. You came here to spy." " No, I assure you, I — " "Leave my house instantly before I call for assistance. You never saw me before in your life. You axe a liar. I Avas never at ,in Kent. My name was never . You came here on false pretences. Go !" I need not say how glad I was to breathe the air again outside of that house. But I felt stunned by what had happened. I felt that there was some dreadful mystery ixnderlying the affair, but at present it was all dark to me. Perhaps she is insane, I thought, and made inquries on the head. Those who had known her ever since she came to Wellington fifteen years before, unanimously scouted the idea. She was a bit " stuck up" some told me, "troubled like, as if she'd come down in the world" the women said, but that was all. Business took me away from Wellington, but the affair left a painful impression.

Some years later I was travelling in tlie Middle Island. Coming to Clirisfcchurch, and taking my ■seat at the dinner table at an hotel, one of the first objects that caught my eye was the dark woman opposite. She recognised me instantly, and with an angry flash from her eyes, arose from the table, and sailed out of the room. My old suspicions returned with full force. I said to myself, " That woman has committed some crime, she wishes to conceal her identity, and she avoids and hates me because she sees I recognise her." ■Curiously enough, I never doubted the woman's identity in the least. I could have sworn to it from the first. By some chance of fate I stumbled by accident upon that woman in various parts of the colonies at intervals after that. I shall never forget the last occasion. I went to look at some jewellery in a shop window. A woman who was there before me suddenly turned to leave, and our eyes met. The agonised look of that face was something to remember all one's life. I noticed that half involuntary she raised her umbrella, as if to strike, and as she hurried away, she looked back over her shoulder at me, more than once. I cannot tell ■what unlucky series of mischances made us meet so often without any seeking on my part. A few months later I met Mr- — , K.M. Over a quiet cigar in the evening ho suddenly turned the conversation by asking — "By the way, do you remember a woman named ?" " Remember her ! I should rather think I do," I replied, and I proceeded to relate the facts with which I have already acquainted the reader, while the magistrate listened in solemn silence. "And you were never at the Cape ?" " Well, I was once in a vessel that called into Table Bay, but I was never ashore." " Very curious !" and he went on smoking meditatively. " What i's curious ?" No reply for a minute or two, and then suddenly, " Well, the way that woman hated and feared you." "Why should she fear mo ?" " She thought you were always dogging her heels from place to place — hunting her down — trying to bring her to justice." " Why, I don't know of any crime against the woman, and you can tell her so if you know where she is." "I can't." " Why ?" " She's dead !" " Grood heavens ! When ? Where ?" " Six weeks ago, in my district. (Another pause.) Well, I suppose it can do no harm now, so I don't mind telling you that woman icas a murderess .'" " Horrible ! Who told you so ?" " She told me herself." ' And then, yielding to some pressure from myself, my friend informed me that he had been sent for to take the depositions of a woman who •was dying in the Hospital from some incurable disease. She told him of her seduction by a gardener in the little village of , the elopement, and of her robbery of her dead mother's jewels, and father's savings, how they got married, went to the Cape, where he drifted into idle, drunken habits, and illtreated her. How, at last, when she had parted with the last remnant of the stolen property, they were glad to accept a miserably paid situation on one of the up-country stations, amidst savages, and Europeans who were semi - savages ; how the old drunkenness and brutality continued, and grew worse than ever ; how even he would have bartered her honour for drink. She met him one day on a lonely path returning from a carouse. She had gone in search of him in a sudden fury, and was armed as a defence against wild beasts. They met. Pas-ion-ate words were exchanged, and he struck her. All the memory of her wrongs crowded upon her; all the realization of her sacrifice and fall, and the bitter shipwreck of her life ; all the fierceness of smouldering resentment blazed forth in an instant. She struck him dead — shot him to the heart, left his body to be devoured by wild beasts, shut herself up in her own room, and nerved herself ■with frightful efforts for the denouncement. It never came. It was no uncommon thing in that ■wild region for a man or two to disappear occasionally, and never more be heard of. They ■were carried off by lions, that was all. Some day the discovery by hunters of a few sheds of cloth, some trinket, or other article in a cave in the rocks would unravel the mystery. She returned to Cape Town, gave music lessons, found now that she was relieved of the social incumbus of her husband, that her circumstances improved, came to New Zealand, and the rest the reader knows. Only this remains to be said : By some singular hallucination which is inexplicable, she supposed that I had in some way fathomed her secret, and was hunting her from place to place in order to secure further evidence against her. She died in this belief. I have been obliged, for a variety of reasons, but chiefly out of consideration for the daughter, to suppress names and some facts which might too closely identify the family ; but as truth is said to be stranger than fiction, the incidents above narrated are absolute facts, as one or two other persons who are acquainted with the secret well know.

It is really about time all this fooling around a real patent native policy was at an end, and though modesty lias long kept us in the background, and we have been hiding under a bushel, the time has come to speak . out. All the plans hitherto put forward for dealing with Te Whiti are entirely impracticable and obsolete, and not in accordance with the enlightened spirit of the age. The approved modern method of dealing with a powerful political opponent is to give him a snug billet or a portfolio. Te Whiti could be sent to the Legislative Council, or a new Ministerial office be created for him (say) Minister tinder the Fencing Act. Tohu could be placed on the pension list, or promoted to the position of a rum-gauger. The difficulty about Hiroki appears to be that he is rather a neat hand in the use of the gun, but this might be got over by making' Mm chief of the Rabbit Htmters. Wo throw out these suggestions in a friendly spirit, and trust they will be similarly accepted by the Government.