iscovering the secret which lies at the root of this tree of crime, is
to find out the history of the woman who died in the slum. Traced back
for some years, circumstances may be discovered which will reveal what
these papers contained, and once that is found, we can confidently say
that the murderer will soon be discovered. This is the only chance of
finding out the cause, and the author of this mysterious murder; and if
it fails, we fear the hansom cab tragedy will have to be relegated to
the list of undiscovered crimes, and the assassin of Whyte will have no
other punishment than that of the remorse of his own conscience."

CHAPTER XXI.

THREE MONTHS AFTERWARDS.

A hot December day, with a cloudless blue sky, and a sun blazing down
on the earth, clothed in all the beauty of summer garments. Such a
description of snowy December sounds perchance a trifle strange to
English ears. It may strike them as being somewhat fantastic, as was
the play in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," to Demetrius when he remarked,
"This is hot ice and wondrous cold fire."

But here in Australia we are in the realm of contrariety, and many
things other than dreams go by contrary. Here black swans are an
established fact, and the proverb concerning them, made when they were
considered as mythical a bird as the Phoenix, has been rendered null
and void by the discoveries of Captain Cook. Here ironwood sinks and
pumice stone floats, which must strike the curious spectator as a queer
freak on the part of Dame Nature. At home the Edinburgh mail bears the
hardy traveller to a cold climate, with snowy mountains and wintry
blasts; but here the further north one goes the hotter it gets, till
one arrives in Queensland, where the heat is so great that a profane
traveller of an epigrammatic turn of mind once fittingly called it, "An
amateur hell."

But however contrary, as Mrs. Gamp would say, Nature may be in her
dealings, the English race out in this great continent are much the
same as in the old country--John Bull, Paddy, and Sandy, all being of a
conservative turn of mind, and with strong opinions as to the keeping
up of old customs. Therefore, on a hot Christmas day, with the sun one
hundred odd in the shade, Australian revellers sit down to the roast
beef and plum-pudding of Old England, which they eat contentedly as the
orthodox thing, and on New Year's Eve the festive Celt repairs to the
doors of his "freends" with a bottle of whisky and