which is not Gairdi, is
an honoured one. What I am accused of, and what I admit doing, was no
crime. The dead man was a traitor, and I was deputed to kill him. I did
it, and this is the end."
The words had scarcely left his lips before he took a revolver from his
coat-pocket, placed it to his right temple and, before I could prevent
him, had pulled the trigger. He fell with a crash at my feet, and before
the ship's doctor could be brought to his side, he was dead. Who he
really was, or to what Secret Society he belonged--for his last words to
me warranted the belief that he was a member of some such
organization--we were never able to discover. He was dead, and there was
an end to it. Such is the story of the first big case in which I was
engaged, and one that led me step by step to the position I now hold. I
have told it perhaps at somewhat greater length than I need have done,
but I trust the reader will forgive me. As a matter of fact I am rather
proud of it; more so perhaps than I have any reason to be.
[Illustration: "HE FELL WITH A CRASH AT MY FEET."]
Having resigned my position in the police of the Northern Colony, I was
not to be tempted to reconsider my decision. My liking for the life,
however, and my interest in the unravelling of mysterious crimes, proved
too strong, and I joined the Detective Staff in Melbourne, seeing in
their service a good deal of queer life and ferreting out not a small
number of extraordinary cases. The experience gained there was
invaluable, and led me, after one particularly interesting piece of
business in which I had the good fortune to be most successful, to
entertain the notion of quitting Government employ altogether, and
setting up for myself. I did so, and soon had more work upon my hand
than I could very well accomplish. But I was too ambitious to be content
with small things, and eventually came to the conclusion that there was
not enough scope in the Colonies for me. After fifteen years' absence,
therefore, I returned to England, spending a year in the Further East
_en route_ in order to enlarge my experience, and to qualify myself for
any work that might come to me from that quarter.
On a certain bitterly cold day in January I reached Liverpool from the
United States, and took the train for my old home. My father and mother
had long since died, and now all that remained to me of them was the
stone slab that covered their resting place in the quiet little
churchyard
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