Nantwich, Sandbach & Crewe Star — 1890-10-11 ()

CALL 111011T8 ILEBZILVED.I SYNOPSIS OF OPENING CHAPTERS.  CHAPTER I introduces the reader to the Hon. Loftus Fitz Gerald in the private bar of an hotel called the "Australian Felix" at Melbourne. FitzGerald,a handsome but dissipated looking young man of 25, is the son of an English peer, but having gown more than one crop of wild oats is now penniless. By his conversation with the barmaid we learn that a friend he has met has lent him £2O, and with this sum he speaks of going up-country to seek some kind of employment. He offers the girl 25 she had previously lent to him, but she refuses it, sayiLg that he must keep the money until he is better able to aftord to repay it. Nelly Farrell lets fall the tact that some time before Fitz Gerald had befriended her when as a nursery governess she had been charged with stealing money out of her mistress's purse. He had digsevered that someone else was the thief, and so secured the girl's liberty. Fitzgerald now otters her marriage, which she conditionally accepts just as the voices of newsboys in the street are heard calling :—'• Argus ex-tra-ordinary I Murder and robbery in the Fitzroy-gardens! Murder and robbery of Mr Stnrt, a member of the Legislative Assembly, in the Fitzroy-gardens this evening I Most mysterious murder in Melbourne THIS evening !" CHAPTER Loftus Fitz Gerald starts at the shouts and runs the angers of both hands again and again through the jet black and close-clustering curls of his well-shaped head, evidently for the purpose of dislodging the grass seeds with which Nally a few minutes previously had declared that they were filled. The pretty barmaid noticed the action. Fitz Gerald gushed suddenly into the streetiland gave a newsboy a angling for an evening paper. CuArrign 111.7 r, He was about to re-enter the Felix when he was suddenly sonfronted by a policeman. The young man started without apparent reason. "A bad job this murder," remarks the officer, and suggests that Fitz Gerald acts as detective, and assists him in finding the murderer—the reward to be shared between them. The policeman has recognised Fitz Gerald as the man who jumped into the river some time before to save a child, and is also aware that recently he has slept in the Fitzroy Gardens for want of a better resting place. He believes the murder has been committed by one of the poor fellows in the habit of sleeping in the gardens (though Fitz Gerald does not incline to this opinion), and remarks that nothing of value was left on the IlOrpse, and that a shabby little sealskin pouch was assovered beside the body. At this Loftus Fitz Gerald had stepped back into the deepest shadow of the broad street verandah, and there was feeling, with trembling fingers, in th• many pockets of his brown velveteen jacket. FitzGerald affects to have lost his cigar cage, and fancies he 'mist have left it on the bar counter. The policeman fobserves that his luck must have changed lately, as he noticed him give a newsboy a sovereign instead of a shilling. He expresses the greatest admiration for FitzGerald, whose manly behaviour he has on several occasions noticed. Fitz Gerald thanks him for his good opinion, but declines to assist him in bringing a fellowcreature to the gallows for the sake of blood money. The officer remarks that the murdered man had apparently received a heavy blow with a key, but had also tried to defend himself with a cane, the handle of which was ghtly grasped in his hand. Fitz Gerald undertakes to meet him tile next morning, and re-enters the Australian Felix.