“Nothing fresh, Bell. Nothing I have not told you. Dobell, as I expected, has found out nothing. He is in a bit of a fix I can see plainly enough. He expected to find corroborative evidence against Mrs. Booth, but, so far, he has failed.”
“Then the jury acquitted her?”
“On the contrary; they committed her for wilful murder, and by this time she is in Darlinghurst. But that was only what was to be expected. A coroner’s jury have not got a judge to direct them. Their verdict is only tentative. With the evidence before them they did right.”
“And how did the poor woman take it?”
“You never saw any one look more astounded. She stared round the room as though she was looking at a ghost, and then swooned right away, with a loud shriek. The Professor was there to hold her up, and I could see him turn pale and tremble like a leaf. He told me himself that the shock of this affair is likely to send the poor girl out of her mind, and it is easy to see he is very much attached to her.”
“Poor dear creature, what she must suffer! You must help her, Tom. Now set your wits to work. I know you can if you like.”
“I will do my best, Bell; and if brains and ability, though I say it that should not, can solve the North Shore mystery, I will solve it!”
CHAPTER VII
LOOKING BACKWARD-WINDSOR
Three years earlier than the incidents related in the preceding chapters, the walls and fences of that moribund and derelict country town, Windsor, were ornamented by a series of posters that proclaimed the early appearance of the renowned Professor Norris, mesmerist, phrenologist, and magnetic healer; also the gifted clairvoyant, Bertha Summerhayes, reader of the past and future. And then followed numerous details of the wonders and signs common to such entertainments, the bill concluding with this parting advice—“Man, know thyself!”
Why men generally are invited to make the acquaintance of the very second-rate article referred to was not stated. Or, having found what an unmitigated fool that person generally is, what he was to do in the matter was also a blank.