“Yes,” said Simon Warner, coming forward, “you are wrong this time, Jack!”
“Not I,” persisted Hawksworth, who, taking a photo from his pocket and then quietly going up to Captain Link, requested him to withdraw, and to consider himself under arrest.
“What do I hear? You scoundrel!—under arrest!” cried Captain Link. “If you don’t immediately retract your words and apologise, I will knock you down.”
“Go it, captain!” cried a bystander.
Then a great stir and excitement arose, but Simon Warner stepping between the enraged captain and Hawksworth, whispered to the detective,—
“You are on the wrong tack. I have seen the man you want and his mate, too. I mean that little fellow Croft—both of them have been under your very nose of late—and now you have gone and insulted a gentleman.”
Meanwhile, Mr Goodall, Tom Trigger and the general manager had ranged up near Captain Link, to protest against the charge, and in doing so they attempted to allude to the farcical error, in a humorous style, as a gross blunder on the part of the detective, Hawksworth—who was unknown to the authorities and who openly stated that he was extremely sorry, but he had made a mistake, and begged the captain’s pardon.
Captain Link then, in a very manly way, accepted the altered situation and was loudly cheered by the bystanders. But Warner, with remarkable shrewdness, said in an undertone by way of further explanation,—
“The party you are in search of, Hawksworth, is almost, though not quite, the double of that gentleman who is Captain Link.”
“But didn’t he leave Sydney and arrive here in the ship Neptune?”