“What do you say, Nourse, to changing places with me and letting yourself be arrested, if it comes to that? I will engage a good lawyer to defend you and even if you should be convicted, which I doubt, you would not have to spend more than a few months in jail, at the most. You are strong and could stand the confinement, while it would about put me under the turf. According to your own story there is no one who cares what trouble you get into, and even if you went to jail you probably would be as happy there as anywhere. How much will you take to do it?”
“I had been thinking of that very thing,” he replied. “I don’t care much what happens to me, but I am not exactly hungry for a long term in Pentridge. If this thing is no worse than you say it is, though, I’ll swap places with you and see it through for two hundred pounds.”
I accepted his terms without argument. He already knew enough about me so that he could adopt my identity, without fear of detection except under a searching inquiry, but I quickly framed up a life history for him and told him the full and true story of the “Ferret.” I cautioned him, however, if he was arrested, to make no statement of any kind until he had talked with the lawyer I would send to him. As soon as we reached Longwood we exchanged clothing, even down to our underwear, socks, and shoes. Nourse was transformed into James Stuart Henderson, dressed by Pool of London, and I became a rather shabbily attired nurse. I paid Nourse his money, which relieved me of most of my load of gold, and concealed the rest of my money in my rough and roomy shoes and under my more or less dirty garments.
We had just finished dinner and were sitting alone in the hotel office, rehearsing the part Nourse was to play, when a sergeant and two officers, who had got track of us at Seymour, rode up on horseback. We saw them through the window and I moved back into the shadow for, though I did not look greatly unlike Nourse in our changed garb, I did not wish the officers to notice our facial resemblance. With only a glance at me they walked right up to Nourse and placed him under arrest. He professed amazement but readily admitted that he was James Stuart Henderson. He said he was driving through the country, with a nurse, for his health, having just recovered from the fever.
The orders of the officers called for the arrest of only one man so I was not interfered with. They were after big game and, much to my satisfaction, considered me hardly worthy of their notice. Still anxious to avoid close range comparison with Nourse, I did not return to Melbourne on the same train with them the next morning, but went down by the one that followed it. I kept well clear of the jail to which the bogus Henderson had been hustled and went to a little hotel on Swanston Street, kept by a German named Hellwig. The first thing I heard was that Joe, who had taken the train ahead of me, had been captured at Albury, where the railroad crosses the Murray River, which divides Victoria from New South Wales, and was on his way back, in charge of an officer, to join Leigh and my counterfeit presentment behind the bars.
I at once engaged Jarvis, the best barrister in Australia, to defend them, and later employed Gillette & Stanton, another high-class firm, to assist him. I told them, of course, the real facts, and had them instruct Leigh and Joe to coach Nourse in the part he was to play and to maintain the proper attitude toward him. The moment Leigh saw “Henderson” he knew there was something wrong somewhere but he was too shrewd to indicate it and greeted the newcomer cordially. I had described Leigh to Nourse so that he could not mistake him and he walked right up to him and shook hands. When Joe joined them in jail Leigh got to him first and posted him. They were charged with conspiracy and barratry and were indicted, altogether, on seven counts.
Nourse was as game as a hornet and played his part well, yet he was not born a gentleman and he was altogether lacking in that savoir faire which is regarded as a necessary makeup of the typical soldier of fortune, which Henderson was supposed to be. George Smyth, the prosecuting attorney, was a shrewd chap, as well as a gilt-edged sea lawyer, and it was not long until he began to suspect that he had a bogus Henderson in limbo and that the real ravisher of maritime law was still at liberty. Some of the other officials came to doubt that they had the right man and this suspicion became so strong by the time the trial came on that they had detectives out quietly searching for the real Henderson. This information reached the lawyers whom I had employed, but whom I saw infrequently as I remained discreetly in the background, and they insisted, as they had previously suggested, that I go away until the case was concluded.
“This case is much more serious than you realize,” said Gillette, as he again urged me to leave Melbourne for my own protection, or go into close hiding and stay there. “Unfortunately, Nourse is not nearly so clever as you. You are damned clever, but you are not clever enough to avoid being nabbed if you stay around here while the trial is on.”
“I think you’re wrong,” I told him, “but I’m paying you for your advice and if it is good enough to buy it ought to be good enough to take. I’ll go out and bury myself.”
“Right,” he said. “See that you make a good job of it.”