Before commencing his recital, he told Lady Helena about the escape of the convicts at Perth, and their appearance in Victoria; as also their complicity in the railway catastrophe. He handed her the Australian and New Zealand Gazette they had bought in Seymour, and added that a reward had been offered by the police for the apprehension of Ben Joyce, a redoubtable bandit, who had become a noted character during the last eighteen months, for doing deeds of villainy and crime.
But how had McNabbs found out that Ayrton and Ben Joyce were one and the same individual? This was the mystery to be unraveled, and the Major soon explained it.
Ever since their first meeting, McNabbs had felt an instinctive distrust of the quartermaster. Two or three insignificant facts, a hasty glance exchanged between him and the blacksmith at the Wimerra River, his unwillingness to cross towns and villages, his persistence about getting the DUNCAN summoned to the coast, the strange death of the animals entrusted to his care, and, lastly, a want of frankness in all his behavior—all these details combined had awakened the Major’s suspicions.
However, he could not have brought any direct accusation against him till the events of the preceding evening had occurred. He then told of his experience.
McNabbs, slipping between the tall shrubs, got within reach of the suspicious shadows he had noticed about half a mile away from the encampment. The phosphorescent furze emitted a faint light, by which he could discern three men examining marks on the ground, and one of the three was the blacksmith of Black Point.
“‘It is them!’ said one of the men. ‘Yes,’ replied another, ‘there is the trefoil on the mark of the horseshoe. It has been like that since the Wimerra.’ ‘All the horses are dead.’ ‘The poison is not far off.’ ‘There is enough to kill a regiment of cavalry.’ ‘A useful plant this gastrolobium.’
“I heard them say this to each other, and then they were quite silent; but I did not know enough yet, so I followed them. Soon the conversation began again. ‘He is a clever fellow, this Ben Joyce,’ said the blacksmith. ‘A capital quartermaster, with his invention of shipwreck.’ ‘If his project succeeds, it will be a stroke of fortune.’ ‘He is a very devil, is this Ayrton.’ ‘Call him Ben Joyce, for he has well earned his name.’ And then the scoundrels left the forest.
“I had all the information I wanted now, and came back to the camp quite convinced, begging Paganel’s pardon, that Australia does not reform criminals.”
This was all the Major’s story, and his companions sat silently thinking over it.
“Then Ayrton has dragged us here,” said Glenarvan, pale with anger, “on purpose to rob and assassinate us.”