Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/7



The following report appeared in the Argus newspaper of Saturday, the 28th July, 18—:

"Truth is said to be stranger than fiction, and certainly the extraordinary murder which took place in Melbourne on Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, goes a long way towards verifying this saying. A crime has been committed by an unknown assassin, within a short distance of the principal street of this great city, and is surrounded by an impenetrable mystery. Indeed, from the nature of the crime itself, the place where it was committed, and the fact that the assassin has escaped without leaving a trace behind him, it would seem as though the case itself had been taken bodily out of Gaboreau's novels, and that his famous detective Lecocq only would be able to unravel it. The facts of the case are simply these:

"On the twenty-seventh day of July, at the hour of twenty minutes to two o'clock in the morning, a hansom cab drove up to the police station, in Grey Street, St. Kilda, and the driver made the startling statement that his cab contained the body of a man whom he had reason to believe had been murdered.

"Being taken into the presence of the Inspector, the cabman, who gave his name as Malcolm Royston, related the following strange story:

"At the hour of one o'clock in the morning, he was driving down Collins Street East, when as he was passing the Burke and Wills' monument he was hailed by a gentleman standing at the corner by the Scotch Church. He immediately drove up, and saw that the gentleman who hailed him was