Part 56

The Governor was easily found. He was grieved at her troubling to descend at such an hour, and did not detain her five minutes in all. He thought she was in a fever, but that the fever became her beyond belief. Reassured on every point, Miss Bouverie was back in her room but a very few minutes after she had left it.

It was empty. She searched all over, first behind the curtains, then between the pedestals of the bureau, but Stingaree was nowhere in the room, and the bedroom door was still locked. It was a second look behind the curtains that revealed an open window and the scratch of a boot upon the white enamel. It was no breakneck drop into the shrubs.

So he had gone without a word, but also without breaking his word; for, with wet eyes and a white face, between anger and admiration, Hilda Bouverie had already discovered her bundle of notes and her rope of pearls.

There are no more tales of Stingaree; tongue never answered to the name again, nor was face ever recognized as his. He may have died that night; it is not very likely, since the young married man in the well-appointed bungalow, which had been broken into earlier in the day, missed a suit of clothes indeed, but not his evening clothes, which were found hung up neatly where he had left them; and it is regrettable to add that his opera-glasses were not the only article of a marketable character which could never be found on his return. There is none the less reason to believe that this was the last professional incident in one of the most incredible criminal careers of which there is any record in Australia. Whether he be dead or alive, back in the old country or still in the new, or, what is less likely, in prison under some other name, the gratifying fact remains that neither in Australia nor elsewhere has there been a second series of crimes bearing the stamp of Stingaree.

* * * * * *

Transcriber's note:

The following typographical errors present in the original edition have been corrected. No other changes have been made to the text.

In Chapter I, a quotation mark was removed after "could that be possible?", "You had beter play this yourself" was changed to "You had better play this yourself", and a quotation mark was added after "And hangs below her waist".

In Chapter III, "You might, prehaps, have preferred" has been changed to "You might, perhaps, have preferred".

In Chapter V, a quotation mark was added after "I was just thinking the same thing", and "succeded at the most humiliating moment" was changed to "succeeded at the most humiliating moment".

In Chapter VI, a quotation mark was added before "He may have wished to clear his character."

In Chapter VII, "Stingareee was perfectly right" was changed to "Stingaree was perfectly right".

In Chapter VIII, a quotation mark was added after "it was just about here it happened", and "seemed the samest policy" was changed to "seemed the safest policy".

In Chapter IX, "allowed to proceeed on a pressing journey" was changed to "allowed to proceed on a pressing journey", "when the spirit had beeen wine" was changed to "when the spirit had been wine", and "The Bishop seeemed nettled and annoyed" was changed to "The Bishop seemed nettled and annoyed".

In Chapter X, "whenever I have sung in jublic" has been changed to "whenever I have sung in public".