My Friend The Murderer | Page 8

onto the ground and made off as hard as I
could run. I traveled a matter of two or three miles, when my wind gave
out; and as I saw a big building with people going in and out, I went in
too, and found that it was a railway station. A train was just going off
for Dover to meet the French boat, so I took a ticket and jumped into a
third-class carriage.
There were a couple of other chaps in the carriage, innocent-looking
young beggars, both of them. They began speaking about this and that,
while I sat quiet in the corner and listened. Then they started on
England and foreign countries, and such like. Look ye now, doctor, this
is a fact. One of them begins jawing about the justice of England's laws.
"It's all fair and above-board," says he; "there ain't any secret police,
nor spying, like they have abroad," and a lot more of the same sort of
wash. Rather rough on me, wasn't it, listening to the damned young
fool, with the police following me about like my shadow?
I got to Paris right enough, and there I changed some of my gold, and
for a few days I imagined I'd shaken them off, and began to think of
settling down for a bit of rest. I needed it by that time, for I was looking
more like a ghost than a man. You've never had the police after you, I
suppose? Well, you needn't look offended, I didn't mean any harm. If
ever you had you'd know that it wastes a man away like a sheep with
the rot.
I went to the opera one night and took a box, for I was very flush. I was
coming out between the acts when I met a fellow lounging along in the
passage. The light fell on his face, and I saw that it was the mud-pilot
that had boarded us in the Thames. His beard was gone, but I
recognized the man at a glance, for I've a good memory for faces.
I tell you, doctor, I felt desperate for a moment. I could have knifed him
if we had been alone, but he knew me well enough never to give me the
chance. It was more than I could stand any longer, so I went right up to
him and drew him aside, where we'd be free from all the loungers and
theater-goers.

"How long are you going to keep it up?" I asked him.
He seemed a bit flustered for a moment, but then he saw there was no
use beating about the bush, so he answered straight:
"Until you go back to Australia," he said.
"Don't you know," I said, "that I have served the government and got a
free pardon?"
He grinned all over his ugly face when I said this.
"We know all about you, Maloney," he answered. "If you want a quiet
life, just you go back where you came from. If you stay here, you're a
marked man; and when you are found tripping it'll be a lifer for you, at
the least. Free trade's a fine thing but the market's too full of men like
you for us to need to import any."
It seemed to me that there was something in what he said, though he
had a nasty way of putting it. For some days back I'd been feeling a sort
of homesick. The ways of the people weren't my ways. They stared at
me in the street; and if I dropped into a bar, they'd stop talking and edge
away a bit, as if I was a wild beast. I'd sooner have had a pint of old
Stringybark, too, than a bucketful of their rot-gut liquors. There was too
much damned propriety. What was the use of having money if you
couldn't dress as you liked, nor bust in properly? There was no
sympathy for a man if he shot about a little when he was half-over, I've
seen a man dropped at Nelson many a time with less row than they'd
make over a broken window-pane. The thing was slow, and I was sick
of it.
"You want me to go back?" I said.
"I've my order to stick fast to you until you do," he answered.
"Well," I said, "I don't care if I do. All I bargain is that you keep your
mouth shut and don't let on who I am, so that I may have a fair start
when I get there."

He agreed to this, and we went over to Southampton the very next day,
where he saw me safely off once more. I took a passage round to
Adelaide, where no one was likely to know me;