of many of the happenings of the ensuing weeks i remember nothing at all. memory is merciful to me and there are blanks and blurs that no thought nor brooding can fill in.
the time of terror for the city lasted, i know, eleven weeks and two days, and horrors unspeakable were the almost daily menace of men’s lives.
but, in the knowledge of what happened later, there can be no doubt that these crimes were not all mine. my own deeds were many and vile enough, i know, but that is no reason for me being saddled with the blame for those i did not do.
i am making no excuse for myself, but simply trying to explain the dim hope to which i always cling that, one day, i may not be called to answer for all the things that are now put down to me.
i make no pretence that i remember nothing. i remember hazily a lot of dreadful happenings in the night. it was always in the night, it seemed to me.
i remember bodies stretched out on the dark roads. i remember struggles on paths when there were no stars. i remember blood on a verandah once and in a room, the very memory of which makes me shudder even now. i have a dim recollection, too, of something happening to the melbourne express as it came down through the hills. i remember a tram crashing down over a bridge near the city, and i remember, later, the flare of many fires.
but so many things are mixed up in the night life of those days that i can never properly sift the dreams from the realities. thoughts come and go bewilderingly through my tortured brain, but there is always the deep sense of horror to abide and remain.
i had three distinct personalities in those days and led three different lives. none of them seemed to encroach upon the others overmuch.
first, i was the clerk at winter and winter’s; the head clerk in the invoice office, and, as the weeks went on, a real head clerk, too. i kept them all in order now and the room was quiet, orderly, and well conducted. i took to keeping myself very much to myself, and never mixed with any of them or discussed anything out of business routine. rarely, i permitted myself to smile. i had become a cold sort of machine. suave, polite, even to waller, but firm, very firm, and entirely devoted to the interests of those who employed me.
one day, when i was shaving, i noted my expression in the glass. i had altered a great deal. my eyes were harder and had lost that gentle look, my lips shut closer together, too, and there was a firmness about the corners of my mouth that was not there in other days. i looked sterner, and, altogether, there was that about me of a man who had acquired confidence in himself and had little regard for the opinion of others.
i dressed quite differently too. i was smart and well-attired. i wore well-cut clothes and collars that were fashionable, and was most particular, too, that my trousers were neatly pressed with the crease straight down the middle.
mr. william, i could see, was quite interested in the change, and when he had called me into his office alone upon some invoice matter would sometimes chaff me about it.
“what’s become of you, wacks,” he said one day, “you quite puzzle me. you’re so different to what you used to be. are you in love?”
“i may be, sir,” i replied demurely, “but it’s not that that makes me different. i realised i was too soft with the men and i did just what you told me, that’s all, sir.”
“well, i am very glad you did, wacks,” he went on genially. “do you know, i was just on the point of telling you that you must leave us, when you suddenly cleared everything up.”
“i knew you weren’t pleased with me, mr. william, and that in the end spurred me on.”
“well, all’s well that ends well, wacks, and it’s quite nice to see the order and quietness you’ve got the men into.”
then there was the other man in me — the man in love. life was telling its great secret to me now, and sometimes my happiness was almost too great to bear. heaven had opened a far-off lattice for us and a golden ray was falling on the dingy little shop on the port road.
i forgot everything when i was with lucy. i loved her passionately and believed she loved me too. i had felt her tremble in surrender when i had put my arms about her, and had heard her sigh when i bent down to kiss. i had seen the love-light in her eyes when i came near, and had felt the quickening beatings of her heart when the sweet, soft body came in close to mine.
i was always tender to her, but somehow i was always stern. at first in my determined open wooing i had sensed impending trouble with her uncle, but i had soon convinced him whose was the stronger will.
one day i thought lucy had been crying, and catching old brickett alone a little later, i taxed him with it. he didn’t deny it; but just glared sullenly at me.
“what’s that to do with you, mr. nosey parker,” he began contemptuously, but he stopped very quickly when he saw the devil he had roused.
i reached over the counter and grabbed him quickly by the cloth he wore round his neck.
“no — don’t you move, brickett,” i hissed, “don’t move, don’t lift your hands and don’t answer back. i’m not a fighting man, as you know, but, by gosh, if you make me strike you — i’ll bash you so that no one’ll know you, except by your clothes. you hulking dog,” i went on shaking him backwards and forwards in my rage, “you let me see that lucy’s been crying again and by all there is in hell, i’ll lay you out as stiff as anyone’s been laid out in adelaide in all these days.”
he got very white and shaky, but didn’t say a word in reply, and i let him go. i had put some fear in him, however, and after that evening i had no difficulty in seeing lucy whenever i wanted her; indeed i was allowed to do exactly as i pleased.
the old man always pretended to ignore me when he saw me, but i often caught him watching me curiously when he thought i was not looking.
then there was my third self — the man at night. a beast lurking by lonely corners and in dark roads. a ghoul feasting on horrors and the smell of blood. a furtive, baleful shadow, creeping by silent pathways and where no lights were. a madman chattering to himself — a creature reckless of discovery and danger and yet — a wretch of infinite resource and cunning. a man who thought and planned — a man who played his moves as in a game of chess.
it was night only that put murder in my heart. by day i had no lust for blood. the drug i took just made me confident, so that i was not afraid of things or people. also, i could control myself, and if i wanted to keep my temper well in check, i could.
but in the dark i was a different man. directly night fell and i had taken the evening dose of paste that i was now afraid to leave off, an irresistible longing seized me to take life. to kill someone swiftly — to see him fall, and then to slink away in silence, were all happiness unutterable to me, and made of no account the attendant risks and dangers i might have to face.
the strange thing about it all to me was that my three personalities were not much interested in one another and, unless a common danger threatened all of them together, they were not much concerned with what one another did.
when in the evening i was courting lucy, for instance, i never gave a thought to my crimes by night, and when i was slinking along in the dark with my heart full of murderous hopes i gave no thought to lucy.
looking back now, it seems that i lived all my life then in compartments.
less than ten days after the old captain died i was the best-wanted man in all australia. i was on all men’s tongues and in all men’s minds.
i had horrified and shocked the community as it had never been shocked before, and there was no disguising the fact that a sort of panic had set in.
the night life of the city of adelaide was practically at a standstill and, even then, the inhabitants sat shuddering behind locked doors.
the police were blamed everywhere for their supineness, and nobody now had any security in their protection.
one evening i was near bowden station when i noticed a crowd by the station gates. a short stout man was haranguing the people viciously from the giddy elevation of an empty soap box and i gathered, as i had surmised, that my crimes by night were the theme.
he was not a very eloquent speaker, but he was a very earnest one, and in his stodgy way he brought home to his hearers what little had hitherto been done by the authorities to render the environs of the city safe for pedestrians after darkness had set in.
he had been hard hit, he told us, and didn’t know how he was going to live. he kept a billiard saloon in bowden.
“who’s a-going to come out?” he shouted to us indignantly. “who’s a-going to come out o’ nights and probably get their heads all broke for a game of billiards? who’s a-going to risk it, i says? how can you expect ’em?”
somehow his misfortune struck a chord of compassion in me and i suddenly found myself sorry for him. there seemed nothing incongruous to me about this, for, after all, i thought, what fools the police were. why hadn’t they been able to catch me? why hadn’t they, with all their organisation and their unlimited resources, been able to get the better of a poor weak and friendless clerk?
my indignation worked me up to a fine fit of temper and the billiards proprietor in due time finishing his speech with an emphatic “damn,” i immediately jumped up on to the box.
like the previous speaker i fell foul of the authorities at once, and gave it to them hot and strong. the police were fools, i said — blind fools and the whole civic administration of the city was rotten. in any emergency they at once went off their heads. they were children in their understandings and old women in their ways.
“what have they done for us?” i cried. “they have taken away our liberties and have given us not even safety in return. we mayn’t buy a reel of cotton or a packet of envelopes after six o’clock. we mayn’t have a glass of beer when we want to. yet with all their coddling over little things — with all their annoying and unnecessary interference with our rights, they can’t even guarantee to us that we may go out for a simple walk at night and not get a crack on the head as we pass down some main road or turn some quiet corner. it’s disgraceful, i say. what are the police doing with their time then? you may well ask!
“look at tonight’s paper — seventeen motorists fined for exceeding the speed limit in king william street! just fancy, seventeen awful criminals brought to the bar of justice for this dreadful offence, and yet — no mention in the paper of any arrest of the one man who is making this beautiful city of ours unfit to live in. how long is this going on and what are we going to do? we ought to take the law into our own hands — we ought to set about protecting ourselves. we ought to form our own special police from among ourselves. every suburb and every township ought to have its own vigilance society, so that we can go about in safety as we have a right to.”
i made a good rousing speech with plenty of fight in it, and the crowd well punctuated my remarks with “hear, hears,” and cheers.
directly i had finished there was an excited burst of clapping and the billiards man bobbed up again earnestly to implore his hearers that my advice be followed. he there and then offered to lend his saloon for an indoor meeting, straight away.
a moment’s hesitation and we all followed him to his place. we crowded in, about forty of us, and on the strength of my speech i was immediately voted to the chair.
i had, of course, never in my life taken the chair at any gathering before — not even at the little potty committee meetings connected with the chapel, but i had often noted and admired the dignity with which mr. stunts, the hay and straw dealer, was wont to preside over the annual meeting of the chapel chess club, and i took my cue from what i remembered of him.
i rapped the table loudly for silence, and opened with a short speech, but one very much to the point. the responsibility of being in the chair sobered me not a little, and the fierce abandon of the speech outside was lacking.
but i gave them plenty to think about and made them realise at once that the formation of a vigilance society meant work. i told them if we once started on the project we must keep it up. we must not make fools of ourselves and become the laughing stock of the regular police. we must divide our district into proper areas, particular men must be alloted to each area, and every road must be patrolled and have help at call, at any time between dusk and midnight.
i called for volunteers at once, and twenty-two responded on the second.
things moved in avalanche fashion then. a subscription list was opened to defray expenses, and i grandly headed it myself with a guinea. we formed a small committee and the meeting was adjourned until the next day, in order to give us time to get handbills printed and make our project generally known.
the next evening the saloon was simply packed, and, arriving only just on time, i had great difficulty in making my way in.
the sweets of office came to me for the first time.
“room for the chairman,” shouted wiley, the billiards man, “room for mr. peter wacks,” and the interested crowd at once gave way to let me pass. some of them started a friendly cheer and i smiled easily to them in return.
i was wearing my new suit of the same cloth as mr. william’s, and knew that i looked well. lucy’s eyes had opened wide to see me in it, and her gentle face had flamed with pleasure when i had called in on my way down to tell her what was on.
the meeting was a huge success and there was no denying that i had the audience well in hand, from first to last.
the blood of some long-dead statesman ancestor must have been stirring in my veins, i thought, to give me the dignity and the presence that i knew i showed. i was completely at my ease the whole evening. i made a happy and convincing speech and was never for a moment at a loss to know what to say. the words came tripping to my tongue every time i spoke, and i could work my hearers up to long continued cheering just whenever i chose.
i was masterful, too, and irrespective of their importance or otherwise, made every speaker keep strictly to the point.
it was arranged that a deputation should wait on the premier, and, of course, it was i who was told off to be spokesman.
i got in touch with the minister at once, and the following evening we were sympathetically received by the great man at his private residence.
he asked us very politely what he could do for us, and i laid our case emphatically and convincingly before him. i didn’t mince matters either. i told him flatly that the public generally had quite lost faith in the ability of the police to protect them.
either, i said, the police were not capable enough or not numerous enough. he smiled here, but i went on crushingly that it was an open secret in the city that they had practically had the assassin once in their hands, but had let him slip through their fingers.
the premier pulled me up at once here with a pretty assumption of surprise, and asked me, very sternly to tell him when, exactly, this slipping through had occurred.
“on the night of the second murder,” i replied, quite cocksure. “on the night when policeman holthusen was murdered on the park lands. he was killed within a few yards of his comrades, and if there be any truth in the rumors that have got about, the police were there in force on the very spot all the time.”
“oh, you mustn’t believe all you hear, mr. wacks — that would never do,” he said.
“i don’t, sir, for one minute,” i rejoined, “but i know for a fact that at one time there were at least a dozen of the police quite surrounding him, and yet he got away”— then, remembering what i had heard the policeman say when i was hiding in the ditch, i added coolly, “but you can easily verify it, sir — inspector watkins was in charge.”
“well, i can’t argue it with you, of course, mr. wacks, but now leave the police alone, please, and tell me specifically exactly what it is you want us to do.”
i told him that we thought we could help the authorities. that we thought the need justified it, and that we wanted to be enrolled as special constables, and properly sworn in.
we wanted whistles, badges, and truncheons to be provided for us, and we wanted generally to be regarded as a special auxiliary arm of the regular police.
he heard me through patiently, thanked us kindly for the trouble we had taken, and then dismissed us very politely, promising to think the matter over, and let us know the result when he had consulted his colleagues.
i wasn’t at all satisfied with the result of our interview, and bluntly told my committee so.
“he doesn’t mean to do anything,” i said. “we shall get a polite refusal in a day or two. the only thing is to go forward with our own plans.”
it happened just as i said it would. less than twenty-four hours later i received a polite communication from the premier. he had conferred with his colleagues, he wrote, through his secretary, and they considered the regular police had the matter well in hand, and he regretted, therefore, he was unable to comply with our request. he again thanked us, however, for our zeal in offering our services. i snorted in contempt.
in the meantime something of our interview had got into the newspapers, and prominence was given to my remarks about the police.
the public generally were on my side, and i found no lack of supporters in my own particular district. i am at all times a good organiser, and with the help of three or four energetic members of the committee, had soon begun to get things in order.
in a week my arrangements were all complete and, from the minute night had fallen we had every road and street in our neighborhood under proper and adequate control.
i made this known in a letter to the newspapers, and i boasted that our cordon was now so close that not even a mouse could leave or enter without its becoming known.
the chief commissioner of police silently accepted my challenge, and two nights later three of my patrols espied detective spratt hiding in a ditch. greatly to his disgust they dragged him forcibly to the guard room we had established in the billiard saloon, and he was not allowed to leave until they had sent an inspector from the police head-quarters in victoria square to identify him.
it was a delicious moment for my quickly assembled committee when the irate police inspector arrived. he was quite livid with rage, but he said very little, and just bustled his discomfited henchman into the car and rattled way.
i took care that the whole affair got into the newspapers, and great amusement was caused in the city by the publication of the details. ‘the evening express’ was very sarcastic, and the headings to its paragraphs were most funny.
‘wacks on the war path’ was one, and in smaller type underneath, ‘the vigilantes arrest detective spratt in a ditch — wacks scores again.’
the officials at headquarters did not love us by any means.
