him by Detective Roche, a superior officer of the force; but the connecting link, the recognition of Butler as one and the same person with the able seaman of the Swauhilda, was Machattie's notable contribution to the location of the murderer. All further doubt was from this point at an end, and the machinery was at once set in motion for the interception of the murderer before being made free of the shore at San Francisco. Roche, Machattic, and Conroy were the offi cers detached for that purpose, a task which, with many vexatious delays in carrying the case through the rather formidable compli cations of the American courts, they have successfully and most creditably accom plished, reaching Sydney with their prisoner on the 27th of April. The voyage of the Swanhilda to San Francisco was not an uninterrupted one. The S. S. Taupo, trading between the Aus tralian continent and the South Seas, came within " speaking " distance of the ship some ten days or so after her leaving port. The Taupo signalled " Have important commu nication to make." The Swanhilda at once backed her yards and waited for the coming alongside of an officer from the Taupo with a batch of Auckland (N. Z.) newspapers in his possession, in which appeared summa rized cablegraphic particulars from Sydney of the first two inquests, as well as the iden tification of Butler with the pretended Lee Wellcr. Every care was taken, and success fully, so to conceal the object of the Taupo s communication from all but Captain Fraser and his first officer, who, upon scanning the newspapers after the officer of the Taupo's departure, at once became conscious that the
Glenbrook murderer and the sham Lee Weller were one and the same person. The cause alleged throughout the ship for the Taupo's visit was that of reporting the recent discovery of some uncharted reefs. While the boat was alongside and her officer closeted with Captain Fraser, one of the crew of the Swanhilda, subsequently ascertained by his own admission to have been Butler, accosted the Taupo boat's crew over the ship's side with the query, " What do you want here?" — a query which was left unreplied to. Captain Fraser and his chief officer, with a considerable amount of nerve, decided after anxious consultation that the preferable course would be that of keeping their own counsel, at the same time to quietly keep their man under view. As the days passed they were the more satisfied with the wisdom of this course in the evident absence of sus picion in Butler's mind, being at the same time probably enough influenced by the man's efficiency as a seaman and his quiet demeanor as a member of the crew. It is evident that even upon arrival at the Ameri can port Butler was without premonition of the disagreeable surprise awaiting him, a thing not so remarkable when it is remem bered that in his own mind his precautions for obscuring his victims from the sight of men in the untrodden depths of barren and pathless mountain ranges would have secur ed to him, if not absolute immunity from clanger, at least a sufficient interval to protract discovery to a period when a new alias and a new sphere of operation would have obliterated all trace of his handi work in New South Wales. — Chambers' Journal.
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