The Mayne Inheritance Read Online Free PDF

on that night. The evidence indicated that at intervals during the day he had been drinking. His later business life shows that he habitually made long-range plans and did not have too much respect for others’ property. On learning that Cox had money, it would be in keeping for him to cease drinking and begin planning. He was also a man who could not bear to be thwarted and was prone to react viciously with his fists, and on later occasions with a whip. He had neither respect for the law nor fear of it; when confronted by it, he could, if he chose, maintain an arrogant detachment.
    What is difficult to understand is the utter savagery of his attack on the hopelessly drunken Robert Cox. It seemed the act of a demented man. Carving up the body like a sheep was one thing; butchery was his daily work and he was doubtless desensitised to such routine actions.But the macabre placing of the parts with no attempt to hide his crime, flaunting them in view in different locations and then propping up the head so that it would stare at those who found it, was bizarre. Even throwing the intestines down the well was no haphazard disposal. Many houses had wells and kept such foodstuffs as meat and butter in their cool, dark depths. These foodstuffs were clearly protected by a weighted, fly-proof cover topping the well. This would have had to be removed for the Bush Inn’s meat and butter to receive their hideous decoration.
    As news of the murder spread and local folk gathered at the scene, where was Mayne? Hiding in terror at the realisation of what he had done, or remorseless and resting after a busy night? Was he agitated, or so sick with revulsion that his mind obliterated the frightful experience from his thoughts?
    Violence was part of the male culture and one could speculate on circumstances which might have triggered such brutality. If he had planned a robbery and found no money, his frustration and anger could have boiled to a pitch where he lost control. But new money did come into his hands and he must have contemplated the deed to be carrying the bone-cutting instruments.
    Evidence at the inquest strongly implied that Cox and Fyfe, who had been prisoners together, had a homosexual relationship. But even if Cox had propositioned the large, muscular, twenty-three-year-old Mayne, he was obviously not capable of more than the proposition in his drunken state. And in a rough colony with its dearth of women,where homosexuality was common, it is difficult to imagine that righteous indignation would trigger such butchery.
    Such speculation is idle. The cold-blooded murder and robbery of Robert Cox was committed by Patrick Mayne and proved rewarding. How else could Patrick, who drank the surplus of his weekly wage, afford to marry, and the following year purchase and stock a Queen Street house, shop, and butcher’s business?
    In hindsight, the evidence at the inquest clearly showed Mayne’s cunning and careful planning as he deliberately implicated the innocent William Fyfe as the murderer. It took a cool head to return a day later to the cook’s hotel bedroom and plant blood, most likely sheep’s blood from the slaughterhouse. Incompetent police work and scant knowledge of forensic science protected him. There is no evidence that Mayne recognised murder and mutilation as an immoral act; no sign of remorse. In inflicting such violent indignity on his victim was he achieving a superiority that he craved and had never had?
    Knowing of his deathbed confession, it is chilling to re-read his articulate and damningly precise testimony of his own and others’ supposed whereabouts on the fatal night. Such a calculating man would not be foolish enough suddenly to produce unexplained money. He was wise enough to hold back until public memory of all the incidental witnesses at the trial faded. He was helped in this by temporarily dropping from view.
    Good as the busy slaughterhouse was for the economyof Brisbane town,