The traditional elements of the detective story tend to follow a similar pattern:
a) The seemingly perfect crime,
b) The wrongly accused suspect at whom circumstantial evidence points,
c) The bungling of sometimes dim-witted police keen to make an arrest,
d) The greater powers of observation and superior mind of the detective and
e) An often startling and unexpected conclusion, in which the detective reveals how the identity of the culprit was ascertained.
Detective stories frequently operate on the principles that superficially convincing evidence is ultimately not relevant and that the crime often masks some deeper malaise and mystery.
• What do we see and hear in the opening scene of the film as the key credits are superimposed? Why is it important to establish the mystery and the crime early on in a film or novel?
• What do we learn in these early scenes?
• Which of the characters appearing in this opening sequence of the murder in the hansom cab are immediately identifiable?
• How much (or little) do we see of the murder in the hansom cab during the film through flashbacks?
• What kind of ‘comic relief’ is provided in the film? Which of the minor characters provide a comic take on the place, pretensions and manners of Melbourne people at this time?
• What social ideal do many of the middle and upper classes aspire to?
• What is the crucial evidence that Gorby believes he has uncovered that leads to the charging of Brian Fitzgerald?
• Describe the situation in which Sal Rawlins is introduced into the story.
• How are the varied responses to poverty shown in Sal’s encounters on the streets?
• When Brian Fitzgerald refuses to supply an alibi to Calton his barrister, were you clear about why he refuses to do this?
• How are the details of the crime and the motivation gradually unfolded in the story as it is told in the film?
• What does barrister Calton suggest as the motive of the murderer?
• There is no narrator in the film and the story is not told from any single perspective. Rather, flashbacks are used to dramatically re-create scenes that are crucial to our understanding of the events – showing as opposed to telling. How do the juxtaposing of scenes from the present and the past create drama and suspense throughout the narrative?
• Explain what happens in the final scenes of the story.
Who destroys the important marriage document?
What relationship is Sal Rawlins to Mark and Madge Frettlby?
How is Sal treated at the end of the story in relation to the truth about the past? Should the truth have been revealed to everyone?
Who may have suffered most by these revelations?
Could people today get away with such generational harbouring of secrets?
How was Mark Frettlby also kept in the dark about aspects of the lives of people from his earlier life?
3. Characters
(a) The Frettlbys, their friends and other members of the aspirational class: Margaret (Madge) Frettlby, Mark Frettlby (Madge’s father), Brian Fitzgerald, Felix Rolleston, Reginald Valpy, Oliver Whyte, Roger Moreland, Julia and Dora Featherweight
• Briefly outline the profession of each of the characters present at the dinner Mark Frettlby hosts early in the story where Oliver Whyte is one of the guests. How do different individuals make their money as several people do not appear to be in regular employment?
• How do the young women pass their time and how are they supported? What appears to be their main purpose and role in life?
• What do we learn of how Mark Frettlby and Brian Fitzgerald make their money?
• How does Felix Rolleston make a living? What advice does the barrister Duncan Calton give to Brian Fitzgerald about making money in Melbourne?
• How are reputations and wealth often connected in business? In what ways are public perceptions of the ethics of a business and its owners important to its continuing growth and success?
• Why would Mark Frettlby be so appalled that his earlier relationship with another woman may now be made public?
• As everyone was an immigrant, some more recent than others, how did people such as Mark Frettlby, Oliver Whyte and Brian Fitzgerald establish themselves in a new society?
• On what did the barrister Duncan Calton and the journalist Felix Rolleston rely for their acceptance into the world of the Frettlbys?
(b) The police and the law: Detective Samuel Gorby, Detective Kilsip, Duncan Calton
There are two policemen involved in this case: Samuel Gorby who does the early spadework and comes to his own firm conclusions which lead to an arrest and the Fitzgerald trial, and Kilsip, who is rather differently presented as clever and thoughtful, working with Calton, the barrister, to find out who really committed the crime and why.
• What kind of evidence does Gorby discover that encourages him to make an arrest in the hansom cab murder case?
• What are the key pieces of evidence that lead him to his belief in the likelihood of Brian Fitzgerald having been the murderer?
• Why do both the barrister Calton and the detective Kilsip choose to pursue the case further?
• How is Calton presented in the story? (It is worth noting that Calton was a leading figure in the lead up to Federation, fourteen years after this story is set).
• What contrast is drawn in the way Gorby and Kilsip are presented? Do you think this ‘old’ and ‘new’ style of police work says anything about how the new colony is changing and perhaps becoming more sophisticated?
• What is it in Calton’s background that Brian chooses to throw at him later in the story when he tells Brian that he intends to keep searching for the killer of Oliver Whyte? What does this suggest about the value many people in colonial society placed on background and family heritage?
• Is having convict lineage now regarded as shameful in Australian society?
• Contrast the way in which the Crown Prosecutor and Duncan Calton, the defence barrister, question the witnesses in court.
(c) The women who work: ‘Mother Guttersnipe’, Sal Rawlins, The Queen/Rosanna Moore, Mrs Sampson – Brian Fitzgerald’s landlady, Mrs Hableton – Oliver Whyte’s landlady
• What occupations are women shown to be engaged in at the time of the story?
• Describe how the landladies – Mrs Hableton and Mrs Sampson – are presented in the film.
• In what ways are women from the lower classes such as Sal Rawlins shown to be able to be exploited by others?
• What role does alcohol and even drunkenness play in the story amongst people from all the classes?
• What were some of the dangers women were exposed to on a daily basis in the slum areas?
• Which organisations offered assistance to people in need?
• Would there have been any kind of government assistance to women and their children at this time?
• Fergus Hume’s original dialogue of the slum scenes was ‘cleaned up’ in later editions of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab as the language was thought to be unsuited to Victorian-era readers.
How do Sal, Mother Guttersnipe and other people who live in the slum area speak, and how is this different from the other women such as the landladies and Madge Frettlby?
2. Women’s lives in the 1880s
While several of the women in this story play a key role in the plot, it is the men who are the ones with the power. Both Madge and Sal are shown to be quite independent and strong characters, but they each need protection in what was a very patriarchal society. Men can provide protection through marriage while others can exploit women who were alone and poor. Sal Rawlins is rewarded at the end of the story for coming forward at the trial to provide an alibi for Brian Fitzgerald at the trial that saves his life. She is given a position as a maid in the Frettlby household and money that she plans to spend on what would today be described as ‘a refuge for disadvantaged and exploited women’.
• Do you think that concealing Sal’s true identity and relationship to the Frettlby family is the right thing to do given the situation at the time?
• Could such a situation ever occur today?
• Why is it much more difficult to blackmail individuals by threatening to reveal the contents of a legal document today?
• Whose interests are served by the destruction of the document containing the evidence of Sal’s true identity?
• How does this decision not to reveal all the details of the secret to everyone directly concerned reflect the highly developed class consciousness of people in Melbourne in 1886?
• What are some of the qualities of both Madge and Sal that are shown through their behaviour in the story? Does the ending of the film suggest that both Sal and Madge are aware of the nature of their bond?
• How are similar scandals and secrets dealt with in the 21st century? Is it still as easy to pay people off and hide secrets and official documents and letters as it was in the 1880s?
• Does Fergus Hume’s story demonstrate a fundamentally sympathetic attitude to the plight of many of the women in this story? Through which characters do you think the author’s views are revealed?
1. Dinner at the Frettlby Mansion two weeks before the murder of Oliver Whyte
• Who is hosting this dinner?
• Describe the guests present at the Frettlby mansion.
• How do Mark Frettlby and Brian Fitzgerald make their money?
• What does this gathering reveal about the elite society in ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ in 1886?
• What do you think the lawyer Calton means when he says, ‘once we have civility, we can achieve anything’?
• What are the visible signs of wealth and privilege in this scene?
2. The murder in the hansom cab from Whyte: ‘Cabby! Stop’ to newsboy calling out headline –
• Who can we positively identify in this scene of the murder?
• Is it possible at this stage to speculate about who held the chloroform soaked handkerchief?
3. Sal at Chinese Temple and at Salvation Army Headquarters, plus arrest of Brian Fitzgerald at his lodgings
• Where do we see Sal Rawlins go to in Melbourne and beyond after she has fled Mother Guttersnipe’s place in Little Bourke Street?
• How does Sal upset the woman working for the Salvation Army on the streets?
• Where has John Knox come from?
• How does he con Sal into coming with him?
• What does this scene reveal about the very limited choices available to women without a father or husband to protect them?
• How did Gorby manage to get into Brian’s lodging house?
• What is the piece of evidence he produces that he believes lets him make an arrest in the hansom cab murder?
4. Kilsip and Calton at Mother Guttersnipe’s
• Why does Kilsip take Calton to Mother Guttersnipe’s ‘crib’?
• Describe the contrast between the worlds of the lawyer Calton and the policeman Kilsip with the place they go to in Little Bourke Street.
• Describe some of the people lingering and soliciting on the street.
• Describe the situation in which Mother Guttersnipe holds court. What does her name suggest about her way of life and the way she is characterised in the story?
• With what valuable information do Calton and Kilsip come away?
• What information do we, the audience, learn from this encounter about the secrets and who has concealed the truth?