A MISSING LINK.
There are other features about this hair examination which call for comment. When a man is on trial for his life, he himself, his counsel, and indeed the public generally, are entitled to demand that every link in the chain connecting him with the murder shall be found in its place. It was objected on the appeal that a link was missing in the case of the blankets, since it was not shown where they were during the night preceding their handing over to the analyst. One of the learned judges in the High Court asked whether this “sinister suggestion” had been put to the detectives. With the greatest respect, it is not, in the first place, a sinister suggestion, but an elementary requirement in proof; and in the second place, it is no part of the duty of a defending counsel either to fill up gaps in the Crown evidence, or to give the Crown witnesses a lead by which they may do it. But a blow would be struck at the whole administration of justice, if once the principle were admitted, that evidence, just because it is police evidence, is not to be subjected to the ordinary tests. The principle admitted, it would soon come to be known and traded upon, and the result would be the lowering of the whole morale of the Detective Force. The logical outcome would be the transfer of the seat of justice from the Law Courts to the Detective Office. It is the knowledge that their evidence will have to run the gauntlet of the fiercest criticism and examination which the skill of the bar can bring to bear on it which helps to keep the members of the Detective Force up to their present high standard. On such a question as spiritualistic manifestations, the sceptics require the exclusion of every opportunity for fraud, even when the high priest is a man of the reputation of Sir Conan Doyle; and a prisoner under the shadow of the gallows, who speaks through his counsel, is entitled to demand the exclusion of every possibility of fraud, even when a man of the standing of Detective Piggott is in charge.
It is almost impossible to believe, apart altogether from the question of Ross’s guilt, or the question of the supposed identity of the hairs, as deposed to by Mr. Price, that the hairs on the blankets could have been Alma Tirtschke’s. As was mentioned during the legal argument, golden hairs do not shine out conspicuously on a reddish brown blanket when they are well imbedded in the fabric. Yet when Detective Piggott picked up this reddish brown blanket in the darkness of a vestibule, a fortnight after it had left the wine saloon, after it had been used for packing pictures on the day of the removal, after it had been put out to air on a line, after it had been in use for a fortnight at Maidstone—all of which was sworn to—his quick eye immediately detected “the sheen of golden hairs” on it. They must, therefore, have been lying loosely on it. It would surely have been fair that he and his men should have immediately started to pick them off—and in the presence and with the knowledge of Ross. It was hardly in accordance with the fairness with which the case was investigated throughout, to defer the picking off until the blankets had been placed, on the following day, over the screen in the Government Analyst’s room. Nothing was known by Ross of the discovery of the hairs until the evidence was given, a fortnight later, at the inquest. It is also remarkable that Piggott, who, according to his own testimony, had the case against Ross “well in hand” on December 31, never even went into the cubicle on that day to see if it would reveal anything, although he knew the place was to be vacated and dismantled on that very evening.
On the trial, evidence for the defence was given that Mrs. Tom Ross and her sister, Miss Alice Ballantyne, had gone into the cubicle on the Wednesday before the murder, and had “done” their hair in it, each letting her hair down and combing it. Alice Ballantyne’s hair bore the strongest resemblance to Alma Tirtschke’s, and leaving out the improbability of the hairs remaining on the blanket for a fortnight, it was far more likely that 27 hairs would come out under the operation of combing than that they would come out from a girl simply lying on the blanket. Something might have been said on this point by Ross had he been apprised at the time of “the sheen of golden hairs.”
It was not mere thoughtlessness that allowed the examination of the blankets to be delayed for a fortnight, for, if Ross’s supplementary statement of January 5 is looked at, it will be seen that he said on that day, in answer to a question, “I did have two blankets in the saloon. They were used as a rug or cover to lie down in the afternoons.” Thus put on his guard, one would have thought that, if Ross were a guilty man, he would have seen that the blankets did not rise up a week later to confront him. And one certainly would have thought that the detectives, if they had the case against Ross “well in hand” on the 31st, would have seen the desirability, at least on January 5, of sending out, while they had Ross temporarily in custody, and getting possession of the blankets.
There was still another fatal weakness in the “reddish brown blanket” as a link in the chain connecting Ross with the murder. When Ivy Matthews was shown this blanket, she decisively tossed it aside as not having been in the saloon in her time. Either it was, or it was not, in the saloon on December 30. If it was not, the hairs on it could not have come from Alma Tirtschke’s head. If it was, then how comes it that not one spot of blood was found on it, when, according to the Harding “confession,” the place was like a shambles, and, according to the medical evidence, there would be much bleeding? It may be suggested that this blanket was under the girl’s head, and another blanket was under her body, and received the blood stains. If so, it would, if discovered, have been the most damaging piece of evidence against Ross, and its disposal must have been a matter of the gravest concern to him. Yet although he is supposed to have given to Harding the most minute details of unimportant matters, together with a complete account of how he disposed of the girl’s dress, he never said one word about this blanket, or its disposition!