STRONG CORROBORATION.
Stanley Gordon Ross said that Colin arrived at the saloon about 2 o’clock on Friday, December 30. He remembered Allen being there at the time, sitting in the corner, and Lewis coming in a little after. Ivy Matthews he had not seen that afternoon, and had not spoken to since about eight or ten days before Christmas. No girl answering to the description of Alma Tirtschke was in the saloon that afternoon, or could possibly have been there without him seeing her. His brother was talking at the door for a good while that afternoon, the first person he noticed him talking to being a lady in an Assam coat, whose name he gave. Shortly after 4 o’clock he noticed Colin talking to Gladys Wain, and about 5 Gladys came into the “cubicle” (though he had never heard it called by that name before), and remained for about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. He remained in the bar until about 6 o’clock, or a little after, and Colin left before him. Stanley then locked up, went and had tea at the Commercial Cafe, in Elizabeth Street, had a shave, and came back into the Arcade at about half-past 7, and got the lavatory key. He went to the lavatory and returned the key soon after. There was no person in the saloon at this time. He returned to the saloon on the following morning, and opened it up according to custom, swept and scrubbed it out, and saw no signs of it having been scrubbed on the previous night. Early in the forenoon he was seen by Piggott and Brophy, who gave him, so he says (though this is denied by Piggott) a description of the dress worn by the murdered girl, a description which he, in turn, gave to Colin when Colin arrived soon after. Stanley and Colin were not, at the time, living in the same house, and between 6 o’clock on the Friday night and Colin’s arrival at the saloon on the Saturday morning they had not seen one another.
It is noteworthy that Stanley gave a full account of his movements to the detectives before they had seen Colin. The evidence he gave exactly agreed with the statement, except that he told the detectives that he got back to the saloon on the Friday evening at about 7, whereas in his evidence he said it was about half-past 7. He explained this very slight discrepancy by saying that he spoke offhand to the police, but that, on reckoning up afterwards the time he had spent having tea and the time he was in the barber’s saloon, he thought it would be about half-past 7 when he returned to the saloon. The cross-examination of Stanley on this point was directed to show that he had made the time half-past 7 because he had heard in the meantime that the witness Alberts had sworn that he saw Colin Ross in the Arcade at half-past 7. This was another of the incidents that pointed to the honesty of the evidence for Ross. Counsel for the defence were under the impression, owing to some misapprehension, that the answer to Alberts’s evidence was that he had spoken to Stanley, and had mistaken him for Colin, the two brothers being very much alike. Alberts, therefore, was not very strongly cross-examined on the point. He was given permission, after his evidence had been taken, to leave the court, as he had to go to New South Wales. In his evidence-in-chief Stanley was asked: “Did you talk to any person in the Arcade?” (when he returned at half-past 7). The unexpected answer was “No.” Alberts could not then be got for further cross-examination. But if the Rosses had desired to make a case on this point, they could have easily done so by getting Stanley to say that it was he who had asked Alberts for the lead pencil.
Turning to the events of January 5, Stanley said that, pursuant to a message left for him where he was boarding, he went to the Detective Office about a quarter to 7, and found that Colin was still there. He went by train to Footscray, and he came back to Ballantyne’s, in West Melbourne (the family of Mrs. Tom Ross), at about half-past 9. There he met Colin and several other persons, and about half-past 10 he and Colin and two others left the house for Footscray.
Mrs. Elizabeth Campbell Ross, the mother, said she remembered her son leaving home on Friday, December 30, after lunch. At about 7 that night he came home for tea. Her eldest son, Ronald, her married son, Tom, and herself had had tea when he arrived. She got him his tea, and he left the house afterwards with Tom. She herself left home, and went down to Footscray to do some shopping, it being the late shopping night. She returned at about 10, Ronald arrived soon after, and Colin came in at midnight and went to bed. She locked up the house and went to bed, Colin then being in his own and his brother’s room. She got up at 6, to get Tom’s breakfast at 7, and she closed the door of her son’s room, as Ronald was a sufferer from malaria, and a light sleeper. Colin and Ronald were then both in bed. She got them their breakfast later on, and Colin left to go to the cafe.
On Thursday, January 5, the detectives called and took Colin away at about 11 a.m. At about 7 o’clock, Mrs. Ross said, accompanied by her son Tom, she went to the Detective Office, calling at Mrs. Linderman’s on the way. At the Detective Office they were told that Colin had just been released. They returned to Mrs. Linderman’s, and saw there the people mentioned in Colin’s evidence. She and Mrs. Kennedy, in about an hour’s time, went to the “Age” Office, and from there she went home.