THE LIGHT IN THE SALOON.
There is one piece of evidence which causes some difficulty in that it suggests that someone was in Ross’s saloon after midnight. It is the evidence of the two Italians who swore that there was a light in the saloon at 10 minutes to 1. There does not appear to be much room for mistake in this evidence, for the Italians said they talked with one another about the unwonted circumstance of the light. There does not appear to be any reason to doubt their honesty, even though they have since shared in the reward. During argument before the Appeal Courts, it was suggested as a possibility that other persons might have gained access to the saloon. It was proved in evidence by Mr. Clarke, the Manager of the Arcade, that the door of the saloon nearer Bourke Street could be opened by inserting a knife or piece of tin between the bolts of the Yale lock and the part into which it fits, the lock being loose and the door ill-fitting. Apart from Mr. Clarke’s unchallenged testimony on this point, the fact may be accepted as being beyond controversy, for Mr. Clarke, on the eve of the trial, opened the door in the way mentioned without the slightest difficulty, in the presence of the counsel and solicitors for Ross.
This being the fact about the door, it was not altogether improbable that it would be known to some patrons of the wine saloon who were tenants of the Arcade. The suggestion made in the Appeal Courts was that other persons with a dead body on their hands, which it was urgent they should dispose of, might have bethought themselves of the disused cellars in the wine cafe as a possible hiding place. This would be the more probable by reason of the fact that it was known that the following day would be the last on which the wine saloon would be open, the license expiring with the year. It was known in fact that the police questioned, and detained for a time, at least one occupier of a room in the Arcade whose reputation was far from good. In any event, there is strong evidence that Ross knew nothing about the light in the saloon if it was, in fact, there. On the day of his arrest, he was interrogated for the third time by Piggott. Piggott said: “It will be proved that a light was burning in your wine shop on the early morning of the 31st.” Ross replied promptly: “That is a lie—a deliberate lie.” Piggott said: “It will be proved that a little girl was seen in your wine shop on the afternoon of the 30th.” Ross said: “That’s a lie.” “It will be proved that she had a glass in front of her and was sitting in the room,” continued Piggott, and again Ross answered: “That’s a lie.” And being asked if he had any explanation to give, he added: “You have got nothing over me.”
If that light had been in the wine saloon at 1 o’clock with Ross’s knowledge, he must have known, or at least have thought, that the fact might be proved by a dozen independent and reputable witnesses. If it had been a fact he would have been ready with an explanation, such as that they were dismantling the premises. But his emphatic, if not very polite, answer was: “That’s a lie.” The same remark applies to the answers in regard to the little girl being seen in the saloon with the glass in front of her. If she had been there she would, as has already been said, have been seen probably by a hundred people. But Ross’s answer to the suggestion that she was there was to brand it as a lie. And Matthews and Maddox were the only persons called to prove it was not a lie. That, however, is not the present point. We are dealing with the light in the saloon.
Since the trial a further fact has been disclosed in connection with this question which lends a great deal of support to the theory put forward by counsel on the appeals. A Sydney paper, still in its youth and advertising stage, has degraded journalism in connection with the Ross case in a way that is happily rare in the annals of the newspaper world. As Ross lay in the condemned cell, it gloated over his impending doom in a manner that showed that it did not appreciate the cowardice of kicking a man, even a criminal, when he is down. But it apparently had plenty of money to spend for the work of pushing its circulation among those who like that kind of literature. Its Melbourne representative did undoubtedly get well into the secrets connected with the working up of the case against Ross. In its issue of March 25, it had an article dealing with the preparation of the case which was clearly inspired. One paragraph referred to “another piece of unrecorded history,” as follows:
“There is a card school that assembles frequently at the Arcade, or did prior to the trial. On the night of December 30, the players dispersed shortly before midnight. They went out of the Arcade by way of Little Collins Street. Passing the wine shop, they noticed that it was lit up. But this they also noticed—that Room 33 also showed a light. The tenant was not in the room. He had lent it to a friend who was entertaining there a young woman, the daughter of a former officer of police. Ross, too, had seen the light. He must have noticed it at intervals during the evening, and watched it with despairing hope that its users would go away instead of staying on, hour after hour, spoiling his plans. At last it appeared as though the room was going to be occupied all night. Some new way had to be found. It was then that he thought of Gun Alley....”
Ross’s thoughts, it will be seen, are here set down as though the writer were recording some plain matter of fact. The suggestion is that Ross had intended putting the body in this room, but was thwarted by the unfortunate circumstance that someone, not the tenant, had got the use of it for the night. The allegation about the intention of Ross to put the body in Room 33 is taken bodily out of the supposed Matthews confession. It has no other foundation, in fact. How closely the correspondent was in touch with Ivy Matthews is shown by the fact that another number of the same paper gave the story of her life. But again we are face to face with the fact that Harding, to whom Ross is supposed to have given such minute details of the disposition of the body, has not a word to say about this unexpected obstacle. A murderer and a ravisher who was confessing his double crime was hardly likely to have boggled at admitting, if such were the fact, that he contemplated disposing of the body by putting it in another man’s room. But at least, since he gave such details of his plan for disposing of the body, and his execution of them, it is curious that he said nothing about the difficulty which the light in Room 33 created.
Again there is the remarkable circumstance that not one of the card school was produced on the trial to say that in fact there was a light in the saloon at midnight. But whatever may be the facts about a light at 10 minutes to 1, it is certain that if there was a light in the saloon at midnight, Ross was not responsible for it. If the guilt or innocence of Ross depends upon the question of whether he was, or was not, in the saloon at midnight, it may be taken to be established, as clearly and definitely as human testimony can establish any fact, that Ross is innocent. Those who heard the evidence of Patterson, Studd, and Bradley, (to be mentioned later) as to Ross going home on the last tram to Maidstone, the suburb out from Footscray where Ross lived, and had the advantage of private consultations with these witnesses, cannot entertain the slightest doubt that Ross was on the tram. Conceivably, his brother and mother, as deeply interested witnesses, were lying as to what took place after he got home, though they never wavered, and were never shaken in the slightest degree in their testimony, but as to the honesty and accuracy of the three disinterested witnesses named there can be no doubt whatever. But, even if the confessions are relied on, it should be noted that both negative the suggestion that Ross was in the saloon at midnight.
Not a word about the light in room 33 or of the observations of the card school came out on the trial. Of course, there may be no truth in the story. But, true or not, no questions concerning either were put to Ross by the detectives which would have allowed these matters to get out on the trial. This is not meant as adverse criticism of the conduct of the case. It merely illustrates what has been said earlier how events so shaped themselves as to cast all the light on Ross, and leave others, who at one time or another were suspected, entirely in the shadow.
The detectives explain the light in the one room by the theory that a stranger to the room had been given the use of it for the night for an immoral purpose; they explain the light in Ross’s room, if the newspaper account is true, by the theory that he is engaged disposing of a dead body. But if the jury had known that all night a light was burning, not only in the saloon, but in a room opposite to it, they might not have been so easily satisfied about either theory, as it is suggested the detectives were.
No insinuation is made against the fairness with which the detectives presented the case against Ross. In particular, Piggott’s account of the conversations with Ross give, with great frankness, Ross’s answers, when it would have been perfectly easy for the detective, had he desired to be unfair, to minimise the emphasis Ross put upon his denials. There are two passages in Taylor’s great work on “Evidence,” however, which are peculiarly applicable to this case. One deals with the caution necessary in considering all police evidence.
“With respect to policemen, constables, and others employed in the detection of crime,” says the learned author, “their testimony against a prisoner should usually be watched with care, not because they intentionally pervert the truth, but because their professional zeal, fed as it is by an habitual intercourse with the vicious, and by the frequent contemplation of human nature in its most revolting form, almost necessarily leads them to ascribe actions to the worst motives, and to give a colouring of guilt to facts and conversations which are, perhaps, in themselves, consistent with perfect rectitude. ‘That all men are guilty till they are proved to be innocent’ is naturally the creed of the police, but it is a creed which finds no sanction in a court or justice.”
The other passage deals with the dangers which have necessarily to be guarded against in any case depending on circumstantial evidence. Says the learned author:—
“It must be remembered that, in a case of circumstantial evidence, the facts are collected by degrees. Something occurs to raise a suspicion against a particular party. Constables and police officers are immediately on the alert, and, with professional zeal, ransack every place and paper, and examine into every circumstance which can tend to establish, not his innocence, but his guilt. Presuming him guilty from the first, they are apt to consider his acquittal as a tacit reflection on their discrimination or skill, and, with something like the feeling of a keen sportsman, they determine, if possible, to bag their game. Innocent actions may thus be misinterpreted, innocent words misunderstood, and as men readily believe what they anxiously desire, facts the most harmless may be construed into strong confirmation of preconceived opinions. It is not here asserted that this is frequently the case, nor is it intended to disparage the police. The feelings by which they are actuated are common to all persons who first assume that a fact or system is true, and then seek for arguments to support and prove its truth.”
Piggott himself admitted that the press were giving them “a pretty rough time” about their failure to effect an arrest. How “rough” it was may be gauged from one editorial in “The Argus” about three days before Ross’s arrest, which said: “As each day passes the grievous disappointment of the public at the failure of the police to track down the murderer of the child, Alma Tirtschke, grows more profound.... Even among citizens less given to displays of anger the sense of disgust is acute. The detectives and police force of Melbourne are on their trial, and no matter how exacting they may find the ordeal they must realise that the public will not tolerate failure on their part.” Being thus on their trial, with their reputation at stake, they had a tremendous incentive to try and sheet the crime home.