It is true certain persons were brought at the trial, but could they say that they had seen me? No, not one of them: and I defy them to say it.
I am aware, as you say, that when I was asked if Peace did not follow me into the “Stag” Inn on the night before the murder, I replied that I could almost swear it wasn’t Peace. I know also that it seemed as if my evidence at that point was weak. But I didn’t want to swear a lie.
Peace had been in the habit of so disguising himself and of following me about that I should not have been surprised if it had been him. That was why I answered Mr. Lockwood in the way I did. It certainly was not Peace. Of that I am confident.
It is not true, as it was imputed, that I was in the fair with Peace on the day before my husband was shot. I simply passed along the road from the Victoria Station and looked over the wall. Neither is it true that I went with him to any dining-rooms, or to a public-house. That is a lie altogether.
The only place I called at was at Mr. Muddiman’s shop, at the top of Pinstone-street, and I went from there to the “Stag” at Sharrow.
If I were to die this minute, I am altogether innocent of seeing Peace or of having anything to do with him from the time of our going to Bannercross till the night of the murder. I cannot put the matter plainer than that, and I want it putting plainly.
As to the letters which Peace dropped on the night of the murder, I say as I have always said—that I never wrote them. They were base forgeries, and were written with an object. I cannot say whether Peace wrote them himself or whether they were written by members of his family, because they, as well as he, tried to get me into their power. But I know what the object was. It was to endeavour to compromise me.
Yet how much has been said about those letters, and how I have been maligned in regard to them! I don’t think any woman has been tried as I have, or has been compelled to go through so much. But I have been able to stand up through it all, because I have spoken nothing but the truth. If the letters were mine, the handwriting could have been easily proved. Wasn’t I tried in court about it? Didn’t they ask me not once, but twice, to give specimens of my handwriting? If the letters were mine, they could then easily have proved it.
The letters must have been manufactured for a purpose. I don’t see how else they could have come into existence. So far from writing to Peace after the murder, I never wrote to him in my life. I never heard anything about Peace from the night of the murder until Walsh came over to Cleveland to fetch me.
I was staying at my sister’s house there, and Walsh went direct to the house. When told that he had come, I knew at once what he wanted me for, and to his question whether I was willing to go back with him to give evidence against Peace, I said “I would go back if I had to walk on my head all the way.”