A. “Yes, I was quite sure.”
Q. “Why did you say you were only suspicious?”
A. “It was a mistake.”
Q. “What did you mean in America by saying that you never saw his face if, in point of fact, you did see it so as to help you to recognise it? What did you mean?”
A. “Nothing.”
On further cross-examination she declared that when she said that she had never seen the man’s face she meant that she had never seen the “broad of it” but had seen it sideways.
Here it will be observed that Helen Lambie’s evidence had greatly stiffened during the three months between the New York and the Edinburgh proceedings. In so aggressively positive a frame of mind was she on the later occasion, that, on being shown Slater’s overcoat and asked if it resembled the murderer’s, she answered twice over: “That is the coat,” although it had not yet been unrolled, and though it was not light grey, which was the colour in her own original description. It should not be forgotten in dealing with the evidence of Lambie and Adams that they are utterly disagreed as to so easily fixed a thing as their own proceedings after the hall door was opened, Adams swearing that Lambie walked to nearly the end of the hall, and Lambie that she remained upon the doormat. Without deciding which was right, it is clear that the incident must shake one’s confidence in one or other of them as a witness.
In the case of Adams the evidence was given with moderation, and was substantially the same in America and in Scotland.
“I couldn’t say positively. This man (indicating Slater) is not at all unlike him.”
Q. “Did you notice a crooked nose?”