In re-examination by the magistrate's clerk at the end of the business, the following answer was elicited,—
"I thought it was an accident before the second shot was fired."
The extraordinary part of this story, to my mind, is that the able counsel—and able he indeed was who defended him—treated the matter as the most frivolous prosecution that was ever instituted. I know that he almost laughed at the idea of murder, and, further, that the junior counsel for the prosecution treated the charge in the same manner, and said that, in his opinion, there was no case.
The man was indicted for wilful murder, and I am bound to say, after reading the depositions, I could come to no other conclusion than that he was guilty of the most cruel and deliberate murder, if the depositions were correct.
I went with the counsel on both sides to view the scene of the tragedy, and it was agreed that the counsel for the prosecution should indicate as well as he could the case for the Crown by merely stating undisputed facts in connection with the premises.
The flight of steps, as I have said, led from the courtyard to the first landing.
The door opened outwards, and the first visible piece of evidence was that some violence had been exercised in forcing open the door on the occasion of some one making his or her escape from the building, for the staple into which the bolt of the lock had been thrust showed that the door had been locked on the inside, and that the person coming from the premises must have used considerable force in breaking through.
The key was not in the lock, neither had it fallen out, or it would have been found somewhere near. It had evidently been taken out and secreted, because it was found at the bottom of a dustbin a long way off from the staircase and in the room occupied by the prisoner.
There was one additional fact at this part of the view which I must mention. A bullet was picked up near the door. It had struck the opposite wall, and then glanced off and hit the other wall close to the door.
The bullet had been fired from the landing above; this was indicated by the direction as it glanced along the wall, and, further, by the mark it had left of its line of flight from the landing above, for it had struck against the low ceiling of that spot as though the person firing had fired in a hurry and had not taken sufficient aim to avoid it. It might be taken, therefore, that the person firing was not used to firearms, or he would not have hit what might be called the ceiling.