What were you doing all this time? I was sitting on the chair.
What did he do with the body? He stripped off the clothes. He took it and threw it at the foot of the bed, doubled her up, and threw a sheet over her; he tied her head to her feet.
While this was going on, Hare continued, the two women had run into the passage, and they did not return until all was over. He then detailed the proceedings of the Saturday, as already described.
Hare’s cross-examination, however, gave rise to an animated discussion. Mr. Cockburn, senior counsel for M‘Dougal, asked him—“Have you been connected in supplying the doctors with subjects upon other occasions than those you have not spoken to yet?” The answer was—“No,—than what I have mentioned”; but the Lord Advocate objected to this line of examination. Mr. Cockburn appealed to the bench, and the witness was withdrawn while the question was being discussed. He insisted he was within his right in putting such a question, though the witness might answer it or not as he chose, but it would be for the jury to judge of the credit due to his evidence after it was seen how he treated the question. The Lord Advocate, on the other hand, contended that the caution given the witness when he entered the box precluded examination on any subject other than what was involved in the case they were trying. Authorities were again cited by both sides, and after considerable discussion, the judges pronounced an interlocutor declaring that the question might be put, but that the witness must be warned by the court that he was not bound to answer any question that might criminate himself.
Hare was recalled, and Mr. Cockburn resumed his cross-examination.
“Were you,” said the counsel, “ever concerned in carrying any other body to any surgeon?”
“I never was concerned about any but the one that I have mentioned,” replied Hare.
“Now, were you concerned in furnishing that one?” asked Mr. Cockburn.
“No,” responded the witness, “but I saw them doing it.”
“It is now my duty,” interposed the Lord Justice Clerk, addressing Hare, “to state to you, in reference to a question in writing, to be put to you, that you are not bound to make any answer to it so as to criminate yourself. If you do answer it, and if you criminate yourself, you are not under the protection of the court. If you have been concerned in raising dead bodies, it is illegal; and you are not bound to answer that question.”