The Gun Alley Tragedy: Record of the Trial of Colin Campbell Ross

by T. C. Brennan

HARDING’S STORY.

Deferring comment upon these matters for the moment, we will proceed with the evidence of the next disreputable witness—the odious Sydney John Harding, who now obtains £250 out of the reward and a free pardon for his “services to the State.”

Harding at this time was awaiting trial on a charge of shopbreaking, together with another man named Joseph Dunstan. He had a list of convictions at the time so long that he could not remember them all. He was a wife deserter, and was living in adultery with the so-called Ruby Harding. A verdict of guilty against him might almost of a certainty have been expected to result in an indeterminate sentence for him. The “key,” as it is called, has a peculiar terror for criminals. As he lay in the Melbourne Gaol awaiting trial he had a tremendously strong inducement to try and render some service to the State. Harding arrived in Melbourne from Sydney on January 4, a fugitive from justice. He was on bail in that city, and he bolted. He was arrested on the 9th, and lodged in the Melbourne Gaol. He was in the remand yard with different persons, including Ross at different times, and on the 23rd of January was in the yard with four men, again including Ross. The conversation was general for a while, he said, and then reverted to Ross’s case.

“I remarked to Ross,” he said, “that a girl named Ruby, whom we both knew, informed me that a woman was down in the female division of the prison in connection with his case. He said: ‘I wonder if it is Ivy Matthews?’ I said: ‘It could hardly have been her, for Ruby knows her, and would have told me so.’ He said: ‘I wonder what she says?’ I said: ‘Can she say anything?’ and he said: ‘No.’ I said: ‘Why worry?’” Ross and he meantime were walking up and down the yard, which is triangular in shape, while Dunstan, because he had rheumatism, was sitting under the shed on a form, “idly turning over the pages of a magazine.”

“After saying ‘Why worry?’” said Harding, “I said: ‘Did you see the girl?’ He said: ‘Yes.’ I said: ‘How was she dressed?’ He said: ‘She was dressed in a blue skirt and a white blouse, and a light-coloured hat with a ribbon band around it, and black shoes and stockings.’ I said: ‘Did you tell the detectives you saw her?’ and he said: ‘Yes, but I told them she had black boots on.’ I said: ‘Did you speak to the girl?’ and he said: ‘No.’ After a little while he said to me: ‘What do you think of the case?’ I said: ‘I do not know any of the details of the case, and, therefore, I am not qualified to offer an opinion.’ We ceased talking on that for a little while, and continued walking up and down, and then he said to me: ‘Can a man trust you?’ I said: ‘Yes; I have known you a good time, and have not done you any harm, have I?’ He said: ‘No.’ I said: ‘Did you speak to the girl?’ and he said: ‘Yes.’ I said: ‘Where?’ He said she was standing in front of Madame Ghurka’s, and she came down the Arcade, and when she got in front of his place he spoke to her, and she took no notice of him at first. He said: ‘You have nothing to be afraid of. I own this place, and if you are tired you can come in and sit down.’ I asked him what time this was. He said about a quarter to 3, or a quarter past 3, I am not sure which. I said: ‘Did you tell the detectives you spoke to her?’ and he said: ‘No.’ I said: ‘Did you take her into the cafe?’ and he said yes, she went in, and he took her into the cubicle near the counter. I said: ‘Could not any of your customers see her?’ He said: ‘No; we were not busy that day, and the customers were in the parlour.’ When he had the girl in the cubicle, he said, he spoke to her for a few moments, and then offered her a drink of sweet wine. She at first refused it, but eventually accepted it and sipped it, and appeared to like it. He said he gave her a second glass, and gave her in all three glasses. He said about this time a woman whom he knew came to the door of the cafe, and he went and spoke to her for about three-quarters of an hour, that when she left he went back to the cubicle and the girl was asleep. About this time his own girl came to the door of the cafe, and he went and spoke to her until nearly 6 o’clock. I asked him who served his customers while he was talking to the girl. He said his brother did. I said: ‘Could not your brother see the girl in the cubicle when he went behind the counter to get the drinks?’ He said: ‘No, the screen was down, and when the screen was down no one dared to go into the cubicle.’

“At 6 o’clock, or a few seconds afterwards, he closed the wine cafe and went back into the cubicle. The little girl was still asleep, and he could not resist the temptation. I asked him did she call out, and he said: ‘Yes, she moaned and sang out,’ but he put his hand over her mouth, and she stopped and appeared to faint. After a little time she commenced again to call out, and he went in to stop her, and in endeavoring to stop her from singing out, he said, he must have choked her. He further added that ‘you will hear them saying that she was choked with a piece of wire or a piece of rope, but that was not so.’ He said he picked up her hand, and it appeared to be like a dead person’s hand, because it fell just like a dead person’s hand would do. I said to him: ‘I suppose you got very excited when you realised what had happened?’ He said: ‘No; I got suddenly cool, and commenced to think.’ There was a great deal of blood about, he said, and he got a bucket and got some water from the tap, and washed the cubicle and around the cubicle, but seeing that, by comparison, the rest of the bar looked dirtier than the cubicle, he washed the whole lot. I asked him: ‘What time was this—7 or 8?’ and he said: ‘Yes, about that time.’ I said: ‘Was it before you met your girl?’ He said: ‘Yes,’ that he had time to clean himself and go for a walk around the town before meeting his girl. I asked him did he meet his girl, and he said he did. I said: ‘You took a risk, didn’t you, in meeting her?’ He said: ‘No, I would have taken a bigger risk had I not met her, because I would have had a job to prove my whereabouts.’ I said: ‘Could not she see the girl when she went into the wine cafe?’ He said: ‘No, we had our drink in the parlour.’

“He said he took his girl home at half-past 10, and caught the twenty to 11 train to Footscray. When he got to Footscray he got on to the electric tram for his home. Whilst on the tram he created a diversion so as to attract the attention of the passengers and conductor, so that he could have them as witnesses to prove an alibi. I asked him if he went home, and he said: ‘Yes.’ I said: ‘Did you come back to Melbourne by car?’ He said: ‘No,’ that he had a bike. I said: ‘A motor bike?’ He said: ‘No, a push bike.’ I said: ‘Have you a push bike of your own?’ He said: ‘No, but a man I know, who lives near us, had a push bike, and I know where it is kept.’ I said: ‘Did you go straight into the Arcade?’ He said: ‘Yes.’ I said: ‘But the gates are locked there at night.’ He said: ‘Yes, but I have a key.’ I said: ‘When you went to the Arcade did you go straight in and remove the body?’ He said: ‘No. I went in and took the girl’s clothes off,’ that he went out and walked around the block to see if there was anybody about, that he came back and rolled the body in a coat or an overcoat—I don’t know which—and carried it to the lane. I asked him was he going to put it in the sewer, and he said he did not know. I said: ‘Did you not know there was a sewer there?’ He said he did, but he heard somebody coming, and he went from the lane into Little Collins Street, and saw a man coming down from the Adam and Eve Hotel. He added that, if they tried to put that over him, he would ask what the old bastard was doing there at 1 o’clock in the morning. I said: ‘Where did you go then?’ He said he went back to the cafe. I asked him what he did with the clothes. He said he made a bundle of them, put them on his bicycle, and rode to Footscray, that when he got to the first hotel on the Footscray road he got off the bicycle and sat on the side of the road and tore the clothing into strips and bits. He went round with the bicycle and distributed the strips and bits along the road, and when he came to the bridge crossing the river he threw one shoe and some of the strips into the river, and then distributed more strips, and went down the road and down Nicholson street to the Ammunition Works, to the river, and threw the other shoe and some more strips in. He then went back and got his bicycle and rode home to bed.

“Before this I said: ‘Supposing they open the girl’s stomach and find wine in it?’ He said: ‘What do they want to open her stomach for when they know she died of strangulation?’ I said: ‘Suppose they do open it?’ He said: ‘I’m not the only one who could give her wine; couldn’t I sell a bottle of wine over the counter in the Arcade to anyone, and couldn’t they give it to her to drink?’ I said: ‘That is so.’ He then said: ‘What do you think of the case?’ I said: ‘Pretty good; have you told anybody else?’ He said: ‘No. Sonenberg told me to keep my mouth shut.’ I said: ‘Why didn’t you keep your mouth shut?’ He said: ‘I can trust you; anyhow, you are in here.’”

On the next day, said Harding, the conversation was resumed. “I asked him did he always have a screen up in that cubicle. He said: ‘No; I used the one in the parlour—the red screen.’” Ross also said (according to the witness) that there was a good deal of blood about, and on being asked by the Crown Prosecutor: “Did he say anything about the old man again?” Harding replied: “He passed the remark that this old bloke, about 70 years of age, was there, and if they put that over on him he said: ‘I will ask what he was doing there, and that he is just the sort of fellow they would pick for that sort of crime, and that they would never think a young fellow like me would do it.’”

In cross-examination, Harding was asked by Mr. Maxwell: “Did Ross tell you that, on that night, he had had hard luck in that he was seen by so many people?” “He did not,” said Harding.