Another very important thing is now known which was not known on the trial. It concerns Olive Maddox’s visit to the saloon on the afternoon of Friday, December 30, when she is supposed to have seen Alma Tirtschke in the beaded room with a glass before her. (At this time, according to the Harding confession, the little girl was asleep in the cubicle.) Maddox, it will be remembered, said that, when she went into the saloon on that afternoon, at five minutes past 5, there were two girls whom she knew in the parlour, and one whom she did not know. She left, she said, at a quarter past 5, and returned to the saloon at five minutes to 6, but did not see either Colin or the little girl on that visit. The girl whom Maddox did not know came forward voluntarily after Ross had been condemned. She went out on the Saturday night of his conviction to Ross’s house at Maidstone and told what she knew. She was brought to Ross’s solicitor on the Monday, and made a statement as to what took place in the saloon on the fatal Friday afternoon. Her name need not now be mentioned. Suffice it to say she is a respectable girl, a tailoress by occupation, who has never been out of employment a day during the three years she has been in Melbourne. She has no relatives in Melbourne, and she used occasionally to go to the wine shop because it was in a quiet spot, and as she was on holidays at the time she remained on this occasion for over an hour, arriving before 5 and stopping until after 6. She was there when Maddox came in at about 5 o’clock, and she is positive that Alma Tirtschke was not in the saloon at the time. Maddox was under the influence of drink, and was talking excitedly to her two friends. The tailoress sat listening to her, but taking no part in the conversation, and, indeed, refusing to be drawn into it.
Maddox’s story that she left soon after coming in, and returned shortly before 6, is not true, the tailoress says—her stay was unbroken. This girl was cross-examined by Ross’s advisers before she made her declaration, and she remained unshaken in her story. If Maddox’s evidence is fabricated, her reason for saying that she left the place for three-quarters of an hour is obvious. It saves her having to explain how the murdered girl got out of the room and where she went to. This evidence of the tailoress was rejected by the Full Court on the ground that it was not shown that it could not have been procured on the trial. It was dismissed by the Attorney-General as evidence that “would not, and ought not,” to have affected the jury. It is hard to follow this observation, since if the declaration were true it proved that the main part of the case against Ross was false.
OTHER NEW WITNESSES.
There were other persons about the saloon on the Friday afternoon who are equally confident that the little girl was not there. When interrogated by the detectives on the 5th, Ross was asked who was in his wine bar when he came there on December 30, and he mentioned the name of a man named Allen, and a woman whom he did not know, but who, he said, was ordered out of the saloon by Detective Lee. Allen was one of those whom the defence was anxious to call as a new witness. Every effort to locate him before the trial failed. After the trial he was found. He says that he went into the saloon first about a quarter to 2, and saw there a man named Edwards and two other men. He remained for some time, then left, and returned again about 5 o’clock, remaining until 6. He spoke frequently to Colin Ross, heard him talking to Gladys Wain in the cubicle, but saw nothing of any girl answering the description of Alma Tirtschke. As many as fifteen and twenty people, he says, were in the bar at the one time during his stay. One of the men he saw was Thomas William Jordon. Jordon says that he came in about a quarter past 3, and remained until 4 o’clock. He, too, saw Victor McLoughlin, Allen, and Edwards. He talked with Ross frequently, saw him talking to others, and is confident that there was no little girl in the saloon during the time he was there. On January 5, the day after Ross was first interrogated at the Detective Office, he went to the Detective Office and told Piggott and Brophy what he knew. This was not denied in Detective Brophy’s affidavit. When Piggott was in the witness box he was asked as to this interview, but the question was disallowed, and Jordon was not called as a witness for the defence. Herbert Victor Edwards and Victor McLoughlin were both prepared to bear out this evidence. These four young men, though acquainted, were not of the one party. They came at different times. Some were there for an unbroken period, and some left and returned, but between them they covered the whole afternoon. They all knew Ivy Matthews, and none of them saw her, or saw Ross leave the saloon, as Matthews said he did. Two of them sat on the form, with their backs to the flimsy cubicle for some time, and they are confident that, even if the little girl had been asleep in that room, they would have heard her breathing or moving.
The line of the Crown case indicated that the detective’s view was that those witnesses were talking of the Thursday, and not the Friday. Detective Piggott, in perfect honesty, no doubt, tried to establish that fact early in the investigations. On the day that Ross was arrested he said to him (inter alia), according to his evidence: “You told me (on January 5) that Detectives Saker and Lee had put a woman out of your bar on the Friday.” Ross replied: “So they did.” Brophy, Lee, and Saker were present, and Piggott said to Lee: “Did you put a woman out of the bar on Friday?” Lee said: “No,” and Piggott said: “How do you know?” Lee replied: “Because Saker was with me, and Saker was on leave on the Friday.” Piggott then said to Ross: “Do you recognise those as the two men who put the woman out?” and he said: “Yes.” Piggott said: “But Lee says that Saker was on leave on the Friday,” and Ross replied: “Well, I must have been making a mistake; it must have been the Thursday.”
Now, it must be borne in mind that this was a conversation recalling the incidents of a fortnight previously. Piggott was not necessarily verbally accurate, and Ross, being under arrest, may have allowed himself to be “led” into his answers. The first thing to notice is that Piggott was wrong when he said: “You told me that Detectives Saker and Lee had put a woman out.” What Ross said, according to Piggott’s own account of what took place on the 5th, was that “Detective Lee” ordered her out. Saker’s name was not mentioned. But if Ross had been a guilty man, his answers would have been all ready prepared, and his candid admission, “I must have been making a mistake; it must have been the Thursday,” points to his candour rather than to his cunning.
There was no opportunity of cross-examining either Lee or Saker as to the date on which they were there, for neither was called as a witness, but there is every reason to believe that the mistake was made by them, and not by Ross. One of the four men mentioned above, who saw the incident, was questioned later on as to the possibility of a mistake. He had come from the wharf, where he had been on board a ship sailing that day, and had come thence to the saloon, and he maintains (and he maintains it in circumstances which can leave no room to impugn his honesty) that there is not the slightest doubt as to the day that he was at the saloon. One of the others had come from his factory at Fitzroy, after it had closed for the week, and though he did not see the incident, he saw the other men, and he is equally confident that it was the Friday, and not the Thursday.
THE CROWN’S NEW EVIDENCE.
When the agitation was on foot for Ross’s reprieve the Attorney-General was reported to have said that he was in possession of evidence which would convict Ross in five minutes. That statement was officially denied, but it was always maintained that the Crown were, after the trial, put in possession of facts which were most damaging against Ross. All that the present writer can say as to that is this, that he was made acquainted with the facts in the possession of the Government, and that those facts were not such as would have the slightest weight with him in confirming the guilt of Ross.
It has further been publicly said that Ross wrote to Ivy Matthews a letter which incriminated him, and that Mrs. Ross called on her and begged her not to use the letter. Matthews is said to have given the promise not to use it, and in consequence of the visit to have torn it up. This has appeared in print, but whether Matthews herself ever said it the present writer does not profess to know. Matthews’s character was bitterly assailed, both at the inquest and on the trial, and she never even hinted at such a letter. That she should have destroyed it, if she received it, is incredible, and Mrs. Ross’s answer to the allegation that she ever waited on Matthews has already been given in her own words.