What time was it?—It may have been—it was—any time after 10 to half-past 10, when I first seen him.
From 10 to half-past 10!—From 9 to half-past 9—any time until then.
Assuming, however, that Maddox got into the box intending to say that the time was from 9 to half-past 9, and merely made a slip, it will be noticed that the time she fixes is significant. It only conflicts with the witnesses who deposed to seeing Ross at Ballantyne’s, and is consistent with the testimony of those who swore to seeing him at Linderman’s, for it was possible, apart from the evidence, that Ross, after leaving Linderman’s, went to Jolimont. The inherent improbability that, after having been detained for eight hours by the police, and questioned about the tragedy, he should have gone to Jolimont, and should have happened, when there, to meet quite accidentally, one of the only two people in the world who say they saw the child in the saloon, would still stand out, even if the poor street-stroller’s testimony were not confuted by a host of unbroken and unshaken witnesses.
It is not going too far to describe the whole of the evidence for the defence as unbroken and unshaken. The test to which it was subjected was remarkable. The other witnesses were all out of court while a particular witness was being examined. Some deposed to all the time covered by Ross, some to part only. Their evidence locked and interlocked in a remarkable way. All were ably and severely cross-examined, but with the exception of one slight disagreement as to which two of three blankets were in the saloon—a natural mistake, seeing that all the blankets were of the same type, though differing slightly in colour—not the smallest flaw was revealed in the story told by any of them. It is true that Ross swore that, when he and Gladys Wain were in the saloon on the Friday night, the lights were out some of the time, whereas Gladys Wain swore they were alight “every minute of the time,” but Gladys Wain knew what Ross had sworn on the point, and she went into the box insisting on her right to put her own account of the matter. It was not a case of revealing a conflict by cross-examination.
The different pieces of evidence were like a mosaic which, when put together, form a complete and harmonious pattern. From its nature it was full of pitfalls if concocted. The Crown Prosecutor skilfully searched the witnesses to find some break in the completed pattern, but failed signally to do so, and the whole story stood, as every one of the witnesses stood, absolutely unimpeached before the jury. But the weakness seems to have been in the jury rather than in the story.
The criticism usually levelled against an alibi is that the witnesses are either honestly mistaken about the day or have deliberately taken the movements of another day and applied them to the vital day. The alibi, if it can be properly called an alibi, in this case was not open to either criticism. The Friday was the late shopping night, just before the New Year. It was a day that could be easily recalled after the lapse of a week or two. The Thursday following was the day that Ross had been detained by the detectives for eight hours, and was not likely to be soon forgotten by the members or friends of the Ross family. Mrs. Ross could be making no mistake about the day, because it was in regard to her son’s detention that she went to the “Age” Office. The theory that the wrong day was deliberately chosen by the witnesses involves the inference that independent witnesses, like Mrs. Kee, Mr. Dawsey, Mr. Studd, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Bradley, and Mrs. Kennedy, all took part in a conspiracy with the object of saving a man who, if guilty, did not deserve to be saved. Anyone who had the advantage of conferring with them, or of hearing their testimony in the box, could not fail to be impressed by the story they told.
ROSS’S FIRMNESS.
As far as Ross himself is concerned, he not merely stoutly maintained his innocence from the day he was arrested to the day he was hanged, but his conduct and bearing throughout was that of an innocent man. It was not tactful or amiable. It was blustering and bad-tempered, and at times aggressive. But it was, throughout, that of a sullen man, suffering under a sense of wrong.
He made a free statement to the police on the day that the body was recovered, admitting that he had seen a girl answering to the description of the murdered girl. On January 5, after, or in the course of, a detention of eight hours, he made a full statement to the police which was committed to writing. Not one word of that statement is shown to have been false, by evidence that is worth a moment’s serious consideration. A great deal of it the police did not dispute. A solid phalanx of witnesses, as has been shown, was called on the trial to bear out the statement, and not the smallest flaw was revealed by a skilful cross-examination in that long chain of evidence.
But more than that, on Thursday, January 6, the day following his eight hours’ detention and interrogation, like a man suffering from a sense of wrong and indignity at the questions put to him and the suggestions made against him, Ross went boldly back to the Detective Office and said to Piggott: “Who has been saying these things to you about me?” Piggott said: “I won’t tell you.” “Well, I want to know,” said Ross. Piggott replied: “Well, you won’t know. I never divulge where I get my information. Why are you so anxious to know?” “Because,” said Ross, “I will warm them up,” and he went so far as to tell Piggott that he did not believe anyone had told him. Piggott himself gave this in evidence. It was all very foolish and impudent on Ross’s part, no doubt. It was characteristic of his quite fearless and “cheeky” attitude throughout. But a guilty man, who had just escaped from an eight-hour ordeal with the detectives, might surely be expected to keep as far away from Russell Street as possible.