Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (1250 page)
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Authors: SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
COURT.
Q.
How far would the place be from the house No. 9?
A.
About four hundred and twenty yards as near as possible.
MR. SERJEANT PARRY.
Q.
Have you measured it?
A.
No; it is merely guess.
Cross-examined
.
Q.
You are a tailor?
A.
Yes; a journeyman tailor; not a jobbing tailor — I am a coat maker — I work for Mr. James Cook, of 63, Shorediteh — he was the last pereon — in 1847, I worked for Stevens and Clark — I have not been working for anybody since — I have been working nine years for the person who employed me — I work for him now; I am quite sure — I am not obliged to send for my work at all — I go to and for the premises for my work — I went to Scotland-yard on the Friday previous to the last examination of the prisouer — the prisoner bad been examained twice, I believe, previously to my going to Scotland-yard — I had beard of it — I read the newspapers; I had not read the account of the examination in the newspapers, never but once.
COURT.
Q.
Did you know the prison by sight?
A.
I never saw him in my life — I did not know him by name — I identified him simply by seeing the account of the examination in the papers, and I was satisfied that the man I saw come out of the urinal was the man charged with the murder — that was the way in which I imagined the case — having read the papers and seen that he was termed a plasterer by trade, and seeing the person come out of the urinal I saw that that man was a plasterer — I first saw him so as to identify him on 2d October, at the police-court in Arbour-square.
MR. BEST.
Q.
You say you saw something in the papers about his being a plasterer, did you also see a description of what he was like?
A.
No, I did not, I am quite sure — I observed that he was a plasterer by the coat he wore and the billy-cocked hat — he looked like a man engaged in that capacity returning home from his work at that hour of the nigh — I only caught a casual glance of him as he came out of the urinal — I observed his face — I did not take the trouble to count how many persons there ware in the room with the prisoner when I saw him at Arbour-square — he was among a great many more; these might have been twenty — he was not in the court, bat in a room at the door of the court — I was taken there to see if I could point out the man I saw in the urinal — he had not then got on a plasterer’s coat and a billy-cocked hat — I swore to him by his feature — I did see his features on the night in question, not longer perhaps than for two or three minutes — the man gave me every opportunity of looking at his countenance from what I was told and what I saw in the papers, I was satisfied that the man I had seen in the retiring-place was the man who was charged with the murder — I do not always notice the persons I see, but I was standing in this position (
folding his arms
) waiting to go in, and the man as he came out looked straight at me, up and down — it was not a casual glance that I had, the man gave me every opportunity of looking at his features, he seemed to be struck with my appearance — he stood and looked at me — I did not describe the appearance of the man before I went to the polioce court, not to a single person.
MR. SERJEANT PARRY.
Q.
When you went to the police-conrt was the prisoner at all pointed out to you, or did you select him from a number of other persons?
A.
I selected him instantly the door was opened — he was not pointed out to me at all.
Q.
Have you any doubt at all, on the oath you have taken, that he is the man?
A.
I know I am on the charge of murder, and that, on the part of her Majesty, if I had had the least doubt previous to my going in, I should have given the prisoner the benefit thereof — he came out of the urinal and looked me in the face — I was close to him — I had a full opportunity of seeing him.
MR. BEST.
Q.
What officer went with you into the room where the prisoner was?
A.
Serjeant Tanner — I should imagine there were from fifteen to twenty persons there — I could not positively swear there were twenty — I am positively certain there were fifteen — they were men and women, apparently prisoners, charged with various offences, waiting to go before the magistrate.
MR. BEST to RICHARD TANNER.
Q.
Did you accompany the lost witness into the room?
A.
Yes; I suppose there were about twelve or fifteen persons there — it is rather difficult to tell the number of persons really in the room — there were probably three or four men of about the same age as the prisoner — I told the witness to follow me, that there would be a number of persons, to look about him, and if he saw the prisoner to say so — he stopped me and told me that the prisoner, who was then sitting down at the end of the room, was the man he had seen come out of the urinal and turn down the Grove-road.
COURT.
Q.
Was he long in coming to that conclusion?
A.
Not more than a minute.
MR. BEST.
Q.
You have seen the prisoner on several occasions, have you ever seen him with a billy-cocked hat?
A.
I never saw him but twice before he was a prisoner — I never saw him with anything of that description.
MR. SERJEANT PARRY.
Q.
Did you in any way point out the prisoner, or suggest, or direct the witness in reference to him?
A.
No; what he did was perfectly spontaneous.
Prisoner.
Q.
Had he not the opportunity of seeing me on previous days at Arbour-square?
A.
Certainly; if he had been there.
COURT.
Q.
According to the practice would the witness be entitled to any part of the reward for giving evidence on this occasion?
A.
I think not — I have known a reward to be divided between witnesses in a case.
JOHN MITCHELL. I am a seaman — I also work at the docks — I live at Hoxton — I was working at the docks on Monday, 13th, and Tuesday, 14th August — I left my house at 4 o’clock on Tuesday morning to go to my work — on my way to the docks I passed through Stepney-green — it might be about five minutes to 5, as I was going down from the top of the Green — as I was going through the Green towards the docks I saw a man coming up the Green towards me, he was on the same side of the road as myself, the right side — there was nothing about the man at first to attract my attention, but on acloser approach he trembled — he seemed in a state of very nervous excitement — he had a flush on his cheek, he trembled, and his lips quivered — he was on the kerb and I was on the right, and he made a cross-walk and came aside of me, and as he came close to me I took my hands out of my pocket and he made a falter and trembled, and he stepped on my left and I turned round and had a look at his back afterwards — I had an opportunity of seeing his face distinctly as he came towards me — I took particular remark of all his feature — the prisoner is the man — his pockets were very bulky, particularly the right-hand pocket — I know the Grove-road — I suppose where I met the man would be about three-quarters of a mile from there — I know Barnsley-street — it would be a circuitous route to come that way from Grove-road to Barnsley-street — the Mile-end-road would be the direct way.
Cross-examined
.
Q.
I believe you were quite frightened at the man, were you not?
A.
He rather alarmed me, but he did not frighten me much; I got out of his road — I stepped on one side; seeing a man in that state, of course it alarmed me; you would have been alarmed if you had been there — he had on corduroy trousers, a brown wide-awake, and a kind of a drab tweed coat, with shooting pockets, and the pockets were loaded up to the mouth, at least the mouth gaped; there was something heavy in the bottom of them — both the pockets quite bulged out, very largely indeed — he seemed to labour under the weight he was carrying — he Seemed to labour that way that it excited my suspicion that he had done something bad — it was as though he was carrying something very bulky.
Q.
When did you give any information of what you had seen?
A.
I took no more notice of it till I heard of the murder on the Friday; I saw posted up at a newsvendor’s the atrocious murder of an old lady, but I did not know in what part of Stepney it was; and about a week after that I went through the Grove-road and made inquiry about what was the matter, and they told me that was where the old lady was murdered, and then I directly calculated that it was the party I had seen that morning — I went and gave information to the police two or three days after, at the Robert-street station — I do not know the date — I think it was the inspector I went to; he had pen and ink before him, but whether he took heed of it or not I did not know — I went and gave information on the tuesday as the prisoner was in custody on the Monday — I heard that a man had been taken into custody, and according to the description of him I took it to be the party I had seen — I did not hear a description of him from anybody, but I heard many people talking about him, and by that I thought he was the party — I did not go to see the prisoner until I saw him at the House of Detention; that was on the Saturday as he was in custody on the Monday — I then saw the prisoner — he was in his cell by himself — nobody showed him to me; the turnkey took me round and opened every door — I saw no man completely to resemble the man but the prisoner — I saw about thirty — when the door was opened he stood sideways, all the others faced out — it was not that that made me think something was not right — I knew his features again directly, by the description I gave of him — I could not be mistaken in him — I did not go by what I heard from other people — I had been talking about this with lots of other people; before the murder was discovered and afterwards — I am a dock labourer — I was brought up a seaman — I have to be at my work at six o’clock, and I have to walk four miles and a half — I belong to the transporting gang, that remove the ships from one part to another — I heard of the reward that had been offered — that was not before I gave the information — I did not do it for the reward — I expect to be rewarded for it.
MR. SERJEANT PARRY.
Q.
What opportunity had you of seeing the prisoner? — how long do you think you saw him when you met him in Stepney-green?
A.
It might be about five minutes — I was abreast of Mr. Spill’s manufactory when I saw the man coming up — he was about abreast of College-terrace — I suppose that might be
Q.
What opportunity had you of seeing his face when he came up to you?
A.
By his ghastly appearance — when I went to the House of Detention there was nobody there but two turnkeys and one gentleman — neither of those persons pointed out the prisoner to me in any way — they opened thirty cells; I went through them all and eventually selected this man — I do not know whether a wide-awake and a billy-cocked hat are the same.
STEPHEN THORNTON (
re-examined
). A billy-cock and a wide-awake are the same thing.
WILLIAM ROWLAND. I live at 25, Barnaley-street, Bethnal-green, and am a paper-hanger — I was in the habit of doing work for Mrs. Emsley — I was for some years warrant officer, at Worship-street police court — I saw Mrs. Emsley at my house on 13th August last, and paid her some money, about 2
l.
— I never saw her afterwards — I know the prisoner — I know him as working for Mrs. Emsley occasionally — I saw him on Monday, 13th, about the middle of the day, somewhere about 1 or 2 o’clock, two I think it was, in Temple-terrace, close by Barnsley- street — I did not see him again till the Wednesday — he was to do some work for me on the Monday — I gave him directions to do it and expected he would have completed it on the Monday, but he did not till the Wednesday — he did not come to work on the Tuesday — he came on the Wednesday — I saw him at the job on the Wednesday — I said nothing to him that day — he completed the work — I saw him again on the Friday — he came to me and asked me to assist him in doing some work — I said, “I cannot very well afford the time, as I have got some other job” — he said, “If you will I will come and assist you,” and he did come and assist me in the morning, and then I went to Gaffney’s, the cooper’s, and on the road I met a person who asked me, in Mullins’s presence, “Have you heard that an old lady has been murdered in Grove-road? “I said, “No, I have not, “and the party said,” I hope it is not Mrs. Emsley” — I noticed Mullins at that time — I noticed a tremor come over him, and a slight alteration of the features — I then went on with him to Gaffney’s and finished his job — I found his work was done in a very strange manner, the paper was all turned upside down, and his mode of doing things was more like a person that was imbecile than anything else — after finishing what I agreed to do for him I left, and just afterwards I heard it confirmed that it was Mrs. Emsley that was murdered — I then went back to the cooper’s where he was at work, called him out, and said, “Mullins, I want to speak to you; it is Mrs. Emsley that is murdered” — I then saw a very remarkable change in the man — he said, “Is it? come outside,” in a nervous irritable way — he seemed excited, very much indeed — he said, “Come, and have some drink” — there was a public house about two doors off, and he said, “Let us have some rum, you like rum” — I do not like rum particularly, however, I did have some with him, and then I noticed that his appearance indicated something very extraordinary; he was pale, and he shook and trembled, which gave me a notion at the time that there was something very wrong about him — I next saw him on Wednesday, 5th September, previous to the apprehension of Emm on the Sunday — I met him about half-past 8 o’clock in the evening — I said to him, “Mullins, they have not found out the murderer of Mrs. Emsley; have you heard anything of the murder of Mrs. Emsley?” — he said, “No; “Nor have I, “I said — he said he was going to get something for his supper — I said, “I am going round here; “he said, “I will walk with you” — we went into a house to see a person, but did not see him — when we came out the prisoner said, “Let us have some spirits, I want some spirits, “and we did have a small drop of gin — I then went out of the house with him and I said, “Mullins, I suspect a man very strongly, and I have got him in my mind’s eye now, and I will not lose sight of him till the perpetrator of this diabolical murder has been discovered” — he then assumed a very ghastly appearance; a pallor came over him, a death-like hue, and he said, “I suspect the man likewise, and I am watching him now” — I said, “I believe, Mullins, the man I suspect is not the man you suspect” — he then wanted to leave me, although he had said he was going my way — I said, “I thought you were going to get something for your supper?” — he said, “No, I shall not have any supper now” — then I put another question to him respecting the removal of the paper at Mrs. Emsley’s house, which had been deposited in the parlour and which was taken up into the second floor — he said, “Some man helped me to move it” — I said, “Who was that man?” — he said, “I can’t describe the man” — I said, “Why, can’t you describe the man that helped you for an hour and a half, you being an old officer?” — he said, “No, I can’t” — I said, “I can hardly believe you” — he then said, “I will leave you, I won’t go any further with you, “and there I left him — I had known him before for nearly three months — I had heard of him before that, but did not know him personally — I know Mrs. Emm — on 13th August, the very day in question, I went with her to the workhouse to see a relation of hers, an old gentleman that I have known many years — her husband was with her — we went there about half-past 6, and stopped there till it was getting dark; at that time it was dark about half-past 7; we could hardly see in the ward where the old man was lying — she remained with me the whole of the time, and Emm was there — about ten minutes past 9, that same night, they went away with a man who is here, the driver of the cart — Mrs. Emm, Mrs. Buckley, and Walter Emm, four of them, went away in the cart — I saw them depart; they were going to Stratford — they wanted me to go, but I said, no, I had other business — I saw them depart about ten minutes past 9 that same night.