Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/142

138 I know the prisoner. He is a member of the Melbourne Club, at which I am a waiter. I remember Thursday, 26th July. On that night the last witness came with a letter to the prisoner. It was about a quarter to twelve. She just gave it to me, and went away. I delivered it to Mr. Fitzgerald. He left the Club at about ten minutes to one.

This closed the evidence for the defence, and after the Crown Prosecutor had made his speech, in which he pointed out the strong evidence against the prisoner, Calton arose to address the jury. He was a fine speaker and made a splendid defence. Not a single point escaped him, and that brilliant piece of oratory is still remembered and spoken of admiringly in the perlieuspurlieus (environs) [sic] of Temple Court and Chancery Lane.

He began by giving a vivid description of the circumstances of the murder—of the meeting of the murderer and his victim in Collins Street East—the cab driving down to St. Kilda—the getting out of the cab of the murderer after committing the crime—and the way in which he had secured himself against pursuit. Having thus enchained the attention of the jury by the graphic manner in which he described the crime, he pointed out that the evidence brought forward by the prosecution was purely circumstantial, and that they had utterly failed to identify the man who entered the cab with the prisoner in the dock. The supposition that the prisoner and the man in the light coat being one and the same person, rested solely upon the evidence of the cabman, Royston, who, although not intoxicated, was, judging from his own statements, not in a fit state to distinguish between the man who hailed the cab and the man who got in. The crime was committed by means of chloroform; therefore if the prisoner was guilty, he must have purchased the chloroform in some shop, or obtained it from some friends. At all events, the prosecution had not brought forward a single piece of evidence to show how and where the chloroform was obtained. With regard to the glove belonging to the murdered man found in the prisoner's pocket, he picked it up off the ground at the time when he first met Whyte, when the deceased was lying drunk near the Scotch Church. Certainly there was no evidence to show that the prisoner had picked it up before the deceased