Arthur Conan Doyle

“ SLATER IT is impossible to read and weigh the facts in connection with the conviction of Oscar Slater in May, 1909, at the High Court in Edinburgh, without feeling deeply dissatisfied with the proceedings, and morally certain that justice was not done. Under the circumstances of Scotch law I am not clear how far any remedy exists, but it will, in my opinion, be a serious scandal if the man be allowed upon such evidence to spend his life in a convict prison. ”

“ One does not, for example, find the counsel as insistent as one might expect upon such points as, the failure of the Crown to show how Slater could have known anything at all about the existence of Miss Gilchrist and her jewels, how he got into the flat, and what became of the brooch which, according to their theory, he had carried off. It is ungracious to suggest any additions to so earnest a defence, and no doubt one who is dependent upon printed accounts of the matter may miss points which were actually made, but not placed upon record. ”

“ This is a condensation of a very interesting and searching piece of the cross-examination which reveals several things. One is Lambie’s qualities as a witness. Another is the very curious picture of the old lady, the book-maker and the servant-maid all sitting at dinner together. The last and most important is the fact, that a knowledge of the jewels had got out. Against the man himself there is no possible allegation. The matter was looked into by the police, and their conclusions were absolute, and were shared by those responsible for the defence. ”

“ It is just as probable that he had some vulgar amour, and was waiting for his girl to run out to him. What could a man who was planning murder hope to gain by standing nights beforehand eighty and a hundred yards away from the place in the darkness? But supposing that we waive this point and examine the plain question as to whether Slater was the same man as the loiterer, we find ourselves faced by a mass of difficulties and contradictions. Two of the most precise witnesses were Nairn and Bryson who saw the stranger upon the Sunday night preceding the murder. ”

“ What the police never could produce, however, was the essential thing, and that was the least connecting link between Slater and Miss Gilchrist, or any explanation how a foreigner in Glasgow could even know of the existence, to say nothing of the wealth, of a retired old lady, who had few acquaintances and seldom left her guarded flat.
It is notorious that nothing is more tricky than evidence of identification. In the Beck case there were, if I remember right, some ten witnesses who had seen the real criminal under normal circumstances, and yet they were all prepared to swear to the wrong man. ”

“ The witness Adams, who deponed that he had a better view of the man in the house than Lambie, stated at the trial that he, standing at the threshold, saw the man’s face as he approached, that their eyes met, and that the man walked slowly towards him, face to face, but Adams would not go further than to say that Slater resembled the man very much. He is superior to Lambie and Barrowman in years, education and intelligence. Your Memorialist begs to emphasise the fact that this witness had a much better view of the man than any of the other witnesses. ”

“ He resembles the man closely.”
Barrowman, the girl of fifteen, had met the man presumed to be the murderer in the street, and taken one passing glance at him under a gas lamp on a wet December’s night—difficult circumstances for an identification. She used these words in New York:
“That man here is something like him,” which she afterwards amended to “very like him.” She admitted that a picture of the man she was expected to identify had been shown to her before she came into the Court. Her one point by which she claimed to recognise the man was the crooked nose. ”

“ It must be admitted that these reasons are very unconvincing. It is much more probable that the counsel decided that the purely negative evidence which his client could give upon the crime would be dearly paid for by the long recital of sordid amours and blackguard experiences which would be drawn from him on cross-examination and have the most damning effect upon the minds of a respectable Edinburgh jury. And yet, perhaps, counsel did not sufficiently consider the prejudice which is excited—and rightly excited—against the prisoner who shuns the [57] box. ”

“ Four days later, however, upon Christmas Day, the police found themselves in a position to give a more detailed description:
“The man wanted is about 28 or 30 years [18] of age, tall and thin, with his face shaved clear of all hair, while a distinctive feature is that his nose is slightly turned to one side. The witness thinks the twist is to the right side. He wore one of the popular tweed hats known as Donegal hats, and a fawn-coloured overcoat which might have been a waterproof, also dark trousers and brown boots.” ”

“ Public feeling is also very strong on the point that the question of Slater’s character should never have been brought before the Jury.
The Memorialist thinks it is only fair to prisoner to point out that he was all along anxious to give evidence on his own behalf. He was advised by his Counsel not to do so, but not from any knowledge of guilt. He had undergone the strain of a four days’ trial. ”

“ The Jury returned a verdict of “Guilty” by a majority of nine to six, and the legal advisers of the condemned man hold a very strong opinion that the verdict of the majority of the Jury was not in accordance with the evidence led, and that this evidence was quite insufficient to identify the Prisoner with the murderer, and so to establish the Prisoner’s guilt. This view, they believe, is shared by the general public of all classes in Scotland, and by the Glasgow press [84] (vide leading article in The Glasgow Herald of 7th May, 1909, sent herewith) . ”

“ Oscar Slater was at once arrested upon arriving at New York, and his seven trunks of [21] baggage were impounded and sealed. On the face of it there was a good case against him, for he had undoubtedly pawned a diamond brooch, and he had subsequently fled under a false name for America. The Glasgow police had reason to think that they had got their man. Two officers, accompanied by the witnesses to identity—Adams, Lambie and Barrowman—set off at once to carry through the extradition proceedings and bring the suspect back to be tried for his offence. ”

“ The evidence for the prosecution really resolved itself into two sets of witnesses for identification. The first set were those who had actually seen the murderer, and included Adams, Helen Lambie, and the girl Barrowman. The second set consisted of [27] twelve people who had, at various dates, seen a man frequenting the street in which Miss Gilchrist lived, and loitering in a suspicious manner before the house. All of these, some with confidence, but most of them with reserve, were prepared to identify the prisoner with this unknown man. ”

“ Apart from what has been set forth above, your Memorialist begs to draw attention to the fact that on the Crown list of witnesses is the name of a witness, Miss Agnes Brown (No. 46) . This lady is 30 years of age, and a very intelligent school teacher. Your Memorialist is informed that she told the Police and Procurator-Fiscal that on the night of the murder, about ten minutes past seven o’clock, two men in company rushed along West Princes Street from the direction of Miss Gilchrist’s house, and passed close to her at the corner of West Princes Street and West Cumberland Street ”

“ Even on the evidence led, the votes of two more jurymen in his favour would have liberated the prisoner. In England the probability is that a conviction would never have been obtained.
Your Memorialist is authorised to state that Slater’s Counsel agree that the evidence did not justify the conviction.
Your Memorialist, who has all along acted as Slater’s Solicitor since he was brought back from [103] America after the Extradition Proceedings, and who has had very many interviews with Slater, begs respectfully to state his absolute belief in Slater’s innocence. ”

“ It was proved that it would only take a man five or six minutes [92] to run from the scene of the tragedy to this station, either by the most direct route or by the route which Barrowman’s evidence suggests he took. Then it is impossible to suppose that she could get anything like a good view, even of the side face, of a man who rushed past her in the way she described.
All the witnesses who saw the man on the night of the murder (Monday) say that he was clean-shaven. It was proved that on the next day or two after the murder Slater had a short, black, stubbly moustache. ”

“ To sum up, the only real evidence in the case is that of those who saw a man running away on the night of the murder; and, as has been pointed out, these witnesses had only a momentary glance at him. Adams does not positively identify the prisoner as the man. He says he closely resembles him.
Lambie’s New York evidence has already been referred to, and her evidence at the trial cannot be reconciled with it. ”

“ Had these people been able to pick out, as their man, from amongst several others, a man whose description they only knew from what they had previously seen of him, unassisted by description, and unassisted by a photograph, the value of their evidence would have been entirely different.
Some Crown witnesses identified him as the man they had seen and talked to (Shipping Clerk, Porter, &c.) , but they, of course, were able to do so. None of the identifying witnesses had ever spoken to him.
Identification evidence is a class of evidence which the law distrusts. ”

“ Before leaving the case it is interesting to see how far this curious crime may be reconstructed and whether any possible light can be thrown upon it. Using second-hand material one cannot hope to do more than indicate certain possibilities which may already have been considered and tested by the police. The trouble, however, with all police prosecutions is that, having once got what they imagine to be their man, they are not very open to any line of investigation which might lead to other conclusions. Everything which will not fit into the official theory is liable to be excluded. ”

“ Here it will be observed that Helen Lambie’s evidence had greatly stiffened during the three months between the New York and the [32] Edinburgh proceedings. In so aggressively positive a frame of mind was she on the later occasion, that, on being shown Slater’s overcoat and asked if it resembled the murderer’s, she answered twice over: “That is the coat,” although it had not yet been unrolled, and though it was not light grey, which was the colour in her own original description. ”

“ She left her mistress seated by the fire in the dining-room reading a magazine. Lambie took the keys with her, shut the flat door, closed the hall door downstairs, and was gone about ten minutes upon her errand. It is the events of those ten minutes which form the tragedy and the mystery which were so soon to engage the attention of the public.
According to the girl’s evidence, it was a minute or two before seven when she went out. At about seven, Mr. Arthur Adams and his two sisters were in their dining-room immediately below the room in which the old lady had been left. ”

“ Rathman, one of these witnesses, deposed that he had at the time a moustache about a quarter of an inch long, which was so noticeable that no one could take him for a clean-shaven man. Antoine, his mistress, and Schmalz, the servant, both deposed that Slater dined at home at 7 o’clock. The evidence of the girl [42] is no doubt suspect, but there was no possible reason why the dismissed servant Schmalz should perjure herself for the sake of her ex-employer. The distance between Slater’s flat and that of Miss Gilchrist is about a quarter of a mile. ”

“ The murder was committed about seven. The murderer may have regained the street about ten minutes or quarter past seven. It was some distance to Slater’s flat. If he had done the murder he could hardly have reached it before half-past seven at the earliest. Yet Schmalz says he was in at seven, and so does Antoine. The evidence of the woman may be good or bad, but it is difficult to understand how anyone could state that the prisoner was “hopelessly unable to produce, etc.” What evidence could [50] he give, save that of everyone who lived with him? ”

“ On hearing later of the murder, she connected this incident with it. Her general recollections of the man were as given in the description, and the grey coat and cloth cap of the first two witnesses were given up in favour of the fawn coat and round Donegal [19] hat of the young girl. Since she had seen no peculiarity in his walk, and they had seen none in his nose, there is really nothing the same in the two descriptions save the “clean-shaven,” the “slim build” and the approximate age. ”

“ On Tuesday, December 22nd, the morning after the murder, the Glasgow police circulated a description of the murderer, founded upon the joint impressions of Adams and of Lambie. It ran thus:
“A man between 25 and 30 years of age, five foot eight or nine inches in height, slim build, dark hair, clean-shaven, dressed in light grey overcoat and dark cloth cap.” ”