But there is the further fact that White cannot have said that he saw Ross speaking to “the little girl Alma,” for the simple reason that White did not know Alma. From that it follows that Brophy could not have said, if he were speaking accurately—and a detective should be accurate—that “this man saw you speaking to the little girl Alma.” If Ross had intended to refer to Alma, he would not, and need not, have inquired “What time was that?” The time would have been quite unimportant. If he had another girl in his mind, the enquiry as to the time was natural. In any case, the evidence never should have been tendered or admitted, for if it was sought to be proved that Ross was seen speaking to the murdered girl the proper way to prove it, according to the “rule of best evidence,” was to call White to prove it. And White was not called, not because he had disappeared, but because it was known that he would not swear that he had seen Ross “talking to the little girl Alma.” [Illustration] PART III. ANALYSIS OF THE EVIDENCE. In seeking to show how doubtful it is that Ross should have been convicted on the evidence, it is not proposed to go deeply into the case for the defence, and argue that the weight of testimony lay with the prisoner. It will be shown later that not one word that Ross said as to his movements was shown to be false, and that every word he did say was supported by strong evidence, but in the meantime the Crown evidence will be subjected to analysis, with a view of showing that from it it was impossible to arrive at a certain conclusion that Ross was guilty. WHY CONFESS TO MATTHEWS. Let us take first the evidence of Ivy Matthews. Suppose Ross were guilty, why should he have made a confession to this woman? They were at daggers drawn. He had cast her out of his employment with terms of the deepest insult. They had fought bitterly, through their lawyers, almost up to the date of the tragedy. They had not seen one another, much less spoken to one another, between the date she was turned out of his employment and the 31st of December. Yet on the 31st of December, according to the Matthews evidence, we have them addressing one another as “Ive” and “Colin,” and we have Ross handing his life over to the unsafe keeping of this “woman scorned.”