Having finished his task of scrubbing out the bar, Ross had time on his hands—still accepting the Harding narrative—to clean himself up and go for a walk before meeting his girl. Having honoured his appointment, and met his girl at 9 o’clock—though, as a tragedy had occurred in the meantime which might have been expected to, and did, in fact, cost him his life, he would have been excused for breaking it—one would have thought that he would have suggested a walk in the park, or about the streets—anywhere but back to where the stark body of the little girl was awaiting him. Had he walked down Bourke Street the alibi that he was so anxious, according to Harding, to establish would have been much better established, for he might have been seen by a dozen acquaintances, and the risk which even Harding saw he was taking would have been avoided. But no! Ross must go and sit for an hour and a half with his lady love a few yards away from the child he had foully murdered so recently, and whose body he must dispose of within the next few hours, under pain of death. CONFLICTS IN THE CONFESSIONS. Harding, so he says (and Harding “is an honourable man”) puts the question to him directly: “Could Gladys not see the girl when she went into the wine cafe?” “No,” said Ross, “we had our drink in the parlour.” This again is the exact opposite of what Matthews says he said, for Matthews makes him carry the dead body out of the cubicle into the beaded room (which is part of the parlour) in order that the cubicle may be free for his reception of Gladys Wain. It might be thought that Ross had special reasons for wanting the cubicle, as it had a couch in it, but any idea that sexual misconduct took place that night is negatived by the fact that Ross was physically unfit and that Gladys Wain knew it.