Assuming, however, that Maddox got into the box intending to say that the time was from 9 to half-past 9, and merely made a slip, it will be noticed that the time she fixes is significant. It only conflicts with the witnesses who deposed to seeing Ross at Ballantyne’s, and is consistent with the testimony of those who swore to seeing him at Linderman’s, for it was possible, apart from the evidence, that Ross, after leaving Linderman’s, went to Jolimont. The inherent improbability that, after having been detained for eight hours by the police, and questioned about the tragedy, he should have gone to Jolimont, and should have happened, when there, to meet quite accidentally, one of the only two people in the world who say they saw the child in the saloon, would still stand out, even if the poor street-stroller’s testimony were not confuted by a host of unbroken and unshaken witnesses. It is not going too far to describe the whole of the evidence for the defence as unbroken and unshaken. The test to which it was subjected was remarkable. The other witnesses were all out of court while a particular witness was being examined. Some deposed to all the time covered by Ross, some to part only. Their evidence locked and interlocked in a remarkable way. All were ably and severely cross-examined, but with the exception of one slight disagreement as to which two of three blankets were in the saloon—a natural mistake, seeing that all the blankets were of the same type, though differing slightly in colour—not the smallest flaw was revealed in the story told by any of them. It is true that Ross swore that, when he and Gladys Wain were in the saloon on the Friday night, the lights were out some of the time, whereas Gladys Wain swore they were alight “every minute of the time,” but Gladys Wain knew what Ross had sworn on the point, and she went into the box insisting on her right to put her own account of the matter. It was not a case of revealing a conflict by cross-examination. The different pieces of evidence were like a mosaic which, when put together, form a complete and harmonious pattern. From its nature it was full of pitfalls if concocted. The Crown Prosecutor skilfully searched the witnesses to find some break in the completed pattern, but failed signally to do so, and the whole story stood, as every one of the witnesses stood, absolutely unimpeached before the jury. But the weakness seems to have been in the jury rather than in the story.