Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (1251 page)

Cross-examined
.
Q.
Mulling is a plasterer by trade is he not, not a paperhanger?
A.
Well, I don’t know exactly what he is; he was represented to me to be a plasterer, and I believe he is — it is not difficult-to put up paperhangings — as a business it is nothing, you may learn it in about six months — I don’t believe Mullins is a paper-hanger; not a tradesman — I have had several conversations with him about this poor old lady — I know he was in the habit of going to her place, and working for her — I was also in the habit of being employed by her — I was sorry to hear of her death, because I lose something by it; I felt grieved that a woman should be murdered in that way, and so would any man with any feeling — I did not see the prisoner from the 13th till the 15th — I saw him once or twice afterwards — I had no other conversation with him after the 5th September, that was the last; that was after the murder had been found out — the other conversation was before it was discovered — I saw him about the neighbourhood several times during that period — it was not because the carpenters had not finished their work that he did not finish the job, there were no carpenters employed — there was some patch-work to finish to the ceilings in some small houses, which was work that required to be done directly, as it puts them to inconvenience, and I expected him to do it — the old paper had not to be taken off, not as far as he was concerned.

Q.
Do you remember what sort of a hat he wore generally?
A.
Yes, sometimes a hat and sometimes a peaked cap — when I saw him about 2 o’clock on the Monday I believe he had his hat or cap on; I really cannot tell now — I never saw him wear a billy-cock hat — I have never given any information against a man named Smith about this murder — I spoke before the Coroner of the man having some quarrel with Mrs. Emsley — that was before I know anything about this charge, it was after she was found murdered — I did not give information about Smith, I merely said that he had had a quarrel with Mrs. Emsley and the matter was referred to me — she said to me, “This man wants to rob me, Mr. Rowland, of a 50
l.
note” — I said, “No, I don’t think he does” — she had detained his rent-book and he was trying to get it and seized her basket — he was a tenant of Mrs. Emsley — I know him, he is a lame man and walks with a crutch — I settled the matter between them amicably, I found that Mrs. Emsley was wrong and the tenant was right; but she made use of an exclamation, “This man wants to rob me of a 50
l.
note, and I have got it here” — I did not tell the Coroner I had important evidence to give — I said I had evidence to give respecting the customs and habits of the late Mrs. Emsley — I was not examined then; I think not till the third time.

MR. SERJEANT PARRY.
Q.
Do I understand you to say that this dispute whatever it was, between Mrs. Emsley and Smith was amicably settled?
A.
Yes, and they parted on friendly terms, at least they were both satisfied — Smith is a man of about forty-six years of age.

ISAAC TYRRELL. I live at 1, Temple-terrace, Bethnal-green — I know the prisoner, he has worked at my house, not for me — I remember his working there on Monday, 13th August, pointing tiles and repairing the ceiling of the front-room — I saw him at work on that day — he had a hammer that he was working with — he knocked the ceiling down with a hammer — this (
produced
) is something like the hammer.

COURT.
Q.
Is that the common hammer that is used by a plasterer?
A.
It is.

MR. SERJEANT PARRY.
Q.
Do you remember what time he left his work?
A.
About
6 in
the evening; it was not finished — I had not given directions as to its being finished — I had nothing whatever to do with it — he came next on the Wednesday, not before — he did not come at all on the Tuesday.

Cross-examined
.
Q.
I believe he could not finish in consequence of some carpenter’s work being required to be done?
A.
Oh, no; he could have finished — he wanted some cement for the tiles on the copper; he could have done that — I can’t say whether he got any cement that day; I did not see him — I believe there was none there on the Monday — he had other tools with him, he had a trowel — he did not leave them behind, he took them away with him, I am confident of that — there were no boards given him to be fastened down by a carpenter, not in my house — a piece of board was given him on the Thursday to put on the trap door leading to the copper — that was not finished till the Thursday; the cement was put on on the Wednesday. THOMAS PRIOR. I am barman at the Royal Oak public-house, Keppelstreet, Chelsea — On Friday, 7th September last, I bought a pencil-case of the prisoner’s wife — this is the one (
produced
) — the point of the pencilcase was bent nearly flat when I bought it — I straightened it — it was very dirty indeed — I cleaned it with rotten stone.

ANN COOPER. I am a widow living at 12, Little Orford-street, Chelsea — I know the prisoner — he, his wife and family, lodged at my house — he has five children; they left my house on 26th August — after they left Inspector Thornton came there — I saw him find a boot — I had seen that boot before; I saw it thrown out of Mullins’ window on the Sunday afternoon, as they left in the evening — it was in the dust-hole when Thornton found it — this is the boot (
produced
).
Cross-examined.
Q.
What part of the house were you in when you say this boot came out of the window?
A.
In the first-floor back room, looking into the yard — there are three rooms up stairs and two down, and a kitchen; it came out of the back parlour window — I was shaking a cloth out of the window from a young man’s table who had been having breakfast — it was not Charles Shirley, he was not in the house at that time.

COURT.
Q.
Was the back parlour a room occupied by the prisoner?
A.
That was the room occupied by him.

MR. BEST.
Q.
Who occupied the other rooms?
A.
A person of the name of Cowper occupied the front parlour — he had been there about a week — a young man named Levick also lived in the house; he left on the following Saturday — there was no other person living there — I think Cowper served in a china-ware shop, but I don’t know exactly; the other man used to drive a coal cart, his employer is a coal and coke merchant — I am sure there was no man of the name of Shirley there — I have seen a young man of that name there once or twice whilst Mullins was there.

MR. PARRY.
Q.
Who was he? did you know anything about him?
A.
I did not know much about him — I believe his father is a calenderer, a calico glazer, or something of that sort, not a plasterer — he is about twentyfive or twenty-six years of age — Mullins did not sleep at home regularly — I believe he once told me that his work laid over at Stepney, it was his habit to go out on a Monday and return on Saturday night — his wife and children were most of the time at home — I believe Mrs. Mullins used to go oat washing.

STEPHEN THORNTON (
re-examined
). I found this boot in the dust-hole described by Mrs. Cooper at the house 12, Orford-street, Marlborough-road, Chelsea — I gave instructions for a piece of the landing to be cut out on the second-floor of the house 9, Grove-road — it was done and I produce it — Sergeant Tanner actually cut it out — there is a foot mark of blood on it, of the left boot of a man, coming from the room.

WILLIAM THOMAS (
re-examined
). I was present when the piece of wood was cut out of the landing — this is the piece, it was taken from the landing on the second-floor; the top of the house.

STEPHEN THORNTON (
re-examined
). The marks on it are marks of blood — I had to wash the boot, it was in a very filthy state, it laid about two feet in the ashes — I have made a comparison of the boot with the marks on this piece of the landing — there are two nails near the too that seem to correspond exactly, and there is a licking up of the blood in the centre of the boot which appears to me a hole that would gather up the blood and leave the impression that appears to be left on that board — there is a double row of nails on the left side of the boot, and there are two nails more especially very prominent in the boot as there is on the board; if you turn the boot on to the impression you will see the two nails speak of — in washing the boot a great portion of the heel fell off; it was in a filthy state — all manner of filth had been thrown into the dust-hole.

Cross-examined
.
Q.
Did you put this pencil mark round the impression?
A.
No; I think Dr. Gill did it — I had seen the marks repeatedly — these two nails in the shoe were strong in my mind — it was that which made me bring the boot away having an idea of what such an impression would leave in the warm blood — Tanner cut the mark out — a board was previously nailed over it by one of the officers — I saw it nailed over with instructions that it should be preserved.

RICHARD TANNER (
re-examined
). The piece of wood which Thornton has produced is in the same state that it was when it was first observed at the house, with the exception of the pencil mark round it, that was made by Dr. Gill in my presence — I cut it out myself — I understand the terms billycock and wide-awake to mean the same thing — in London they are generally called wide-awakes, in Staffordshire and those parts, I have heard they are called billy-cocks.

MR. BEST.
Q.
I believe you were not at the house the first time the footmark was discovered?
A.
I was the first detective at the house, Dillon was there before me, it was pointed out to me by inspector Kerrison.

WALTER KERRISON (
Police-inspector
). I produce a knife which I found in the pocket of the deceased — I searched her pockets in the morning — I saw Dillon find a ring; this is it (
produced
) it was found between the mattress and the bed — I observed some marks of blood on the landing of the room — I called Dr. Gill’s attention to them — this is the piece of board that was cut out of that landing — with the exception of the pencil mark, it is in the same state as when I first observed it — I found nothing in the old lady’s pockets but this knife — I found no money or anything of the kind.

DR. GILL (
re-examined
). I have examined this boot with a powerful magnifying glass — I found one hair between the welt and the sole in this broken side, the best part of it was packed within the boot; I found another hair on the surface, and a third here — I am of opinion that they were human hairs — I think I can produce them now — part of them were cut up to put under the microscope, and part of them Dr. Letheby cut up.

COURT.
Q.
Do you say that they are certainly human hairs?
A.
Certainly — I ascertained that, by means of the microscope — my experience enables me to say that they are human hairs — I could tell what colour they were — they were much the same colour as Mrs. Emsley’s hair — I had some of her hair in my possession to compare the two — I compared the hairs with what I actually took from her head — they appeared to correspond in colour.

MR. SERJEANT PARRY.
Q.
You cannot of course say more than that?
A.
No one could say more than that — human hair is used for plaster and mortar; there is no doubt of that — I examined the pencil case that has been produced — I saw a spot on it which I imagined to be blood — it was on the edge — I asked Dr. Ansell to examine it with me, and we examined it together under the microscope — in my judgment that spot was blood — a microscope is an infallible test as far as regards the proof of blood — it is believed to be so.

MR. BEST.
Q.
You cannot tell whether that blood was human blood or not, I believe?
A.
Certainly not.

MR. SERJEANT PARRY.
Q.
Unfortunately at present there is no test by which you can detect human blood from other blood, is there?
A.
No.

COURT.
Q.
Where is the mark you speak of?
A.
Along the line of the opening of the pencil case; between that and the head.

ROBERT WENT (
Policeman, K 160
). After the discovery of the murder I searched the coal cellar at the house, 9, Grove-road — in the coal cellar under the coal, I found a tin box — it was wrapped up in part of a handkerchief — I found in the box 16
l.
2s. in silver, and 32
l.
in gold.

JAMES WRIGHT. I am an estate and house agent — I cany on my business in Bow-road — I called on Mrs. Emsley about some paper-hangings on Saturday, the 11th, to the best of my knowledge; the Saturday previous to the murder — I saw her in the evening about 6 o’clock — I remained with her, I dare say, an hour; not looking at the papers all the time — I went up stairs — when I first went in the passage, the charwoman who has been examined, opened the door — that was the last time I saw the old lady — there was another person in the house at the time — I saw a person sitting on the stairs — that was the person whom I saw at the Coroner’s jury — his name is Mullins — I see him here now — it is the prisoner.

Cross-examined
.
Q.
Where do you live? — in the neighbourhood?
A.
About two hundred yards from the place — I was not at the house at all on Tuesday, the 14th, I am quite positive — I do not know a man of the name of Stevenson — I am quite positive that I never entered the house after the Saturday — not at all in the afternoon of Tuesday — that I am quite positive of.