79

I.—lβ

The police have possession of, and Mr. Tasker produces to you,— 1. The fragments received by him of the Post of the 23rd from Mr. Thompson on the sth June, the day before Dr. Cahill dissected the mass. 2. The pieces received by him from Constable Carroll on the 6th. 3. The pieces picked up by Detective Campbell. Now, if you have followed me, you will see that it is mathematically proved either that the police picked up all the pieces, large and small, on the ground, or that if they got any of them from any other person that person must either be the murderer, or be able to point out the murderer. It remains, therefore, only to examine the evidence whether the large fragments of the Post of 23rd May came from the prisoner's house. 1. Mr. Thompson's evidence is clear and precise on the point. 2. They are the only large fragments of the paper of 23rd May. All the others are small pieces. Now, remember that Mr. Thompson did get some paper from Chemis's drawer, some from the pocket of his coat, and picked up some on the ground. And that you have all that paper produced ; and in three different packages. Now the packet marked "gorse," which was never in either breast-pocket, does evidently contain the paper picked up in the gorse; because it corresponds in appearance entirely with what was picked up there by Green and Wilson. Therefore, the other is the paper found in the house. I say again, some paper was found in the house, and that reaches Mr. Tasker on the sth, marked by Mr. Thompson as having been the paper taken from the house. And mark this : It matters not the slightest whether Mr. Thompson did or did not make a mistake as to which breast-pocket he put the two packets he made up in Chemis's house. He could make no mistake about what he picked up on the ground; he marked that envelope in pencil at the time, and put it in his tail-coat pocket. One of the breast-pockets contained paper taken from Chemis's coat. The other contained paper taken from the drawer. One of these packets contains the fragments of the Evening Post. And, while I cannot admit the theory that a police officer could make any mistake on so serious a matter, I am bound to point out that if he did, it is of no importance. Whether the fragments came from Chemis's pocket, or the drawer in his room, if they came from either, and you are satisfied they did, I presume you will go no further. It seems to me to end the question. I must pause to point out that the suggestion that Mr. Thompson had these fragments loose in his pocket, and got elsewhere, is impossible, unless he is himself the murderer ; because these fragments fit on to pieces found on the ground, and then again on to these pieces in the body ; and therefore, if Mr. Thompson had the fragments in his pocket, he either picked them up on the ground or got them from the murderer. Now, you will see that a number of pieces were picked up from the gorse bushes, but all pieces of paper apparently there for some time and having no bearing on this inquiry. Whereas, except the pieces of the 23rd May, sworn to have been found in Chemis's house, all the pieces of the 23rd May are minute. Now, as to the pieces picked up by Carroll, which fit precisely on to those found in Chemis's house. Five persons, excluding Healy, saw these fragments picked up on right-hand side of road. And Carroll tells you what he did with them. Unless he is a villain of the worst character, for there is no reason for mistake, you have these pieces in Mr. Tasker's possession. The same applies to the small fragments picked up by Campbell. I ask you to remember that, without the scraps from the wound, the case would have been enormously strong; because you would hay 1. On the ground paper, which it can hardly be doubted was fired from the murderer's gun, marked, as Mr. Skey says, with carbon, found near the spot where the bullet drove the knife. 2. Found in the prisoner's house the fragments to which those pieces on the ground exactly fit. The only answer to such evidence would be, " Grossest mistake, or conspiracy by the police." You add to that that the paper found in the wound, and you dispose of the possibility of conspiracy ; and then it conies to this, that unless you can conceive a series of blunders to have been made by Inspector Thompson in the memoranda made on the very day, on a matter affecting the life of the man at the bar, the case is complete. I have already examined the possibility of such a blunder, and, I think, shown it to be excluded. But if it were possible upon the evidence, it is within the bounds of credibility that Mr. Thompson could have made it. If he has erred in this case, it has certainly not been on the side of jumping to a hasty conclusion of the prisoner's guilt. But the blunders attributed to him are, and must be, that he has allowed the large fragments (marked as taken from drawer in prisoner's room) to escape into the packet marked " gorse-bushes," which was in the coat-tail-pocket and got into that envelope, and the former contents of that envelople to pass into one of the others. And that where he had taken the most diligent care to separate them, and marked each envelope carefully and particularly. ■ And that too against the evidence of your own eyes, which show to you that the papers marked "gorse-bushes" did in fact come from the gorse-bushes, and entirely correspond with those found in that place by Messrs. Green and Wilson. Examine the fitting-in of the various pieces.