The line of the Crown case indicated that the detective’s view was that those witnesses were talking of the Thursday, and not the Friday. Detective Piggott, in perfect honesty, no doubt, tried to establish that fact early in the investigations. On the day that Ross was arrested he said to him (inter alia), according to his evidence: “You told me (on January 5) that Detectives Saker and Lee had put a woman out of your bar on the Friday.” Ross replied: “So they did.” Brophy, Lee, and Saker were present, and Piggott said to Lee: “Did you put a woman out of the bar on Friday?” Lee said: “No,” and Piggott said: “How do you know?” Lee replied: “Because Saker was with me, and Saker was on leave on the Friday.” Piggott then said to Ross: “Do you recognise those as the two men who put the woman out?” and he said: “Yes.” Piggott said: “But Lee says that Saker was on leave on the Friday,” and Ross replied: “Well, I must have been making a mistake; it must have been the Thursday.”
Now, it must be borne in mind that this was a conversation recalling the incidents of a fortnight previously. Piggott was not necessarily verbally accurate, and Ross, being under arrest, may have allowed himself to be “led” into his answers. The first thing to notice is that Piggott was wrong when he said: “You told me that Detectives Saker and Lee had put a woman out.” What Ross said, according to Piggott’s own account of what took place on the 5th, was that “Detective Lee” ordered her out. Saker’s name was not mentioned. But if Ross had been a guilty man, his answers would have been all ready prepared, and his candid admission, “I must have been making a mistake; it must have been the Thursday,” points to his candour rather than to his cunning.
There was no opportunity of cross-examining either Lee or Saker as to the date on which they were there, for neither was called as a witness, but there is every reason to believe that the mistake was made by them, and not by Ross. One of the four men mentioned above, who saw the incident, was questioned later on as to the possibility of a mistake. He had come from the wharf, where he had been on board a ship sailing that day, and had come thence to the saloon, and he maintains (and he maintains it in circumstances which can leave no room to impugn his honesty) that there is not the slightest doubt as to the day that he was at the saloon. One of the others had come from his factory at Fitzroy, after it had closed for the week, and though he did not see the incident, he saw the other men, and he is equally confident that it was the Friday, and not the Thursday.