Speaker 1: Unsolved mysteries. Out of deference to people who may still
Speaker 1: be living. Character names in some of these unsolved mysteries
Speaker 1: have been changed. The fact that a man may be arrested, tried, convicted,
Speaker 1: and sentenced for the crime of murder does not, always,
Speaker 1: at least to everyone's satisfaction, mean the solution of a
Speaker 1: murder mystery. Particularly so is this the case in the
Speaker 1: trial of Oscar Slater. And to those lovers of the
Speaker 1: great character Sherlock Holmes, it must be of interest to
Speaker 1: know that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle spent seventeen years of
Speaker 1: his life trying to prove that Oscar Slater did not
Speaker 1: commit murder order that to this day is one of
Speaker 1: scotland Yards unsolved mysteries. The scene is Glasgow, Scotland, the
Speaker 1: night of December twenty first, thick, soot laden fog swirls
Speaker 1: along the dimly lighted streets, a fog so thick that
Speaker 1: it deadens even that roar of traffic which rises perpetually
Speaker 1: from Glasgow's teaming thoroughfares. Outside fifteen Queen's Terrace, a street
Speaker 1: lamp throws a gray yellow circle on the damp pavement,
Speaker 1: but inside number fifteen Queen's Terrace, an apartment house.
Speaker 2: What the deuce is? That sounds as if it came
Speaker 2: from miss Gilchrist.
Speaker 3: But miss Gilchriss could hardly making that noise.
Speaker 2: The servant Lamby could.
Speaker 4: I'm going up there. I don't like it. I'm mister
Speaker 4: Adam behaving. Lambie. You weren't, by any chance chopping wood
Speaker 4: or something upstairs?
Speaker 5: Don't know me to Adam, i'ming down to the corner
Speaker 5: for the evening piper.
Speaker 2: Who's up there coming out of missus Gilchrist's apartment by?
Speaker 6: Don't know.
Speaker 7: I never saw him before.
Speaker 4: Let's go up there. I don't like a look of things.
Speaker 4: The doors open and I.
Speaker 2: Left it closed. I don't see ascus in the living room.
Speaker 4: Oh what is it?
Speaker 6: How? What is it?
Speaker 4: Look behind the dining table?
Speaker 6: Is she deep?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: That man the man we saw heib room, stop him,
Speaker 3: stop him, Please stop that man.
Speaker 1: But the man had gone all trace of him swallowed
Speaker 1: up in the rolling bank of fog. Fifteen minutes later,
Speaker 1: the police, the examining doctor for the Crown, and the
Speaker 1: detective inspector are on the scene of the crime. How's ardent, Yes, sir?
Speaker 3: Have the boys check up every boarding house hotel everything
Speaker 3: and find out every single person who has checked out
Speaker 3: in the past hour and from now on. Yes, anything else.
Speaker 3: Check steamship passengers. Of course, pawn brokers keep a lookout
Speaker 3: for pieces of jewelry as such as you see in
Speaker 3: that photograph on the piano, that photograph of missus Giltress
Speaker 3: At once, Sir h Finish doctor.
Speaker 4: His inspector, how did the murderer get in here? Both
Speaker 4: doors can only have been opened from the inside.
Speaker 3: Let the newspaper's work got out. I'm a plice inspector.
Speaker 3: All I want is the murderer.
Speaker 1: Twenty four hours later, in the Glasgow Police headquarters, the
Speaker 1: detective inspector sits behind the table going through the massive
Speaker 1: information unearthed by his department. A sergeant of police burst
Speaker 1: excitedly into the room, a piece of brown wrapping paper
Speaker 1: in one hand, a ship's sailing and passenger list in
Speaker 1: the other.
Speaker 2: Inspector, look here, what is it?
Speaker 5: Sergeant found this wrapping paper in a flat vacated late
Speaker 5: last night.
Speaker 2: Yes, what is it?
Speaker 5: It's from a jeweler, evidently used to wrap a watch
Speaker 5: or something about that size. Name on the label Oscar Sleeper.
Speaker 4: Yes, go on slight build.
Speaker 5: Nervous, foreign looking fits a description of the murderer given
Speaker 5: by Lambi. Then this the shipping list is the Empress
Speaker 5: of Calcutta third class passage book. Next day, the day
Speaker 5: following the mud two persons Otto Sando and wife Oscar Slater.
Speaker 4: Otto Sando A good work, Sergeant.
Speaker 3: I'll cable the United States and have the New York
Speaker 3: Police hold mister Otto Sando for identification.
Speaker 1: The New York Police arrested Otto Sando, who turned out
Speaker 1: to be Oscar Slater. A month later, the prisoner were
Speaker 1: shipped back to Scotland, and in May, in the High
Speaker 1: Court of Scotland, Oscar Slater was tried before my Lord Guthrie.
Speaker 4: The witness Lamming of the stand please him, dearest one. Yes,
Speaker 4: Maud on the night of the murder, you saw the
Speaker 4: murder leave Miss gulphus room.
Speaker 2: They please your Lordship. I protest the witness is not
Speaker 2: covenant to judge whether or not the person seen leaving
Speaker 2: the murdered woman drew me's or was the murderer.
Speaker 4: I'll put the question in this manner. You would recognize
Speaker 4: the person you saw leaving Miss Gulphus's room. Yes, Milord,
Speaker 4: is he in the course, he is Lord, he is
Speaker 4: a prisoner.
Speaker 6: That is all, Learned Counsel for the defense may question
Speaker 6: the witness on behalf of the prisoner. Thank him a lord,
Speaker 6: lamb me. I wish you'd have been very careful in
Speaker 6: your answers.
Speaker 2: You say that the prisoner at bar is the man
Speaker 2: you saw leaving miss Gilchrist's flat. Yes, how do you
Speaker 2: recognize him by his features?
Speaker 4: Nothing else?
Speaker 2: I didn't understand In New York you identified the prisoner
Speaker 2: by his peculiar walk. I'm reading from your deposition taken
Speaker 2: at that time. I recognized the prisoner by the peculiar walk.
Speaker 2: I did not see his features. I did not see
Speaker 2: his speech. And your identification today is more clear than
Speaker 2: of one month ago.
Speaker 6: That is all.
Speaker 4: You may stand down, mister Adams, for the stand. You
Speaker 4: understand that the oath taken yesterday is still binding upon you. Yes, Belord,
Speaker 4: you saw the man. The Crown contends what the murderer
Speaker 4: leaving missus giltress flat?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Below is he in court?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 4: Below he is the prisoner.
Speaker 6: That is all your witness.
Speaker 4: Counsel for the defense, Adams learned.
Speaker 2: Counsel for the Crown has asked you, definitely if the
Speaker 2: prisoner at bar is the man you saw leaving Miss Gilchrist.
Speaker 2: Do you swear positively and absolutely that he is the man?
Speaker 6: I am a little near sired, my lord, I should
Speaker 6: not care to swear at this distance.
Speaker 2: Go to the prisoner, look him in the face. He
Speaker 2: is on trial for his life. Much depends upon your answer.
Speaker 2: Will you swear that that is the man?
Speaker 4: My lord, to the best of my belief, this is
Speaker 4: the man. Defense thanks the witness for his fair mindedness.
Speaker 4: He may stand down the court. The Crown rests its
Speaker 4: case upon the avidence presented.
Speaker 6: Then learned counsel for the Crown may address the jury.
Speaker 4: I thank his Lordship. You've heard these witnesses swear that
Speaker 4: the prisoner, Oscar Slater is the man seen leaving Miss
Speaker 4: Gilchris's flat. I come next to the prisoner's guilty flight,
Speaker 4: how guilty it was. An honest man does not engage
Speaker 4: passage on a vessel in an assumed name, not after
Speaker 4: the hue and cry has been raised about a brutal murder.
Speaker 4: It is always a painful duty to plead with a
Speaker 4: jury to condemn a man to death. But in this case,
Speaker 4: I say to you with.
Speaker 2: Every fiber of my being that, as counsel for the defense,
Speaker 2: I say that the Crown is not even attempted to
Speaker 2: show how the prisoner attained entrance to Miss Gilchrist's flat.
Speaker 2: The daughter of the apartment house was locked with a
Speaker 2: spring lock. The prisoner had not any means of obtaining
Speaker 2: a key. Not only that, but the prisoner, supposing that
Speaker 2: he had obtained entrance to the apartment house, had no
Speaker 2: means of entering Miss Gilchrist's flat unless she herself admitted him.
Speaker 2: And gentlemen of the jury, Miss Gilchrist was found lying
Speaker 2: before the hearth in the dining room. She would have
Speaker 2: screamed long ere that had she been afraid. And I
Speaker 2: say to you, gentlemen of the jury, that that one
Speaker 2: fact alone plays the prisoner because the murderer, gentlemen, what's
Speaker 2: someone known to Miss Gilchrist? Since she never would have
Speaker 2: admitted the murderer without protest, gentlemen, I have finished the
Speaker 2: life of a man. A human being is in your hands.
Speaker 6: The jury may retire to consider their verdict.
Speaker 4: On such evidence.
Speaker 1: Then did the jury retire to consider a verdict? Both
Speaker 1: the police and the prosecution completely ignored the difficulty of
Speaker 1: the murderer's access to the murdered woman's apartment. But the
Speaker 1: jury was absent just one hour and ten minutes. And
Speaker 1: now they are again in the jury box.
Speaker 6: Gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?
Speaker 3: We'll have maraud, We'll find the prisoner has charged guilty.
Speaker 4: My lord, may I see one verd?
Speaker 2: Will you allow me to speak?
Speaker 6: I think larded counsel for the defense should instruct his client,
Speaker 6: but it him since I shall allow him to talk.
Speaker 2: My lord, what shall I say?
Speaker 1: O murther a, poor people, I come of mine own freeville,
Speaker 1: from America. I come to defend my right.
Speaker 7: I know nothing about it. I come from America.
Speaker 2: I know nothing about this murder.
Speaker 6: Prisoner Taba, you have been found guilty of murder. You
Speaker 6: will be taken from this court room to the place
Speaker 6: whence you came, and thence to a place of lawful execution,
Speaker 6: where you will be hanged by the neck till you
Speaker 6: be dead, dead, dead, and may God have mercy on
Speaker 6: your soul.
Speaker 1: But Oscar Slater did not hang. People who saw in
Speaker 1: the case a mystery not to be solved by the
Speaker 1: mere bringing in of a verdict of guilty. Appealed to
Speaker 1: the Home Secretary and the prisoner's sentence was commuted to
Speaker 1: life imprisonment. Oscar Slater served seventeen.
Speaker 4: Years in prison.
Speaker 1: To day, he is free, absolved of the crime, and
Speaker 1: the British Government, in recognition of the miscarriage of justice,
Speaker 1: awarded him a considerable sum of money. In just a moment,
Speaker 1: you will hear a solution to the trial of Oscar Slater.
Speaker 7: The attempted to.
Speaker 1: Attempt ladies and gentlemen. Inasmuch as any solution must of
Speaker 1: necessity be supposition, liberties of time, place and characters have
Speaker 1: been taken. In this solution for which you have been waiting.
Speaker 1: We return you to the High Court of Scotland, where
Speaker 1: my Lord Guthrie, presiding at the trial of Oscar Slater,
Speaker 1: sums up the evidence before the jury. In his Lordship's
Speaker 1: summing up lies the solution as to how the murderer
Speaker 1: gained access to Miss Gilchrist's home.
Speaker 4: Farthing.
Speaker 6: The court learned counsel for the Defense has no other
Speaker 6: motion to make before the bench addresses the jury.
Speaker 4: No Malard, counsel for the Crown, has.
Speaker 6: No additional evidence. Normal As presiding judge in this case,
Speaker 6: I do not feel that it is necessary to dwell
Speaker 6: upon the seriousness of the crime or the importance of
Speaker 6: your verdict. A learned counsel for the defense has made
Speaker 6: an issue with the fact that Oscar Slater could not
Speaker 6: gain access to the murdered woman's home. But gentlemen, I
Speaker 6: would be delinquent in my duty if I did not
Speaker 6: point out to you that that was not the impossibility
Speaker 6: it seems. In the first place, it must be borne
Speaker 6: in mind that it was not a key which was
Speaker 6: required to gain admittance to Miss Gilchrist's house, that is,
Speaker 6: to open the front door. There was a speaking tube
Speaker 6: arrangement whereby the caller could speak to the inhabitant of
Speaker 6: any particular apartment. The occupant of the apartment, satisfied that
Speaker 6: he or she wished to see the caller, would then
Speaker 6: pull a release which opened the catch on the front door.
Speaker 6: This was the defense point when they maintained that the
Speaker 6: murderer must have been known to Miss Gilchrist in order
Speaker 6: to have gained the mittens. A study of human failures, though,
Speaker 6: will show that this does not necessarily apply. Undoubtedly, land
Speaker 6: be the maid, going as she did each night for
Speaker 6: an evening paper, would upon occasion forget her latch key,
Speaker 6: What then would she do? She would ring the bell,
Speaker 6: tell Miss Gilchrist through the speaking tube arrangement that she
Speaker 6: had forgotten her key, and Miss Gilchrist would then release
Speaker 6: the door catch. After this had occurred many times, as
Speaker 6: it must have over a period of years, Miss Gilchrist would,
Speaker 6: if the bell were rung immediately after Lamby's departure, released
Speaker 6: the door catch without question. This, then, was what the
Speaker 6: murderer was waiting for. The murderer undoubted he had watched
Speaker 6: the inhabitants for a period of time, and one night,
Speaker 6: a night of the murder, Lamby the maid left to
Speaker 6: get the evening paper. The murderers kept quickly to the
Speaker 6: door and rang the bell. Miss Kilchrist, thinking that once
Speaker 6: against Lamby had forgotten her key, would release the catch,
Speaker 6: leave the apartment door open, The murderer would enter, and
Speaker 6: at a few moments everything would be over
Speaker 1: And sow a judge on the bench solved the real
Speaker 1: mystery as to how Miss Guiltrist was murdered, but to
Speaker 1: this day no one knows who the actual murderer was,
Speaker 1: and to the Glasgow Police, the famous Oscar slayer case
Speaker 1: is still an unsolved mystery.