AMASSIVE low pressure system was sweeping in from the Southern Ocean, tipping the scales on barometric gauges across the city. In the packed courtroom, collar, tie and jacket were de rigueur. Sweat shone on the faces of prosecution and defence alike.
Olive Maddox was next. She wore a navy frock of jersey silk. Her hat, worn well over her face, was of navy silk too, with ostrich feathers in the same shade drooping over the brim. Her gloves were grey and she had a plain gold bangle on each wrist.
Although Maddox’s evidence did not diverge from the inquest, it is worth reviewing one or two points. While her description of the girl she said she saw in the beaded room partly tallied with newspaper descriptions of Alma Tirtschke, there were curious discrepancies. One, on which Maddox insisted, was the girl’s age: 14 or 15 years. Further, Maddox said some of the girl’s hair was ‘hanging over one of her shoulders in front’, while ‘some of her hair was pinned up at the back’. But Alma was not known to have worn her hair up. As at the inquest, Maddox was handed a photograph of Alma and again she hedged, saying that on the one hand ‘the photograph has a strong likeness’, while on the other, ‘the girl I saw was different because she looked older’. She finally concluded: ‘… you could swear that the girl and the girl in the photograph were one and the same’.
Cross-examined by Maxwell, Maddox admitted that, before going to the police, she had learned Alma’s description secondhand from newspapers: ‘I am not too educated and cannot read big words so I do not get interested in the papers. I had heard the case discussed among my friends and I knew that it was a little college girl who had been murdered.’ She said she had discussed it with Ivy Matthews on 10 January, the day the increased reward of £1000 was announced in the press. Asked how many people were in the saloon when she was there, she gave an estimate of seven or eight persons who were in as good a position as Maddox to have seen Alma. Yet none of these people had come forward to corroborate Maddox’s story. Had the child been in the saloon at all?
Olive Maddox.
‘Call Ivy Matthews,’ ordered the Crown Prosecutor.
She entered, and many in the court were struck by her fashionable attire: a cream-coloured two-piece of light gabardine. Her hat was of gold tissue with curled white feathers projecting over the brim.
As Matthews stepped into the witness box the first heavy raindrops pelted the court’s roof. Between peals of thunder, Macindoe asked, ‘What are you by occupation?’
‘… Just at present I am not doing anything. I was a barmaid. I was employed by the accused at his wine cafe … until November of last year.’
Shown a plan of the wine shop, Matthews described its interior in detail.
‘Was there anything on the couch in the cubicle?’
‘Yes, a pair of blankets.’
The two blankets taken from Ross’s residence were handed up. ‘This is one,’ Matthews said of the grey–blue blanket. ‘In my time it was kept on the couch in the cubicle and was one of a pair kept there. This other one, the darkest one’—and here Matthews indicated the reddish-brown blanket—‘was not there in my time.’
During a temporary lull in the storm, Macindoe asked the witness if she remembered 30 December. Yes, she said, she remembered it well.
Macindoe: ‘Were you in the saloon that afternoon?’
Matthews: ‘I was at the door at about 3 o’clock … talking to Stan … brother of Colin Ross.’
‘Where did you see Colin Ross?’
‘He came out into the bar, from the cubicle, when I was standing at the door. As he passed through the curtains I looked across Stanley Ross’s shoulder and saw a little child sitting on a chair in the cubicle. You must part the curtains to come through—’
A sudden explosion of thunder erupted. Judge Schutt queried whether the jurors could hear; he asked the witness to speak more loudly.
‘She was a child …’
Two more thunderclaps. The rain was now coming down in torrents and Macindoe repeatedly asked Matthews to speak up. ‘The jury must hear you,’ he said. ‘What was the child like?’
After some moments, the storm eased just enough for Matthews to finish her sentence: ‘She was a child with a pretty shade of auburn-coloured hair. I did not get a very good glimpse of her the first time … Ross walked along the bar and poured out one glass of drink—I could not see what kind it was—and he walked back into the cubicle. It was then that the child parted the curtains and looked out. She had on a little mushroom-shaped hat, white, with a maroon band, like the one produced. She had it pushed back from the face. She was wearing what looked like a white linen blouse. Her hair was a sort of auburn shade, not particularly ginger. She struck me as being 12 or 13 years of age.’
‘Did you see anything else?’
All that could be heard of the reply was: ‘Ross did not speak to me nor I to him that day.’
Schutt spoke to Macindoe. ‘I can’t hear you either, Your Honour,’ replied the prosecutor.
Outside, the storm roared. To make matters worse, the roof leaked rainwater onto several of the spectators and press representatives. Proceedings were suspended for 10 minutes. Maxwell stood and suggested that the court might adjourn until the storm had subsided. The response was two loud peals of thunder.
Maxwell (jumping): ‘That is a more direct answer than I have succeeded in getting from the witnesses.’ (Laughter)
Justice Schutt: ‘Yes, it seems like an answer. This witness has not a very carrying voice, and I think we will adjourn.’
The court was adjourned at 11.45am. Between 11.00 and noon that day the Melbourne Meteorological Bureau registered a record-breaking 141 points of rain. So heavy was the downpour that houses and footpaths were flooded. In the same hour, the temperature plunged from 31°C to 20°C. The storm was among the most powerful to strike Melbourne since meteorological records commenced in 1855.
Yet throughout Ross sat quietly in the dock.
After lunch the court was lit, owing to the gloom of the unsettled weather. Ivy Matthews again entered the witness box. She continued giving her evidence in reply to Macindoe’s questions. As she proceeded, her testimony acquired new details not previously given at the inquest.
Matthews told the court that, at 3 o’clock on Saturday 31 December, she was at the Melbourne Hotel, where she read a news report of the murder of the schoolgirl. She then proceeded straight to Ross’s wine saloon.
He was busy serving behind the bar and I walked past the wine cafe door twice. I mean that I walked past and I came back again. The second time he saw me and he came to the door … I said, ‘I see about this murder; why did you do it?’ He said, ‘What are you getting at … ?’ I said, ‘You know very well what you did. That child was in your wine cafe yesterday afternoon, for I saw her.’ He said, ‘Not me.’ And with that he said, ‘People are looking at us; walk out into Little Collins Street, Ivy, and I will follow you.’
Macindoe: ‘When he came into Little Collins Street, what did he say?’
Matthews: ‘First of all he tried to make out that I had not seen the little girl.’
Justice Schutt: ‘Well, what did he say?’
Matthews: ‘He said it was not the child. He simply said: “You know I did not have that child in there.” I said, “Gracious me, I looked at the child myself, and I know it was the same child by the descriptions given,” and for a long while he hung out that this was not the child … at last he told me that … the child came to him while he was at the door, on the Friday afternoon. He said there was no business; there was no one there and he was standing at his door, and when the child came up and asked him for a drink he said, “I took her in and gave her a lemonade.” I said, “When the child came and asked you for a drink, why didn’t you take her to the bar? Why did you take her to that little room?” I said, “I know you too well. I know what you are with little children.” He said, “On my life, Ivy, I did not take her in there with any evil intention, but when I got her there I found that she knew absolutely what I was going to do with her if I wanted her.”’
This comment would be the cause of much pain to all who knew and loved Alma. The myth that victims of sexual assault are in some way responsible persists still today. None would it affect more deeply and more lastingly than Alma’s sister, Viola.
Matthews: ‘… She stayed there until about four. He said a girl named Gladys came to see him and he told the child to go through to the little room with curtains … he kept her in there until Gladys Linderman left, and he then brought her back into the little room.’
Macindoe: ‘What did he say then?’
Matthews: ‘After that he said he stayed with her during the rest of the afternoon, with the full intention at six o’clock of letting her go; but when six o’clock came she remained on. He said that after six o’clock, when Stanley went, he left us in there together … he said that between six and eight o’clock he had outraged her.’
Macindoe: ‘… Well, I suppose he didn’t say, “I outraged the child”?’
‘No, that is the hardest part of it. I cannot say it … the language he used is too foul …’
‘Will you write it down?’
‘I will try to the best of my ability to say it … He said, first of all, “After Stan went, I got fooling about with her, and you know the disease I am suffering from, and when in the company of young children I feel I cannot control myself. It was all over in a minute … ”’
Justice Schutt: ‘Is that the substance of what he said?’
‘Yes, that is the substance, and he said: “After it was all over I could have taken a knife and slashed her up, and myself too, because she led me on to it.” He tried to point out to me that, so he believed, she went there for an immoral purpose. That is what he said to me. That is what he tried to imply to my mind.’
‘Can you remember his words?’
‘I can remember them, but I do not know that I should say them here.’
‘You must either say it or write it down.’
Macindoe handed Matthews a paper and pencil. Concealing her features with a gloved hand, Matthews then wrote some words on the paper and handed it to Macindoe. After perusing the paper, he said: ‘But you have left blank the one word that we want.’
Matthews, after writing in the word asked for, broke down and wept silently. The words on the paper were not read out to the court. Never previously disclosed, they were: He said you know what a kid means to me Ivy. I had fucked her before I knew what I had done. She played about with me through the afternoon and that she had been well fucked before I got to her.
Matthews continued: ‘After it had happened … [h]e took the body of the little girl and put it into the beaded room, and left it wrapped up in a blanket, and at 9 o’clock, or half-past nine, he brought a girl named Gladys Linderman there. She stayed until 10 o’clock. He took her home … and came back between ten and half past … and removed the body from the beaded room into the small room off the bar … He then went to Footscray by train, but came back again between 1 and 2am. He looked for a place to put the body … He said, “I did the very best thing. I put it in the street.”’
Macindoe: ‘Did he tell you at any time how the girl had died?’
Matthews: ‘… He said he strangled her in his passion. He said he heard or saw … they were saying a cord had been round the child’s neck. He said that was not so, [that] she was dead before he knew where he was. That was just his words to me.’
The defence’s cross-examination of Matthews was intended to test her credibility, and proved to be tempestuous.
Brennan: ‘You have not told us where you are living, Mrs Matthews?’
Matthews (appealing to the judge): ‘Is it necessary for me to say where I live?’
Justice Schutt: ‘I don’t see why you should not.’
Matthews: ‘I should say that I prefer to be called Miss Matthews. And I am living at 25 Rathdowne Street, Carlton.’
Brennan: ‘Why the hesitation? What harm was there in saying where you live?’
‘No harm at all. But I hardly think it necessary to bring in where I live in this court.’
‘Who else lives with you in the same house?’
‘About 25 different people.’
‘It’s a boardinghouse then?’
‘It is both a boardinghouse and an apartment house—about half and half.’
‘Amongst the people there, is there a woman named Julia Gibson?’
‘She is the proprietress.’
‘Is the name Julia Gibson another name—the right one—of a person who goes by the name of Madame Ghurka?’
‘I don’t feel called upon to answer for the names Mrs Gibson assumes. That has nothing to do with me.’
‘That is not for you to say. You are not the judge of what is or what is not necessary in this court.’
‘I know her only as the proprietress of my boardinghouse.’
Pressed further, Matthews admitted that she knew Mrs Gibson and Madame Ghurka were identical and that she had spoken to her a few times at the arcade.
Brennan: ‘You have given today an account of your conversation with Colin Ross?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you gave an account at the inquest?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you conscious of anything important you said today that you did not say at the inquest?’
‘Perhaps I had not been asked.’
‘You will remember that you were not asked today. Did you mention the name of Gladys Wain?’
‘I know her as Linderman. I don’t know that I mentioned her.’
‘You know of course the evidence that Olive Maddox gave at the inquest.’
‘Yes, through the papers.’
‘You know that Olive Maddox said she saw a girl answering to that description in that cafe?’
‘She said that to me. I don’t know what she said at the inquest.’
‘Do you know that at the inquest Olive Maddox did say that she saw the little girl in that place?’
‘She told me that.’
‘Did you say at the inquest one word about Colin saying that after Stanley left these things happened?’
‘No.’
‘Did you say one word about Colin having said he shifted the body from the cubicle into a little room, left it there, and then took it back again?’
‘No.’
‘Did you intentionally omit that?’
‘No. I answered Mr Sonenberg’s questions. I think you will find I said more then than here.’
‘During the time [you were employed by Ross], were you in any way friendly with Madame Ghurka?’
‘I would not say friendly. I would pass the time of day with her.’
‘Did you go to reside in the same house with her?’
‘Yes, about a week after I left Ross.’
‘Your relations with the accused, as far as you were concerned, were on a purely business basis and quite respectful toward one another?’
‘That is so.’
‘He hardly treated you with respect when he used the words you have written down.’
‘He gave me every respect a man could give a woman.’
‘You parted in bitterness when you left the wine shop?’
‘Not with him but with the family.’
‘You had litigation pending against accused?’
‘Does that require bitterness?’
‘You can examine me on that when you get an opportunity. Did you instruct your solicitors to write to accused claiming one week’s wages and a share in the business?’
Matthews admitted this, adding that a protracted correspondence then ensued between her solicitor and Ross over these matters. Although Matthews said that she and Ross had never spoken from the day she left his employ until the day she spoke to him about the tragedy, she still denied that there was any ill-feeling between them.
Brennan: ‘Is your name Ivy Florence Matthews?’
‘To the best of my belief it is.’
‘Is that your baptismal name?’
‘I will not have my parents’ name dragged in.’
‘Is your married or single name Matthews?’
‘Absolutely I decline to tell you.’
‘Before I appeal to His Honour I will tell you this to show we are fighting fair. I put it to you that you are not married and that you have received money from persons you alleged to have been your husband, and that both in this and other proceedings you have declined to give your name because you are not a married woman. Were you ever married?’
‘I am a married woman.’
‘Where were you married?’
‘I decline to tell you.’
‘Were you married in this or another State?’
‘I decline to tell you.’
‘Do you decline to tell me your husband’s name?’
‘I do. My husband is an invalid and I will not divulge his name. (With great emotion:) Do you think it is fair to stand there and catechise me—’
The judge intervened to restrain the witness who had risen indignantly from her seat in the witness box and was speaking in excited tones.
Brennan: ‘Did you ever go under the name of Ivy Sutton?’
‘I may have.’
‘Are you not sure?’
‘I may have.’
‘Have you ever gone under the name of Ivy Dolan?’
‘I may have.’
‘Did you ever work at Cameron’s tobacco factory under the name of Ivy Marshall?’
‘Not under that name.’
‘Did you ever work at Cameron’s tobacco factory at all?’
‘I may have.’
Asked whether there was any reason for not replying, Matthews said, ‘It may be necessary to find employment and I don’t think it’s a fair thing. In the last court I said I worked for five years at Charles M Read’s and Love and Lewis’s and I have had letters from some firms that have asked me not to say where I worked. I have given my word.’
Brennan: ‘But you had said at the lower court that you had given Colin Ross your word—’
Matthews (rising from her chair and speaking excitedly): ‘Would you expect me to keep my word in such a case as that?’
Brennan: ‘Are you drawing pensions on account of any persons who were at the war?’
‘I may be doing so.’
Justice Schutt: ‘You must answer the questions.’
Matthews: ‘I have five brothers. I have drawn pensions for them at different times.’
Brennan: ‘Have you drawn any for your own benefit?’
‘I absolutely decline to say anything about the pensions I have drawn.’
Brennan: ‘You are married?’
(Weeping) ‘You think that I am not but I am.’
‘Why did you take all those different names?’
‘Well, for the next ten years I will be taking different names on account of this case. Did I acknowledge I had taken all those names?’
‘What did you say then?’
‘I said I may or may not have taken them.’
Brennan took the witness over the list of names again and to each she answered: ‘I cannot tell you.’
Brennan: ‘Your Honour, you see what type of witness she is.’
Justice Schutt: ‘What I may or may not see is another matter.’ (To witness:) ‘You must answer the questions.’
Matthews: ‘I’ll have to say that I don’t remember. I decline to say what my name is, or my husband’s name, particularly.’
Brennan: ‘Do you remember being questioned by the police when you were going under the name of Marshall?’
‘I cannot answer.’
‘I am only asking because it will be put to the jury that you are untruthful.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Do you still decline to answer those questions I put to you?’
‘Yes, I absolutely decline to answer any questions. I leave it to the jury.’
Matthews’s credibility should now have been seriously in question. Yet Brennan was becoming gradually aware that instead she was attracting sympathy. Her appearance and tearful demonstrations were diverting attention from the lack of substance in her testimony. The sudden appearance of new detail in her account of Ross’s alleged confession was particularly suspicious, as it consisted of information which had been reported in the newspapers between inquest and trial.
The location at which Ross was supposed to have confessed to Matthews had also altered. At the inquest, Matthews said their conversation began in Little Collins Street—at the end of the arcade—and was resumed a short distance from the end of the arcade, but still in the street. At the trial Matthews claimed it began at the door of the saloon, then resumed, when Ross suggested people were looking, out in Little Collins Street.
In his subsequent book on the case Brennan noted: ‘The significance of this change will not be realised unless it is disclosed that just prior to the trial, notice was served on the defence that it was proposed to call as a witness on the trial Julia Gibson, otherwise Madame Ghurka, to prove that she saw Ross talking to Matthews on the Saturday afternoon.’ As it happened Madame Ghurka’s evidence would not be needed and she was not called as a witness.
Nevertheless, a copy of the notice to the defence, dated 17/2/22, still exists:
Ross v. the King. Take notice that it is intended if necessary to examine the undermentioned person as a witness at your trial besides those already produced at the Police Court. Viz—Julia Gibson, to prove that she saw Ivy Matthews with you on the afternoon of the 31st of December last in the Eastern Arcade.†
Brennan would comment: ‘[Ghurka] could not, from her door, have seen them in conversation in Little Collins Street.’