ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 1914. A FAMOUS MURDER MYSTERY REVIVED.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 72, 26 March 1914, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 1914. A FAMOUS MURDER MYSTERY REVIVED.

Sir Arthur . Conan Doyle, ' whose "Sherlock Holmes detective stories have been.-so- popular, should l-egard it as a distinct tribute to his powers of analysis of crimes and criminal investigations that the view taken by him in 1912 of the famous Oscar Slater case is now being,, to some extent at least," upheld. Oscar Slater was, in May, 1909, convicted by an Edinburgh jury of having .murdered an old lady, Miss Marion Gilchristj and was duly sentenced to death, the extreme .penalty being afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life. The cable riow iriforms us that the Secretary for Scotland has ordered an investigation of Slater's sentence, owing, it is alleged, io fresh doubts as to mo evidence given by the witness who claimed to have identified the prisoner as the man .He had seen leaving one of the bedrooms in the house in which Miss Gilchrist resided. Slater was, so it turned' out, a man of immoral L lfe V anc* a<* l)ee^ engaged in various doubtful transactions. He was living with a foreign woman, one Andree s Antoine, and the pair left for New York a few days alter the murder; having first pawned a, diamond brooch^bioh was believed to be identical,. \wth the one stolen from the murdered woman's rooms— tne only article stolen, we may here add, out of a mass of jewellery worth some £3000. Arrested at New York and brought back to Scotland, plater, who is a German Jew by birtii was identified as the darkhawed clean-shaven man who had been seen leaving a room in the victim's house. The identifying - witnesses wero , Helen Gamble, Miss Gilchxist's servant, a young man named Adams, a member of a family living in rooms . below those occupied by the murdered woman, and another man. In the pamphlet published by Sir Arthur p°na.n J>oyle after tho trial, several formidable criticisms were brought to bear upon the evidence upon which blater was convicted. . He pointed out that the, man's immoral life, his various doubtful transactions, and the tact of. his having often gone under a false name ought1 to have counted for nothing with a jury trying him on a capital charge; and especially that his adoption of a false name on his voyage to New York was naturally accounted for by the reason he gave— that he wished his lawful wife in London not to trace him. The evidence ot identification was' extremely weak and contradictory, the three chief witnesses swearing that "the man" was clean, shaven, while Slater at that tame had a black moustache. As to the voyage, it was no flight; hemadfe no concealment about it, and proved that it had, been decided on some days before the; murder, and that a letter inviting him to America had been receive* from a former partner some time before. Again, if he did not quite prove an alibi, his servant, who was under notice to quit and therefore not likely to perjure herself in his favor, swore that he was at home for dinner soon after 7—the murder having taken place five or ten minutes past, that hour. No bloodstains were found, and' no weapon, except a little hammer fromi a halfcrown card of small tools. Chief of ' *he/ I bro°ch which he had pawned ?$ f^ ?" lch™*'s : it was Antoine's, • and the stolen broocTi had not been rewnter of the plea had' ingenious suggestions, as to what sort of man might have done the deed; not the bookmake!- who was paying attentions to Sft~jail!ble' J Jbufc P«sibly some man wno had heard him gossiping about the girls rich old mistjress and her storeof jewels. The reopening of the T^ 18 ' we have> sßl^. a tribute to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's powers of perception into a complicated mystery of crime. It remains to be seen whether the new evidence will* be sufficiently strong to bear out the earnest contention ot the well-known novelist that j a^ 18, a mvrch injured man, and I that the real murderer of the unfortunate Miss Gilchrat has yet to be discovered. The Slater case created an immense sensation, not only in Edinburgh but throughout Great Britain and great interest must necessanly attach to the new investigation about to be made fo