Meikle's Best Witness.

According to the one explanation he could have got the skins at any time by an application to his superior officers, which would probably have involved a six or seven miles' journey to the homestead where they lived; according, to the other, he could have freely helped himself at any time without the sanction or the assistance of anybody. In the opinion of Mr. Justice Edwards there is no conflict between these explanations, but "both are obviously and equally true"—(C. 326, ad fin.); and without further labouring the point we are quite content to leave it to the candid reader to say whether he is right.

The Crux of the Crux.

As Arthur Meikle was arrested on the 4th November, and Lambert's visit was before the entry of the police on the 2nd the date cannot have been later than the 1st; nor will Lambert description of it as a night or two before Arthur's arrest all the placing of it further back. Thus, despite the doubt expressed by Lambert in 1895, we arrive from his own evidence in 1887 at the very night before the police came as, the date of his visit. The hour, according to his statement, was about p. m., but as his tea-time was "somewhere about 6 o'clock,"and he had had tea that evening, and then travelled a mile from hut to Meikle's—(C. 178/640-3), it must have been at least o'clock on his own showing. The Meikle household were all agreed that it was about two hours later.

"I do not know exactly. I took the knife up there."

Whether the hour was 7 or 9 o'clock, it is at any rate not disputed that the reason or the pretext for the visit was that page 25 Lambert wanted to get his knife sharpened. On this point he is in agreement with the Meikle family, and even, as we have seen, with himself. To further questions on the point before the Commission his replies were as follow:—

" Had you any reason for getting the knife sharpened ?"—" Yes; I was going to kill some sheep at the station."

"Did you spend the night in the hut or go on to the station?"—" I did not go on to the station."—(C. 178/646-7.)

Dr. Findlay: "He did not say that he came to get his knife sharpened."

Mr. Atkinson: "What did you come for?"—"1 do not know exactly. I took the knife up there."—(C. 178/667-672.)

Obviously Bogus.

Dr. Findlay's denial came a little too late, for the fatal admission had already been made in answer to Question 618 above quoted, and it had also been made in 1887 and 1895. Incidentally the candour of the witness's answers to three consecutions is worth noting:—(1) He couldn't have brought blankets with him to Meikle's, because it was a mile out of his way to Mataura; (2) nevertheless, it was not out of his way to go there to sharpen his knife; (3) nevertheless it was exactly in the opposite direction! Three such simple questions in succession could hardly have been better handled. But the main point is that, even after Dr. Findlay's broad reminder, Lambert was unable to suggest any other explanation of his visit than that which counsel's interjection plainly proclaimed to be imgossible. "I do not know exactly. I took the knife up there."

Lambert's ignorance on so vital a point is unfortunate, but he has surely said enough to enable us to fill the gap. Between page 26 7 and 9 o'clock on the night of the 1st November Lambert called at Meikle's for the alleged purpose of sharpening his knife in order to kill sheep at Islay Station, seven miles away. That a station which ran 2500 sheep did not possess a grindstone was not suggested by counsel for the Crown, nor by either of the Commissioners. But to make the false pretence the more transparent, Lambert, instead of taking the knife to Islay that evening, went a mile back on his tracks to the hut, and thence ten miles or more to Mataura. Are not these three inferences inevitable ?—

(1)	That the pretext which Lambert gave for his visit to Meikle's that evening, and which he has repeated at every subsequent opportunity, was a bogus one.
(2)	That the real object of his visit was something which has not dared to disclose.
(3)	That when he "took the knife up there" he took something else with him that was of a good deal more value to him for the purposes of his employment than a knife.