Bait
He was
I detectives to get all the information available.
One of these detectives called me to his office one day. interested in finding out if MacLennan was homosexual or not. If he was, there was a motive for suicide, if not, it was hard to find any reason for MacLennan to kill himself. I told him that I really could not say for certain on that point, but had found no one among his acquaintances who believed it or knew anything about MacLennan's homosexual experiences if any. Mr. C. the detective, then took cut a thick wad of papers, all on police report paper. "You have seen these, of course, if
he said casually, "Some of them give very damning evidence." at the thick wad of papers on his desk.
I glanced "No, I haven't seen these at all," I replied. lle was taken aback. 'But the Attorney-General let you read these when
"No, not
you went to his office," he said. ile had obviously done his homework. those," I replied quite quilelessly as I did not know how many statements there might be besides the eight I had seen. "But you must have read them," he said," because these are the only statements in existence. He let me look at the first page. Lore no resemblance to those shown me by the Attorney-General.
They One of the statements,
he informed me, was thirteen pages long, and the others were almost as lengthy. The statements I had seen were short and I read them all over in less than five minutes. A lawyer who had read the full statements now being shown to me said it took him 2 to 3 hours to read them.
I was not concerned, but the detective was. "If you haven't read these, what did you read?" he asked. I told him all I could remember of the statements. To my surprise he said, "Would you make a signed statement about that?" Why not? 1 was telling the truth and could see nothing unusual.
llowever, the detective was right. No other statements were admitted to be in existence. What happened to the ones I was shown is anyone's guess. My own quens in the absence of any other explanation is that they were not convincing, so new ones were produced later. I was later, at the Inquiry, allowed to glance through the long statements. Among the discrepancies was, first and foremost, the length, and the fact that they wore on Police Report Sheets. I would have objected at once had the Attorney-General shown these to me as the reports made by his law officer, I also noticed that the writers had picked up English Christian names whereas my statements showed only Chinese. The details were widely different because mine were very brief. The ages were similar. But the amounts allegedly paid by MacLen-- nan were different. Mine had mentioned only $50 and $100, whereas the long statements. included the amounts $30 and $60 too.
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To my horror, the Attorney-General and his law officer said on oath that those long statements were the ones shown to me.
I have informed them in writing that they were not speaking the truth on that point at the Inquiry. The matter seems a small one, but it raises a big question. Why were there two sets of statements, and wiry did the two legal men insist that I had read statements which I never saw until about six months after the event? What reason could I have to lie?
Many times during this Inquiry I longed for another Gilbert and Sullivan