Free Burke and Hare by Brian Bailey

police-office.’
    The porter, McCulloch, told how he had collected a box from Burke’s and taken it to 10 Surgeons’ Square. Cautious about implicating himself in a crime, he reluctantly admitted that he knew there was a dead body in it.
    ‘Did you see him put nothing in the box?’
    ‘The sheet.’
    ‘Did he take anything like the person of a human body?’
    ‘Yes; I think it was something like the person of a body.’
    Lord Meadowbank interrupted, ‘You have no doubt that it was a body, in short?’
    ‘No, my Lord.’
    McCulloch was followed by Sergeant Fisher, who described his part in the arrest and investigation. After explaining that he had gone to Burke’s house at Gray’s request, and found no body there, but had met Burke and McDougal coming upstairs, and had asked them to go back inside with him, he replied to Mr Alison’s question as to what had happened then.
    ‘I asked Burke what had become of his lodgers, and he said, that there was one of them, pointing to Gray; and that he had turned out him and his wife for their bad conduct.’
    ‘What took place then?’
    ‘I then asked them what had become of the little woman that had been there on the Friday, the day before; and he said that she was away; and I asked, when did she leave the house, and he said, about seven o’clock in the morning.’
    ‘Did he say anything about any other person being present when she went away?’
    ‘He said William Hare saw her go away. Then I asked, was there any other person saw her go away; and he said, in an insolent tone of voice, there were a number more. I then looked round the house to see if I could see any marks on the bed, and I saw the marks of blood on a number of things there; and I asked Mrs Burke, the pannel at the bar, how they came there; and she said that a woman had lain in there, about a fortnight before that time, and the bed had not been washed since.’
    ‘Well, what more?’
    ‘She said, as to the woman, she could find her; she knew her perfectly well, and that she lived in the Pleasance. She alluded to the little woman, that I had asked where she was; and she said, the woman can be found; she lives in the Pleasance; and she said she had seen her that night in the Vennel, and that she had apologised to her for her bad conduct the night previous. I asked her then what time the woman had left the house; and she said, seven o’clock at night. When I found them to vary, I thought the best way was to take them to the Police Office; and I told them that it was all personal spite, but that I must take them to the office, as I was sent down.’
    Fisher testified that he had heard them examined by the Superintendent, and that he went back to the house that night with the Superintendent and Dr Black, and found there a striped nightgown which they took away.
    ‘Did you find any blood?’
    ‘There was a quantity of blood amongst the straw under the bed.’
    ‘Did it appear to have recently come there?’
    ‘Yes, it appeared quite fresh.’
    ‘Now, next morning, did you go to Dr Knox’s premises in Surgeons’ Square?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Was there a person of the name of Paterson with you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Did you get anything?’
    ‘Yes; we went down to the cellar, and he said “Here is the box, I do not know what is in it,” and we opened it, and found the body of a woman in it.’
    The Lord Justice-Clerk asked if the body was quite naked.
    ‘Quite naked,’ Fisher answered, and then explained, in reply to Mr Alison’s questions, how Gray had been sent for and identified the body before it was removed to the police office. The Lord Advocate asked Fisher if the body was shown to the prisoners.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What took place then?’
    ‘They all denied it.’
    ‘Denied what?’
    ‘Denied all knowledge of the body.’
    The Lord Justice-Clerk interrupted to ask if they denied ever having seen it at all.
    ‘Of ever having seen it,’ Fisher replied, ‘dead or alive.’
    In cross-examination,