Book description
Oscar Slater, a disreptuable German immigrant, living on the fringe
of the Glaswegian underworld and off the proceeds of gambling and
prostitution, was sentenced to death in 1909 for the brutal murder of
Marion Gilchrist, a rich spinster who lived with a secret hoard of
precious jewels hidden in her wardrobe in Edwardian Glasgow's
fashionable West Princes Street. Slater, travelling with his mistress
under a false name, was tracked down and arrested in New York.
Extradited and tried in Edinburgh, he actually heard the gallows being
erected for him, but was repreieved at the 11th hour and spent the
next 18 years in the granite fortress of Peterhead prison, ceaselessly
protesting his innocence. Arthur Conan Doyle, turned real-life
Sherlock Holmes, eventually managed to get the unjust conviction
quashed and since then, argument has raged as to who really was
responsible for the murder of Marion Gilchrist. One name, that of a
respectable Glasgow doctor, has been an "open secret".
Accused too, was Miss Gilchrist's nephew. Neither was the true killer.
The author of this reinvestigation of the case argues that all
previous theories have been based upon false information and the
too-ready acceptance of recently honoured Detective Lieutenant
Trench's investigations. All, he says, have got it wrong.
Whittington-Egan looks again at the whole case and offers a new solution.
