d
Street. For a few seconds, according to Mallard, the prisoner seemed
terribly agitated and appeared to be choking. Recovering himself
somewhat, he said, "If for that, you can get no evidence against me; and
if I am hanged for it, I shall be an innocent man, whatever other crimes
I may have committed." Mallard replied, "There is evidence to convict
you--the fire was put out." Butler than{sic} said that he would ask
Mallard a question, but, after a pause, decided not to do so. Mallard,
after examining Butler's clothes, told him that those were not the
clothes in which he had left the Scotia Hotel. Butler admitted it, and
said he had thrown those away in the North East Valley. Mallard alluded
to the disappearance of the prisoner's moustache. Butler replied that he
had cut it off on the road. Mallard noticed then the backs of Butler's
hands were scratched, as if by contact with bushes. Butler seemed often
on the point of asking questions, but would then stop and say "No, I
won't ask you anything." To the constables who had arrested him Butler
remarked, "You ought to remember me, because I could have shot you if I
had wished." When Mallard later in the evening visited Butler again, the
prisoner who was then lying down said, "I want to speak to you. I want
to ask the press not to publish my career. Give me fair play. I suppose
I shall be convicted and you will see I can die like a man."

A few days after Butler's arrest a ranger on the Town Belt, a hill
overlooking Dunedin, found a coat, a hat and silk striped cravat, and
a few days later a pair of trousers folded up and placed under a bush.
These articles of clothing were identified as those which Butler
had been seen wearing on the Saturday and Sunday morning. They were
examined. There were a number of bloodstains on them, not one of them
larger in size than a pea, some almost invisible. On the front of the
trousers about the level of the groin there were blood spots on both
sides. There was blood on the fold of the left breast of the coat and on
the lining of the cuff of the right arm. The shirt Butler was wearing
at the time of his arrest was examined also. There were small spots of
blood, about fourteen altogether, on the neck and shoulder bands, the
right armpit, the left sleeve, and on both wristbands. Besides the
clothes, a salmon tin was found on the Town Belt, and behind a seat in
the Botanical Gardens, from which a partial view of the Dewars' house
in Cumberland