This letter was subsequently reinforced by an affidavit said to have been made by Collier before a justice in Taunton, on December 17, 1878, in which he makes a similar declaration.
The evidence on both sides is of the most anomalous and inconsequential character and reads like the testimony heard in the nightmare of some plethoric judge. The witnesses for the prosecution were, with the exception of Jessie Macdonald and the two detectives, utterly worthless as sources of testimony.
Mrs. Eddy's charge that the plot was the malicious invention of Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Spofford can be regarded only as the delusion of an unreasonable and over-wrought woman. The only other possible solution would advance Sargent as the instigator of the plot. If a double blackmailing enterprise could be attributed to Sargent, the tangle could be easily explained. But this hypothesis is weakened by the fact that he never asked for or received any money from Mr. Spofford. And why a saloon-keeper from Sudbury Street should have gone so far from his familiar haunts and associates, and should have aspired to play a part in the quarrels of the Christian Scientists, remains a difficult question.
