He came to Philipstown the next day, conferred there with the doctor, and with a priest, Father Bergin, and proceeded to hold an inquest on the child in a public-house, "a most appropriate place," said Sir Michael Morris from the bench, "for the transactions which subsequently occurred." Strong depositions were afterwards made by the woman Mrs.Gaffney, by her husband, and by the police authorities, as to the conduct of this "inquest." She and her husband were arrested on a verbal order of the Coroner on the day when the inquest was held, August 27th, and the woman was kept in prison from that time till the assizes in December.

The "inquest" was not completed on the 27th of August, and after the Coroner adjourned it, two priests drove away on a car from the "public-house" in which it had been held.

That night, or the next day, a man came to a magistrate with a bundle of papers which he had found in the road near Philipstown.

The magistrate examined them, and finding them to be the depositions taken before the Coroner in the case of Ellen Gaffney, handed them to the police.

How did they come to be in the road?
On the 1st of September the Coroner resumed his inquest, this time in the Court-House at Philipstown, and one of the police, with the depositions in his pocket, went to hear the proceedings.