Charles Letchford

[Herlock Sholmes]

“I passed through the street at half-past 12, and everything seemed to me to be going on as usual, and my sister was standing at the door at ten minutes to one, but did not see any one pass by. I heard the commotion when the body was found, and heard the policemen's whistles, but did not take any notice of the matter, as disturbances are very frequent at the club, and I thought it was only another row”


This is fairly clear. His sister was on the door at 12.50 and saw nothing out of the ordinary, and although not stated, it’s reasonable to assume that she’d also heard nothing either or he’d have said “my sister heard a commotion before or at 12.50.” Therefore at 12.50 at least nothing out of the ordinary had occurred as far as his sister was concerned.

All that he then says is that he heard the commotion when it occurred. He’s already mentioned 12.50 (when he said that his sister was on her doorstep) which would have been an effective way of putting a time to the commotion but he doesn’t do this. So it’s entirely reasonable, and in keeping with what he actually said, to assume a gap between 12.50 and the time of the sound of the commotion. We surely can’t believe that what he meant was “she was on her door at 12.50 and nothing occurred, then at 12.51 we heard a commotion?’ Was he running a stopwatch? Clearly there is a gap.

How long had she been on her doorstep by 12.50? Clearly she didn’t see the Schwartz incident or any alleged earlier return by Diemschutz so it’s perhaps more likely that she actually stepped onto her doorstep at 12.50 ish (however she arrived at her time) How long was she there? We can’t know but it’s very noticable that Letchford himself hears the commotion. He doesn’t say ‘we’ heard it. So it appears that his sister had gone back inside. Again pointing to a gap between the 12.50 and the commotion.

So she goes onto her doorstep after the Schwartz incident and then nothing is heard by the Letchford’s until they heard the commotion from the yard sometime after 12.50.

A clear pointer to a 1.00 discovery time.

And equally clearly neither he nor his sister saw Eagle and Lamb come barrelling along Berner Street close to 12.50.

Cue the twisting…….

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Letchford and Smith's timings, match to within 5 minutes. What are the chances it were Charles Letchford who was holding the newspaper parcel, and in the company of Liz Stride?

Another theory is that the newspaper parcel was related to the literature referred to by Wess, at the inquest...

Before leaving I went into the yard, and thence to the printing-office, in order to leave some literature there, and on returning to the yard I observed that the double door at the entrance was open.

Perhaps it were actually a stack of Arbeter Fraint's, which supposedly had similar dimensions to the parcel described by PC Smith.

It occurred to me that a way of testing these theories, would be to compare the attire described by Smith, with the men hypothesized to be Parcelman. In the case of Charles Letchford, it would probably be a barman on his way home from work, and in the case of the man picking up the literature from the printing office, presumably a clubman.

The official description of the man seen by Smith, was published in the Police Gazette. It reads:

At 12.35 a.m., 30th September, with Elizabeth Stride, found murdered at 1 a.m., same date, in Berner-street - A MAN, age 28, height 5 ft. 8 in., complexion dark, small dark moustache; dress, black diagonal coat, hard felt hat, collar and tie; respectable appearance. Carried a parcel wrapped up in newspaper.

An important detail is that the man was said to be wearing a collar and tie. I cannot imagine ordinary members of the club wearing ties, although perhaps someone like the meeting chairman Morris Eagle, would have put one on that night. So what about Letchford? Would late 19th century barman have gone to work wearing ties? I really have no idea, so it's over to you...

By the way, this is the 1881 census listing for Letchford: Charles Letchford 15, steam sawyer’s assistant, born Shoreditch, Middlesex. So he was 22 in 1888.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

East London Observer, Sep 15:

Mrs. Richardson, who has been alluded to as the landlady of the house, but who explained that she herself rented only a part of it, and sublet some of the rooms, gave evidence turning chiefly on the tenants of the place. She herself had the first floor front and the downstairs back, in which she was accustomed to hold a weekly prayer meeting. On the first floor back lived an elderly man with an imbecile son 37 years of age. She heard no noise during the night of the murder, though if there had been any, she would certainly have heard it. She affirmed, and when afterwards recalled repeated, that she had no knowledge of the yard or the staircase being resorted to for improper purposes; but her son, a rough-looking young man, unaware, it may be presumed, of the line his mother's examination had taken, stoutly affirmed that both yard and staircase had been so used; and when subsequently recalled he not only repeated his statement, but added that his mother had been made aware of it.

East London Advertiser, Sep 15:

The next witness was Amelia Richardson, who occupies the lower half of No. 29, Hanbury-street. She is of short stature and was quietly dressed in black. Contrary to expectation this witness was clear and precise in her testimony, generally answering directly the questions of the coroner without volunteering any extraneous information, a drawback which is very often met with in voluble persons. The chief point of interest her evidence was the statement that she was very wakeful at night-time, and that on the 7th inst. the previous day to the murder, she must have been awake quite half the night. But she heard no noise whatever during that time. This is one of the most mysterious points in the whole series of the murders. Though they were all committed in close proximity - indeed within a few yards - of sleeping people no strange noise was heard and not any of the sleepers were disturbed. Mrs. Richardson was under examination some considerable time, during which she was kept standing, evidently much to her distress. It would only have been common kindness to have offered her a chair, considering that she is now at an advanced age; but this little attention did not seem to strike the officials or the jurymen as being at all necessary.

John Richardson, the son of Mrs. Amelia Richardson, having been sworn, deposed to the facts which are already well known. He spoke in a rather husky voice, and once or twice he was closely cross-questioned by the coroner in order to get a perfectly accurate statement of what took place upon the discovery of the crime. The statements of this witness as to his having found people in the passage and on the landing, evidently for an immoral purpose, occasioned the recall at the instance of the jury, of Mrs. Richardson, when she was further examined on the way her house was conducted. She again emphatically said that she had no suspicion that any part of the premises was at any time used for wrong purposes.

She was further examined on the way her house was conducted? Was does that allude to?

So Letchford was likely working as a barman, a few doors away from 29 Hanbury street.

Did Amelia Richardson avoid dobbing in a regular customer?

[GBinOz]

Hi Jeff,

Good points throughout your post. I'm in agreement. I have posted a timeline at post #2455 over here: https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...164#post774285.

I would welcome your comments.

Cheers, George

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff.

There are two problems here. Your interpretation is as though the report says...

...she heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat, and immediately she went to the street-door...

It actually says...

...she heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards she went to the street-door...

That is not the same thing. The other issue is your claim that people use the word 'immediately', not in the dictionary sense, but as in 'not long afterwards'. ...

Great, we agree then. There was time that passed between Smith's patrolling by her house and her going out to the step, which means there was time for the couple Smith saw to move. She didn't see Smith, as you say, because she didn't go out when Smith was immediately beyond her front door, but "immediately after he was long gone", allowing for the time I was describing for the couple to move as well.

Let's take a real world example:

Mother to children playing outside: Come inside immediately!

Does she want the kids in now, or quite soon?

Language is very versatile, but yes, people can also use a word literally. However, in colloquial usage, immediately does not automatically mean, well, immediately. ha ha. It can be used to indicate "the next thing I did...", for example. I sat in my chair. Immediately afterwards I went outside. But, between getting up and going out, I might also put my shoes on, grab my coat, pay a quick visit to the loo, etc, all things in preparation for going out, because that was the next thing on my list of things to do. It doesn't mean there was no time between my getting up and exiting the door. Because immediate can also mean "closest, or next, directly, etc", as in the house immediately opposite, or "my immediate neighbours" (meaning the ones next to me), so if it is being used in that context it just means the next thing she did, particularly if that sort of phrasing was more common in 1888 than it is now (as it may sound a bit "old fashioned" the way I'm using it here in this example).

What I'm getting at, is that we cannot automatically ascribe a dictionary definition to spoken words. Dictionary's are formal definitions, and word usage changes over time because people don't use language like a dictionary. Victorian's used terms and words a bit differently than we do now, and if we go back further, we can see how language has changed. It's language use that we have to consider, now how it's been frozen in time by a dictionary (though they are very useful things all the same).

Also, we don't even know that it was Fanny who used the word immediately. If it was the reporter, it's meaningless really.

That is, if Fanny is to be believed. Is Fanny to be believed?

I only noticed one person passing, just before I turned in. That was a young man walking up Berner-street, carrying a black bag in his hand.
He was respectably dressed, but was a stranger to me. He might ha' been coming from the Socialist Club.

We're getting off track now. This is all stuff that happens after she's gone out, we're concentrating on when she went out, not what happened after that. She does suggest the only person she saw moving about was Goldstein, and there's no mention of seeing either Smith or the couple.

Apparently, it depends.



Which of these is true...?

...she said that in about four minutes' time she heard Diemschitz's pony cart pass the house...

...I've calculated that in about four minutes' time she heard Diemschitz's pony cart pass the house...

It seems to me that almost everyone supposes the first. In that case, let's be consistent...

I heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards I went to the street-door...

And, as you've pointed out above, there's time between the PC footsteps and when she went out. We don't know how long that time interval was. We can infer it's enough time for PC Smith to get out of view from her vantage point, though, as she does not indicate she saw him. Without establishing the time between his passing her door, and her going out for her estimated 10 minutes, it could be entirely possible the Schwartz incident happened before she went out. And given there's an estimated 4 minutes between her going in and Deimshutz's pony passing, it's theoretically possible to squeeze the Schwartz incident into that time window too. The whole thing probably only requires 2 minutes or so to have the encounter, Schwartz to flee, and B.S. to kill Stride and flee as well, but it would be tight, unless of course, her 4 minute estimate is wrong.

You're possibly forgetting something of key importance, which possibly undermines the idea that the word immediately is not being used in the dictionary sense. That is, we all know who Smith witnessed as he passed, but the reporter had no clue. Consider what the report supposes about the policeman...

We have a 5 minute window with regards to when PC Smith passed. And if the word immediately was the reporter's choice, and not Fanny's, then as you say, the reporter has no clue (a bit harsh, but the reporter's job is to string the events he's been told about into a story that conveys the gist as they understand it, not to present forensically accurate facts).

Presuming that the body did not lie in the yard when the policeman passed-and it could hardly, it is thought, have escaped his notice-and presuming also that the assassin and his victim did not enter the yard while the woman stood at the door, it follows that they must have entered it within a minute or two before the arrival of the pony trap.

If we take the 4 minutes as if it's a properly measured time, then sure, the Schwartz incident might take about 2 minutes, and if we place in that 4 minute window, that would leave "a minute or two before the arrival of the pony trap". This is the "interruption" theory from 1888. Personally, I think Stride was murdered before that, but what I believe is neither here nor there as my belief is not a fact.

He clearly has no idea who the policeman had walked past, and therefore could not have any notion that his use of the word 'immediately', was likely to suggest something very interesting. This is a pre-inquest report, so he is not to blame. Regardless, why wouldn't Fanny have phrased things in a way such that he wrote something like 'shortly afterwards', or 'not long afterwards'?

Perhaps the issue is the origins of the report. Who did Fanny speak to - the reporter, or someone else?

How do you know Fanny didn't phrase it as "the next thing I did ...", and the reporter, or editor, rephrased that to immediately? The article is not claiming to quote Fanny, so we do not know that Fanny even used the word herself. A reporter is not recording forensic type details, they are telling a story to the public. Those stories are their product, and a good sounding story is worth more than a dry, factual, list of details, including cautionary statements about "estimates", and "time interval not precisely known, but recalled as being relatively short/long, etc".

We have to always keep in mind that all of the statements we have with regards to what people were doing, where they were doing it, and when they were doing it, all had to be recalled from their memory. Had Stride not been murdered, those events and times would have otherwise been of no importance, which means up until that evening became important to recall, the events they had engaged in were not specifically noted, other than by chance. People had to reconstruct their evenings, and that right there means nothing can be taken literally when it comes to times, durations, or even precise locations, or who was there. Most of it will probably line up, and the events of the evening, if we can work them out, should more or less be as described. Where things conflict with testimony or statements, then we would expect it to conflict with regards to the type of things people's reconstructed events tend to be error prone on. Times, durations, and exact order of events even. (I.e. someone who says "A came before B before C", could easily have transposed any two of the actual events if they all occurred relatively close in time, especially if there were a lot of things happening at the time.

This isn't advocating for a wholesale slaughter of the statements we have to work with though. Rather, quite the contrary. It's about trying to extract as much in common as possible, and then fine tune things, which will require deviation from statements, but finding what adjustments require the least amount of introduced deviations (and hopefully that only introduce errors of the type we would expect to find).

Trying to find the events of the evening by taking a reporter's presentation of his interviews as if that is something that needs to be considered as carved in stone is going to result in you trying to fit stories around a will-o-the-wisp.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Or is it you who are nitpicking? It's interesting that it was you admonished myself multiple times about ignoring this report. Now when I take literally, you're still whinging!

I'm not obliged to suppose that immediately does not mean the definition of immediately. Nor am I obliged to suppose that interpreting immediately to mean 'long enough for them to get away', also means it was necessarily used for that purpose. If you don't like that, that's your problem.

It’s no problem

Its expected.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

You really do want this ‘immediately’ to mean that she ran onto the doorstep the second that she heard Smith pass don’t you? This is wish-thinking of course. Jeff’s post was well thought out and entirely reasonable and fair (as usual) so I just can’t see your objections as anything other than a desire for ‘immediately’ to have meant ‘the second after.’ Spoken language doesn’t follow those exact interpretations. You used the ‘mother to children’ example but how many times have has someone said “it took me hours to sort it out,” when it was actually 90 minutes. How can you claim that ‘immediately afterwards’ couldn’t allow for 30 seconds or 45 seconds? This is just the way spoken language is. Would she have bothered saying ‘30 seconds later’ or ‘45 seconds later’ or was ‘immediately’ simply the most convenient word for ‘very soon after?’ This kind of nitpicking gets us nowhere.

Or is it you who are nitpicking? It's interesting that it was you admonished myself multiple times about ignoring this report. Now when I take literally, you're still whinging!

I'm not obliged to suppose that immediately does not mean the definition of immediately. Nor am I obliged to suppose that interpreting immediately to mean 'long enough for them to get away', also means it was necessarily used for that purpose. If you don't like that, that's your problem.

[Herlock Sholmes]

"I passed through the street at half-past 12, and everything seemed to me to be going on as usual..."

If Letchford were living at #30 that night, and came home from work on Hanbury street after the pub closed at midnight, why would he have passed through Berner street? To pass through a street, implies traversing most if not all of that street. Regardless of the end of the street that he entered from, he seemingly had no need to pass through it. This suggests he may not have been on his way home at 12.30. In that case, what was he doing?

Do we know for an absolutely certainty where he worked? I know some people who do bar work that work at, say, The King’s Head on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and The Red Lion on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sunday lunchtimes. Can we tie him down for certain to one pub?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Jeff.

There are two problems here. Your interpretation is as though the report says...

...she heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat, and immediately she went to the street-door...

It actually says...

...she heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards she went to the street-door...

That is not the same thing. The other issue is your claim that people use the word 'immediately', not in the dictionary sense, but as in 'not long afterwards'. Let's take a real world example:

Mother to children playing outside: Come inside immediately!

Does she want the kids in now, or quite soon?



That is, if Fanny is to be believed. Is Fanny to be believed?

I only noticed one person passing, just before I turned in. That was a young man walking up Berner-street, carrying a black bag in his hand.
He was respectably dressed, but was a stranger to me. He might ha' been coming from the Socialist Club.

Apparently, it depends.



Which of these is true...?

...she said that in about four minutes' time she heard Diemschitz's pony cart pass the house...

...I've calculated that in about four minutes' time she heard Diemschitz's pony cart pass the house...

It seems to me that almost everyone supposes the first. In that case, let's be consistent...

I heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards I went to the street-door...



You're possibly forgetting something of key importance, which possibly undermines the idea that the word immediately is not being used in the dictionary sense. That is, we all know who Smith witnessed as he passed, but the reporter had no clue. Consider what the report supposes about the policeman...

Presuming that the body did not lie in the yard when the policeman passed-and it could hardly, it is thought, have escaped his notice-and presuming also that the assassin and his victim did not enter the yard while the woman stood at the door, it follows that they must have entered it within a minute or two before the arrival of the pony trap.

He clearly has no idea who the policeman had walked past, and therefore could not have any notion that his use of the word 'immediately', was likely to suggest something very interesting. This is a pre-inquest report, so he is not to blame. Regardless, why wouldn't Fanny have phrased things in a way such that he wrote something like 'shortly afterwards', or 'not long afterwards'?

Perhaps the issue is the origins of the report. Who did Fanny speak to - the reporter, or someone else?

You really do want this ‘immediately’ to mean that she ran onto the doorstep the second that she heard Smith pass don’t you? This is wish-thinking of course. Jeff’s post was well thought out and entirely reasonable and fair (as usual) so I just can’t see your objections as anything other than a desire for ‘immediately’ to have meant ‘the second after.’ Spoken language doesn’t follow those exact interpretations. You used the ‘mother to children’ example but how many times have has someone said “it took me hours to sort it out,” when it was actually 90 minutes. How can you claim that ‘immediately afterwards’ couldn’t allow for 30 seconds or 45 seconds? This is just the way spoken language is. Would she have bothered saying ‘30 seconds later’ or ‘45 seconds later’ or was ‘immediately’ simply the most convenient word for ‘very soon after?’ This kind of nitpicking gets us nowhere.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

If she did immediately go out upon hearing PC Smith's footsteps, she would have seen PC Smith (he would have been right there), but she didn't. Therefore, she couldn't have gone out immediately in the dictionary sense of the word, but rather in the way people use it, as in "not long afterwards".

Hi Jeff.

There are two problems here. Your interpretation is as though the report says...

...she heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat, and immediately she went to the street-door...

It actually says...

...she heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards she went to the street-door...

That is not the same thing. The other issue is your claim that people use the word 'immediately', not in the dictionary sense, but as in 'not long afterwards'. Let's take a real world example:

Mother to children playing outside: Come inside immediately!

Does she want the kids in now, or quite soon?

And, as you point out, given PC Smith saw a couple across from the yard when he went by, and Fanny did not see that couple, again, she could not have gone out "immediately" in the dictionary sense.

That is, if Fanny is to be believed. Is Fanny to be believed?

I only noticed one person passing, just before I turned in. That was a young man walking up Berner-street, carrying a black bag in his hand.
He was respectably dressed, but was a stranger to me. He might ha' been coming from the Socialist Club.

Apparently, it depends.

That means, some amount of time passed between hearing the footsteps, and her going to the door. Also, we do not know if the word immediately was used by Fanny, or was chosen by the reporter (the above is not presented as a quote by Fanny, and so the word choice may simply reflect the reporter's presentation).

Which of these is true...?

...she said that in about four minutes' time she heard Diemschitz's pony cart pass the house...

...I've calculated that in about four minutes' time she heard Diemschitz's pony cart pass the house...

It seems to me that almost everyone supposes the first. In that case, let's be consistent...

I heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards I went to the street-door...

Given the word "immediately" is not being used in the way the dictionary defines it, it must therefore refer to a concept indicating "a sufficiently short enough time that I will call it immediate" that is idiosyncratically held by whoever the I is; Fanny or the reporter. It doesn't really matter which, because we have no way of knowing that person's idiosyncratic definition. All we know is that it isn't the same as the dictionary's version.

You're possibly forgetting something of key importance, which possibly undermines the idea that the word immediately is not being used in the dictionary sense. That is, we all know who Smith witnessed as he passed, but the reporter had no clue. Consider what the report supposes about the policeman...

Presuming that the body did not lie in the yard when the policeman passed-and it could hardly, it is thought, have escaped his notice-and presuming also that the assassin and his victim did not enter the yard while the woman stood at the door, it follows that they must have entered it within a minute or two before the arrival of the pony trap.

He clearly has no idea who the policeman had walked past, and therefore could not have any notion that his use of the word 'immediately', was likely to suggest something very interesting. This is a pre-inquest report, so he is not to blame. Regardless, why wouldn't Fanny have phrased things in a way such that he wrote something like 'shortly afterwards', or 'not long afterwards'?

Perhaps the issue is the origins of the report. Who did Fanny speak to - the reporter, or someone else?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

"I passed through the street at half-past 12, and everything seemed to me to be going on as usual..."

If Letchford were living at #30 that night, and came home from work on Hanbury street after the pub closed at midnight, why would he have passed through Berner street? To pass through a street, implies traversing most if not all of that street. Regardless of the end of the street that he entered from, he seemingly had no need to pass through it. This suggests he may not have been on his way home at 12.30. In that case, what was he doing?

[JeffHamm]

A woman who lives two doors from the club has made an important statement. It appears that shortly before a quarter to one o'clock she heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards she went to the street-door, with the intention of shooting the bolts, though she remained standing there for ten minutes before she did so. During the ten minutes she saw no one enter or leave the neighbouring yard, and she feels sure that had any one done so she could not have overlooked the fact. The quiet and deserted character of the street appears even to have struck her at the time.

If she had really gone to her door immediately on hearing Smith's passing, she cannot have missed seeing Stride and Parcelman. So unless they scurried into the yard within seconds of Fanny opening her door, we are not getting the full story. Yet supposing they did make it into the yard just before Fanny had a chance to see them do so, they are then in the yard before 12:40, according to Smith's timing. So then what are we to make of the testimony and comments of Eagle and Lave?

Did Fanny Mortimer avoid dobbing in a neighbor?

Hi NBFN,

The footsteps were, of course, presumed to be that of a PC, but Fanny did not say she saw a PC. Given the estimates of the time for when she went out, and the estimates of PC Smith's patrol, it is certainly plausible that it was PC Smith's footsteps. So, for now, let's go with that as being correct.

If she did immediately go out upon hearing PC Smith's footsteps, she would have seen PC Smith (he would have been right there), but she didn't. Therefore, she couldn't have gone out immediately in the dictionary sense of the word, but rather in the way people use it, as in "not long afterwards". And, as you point out, given PC Smith saw a couple across from the yard when he went by, and Fanny did not see that couple, again, she could not have gone out "immediately" in the dictionary sense.

That means, some amount of time passed between hearing the footsteps, and her going to the door. Also, we do not know if the word immediately was used by Fanny, or was chosen by the reporter (the above is not presented as a quote by Fanny, and so the word choice may simply reflect the reporter's presentation).

Given the word "immediately" is not being used in the way the dictionary defines it, it must therefore refer to a concept indicating "a sufficiently short enough time that I will call it immediate" that is idiosyncratically held by whoever the I is; Fanny or the reporter. It doesn't really matter which, because we have no way of knowing that person's idiosyncratic definition. All we know is that it isn't the same as the dictionary's version.

But, we can probably make some inferences. The amount of time that passed must be sufficiently long that PC Smith is no longer in view. And, if it's long enough for PC Smith to avoid being seen, then it's long enough for the couple to move off as well. My guess would be, particularly if one believes Stride was engaged in casual prostitution, that the passing of the PC would have prompted them to move in the opposite direction, towards Fairclough. Perhaps to observe PC Smith from that vantage waiting for him to exit Berner's Street. I can't rule out them moving to the ally beside the club, but I would think they might avoid doing so simply because if PC Smith were to turn and spot them, that might prompt his return (something I would think they would be trying to avoid under the above circumstances in particular).

I'm not stating the above as a fact, as obviously we don't know where they went, but what is clear is that Fanny did not come out exactly as PC Smith's footsteps passed her door, which would be the dictionary's immediately, so there is an unknown gap of time in there. And that unknown gap is long enough for PC Smith to vacate the area, and given Stride and parcel man are in the same location, that means there is enough time for them to likewise vacate the area. Fanny didn't hear more footsteps go by, so it doesn't appear they went north (though I suppose they could have if, during the unknown gap of time, Fanny went into another room to get something, a coat or shawl to wear outside for example, and so she didn't hear them pass), which possibly leaves the ally or south. North also feels problematic as it would mean PC Smith didn't turn to see who was coming up behind him. If they went south, that would be a short distance, and he would be less likely to be alerted by footsteps retreating from him than following him.

Given we have club members returning after PC Smith passed, and Stride is not dead in the ally when they do so, even if Stride and Parcelman went to the ally, they appear to have moved on after that and before the club members return. Since Fanny didn't see the club members return, she had to have gone inside before that, or I suppose one could suggest the club members returned before PC Smith's patrol (but I don't think that is generally considered as one of the options).

What we're left with, is that during the time Fanny was not on her doorstep, the couple seen by PC Smith left the area, and it doesn't look like they went to the ally. It seems unlikely they went towards Commercial, though it's possible and shouldn't be ruled out. But, from what we know, the most probable location for them to have moved to is southerly, towards Fairclough. That would not take long, minimizing the the duration of the unknown gap of time one has to ascribe to the word immediately, which in all likelihood is the reporters anyway, and so would be highly questionable as to the validity of it even being used.

That's how it seems to me, for whatever that's worth.

- Jeff

[NotBlamedForNothing]

No. Why don’t you get this?

What I get is that as usual, you're hell-bent on defending the conventional wisdom.

All that I’m talking about are reasonable, plausible explanations and interpretations. When you produce something that can’t possibly have had a reasonable, prosaic explanation then I might start to get excited. Again you fixate on a word, thistle ‘needed.’ It’s a word. When we write a sentence most of us don’t spend an hour over it or consult and expert on language. Language isn’t always used precisely. Surely you can see this. Look at how many times people use the word ‘literally’ inappropriately. Very obviously what I meant was that all it would have taken was Fanny going on to her door 30 seconds or 45 seconds after Smith passed and this would have meant that they would have had enough time to have walked out of Fanny’s sight.

When Smith witnessed the couple, they were stationary. Why should we assume the exquisite timing required to not have been seen moving away from the location they were seen at by Smith, by either Smith or Mortimer? If they had been standing across the road from the Mortimer's door, talking quietly, then it is just as reasonable and plausible to assume that they continued doing this for some time, rather than immediately moving away. In fact, it is perhaps more reasonable to suppose that they stayed put for some time after Smith had passed, given Eagle's testimony...

C: Did you see anyone about in Berner-street?
E: I dare say I did, but I do not remember them.

Eagle estimated he returned to the club at 12:35 or 12:40. Who do we dare suppose he saw on Berner street?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Or a former near-neighbour whose mother still lived a few blocks away...?

I'm glad you brought up the 'not dobbing in someone she knew' angle -- because when, a few months back, someone found a wide-awake Berner Street resident known to have known the Lechmeres (was it a Marshall? Or a Mortimer? Or someone else?), there were triumphant shouts that Lechmere couldn't possibly have passed by unrecognised, and therefore that he wasn't the killer (again).

But now, of course, we're not talking about Lechmere -- so saying that the killer could have been recognised by someone who chose *to look the other way* is all *fine and dandy*...

I'm not being nasty. I'm just pointing out the way things do and don't work. And, for what it's worth, I reckon you have a good thought there.

M.

Thanks Mark. Given Mortimer's claim to having been standing at her door nearly the whole time between 12:30 and 1am, without seeing anything unusual, it's odd that the 'turn a blind eye' angle has received little or no attention. As for things being fine and dandy, now that Lechmere is not the subject, what can you point to that supports this? Is it a flurry of at least partially supportive posts?

[Herlock Sholmes]

It's just that the word 'immediately', has an exact meaning:

1. at once; instantly.
2. without any intervening time or space.

So given the definition of immediately, she probably should have seen them. If that word can't be taken at face value here, then what else in that report should be questioned for its accuracy?



Needed? Needed by who? People who don't want the case to be solved?

Yet what happens if we don't grant this 'needed' 30-60 seconds? What happens if we at least wonder why they would have started moving almost the instant Smith passes, but with enough of a delay that he doesn't notice, but not enough for them to remain in Fanny's visual range? Why should the meaning of the report be changed, to get a preferred outcome?

Also, why do you mention the possibility of going into Fairclough street, and not into the yard or anywhere else? Did anyone see them there? Is this another preferred scenario?

No. Why don’t you get this?

All that I’m talking about are reasonable, plausible explanations and interpretations. When you produce something that can’t possibly have had a reasonable, prosaic explanation then I might start to get excited. Again you fixate on a word, thistle ‘needed.’ It’s a word. When we write a sentence most of us don’t spend an hour over it or consult and expert on language. Language isn’t always used precisely. Surely you can see this. Look at how many times people use the word ‘literally’ inappropriately. Very obviously what I meant was that all it would have taken was Fanny going on to her door 30 seconds or 45 seconds after Smith passed and this would have meant that they would have had enough time to have walked out of Fanny’s sight.