Pub or Street?

[Fisherman]

I don't think anyone attempted to 'prove' the grape story.
Confirmation of Packers story was provided by PC Smith, - a man with Stride carrying a newspaper parcel about 12:30am is consistent with Packer selling grapes (in a bag or wrapped?) to the man accompanying Stride and him last seeing them opposite the club about 12:30am.
So long as the woman is the same person, the man must be the same.

While it is true Packer gave two times for his encounter with Stride and the grape buyer; 11:00-11:30 and 12:00-12:30am, approximately. The police would have known what we know today, that Stride was outside the Bricklayers Arms about 11:00pm, so the earlier time provided by Packer (11:00-11:30) had to be in error.
Unfortunately, for any future criminal case Packer had to figure this out himself, which he couldn't. Which is why Swanson had to take him off the potential witness list.

We do not read anywhere that the police did not believe in the existence of the grapes. Witnesses claiming to see grapes had supporting evidence, whereas witnesses not claiming to see any grapes finds no evidence.
Not seeing something is deemed negative evidence which, in the view of police, is not evidence at all.
The police know very well that people can miss seeing what others do see. What the police do put faith in is if a claim has supporting evidence, which the existence of the grapes most certainly does.

Some have claimed that Packer invented this man after reading the papers & learning of the man seen by PC Smith. The description of which was published on Oct 1st:
The following description has been circulated by the police of a man said to have been seen with the deceased during Saturday evening: -'' Age 28. Slight. Height 5ft. 8in. Complexion dark. No whiskers. Black diagonal coat. Hard felt hat. Collar and tie. Carried newspaper parcel. Respectable appearance.''

Yet Packer's offering was not entirely the same:
"...a young man from 25-30, about 5.7. with long black coat buttoned up, soft felt hat, kind of Yankee hat, rather broad shoulders, rather quick in speaking, rough voice...."

If Packer was attempting to purloin someone else's description, one would think he would use some of the same details more accurately.

First of all: Stride may have spent the evening transporting tons of grapes through the East end streets, Jon - but that does not mean that she had grapes in her hand when found. And at the end of the day, that is what the discussion is about.

Second: there are some pretty nifty tactics going on in your post. For example:

- "We do not read anywhere that the police did not believe in the existence of the grapes."
Do we read that they DID believe in the existence of grapes? Would the fact that the coroner asked Blackwell if he saw any signs at all of grapes at the site - and that the doctor denied having done so, asserting the coroner that there was not a grape to be seen - perhaps have affected what the police accepted to be the truth? And could this mean that they did not per se find any need to go to the press and tell them that they did not believe in those grapes either?
Regardless of this, you go on to say "What the police do put faith in is if a claim has supporting evidence, which the existence of the grapes most certainly does." That brings us back to point one, meaning that even if the police DID believe that Strideīs punter bought her grapes that night, this does not mean that the police also believed that she had grapes in her hand in Dutfields Yard! And to be frank, the combination of Blackwells testimony and Phillips assertion that he found not a sign of grapes in Strides belly will have been much more likely to make the police think that the grape story was bogus from the outset than it would be likely to make them think that Stride spat out pips and skins (which most people donīt), and that they had missed out on them grapes in Dutfields yard. In the end, even if there seems to potentially be a rationale for supporting evidence, what rules the day is what we can see or touch.
We hear stories - and we check them. And then we decide.

- Packer gives a description that is not the same as the one Smith gave - and that tells us that he likely told the truth...?

- You write "So long as the woman is the same person, the man must be the same." But that is not true, is it? So long as the woman is the same - and we are not sure she is - the man is likely to be the same. And why? Well, because Stride was never likely to chat up two men. Or ... wait a second - wasnīt she? If she was engaging in prostitution? Furthermore, newspaper bags only contained grapes. Errr... come again? How about fish and chips? Or strawberries?
There is half an hour telling these matters apart. Would the grapes not have been consumed in a shorter time than that? And how likely is it that PC Smith was looking at a grape bag, made out of newspaper? He spoke of something that was six by eighteen inches, wrapped in newspaper. Does that sound like a parcel aimed for 227 grammes of grapes?That is not very many grapes, is it? They would fit into a much smaller container, would they not? That packet was nigh on half a meter, Jon.

So, points for an imaginative post, but less so for factuality and evidence worth! I am intrigued by why you would make these kinds of points. You normally donīt.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

As my previous post suggests, Diemschitz must have seen the grapes before PC Lamb arrived (if at all).
Slight problem; Diemschitz said he went out looking for police, to no avail, and returned to the yard as PC Lamb was arriving.
After Johnston checks over the deceased, Diemschitz goes back into the club, and stays there (oddly keeping his distance).
At what point is the illusory sighting of grapes supposed to occur?
I reckon the grapes - real grapes - were sighted by Kozebrodski, well before Lamb arrived, but they had 'walked' before Lamb did get there.
Either that, or Kozebrodski saw Ashbrigh viewing the contents of the cachous packet, which to IK might have been unfamiliar objects, though looking to him like some sort of berry, for which the closest English word he had, was 'grapes'.
Mistaking the cachous for berries, and referring to those things as grapes, in a language not fully familiar to the observer, is a much better bet than supposing that blood smears were mistaken for grapes, by 2 people.
Remember that Phillips uses the phrase 'small oblong clots', at the mortuary, not in the darkness of the yard.
At the crime scene, he didn't see what became much more visible in a much better lighting condition - he saw the same smears that Blackwell and others could see.
The issue then becomes, if Kozebrodski was in the yard when Ashbrigh was near the body, then when was Kozebrodski out on the streets, looking for police?
Arbeter Fraint complained about how long it took to find police, and this period must have been before 1 am.

[Simon Wood]

Don't forget the Irish Times, 1st October 1888—

“A reporter who has seen the corpse states that . . . in her right hand were tightly clasped some grapes . . .

“. . . A young Russian Pole, named M. Kozebrodski, born in Warsaw, and who spoke the English language imperfectly, gave the following information: - ‘The officers did not touch the body, but sent for a doctor. A doctor came, and an inspector arrived just afterwards. While the doctor was examining the body I noticed that she had some grapes in her right hand . . .’”

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Let's see if we can narrow down when Diemschitz and Kozebrodsky saw the grapes - whether real or illusory.

I will work backwards in time.

The Times, Oct 3:

Blackwell: The neck and chest were quite warm; also the legs and face were slightly warm. The hands were cold. The right hand was lying on the chest, and was smeared inside and out with blood. It was quite open. The left hand was lying on the ground and was partially closed, and contained a small packet of cachous wrapped in tissue paper.

So the right hand is across the chest, open, and smeared with blood.
The left hand is on the ground, partially closed, and holding the cachous packet.

Now back to Johnston, Oct 4 papers:

[Morning Advertiser] Was it you who undid the dress? - Yes, I undid the dress to see whether the chest was warm. I did not move the head at all. I left it exactly as I found it. The body itself was not moved while I was there.

[The Times] The dress was not undone, and I undid it to see if the chest was warm. I did not move the head at all, and left it exactly as I found it. The body was not moved while I was there.

So Johnston undid the dress to check for chest warmth, but at no stage does he move the body.
So the right hand must be in the position and state that Blackwell finds it in - open and against the chest.

Now back to Diemschitz.
Oct 2 papers:

[Daily News] She was lying on her side with her face towards the wall of the club; at least I am sure she was lying with her face to the wall. As soon as the police came I ceased to take any interest in the affair, and went on with my duties at the club. I did not notice in what position the hands of the deceased were. I only noticed that the doctor, when he came, unbuttoned the dress of the deceased, and, patting his hand on her on her bosom, told a constable standing by that she was quite warm.

[Morning Advertiser] As soon as the police came I ceased to take any interest in the matter. I did not notice in what position her hands were. I only noticed when the doctor came up he undid the first buttons of her dress next the neck, and put his hand in. He then told the constable that she was quite warm yet. He told the constable to put his hand in and feel the body, and he did so.

So Diemschitz is clearly referring to Johnston, and his examination of the body.
After this, Diemschitz explicitly states that he ceases to takes any interest, and therefore he cannot be observing the victim when either Blackwell or Phillips is present.
Therefore, it must have been when Johnston was examining the body, that Diemschitz (and presumably Kozebrodsky) saw the grapes (or the appearance of).
That would mean Johnston must have opened up the right hand, at which point both Diemschitz and Kozebrodsky (as the theory goes), got confused as to what side of the hand they were looking at, and also confused the smeared blood on the hand, for grapes.
So, did Johnston indeed open the right (or left) hand?

The Times, Oct 4:

Baxter: Did you look at the hands?
Johnston: No. I saw the left hand was lying away from the body, and the arm was bent. The right arm was also bent. The left hand might have been on the ground.

Johnston only felt the right hand for warmth.
So when did Diemschitz and Kozebrodsky see the grapes?
It could not have been when Johnston was examining the body, and it could not have been after that point.
Most likely someone removed the grapes prior to Johnston's arrival, and that person surely was not PC Lamb.
So were the grapes planted on the body?
Was the unbranded cachous also planted?

[Wickerman]

I suppose the whole grapes thing is about Packer. Prove the grapes, Packers correct and his description of the man stands. No grapes, no Packer, no man.......

I don't think anyone attempted to 'prove' the grape story.
Confirmation of Packers story was provided by PC Smith, - a man with Stride carrying a newspaper parcel about 12:30am is consistent with Packer selling grapes (in a bag or wrapped?) to the man accompanying Stride and him last seeing them opposite the club about 12:30am.
So long as the woman is the same person, the man must be the same.

While it is true Packer gave two times for his encounter with Stride and the grape buyer; 11:00-11:30 and 12:00-12:30am, approximately. The police would have known what we know today, that Stride was outside the Bricklayers Arms about 11:00pm, so the earlier time provided by Packer (11:00-11:30) had to be in error.
Unfortunately, for any future criminal case Packer had to figure this out himself, which he couldn't. Which is why Swanson had to take him off the potential witness list.

We do not read anywhere that the police did not believe in the existence of the grapes. Witnesses claiming to see grapes had supporting evidence, whereas witnesses not claiming to see any grapes finds no evidence.
Not seeing something is deemed negative evidence which, in the view of police, is not evidence at all.
The police know very well that people can miss seeing what others do see. What the police do put faith in is if a claim has supporting evidence, which the existence of the grapes most certainly does.

Some have claimed that Packer invented this man after reading the papers & learning of the man seen by PC Smith. The description of which was published on Oct 1st:
The following description has been circulated by the police of a man said to have been seen with the deceased during Saturday evening: -'' Age 28. Slight. Height 5ft. 8in. Complexion dark. No whiskers. Black diagonal coat. Hard felt hat. Collar and tie. Carried newspaper parcel. Respectable appearance.''

Yet Packer's offering was not entirely the same:
"...a young man from 25-30, about 5.7. with long black coat buttoned up, soft felt hat, kind of Yankee hat, rather broad shoulders, rather quick in speaking, rough voice...."

If Packer was attempting to purloin someone else's description, one would think he would use some of the same details more accurately.

[Wickerman]

Point being, the grapes, whether they existed or not, most probably cannot help solve this murder anyway.

Hi Michael.

Yes, some have resigned themselves long ago to the reality that this mystery will never be solved. In some cases there is more to be learned, realized or accepted in debating the 'detail'.

[Joshua Rogan]

Hi All,

How in the first instance did Le Grand know to look for evidence of Stride having eaten grapes?

Regards,

Simon

Maybe he read the papers?

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

How in the first instance did Le Grand know to look for evidence of Stride having eaten grapes?

Regards,

Simon

[Fisherman]

You keep saying this "the medico's missed the grapes", yet the sequence of events demonstrates the hand was lifted (the pulse being felt), before both Blackwell & Phillips arrived on scene.

No, it does not. Lamb did n ot lift the right hand, as far as we know, and Johnston didnīt say anything about doing so either. It must be remembered that Diemschitz and Kozebrodsky both describe a medico who examined the hand; they even say he opened it up, so reasonably we are talking about Blackwell.

The two peoples who were in the best position to see the grapes (PC Lamb & Dr Johnson) were never asked. Them both attending the inquest before the subject was raised.

But Johnston very clearly tells us that he did not look at her left hand, where he knew there was a piece of tissue. Why would he leave out speaking about the grapes in her right hand, Jon? And why would the coroner only ask Lamb about the left hand, and whether he looked at it? Why not ask about the right hand too? In effect, as Joshua Rogan has shown us, the coroner DID ask about that right hand - but he asked Blackwell, who confirmed that there was not a trace of any grape anywhere close to the body. And of course, as Stride was lifted onto the ambulance and wheeled away, the police will have checked the ground under her carefully, becasue sometimes important clues are hidden by the bodies of murder victims. It is therefore abundantly clear that there were no grapes in Strides hand, nor were there any on the ground beside her or under her. What there were, were oblong blood clots on the back of her hand, that may have been mistaken for grapes, offering at least one sensible explanation to the matter.

On the hand being touched (hand raised) anything under the fingers will fall to the ground. Why you think black grapes should be noticeable in the dark, in the mud, and possibly in the blood, and likely crushed by many boots when they removed the body, is surprising. The cachous were noticeable as they were in a white? packet. The packet being noticed first.

The ground will have been thoroughly searched, and nothing was found there. Crushed or not, the skins and the fruit meat will be very easy to see.

Rather than accept a couple of black grapes could have been easily missed among the muddy cobbles, in the dark, and crushed beyond recognition, you would sooner; the grape stalk, the fruit-stained handky, the two witnesses who saw grapes, and the man (Packer) who admitted to selling Stride (ie; the couple) grapes, are errors or lies or unrelated items of evidence.
Talk about denial! :-)

I am denying not a iot of that list, Jon. I am denying that Stride had grapes in her hand that fell onto the ground, and I am doing so becasue if she DID, they vanished into thin air afterwards. And that does not happen.

The grape stalk could have ended up there at any time, and there were no skins of grapes found in the yard or in Strides belly. No denial there - from my side, at least.

The handkerchief had fruit stains on it - and there are many fruits in the world. Phillips said that the stains were not blood, and I think that perhaps tells us that the stains were red and looked like blood. Do grapes produce red stains, similar to blood? No. Do strawberries? Yes. Do blackberries? Yes. Do blueberries? Yes.

And Packer? Well, we can always quote from this site:

"In the immediate aftermath of the murder, Packer was interviewed and claimed to have seen nothing, claiming that he closed his shop at 12.30 a.m. (Stride's body was found at or just after 1 a.m.) However, four days later a press report appeared in which it was stated that Packer, interviewed by private detectives, had related a story in which a man and a woman wearing a flower had come to his shop at 11.45 p.m. and had sold black grapes to the man.
Packer identified the body of Stride as the woman he had seen with the man he served but told Inspector Moore that he had sold the grapes at midnight. On the afternoon of 4th October Packer was taken to Scotland Yard and was interviewed personally by Charles Warren. In this meeting Packer told Warren that he had served the man at 11 p.m. Warren's account of this interview still survives. Near the end of October, Packer was again in the press, this time claiming he had seen Stride's companion in the Commercial Road. Finally, in November he claimed to have served a man who said was the Ripper's cousin!
It is impossible to say how much of Packer's various accounts are due to faulty recollection and how much to deliberate fabrication. However, it is surely easy to see why he was described by the police as a man who was "unreliable and contradicted himself." It is surely significant that in his first statement, taken within a short time of the murder, Packer claimed to have seen nothing. He was most likely a man who liked the attention, which his later statements gave him, and courted the press for nearly two months after the Stride murder."

A comment you made earlier made me smile.
You wrote:
"......And the reason the witnesses opted for grapes could be on account of how they were common merchandise...."
That was an odd defense to make.

Perhaps so - it hinges on how common strawberries, blackberries and blueberries were in that part of town. Those were the alternatives you named. Personally, I donīt know, but my gut feeling is that grapes were more readily available. I am prepared to be corrected, though.

To my mind, any witness discovering a body laying in a pool of blood, and seeing dark marks on a hand will naturally think of blood stains, as opposed to black grapes!

If the marks had been streams and smears of blood, then yes. But if they were oblong, dark red clots, looking black in the gloom, we get a different picture. If there were no streams of blood at all to accompany them, the illusion may have been a very persuasive one.

I can't think of any murder in history where a witness swore to seeing grapes that turned out to be blood clots.

Can you think of any case where an object looking like another object have been mistaken for that other object? Because that is the question we should ask, not whether people normally mistake blood for grapes.

That must be among thee most bizarre miss-identificatiosn in the annals of crime.

No, I donīt think so. It only becomes bizarre if there is no likeness, Jon.

And you're only defense is to keep saying that two doctors should have seen the grapes in the dark after they had most probably fallen from the hand.
That might make sense to you Christer, but.......

Blackwell & Phillips obviously didn't, just like PC Lamb didn't see the cachous that we ALL know where there. These things happen my friend!

Lamb did not NOTE the cachous, Jon. Others, who looked, noted them. It is not as if Lamb would not have seen them if he looked for them. Every witness that was there will have had varying impressions of the body, what some noted was missed by others. That is how it goes.
The police and medicos however looked carefully for any evidence lying around. Unless you disagree, and think they didnīt care?

They found cachous, but not a single grape. That is why the cachous are a fact, just as it is a fact that no grapes could be seen in the yard.

[Fisherman]

But Christer, the left hand was nearest the wall. There was no room to stand between the wall and her body to crouch down and take a pulse.

Why would anybody feeling for a pulse need to get between the body and the wall, though? Crouch down, bend over the body and put your hand on the wrist. She was a woman, not an elephant, Jon!

No, no Christer, as I mentioned before. Someone caused the blood stains on her right hand.

Yes, obviously. I was flummoxed by how you wrote that a hand with no wound cannot have blood on it, but I see now what you are after. Yes, the blood was transferred at some stage.

As the only two people to touch her hands were Lamb & Johnson, and Johnson claimed it wasn't him, yet Lamb claimed he found the fluid blood to be clotted (he meant congealed), then Lamb had to have touched the congealed blood and transferred it to her hand.
PC Lamb is the only candidate, so he must have been the one.

Simple logic! But what happened to the killer? WHy could he not have transferred the blood? And what happened to the period of time when Stride was lying alone in the yard? Lamb is not the only candidate at all, Jon!

Also, bear in mind, Lamb used the word "clot" when he meant "congeal", this is a common mistake.
So how do you know the same mistake was not made regarding the right hand?
Maybe it wasn't smeared with "clotted" blood (lumps), but only smeared with "congealed" blood (dried flat smears). The mistake has already been made once, if it was made a second time it severely scuttles the "grapes must have been clotted blood" argument.
Dried flat smeared blood do not in any way resemble round or oval grapes.

Jon, any roundish, darkish shape can be mistaken for a grape, not least in darkness and from a distance. It is that simple. We do not know the exact apparition of the hand, but we DO know that Phillips spoke of oblong shapes of blood on it. That is more than enough to build a very useful argument on.

You feel for a pulse with the fingers, to do that he had to raise her hand (the right hand), his fingers being underneath the wrist - so her hand was raised slightly while he did this. This is not "examining" the hand, only feeling for the pulse.

If Johnston had done that, he would have turned the back of the hand up, towards himself. And since he didnīt work blindfolded, Iīd say that he would ahve noted the blood on it at that stage. But he didnīt. To me, that very much implicates that he used the left hand, not the right one. We canīt be certain either way, but that is the inference.

[/I]

If Johnson can describe the positions of the hands, then clearly he "looked" at the hands.

Whwn he says "looked" he means "examined". Itīs not as if heīsays that he could not see the hands, itīs a case of him saying that he did not pay any attention to them.

In this case when the coroner said "look" he must have meant "examine". Johnson did look at the hands, but he did not examine them. He also touched both hands as he knew they were both cold.

Jon, if one hand is cold, then so is the other. People do not retain warmth in one hand and loose it in the other when dying.

How do you do that in the dark without "looking" at the hands?

He didnīt. He did it without EXAMINING the hands.

You're joking, right?

No, I am not joking. Magicians are very aware of how we are prone to accept that we are looking at a palm when we perceive that there is something in it, Jon. And they make good use of it. You must realize that if Diemnschitz and Kozebrodsky mistook the blood clots for grapes, then realistically, they wil have accepted that they were looking at the palm of her hand. Given how the arm was positioned, depending on how Blackwee lifted it, he could have produced either side to those on the opposite side of the yard. There is no joke about it whatsoever.


I was just trying to avoid some confusion between the man buying a half-pound of grapes, and Stride holding a couple in her hand. She wasn't holding the entire half-pound :-)

Nobody is suggesting that she did - if the blood clots were grape-shaped, they could not have been very many. But they could have been a handful nevertheless. But it would be a silly thing to argue about.

[Fisherman]

With pleasure.

Abraham Ashbrigh observed the body prior to Spooner.

Evening Standard, Oct 1:



So which hand is he referring to?
Is it the hand nearest the flower on the breast, that he has just mentioned, or the other?
Remember, this is under the light of a match or a candle.
A clue is that he was able to estimate the number of cachous in the paper.
How could he have done so if the cachous were partially hidden under Stride's left thumb?
He couldn't, of course, and that's because the cachous were in the right hand.

By the way, nice of Louis not to touch the body till the doctors had been sent for!

Now if PC Lamb were responsible for relocating the cachous from right to left hand, we might be able to detect a change in position of the left arm.
We should also try to get a sense of the pressure Lamb was under.
Oct 3:



So at this stage, the left arm appears to be tucked up against the body, if not right under it.
That means the left hand was probably invisible to both Ashbrigh and Spooner.
Lamb claims not to notice anything in the left hand, and yet he is holding a lantern in his left hand.
He may have had better visibility than anyone.
In contrast, Ashbrigh and Spooner were reliant on match or candle light, and yet both were able to see the cachous, and even count them!

Now note the hand smeared with blood, and the position of the left arm, when Johnston examines the victim.
Oct 4:



The left arm position seems to have changed!
Johnston does not see the blood on the right hand, as it is now open against the chest.
Lamb must have bent the left arm at the elbow when placing the cachous packet partially in her left hand.

Now tell me how Liz managed to hang onto the cachous...

So what are you trying to say? That Lamb took the cachous from her right hand, spilled some of them, and then put them in her left hand instead?

Any idea why?

And any idea why Blackwell siad that HE was the guy who spilled them?

Why is it that you think the position of the left arm has changed? It is not as if the reports say that all of it was under her - the upper arm was, nothing more.

What are you getting at with all of this?

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

I suppose the whole grapes thing is about Packer. Prove the grapes, Packers correct and his description of the man stands. No grapes, no Packer, no man. Depends on who you fancy for Jack really?

Do the grapes lean towards a pub or street pick up? Could be either, but I'm with Michael on this one. They're not going to solve anything.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

A friend from the late 1970s onwards wrote this.
In his 90s now and living 200 Km from Perth.

Madness Of The Sixties | Timothy Leary and me

Cheers, I'll have a read when I'm free to. Didn't have you down as an old bohemian!

[Michael W Richards]

You keep saying this "the medico's missed the grapes", yet the sequence of events demonstrates the hand was lifted (the pulse being felt), before both Blackwell & Phillips arrived on scene.
The two peoples who were in the best position to see the grapes (PC Lamb & Dr Johnson) were never asked. Them both attending the inquest before the subject was raised.

On the hand being touched (hand raised) anything under the fingers will fall to the ground. Why you think black grapes should be noticeable in the dark, in the mud, and possibly in the blood, and likely crushed by many boots when they removed the body, is surprising. The cachous were noticeable as they were in a white? packet. The packet being noticed first.

Rather than accept a couple of black grapes could have been easily missed among the muddy cobbles, in the dark, and crushed beyond recognition, you would sooner; the grape stalk, the fruit-stained handky, the two witnesses who saw grapes, and the man (Packer) who admitted to selling Stride (ie; the couple) grapes, are errors or lies or unrelated items of evidence.
Talk about denial! :-)

A comment you made earlier made me smile.
You wrote:
"......And the reason the witnesses opted for grapes could be on account of how they were common merchandise...."
That was an odd defense to make.

To my mind, any witness discovering a body laying in a pool of blood, and seeing dark marks on a hand will naturally think of blood stains, as opposed to black grapes!
I can't think of any murder in history where a witness swore to seeing grapes that turned out to be blood clots. That must be among thee most bizarre miss-identificatiosn in the annals of crime.
And you're only defense is to keep saying that two doctors should have seen the grapes in the dark after they had most probably fallen from the hand.
That might make sense to you Christer, but.......

Blackwell & Phillips obviously didn't, just like PC Lamb didn't see the cachous that we ALL know where there. These things happen my friend!

Lets say for arguments sake there were grapes and stalk in her hands Jon, that wouldn't mean they were for certain hers..for one, she might have clenched something into her hand as she lay on her side drawing her legs into her body....and it wouldn't mean that she didn't buy them herself with the missing 6d she earned that afternoon, for a second.

Point being, the grapes, whether they existed or not, most probably cannot help solve this murder anyway.

[DJA]

You'll be right at home on the Wallace thread then.

A friend from the late 1970s onwards wrote this.
In his 90s now and living 200 Km from Perth.

Madness Of The Sixties | Timothy Leary and me