The Absence Of Evidence

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I agree, but even a policeman can word things ambiguously.

Caz: At 9 o'clock yesterday morning I went to Stowford Rise as per usual.

At 9.15 I arrived at Waitrose. [This is because it takes me about 15 minutes to walk there from home.] I saw several customers ahead of me and the cheeky security guard, who is a Spurs fan and always rips the piss out of me for wearing a Chelsea face covering.

I take "At 1 o'clock I went to Berner-street in my ordinary round", as meaning "At 1 o'clock I left the top of my beat at Gower's Walk, and went in the direction of Berner-street".

PC Smith didn't hear any cries of "Police", because he was presumably not yet in earshot when the alarm was raised.

That's my interpretation

When he got to the club there were already two other constables there.

At 1 o'clock the two constables went to Berner-street when informed of the murder

[caz]

Right. How open was it? All we can go on is what Sarah (Mrs D) said:

The door had been, and still was, half open, and through the aperture the light from the gas jets in the kitchen was streaming out into the yard.

She appears to have been cooking up a storm at one in the morning...

I'm not sure she was cooking anything. I assume she was referring to the gas jets that provided the lighting in the kitchen, where she had been making beverages for people.

If that was the door to the outside lavatories, there must have been more comings and goings than appear on the record.

At least in Hanbury Street, we only know of one resident taken short around the time Chapman's body was discovered.

Whether Stride's killer was the ripper or not, he must have come pretty close to an inconvenient encounter with anyone using the conveniences.

[caz]

Schwartz may have been having a lark, including just pretending to recognise the woman at the mortuary.

Yeah, must have been a real lark, putting himself that close to the crime scene at 12.45, then claiming to have been a right old cowardy custard, taking off in a blue funk and leaving this same poor woman in the deadly clutches of not one, but seemingly two Jewish thugs in cahoots.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Also if Schwartz saw what he thought he saw, what made him believe it was late on the Saturday night? Where was he travelling from? Did Jews often work on Saturdays then? Anyone see the original police report that shows clearly he reported this event a few hours after the murder?

As I say, I do not see him appear anywhere until the 19th October. By Swanson.

The original police report no longer exists.
Presumably you're familiar with the Star report, Oct 1...?

INFORMATION WHICH MAY BE IMPORTANT was given to the Leman-street police late yesterday afternoon by an Hungarian concerning this murder. This foreigner was well dressed, and had the appearance of being in the theatrical line. He could not speak a word of English, but came to the police-station accompanied by a friend, who acted as an interpreter. He gave his name and address, but the police have not disclosed them. A Star man, however, got wind of his call, and ran him to earth in Backchurch-lane. The reporter's Hungarian was quite as imperfect as the foreigner's English, but an interpreter was at hand, and the man's story was retold just as he had given it to the police. It is, in fact, to the effect that he SAW THE WHOLE THING.

It seems that he had gone out for the day, and his wife had expected to move, during his absence, from their lodgings in Berner-street to others in Backchurch-lane. When he came homewards about a quarter before one he first walked down Berner-street to see if his wife had moved. As he turned the corner from Commercial-road he noticed some distance in front of him a man walking as if partially intoxicated. He walked on behind him, and presently he noticed a woman standing in the entrance to the alley way where the body was afterwards found. The half-tipsy man halted and spoke to her. The Hungarian saw him put his hand on her shoulder and push her back into the passage, but, feeling rather timid of getting mixed up in quarrels, he crossed to the other side of the street. Before he had gone many yards, however, he heard the sound of a quarrel, and turned back to learn what was the matter, but just as he stepped from the kerb A SECOND MAN CAME OUT of the doorway of the public-house a few doors off, and shouting out some sort of warning to the man who was with the woman, rushed forward as if to attack the intruder. The Hungarian states positively that he saw a knife in this second man's hand, but he waited to see no more. He fled incontinently, to his new lodgings.

He described THE MAN WITH THE WOMAN as about 30 years of age, rather stoutly built, and wearing a brown moustache. He was dressed respectably in dark clothes and felt hat. The man who came at him with a knife he also describes, but not in detail. He says he was taller than the other, but not so stout, and that his moustaches were red. Both men seem to belong to the same grade of society. The police have arrested one man answering the description the Hungarian furnishes. This prisoner has not been charged, but is held for inquiries to be made. The truth of the man's statement is not wholly accepted.

And the follow up mention the following day...

In the matter of the Hungarian who said he saw a struggle between a man and a woman in the passage where the Stride body was afterwards found, the Leman-street police have reason to doubt the truth of the story. They arrested one man on the description thus obtained, and a second on that furnished from another source, but they are not likely to act further on the same information without additional facts.

[caz]

There is nothing more official than the account of a policeman under oath.

Smith: At 1 o'clock I went to Berner-street in my ordinary round. I saw a crowd of people outside the gates of No. 40. I did not hear any cries of "Police."

I agree, but even a policeman can word things ambiguously.

Caz: At 9 o'clock yesterday morning I went to Stowford Rise as per usual.

At 9.15 I arrived at Waitrose. [This is because it takes me about 15 minutes to walk there from home.] I saw several customers ahead of me and the cheeky security guard, who is a Spurs fan and always rips the piss out of me for wearing a Chelsea face covering.

PC Smith didn't hear any cries of "Police", because he was presumably not yet in earshot when the alarm was raised. When he got to the club there were already two other constables there.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

We would have to recognise the difference between actually open or ajar and just unlocked. Unlocked would be a definite especially as there were toilets in the yard. Mrs D said that it was actually open/ajar. Lots of maybe’s here of course. Maybe if someone had just left it open she had noticed this and not bothered to close it?

Right. How open was it? All we can go on is what Sarah (Mrs D) said:

The door had been, and still was, half open, and through the aperture the light from the gas jets in the kitchen was streaming out into the yard.

She appears to have been cooking up a storm at one in the morning.
I think we can infer that the door had been open for at least this period...

When my husband examined the body he found that life, so far as he could tell, was quite extinct. He at once sent for a policeman. He is positive that before entering the yard he did not see any man about the street. It was just one o'clock when my husband came home. Some twenty minutes previously a member of the club had entered by the side door, but he states that he did not then notice anybody lying prostrate in the yard. It was, however, very dark at the time, and he might, in consequence, have failed to see any such object on the ground.

My thought was the the door being opened might have been what disturbed the ripper (if it was the ripper of course) Did Mrs D open it herself (she didn’t say this specifically but would she have done so?) If she’d had an idea of who might have opened it because ‘maybe’ she’d seen that person pass by the kitchen, then would she have mentioned this to the police? Maybe Eagle left it open? Maybe she asked him to leave it open?

It doesn't seem from the above quotes that any of these would have been the case. On the other hand, the passageway ran right through the club (inside that is, not the laneway), so there seems to have been a backdoor. So three doors in total. Who might have used the backdoor, unknown to Sarah?
Note that in the previous quote, the member referred to is Eagle. Why doesn't she see Lave?
I think Eagle left though the front door, which is why he tried that door on his return.

All that I can suggest is that this ‘maybe’ a different source for interruption if indeed interruption took place. Someone going to the loo or standing on the step for a breath of air or even Mts D herself opening it.

Someone going to the loo, like the little boy in the Irish Times report...?

About five minutes to one o'clock this morning a youth about twenty years of age named Joseph Koster was accosted by a little boy who came running up to him as he was passing on the opposite side of 40 Berner street, used by the International Socialist Club, and told him that a woman was lying in the gateway next to the club, with her throat cut. Koster immediately ran across the road and saw a woman lying on her side in the gateway leading into Dutfield's stabling and van premises.

The report would make some sense if the little boy had lived in one of the tenements, but PC Lamb tells us that these people did not appear to know what had happened.
Thus we would seem to have a someone giving a bullshit discovery story.

[Wickerman]

Not sure what you mean, it's Swanson's own report which provides time & date - "12.45 a.m. 30th. Israel Schwartz of 22 Helen (Ellen) street, Backchurch Lane, stated that at that hour."..etc.

Can you clarify?

[caz]

I don’t think so. He came back from near Crystal Palace, south of the Thames and a little west of Berner Street. He would have crossed the Thames by way of the Tower Bridge, then north to Commercial Street and then east along Commercial Street, where he turned right into Berner Street. PC Ayliffe (426 H) was, of course, further to the east.

Hi Frank,

Tower Bridge was still under construction in 1888 and not finished until 1894. So I think Louis D would have needed to use London Bridge, further west, but no doubt I'll be corrected if I'm wrong.

Love,

Caz
X

[erobitha]

If we remove Schwartz from the equation completely, then the general timings and witness statements line up better. There is some kind of correlation across the reports and that gives us a pattern of behaviour that would make more sense. Liz drifted from pub to pub (possibly Red Lion and Geroge IV) before being seen again around 12.30 on the street. A gap of 45-60 mins before next sighting.

Probably got spooked by the last customer and was slowly trying to make her way to the club perhaps to raise the alarm, or at least find safety where there was noise. Switch the timing of Smith and Brown and that would follow. Jack cottoned on quickly what she was doing and worried about having a good description of him or alerting the club, he opted to simply murder her in the entrance when he had the opportunity to keep her silence. He then either calmly walked up past Fanny Mortimer's as she was inside (she mistook for police foosteps) onto Commercial Road, just as Louis D was coming down. Or he was hiding in the shadows until Louis D went for help and escaped then.

Schwartz testimony was not used in the inquest. The earliest mention of him seems to be around 19th October. Swanson suddenly brings attention to him from nowhere.

He may have reported seeing what he saw, but he didn't witness Stride.

Also if Schwartz saw what he thought he saw, what made him believe it was late on the Saturday night? Where was he travelling from? Did Jews often work on Saturdays then? Anyone see the original police report that shows clearly he reported this event a few hours after the murder?

As I say, I do not see him appear anywhere until the 19th October. By Swanson.

[Herlock Sholmes]

That makes sense, except that this spur-of-the-moment killer seems to be very stealthy, and professional is his craft (just like the Mitre Square murderer).

Mrs Diemschitz: I am positive I did not hear any screams or sound of any kind. Even the singing on the floor above would not have prevented me from hearing them, had there been any. In the yard itself all was as silent as the grave.

Mrs Mortimer: It was almost incredible to me that the thing could be done without the steward's wife hearing the noise, for she was sitting in the kitchen, from which a window opens four yards from the spot where the woman was found.

Fanny can hardly believe what's happened.



I would suggest...

e) The door was left open for the benefit of people using the yard

Barnett Kentorrich, who lived next door with his wife, said:

I do not think the yard bears a very good character at night, but I do not interfere with any of the people about here. I know that the gate is not kept fastened. The club is a nasty place.

Seems as though people frequented the yard at night, so the open door was likely for their benefit. In other words, it was usually open, at least on meeting nights.
When Eagle returned to the club and found the front door closed, he didn't knock, he just entered through the side door instead. Presumably he knew from experience, it would be open.

We would have to recognise the difference between actually open or ajar and just unlocked. Unlocked would be a definite especially as there were toilets in the yard. Mrs D said that it was actually open/ajar. Lots of maybe’s here of course. Maybe if someone had just left it open she had noticed this and not bothered to close it? My thought was the the door being opened might have been what disturbed the ripper (if it was the ripper of course) Did Mrs D open it herself (she didn’t say this specifically but would she have done so?) If she’d had an idea of who might have opened it because ‘maybe’ she’d seen that person pass by the kitchen, then would she have mentioned this to the police? Maybe Eagle left it open? Maybe she asked him to leave it open?

All that I can suggest is that this ‘maybe’ a different source for interruption if indeed interruption took place. Someone going to the loo or standing on the step for a breath of air or even Mts D herself opening it.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

So according to Mrs D the door was already open when her husband first entered. What can we deduce from this? Would someone commit murder with this door open and light (and sound) streaming out? I’d suggest a spur-of-the-moment killer might do but perhaps someone intending to mutilate less so?

That makes sense, except that this spur-of-the-moment killer seems to be very stealthy, and professional is his craft (just like the Mitre Square murderer).

Mrs Diemschitz: I am positive I did not hear any screams or sound of any kind. Even the singing on the floor above would not have prevented me from hearing them, had there been any. In the yard itself all was as silent as the grave.

Mrs Mortimer: It was almost incredible to me that the thing could be done without the steward's wife hearing the noise, for she was sitting in the kitchen, from which a window opens four yards from the spot where the woman was found.

Fanny can hardly believe what's happened.

Or might the open door suggest something else? So...

a) Was Mrs D mistaken about the door being already open?
b) Stride was killed by a spur-of-the-moment killer for whom an open door was irrelevant?
c) The killer was the ripper who might not have intended to mutilate in this case?
d) The opening of the door was what interrupted the ripper?

I’d suggest a) as being unlikely. She might even have opened it herself, especially working in a warm kitchen?

I would suggest...

e) The door was left open for the benefit of people using the yard

Barnett Kentorrich, who lived next door with his wife, said:

I do not think the yard bears a very good character at night, but I do not interfere with any of the people about here. I know that the gate is not kept fastened. The club is a nasty place.

Seems as though people frequented the yard at night, so the open door was likely for their benefit. In other words, it was usually open, at least on meeting nights.
When Eagle returned to the club and found the front door closed, he didn't knock, he just entered through the side door instead. Presumably he knew from experience, it would be open.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

If we remove Schwartz from the equation completely, then the general timings and witness statements line up better. There is some kind of correlation across the reports and that gives us a pattern of behaviour that would make more sense. Liz drifted from pub to pub (possibly Red Lion and Geroge IV) before being seen again around 12.30 on the street. A gap of 45-60 mins before next sighting.

Probably got spooked by the last customer and was slowly trying to make her way to the club perhaps to raise the alarm, or at least find safety where there was noise. Switch the timing of Smith and Brown and that would follow. Jack cottoned on quickly what she was doing and worried about having a good description of him or alerting the club, he opted to simply murder her in the entrance when he had the opportunity to keep her silence. He then either calmly walked up past Fanny Mortimer's as she was inside (she mistook for police foosteps) onto Commercial Road, just as Louis D was coming down. Or he was hiding in the shadows until Louis D went for help and escaped then.

Schwartz testimony was not used in the inquest. The earliest mention of him seems to be around 19th October. Swanson suddenly brings attention to him from nowhere.

He may have reported seeing what he saw, but he didn't witness Stride.

Interesting thoughts.

If we remove Schwartz from the equation completely, then yes the pressure to make timings fit is reduced, as is the need to explain away incompatible witness statements.
However, if Schwartz did report what he saw, but he didn't see Stride, then we then need to explain why Swanson's report contains this...

Upon being taken to the mortuary Schwartz identified the body as that of the woman he had seen...

Schwartz may have been having a lark, including just pretending to recognise the woman at the mortuary.
Yet we would still need to explain why there is a parallel report of the Stride throw down incident, contained in a few different papers.
It may have been that Schwartz' tale was half true, half false, and part of the false was the time given.

Arbeter Fraint: The first murder occurred on Saturday night about a quarter to one.

Coincidently, the 'lark' witnessing just happened to be at the same time.
So that explanation would seem to not cut the mustard, and yet with Schwartz removed, the pressure is eased substantially.

Regarding the pubs and her customers - Dr Phillips found no coin on her person, so it is legitimate to ask; what customers?
If it be supposed that she spent the dough at one of those pubs, then where are the witness sightings?

Regarding the footsteps heard by Fanny, that of course takes us back into the ongoing timeline debate.
Mortimer's statement apparently included a reference to the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat.
This is a letter to the Echo, Oct 4:

Sir, - Will you allow me to support your suggestion of the advisability of the authorities to supply policemen on night duty with noiseless boots? I have frequently seen people meet after dark under suspicious-looking circumstances, disperse immediately on hearing the heavy measured tramp of an advancing policeman - whereas, if had had been in time to have seen what their little business really was. I firmly believe the noiseless booted policeman would greatly tend to diminish street lawlessness. - Yours faithfully,
HENRY BAX 16, Lincoln's-inn-fields, W.C.

Perhaps 'heavy measured tramp' was a common way of referring to 'the plod'?

[Herlock Sholmes]

.
Mrs Diemschitz: Just about one o'clock on Sunday morning I was in the kitchen on the ground floor of the club, and close to the side entrance, serving tea and coffee for the members who were singing upstairs. Up till then I had not heard a sound-not even a whisper. Then suddenly I saw my husband enter, looking very scared and frightened. I inquired what was the matter, but all he did was to excitedly ask for a match or candle, as there was a body in the yard. The door had been, and still was, half open, and through the aperture the light from the gas jets in the kitchen was streaming out into the yard. I at once complied with his request and gave him some matches. He then rushed out into the yard, and I followed him to the doorway, where I remained. Just by the door I saw a pool of blood, and when my husband struck a light I noticed a dark lump lying under the wall. I at once recognised it as the body of a woman, while, to add to my horror, I saw a stream of blood trickling down the yard, and terminating in the pool I had first noticed. She was lying on her back with her head against the wall, and the face looked ghastly. I screamed out in fright, and the members of the club, hearing my cries, rushed downstairs in a body out into the yard. When my husband examined the body he found that life, so far as he could tell, was quite extinct. He at once sent for a policeman

So according to Mrs D the door was already open when her husband first entered. What can we deduce from this? Would someone commit murder with this door open and light (and sound) streaming out? I’d suggest a spur-of-the-moment killer might do but perhaps someone intending to mutilate less so? Or might the open door suggest something else? So...

a) Was Mrs D mistaken about the door being already open?
b) Stride was killed by a spur-of-the-moment killer for whom an open door was irrelevant?
c) The killer was the ripper who might not have intended to mutilate in this case?
d) The opening of the door was what interrupted the ripper?

I’d suggest a) as being unlikely. She might even have opened it herself, especially working in a warm kitchen?

[erobitha]

If we remove Schwartz from the equation completely, then the general timings and witness statements line up better. There is some kind of correlation across the reports and that gives us a pattern of behaviour that would make more sense. Liz drifted from pub to pub (possibly Red Lion and Geroge IV) before being seen again around 12.30 on the street. A gap of 45-60 mins before next sighting.

Probably got spooked by the last customer and was slowly trying to make her way to the club perhaps to raise the alarm, or at least find safety where there was noise. Switch the timing of Smith and Brown and that would follow. Jack cottoned on quickly what she was doing and worried about having a good description of him or alerting the club, he opted to simply murder her in the entrance when he had the opportunity to keep her silence. He then either calmly walked up past Fanny Mortimer's as she was inside (she mistook for police foosteps) onto Commercial Road, just as Louis D was coming down. Or he was hiding in the shadows until Louis D went for help and escaped then.

Schwartz testimony was not used in the inquest. The earliest mention of him seems to be around 19th October. Swanson suddenly brings attention to him from nowhere.

He may have reported seeing what he saw, but he didn't witness Stride.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

My oh my, Andrew, that's a lot of stuff in your post #239, so, I just have a reaction or two and a general remark for you.

So it would seem Frank, that your posts are worthy of serious discussion

As far as I can see, there really is no doubt that it was about 20 minutes before one o’clock. In the Daily News of 2 October Mrs. Diemshutz said: “It was just one o'clock when my husband came home. Some twenty minutes previously a member of the club had entered by the side door, but he states that he did not then notice anybody lying prostrate in the yard.”

That leaves the movements of Lave, unexplained.
By the way, I was wrong about the French secret police and Eagle - it were actually Krantz, who got this mention in the Star, Oct 1:

M. Rombrow is the editor of The Worker's Friend, whose printing office is in the yard. It was just outside the door of this office that the body was found [WTF?]. M. Rombrow says that he was in this office all the time, and had there been the noise of any struggle, however slight, he should have heard it. He heard nothing, however, until the steward's coming into the yard.

If as suggested (and I believe I am not the first), Yaffa = Lave, then Lave and Krantz might be worth a closer look.

A question for you: Regardless of the actual time of Diemschitz arrival, between 12:40 and that arrival time, who was in the yard at any point, other than murderer and victim?

I don’t think so. He came back from near Crystal Palace, south of the Thames and a little west of Berner Street. He would have crossed the Thames by way of the Tower Bridge, then north to Commercial Street and then east along Commercial Street, where he turned right into Berner Street. PC Ayliffe (426 H) was, of course, further to the east.

Okay, he was going in the other direction. My bad.
Many members were travellers, it would seem. Diemschitz, Eagle, and Goldstein were. Yet none of these people seem to know were to find a policeman, along a nearby main road. I reckon Matthew Packer would have known.
It's also a little odd that Eagle seems to have had no trouble making his way to Leman street station. I don't suppose you are inclined to increase his 5 minute jog time, given the possibility of wrong turns.

OK, so what were the time-consuming actions here? Diemshutz entered the kitchen by the side-door; he, apparently said there was a body in the yard and asked for a match & candle; she gave him what he asked for, after which he rushed ouside; he struck a light, and while she screamed, members came down and hurried outside, too; Diemshutz in the meanwhile saw all the blood made, which made him run (or send someone) for the police. Could have happened in 20-30 seconds.

I don't think Diemschitz did enter the side door. The "get up" quote I gave of Eagle, was from the inquest. According to yourself, that makes it official, and should therefore be give more weight. Yet the quote sounds similar to Arbeter Fraint:

Yaffa and Krants immediately ran out and went over to the gate. The gate was open and it was very dark near the gate. A black object was barely discernable near the brick building. Once they got very close, they could notice that it was the shape of a woman that was lying with its face to the wall, with its head toward the yard and with its feet pointing to the gate. Comrades Morris Eygel, Fridenthal and Gilyarovsky were standing around the body. Eygel struck a match and shouted to the figure lying there: “Get up!” “Why are you waking her?” asked Yaffa, who noticed that the woman was lying in a liquid. “Don’t you see that the woman is dead?”

So this is occurring before Mrs Diemschitz is informed, and the members hurtle pell-mell down the stairs.

Spooner doesn't seem to have been the best witness when it comes to estimating times. But besides, I agree with Herlock in that timings should not be taken at face value, a little leeway where leeway is due. Spooner said 4 or 5 minutes, Diemshutz said "at the same moment", referring to Spooner lifting Stride's chin and Diemshutz then seeing the cut to the throat for the first time. As far as I'm concerned, the truth was probably somewhere in the midde.

When Fanny Mortimer goes to the yard, Diemschitz is there, and it would seem, Spooner too. Yet no police. So the search at that point must have been ongoing.

General remark: sticking to the official accounts, there's no need to question or fit much of anything. If you don't and you'd try and fit everything together, that will prove difficult, if not impossible.

There is nothing more official than the account of a policeman under oath.

Smith: At 1 o'clock I went to Berner-street in my ordinary round. I saw a crowd of people outside the gates of No. 40. I did not hear any cries of "Police."