Broad Shoulders, Elizabeth's Killer ?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Possibilities for how Schwartz fits in:

1. Schwartz is mistaken about what street he goes down and about the woman being Stride, but otherwise gives a pretty accurate account of what he sees.

The press report states Schwartz's reason for being in Berner St at that hour.

2. The Schwartz event occurred sometime before PC Smith saw Parcelman, but Schwartz mostly got it right other than the time. The assault was slightly milder than he thought, and Stride soon picked herself up and carried on.

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

3. The Schwartz event happened after PC Smith passed and Eagle returned, but before Fanny was at her door. Fanny was mistaken either about whose footsteps she heard or about how long it was after the footsteps passed that she went to the door - it wasn't quite immediately. The "assault event" began no earlier than 12:38 and ended no later than 12:48. Either the event was over when Brown went to get his meal or it happened while he was inside the store getting the meal.

Isn't it odd that Eagle seems to arrive at the gateway just when we might suppose the BS man to have done so. What are the chances that Eagle had already consumed a vodka or two, and as a result was "half-tipsy"? I'm not suggesting Eagle was the BS man, but BS man might have been 'modelled' on his movements.

First man: age about 30 ht, 5 ft 5 in. comp. fair hair dark, small brown moustache, full face, broad shouldered...

4. The Schwartz event happened after Fanny closed her door, which could have been as early as 12:48. Brown either was in the store at the time or back home.

That would mean she spotted a man on Berner St right about when Schwartz said he was there, except that the man's name was Leon Goldstein, and off to the railway arch he goes!

Swanson's report refers to Goldstein being on the street at "about 1am". Goldstein is therefore in sync with Mortimer's times. Perhaps they were both off GMT by about the same plus 15 minutes - that is what this scenario requires. It could be argued that Goldstein gave a time of about 1am to stay compatible with Mortimer's comments to the press, but if he is doing so to avoid suspicion then "all bets are off".

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

I suggest that how much extra time needs to be allowed depends in part on the rest of your timeline. As I recall, your timeline had the Schwarz incident happening after Fanny went back inside. Fanny not only didn't see the incident, she also didn't see any of the players. The first one to arrive was Stride, so what is needed for this timeline is to determine the minimum of time needed for her to arrive before the incident without Fanny seeing her. If enough time is allowed for her to get there, then there will also be enough time for everyone else. IIRC, your timeline had Fanny closing her door quite awhile before Diemschutz arrived, so it probably already permits enough time for the Schwartz Event not only by the pedantic definition, but also allowing for Stride to arrive after Fanny goes inside and for everything else that needed to happen before Diemschutz got there.

Hi Lewis,

Yes, in the version I put together I wanted to see how things would look if all the purported sightings of Stride were correct (primarily PC and Brown I guess). So I think I had it go something like Stride is on Berner Street with Parcelman when PC Smith arrives. The passing of the PC disturbs them and after he passes they move down to Fairclough. Fanny comes out shortly after PC Smith passes, and doesn't notice Stride, who has moved to Fairclough. Brown spots her there. Fanny goes inside, and the man Stride was with (either still Parcelman or she's intercepting various men) has also moved on. Stride moves back to the club, as she knows there are people there, perhaps hoping to catch one of the men when they exit. And then Schwartz and B.S. enter Berner Street, and so on.

All of those movements do work, and the times at which they happen are all such that they make sense of the statements given by witnesses, by which I mean, the times at which they occur in the simulations, while not exactly the time stated by a witness, are close enough to it that the differences are not sufficient to raise concerns. Even the increased time between Fanny going inside and Deimshutz's arrival (longer than 4 minutes), is in the range that we need to consider (between the min and max values), although it is on the long side. But, in putting together the whole simulation, most of the durations we have are closer to the average or shorter (as is typical), so having one out of many be on the long side is not a problem - in fact, it's sort of expected! (rolling 12 on two dice doesn't happen all that often, but if you roll the dice 100 times you do expect to get some 12s after all).

Anyway, all that means is that the simulation "could be" valid but it doesn't prove it is true. However, what the simulation does prove is that rejecting Schwartz on the basis that his event can't possibly fit in the time line is false. It can be made to fit with the evidence we have, provided you don't treat the statements as being infallible and allow for some error in the statements.

If you don't allow for error in the witness statements, then Fanny's statements must be thrown out entirely, because she can't come out shortly after PC Smith's 12:30-12:35 patrol (his statement), be there for 10 minutes (her claim) and then hear Deimshitz's Pony 4 minutes later (as 12:35+10+4 = 12:49, and there's 11 minutes missing until Deimshitz shows up, so Fanny's statements themselves contradict other statements. But if we allow that witness statements will be a bit "off", which is reasonable and proper, then one can't really complain when someone presents a timeline with the "times" a bit different from the statements provided they can defend how they came to the times they chose.

- Jeff

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Why is 12:45-12:55 the most likely time frame? And even if it is, why can't we fit in Schwartz?

The quote "I was standing at the door of my house nearly the whole time between half-past twelve and one o'clock this morning..." suggests she was at her door at least twice in that half hour period.

Fanny says she came out shortly after hearing PC Smith pass by, which was probably around 12:35 ish. That would put Fanny's 10 minute vigil more around 12:35 to 12:45 pluss whatever "shortly" is. Let's say 3 minutes, so 12:38 to 12:48.

The report, not Fanny, says that she went to her doorstep immediately after hearing the policeman's plod. Had she done so, she would come face to face with Stride, but that was not the case. Therefore, the report in question is in error. You suppose that that error can be attributed to Fanny, but where does the journalist suppose the victim was when Fanny hears Smith?

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...

He has no idea that that Smith had witnessed Stride with a man, so the journalist is working with very incomplete information in coming to a conclusion on when the murder occurred.

Schwartz, like everyone else, would be estimating the time, so if he passes down Berner Street around 12:50 ish, then a witness estimating that to be around 12:45 is well within reason.

Presumably not this 12:50ish.

Charles Letchford: ...my sister was standing at the door at 10 minutes to one, but did not see anyone pass by.

Fanny, of course, also is reported as saying she heard Deimshutz's Pony about 4 minutes after she went inside, and that would fit with roughly 12:45 to 12:55. Based upon some other bits of her statements, though, that 4 minutes may actually refer to the time between her hearing the commotion starting at the club and her going outside (as she seems to have arrived after Spooner gets there, and he only arrives after Deimshutz has done his run along Fairclough looking for the police, so commotion to Spooner's arrival is probably in the 2m 30 to 3m range, followed by Fanny at the 4 minute range, could just be a coincidence of timing, or it may be the press report has the wrong "interval" flagged as being 4 minutes).

In the Evening News interview, we get...

I was just about going to bed, sir, when I heard a call for the police. I ran to the door, and before I could open it I heard somebody say, 'Come out quick; there's a poor woman here that's had ten inches of cold steel in her.' I hurried out, and saw some two or three people standing in the gateway. Lewis, the man who looks after the Socialist Club at No. 40, was there, and his wife.

So, Diemschitz does indeed seem to have returned from his search for police by the time Fanny reaches the yard. Thus, the 4-minute gap in the report in question is once again in error - there was no 4-minute gap between lockup and arrival of the steward.

But if Fanny comes out shortly after PC Smith around 12:35ish, and goes in at 12:56ish (the 4 minutes before Diemshutz), then she's not there for her 10 minutes.

If Smith is around 12:35, we are on "Smith Time", not "Diemschitz Time". Smith Time means that the PC is at the top Berner St at 1am, and Lamb is in the yard as of about 12:57. That would mean Mortimer hears Diemschitz turning into the street at about 12:50.

In other words, something in Fanny's statements is wrong. Not surprising, she's estimating times, she's a witness, and all of those things are of course error prone. It is our job to try and work out the various ways in which she could be wrong, and see if by combining multiple witnesses, and factoring in information from research, we can get closer to the actual events than any of the individual witnesses are.

What is wrong with "Fanny's statements" is that you are using a document written by a journalist working with false and incomplete information, and attributing his words to Fanny, to suggest that she said things that she likely did not.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Can you provide evidence of my "usual avenue"? The last thing I said about times is that "Smith Time" is not "Diemschitz Time". You cannot accept this because you need there to be 35 minutes in the half hour between 12:30 and 1am, to fit everything in.

In previous discussions you have expressed your disapproval when stated times aren’t stuck to.

On your second point, it was me that talked about ‘Smith time’ and ‘Diemschitz time’ not necessarily being aligned (applying to all stated times). We can’t assume that they used the same clock. Why is it that you keep talking about 35 minutes? From his own words we get that his beat took 25 or 30 minutes. (Let’s pick 30 for the sake of this discussion) Also from his own words he said that he passed at around 12.30-12.35. (Let’s pick 12.35 for the sake of this discussion)

So he passes at 12.35…walks for 30 minutes…and arrives back at 1.05. And as we can’t know which clock Smith set his time by it’s absolutely possible that he believed that it was nearer to 1.00 than 1.05. He might even have thought that it was just after 1.00 but he simply rounded it back to 1.00 feeling that a couple of minutes hear or there would make no difference.

What we do know is that Diemschitz, by the clock that he saw, 1.00. Meaning that there is no issue with the order of events. He found the body, Lamb arrived at the yard, Smith got there just after.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

Since it is suggested that we're trying to fit everyone around Schwartz, I thought, why not try the opposite approach: make a sequence of events without him, then fit him in last? It seems probable to me that PC Smith passed and Eagle returned before Fanny was at her door. Smith & Eagle could have been roughly concurrent events. Smith returned to the area a few minutes after 1:00, and the circuit took 25-30 minutes, so I think he sees Stride no earlier than 12:35, and maybe closer to 12:38. Eagle returned at 12:40, or maybe 2 minutes earlier. Eagle and Smith are both gone by the time Fanny is at her door. She's at her door for about 10 minutes. I think that it's possible for her time at the door to overlap with the time that Brown is getting his dinner, that she wouldn't necessarily have seen him. It's a given that Goldstein passes while she's at her door. She goes back inside, and 3-10 minutes later, Diemschutz' cart passes.

Possibilities for how Schwartz fits in:

1. Schwartz is mistaken about what street he goes down and about the woman being Stride, but otherwise gives a pretty accurate account of what he sees.

2. The Schwartz event occurred sometime before PC Smith saw Parcelman, but Schwartz mostly got it right other than the time. The assault was slightly milder than he thought, and Stride soon picked herself up and carried on.

3. The Schwartz event happened after PC Smith passed and Eagle returned, but before Fanny was at her door. Fanny was mistaken either about whose footsteps she heard or about how long it was after the footsteps passed that she went to the door - it wasn't quite immediately. The "assault event" began no earlier than 12:38 and ended no later than 12:48. Either the event was over when Brown went to get his meal or it happened while he was inside the store getting the meal.

4. The Schwartz event happened after Fanny closed her door, which could have been as early as 12:48. Brown either was in the store at the time or back home.

Hi Lewis,

That just about sums the possibilities up nicely. I think it likeliest is that Smith passed at around 12.35, then Eagle returned not long after then Fanny went onto her doorstep (mistaking Eagle’s steps for a Constable’s) She goes back inside just before 12.50. The incident occurs and is done by around 12.50. She hears Louis at a time that he believes is 1.00 but is actually 12.55.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Why is 12:45-12:55 the most likely time frame? And even if it is, why can't we fit in Schwartz?

Fanny says she came out shortly after hearing PC Smith pass by, which was probably around 12:35 ish. That would put Fanny's 10 minute vigil more around 12:35 to 12:45 pluss whatever "shortly" is. Let's say 3 minutes, so 12:38 to 12:48. Schwartz, like everyone else, would be estimating the time, so if he passes down Berner Street around 12:50 ish, then a witness estimating that to be around 12:45 is well within reason.

Fanny, of course, also is reported as saying she heard Deimshutz's Pony about 4 minutes after she went inside, and that would fit with roughly 12:45 to 12:55. Based upon some other bits of her statements, though, that 4 minutes may actually refer to the time between her hearing the commotion starting at the club and her going outside (as she seems to have arrived after Spooner gets there, and he only arrives after Deimshutz has done his run along Fairclough looking for the police, so commotion to Spooner's arrival is probably in the 2m 30 to 3m range, followed by Fanny at the 4 minute range, could just be a coincidence of timing, or it may be the press report has the wrong "interval" flagged as being 4 minutes).

But if Fanny comes out shortly after PC Smith around 12:35ish, and goes in at 12:56ish (the 4 minutes before Diemshutz), then she's not there for her 10 minutes.

In other words, something in Fanny's statements is wrong. Not surprising, she's estimating times, she's a witness, and all of those things are of course error prone. It is our job to try and work out the various ways in which she could be wrong, and see if by combining multiple witnesses, and factoring in information from research, we can get closer to the actual events than any of the individual witnesses are.

Generally, people overestimate temporal durations under an hour (I've posted research on this a number of times), so when Fanny says 10 minutes, it was most likely a bit shorter than that (about 8 m; the research value was 7m 56s but 8 m is easier to work with and good enough for our purposes; also, the error range, meaning 95% of the time, the actual time will be between 3m 48s and 27m! People are pretty rubbish at estimating durations; but more often than not the actual time will be shorter than the estimated time, until you get to about an hour, when they start underestimating the actual time, so the real time is probably longer).

Her "4 minute" estimation would mean somewhere between 1m 15s and 12m 31s, with an average around 2m 49s, so again, more often than not, the actual time is less than 4 minutes.

And if Fanny's durations were shorter than she stated, as is probable based upon research on estimating durations, the time windows for Schwartz to pass unseen by Fanny get larger, and his "about 12:45" can be closer to 12:45 as well.

Basically, there's really nothing problematic, and if we're trying to work out what happened, then what we can use as "take home" information is that Schwartz didn't go down Berner Street while Fanny was outside. And based upon her statements, she came out fairly close to 12:45 and went back in at a time also fairly close to 12:45, so Schwartz could have gone by either before or after Fanny's vigil.

Fanny's vigil seems to have started shortly after PC Smith's patrol, so if Schwartz goes down before Fanny, it would have to be at a time PC Smith is not in Berner Street. Before PC Smith doesn't work because PC Smith reports seeing Stride with Parcelman, but it may be that there is just enough time for PC Smith to exit Berner Street onto Commercial, for Schwartz to come down Berner Street, flee, B.S. to kill Stride, leave, and then for Fanny to emerge (placing the death before her vigil). Personally, I suspect that will be pretty tight if it can work, but that will take a lot of work to determine. I have found that many things I've suspected have been wrong after I've sat down and crunched the numbers. I think that's part of my interests, though, finding out where my thinking is wrong.

That makes the more probable time for Schwartz to come down Berner Street to be after Fanny went inside, and if she came out at 12:38 (to use the time I mentioned above), and her vigil was actually closer to 8 minute than 10, then she's gone inside around 12:46ish, with Schwartz now able to enter Berner Street any time after that, with plenty of time between Schwartz and Deimshutz's arrival.

Trying to recover the actual events through the fog of error prone statements is challenging. One of the challenges is our own tendency to balk at "theoretical descriptions of the events" where values do not correspond exactly to what the witness said, even though we know that what a witness says is not going to be 100% accurate. And yet, because we see a lack of correspondence, we treat the witness statement as infallible rather than viewing the "theoretical description" as perhaps being a good attempt at seeing through the fog of those errors.

Anyway, the short version is, cementing Fanny's vigil to 12:45 - 12:55 is probably not a good starting point. But even if you go with that, that still leaves 5 minutes for Schwartz and B.S. to enter Berner Street, and for Schwartz to exit 1m 30s later, and so there's still 3m 30s for Stride to be murdered. That 3m 30s is more than enough time for B.S. to have murdered Stride and left the scene, or even for B.S. to leave, someone else to come along, kill Stride, and leave, before Deimshutz arrives. And given things would be tight in that 5 minute window where Fanny is our one infallible witness, it may even be argued that fits well with the police idea that Stride's killer may have still been there when Deimshutz arrived.

The Berner Street murder is probably the most complicated of all the JtR murders to try and piece together as we have so many witnesses, and therefore so many sources of error, that in my opinion it should be viewed first from the perspective of "can it all fit together" before we start deciding on who to arbitrarily decide we are going to ignore as being a liar.

- Jeff

I can’t imagine a better or clearer summing up Jeff.

[JeffHamm]

The quote "I was standing at the door of my house nearly the whole time between half-past twelve and one o'clock this morning..." suggests she was at her door at least twice in that half hour period.

Except if she was standing at the door nearly the whole time, she would have seen PC Smith pass her house, not heard him, and she would have seen Stride and Parcelman, which she did not. Moreover, in the other news report she clearly indicates she was out once, for 10 minutes by her reckoning. While I can only speculate, it strikes me that this news article (which is repeated in a few papers, but it's clearly the same article), she may have said something along the lines like "I was at my door between 12:30 and 1:00 ..." meaning at some point between those times, not from A to B, but the reporter presents it as if she were there the whole time. If she was there nearly the whole time, then she should have seen the murder given it happened between those times.

The report, not Fanny, says that she went to her doorstep immediately after hearing the policeman's plod. Had she done so, she would come face to face with Stride, but that was not the case. Therefore, the report in question is in error. You suppose that that error can be attributed to Fanny, but where does the journalist suppose the victim was when Fanny hears Smith?

So now you are questioning the news report, which is fair enough. But clearly, as you say, if she immediately went out, she would have seen both PC Smith and also Stride and Parcelman. Unless, as some have suggested, it wasn't PC Smith, but then if she immediately went out and the footsteps were not PC Smith, she would have realised her error and said she saw a man walking along Berner, which she didn't. So she couldn't have gone out immediately in the literal sense, but rather it was the next thing she did although it was technically shortly after hearing the footsteps. And that is what I suggested, which means there's a bit of time for PC Smith to see Stride and Parcelman, and for them to move to somewhere she does not see them. Wickerman suggests they move into the ally by the club, so out of her sight, I suggested they moved south to Fairclough. But clearly, Stride and Parcelman move from where PC Smith sees them to some location Fanny cannot in the time between PC Smith passing her house and her coming out.

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...

He has no idea that that Smith had witnessed Stride with a man, so the journalist is working with very incomplete information in coming to a conclusion on when the murder occurred.

Clearly, if the reporter was aware that PC Smith had seen Stride, he would know her body could not yet be in the yard. But being incomplete on that doesn't matter since it's the bits that Fanny tells him that matters at the moment, and she tells him she went out after hearing the footsteps of a PC, and that Stride wasn't in view when she did so. That tells us there was a delay, sufficient for Stride to vacate the location PC Smith saw her, before Fanny comes out.

Presumably not this 12:50ish.

Charles Letchford: ...my sister was standing at the door at 10 minutes to one, but did not see anyone pass by.

It's hard enough dealing with statement made by a witness after they've come through the editing of a reporter. Now we have a reporter presenting what someone said someone else told them ... Basically, all this tells us really is that at some point before 1:00 Charles' sister may have stood at her door for some unknown amount of time, and he says she didn't see anyone. You'll forgive me I hope if I don't carve that 12:50 into stone.

In the Evening News interview, we get...

I was just about going to bed, sir, when I heard a call for the police. I ran to the door, and before I could open it I heard somebody say, 'Come out quick; there's a poor woman here that's had ten inches of cold steel in her.' I hurried out, and saw some two or three people standing in the gateway. Lewis, the man who looks after the Socialist Club at No. 40, was there, and his wife.

So, Diemschitz does indeed seem to have returned from his search for police by the time Fanny reaches the yard. Thus, the 4-minute gap in the report in question is once again in error - there was no 4-minute gap between lockup and arrival of the steward.

When I was working on the simulation, which required trying to place events in order and sync all times to a common clock (I used Dr. Blackwell's watch), it worked out that it was 4 minutes from the time of Deimshitz's arrival to the point the men head north towards Commercial, and that journey started after Deimshitz returned from his search along Fairclough, with Spooner. That is what led me to suggest that the "4 minutes" Fanny mentions may have been in reference to the 4 minutes between her hearing the pony and cart and the noise that drew her outside. The "Come out quick..." bit could have been said by Eagle as he headed north as well, although it could also be a complete invention.

If Smith is around 12:35, we are on "Smith Time", not "Diemschitz Time". Smith Time means that the PC is at the top Berner St at 1am, and Lamb is in the yard as of about 12:57. That would mean Mortimer hears Diemschitz turning into the street at about 12:50.

True, all the times are based on different clocks. When I tried to adjust everyone to Dr. Blackwell's watch, I had PC Smith passing between 12:37 12:38, and Fanny coming outside at 12:39 (as that gave enough time for Stride and Parcelman to reach Fairclough and be out of site, and for PC Smith to be far enough back up Berner that he was far off enough that she doesn't mention him - in part because she already had heard him anyway. She goes back in at 12:47. Deimshitz arrives around 12:58:30 (remember, these times are all estimates of what Dr. Blackwell's watch would have read, not the times as stated by the people themselves), meaning there's about 11m 30s between Fanny going inside and Deimshitz's arrival.

That leaves a gap more than sufficient for the events as described by Schwartz to have occurred without Fanny seeing them.

What is wrong with "Fanny's statements" is that you are using a document written by a journalist working with false and incomplete information, and attributing his words to Fanny, to suggest that she said things that she likely did not.

What document do you have that was written by Fanny? All we have are the news articles reporting the news. This news includes statements from Fanny, but I agree, they are unlikely to be verbatim quotes, and so need to be viewed with caution. And I again point to the increased caution we would have to view Charles Letchford's 12:50 given that information is a few steps removed from his sister, who we don't even have verifying what her brother claims she did.

Given that the news reports if taken literally creates conflict with itself, we either give up or make an attempt to try and understand what could lead to those conflicts. Errors on the witness part in terms of estimating times and durations, errors on the reporters part of misunderstanding, or poorly presenting, what was said, and so forth. We can't test out ideas by going back and seeking clarification, but we can each offer suggestions and explain our reasoning. Clearly, they are all guesses of a sort, but there's the "pluck a random idea from the air" type guesses and there are "ideas that are based upon human behaviour and language usage, which tie the speculated actual events to the proposed erroneous aspects in a way that makes some sort of sense of how that error might have arisen". Meaning, there are pure guesses, and there are reasoned guesses. Or to be Orwellian, some guesses are more guesses than others.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

So, over the months we have shown, via various potential timelines which take into consideration that clocks weren’t synchronised and that, as Jeff has shown, we humans aren’t good at estimating periods of time, that we can provide entirely reasonable, plausible versions of events that night which all include the Schwartz incident.

Therefore, as there are no timing issues or situational issues, we have no reason at all to have any doubt as to the Schwartz incident occurring.

In fairness we have to accept that people can lie, however unlikely it appears to be that they would have, so we can make a tiny allowance for that.

Also in fairness we have to accept the possibility of error. Whether Wickerman’s suggestion that Schwartz could have seen an incident in Batty Street and mistook it for Berner Street (late at night, perhaps unfamiliar with the area, maybe after a drink or three?) Or my suggestion (and I’m not claiming ownership of this suggestion btw as I’m sure someone will have mentioned it before I did) that he might simply have got his time wrong and that he had in fact seen an incident which occurred pre-12.30) It’s also not impossible (however unlikely) that the incident at around 12.45 was just some kind of domestic or even a bit of drunken horseplay)

Overall though, overwhelmingly the likeliest explanation was that the incident occurred approximately when suggested and that only BSMan, the woman, Schwartz and Pipeman were on the street at that time.

[Wickerman]

Okay

The view is of the scene, not any one person in it. The notion of "opposite side of the road" moving around to follow Schwartz only exists to 'mate' the police and press accounts - that is, the erroneous view that the 2nd man exited the doorway of the Nelson.

Isn't that the majority view, that Pipeman came out from the doorway?

I don't think it matters. To suppose that "The man who threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road" refers to a man on the same side as the man who threw the woman down, is absurd.

It can't be absurd, when Schwartz reached the east side then the doorway of the Nelson pub is now opposite, so any man stepping out from there is 'opposite' to Schwartz.

Surviving police/HO correspondence does indicate any confusion with Swanson's wording, and there is no marginal note in the report questioning his meaning.

You likely meant 'doesn't', but which correspondence do you mean?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I really can’t see where the problem lies?

“On crossing to the opposite side of the street, he saw a second man standing lighting his pipe. The man who threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road ‘Lipski’ & then Schwartz walked away,”

The ‘man on the opposite side,’ is on the opposite side to Schwartz…therefore the club side. Why would Swanson call Schwartz ‘the man on the opposite side of the road’ when he had already called him Schwartz? And then…

“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..”

The ‘public house’ can only mean The Nelson on the corner.

So in both versions Pipeman is on the west (club) side of Berner Street.

[Sunny Delight]

I really can’t see where the problem lies?

“On crossing to the opposite side of the street, he saw a second man standing lighting his pipe. The man who threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road ‘Lipski’ & then Schwartz walked away,”

The ‘man on the opposite side,’ is on the opposite side to Schwartz…therefore the club side. Why would Swanson call Schwartz ‘the man on the opposite side of the road’ when he had already called him Schwartz? And then…

“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..”

The ‘public house’ can only mean The Nelson on the corner.

So in both versions Pipeman is on the west (club) side of Berner Street.

To be fair the first one is ambiguous but I think the press report- as problematic as they can be- helps clear up that Pipeman came out of the Nelson. Therefore he was on the same side as Stride and BS man.

[Wickerman]

There are none of those details in Swanson's summary, but I think most people would take "...a woman, who was standing in the gateway" to mean the gate was open...

Possibly, but if the gate was closed, she is still standing in the gateway.

So, what about this bit...?

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.

Surely he knew what street he was in.

That is the way it is worded, but those are not the words of Schwartz. The reporter has structured the sentence, possibly based on Schwartz being told he was in Berner St. because that is where the body was found, and he had seen a woman assaulted in a street, on his way home.
Schwartz couldn't read street signs as they were in English.

It may be a case of the interviewee and the interviewer feeding off each other.

Schwartz saw a woman assaulted at the entrance to an alley, in some badly lit street as he was rushing home.
Schwartz later learns the body of a woman is found dead in an alley, in Berner St.
Therefore, Schwartz assumes he was in Berner St., that the assault he witnessed was the prelude to a murder.
Schwartz only thinks he was in Berner St. because that is where everyone says the body was found.

How many doors are there between the white dot and Hampshire Court?

Thats a pretty poor example, the Board School has replaced 9 addresses (25-41) on the east side, c/w No.23 just before Hampshire Court. That is roughly 140 ft, as opposed to 3 doors = approx. 45 feet on the west side.
A few doors off refers to the distance from Dutfields yard to the doorway of the Nelson, 3 doors away.

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi Lewis,

That just about sums the possibilities up nicely. I think it likeliest is that Smith passed at around 12.35, then Eagle returned not long after then Fanny went onto her doorstep (mistaking Eagle’s steps for a Constable’s) She goes back inside just before 12.50. The incident occurs and is done by around 12.50. She hears Louis at a time that he believes is 1.00 but is actually 12.55.

Except Eagles route back to Berner Street wouldn't have taken him past Mortimer's house.

The only individuals that we are aware of who walked past Mortimer's house within that time frame, were Pc Smith, Goldstein and Schwartz.



LAVE went from the club to as far as the street and then back again. Even if he exited from the front door but reentered through the side door, he still didn't walk past Mortimer's house.

BS MAN was seen by Schwartz when BS man was situated between Mortimer and the murder site; suggesting that IF it was Bs man that Mortimer had heard, then she should have heard Schwartz too.
But she only heard 1 man.
This may have been Schwartz IF BS man had remained SOUTH of Mortimer's location.
This supports BS man having walked BACK to assault Stride.

PARCELMAN - unknown entity in terms of which direction he went after leaving Stride.



There is of course a scenario whereby Parcelman waits for Eagle to go back inside the club at 12.40am and then gestures Stride into the yard. He then cuts her throat and then leaves heading NORTH directly past Mortimer's house.

This would be between 12.42-12.44am and correspond to the time that Mortimer comes to her door just after she heard the killer pass by.

That would mean that Mortimer hears the murderer Parcel man as he heads NORTH.
He turns left just past Mortimer's house and through the passageway that leads directly into Back Church Lane.

Mortimer then comes to her door at 12.45am and Stride is already dead.

To further the possibility that Parcelman was the killer and the man heard walking past Mortimer's house, there's also a chance that Parcelman and Schwartz were the same man.

If there's a chance Parcelman was the killer and thought he had been seen; what better way that to divert attention and invent a story that coincides with the approximate time the woman was murdered but with the emphasis on what occurred SOUTH of the club.

Perhaps the focus should be on the idea that the killer was heard leaving the scene by Mortimer and she just missed seeing him as she came to her door and he darted left through into Backchuch Lane.

Worth consideration

[Herlock Sholmes]

To be fair the first one is ambiguous but I think the press report- as problematic as they can be- helps clear up that Pipeman came out of the Nelson. Therefore he was on the same side as Stride and BS man.

I agree that it isn’t the clearest bit of writing Sunny.

[Lewis C]

The press report states Schwartz's reason for being in Berner St at that hour.

I'd say that even if my #1 is a reasonable possibility, it's the least likely of the 4 possibilities that I gave, so I won't I won't challenge that.

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

If Letchford passed through at about 12:30, the Schwartz incident could have happened after that but before PC Smith passed through, as Letchford could have been there at 12:25 or even a couple of minutes earlier, and Smith might have passed through as late as 12:40. Or Letchford was really there at 12:35 and the Schwartz incident happened before that.

Isn't it odd that Eagle seems to arrive at the gateway just when we might suppose the BS man to have done so. What are the chances that Eagle had already consumed a vodka or two, and as a result was "half-tipsy"? I'm not suggesting Eagle was the BS man, but BS man might have been 'modelled' on his movements.

First man: age about 30 ht, 5 ft 5 in. comp. fair hair dark, small brown moustache, full face, broad shouldered...

I think that Eagle could have been BS man, but the fact that Eagle seems to be there at about the time that BS man might have been there isn't surprising. The Schwartz incident could have happened at any time prior to almost 1:00, so anyone who was in the area before that has a potential overlap with it.

That would mean she spotted a man on Berner St right about when Schwartz said he was there, except that the man's name was Leon Goldstein, and off to the railway arch he goes!

Swanson's report refers to Goldstein being on the street at "about 1am". Goldstein is therefore in sync with Mortimer's times. Perhaps they were both off GMT by about the same plus 15 minutes - that is what this scenario requires. It could be argued that Goldstein gave a time of about 1am to stay compatible with Mortimer's comments to the press, but if he is doing so to avoid suspicion then "all bets are off".

Goldstein crossed while Fanny was at her door, and under this scenario, Fanny closed her door before the Schwartz incident. The 2 events could have occurred as little as 2 minutes apart, or as much as about 12 minutes apart.

I don't completely understand your 2nd paragraph, in particular what "both" refers to, but I will say that Swanson putting Goldstein there at about 1:00 must be a broad approximation, because he can't have thought that Goldstein passed at the same time that Diemschutz arrived. And most things can be in sync with Mortimer's times, depending on which Mortimer times one uses.