A new critique of the Cross/Lechmere theory from Stewart Evans

[Lechmere]

Well spotted that man
The hazards of posting 'on the go'.
I should have just said that Lechmere had told the inquest the street where Paul worked.
I had forgotten that Paul had mentioned the street as well.

[Robert]

OK Lechmere, so we have policemen who are so keen to talk to Paul that they knock him up in the night and interrogate him, thus putting to shame my "quick fire scepticism" (your post #170), yet fail to ask the last man known to have spoken to him (barring a Lloyd's journalist) if he knew where he worked.

Cross meanwhile was sure he knew where Paul worked, or sure enough to disembowel a woman in a house near to the putative workplace, in order to frame Paul.

Yes, it all hangs together nicely.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lechmere,

Daily Telegraph, 18th September 1888—

Robert Baul, 30, Forster-street, Whitechapel, carman, said as he was going to work at Cobbett's-court, Spitalfields, he saw in Buck's-row a man standing in the middle of the road . . .

Regards,

Simon

[Lechmere]

Robert
you and wickerman keep stating what the police would or should have done.
how do we know of Paul's connection to Corbett's Court. What if he didn't work there?
we know from lechmere's testimony.

I repeat I go on what was Said.

[Lechmere]

Simon
I think that's one for Mr lucky's thread.
Suffice it to say Dew can in my opinion be used for tone and maybe to substantiate an otherwise rarely reported matter but I wouldn't quote him in preference to a range of more reliable sources. As in the issue of Paul or Lechmere being left alone with the body.

[Robert]

Jon, I think if Paul failed to turn up as summoned, he'd have been fined, unless he had a very good reason - yet he does not complain of a fine.

Lechmere, you said that Cross killed Chapman to smear Paul. Therefore Cross must have known where Paul worked. So why didn't he tell the police when they asked him, which they surely would have done before they started hanging around in pubs and buttonholing strangers on the street?

[Wickerman]

Wickerman
Think through your scenario and stop being reactionary.

You think he was fetched up and made to attend the inquest the next day because he had previously failed to attend?

I think he should have attended on 3rd Sept, along with Cross.

The fact he did not is consistent with Dew's recollections of Robert Paul being sought by police. It also is consistent with Paul's own claims (on 30th Sept.) of being hauled in by police and detained for some future appearance whereby he lost a days pay - he was in attendance at the Inquest on the 17th (the day he lost pay).

Therefore, both Dew's recollections and Paul's claim of being 'hauled in', occurred sometime between the 4th and the 16th of Sept.

This then suggests that the police & the Coroner knew of Paul as a witness 'before' he was slated to attend on the 3rd (for which he failed to appear?).

For them to 'know' of him, and for him to have been listed as a witness, means they had a statement from him before the 3rd.

***

So, to backtrack, Robert Paul reads of the discovery by PC Neil in the Friday evening press.
Paul then complains to a reporter (on the street?), and subsequently makes his way to a H Division police station to make a statement, either Friday or Saturday.
That is the hypothetical scenario that I see as consistent with the fragments of evidence we are left with.
Why did he change his mind? - possibly he thought he might be fingered as the killer? - or, that he heard he would loose a days pay for attending the Inquest?
Either way, he did not show up on the 3rd.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lechmere,

Harken unto Foggy Dew—

"Together the two men went to the gateway where the poor woman was lying. The newcomer felt her heart. His verdict was not reassuring.

"I think she's breathing," he told his companion, "but it's very little if she is."

"The couple parted, [one of the two men] promising, as he walked away, to call a policeman. [my brackets]

"All this was afterwards told in evidence by the carman. It never had the corroboration of the other man. The police made repeated appeals for him to come forward, but he never did so.

"Why did he remain silent? Was it guilty knowledge that caused him to ignore the appeals of the police?"

His third paragraph corroborates Robert Paul's original story.

Regards,

Simon

[Lechmere]

Robert
We know that the police went to the trouble of getting Paul in the middle of the night and he then missed a day's work.
This implies he was questioned - I would say interrogated - that day. Otherwise why fetch him up and why miss the day's work?
It is abundantly clear that his inquest summons and two days appearance came after that.
We also have Dew remembering -somewhat fuzzily - that the police were actively searching for Paul in some way, which implies that it wasn't straight forward such as merely being necessary to consult the electoral register.
We can say pretty categorically that the police never learnt Lechmere's true name which implies they never visited his house.

Any theory that embraces these matters holds water so far as I'm concerned.
If you think the police would have gone to his workplace, found Paul wasn't there and then turned up at his house in the middle of the night then so be it.

[Robert]

Lechmere, it's possible the police asked for Paul in Corbett's Court and were told that he was out delivering. They could have taken his address from the boss and left a message that Paul should contact them on his return. When he didn't, they raided him.

The thing is, you're prepared to believe that the police went around the pubs and stopped people in the streets in their search for Paul, but you're not sure if the police bothered to ask Cross if he knew where Paul worked. They're not going to ask a man who actually spoke to and walked along with the man they were searching for, but asked people in pubs and on streets?

And why should Cross assume that Paul worked in Corbett's Court, unless Paul had said something like 'Goodbye. This is where I work'? If Cross sees Paul turn down Corbett's Court, why would he assume that that was where he worked? Cross might have reflected that he himself had turned down Hanbury St, but worked in Broad St.

[Lechmere]

Wickerman
Think through your scenario and stop being reactionary.

You think he was fetched up and made to attend the inquest the next day because he had previously failed to attend?

This is a tale totally based on your imagination - but it makes no sense anyway.
When did he fail to attend?

1st - impossible as the only police contact he mentioned he had up to that evening was with Mizen.
3rd - this would mean that he was fetched up on 16th September to attend on 17th.
Maybe that is your suggestion.

[Lechmere]

And that claim is baseless conjecture

[Wickerman]

I find it hard to believe that the police would bother that much with Paul just on the basis of his status as a witness with respect to Nichols as he did not add anything of importance to that inquest.

They would, if he had already been summonsed, but failed to appear.
Therein, lies a viable reason for your 'hard to believe' treatment of Robert Paul.

[Lechmere]

Wickerman
you could have saved that post
I said 'baseless conjecture'.
everything in this case is conjecture - I avoid the baseless version.
your case cannot be backed up by a single - not one - piece of evidence.
mine relies on the police reports, newspaper interviews and the way the inquest progressed. All available sources point in one direction - the only arguable point is whether Paul was fetched up before or after the Chapman murder.

I suggest you re-read Paul's complaint about being fetched up.
he missed a day's work and then two more - he used the word 'then'.
why did they fetch him up and why did he subsequently miss a day's work? The only conceivable reason was to interrogate him.
It was not because he had to attend the inquest that day - read his interview!

[curious]

No
As here doesn't seem to have been anything in the press I would presume they went around the pubs and stopped people in the streets - that sort of thing.

Thank you, Lechmere.

It does make sense that once Paul's interview was printed, the police would have sought the men who found the body, in exactly the way you have described.

If memory serves, this was suggested as how Cross/Lechmere was located -- on his way to work Monday morning -- thus explaining why he was dressed for work at the inquest, but in the past you did not like the idea.

If Paul was sought in such a manner, why would Cross/Lechmere not also have been?

Only he was found in time for the Monday inquest.Perhaps because he took to same route to work Monday as he had on Friday.

curious