The Darkness of Bakers Row

[Fisherman]

I think this may be a linguistic matter that isn't fully appreciated by anyone who didn't grow up or spend time around people who often use "want" colloquially when they mean "need".
Eastenders and "cockerneys" and mockneys even today say things like "You want to watch what you're doing, mate!"
or "You want to get down the Grey Horse! There's happy hour on day-old, warm, flat beer!"
or "He wanted a good kicking, so I gave him one"
or "Ref! You want to get to Specsavers, mate!"
(apologies to any genuine Eastenders for my shabby northern sterotyping of the Londoner... this is also still a very common use of want in Yorkshire, where I'm from. So feel free to kick back at me!)

I recognize that now that I see it. I wouldn't wanna deny that, gov.

Having thought about how I would react to finding something like that; if I was calling the police I'd probably say "You NEED to send someone round and look at this!" But if I were lucky enough to find a copper walking by (within a two town radius) I would probably say "I think you want to have a look at this over here..." and despite the obvious accusation that I'm just being contrarian... I can honestly say that I'm not sure why it would be different.
I can say with some assurance that if my mother in law were the one approaching the officer she would be VERY clear on EXACTLY what the constable NEEDED to do... in fine detail, and would follow them to make sure they did it, and would want to know why if they didn't!

So why, in any of those examples, would someone say "Want" or "wanted" instead of "need" or "needed"? Because that's how people often talk. Particulalry in places like the working class (and lower social) levels of the Victorian East End, (And modern Yorkshire).

Just go and look at the cartooon on page one. Why would the cartoonist who drew that character, put those words in her mouth?
Because THAT is how people spoke. (And often still DO.)

It's a minor issue of semantic pedantry that in no way suggests the man to be a liar

"Wanted" is a stronger indication than "needed" would have been, nevertheless. "Needed" would have reflected the situation better. But the cockney use does have an impact anyway. On the whole, though, it is the mentioning of that other PC that seals the deal for me, together with the fact that there was no misunderstanding ding/misinformation involved that would NOT have helped Lechmere past the police. All the misunderstanding/misinformation was perfectly suite to do so. Once we add it to the other matters, Lechmere remains firmly in the crosshairs.

[Fisherman]

isnt the main point though, that mizen claimed lech told him, not so much that he was wanted/ needed, but that there was already a policeman there. while i can see its minor point between wanted/needed (thanks AP, RJ and others for clearing that up) its not a minor point to say theres a policeman already there.

Bravo, Abby - that IS the main point here, and one of many main points that don't look good for the carman.

[Fisherman]

David Orsam has thoroughly dismissed the name nonsense. It’s over.

David Orsam has pointed to how people sometimes used two names without being criminal on account of that. What David Orsam has not done is to prove that Lechmeres one-day preference for the name Cross was not criminal, because David Orsam cannot do that.

That's how over it is. Get over it. (See what I did there?)

[Fisherman]

But what suggests that he WAS known as Cross in his everyday life is that we have no reports of Pickfords, or friends, or neighbours, reading any of these newspaper reports and saying, "Hold on... that's Charles Lechmere. Not Charles Cross! He's lying to a public inquest! That's perjury!"

Nor do we have any records of any Pickfords representative taking any sort of interest in the case, and even less do we have any record of such a representative being a the inquest. The matter has been discussed in depth before.

I know we now live in the "If you can't prove otherwise, it happened the way I'm speculating..." and I'll even hand wave away the idea of friends and neighbours reporting him... he may well have been just THAT damned popular... but do you really think that no one at Pickfords would have taken an interest in one of their employees taking to the stand in a murder inquest?
And then, not reporting him to the coroner for cynically lying with their company name still hanging in the air?

I think that is perfectly possible, yes.

We see that when the Inquest reconvened at the end of the month, matters that had been brought up in the meantime, such as "harmless lunatics" running round with knives, had made their way into the record. But in that time, no one had realised that this man who had given his genuine place of employment and address had lied about his NAME, (but only his surname) and because no one read it or made the connection and reported him, he just... got away with it again? Given the tone of said coroner, I'm of the opinion that he would not have taken very well to the idea of a witness knowlingly, and deliberately perjuring themselves in front of him. I think it would have made the record.

Christer, you spoke a while back about coincidences... The coincidences surrounding the "uncanny" success of The Many Lies of Lechmere must be adding up to something by now? Considering how blatantly obvious, and dangerous, those lies were.

Keep in mind that if we are dealing with a psychopath (and the murders were very clearly of a psychopathic nature), then we are dealing with somebody who is very likely to - and cunning about - lying. Furthermore, we are just as likely dealing with a person who did not fear that he would be revealed for his lies in any way, but instead calmly and confidently lied away, feeling secure in his knowledge that he was so superior that nobody would suss him out.

The many matters pointing in Lechmeres direction is another matter. They by far exceed in numbers any other case I have ever heard of if he is innocent, and it is never reasonable to accept dozens of matters as coincidences; "You, I buy it, yes, no problems, yes, that too, Oh well, I accept it..." - that is not a very useful way to hunt down criminals.
I donat know if you have read Cutting Point, but in it, I tell the story of the Pinchin Street murder. When I got around to taking an in-depth look at the torso murders, I noted that there is a large number of very odd and rare similarities between the torso murders and the Ripper murders, and I concluded that we are with great certainty dealing with a single killer.
Then, AFTER becoming convinced about this, I realized that the last "canonical" torso victim was killed in the very street where Charles Lechmere grew up and spent his formative years. And I thought "wow!" - but instantly know that I would be told that the killer had to dump that torso somewhere, just as somebody has to find a dead body. There is an inevitability in how those who dislike the idea of Lechmere as the killer look upon these things, more often than not forgetting about the circumstances around the matters.
Then it surfaced that on the day after the torso was dumped and found in Pinchin Street, a bloody rag was found up at St Phillipos Church, right beside London Hospital.
And when you take a ruler and put it right at the site of the dumping and let it pass straight over St Phillips Church, it will proceed in a direct line up to the very spot where Charles Lechmere lived at 22 Doveton Street.
And you know what?
That rag was never linked to the murder of the Pinchin Street woman. We do not know whose blood it was on it.

To me that means that if the rag had nothing at all to do with the Pinchin Street murder, then is one of the strangest coincidences I have ever seen in any historical serial killer case. And I do not beleive in coincidences when they begin to run over the brim of a standard bathtub. Call me cynical, but there you are.

[Fisherman]

So, time to leave this thread for me, with the one exception - I will return to make one final post, but I am going to have to spend some time checking material before I can do so.
Once I get there, I will make my last post on the thread, and before it happens, I will make no further contributions to it unless something surfaces that makes it necessary. Sorry if it leaves somebody stranded in some way.

Then, after that, it is on to Fiver, a poster who has made a remarkable and potentially telling find.

[Fiver]

Since we have around a hundred examples of him using Lechmere and one or two - both in connection with violent death - it takes a very flawed sense of mathematics to claim that he was likeliest calling himself Cross. What we can do is to say - like you do that he called himself Cross "at the time". "The time", meaning the inquest. There are other examples from 1888, examples from before the Nichols inquest and after it, and he calls himself "Lechmere then.

And that is kind of the exact thing I am saying: If he chose to for a single day "at the time" call himself Cross, that adds very much to the suspicions against him.

"The full picture always needs to be given. When this does not happen, we are left to make decisions on insufficient information." - Christer Holmgren

You're ignoring your own advice - again.

1) We have a few dozen records where he used the name Charles Allen Lechmere. Claiming around 100 is a gross exaggeration.

2) Saying he used the name Cross "in connection with violent death" is to deliberately ignore the full picture. In 1876, Charles Cross, a carman for Pickfords, was blamed for running down a small child. He was found not guilty. In 1888, as a witness who found a murder victim, he publicly identified himself as Charles Allen Cross, a carman for Pickfords for the past couple decades, whose shift began at the Broad Street Station at 4am, and who lived at 22 Doveton Street.

3) In one Census, he was listed as Charles Cross. He was a minor at the time, but it is evidence that at one point he was known as Charles Cross.

4) We don't known if he was known as Charles Cross or Charles Lechmere at work. Pickfords records from the time appear to no longer exist.

5) David Orsam and others have given several examples of people who were known by their stepfather's surname at work, but their birth surname in public records.

6) Davis Orsam and others have given several examples of people known by multiple surnames who did not give both of them at an inquest.

7) Charles Lechmere was not trying to hide his identity at the inquest. He publicly identified himself as Charles Allen Cross, a carman for Pickfords for the past couple decades, whose shift began at the Broad Street Station at 4am, and who lived at 22 Doveton Street. Who would ever suspect that might be Thomas Cross' stepson Charles Allen Lechmere, a carman for Pickfords for the past couple decades, whose shift began at the Broad Street Station at 4am, and who lived at 22 Doveton Street?

Let me also mention another witness at one of the Ripper cases. The surname on his marriage license was Lavender. The surname in the censuses for him, his wife, and his children, was Lavender. In a 1876 proceeding at the Old Bailey, his surname was given as Levender [sic] and it is clear from the court records that his friends knew his surname as Lavender. He appeared in city directories as Lavender. He was buried as Lavender.

But at the Eddowes inquest, he used the name Joseph Lawende. He never mentioned the surname Lavender. Does that "add very much to the suspicions against him"?

Or do you apply a different standard for witnesses that aren't Charles Allen Lechmere?

[Fiver]

That would be weaving fact cloth from a pig, though. It is not a proven fact that Paul was within earshot as Lechmere spoke to Mizen.

Again we do not know if Paul was within earshot. There is good reason to think he was not. And there is also the chance that Paul wa within earshot - but had agreed beforehand with Lechmere to bluff any PC they found, to allow for them to get to their jobs. I do not think it is the likelier scenario, but since you asked for the full picture in your former post ...

So you claim that Charles Lechmere, Robert Paul, and PC Mizen were all lying?

"Witness and the other man walked on together until they met a policeman at the corner of Old Montagu-street, and told him what they had seen." - Robert Paul, 18 September, 1888 Times.

"There was another man in company with Cross. I think he was also a carman." - PC Mizen, 4 September, 1888 Morning Post.

"We left together and went up Bakers-row, where we met a constable." - Charles Lechmere, 4 September, 1888 Morning Post.

In the disagreement between Lechmere and PC Mizen, we should note that Robert Paul was also present and that Paul's account supports Lechmere. or more correctly, Lechmere's account supports Paul's, which appeared in the press before Lechmere testified.

[Fiver]

Nope. They both gave the exact same estimate for the likeliest time it would take for Nichols to bleed out, going on the damage she had and the prevailing circumstances as 3-5 minutes. Thiblin then went on to offer what he considered an extreme, that was unlikely but could not be ruled out, of 10-15 minutes.

You asked some vague questions of Jason Payne James and Ingemar Thiblin, and interpreted them the way you wanted to.

For Jason Payne James, you said "It is part of a e-mail exchange where I have asked Jason Payne-James if I could quote him, and he has given his consent"
Q. Just how quickly CAN a person with the kind of damage that Nichols had bleed out, if we have nothing that hinders the bloodflow, and if the victim is flat on level ground? Can a total desanguination take place in very few minutes in such a case.
A. Yes
Q. Do you know of any examples?
A. No
Q. Is it possible for such a person to bleed out completely and stop bleeding in three minutes? In five? In seven?
A. I guess blood may continue to flow for up to this amount of time, but the shorter periods are more likely to be more realistic.

You don't even appear to understand that to "bleed out completely' and to "stop bleeding" are not the same thing.

For Ingemar Thiblin you claim that Thiblin told you that there is "not much empirical data to go on" as to how long "a seeping bleeding" could last, but that "ten to fifteen minutes" was possible. Not maximum - possible.

So Thiblin stated that he had very little data and estimated 10 to 15 minutes.

James stated he had no data at all and estimated 3 to 7 minutes, based on you suggesting those numbers.

[Fiver]

We do not know what was in the material he was given. Very clearly, it involved the points of potential guilt, since what he was asked to do was to assess the legal applicability of them in a modern day trial. And much of these points are of course built on witness statements, so they will have been present in that material. I for one would have loved for him to have gone through every report, every book and every line that has ever been written about the Ripper, but as you will understand, that is not a possibility.

Scobie was not given any of the witness statements or the coroner's summing up, just a list of bullet points.

[Fiver]

I don't consider these things stupid at all, I think it was all part of Lechmeres response to the developments. There is a clear and logical line in it, allowing the same type of mindset throughout, a mindset of folding people and a will to play games, both of these matters very typical inclusions in psychopathic behavior. So the best you can hope for is for some people to agree with you, while others won't. And of course, I can list a thousand things that serial killers did that can or may look stupid in retrospect.[/B]

"Approaching a PC only to lie to him makes no sense at all." - Christer Holmgren

Charles Lechmere:
* Did not walk off when he heard Robert Paul approaching.
* Stopped Paul when it looked like Paul wasn't going to just keep walking
* Refuse to prop Nichol's body.
* Didn't split up from Paul before encountering PC Mizen.
* Spoke with PC Mizen.
* Continued to walk with Paul almost as far as Spitalfield's Market.
* Voluntarily contracted the police, even though neither Paul nor Mizen knew who he was.

Every single one of those is a stupid thing for a murderer to do.

And real serial killers don't act like that. Real psychopaths don't act like that. A team led by psychiatrists Samuel Leistedt and Paul Linkowski who examined 126 fictional psychopaths noted that a textbook idiopathic psychopath shows an inability to plan ahead, a turbulent personal life, and poor family relationships. And plenty of serial killers aren't psychopaths, they're psychotic.

[Fiver]

Then, AFTER becoming convinced about this, I realized that the last "canonical" torso victim was killed in the very street where Charles Lechmere grew up and spent his formative years.

You're confusing Charles Allen Lechmere for his daughter, Mary Jane Lechmere. Charles did not grow up or spend his formative years on Pinchin Street. Mary Jane lived with her grandmother. at 23 Pinchin Street in 1881, when she was 6 years old, but by 1885, when Mary Jane was 10, they were living at 1 Mary Ann Street.

[Fiver]

Then it surfaced that on the day after the torso was dumped and found in Pinchin Street, a bloody rag was found up at St Phillipos Church, right beside London Hospital.
And when you take a ruler and put it right at the site of the dumping and let it pass straight over St Phillips Church, it will proceed in a direct line up to the very spot where Charles Lechmere lived at 22 Doveton Street.

Ah, the Ley Line Theory surfaces in all its nonsense.

You do realize that the boogeyman who could leap over buildings to travel in a straight line, was Springheeled Jack, not Jack the Ripper?

The bloody rag was found just inside the fence of St Phillips Church. We don't know where, so you have to draw a cone, not a Ley Line.

Jeff Hamm has helpfully done this. (See the lines on blue).




The cone passes over hundreds of houses, one of which was Charles Lechmere's. It doesn't point at anyone's house.

There's no evidence that the bloody rag had anythng to do with the Pinchin Street Torso.

[A P Tomlinson]

Keep in mind that if we are dealing with a psychopath (and the murders were very clearly of a psychopathic nature), then we are dealing with somebody who is very likely to - and cunning about - lying. Furthermore, we are just as likely dealing with a person who did not fear that he would be revealed for his lies in any way, but instead calmly and confidently lied away, feeling secure in his knowledge that he was so superior that nobody would suss him out.

The many matters pointing in Lechmeres direction is another matter. They by far exceed in numbers any other case I have ever heard of if he is innocent, and it is never reasonable to accept dozens of matters as coincidences; "You, I buy it, yes, no problems, yes, that too, Oh well, I accept it..." - that is not a very useful way to hunt down criminals.
I donat know if you have read Cutting Point, but in it, I tell the story of the Pinchin Street murder. When I got around to taking an in-depth look at the torso murders, I noted that there is a large number of very odd and rare similarities between the torso murders and the Ripper murders, and I concluded that we are with great certainty dealing with a single killer.
Then, AFTER becoming convinced about this, I realized that the last "canonical" torso victim was killed in the very street where Charles Lechmere grew up and spent his formative years. And I thought "wow!" - but instantly know that I would be told that the killer had to dump that torso somewhere, just as somebody has to find a dead body. There is an inevitability in how those who dislike the idea of Lechmere as the killer look upon these things, more often than not forgetting about the circumstances around the matters.
Then it surfaced that on the day after the torso was dumped and found in Pinchin Street, a bloody rag was found up at St Phillipos Church, right beside London Hospital.
And when you take a ruler and put it right at the site of the dumping and let it pass straight over St Phillips Church, it will proceed in a direct line up to the very spot where Charles Lechmere lived at 22 Doveton Street.
And you know what?
That rag was never linked to the murder of the Pinchin Street woman. We do not know whose blood it was on it.

To me that means that if the rag had nothing at all to do with the Pinchin Street murder, then is one of the strangest coincidences I have ever seen in any historical serial killer case. And I do not beleive in coincidences when they begin to run over the brim of a standard bathtub. Call me cynical, but there you are.

I think you miss my point. It's less about his ability to lie, or his psychopathic cunning, and more about why other people didn't react to the "lies" and report him, when the lies would have been so very easy to break, and of potential harm to others such as his employer.
I can't believe that Pickfords didn't take some interest in why this worker was taking time off to give evidence at a murder inquiry. And again, find it implausible to believe that they would allow it to go unmentioned to the coroners office or police, that one of their witnesses had perjured themself. And it's that perjury, rather than any notion of him being the killer, that would be the issue at hand.

You have him perjuring himself over Mizen, and again over such a basic matter as his own name. He hadn't given his name to Mizen, so what has he to gain by publicly lying about something that quite clearly has the potential to swing round and bite him in the behind?

But the bit that is most baffling in this name obfuscatioon matter is that, as you mentioned, he pulled the same trick before.
He took the stand at the "violent death" inquest (the one the "Lechmere done it" supporters oft mention but rarely continue and point out that he was cleared of all wrong doing). Now whatever excuses someone may have for why Pickfords ignored the matter of the Nichols Murder, they would most certainly have NOT ignored the accidental death case.

At both inquiries his employment is an important factor. In the death of Nichols the Pickfords Connection merely establishes his reason for being where he was.
But in the other "violent death" inquest, he was involved in a case within his capacity as an Employee of Pickfords during the course of his work.
Had the case gone aginst him, it would not have been Cross who felt the financial sting, he would probably be doing time with forced labour. But rather it would be Pickfords whom the father held responsible, and subsequently sued for some very heavy compensation.

If Pickfords KNOW that Lechmere has Perjured himself on that occassion, their not reporting it to the coroner or police would make THEM culpable.
There is no way that they, or their legal representatiives, are not present at that entire inquest. Such a pointless lie, if discovered, is absolutely going to bring into doubt ANYTHING he said on the stand and sway the likely verdict against him. He's certainly getting done for perjury, and the question would then be pointed at Pickfords, "You KNEW this was a lie, yet YOU continued to allow it to stand!"

There comes a point where the adherence to "a lack of sworn documents that show that he used the name Cross, proves that he didn't," has to be replaced by common sense.

If he only used the name Cross in matters related to "Violent death," he is perjuring himself and making Pickfords culpable for NOT reporting it.
Pickfords WOULD have noticed at the first inquest, they would have fired him and they would have reported him.. Because those matters of violent death ALSO were matters where he had to publicly associate his employers with those violent deaths.

The ONLY way Lechmere gets away with giving the name Cross without being charged with perjury, on TWO seperate instances, is if he regularly uses it as his name. Which as we all know by now, was a perfectly legal, and relatively common practise in the 1880's.

[FrankO]

The exact wording in for example the Daily News is "Police constable John Neil deposed that on Friday morning at a quarter to four o'clock he was going down Buck's row, Whitechapel, from Thomas Street to Brady street."

What you are suggesting is that the journalist felt he needed to point out the direction, is that right? personally, I don't think that very likely, although not impossible per se. I think it is quite perhaps possible that he was asked by the coroner in what direction he walked, if he indeed only said himself that he was walking down Bucks Row.

I don’t find that very likely either, Christer, so I’m not suggesting that the journalist felt the need to point out the direction. I have no doubt it was Neil who just told what direction he was going in and find it likely that Neil, as a police officer, would have told that without any question being asked. That the coroner asked Neil in what direction he was going is, of course, a possibility, but I see it as less probable than Neil telling it without any incentive.

If it instead a case of the reporter adding "from Thomas Street to Brady Street", it would be odd if other reporters came up with the same helpful idea.

I think there’s very little chance of there being any other reporters. There were 3 newspapers who carried Neil’s deposition containing the phrase above and the 3 versions of Neil’s complete deposition are practically identical.

There is other papers, that do not mention Thomas Street, like for example the Daily Telegraph: "John Neil, police-constable, 97J, said: Yesterday morning I was proceeding down Buck's-row, Whitechapel, going towards Brady-street."

Clearly, Neil must by his own account, or as the result of a question from the coroner, have pointed out the direction in which he was walking. And if it had been said "Police constable John Neil deposed that on Friday morning at a quarter to four o'clock he was going down Buck's row, Whitechapel, Thomas Street to Brady street.", I would have been more inclined to like your suggestion.

Aha! So, you are somewhat inclined to like it?!? That's something good, then.

But as long as it says that he deposed that he did the walkFROM Thomas Street to Brady Street, my hunch is that this tells us that he turned into Bucks Row from Thomas Street and then went straight down to Brady Street.

But that's just the thing for me: he didn't depose that "he did the walk or walked from Thomas Street to Brady Street"; the "from Thomas Street to Brady Street" may just as well mean from where to where Buck's Row ran, in the exact same way as it was written in the Echo of 1 September: "Buck's-row runs through from Thomas-street to Brady-street"

Anyway, I still favour the version in the “I-form” as it has less liberty. The “he-form” is less likely to stick to the actual words having been spoken and the order in which things were said.

I take your point, though, and I cannot rule it out.

The same goes for me, Christer. If only they had just recorded everything the way it was said, word for bloody word...

Thanks for explaining it in detail. I see how you reason, but I myself think that Mizens testimony tells us that the first thing the carman likely brought up was the policeman in Bucks Row, and I think that would immediately have gotten Mizens full attention. A police colleague requesting help is something that would have peaked Jonas Mizens interest, and so I do not think the suggestion that he in retrospect started to believe that Lechmere must have spoken. of another PC has anything much going for it. In fact, even if the words about the PC did not come first, it would still get the same fun attention from Mizen when he heard it. To reason that he subconsciously would have made it up and fooled himself sounds untenable to me. The one thing that makes me consider it to some degree is then fact that we do not have any reaction from Mizen on record, insisting on how he was told about that PC. Then again, Mizen testified before Lechmere, and so he would likely not be present to hear Lechmeres claim. Therefore, we cannot tell Mizens reaction once he found out, it is lost to time.

Although I can quite easily see how Mizen could have made a connection hearing Lechmere say "You're wanted in Buck's Row" and having seen Neil pass up Baker's Row not too many minutes before, it was just a thought, so no strong evidence to back it up.

My thought, however, isn't that he in retrospect started to believe anything, let alone make it up or fool himself, but that, when he heard Lechmere say that he was wanted in Buck's Row, he immediately assumed that the PC he saw passing up Baker's Row had arrived in Buck's Row, found a woman there and then sent the passing two carmen on their way to him. Something like that.

Of course, for this thought to have any real weight we would have to know Mizen's beat and where he was at when Neil would have been passing up Baker's Row and that Mizen knew or had a good idea of Neil's beat. But, as I said, it was just a thought...

[FrankO]

So you claim that Charles Lechmere, Robert Paul, and PC Mizen were all lying?

"Witness and the other man walked on together until they met a policeman at the corner of Old Montagu-street, and told him what they had seen." - Robert Paul, 18 September, 1888 Times.

"There was another man in company with Cross. I think he was also a carman." - PC Mizen, 4 September, 1888 Morning Post.

"We left together and went up Bakers-row, where we met a constable." - Charles Lechmere, 4 September, 1888 Morning Post.

In the disagreement between Lechmere and PC Mizen, we should note that Robert Paul was also present and that Paul's account supports Lechmere. or more correctly, Lechmere's account supports Paul's, which appeared in the press before Lechmere testified.

I think the good reason that Christer mentions to believe that Paul was out of earshot is that the Echo of 3 September wrote this:
"By the Coroner - There was another man in company of Cross when the latter spoke to witness. The other man, who went down Hanbury-street, appeared to be working with Cross."

Which, of course, all by itself is the flimsiest of evidence to suggest that Paul had walked on while Lechmere spoke to Mizen and was, therefore, out of earshot.

If Mizen actually said that Paul had walked on while he was talking to Lechmere, are we to believe that the journalists would have worded it so extremely vague and awkward? Or are we to believe that Mizen himself worded it so very awkwardly vague? I find neither option appealing in the least.

But if we look at other versions of this passage of Mizen's testimony, we might get another picture.

Star, 3/9
"Cross, when he spoke to witness about the affair, was accompanied by another man. Both went down Hanbury-street."

Times, 4/9
"When Cross spoke to witness he was accompanied by another man, and both of them afterwards went down Hanbury-street."

Even though it's quite clear to me that Lechmere & Paul continued their way along Hanbury Street together (as in: they walked away from Mizen at the same moment) after the shortest of conversations with Mizen, I think Christer still sticks to how he reads the quote in the Echo of 3 September. That's fine, of course, but convincing it is not and never going to be.

So, with Christer we're left with: there's no evidence that Paul was within earshot, as, of course, we have no record of how far away or close Paul was from Lechmere & Mizen when they spoke. That would be what his good reason amounts to. Unless he's found something better/good since I discussed this with him quite some time back...