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I will now turn to answering posts I find interesting, and I have decided to start with a post by R J Palmer. I am lifting it over to this thread from the "The Darkness of Bakers Row" thread, and it goes like this:
Originally posted by Fisherman
Nope, R J, that did not work for you either. What Andy Griffiths and I did was to show that IF Lechmere started out at 3.30, he should have been at the site at 3.37, presupposing that he kept a normal walking speed. The aim of the exercise was to show that - guess what: a time gap is suggested.
Well, if push comes to shove, I deny that your stopwatch experiment even 'suggests' a gap.
What I think your experiment really 'suggests' it that there are bound to be discrepancies in the time estimates given by various honest witnesses, and further (though the documentary failed to address this point) it is obvious enough from the inquest depositions that Robert Paul is the odd man out, giving a wildly problematic time estimate that is directly at odds with the accounts given by Mizen, Thain, and Neill. Thus, Griffiths' use of Paul as his second reference point in your experiment was too simplistic and misleading to be valuable and is thus not 'suggestive' of any gap. It is suggestive of a bad time estimate by Robert Paul, coupled with too much reliance on Crossmere's 3.30 departure estimate as absolute.
In reviewing the inquest depositions, it might be noted that both Neill and Mizen gave evidence before Crossmere did, and in the case of Neill, who said he had discovered the body at 3.45, and if memory serves, this appeared in the press the day before Crossmere took the stand. That would have given a dishonest CAL many hours to ponder what he was going to say at the inquest.
In my opinion, knowing this, a dishonest man would have reasoned backwards, and then shoved his departure time as far forwards as he plausibly could, leaving no potential 'gap' in his account of the events.
Yet, Crossmere doesn't do this. One could even argue that his failure to do this shows his inherent honesty.
The person who actually did this was Robert Paul. Any reasonable observer would conclude that Paul's 3:45 estimate is the true discrepancy, running directly against the accounts given by the other witnesses. A suspicious person might conclude that it is Paul tweaking the chronology, not Cross.
Hi R J! This post of yours is a very interesting one, and I think you make as good a case as possible for ruling Paul out in favour of Neil (and his two colleagues).
The problem is that - in my opinion - a much better case can be made for doing the opposite.
I will detail how this all looks to me.
You are calling Robert Pauls 3.45 timing an "estimate" on three occasions in your post. But the 3.45 timing was never given as an estimate at all. It was instead given as an exact timing: "It was exactly a quarter to four when I passed up Buck's-row to my work as a carman for Covent-garden market".
This is the only occasion where we have the 3.45 timing given by Paul, and it is from Lloyds Weekly of the 2nd of September, not from the inquest.
We do not know whether or not Robert Paul had knowledge of how John Neil had made the claim that he had arrived at the body at 3.45, but we can say that already on the 31st of August, there were papers reiterating how Neil made this claim. This in itself may have contributed to why Paul felt it important to make it clear that Neil could not have been correct. This, though, is only a possibility, but I think it must be pointed out, to complete the picture.
Now, I know from my own experience, and I am going to make the assumption that it goes for you too, that whenever I have said "It was exactly..." about a timing relating to some experience of mine that went down well before I made the statement about exactitude, then I have always had a very good reason to speak of an exact time. I would otherwise never have used the term "exactly".
There does not have to be a timepiece involved, although that is normally the easiest explanation. There is also the option that the matter I am placing exactly in time, relates to some other matter that was simultaneous. An example would be if I for example said "It was exactly 3 PM when I called you up last Sunday, because I remember that the judge blew his whistle to start off the football game on the telly, and that game started 3 PM, on the dot."
So there can be varying reasons for why we are able to say "it was exactly...", but I find that - apart from how we may be misremembering things, or misunderstanding things - saying "it was exactly ..." is always coupled to a corresponding exact knowledge.
Therefore, I am suggesting that Paul must have had a reason to claim that he knew the time exactly. And I am also going to suggest that in his case, there will have been no football game starting on the telly or anything such. As far as I know there were no events commencing at 3.45 AM in the East End mornings, and Paul specifically stated, if I don't misremember, that he met nobody before he noticed Charles Lechmere.
What this leaves us with is of course that Paul must have gained his exact timing from a clock of sorts. He could have had a pocket watch, of course, but to be able to check it for time, he would have needed light, and the streets were dark. A pocket watch cannot be ruled out, though, since PC Neil said that there was a light "at the end of the row" as walked down Bucks Row. If such a light was placed at the Brady Street/Bucks Row intersection, that could have been when Paul could have checked a pocket watch, establishing that it was exactly a quarter to four as he walked down the street. His being late could have been there Eason for wanting to get in the exact know.
If we reason that Paul may not have had a watch of his own, we are left with public clocks. It can be that he heard a clock, perhaps at the brewery, chime the quarter hour as he entered Bucks Row. If this was so, it can be asked where PC Neil got his estimation from. If it was from another source, we still need an explanation for why he would not have heard the clock Paul used; he was a mere 130 yards from where Paul entered Bucks Row as he got to Nichols, and if there was a brewery clock, he should have heard it if he was in place at 3.45. Apparently, he either did not hear it, or he missed out on it. A reason for this can of course be that Neil and Paul would have been around five minutes apart, and so Neil could well have been a long way from the clock as it struck the quarter hour.
Anyway, let's return to our exact carman! We have him establishing, not estimating, that it was 3.45 as he entered Bucks Row. And what you say is that in giving the 3.45 timing, Paul was "giving a wildly problematic time estimate that is directly at odds with the accounts given by Mizen, Thain, and Neill".
What must be noted here is that Pauls timing is not automatically "wildly problematic" for being at odds with the there PCs. It can also be that it is the three PCs timings that are "wildly problematic". Every coin has a back side, R J! What CAN be said is that you are right in pointing out that Pauls timing differs from the timings of the three PCs. But I think there is a very logical solution to be had to the enigma about who was problematic and who was not. And that solution must involve how we have three estimations - and one exact timing! Not four estimations.
This is where we turn to coroner Wynne Baxter and his summation of the Nichols inquest, and those words he had to say about the timing matter: "The time at which the body was found cannot have been far from 3.45 a.m., as it is fixed by so many independent data."
First off, can the three PCs timings, jointly suggesting that they were all called into action at circa 3.45 have belonged to the data Baxter refers to? The answer can only be no, because IF the three PCs had all been called into action at 3.45, then the body would have been found at a time that was not far off 3.40 instead of not far off 3.45.
We should not allow ourselves to reason that five minutes here or there are in any way unimportant, because they are anything but. Those five minutes were the reason that the affair was checked out in detail.
It should always be kept in mind that we have two different proposals to work from, and that Baxter was acutely aware of this:
Either the PCs were correct, in which case the body was found at circa 3.40.
Or Paul was correct, in which case the body was found at circa 3.45.
This enigma was one that the police, the coroner and the inquest were all very much aware of. And it therefore was of the utmost importance to try and find out which version was the correct one. And we know that Baxter was able to fix it to "3.45 or not far from that time".
So how exactly was he able to do this? Well, he told us: He used many independent data to do so.
Can we know what these data were? No, we cannot say that we have all the cards on hand, and therefore we cannot say that we can identify the data. But what we CAN do is to acknowledge that we may be able to infer what the data must have looked like and what must have been involved. For example, Baxter could not have made his call without using any of the timings given. One or more timings MUST be involved, otherwise he could not have reached the conclusion he did. And Baxter must have been able to confirm this thing or these timings.
So what if Robert Pauls timing was what Baxter built his call on? Well, that cannot be so, for the simple reason that the decision did not rest on one factor only, it rested on "many independent data". And that translates into multiple sources. Furthermore, "many" seems to secure that we are talking about more than two matters, although it does not rule a two factor solution out entirely.
What we must ask ourselves is what Baxter could check in retrospect. And the obvious answer to what he would have done is to acknowledge that he would have called upon Neil, Thain, Mizen, Llewellyn and Paul to explain where they got their timings from. This is a given, I would say - without that information, Baxter could get no further.
We then know that Baxter settled for the later solution of 3.45 instead of the earlier one of 3.40, for when the body was found. I am writing 3.45 and 3.40 instead of "around" or "not far off" since we are discussing this theoretically, and I am doing it the easy way (which may upset some, but they would do better to follow my reasoning as such).
This implies that Baxter favored the suggestion made by Paul to the one made by the tree PCs. There is no denying this, and saying that 3.45 is "not far off" 3.40 is disingenuous. There were two options, basically, and Baxter chose the early option instead of the late one.
At this stage, I would like to take yourself back, R J, to your claim that Pauls timing was "wildly problematic"; it seems it was anything but to the coroner!
But let's return to the "many different data". We can see that Baxter favored Paul over the three PCs, but he must have had a reason to do so, a reason that was better than accepting Pauls claim in Lloyds Weekly, no questions asked. And indeed, a reason can be outlined:
At the outset of the inquest, on the 1st of September, no Charles Lechmere or Robert Paul were known of. Instead, we had John Neil saying that he was the finder of the body, and that he had found it around 3.45.
This meant trouble for his colleague John Thain, who also said that he was called into action - by Neil - at circa 3.45. This is no anomaly in any way, Neil saw the body, turned his light on it, saw the blood, noted Thains steps up at Brady Street, and signalled him down. It could all have happened in the scope of 60 seconds, no problems at all. Meaning that 3.45 could have been the correct estimate for both men.
So why was the timing a problem for Thain, if it was not for Neil? Well, that owes to how Dr Llewellyn said that he was called to the murder site by John Thain at "around 4 o clock" at the inquest. And when Baxter heard this, he did the maths:
Neil finds the body at 3.45.
He signals down Thain, also at 3.45.
Thain therefore arrives at the site a minute later, at 3.46.
Neil says "Here's a woman who had her throat cut, run at once for Dr Llewellyn!"
If this brief information is allowed to have taken up a full minute, then Thain set off for Llewellyn at 3.47.
And a run or brisk walk to Llewellyns practice too around 2 minutes, 3 at most.
Meaning that Thain must have arrived at Llewellyns place at 3.49 to 3.50.
But Llewellyn said that he was there at around 4 AM!
So why did it take so long for Thain do get to Llewelyn?
Coroner Baxter sensed a dereliction of duty at this stage, and since it was known that Thain had visited the butchers in Winthrop Street, Baxter thought that this may have been what Thain did before going to get Llewellyn: He would have gone to the butchers place, and he would have picked up his cape there and he would have chatted away with the butchers about the murder in Bucks Row.
Thain was actually hauled over the coals in order to get to the truth, we know this. We also know that Thain vehemently denied having done anything but to go to Llewellyns place immediately.
And when we look at the rest of the inquest testimony, we have one of the butchers confirming what Thain said - Thain only went to the butchers AFTER having fetched the doctor!
So why is there a gap of some ten minutes, Baxter will have asked. Where did that come from?
There is a solution, of course, and it starts by recognizing that Llewellyn said in the initial reports, before he took the stand, that Thain arrived at around five minutes to four. That halves the problem, but leaves five minutes of it, we still have Thain arriving at 3.49 - 3.50 to Llewellyns place, while he in actuality was there at 3.55, as per Llewellyn.
At this stage, most of the readers who have not fallen asleep will have seen how the problem can be solved: It can be solved if we work from Pauls exact timing of 3.45. If that time is correct, then the remaining five problem minutes disappear:
Lechmere found the body at 3.45, as Paul was walking down Bucks Row.
Neil arrived five minutes later, when the carmen were long gone.
He therefore sent Thain for Llewellyn, not at 3.47, but at 3.52.
And voilą, the problem goes away!
The one thing against which this scenario could be checked would be by way of checking the accuracy of the timing device Paul used. If it was found to be accurate, the coroner would be able to say that the time at which the body was found, could be fixed to a time not far off 3.45, as it was fixed by so many independent data: Pauls exact timing, a check of the timing device Paul went by, a check of how long the exchange between Neil and Thain took, a check of how long it took for Thain to get to Llewellyn, and a check of the time piece Llewellyn used and the accuracy of that clock - and the coroner would be home and dry.
I cannot prove that this is what happened, but I can point to how it is not only a very possible matter, but also, I believe, the only possible version we can identify if we are only to go by information given at the inquest.
The three PCs timings were of course checked too, but the outcome of that check was that Baxter favored the later scenario over the early one.
To cap things off, we can also look at the matter that has caused so much inflamed feelings out here, Lechmeres timings. If the above is correct, then we have a situation where Lechmere, knowing as he likely did at the remove in time when he took the stand at the inquest, that Neil claimed to have arrived at the body at 3.45, would (if he was the killer) have needed to gauge a timing for his own departure against this belief. And since he said around 3.30, we can see that this would have been a mere three minutes off a seven minute trek timing to the murder site. It would have been a suggestion that caused no disbelief at all.
So when you write: "In my opinion, knowing this, a dishonest man would have reasoned backwards, and then shoved his departure time as far forwards as he plausibly could, leaving no potential 'gap' in his account of the events. Yet, Crossmere doesn't do this.", you are looking away from how he gave a very uncontroversial timing that sat perfectly well with the belief there was at the outset of the inquest. And, of course, if he pushed the timing to, say, "around" 3.40 (that would have himself in Bucks Row at "around" 3.47), he would have claimed that he left home at the same time that he found the body, as per the belief that was held as he took the stand!
it is not until Baxter drops the early scenario in favor of the late one that Lechmeres timing becomes a truly worrying thing. Saying that he left home at around 3.30 could easily encompass being a couple of minutes wrong. But once we add those five minutes that tell the early and late scenarios apart, it becomes troublesome for Lechmere. He inherits that problem from Thain, whose version of events was obviously confirmed by the investigations. But Lechmere is left with a time table that seems to suggest that he took around fifteen minutes to complete what should have been a seven minute trek.
Anyway, there you are, R J, that is how we can likely explain how Baxter was able to fix the time to not far off 3.45, what he would have used as "many independent data" and what the implications of all of this become when we scrutinize it.
I hope you are able to respond in the near future.
Originally posted by Fisherman
Nope, R J, that did not work for you either. What Andy Griffiths and I did was to show that IF Lechmere started out at 3.30, he should have been at the site at 3.37, presupposing that he kept a normal walking speed. The aim of the exercise was to show that - guess what: a time gap is suggested.
Well, if push comes to shove, I deny that your stopwatch experiment even 'suggests' a gap.
What I think your experiment really 'suggests' it that there are bound to be discrepancies in the time estimates given by various honest witnesses, and further (though the documentary failed to address this point) it is obvious enough from the inquest depositions that Robert Paul is the odd man out, giving a wildly problematic time estimate that is directly at odds with the accounts given by Mizen, Thain, and Neill. Thus, Griffiths' use of Paul as his second reference point in your experiment was too simplistic and misleading to be valuable and is thus not 'suggestive' of any gap. It is suggestive of a bad time estimate by Robert Paul, coupled with too much reliance on Crossmere's 3.30 departure estimate as absolute.
In reviewing the inquest depositions, it might be noted that both Neill and Mizen gave evidence before Crossmere did, and in the case of Neill, who said he had discovered the body at 3.45, and if memory serves, this appeared in the press the day before Crossmere took the stand. That would have given a dishonest CAL many hours to ponder what he was going to say at the inquest.
In my opinion, knowing this, a dishonest man would have reasoned backwards, and then shoved his departure time as far forwards as he plausibly could, leaving no potential 'gap' in his account of the events.
Yet, Crossmere doesn't do this. One could even argue that his failure to do this shows his inherent honesty.
The person who actually did this was Robert Paul. Any reasonable observer would conclude that Paul's 3:45 estimate is the true discrepancy, running directly against the accounts given by the other witnesses. A suspicious person might conclude that it is Paul tweaking the chronology, not Cross.
Hi R J! This post of yours is a very interesting one, and I think you make as good a case as possible for ruling Paul out in favour of Neil (and his two colleagues).
The problem is that - in my opinion - a much better case can be made for doing the opposite.
I will detail how this all looks to me.
You are calling Robert Pauls 3.45 timing an "estimate" on three occasions in your post. But the 3.45 timing was never given as an estimate at all. It was instead given as an exact timing: "It was exactly a quarter to four when I passed up Buck's-row to my work as a carman for Covent-garden market".
This is the only occasion where we have the 3.45 timing given by Paul, and it is from Lloyds Weekly of the 2nd of September, not from the inquest.
We do not know whether or not Robert Paul had knowledge of how John Neil had made the claim that he had arrived at the body at 3.45, but we can say that already on the 31st of August, there were papers reiterating how Neil made this claim. This in itself may have contributed to why Paul felt it important to make it clear that Neil could not have been correct. This, though, is only a possibility, but I think it must be pointed out, to complete the picture.
Now, I know from my own experience, and I am going to make the assumption that it goes for you too, that whenever I have said "It was exactly..." about a timing relating to some experience of mine that went down well before I made the statement about exactitude, then I have always had a very good reason to speak of an exact time. I would otherwise never have used the term "exactly".
There does not have to be a timepiece involved, although that is normally the easiest explanation. There is also the option that the matter I am placing exactly in time, relates to some other matter that was simultaneous. An example would be if I for example said "It was exactly 3 PM when I called you up last Sunday, because I remember that the judge blew his whistle to start off the football game on the telly, and that game started 3 PM, on the dot."
So there can be varying reasons for why we are able to say "it was exactly...", but I find that - apart from how we may be misremembering things, or misunderstanding things - saying "it was exactly ..." is always coupled to a corresponding exact knowledge.
Therefore, I am suggesting that Paul must have had a reason to claim that he knew the time exactly. And I am also going to suggest that in his case, there will have been no football game starting on the telly or anything such. As far as I know there were no events commencing at 3.45 AM in the East End mornings, and Paul specifically stated, if I don't misremember, that he met nobody before he noticed Charles Lechmere.
What this leaves us with is of course that Paul must have gained his exact timing from a clock of sorts. He could have had a pocket watch, of course, but to be able to check it for time, he would have needed light, and the streets were dark. A pocket watch cannot be ruled out, though, since PC Neil said that there was a light "at the end of the row" as walked down Bucks Row. If such a light was placed at the Brady Street/Bucks Row intersection, that could have been when Paul could have checked a pocket watch, establishing that it was exactly a quarter to four as he walked down the street. His being late could have been there Eason for wanting to get in the exact know.
If we reason that Paul may not have had a watch of his own, we are left with public clocks. It can be that he heard a clock, perhaps at the brewery, chime the quarter hour as he entered Bucks Row. If this was so, it can be asked where PC Neil got his estimation from. If it was from another source, we still need an explanation for why he would not have heard the clock Paul used; he was a mere 130 yards from where Paul entered Bucks Row as he got to Nichols, and if there was a brewery clock, he should have heard it if he was in place at 3.45. Apparently, he either did not hear it, or he missed out on it. A reason for this can of course be that Neil and Paul would have been around five minutes apart, and so Neil could well have been a long way from the clock as it struck the quarter hour.
Anyway, let's return to our exact carman! We have him establishing, not estimating, that it was 3.45 as he entered Bucks Row. And what you say is that in giving the 3.45 timing, Paul was "giving a wildly problematic time estimate that is directly at odds with the accounts given by Mizen, Thain, and Neill".
What must be noted here is that Pauls timing is not automatically "wildly problematic" for being at odds with the there PCs. It can also be that it is the three PCs timings that are "wildly problematic". Every coin has a back side, R J! What CAN be said is that you are right in pointing out that Pauls timing differs from the timings of the three PCs. But I think there is a very logical solution to be had to the enigma about who was problematic and who was not. And that solution must involve how we have three estimations - and one exact timing! Not four estimations.
This is where we turn to coroner Wynne Baxter and his summation of the Nichols inquest, and those words he had to say about the timing matter: "The time at which the body was found cannot have been far from 3.45 a.m., as it is fixed by so many independent data."
First off, can the three PCs timings, jointly suggesting that they were all called into action at circa 3.45 have belonged to the data Baxter refers to? The answer can only be no, because IF the three PCs had all been called into action at 3.45, then the body would have been found at a time that was not far off 3.40 instead of not far off 3.45.
We should not allow ourselves to reason that five minutes here or there are in any way unimportant, because they are anything but. Those five minutes were the reason that the affair was checked out in detail.
It should always be kept in mind that we have two different proposals to work from, and that Baxter was acutely aware of this:
Either the PCs were correct, in which case the body was found at circa 3.40.
Or Paul was correct, in which case the body was found at circa 3.45.
This enigma was one that the police, the coroner and the inquest were all very much aware of. And it therefore was of the utmost importance to try and find out which version was the correct one. And we know that Baxter was able to fix it to "3.45 or not far from that time".
So how exactly was he able to do this? Well, he told us: He used many independent data to do so.
Can we know what these data were? No, we cannot say that we have all the cards on hand, and therefore we cannot say that we can identify the data. But what we CAN do is to acknowledge that we may be able to infer what the data must have looked like and what must have been involved. For example, Baxter could not have made his call without using any of the timings given. One or more timings MUST be involved, otherwise he could not have reached the conclusion he did. And Baxter must have been able to confirm this thing or these timings.
So what if Robert Pauls timing was what Baxter built his call on? Well, that cannot be so, for the simple reason that the decision did not rest on one factor only, it rested on "many independent data". And that translates into multiple sources. Furthermore, "many" seems to secure that we are talking about more than two matters, although it does not rule a two factor solution out entirely.
What we must ask ourselves is what Baxter could check in retrospect. And the obvious answer to what he would have done is to acknowledge that he would have called upon Neil, Thain, Mizen, Llewellyn and Paul to explain where they got their timings from. This is a given, I would say - without that information, Baxter could get no further.
We then know that Baxter settled for the later solution of 3.45 instead of the earlier one of 3.40, for when the body was found. I am writing 3.45 and 3.40 instead of "around" or "not far off" since we are discussing this theoretically, and I am doing it the easy way (which may upset some, but they would do better to follow my reasoning as such).
This implies that Baxter favored the suggestion made by Paul to the one made by the tree PCs. There is no denying this, and saying that 3.45 is "not far off" 3.40 is disingenuous. There were two options, basically, and Baxter chose the early option instead of the late one.
At this stage, I would like to take yourself back, R J, to your claim that Pauls timing was "wildly problematic"; it seems it was anything but to the coroner!
But let's return to the "many different data". We can see that Baxter favored Paul over the three PCs, but he must have had a reason to do so, a reason that was better than accepting Pauls claim in Lloyds Weekly, no questions asked. And indeed, a reason can be outlined:
At the outset of the inquest, on the 1st of September, no Charles Lechmere or Robert Paul were known of. Instead, we had John Neil saying that he was the finder of the body, and that he had found it around 3.45.
This meant trouble for his colleague John Thain, who also said that he was called into action - by Neil - at circa 3.45. This is no anomaly in any way, Neil saw the body, turned his light on it, saw the blood, noted Thains steps up at Brady Street, and signalled him down. It could all have happened in the scope of 60 seconds, no problems at all. Meaning that 3.45 could have been the correct estimate for both men.
So why was the timing a problem for Thain, if it was not for Neil? Well, that owes to how Dr Llewellyn said that he was called to the murder site by John Thain at "around 4 o clock" at the inquest. And when Baxter heard this, he did the maths:
Neil finds the body at 3.45.
He signals down Thain, also at 3.45.
Thain therefore arrives at the site a minute later, at 3.46.
Neil says "Here's a woman who had her throat cut, run at once for Dr Llewellyn!"
If this brief information is allowed to have taken up a full minute, then Thain set off for Llewellyn at 3.47.
And a run or brisk walk to Llewellyns practice too around 2 minutes, 3 at most.
Meaning that Thain must have arrived at Llewellyns place at 3.49 to 3.50.
But Llewellyn said that he was there at around 4 AM!
So why did it take so long for Thain do get to Llewelyn?
Coroner Baxter sensed a dereliction of duty at this stage, and since it was known that Thain had visited the butchers in Winthrop Street, Baxter thought that this may have been what Thain did before going to get Llewellyn: He would have gone to the butchers place, and he would have picked up his cape there and he would have chatted away with the butchers about the murder in Bucks Row.
Thain was actually hauled over the coals in order to get to the truth, we know this. We also know that Thain vehemently denied having done anything but to go to Llewellyns place immediately.
And when we look at the rest of the inquest testimony, we have one of the butchers confirming what Thain said - Thain only went to the butchers AFTER having fetched the doctor!
So why is there a gap of some ten minutes, Baxter will have asked. Where did that come from?
There is a solution, of course, and it starts by recognizing that Llewellyn said in the initial reports, before he took the stand, that Thain arrived at around five minutes to four. That halves the problem, but leaves five minutes of it, we still have Thain arriving at 3.49 - 3.50 to Llewellyns place, while he in actuality was there at 3.55, as per Llewellyn.
At this stage, most of the readers who have not fallen asleep will have seen how the problem can be solved: It can be solved if we work from Pauls exact timing of 3.45. If that time is correct, then the remaining five problem minutes disappear:
Lechmere found the body at 3.45, as Paul was walking down Bucks Row.
Neil arrived five minutes later, when the carmen were long gone.
He therefore sent Thain for Llewellyn, not at 3.47, but at 3.52.
And voilą, the problem goes away!
The one thing against which this scenario could be checked would be by way of checking the accuracy of the timing device Paul used. If it was found to be accurate, the coroner would be able to say that the time at which the body was found, could be fixed to a time not far off 3.45, as it was fixed by so many independent data: Pauls exact timing, a check of the timing device Paul went by, a check of how long the exchange between Neil and Thain took, a check of how long it took for Thain to get to Llewellyn, and a check of the time piece Llewellyn used and the accuracy of that clock - and the coroner would be home and dry.
I cannot prove that this is what happened, but I can point to how it is not only a very possible matter, but also, I believe, the only possible version we can identify if we are only to go by information given at the inquest.
The three PCs timings were of course checked too, but the outcome of that check was that Baxter favored the later scenario over the early one.
To cap things off, we can also look at the matter that has caused so much inflamed feelings out here, Lechmeres timings. If the above is correct, then we have a situation where Lechmere, knowing as he likely did at the remove in time when he took the stand at the inquest, that Neil claimed to have arrived at the body at 3.45, would (if he was the killer) have needed to gauge a timing for his own departure against this belief. And since he said around 3.30, we can see that this would have been a mere three minutes off a seven minute trek timing to the murder site. It would have been a suggestion that caused no disbelief at all.
So when you write: "In my opinion, knowing this, a dishonest man would have reasoned backwards, and then shoved his departure time as far forwards as he plausibly could, leaving no potential 'gap' in his account of the events. Yet, Crossmere doesn't do this.", you are looking away from how he gave a very uncontroversial timing that sat perfectly well with the belief there was at the outset of the inquest. And, of course, if he pushed the timing to, say, "around" 3.40 (that would have himself in Bucks Row at "around" 3.47), he would have claimed that he left home at the same time that he found the body, as per the belief that was held as he took the stand!
it is not until Baxter drops the early scenario in favor of the late one that Lechmeres timing becomes a truly worrying thing. Saying that he left home at around 3.30 could easily encompass being a couple of minutes wrong. But once we add those five minutes that tell the early and late scenarios apart, it becomes troublesome for Lechmere. He inherits that problem from Thain, whose version of events was obviously confirmed by the investigations. But Lechmere is left with a time table that seems to suggest that he took around fifteen minutes to complete what should have been a seven minute trek.
Anyway, there you are, R J, that is how we can likely explain how Baxter was able to fix the time to not far off 3.45, what he would have used as "many independent data" and what the implications of all of this become when we scrutinize it.
I hope you are able to respond in the near future.
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