Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[David Orsam]

I honestly don't know if a certain person is deliberately misunderstanding my posts in order to cause confusion, and throw dust into the eyes of the readers of this forum, or is actually misunderstanding them due to problems with comprehension. And I can't work out which is worse. But either way, when I wrote:

"It was known to everyone in 1993 that the floorboards in Battlecrease had, at some point prior to the discovery of the Diary, been lifted by the electricians and it was equally obvious to everyone that if the Diary had been found in Battlecrease the most likely place for its discovery was under the floorboards."

Surely, surely it must be clear to anyone with a basic grasp of English that the use of the words "at some point" means that no-one knew exactly when the floorboards had been lifted.

Yet I read a response today in which it is said: "but would they all have recalled the month, let alone the day, without checking the timesheets?"

I just don't understand the mind that produced such a response. I'm not saying anyone would have recalled the month or day or needed timesheets. My point was a simple one. Everyone in 1993 knew that the floorboards had been lifted.

What did I mean by everyone? Well I went on, in the very next sentence of my post, to quote from Robert Smith's introduction to Shirley Harrison's 1993 book in which he said: "For the first time since 1888, floorboards were lifted and it is tempting to speculate that one of the electricians found the diary…"

So everyone who read that introduction, potentially everyone in the country, knew that the floorboards had been lifted in Battlecrease.

And Shirley's book was published on 7 October 1993, two full weeks before Brian Rawes was interviewed by detectives on 21 October 1993 (according to James Johnston). So could Rawes have been aware at the time of his interview that the floorboards had been lifted prior to the discovery of the Diary, and indeed that it was then being speculated that the Diary had been found under those very floorboards? Yes, of course!

And when I said that Rawes' story "could easily have been influenced by Feldman’s belief that the diary had been discovered under the floorboards", even a small child would have been able to understand that this did not necessarily mean that Feldman knew that Rawes existed. As I've already said, Feldman claimed to have spoken to "the electricians involved with the job". Regardless of whether this included Rawes, anything Feldman said to those electricians could have been passed on to Rawes by one of them. This is why I specifically addressed my question on this subject to James Johnston. Did he ask Rawes what he knew or had heard about the Diary prior to his police interview? I have no idea what he would say to this but unless I ask the question I can't know.

And yes of course it would have been thought to have been amazing in 1993 had it be discovered that the floorboards had been lifted on, say, 5th March 1992, or 1st March or 25 February or 19th January or plenty of other dates because, of course, that would have been regarded as giving sufficient time for the diary to make its way to Mike. This is something which, with the obsession on 9th March, is so easy to forget. Feldman thought the floorboards had been lifted in 1989 which, for him, was sufficient to make a connection with the discovery of the diary even thought that was three years before its production by Mike. If it had only been three weeks one can only imagine how excited he would have been.

So the 9th March is not the only date of significance and I must repeat that the 1993 story of the electricians of a discovery under the floorboards is not validated by any knowledge we have today that the floorboards were lifted on 9 March 1992 in circumstances when everyone knew in 1993 that the floorboards had been lifted at some point prior to Mike's telephone call to London.

[David Orsam]

Continuing from the above:

For some reason we are then told: "If Eddie Lyons wasn't at the house on that occasion, someone else must have told him what the job was, or there'd be no reason for him to know anything about it, or to tell James he had been on a job to do with heaters, which involved the floorboards coming up."

That (fairly obvious observation) has precisely nothing to do with the point I was making which was all about the knowledge by everyone that the floorboards had come up in Battlcrease at some time. A different point is being made here about Eddie Lyons' knowledge at the time of his interviews with James Johnston in the last few years; a good example of why it's almost impossible to have a sensible dialogue with some people who jump all over the place in their posts.

Then it's said: "At the time, Feldman was looking at the big picture and not the finer details. Keith has confirmed to me that Feldman would not have known, nor concerned himself with the date of Mike's first call to Doreen, which he would only have read in 2003, in Ripper Diary. He was working on vague dates from 1989 for the diary coming from the house and only knew it finally arrived in London in April 1992." This is all completely irrelevant to my post and seems to reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of what I was saying.

The point is that Feldman connected the lifting of the floorboards with the discovery of the diary without knowing about the work carried out in Battlecrease on 9 March 1992. That's the whole point!

He believed that the floorboards were lifted in 1989, a full three years before Mike had taken the diary to Doreen in April 1992, yet he connected the two events. The floorboards, in other words, were already in play as a factor long before anyone knew or suspected that the floorboards might have been taken up on 9th March 1992.

That's why it is false argument to say that because some electricians mentioned a discovery under the floorboards then this is remarkable in view of the production of the 9th March 1992 timesheet. It's not, for the reasons I've already given at length.

[rjpalmer]

So a conspiracy involving an author and/or penman/woman, happily handing over total control of the hoax to Mike, a compulsive liar?

(emphasis added)

There you go again, Caz. Why 'happily'? Why is that a prerequisite? Last week you used the word "willing[ly]."

Do you forget the solution I gave you 10 or 12 years ago?

In other words, you are assuming that Anne Graham's cooperation had to be happy and willing.

Not so. I don't see it.

Indeed, the picture I see of Anne Graham portrayed by Feldman, Harrison, Skinner, etc., is of a very unwilling woman who, at one point, even wrestles with Mike on the kitchen floor. I believe that wrestling match occurred when she first learned that he was taking the artifact to London.

So how might it have 'worked'?

If the pious Ms. Morris will simply flip her hymnal to pg. 316 of the Diary of Jack the Ripper (Blake editon, 1998) she will find the correct solution to the mystery.

Shirley Harrison gives an amazing insight into Barrett’s modus operandi---a nasty little scheme involving readers of LOOT Magazine. Barrett, inadequate in things literary, fools other people into doing his work for him.

This is the key to the puzzle. Put your thinking cap on and work it out. The word 'novella' might be a helpful clue. Have a good week.

[David Orsam]

It's amazing that I complained only yesterday about the slow drip of information and today we have more of the same.

Today we are told for the first time ever, as far as I am aware, that Tim Martin-Wright believes he can date the APS shop conversation to December 1992 by use of his diary, although we do not have the words of Martin-Wright himself but of a third person who might have heard it directly from Martin-Wright but equally might have heard it from someone else who heard it from someone else. We simply haven't been told.

What we are told is that Martin-Wright thinks he bought a hall stand at about the same time as the APS shop conversation but we are not told why he thinks this or how he can be sure the two events are connected. Equally important is that we are not told WHEN Martin-Wright suddenly made this connection between the purchase of the hall stand and the APS shop conversation and WHEN he checked his diary entry regarding the hall stand purchase. Did he make the connection back in 1997, a full twenty years ago, when he first told the story to researchers, or was it only in the last few months?

The APS story is really a sorry saga. Shirley Harrison dated it to late 1991. Why? Was this based on what Martin-Wright said in 1997? Or did he say it was late 1992 and she became confused when she first published the story?

According to Shirley: "Mr Martin-Wright confirmed that the above events occurred a month or two after his shop opened in October 1991" (to which Shirley adds that this "appeared to fit conveniently with April 1992, the month that Michael Barrett bought the Diary to London").

Did Martin-Wright inform Shirley that his shop opened in October 1991? Did he, in 1997, connect his conversation about the Diary with his purchase of a hall stand? Or was this connection first made in 2017 or even 2018?

Equally mysterious is why Robert Smith stated in his book that the APS shop opened, and the conversation occurred, in late 1992 without any mention that Harrison had dated both events to late 1991. One would have thought that this discrepancy demanded explanation but none was provided. The only attempt to support the dating of the conversation was said to be because Martin-Wright believed that Davies came into the shop "close to Christmas" although why he believed this is not stated nor did Martin-Wright apparently say anything about the connection with his purchase of a hall stand.

Unless it can be positively ruled out that the conversation occurred in 1993 this line of enquiry will be a waste of time because if it is possible that it occurred in 1993 then I suggest it probably did.

[David Orsam]

For the record, my knowledge of forensic document examination comes from reading books on the subject.

Anyone who does take the time to read such books will quickly find that there are limits to what science can tell us about the dating of disputed documents.

In fact, McNeil developed his unique and expensive ion migration test for the very reason that there was no test available to document examiners to date when ink was applied to paper. All that could be done was date the paper itself. This is why experts could be fooled by a forger using correct paper from the period in question.

Ink could of course be tested for ingredients which did not exist in the period in question but there was no way of testing (other than the solubility test) for when a document was actually written.

The fact that I need to explain this well known fact, strongly suggests to me that someone has not read any books on forensic document examination and has been labouring under the false impression that if someone like Mike Barrett had attempted to forge a Victorian diary it would have been exposed immediately by scientific experts. Sadly, this has never been the case.

[David Orsam]

All I'm saying about the ink used to forge the diary is that it might have been a different ink to Diamine (or, if one prefers, that it definitely WAS a different ink to Diamine). That is all. I don't need to explain who decided to use it or how it was acquired. It might have come from the Bluecoat Chambers art shop or it might from another shop. I don't believe everything Mike says in his affidavit. But one thing I will add is that this constant bleating about how no-one in 1992 would have trusted Mike Barrett to do anything is absolutely ridiculous. Prior to April 1992 (and certainly prior to the time he started drinking) I have never seen any evidence to suggest that Mike was an incompetent person. On the contrary, he was a professional freelance journalist who interviewed a number of celebrities and even the Diary Defenders believe that he was the first person Eddie Lyons turned to when he wanted to make money from the Diary. What is certain is that Mike DID competently interest Doreen Montgomery and Robert Smith in the Diary and he DID competently ensure that money was made from it. Using the drunken, shambolic, Mike from post 1992 and then assuming that he was like that in and before 1992 strikes me as a dreadful failure of imagination.

[Abby Normal]

I must be getting old and less observant, 'cause I missed the part about the tits.

it looks like it has large hairy mammalian protruberances.

the video is also an extremely good hoax IMHO.
.

[David Orsam]

How disappointing that we still have no idea who Vinny Dring was (other than an electrician, supposedly) or when he worked in Battlecrease during the renovation work. None of the timesheets produced appear to show Dring working in Battlecrease at any time, so if he found two books in James Maybrick's dressing room, which he told Harrison and Evemy that he had "a clear recollection" of doing, it's a total mystery as to when this occurred. But then those dodgy timesheets don't really tell us who worked at Battlecrease, do they?

Mr Dring has been totally whitewashed from the story on the basis, we are told by the person who knows everything, that there is no evidence to link his alleged discovery with "the diary" even though there is no evidence to link Eddie's alleged discovery with the diary either! The other reason, we are told, is that there is no evidence to connect Dring with Deveruex or Barrett despite there being no real evidence to connect Eddie with them either.

In a wonderful non-sequitur we are told that "if they were thrown in a skip at some point in the 1980s and never seen or heard of since, there's not a lot even James Johnston can do to find them now.". Well I never even mentioned James Johnston in this context let alone suggest he might be able to find books thrown into a skip more than 25 years ago! But he could, presumably, have interviewed Dring, although, despite his penchant for interviewing living people who were "involved", he doesn't seem to have been interested. And I love the way that this alleged discovery is now said to have happened "at some point in the 1980s" although no date is provided in Inside Story.

And did he say he found the books behind the window panelling? That's not stated in Inside Story.

Is there evidence that Dring worked in Battlecrease during the 1980s? If so, why could one of those books not have been the Diary? According to Inside Story, Harrison believed his story "offered one plausible explanation for why the Diary emerged when it did." Was that nonsense then?

Or was Dring simply lying about his discovery? Was Paul Dodd right to think that the electricians were involved in a "scam" to pretend that they had discovered the Diary?

Just a coincidence is it, that Arthur Rigby said he recalled something (possibly a diary) being put into a skip in Battlecrease and Dring actually claimed to throw something (possibly a diary) into a skip at Battlecrease?

[caz]

One can only deal with the evidence that is known and on that evidence, in the light of Mike's known attempt to acquire a Victorian diary with blank pages and the known use of the twentieth century expression "one off instance" in the Diary, it's difficult to conceive of any explanation other than a modern forgery.

That's fine, David. Naturally you can only deal with the evidence that you know about - or are prepared to accept - and we know all about your difficulties in conceiving of any explanation other than your own.

You complained that James ran away without answering all your questions or giving you more of the witness testimony he has managed to obtain. So right there is your acknowledgement that there is more evidence out there you do not yet know about, which means you are obliged to form your views from limited information.

Expressing those views, however, is not an obligation but a choice. You could have waited to see what else there is out there before committing yourself. It's been 25 years now and we're all still learning, so there was no mad rush to nail your colours to the mast.

Love,

Caz
X

[Henry Flower]

That's fine, David. Naturally you can only deal with the evidence that you know about - or are prepared to accept - and we know all about your difficulties in conceiving of any explanation other than your own.

You complained that James ran away without answering all your questions or giving you more of the witness testimony he has managed to obtain. So right there is your acknowledgement that there is more evidence out there you do not yet know about, which means you are obliged to form your views from limited information.

Expressing those views, however, is not an obligation but a choice. You could have waited to see what else there is out there before committing yourself. It's been 25 years now and we're all still learning, so there was no mad rush to nail your colours to the mast.

Love,

Caz
X

Various colours have been nailed to this particular mast from day one, for a quarter of a century, Caz. I think David is well within his rights to speculate based on the current state of the evidence. I'm reasonably sure he would have the integrity to admit it if the preponderance of any new evidence tilted the probability-seesaw the other way. But as it is, I've read not a word so far about timesheets and floorboards that comes close to equaling the evidentiary weight of the only provable provenance - a man who was a wannabe writer, who had made efforts to procure a Victorian diary with a minimum number of blank pages, and who at one stage swore an affadavit admitting his part in the forgery. The reason I keep coming back to that tedious fact can be found by noting once more the title of this thread.

The more we discuss the agonizingly convoluted and minute details of who said what or knew what about when floorboards were possibly lifted, or the over-hyped timesheets that very possibly don't give us the whole story in any case, none of which has produced a single iota of clean and clear evidence that the Diary originated in Battlecrease, the more we lose sight of the wood, and get lost in the trees. That said, I'm impressed by David's analysis of the floorboard-insinuation-chronology, and I know that someone has to do that tedious dirty work. Waiting until all the evidence is in before arguing a case isn't necessarily as virtuous as it might sound: David is ensuring that huge castles aren't built on foundations of sand, knowing only too well that if the drip-drip-drip of information isn't challenged at each point then we eventually get fed an enormous pre-prepared meal that might fool us with a tasty appearance had David not been checking the ingredients one by one as the meal was prepared, and shouting warnings from the kitchen like "carcinogenic colourings!" - "non-nutritive crunch-enhancer!" - "dementia-linked dopamine-inducer!". I for one value his thoroughness, and it's hardly fair to criticise a man for evaluating the evidence as it stands.

[barnflatwyngarde]

"How disappointing that we still have no idea who Vinny Dring was (other than an electrician, supposedly) or when he worked in Battlecrease during the renovation work."

There is apparently a Vincent Dring listed in Liverpool Electoral Rolls for 2002 and 2014.

[caz]

But what I do know is that Mike attempted to obtain a Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992 and the only reason I can think for him doing this was in order to forge a Victorian Diary (either him doing it or someone else).

The idea is criticized on the basis that no-one in their right mind would have handed total control of the Diary over to Mike yet those same people say that Mike was given total control of the Diary by the person or persons who found and stole it from Battlecrease!!!!

Gosh, four exclamation marks.

One way or another, it seems that Mike did have total control of the diary, at least up until he sold it to Robert Smith for £1 in 1993.

So what you need to work out is how he got it and why, if you believe more than one person was involved with him in a complex, if unsophisticated forgery scheme for profit, and if they hadn't all shuffled off before he took that control. Anne, remember, wanted none of the spoils until Doreen finally persuaded her, in 1994 when she had left Mike, to take a share of the royalties for Caroline's sake. What would have been in it for Anne in 1992, to have helped concoct this thing with Mike? So she could watch him getting it published and pissing all his royalties against the wall?

If the diary was taken from Battlecrease, on the other hand, in a moment of naughtiness, the electrician directly involved could hardly have gone it alone and claimed he came across it innocently, or got it from a dead pal. He had to hand over control to someone - someone who would get in as much trouble as himself if he ever revealed how he really acquired it.

If you can't see any difference between these two theoretical situations, featuring different people working to very different agendas, I'm not sure you're the best judge of what agenda Mike was working to when he made that call to Doreen.

And it's ironic because, if a group of people did give Mike control, they were absolutely right to do so because he contacted the right people and ensured that money was made from the Diary!

Oh good. Another exclamation mark.

So if this nebulous group of people - this nest of forgers for old time's sake - did give Mike control, they were right to do so because he ensured that money was made from the diary - so he could piss it all against the wall. I see.

And if an electrician did give Mike control, he was also right to do so because Mike never did split on him, and never did concede that his Maybrick diary could have come from the Maybrick house. He even went one better and said he wrote it himself, cutting off the money supply to himself and anyone else who may have wanted a cut.

What I find puzzling is why, if Mike really was part of this nest of forgers, he didn't seize the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon that was Feldy and the Electricians circa April 1993, by saying: "So that's what Tony was keeping from me. It must have come from the house back in 1989 or whenever, and Tony must have got hold of it and worried about what to do with it". Paul Dodd was willing to take 5% and not contest ownership, so Mike would have been home and dry and able to stick with his Tony story. It wasn't greed that made him refuse that deal with so much anger that he went to confront Eddie Lyons. The claim was that the diary had been found and taken away in 1989, but Eddie wouldn't have been entitled to a bean and Mike would have known it wasn't true anyway. His impression of this stranger would have been of someone who could have known nothing about the physical diary, much less what it contained, but was merely trying it on.

But Mike's angry denial, and even angrier confrontation with Eddie, makes much more sense if he got the diary from Eddie in March/April 1992, with a mutual promise to keep their mouths shut, and now, a year later, Eddie was all set to spill the beans about how he took it from Battlecrease and passed it on to Mike.

Just something else to bear in mind when trying to make sense of people's behaviour in the lead up to the diary's publication.

Love,

Caz
X

[James_J]

Evening all,

I do hope that everyone thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas break and are making the most of the New Year.

I wasn't really expecting to return to these boards - but it seems that I have been accused of 'running away'? As I've mentioned on previous occasions, I don't find these forums terribly productive and have much more promising avenues of research to pursue. Nevertheless - in the interests of clarifying a few things.

In a wonderful non-sequitur we are told that "if they were thrown in a skip at some point in the 1980s and never seen or heard of since, there's not a lot even James Johnston can do to find them now.". Well I never even mentioned James Johnston in this context let alone suggest he might be able to find books thrown into a skip more than 25 years ago! But he could, presumably, have interviewed Dring, although, despite his penchant for interviewing living people who were "involved", he doesn't seem to have been interested. And I love the way that this alleged discovery is now said to have happened "at some point in the 1980s" although no date is provided in Inside Story.

As a matter of fact, I did interview Vincent Dring, twice - on the 7th & 14th December 2015 respectively. Vincent's account was much the same as it's recounted in Shirley's book - and he remembered finding two books beneath some wall panelling at Battlecrease in 1982. As inticing as this sounded - when I sent Vincent a series of high-resolution photographs of the Maybrick journal, he said that the books he remembered finding were not of a similar appearance, and 'were too thin'. The books were then discarded into the skip - supplied by a company named Lockwoods. Unfortunately, Lockwoods did not keep records of what was disposed off in the skips. Vincent had no association with Portus & Rhodes and was then employed by a firm named J&T Joinery. Colin Rhodes was able to confirm that Dring had no association with his firm. Further to that - I could find no tangible connection between Vincent, Mike Barrett, Tony Devereux or The Saddle.

I don't think that can be quite right on any level, even if what you really mean is only that the timesheets indicate that the floorboards were lifted was 9 March 1992. For how do we know that floorboards were not lifted on 10 March 1992?

According to Colin Rhodes, who had an excellent recollection of the work that was conducted, the floorboards would have been raised in the first-floor of the house first thing on the Monday morning - to make way for the incoming power supply required for the storage heaters. This was also bourne out by James Coufopoulos & Graham Rhodes.

Secondly, you say that the timesheet for 9th June provides no indication that any floorboards were lifted. Not having seen that timesheet it's difficult for me to comment but is it fair to say that the only actual indication in the timesheet of 9/10 March that the floorboards were lifted is the mention of the floorboard protectors (the purpose of which you have very helpfully explained to us)? So what you are saying about the 9th June timesheet (as well as all the other timesheets) is that there is no mention of floorboard protectors, is that right? And from this you conclude that no floorboards were lifted, right?

Correct. There is no mention of floorboard protectors on any of the timesheets save for the 9/10 March. Furthermore, according to Colin Rhodes, Paul Dodd and Graham Rhodes - due to the nature of the work carried out during that period - this is the only date which would have necessiated the removal of floorboards on the first-floor of Battlecrease House.

Regarding the accuracy of the timesheets, I am sensing that you may be suggesting that Eddie didn't complete a timesheet on 9 March because he didn't want his presence on Battlecrease on that day to be known. If that is the suggestion (and I appreciate it may not be) it strikes me as curious that Eddie then gives you information to suggest he was in Battlecrease on that day. Also, if that is the suggestion, would it be fair to say that is very unusual and irregular that a Portus & Rhodes timesheet does not show all the people who worked in a property on a particular day?

This is an on-going area of investigation, and in the interests of objectivity I reserve judgement for the moment. Watch this space though.

On the subject of Eddie, I am wondering about his motivation in speaking to you. Do you have any thoughts about this? I mean he has obviously agreed on at least two occasions to answer your questions about his work at Battlecrease. You seem to think that he is telling you the truth in his answers yet you must also think that his primary purpose in speaking to you was to lie to you and try to falsely convince you that he didn't find the Diary under the floorboards. Is that right, would you say?

Quite correct. Eddie actually agreed to speak with me on three occasions. My gut feeling is that he was attempting to convince me that nothing was found. At that moment in time, Eddie had no idea what information I had in my possession and I think it is quite reasonable that he should have engaged with me, in order to find out.

On the issue of the transcripts, of course I would not expect you to reveal any personal or private information about anyone. But would it not be a simple matter to simply redact any such information while still posting the rest of the transcript?

Yes - but these transcripts are forming an important part of the current investigation, and I don't want to release information prematurely - especially when much of it has been given in confidence. I have shared a considerable amount of information from the transcripts - both on these boards and in my recent chapter. I understand that you will construe this as a demonstration of cowardice - but I'm under no obligation to share all of my hard earned research, especially when it is not yet complete. Again - watch this space. In the interests of tying things over however - I have included EL's denial; 'I can understand people saying, ‘oh he must have found it,’ but honestly, I never.'

Something else I would like to know is: what did Eddie say when you asked him about whether he found a book under the floorboards which he threw into a skip? And did he agree that he said he had done this when speaking to Robert Smith in June 1993? Was he asked to comment on what Brian Rawes claimed he had said to him in July 1992?

I asked Eddie about both of these incidents. In both instances, he denied they ever occured.

Are you planning to go back to Eddie to show him the timesheets and ask whether he can help to reconstruct the days he worked at Battlecrease?

Watch this space.

I note that Eddie repeatedly refers to storage heaters or heaters in the plural. How many storage heaters were installed in Battlecrease by Portus & Rhodes electricians? The timesheet of 9/10 March only seems to refer to a single storage heater.

Portus & Rhodes installed three storage heaters in Battlecrease. Two were new installations, whilst one older radiator was replaced with a larger storage heater in a different position in the same room. This information comes direct from Paul Dodd and was recently verified by Christopher Jones. All of the underfloor wiring, however, was completed on 9/10th March - as far as the timesheets & Colin Rhodes are concerned.

To pick up on a few final points - there is no indication that Paul Feldman ever spoke to Brian Rawes. Brian never recalled speaking to him, nor did Feldman keep any record of having spoken to him. Brian's account has remained the same throughout the years. At this point - we have some reason for thinking that Colin Rhodes never supplied Feldman with Rawes' contact details. There is no evidence to suggest that Brian's account was contaminated or influnced by the media or Feldman. I will accept the possibility that Rawes could have picked up on rumours that something may have been found at Battlecrease via the other electricians - but one then has to ask why he has retained the same story for over 25 years, and why he would volunteer this information to the police. What's more, his dating of the alleged conversation is supported by the corresponding timesheets.

In the end, James has become one more of these Diary Defenders who has information but is deciding to withhold it for reasons best known to themselves.

It's a shame you feel that way David. I haven't made any conclusions as to whether the Diary is genuinely the work of Maybrick or not - nor will I even begin to explore that possiblity until the provenance has been proven beyond reasonable doubt. You are absolutely correct in thinking that I will withold certain information for the time being. I am under no obligation to disclose my hard earned research before I have had the chance to verify and fully explore the possiblities it raises.

In any case, thanks again for taking the time to pontificate on these boards. The objections you raise do occassionally resonate and do serve to spur on the investigation.

Now - onwards with the actual research (my favourite part). Unless that inadvertantly exposes 'the underlying arrogance of my agenda'?

Best as always & every good wish, James.

[caz]

Various colours have been nailed to this particular mast from day one, for a quarter of a century, Caz. I think David is well within his rights to speculate based on the current state of the evidence.

Absolutely, Henry.

As I said, it's not an obligation to speculate in public with limited information, but a choice. And we all do it.

I for one value his thoroughness, and it's hardly fair to criticise a man for evaluating the evidence as it stands.

Again, I don't think I was criticising David. It's entirely his choice to evaluate what he wants to evaluate, whether he has 100% of the existing evidence at his fingertips, 50% or 1%.

Indeed, it would also be his choice to speculate on the percentage of the existing evidence he has been evaluating.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

What would have been in it for Anne in 1992, to have helped concoct this thing with Mike? So she could watch him getting it published and pissing all his royalties against the wall?

Hi, Caz. I already answered this in post #363.

I suppose I will have to spell it out. Anne wrote a novella about Maybrick-as-Jack. Nothing either or illegal or strange about her "helping" Mike. In fact, she encouraged "his" literary efforts, and did 99% of the actual work. No mystery whatsoever, and nothing illegal or untoward.

Then one unlucky day around February 1992, while she's at work, Mike takes what is basically her manuscript and decides to turn it into the 'real' McCoy...the Maybrick Diary. Why not? Pan Books didn't want it, so, to use Mike's own phrase, it's "Hell or Bust." So he enlists the help of Citizen X from down the boozer. Anne doesn't find out about it until the unpaid bills start showing up from Martin Earl, who naturally wants his £25. She now figures out what Mike's really been up to and goes ballistic. But she also finds out it's already too late---a 'done deal.' Mike's made an appointment with Doreen Montgomery. She fights him tooth and nail--on the floor even---(see Feldman's account) but in the end she puts her head down and goes along with it, knowing full well that she's in it as deep as he is. As with the readers of LOOT Magazine, she's been hoodwinked. All her subsequent actions can be explained as someone trying to make the best of an impossible situation--including her totally irrational and ill-advised 'gig' with Feldman, who she figures might have the money/clout to make it all go away. The rest is history.

I personally see Anne as a rather tragic figure.

As for Mike "pissing it against the wall," didn't he make some rather unusual £1,000 withdrawals when the royalty cheques starting rolling in?