Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock -- on the subject of 'housekeeping'---



I'm surprised Ike didn't challenge this.

I misread the passage, and it was actually James Coufoupoulos who recalled drilling the holes in the joists on 9 March. My bad. Withdrawn.

It's a pity we can't see any of the documentation because there are some significant differences between C.A.B.'s rendition of these events and how they were described by Dolgin & Jones.

“The Portus and Rhodes timesheets show that on this day [9 March] Eddie Lyons and Jim Bowling were working on a sewage farm in Skelmersdale in Lancashire. However, work on the site was held up as they were waiting for materials to arrive. As was the practice at Portus and Rhodes, the two electricians were redeployed to help with existing jobs.”

This appears to be somewhat misstated, no? The job had been suspended earlier, and there is no timesheet for Lyons. And that he was 'redeployed' appears to have been a later suggestion, not a fact.

“In June 2018 Eddie Lyons admitted to Christopher Jones and three other witnesses that he had been sent to help with the electrical work at Battlecrease on 9 March 1992. What is significant about this is that Lyons could have simply denied being at the house; in the absence of his name appearing on the timesheet it would have been almost impossible to disprove his statement.”

Dolgin & Jones, p. 129

Dolgin & Jones appear to be on the same wavelength as Lombro. If Lyons unnecessarily put himself at the alleged 'crime scene'--something a criminal wouldn't do----then Lombro's observation would be more appropriately posed to Caroline Brown.

RP

Hi Roger,

I was reading the exchange that you mentioned between James Johnston and David Orsam earlier in this thread recently and I saw that David asked James if he was going to show Eddie Lyons the timesheets and ask him whether he could help to reconstruct the days he worked at Battlecrease. James' reply on 10th January 2018 was "Watch this space". I assume that this is what was done when he met Eddie a few weeks later in February 2018 but that he didn't get the answer he was hoping for. He certainly never came back to reveal what Eddie had said, and Caz's post now confirms that Eddie couldn't say what he was doing on 9th March 1992, even with the benefit of seeing the timesheets. Despite this, a myth seems to have arisen that Eddie "admitted" to having been at Battlecrease on that day. What is baffling to me is that James refused to post the transcripts of what Eddie had told him in 2015/6 and now, for some unknown reason, the transcript of what Eddie said in 2018 also remains a top secret. It's a strange way of trying to convince us that the diary was found in Battlecrease.

The other thing that remains unclear to me is whether the timesheets accurately reflect who was working at Battlecrease on any particular day. According to Shirley Harrison, Brian Rawes was able to confirm the date of his brief conversation with Eddie at Battlecrease as having occurred in June 1992 which he did "by reference to an old daily memo book" (p.292 of The American Connection). Yet, as Caz tells us, the timesheets don't show Eddie as having been there in June 1992, while, according to Robert Smith's book, Brian Rawes isn't shown on any timesheets as having been there in June 1992 either. Has anyone ever seen Brian Rawes' daily memo book?

[rjpalmer]

The other thing that remains unclear to me is whether the timesheets accurately reflect who was working at Battlecrease on any particular day. According to Shirley Harrison, Brian Rawes was able to confirm the date of his brief conversation with Eddie at Battlecrease as having occurred in June 1992 which he did "by reference to an old daily memo book" (p.292 of The American Connection). Yet, as Caz tells us, the timesheets don't show Eddie as having been there in June 1992, while, according to Robert Smith's book, Brian Rawes isn't shown on any timesheets as having been there in June 1992 either. Has anyone ever seen Brian Rawes' daily memo book?

Thanks, Herlock. Very relevant indeed.

I'll wait for C.A.B.'s response.

She 'corrected' me to insist there is no evidence that Eddie Lyons was at Dodd's house in June 1992 (the same lack of evidence in March doesn't seem to faze her) and even stated:

and I don't think anyone recalled him helping out on that occasion.

which appears to be incorrect; Rawes not only recalled Eddie having been there in June but (according to Shirley) was able to confirm it with documentation.

As far as I can tell, C.A.B. treats the timesheets as either conclusive or inconclusive depending on the argument she wishes to make.

If heaters were installed in June and Eddie was there (as confirmed by Rawes) why couldn't he have 'admitted' to the wrong month?

But ultimately it is her theory--or perhaps more appropriately she is one who has brought the Keith Skinner/James Johnston theory to the forums--and she'll have to convince her readers not to worry about these nagging doubts and discrepancies.

The other half of the coin is that she'll also have to explain--if the diary was found by Eddie Lyons and sold to Mike--why Anne Graham and Billy Graham would insist that they had seen it and owned the diary decades earlier.

The explanation I've been given is also problematic--but more on that another time.

Cheers.

[Lombro2]

The main one being they’re fencing a stolen item.

I don’t know how a simple heist with one suspect gets turned into an Agatha Christie investigation.

After you get Eddie to reconstruct the day of the heist to see if he really is a thief, you can get the fences to reconstruct the provenance of their goods to see if they’re really fences.

[rjpalmer]

The main one being they’re fencing a stolen item.

Who are 'they'?

Are you suggesting that Mike, Anne, and Billy put their money together and bought the Diary of Jack the Ripper from Eddie Lyons for twenty-five pounds?

And then Barrett sold the same diary to Robert Smith for one pound---a loss of twenty-four pounds on his investment?

This is your nest of master fencers?

[Herlock Sholmes]

The main one being they’re fencing a stolen item.

I don’t know how a simple heist with one suspect gets turned into an Agatha Christie investigation.

After you get Eddie to reconstruct the day of the heist to see if he really is a thief, you can get the fences to reconstruct the provenance of their goods to see if they’re really fences.

So we should disregard everything Eddie Lyons is supposed to have said to James Johnston and Keith Skinner?

If that's the case you should tell Caz, not me, because she's the one relying on it.

[Lombro2]

Like I said, some people have no concept of the criminal classes.

And some people have their own minds and think for themselves, and have their own approach which other people, with the same premise to begin with, don’t agree with.

So I don’t really engage with Anti-Barrett theorists or Maybrickian interested in thieves and fences.

Might as well talk to Socratic people who one minute say Michael made thousands in profit when he’s a forger but then only made a dollar as a fence.

[rjpalmer]

Might as well talk to Socratic people who one minute say Michael made thousands in profit when he’s a forger but then only made a dollar as a fence.

Who are you arguing with? Yourself?

You're the one who keeps calling Barrett and the Graham's "fences." Fences sell stolen goods.

I call Barrett and Graham literary forgers. Literary forgers contact literary agents. That's what Barrett did.

Don't you understand the criminal classes?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Like I said, some people have no concept of the criminal classes.

And some people have their own minds and think for themselves, and have their own approach which other people, with the same premise to begin with, don’t agree with.

So I don’t really engage with Anti-Barrett theorists or Maybrickian interested in thieves and fences.

Might as well talk to Socratic people who one minute say Michael made thousands in profit when he’s a forger but then only made a dollar as a fence.

Or you're using the word "fence" incorrectly. Ever think of that?

[Lombro2]

You think they sell to criminals?

[Lombro2]

Thieves also give their stolen literary material to “literary” agents like Mike who pass them on to other real literary agents. Or maybe you know something else.

Just like thieves give or sell their stolen watches to people who sell watches.

[rjpalmer]

Thieves also give their stolen literary material to “literary” agents like Mike who pass them on to other real literary agents.

I can't say that your theory has much going for it, but I suppose it is mildly more plausible than C.A.B.'s theory that someone sold the Confession of Jack the Ripper, found under the floorboards of a Victorian mansion, to a stranger or near stranger for twenty-five pounds.

In your version, Mike was Eddie's "literary agent" and presumably it was Eddie and not Mike who blew through Barrett's royalty cheques.

Thanks. I think I've heard enough.

[Lombro2]

Eddie got the equivalent of 40 bucks for the diary.

I’m sure he’d to almost anything for 40 bucks.

[John Wheat]

There is zero evidence the Diary was written by Maybrick and there is zero evidence he ever owned the watch.

[caz]

I had it from Tom Mitchell that Eddie's name was on the timecards that summer---at least for July 1992:

Yes, but that's not June. Palmer claimed that:

Eddie Lyons only appears on the sheets for the week of 15 Jun - 19th.

He doesn't.

Whether it was June or July doesn't concern me.

Clearly not. But if it didn't concern Palmer to get the month right, perhaps it should have.

We keep hearing about work done in June/July 1992. What concerns me is that the public is never given access to Eddie's "admission" that he was also at Dodd's house in March----we only hear speculation that he was---often from the same people who assured us that Anne Graham's account of seeing the diary in the 1960s was credible and consistent. Later, it turned out that she was anything but consistent and her various statements were riddled with contradiction and implausibility.

Why is Palmer conflating 'speculation' about Anne Graham's unproven story, with Eddie's fully supported description of the work that was being done in Dodd's house on 9th March 1992? Eddie's account of being there when the Skelmersdale contract had to be put on hold was accepted by those present in June 2018: Keith, James and Chris Jones, two of whom don't find Anne's account credible. Eddie could not have known the circumstances he was able to recall if he hadn't actually been there. How hard has it got to be?

Eddie's last known whereabouts date to 7 March 1992. He is then off the 'radar' for at least two weeks---he isn't on the job on March 13th or even afterwards. I'm getting all of this from you.

I'm flattered that I'm trusted with it. Yes, I've been saying this forever. Eddie went mysteriously AWOL when Skelmersdale resumed on Friday 13th March. Perhaps he's superstitious.

So how in the heck do you know he even worked the week of March 9-14? We are told it is 'plausible' that he worked for a couple of hours at Dodd's house, but not only can't you produce any documentation to show it, you can't even show he was at any other job site that week or the next.

If he worked that week---not just Dodd's house but anywhere--shouldn't there be a record of it?

How is that not a mystery?

It is. That's the whole point. It was a mystery to Eddie's boss, Colin Rhodes, who couldn't account for his absence and had no record of him working anywhere else or going off sick around that time. He should have been back at Skem on the Friday with Jim Bowling, to complete the contract they had both been specifically taken on for the previous November. Colin explained to Keith why he'd have sent the pair to help out at Dodd's house on the Monday if the alternative was to pay them for hanging around the office/workshop doing nothing. There were no other jobs on record for them that week. But Colin was baffled and expressed his doubts that Eddie would have gone off on holiday in March with the Skem contract ongoing.

As far as the public knows, Eddie was in bed sick with the flu for three weeks or cruising the Mediterranean. Or laid-off.

But Colin had no evidence for any of this, and had no memory of laying Eddie off during that period. On the contrary, he had expected the timesheets to show him working again at Skem after the four-day break and could not explain why they didn't.

You might not like hearing it, but when I learn of a person whose job was suspended on March 7th--and his whereabouts aren't known for the next two weeks or more, I'm going to assume he either got laid off or took the opportunity to go on holiday.

That's fine by me. Palmer currently has the luxury of assuming whatever he likes and blaming it on not being given access to the documentary evidence that exists to punch a hole in his assumptions. I say he should enjoy such luxuries while they last and be glad that he doesn't have to face the facts he hasn't yet been faced with.

When I've asked about this in the past, someone like Jay Hartley usually rushes in to inform us that Eddie admitted to being there on 9 March.

But this only brings me back the original question: what was the context of this admission, and why can't we hear it? If, as Tom Mitchell tells us, Eddie was there on 17 July 1992, couldn't this be what he was remembering and 'admitting' to?

Nay, nay and thrice nay. Eddie has given the same account on separate occasions and has been consistent about what he remembers and what he doesn't, to a degree that is somewhat remarkable for what was supposed to be just "another day at 'tmill". He remembers a good deal more about his first visit to Dodd's house in 1992 than his last, as a former employee of Portus & Rhodes, who was only with the firm for eight months, and he isn't confusing the two occasions.

[rjpalmer]

That's fine by me. Palmer currently has the luxury of assuming whatever he likes and blaming it on not being given access to the documentary evidence that exists to punch a hole in his assumptions. I say he should enjoy such luxuries while they last and be glad that he doesn't have to face the facts he hasn't yet been faced with.

Yeah, yeah. When have we heard this before? Maybe from Paul Daniel in the Ripperologist, back when the public was treated to similar assurances about the Anne Graham provenance?


"I saw documents, signatures, photographs, videoed interviews, letter comparisons, even correspondence so sensitive that it can never be published. I saw three albums of photographs relating to the Graham/Maybrick family. There were more. In these albums were pictures of people dating from the last century to the present time...."

"....Exhausted, I left the apartment at about ten o'clock, with the deep impression that, unbelievably, the riddle of Jack the Ripper is closer to being solved than it ever has been before...."

Remind me. How did that work out for you?

Not that I was ever bitten, so have no reason to be twice shy, but some here were bitten. I applaud Lombro's eagerness to dust himself off and climb once again onto the back of the bucking bronc.

As for the rest of it, nothing you have written has alleviated my skepticism.

Eddie goes AWOL for two weeks--no record of where he was--but magically we know with certainty that he was at Dodd's house at the necessary time for the provenance to work. It sounds rather convenient.

I appreciate that Chris Jones has stated that Eddie Lyons admitted to being there, but why wouldn't he.... WAS there...later that summer.

As always, I'd need to hear the full interview. That's hardly unreasonable.

The desire not to ask leading questions is a legitimate one, but the flip side is that, after so many intervening years, it would be entirely plausible for Eddie not to have a clear memory of the dates (nor even seasons) nor to understand the full context and thus admit to having been there in March when he was really there in July. Floorboards or no floorboards. Skips or no skips.

It's not like we don't see similar confusion in the statements by Tim M-W, Dodgson, etc., nor a tendency for those promoting the theory to exaggerate or misinterpret what was actually said.

I'll wait for James J's documentary. I really don't expect to be eating my words, but I'll keep a bottle of ketchup on hand.

Ciao.