One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[David Orsam]

What? I wouldn't rely on Mike telling me he wrote the diary, to tell me who did write it.

You said you wouldn't rely on any of Mike's actions to tell you who wrote the diary.

I find that a rather strange unless you think he fakes his actions.

The logical extension is that even if Mike was reliably seen to have been writing the diary you wouldn't believe he wrote the diary because him writing the diary was an 'action'.

[David Orsam]

Nope, I still don't know what you mean by a 'grand plan to put future investigators onto the wrong scent'. So my answer would be no, unless you can explain the nature of this 'wrong scent', aside from the pungent whiff of all the porkies Mike has told over the years.

Well what I asked was this:

"Are you saying that I can't rely on Mike's actions in attempting to acquire a Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992? As I previously asked you, but don't recall an answer, do you think this was all part of a grand plan to put future investigators onto the wrong scent? If not, then I surely can rely on it because it's actual evidence isn't it?"

In other words, are you saying that Mike attempted to acquire a Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992 while being in possession of the Maybrick Diary so that he could one day claim to have forged the Maybrick Diary and thus mislead investigators into thinking he was not in possession of the Maybrick Diary in March 1992?

[David Orsam]

How am I meant to know what Mike 'thought'?

Well, as you seem to believe it is ludicrous to think that Mike could have been involved in forging the Diary, you should easily be able to explain why Mike was attempting to locate a Victorian Diary with blank pages in March 1992.

Given that you seem to be having some difficulty, do you at least accept that it is not a ridiculous notion that his attempt might have been connected with forging the Diary?

[David Orsam]

You clearly have Mike thinking it would be fine to go to all the effort and Anne's expense of ordering a Victorian diary with blank pages without giving a thought to the size of those pages.

As I thought I had made clear, it would have been impractical if not impossible to frame an advertisement giving an exact ratio of required diary size to number of acceptable blank pages. The wording of the advertisement, which I assume was drafted by HP Bookfinders, was clear and to the point. I don't suppose Mike could have explained to HP Bookfinders his exact purpose in seeking the diary. Until he had something in his hands he couldn't really tell if it would be practical or not. The red 1891 diary seems to have been the only one that the professional bookfinding company was able to find. So, for Mike, at that point in time, it was basically that diary or nothing.

[David Orsam]

That's because there is no evidence that a typed transcript was even in existence as early as March 1992. We can't rely on the Barretts to tell us but it was of course entirely possible that they began preparing one later that March, while Mike was waiting to see if his order might bear fruit. He didn't know the little red diary would be popping through the letter box just before the end of March, did he? Even less that it would be of any use to him.

See above. We know he placed the advert very early on, in the wake of his first contact with Doreen on March 9th. But nobody would report seeing the completed transcript until several weeks after Mike's trip to London with the diary on April 13th. So there is no conflict here. We know his intentions when he placed the order (whatever those intentions were) were thwarted, but he wouldn't know that until around March 28th, by which time Anne could easily have been working on the typed transcript. Mike arguably knew more about Doreen's expectations, and had had more advice from her by then, than he had when placing the order. There is not a shred of evidence that Mike told Anne about his order until the middle of May, when she had to pay for it.

That's a lot of words in response to a straightforward question. That question is: Why did Mike intend to write out extracts of the Diary in his handwriting into a Victorian Diary from a specific period of 1880-1890-1 when he could have written these extracts out into a modern exercise book or prepared a typed transcript?

I made a very simple point in addition that a transcript was supposedly being prepared for Doreen in March anyway. But if you don't believe Mike and Anne on this point then - fine that answers that - but I still seek an answer to my question above.

[David Orsam]

Well you haven't responded with your feet yet, and there was I hoping it was a promise. It certainly wasn't a threat.

Well your use of the 'secret evidence' has been surprisingly restrained and within tolerable limits. So I'm still responding.

[David Orsam]

There is not a shred of evidence that Mike told Anne about his order until the middle of May, when she had to pay for it.

Well the dates are muddled in the affidavit but Mike says in that affidavit: "In fact Anne purchased a Diary, a red leather backed Diary for L25.00p, she made the purchase through a firm in the 1986 Writters Year Book". So I would say that there is a 'shred' of evidence that she was aware of the purchase at the time. Whether that is reliable evidence is a different matter but it is a 'shred'.

[David Orsam]

Well he wouldn't have been thrilled, would he? No matter what his intentions had been and what he was hoping or expecting to receive, this wasn't it. For what he was about to receive, he was never going to be truly grateful, was he?

Hold on there Caz. I wasn't asking if Mike would have been 'truly grateful' or 'thrilled' to receive the small red 1891 diary. I was asking if he would have been 'stunned and surprised' to receive it. The reason for asking this is that your theory appears to be that he thought all Victorian diaries were identical so that in ordering an 1891 diary he would have expected to receive a big black diary, identical to the Victorian guard book already in his possession.

On what I am saying, he would not have been stunned or surprised to receive a red diary. He would not have been stunned or surprised to receive a small diary. Nor indeed, I might add, would he have been stunned or surprised to find the year printed on the inside page (which was not a feature of the guard book). This is because he would have had no preconceived ideas about what a Victorian diary looked like. Sure he would have been disappointed that there wasn't enough space in the diary to fit his Maybrick Diary text but that's as far as it goes.

But on your case he must surely have now doubted the genuineness of the Maybrick Diary because it was so different to what a real Victorian diary looked like, no?

Well, hey, I suppose he just pressed on regardless, simply ignoring the results of his elaborate comparison test.

[caz]

As I've mentioned, the only thing of any real interest to me is whether the Diary was written by Maybrick and I'm satisfied that this is already disproved by the author's use of the phrase "one off instance".

Then I'm not entirely sure what you are still doing here, David. Do you honestly have nothing better to do with your time?

The identity of the forger is of far less interest to me but until a satisfactory explanation is provided for Barrett's hunt for a Victorian Diary with blank pages, I have to assume he was involved and, that being so, until the story as set out in his affidavit is disproved, I have to assume that what he said in that affidavit is probably what happened, to a greater or lesser extent.

And how long do you suppose you will be waiting (while still reading and posting) before an explanation that satisfies you suddenly creeps up one day and slaps you round the chops?

Why not simply save yourself the time and your typing digits the effort, and carry on assuming what you are assuming (it doesn't always fail you) unless or until the situation changes in the future?

From my point of view, there can be no satisfactory explanation for Mike's hunt (read that one carefully!) in his affidavit, because I am satisfied the diary existed and was with Mike before he called Doreen and before he placed that order. It's a balancing act. I know you don't want to hear it, but I would need a satisfactory explanation for the Battlecrease documentation which would make it compatible with Mike ordering that 1891 effort to create 'the' diary.

I realise Mike moved in many mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, but even he couldn't have created a diary that had already been created by person or persons unknown, for reasons unknown, and had emerged from Maybrick's house.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I don't quite follow the contrast. Are you saying that Mike possessed psychic powers and, therefore, should have known that the red 1891 diary would be useless before he had it in his hands?

No - I was referring to the contrast between the 'great' effort and expense (not to mention the time element) to place an advert, sit back and have to wait to see when or if it might bear fruit, and to finally receive something that was less than useless, and then the lightening speed and almost miraculous success of his next effort, in the nick of time, with Doreen's clock ticking away and April 13th fast approaching. Why did he not think to check out O&L while he was twiddling his thumbs and watching the clock, in case the ad produced nothing - ever? His father-in-law was even supposedly supplying the readies (another conveniently deceased person to involve in the conspiracy).

Had the red diary arrived just two or three days later, he'd have had to squeeze his creation into 7 days (God-like), assuming the guard book had not yet gone to the highest bidder, or postpone his meeting with Doreen - which he could have done anyway, for any number of perfectly acceptable reasons. He was either going to make it worth waiting for or he wasn't. So why the tearing hurry all of a sudden after wasting nearly three weeks waiting for a response to his ad which may never have come? How long would he have waited before letting Doreen down gently and saying the dog had eaten the diary?

Of course, the answer could well lie in the all-too-familiar question: who knows why Mike did all sorts of stuff that wouldn't make sense to anyone else? But if so, that would have to apply to his reasons for ordering that Victorian diary, so probably best not to go there on this occasion.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I find your new emphasis on the fact that Mike had an invitation from Doreen for April 13th quite amusing. Previously you asked me about the "indecent haste" in Mike showing the Diary to Doreen only days after the final ink went on the paper but now you provide a complete explanation for the timing, being due to a fixed meeting date!

The so-called "indecent haste" in other words is wholly explained by a need to provide the diary to Doreen on 13th April.

Well it was your theory, based on Mike's claims, that he and Anne were working on the diary towards that deadline of April 13th, which I don't believe for one second. But in any case literary agents don't in my experience let potential clients decide when they want to swan in with a writing project, but check their own diary, work out a suitable appointment date and time with the person concerned, then send a formal invitation or confirmation letter (we couldn't include everything in Ripper Diary or we'd still be writing it today).

In any event, had there been a problem, Mike could easily have come up with an excuse to postpone the meeting.

Agreed. So why did you refer to a ticking clock?

The point about Mike saying that it took 11 days to write the diary is that this just happens to fit in with a timescale which he didn't even seem to be consciously aware of when he wrote his affidavit.

So why do you think he was including the 1891 diary as evidence that he forged 'the' diary, if he wasn't even consciously aware of why it was evidence, and how it could help him?

Mike, who on your account was making it all up, could easily have said it took eleven weeks to do it. Why did he think he could have been done so quickly? Why only 11 days? That's the point I'm getting at.

He might have got his dates confused but he was not a total imbecile. How could he 'easily' have said it took eleven weeks? If he wanted to use the 1891 diary as proof of anything at all, it had to tie in with the date he obtained it (whether he remembered this or not, he volunteered what he did remember about the cheque and the bank, and he knew Anne was a witness) and the date Doreen saw the finished product. If he wasn't sure about any of the dates, it was no good him coming up with a period of time for the writing that would catch him out when his crucial 1891 diary evidence was inevitably looked into.

The fact that he said it took eleven days indicates that he remembered that whenever the little red diary arrived, it was not long before he took the actual diary to London, which we know is true. If he could supposedly remember spending eleven days - no more, no less - on the writing (how does that work if he was by then confused over other intervals of time, to the extent not only of days, but weeks, months and even years?), why could he not have worked out that this was pretty much all the time available to sandwich the writing between the two events? Of course, had he claimed the 1891 diary was obtained in early 1990, followed by the guard book, followed by Tony's death, followed at some point by eleven weeks or more of slow, careful and methodical work to get the ink on the paper, he'd have come a cropper and the little red diary would have had the opposite of the desired effect. So he was kind of stuck with the eleven days if he wanted his 1891 diary evidence to stick. If he genuinely had no real idea how many days, weeks or months went by between receiving it and keeping his appointment with Doreen, or even the year of both events, that was his problem. The two dates were already set in stone and the exact interval would be established within months of learning of the red diary's existence courtesy of Mike himself. He'd have been better off saying nothing about how long the writing took if he didn't know whether there had been masses of time available or hardly any at all.

But how does it work that Mike could remember it taking exactly eleven days to get the diary written, if he couldn't remember the first thing about how long it took for Anne to take up her pen, following the receipt of the red diary, or how long it was after Anne put her pen down again that he made his fateful trip to London with baby? I submit he knew exactly how long he had available if the red diary was going to be any use to him at all.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

I realise Mike moved in many mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, but even he couldn't have created a diary that had already been created by person or persons unknown, for reasons unknown, and had emerged from Maybrick's house.

Just to interrupt the two of you for the moment, as I have said before, if ever there comes a day when it can be established that the James Maybrick journal came out of the James Maybrick house, that will be that. Game over. The real deal.

No "It was written by Michael Maybrick", etc.. Or written to defend Florrie, etc..

Game over. The real deal. I await that day with eager anticipation ...

Ike

[David Orsam]

with Doreen's clock ticking away and April 13th fast approaching.

Well we haven't yet established when the April 13th date was set.

As far as I know, Mike could have agreed the April 13th date after getting hold of the Victorian guard book. But if you have any further evidence on this that wasn't included in 'Inside Story' what is it?

[David Orsam]

Why did he not think to check out O&L while he was twiddling his thumbs and watching the clock, in case the ad produced nothing - ever?

I think this is a silly question for so many reasons.

In the first place, what do you think is wrong with having a Plan A and then a Plan B if Plan A fails?

Running a Plan B in parallel with Plan A is not, of course, impossible but not something that everyone has to do.

Secondly, Mike can't go to an auction without cash and we have no idea from his affidavit when he obtained the £50 he says he got from Anne's father. All he says about this is that it occurred "At about the same time" as the purchase of the diary. I mean, if Anne's father only offered the cash after the failure of the Bookfinders mission then that answers that doesn't it?

Thirdly, we don't even know if he was or was not running Plan A in parallel with Plan B because no chronology is actually set out in his affidavit.

I could go and remark that if I tried to argue that Mike went out and spent £50 on a diary before seeing what Bookfinders could get him for £25 you would probably tell me that I was quite mad.

[David Orsam]

Had the red diary arrived just two or three days later, he'd have had to squeeze his creation into 7 days (God-like), assuming the guard book had not yet gone to the highest bidder, or postpone his meeting with Doreen - which he could have done anyway, for any number of perfectly acceptable reasons. He was either going to make it worth waiting for or he wasn't. So why the tearing hurry all of a sudden after wasting nearly three weeks waiting for a response to his ad which may never have come? How long would he have waited before letting Doreen down gently and saying the dog had eaten the diary?

Of course, the answer could well lie in the all-too-familiar question: who knows why Mike did all sorts of stuff that wouldn't make sense to anyone else? But if so, that would have to apply to his reasons for ordering that Victorian diary, so probably best not to go there on this occasion.

All this seems to assume that the date of 13th April was fixed during, or immediately after, the telephone calls of 9-10 March about which I have seen no evidence and about which 'Inside Story' suggests that this did not happen.

But, as I've said, if the meeting had been arranged for 13th April and Mike couldn't get the diary finished in time, he just comes up with an excuse about some sort of domestic emergency and postpones the meeting to the following month.

But you are quite right to ask "How long would he have waited before letting Doreen down gently and saying the dog had eaten the diary?" That's why I have said that Mike was under time pressure after having contacted her and the clock was ticking.