One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[rjpalmer]

I would like to warn future readers of this thread, if ever there are any, to double-check and perhaps triple check every claim made by Iconoclast (Thomas Mitchell) especially when he is accusing others of trickery and dishonesty, for it is often in these moments that he is particularly untrustworthy.

Oh, and you've done that 'shifting facts for convenience' trick again. You claimed that "Barrett himself was so overwhelmed with panic by this unwanted appearance of Johnny Upright that he begged DS Thomas to tell Billy Graham that this was just a friendly visit from an insurance salesman". It was Anne who begged Bonesy to say they were insurance men. I don't ever recall a version where Barrett gave a Christmas fig who was in his house or how Billy Graham would react to them.

And, of course, without the least effort made to fact check the accuracy of Thomas's claim, Caroline throws in her immediate support:

I'm sure you're right that it was Anne who wanted her father to think the men from the Yard were from the insurance. I'm not sure Mike would have been considering his father-in-law's feelings at that point. After all, it was Anne who described it as the worst day of her life.

And thus one mind deceives the other, and in turn deceives the forum.


I have now had the opportunity to check my notes, and here is the only account I know of, taken from The Diary of Jack the Ripper by Shirley Harrison (Blake edition, p 259).


"Anne has since described that day as the worst in her life. She prepared refreshments while Detective Sergeant Thomas grilled Michael who kept asking for beer. In the middle of it all Anne's father Billy Graham turned up and Michael asked DS Thomas to pretend he was the insurance man rather than admit his true identity. Among other things Michael denied that he had a word processor. He was terrified that Scotland Yard would know of a confrontation with the police over 20 years before and that he would be condemned before they arrived. He was right. When asked to sign a statement Michael refused unless a solicitor was present."

Q.E.D.

[rjpalmer]

Since it is the current flavor of the month, I suppose it will be argued that it is 'only my belief' that Mike told this to DS Thomas, based on hearsay evidence from Shirley Harrison, and so we go down the slippery slope into sophistry, where the 'beliefs' of Thomas Mitchell and Caroline Brown are to be given more weight, even though their beliefs don't appear to be based on anything at all.

I was recently scolded for believing Paul Feldman's account of Albert Johnson having lied to him--apparently, I should instead accept Caroline Brown's belief that Albert didn't lie to Feldman, but that this only was a figment of Feldman's imagination.

I see utterly no reason to change my mind.

Feldman--hardly a diary critic--had nothing to gain from admitting that the Johnsons were liars--it was an admission damaging to his theory.

Based on my reading of Feldman's book, what I believe happened is that the Johnsons were caught out in a number of small lies (including their supposed ignorance of certain scratches on the watch despite having supplied Feldman with a diagram) and Feldman tried to explain-away these "fibs" with the barmy theory that they were lying in order to hide their Maybrickian ancestry.

But if we admit that the Johnson-Maybrick ancestry was nothing more than a genealogical fantasy, then what is the true reasons for these dishonesties? That is my interpretation, or, if you will, belief.

But I am hardly the one claiming the Johnsons were liars. It was the diary's chief supporter who reported this. Why should I ignore his warning?

[Iconoclast]

But I am hardly the one claiming the Johnsons were liars. It was the diary's chief supporter who reported this. Why should I ignore his warning?

(My emphasis.)

Two things:

1) If you're referring to me, I have no idea what you're on about (not unusual in itself, mind); and
2) From this post onwards, dear readers, if I do not respond to one of Roger Palmer's posts, please do not infer that this is because I do not have a more than competent retort to yet another of his outlandish links, twists, and shifts. As you know, I always do (it's never difficult, in truth), but I don't always feel inclined to allow him his childish games.

And - apropos the second of my two things - three things:

3) Being incorrect about a claim is not the same as 'shifting facts for convenience' which is your well-established forte. So, to be clear, I was incorrect when I stated that it was Anne who had asked Bonesy to pretend to be an insurance man. It's not as though I was without company in doing so as Caz also thought this, just as you thought it was Keith Skinner who had stated that Anne had run out of the room and locked herself in the bathroom. These are just minor errors of recall where there was some kernel of truth either known or claimed by someone else.

Here's where you give yourself away. First, the way it was portrayed by Shirley Harrison:

In the middle of it all Anne's father Billy Graham turned up and Michael asked DS Thomas to pretend he was the insurance man rather than admit his true identity.

Secondly, the way it was portrayed by RJ Palmer:

Barrett himself was so overwhelmed with panic by this unwanted appearance of Johnny Upright that he begged DS Thomas to tell Billy Graham that this was just a friendly visit from an insurance salesman.

(My emphasis.)

Spot the difference, anyone?

Iconoclast

[rjpalmer]

It's no good to backtrack now, Old Bean. You claimed I was 'shifting the facts' because it was not Barrett who pleaded with Bonsey, but Anne. Having been proven wrong, you now shift your disgust to my colorful way of paraphrasing--a kettle calling the pot black moment if there ever was one, especially to those of us who are intimately familiar with your colorful and highly imaginative characterizations of Martin Fido, Mike Barrett, the 'evil' Melvin Harris, the location of Maybrick's study, the diary's alleged reference to 'FM' in its text, etc. etc.

You don't think I'm giving a straight scoop, and I certainly don't think you are, so it's probably for the best that we bid each other a fond farewell.

1) If you're referring to me, I have no idea what you're on about (not unusual in itself, mind);

I thought it would have been abundantly clear from the context that 'one of the diary's chief supporters' was Paul Feldman, since he was the person under discussion, and he was the one who had alluded to Robbie and Albert Johnson telling lies. Don't be so sensitive. Not only does Lord Orsam live rent free in your head, you live rent free in your own head.

Anyway, I guess it will be a quiet 2023, now that you and Hartley are no longer replying to me. Sounds great.

Caz wonders why I am bringing up an account from Martin Fido, dating to the 1990s.

An odd complaint, I would think, considering that we do little else but go over the same tired ground for the hundredth time--with no hope of convincing one another of our differing 'beliefs.'

As for the watch, has there been a single new development since Shirley's 2003 book? And even that was describing events from 1999.

Maybe 2023 would be a good year to suspend this conversation. I'll go first. Watch this space.

[FISHY1118]

We can only hope .

[Iconoclast]

Having been proven wrong, you now shift your disgust to my colorful way of paraphrasing ... it's probably for the best that we bid each other a fond farewell.

To quote the wonderful The Traitors, here is a parting gift from he who banishes himself. Dear readers, be warned, the unparalleled exaggeration employed in his skulduggery should have been all the warning you ever needed that a traitor was in your camp.

As for the watch, has there been a single new development since Shirley's 2003 book? And even that was describing events from 1999.

Which, clearly, reflects the fact that there is nothing to discuss. The watch is faithful, and only the insinuations of traitors has left some in some doubt.

Maybe 2023 would be a good year to suspend this conversation. I'll go first. Watch this space.

A promise made by a traitor will inevitably quickly be broken ...

I am a Faithful.

Ike

[caz]

Housekeeping:

Page 68, Inside Story:

'Towards the end of the interview Anne's father, Billy Graham, arrived in a taxi but at Anne's request he was not told who the detectives were in case it upset him.'

The source here would be Keith Skinner, having spoken with both Anne and Bonesy on numerous occasions.

So you pays yer money and takes yer choice. What difference this could possibly make in the great scheme of things I don't have the wit to fathom, but it's been another stupid waste of everyone's time.

It's funny, but when I met Feldman, and challenged him over something he was saying about the diary - I forget what - he reacted as if I was either mad or simple for not seeing what he could see.

I'm regularly at the receiving end of the same reaction from RJ Palmer, and yet his and Feldman's beliefs and theories about the diary's origins could not be more different.

What they have in common is this overweening belief in their own abilities to see what's what.

Well they can't both be right, but they could certainly both be wrong.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

It’s the first time I’ve heard it suggested that diving accidents can leave one illiterate, but I suppose stranger things have happened.

It's not for the first time, however, that RJ has put his own spin on what was actually written.

All I suggested was that spending three years in hospital with a broken back from the age of 8 to 11 was unlikely to have had a positive impact on whatever writing skills Robbie Johnson already possessed when the accident happened. Not too difficult a concept to grasp if one is not already grasping at every straw in the room while your head is half way up your bottom.

But in RJ's world, Robbie's experience could only have made him better suited to the task of engraving signatures in gold watches when the first opportunity presented itself. I expect Robbie was propped up in his hospital bed, translating Catullus from the original Latin, using a stylus on a sheet of metal.

Simple. Any fool could do it, but no fool is prepared to try.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

Housekeeping:
Page 68, Inside Story:
'Towards the end of the interview Anne's father, Billy Graham, arrived in a taxi but at Anne's request he was not told who the detectives were in case it upset him.'
The source here would be Keith Skinner, having spoken with both Anne and Bonesy on numerous occasions.
So you pays yer money and takes yer choice. What difference this could possibly make in the great scheme of things I don't have the wit to fathom, but it's been another stupid waste of everyone's time.

All it has done, Caz, is to give everyone even more ammunition to identify the traitors in our mist. I knew I'd read somewhere that Anne had been the one to request the gentle subterfuge from Bonesy. I guess you had a bit of an advantage over the rest of us there, eh?

The issue, though, of course, is less the inaccuracy of occasional claims and more the exaggeration of facts bent to a particular narrative which the ill-read on this website potentially lap up as Godsend thereby slowly infecting the collective view of James Maybrick's Victorian scrapbook.

'Colourful'' language is one thing, but repeated misdirection is the mark of a traitor!

Keep the Faithful.

Ike

[caz]

Housekeeping:

Page 68, Inside Story:

'Towards the end of the interview Anne's father, Billy Graham, arrived in a taxi but at Anne's request he was not told who the detectives were in case it upset him.'

The source here would be Keith Skinner, having spoken with both Anne and Bonesy on numerous occasions.

So you pays yer money and takes yer choice. What difference this could possibly make in the great scheme of things I don't have the wit to fathom, but it's been another stupid waste of everyone's time.

It's funny, but when I met Feldman, and challenged him over something he was saying about the diary - I forget what - he reacted as if I was either mad or simple for not seeing what he could see.

I'm regularly at the receiving end of the same reaction from RJ Palmer, and yet his and Feldman's beliefs and theories about the diary's origins could not be more different.

What they have in common is this overweening belief in their own abilities to see what's what.

Well they can't both be right, but they could certainly both be wrong.

Love,

Caz
X

Could the simple truth not be that, at Anne's request, Mike asked Bonesy to pretend he was the insurance man?

Would that not explain the apparent contradiction between the two accounts, without leaping to accusations of lies, faulty memories or inaccurate reporting by the parties involved?

Left to RJ, he could be asked to: "send reinforcements, we're going to advance", and he would hear: "send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance".

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I would like to warn future readers of this thread, if ever there are any, to double-check and perhaps triple check every claim made by...

...RJ Palmer.

He checks his notes, finds the only account he knows of, and goes in for the kill.

And thus one suspicious mind deceives itself, and in turn deceives the forum.

The forum deserves better.

Nuff said.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

He checks his notes, finds the only account he knows of, and goes in for the kill.

You've always been a terrible revisionist, Caz. What happened is that Ike didn't check his notes and then went in for the kill--saying that it had been Anne. Prior to this, I had merely recounted a story that I had been led to believe by Shirley Harrison was true and accurate. It still could be. So why did Ike feel the need to take a cheap shot?

The truth is still unclear because--with all thing diary---we are so often given conflicting accounts by the early diary researchers. What is less unclear is that Ike likes to make hasty cheap-shots and you are always quick to join him.

That's how I see it from my end, but as you say---it's a great waste of everyone's time.

Have a great 2023. I'll make one final post on the Maybrick saga over at the other place.

[Iconoclast]

What happened is that Ike didn't check his notes and then went in for the kill--saying that it had been Anne. Prior to this, I had merely recounted a story that I had been led to believe by Shirley Harrison was true and accurate. It still could be. So why did Ike feel the need to take a cheap shot?

The truth is still unclear because--with all thing diary---we are so often given conflicting accounts by the early diary researchers. What is less unclear is that Ike likes to make hasty cheap-shots and you are always quick to join him.

(My emphasis.)

Fascinating.

It turns out that we were both right (you from Harrison and my recollection from Skinner et alia) - I just hadn't recalled where I'd been right to recollect it. I most certainly didn't take a cheap shot. I was right (according to Skinner et alia). I just didn't realise that you were not wrong.

I think you're just doing what you just keep doing: playing at Muddy the Mud Boy and not liking it when your mud gets called out for what it is.

Here's where you give yourself away. First, the way it was portrayed by Shirley Harrison:

In the middle of it all Anne's father Billy Graham turned up and Michael asked DS Thomas to pretend he was the insurance man rather than admit his true identity.

Secondly, the way it was portrayed by RJ Palmer:

Barrett himself was so overwhelmed with panic by this unwanted appearance of Johnny Upright that he begged DS Thomas to tell Billy Graham that this was just a friendly visit from an insurance salesman.

(My emphasis.)

Spot the difference, anyone?

Ike
Faithful

[caz]

Evening All,

Yes, I think even a small child with a reading age of six could have spotted the differences between Shirley's account and RJ's retelling of it. And I don't just mean the red letters and purple prose.

But I'm the one RJ accused of being 'a terrible revisionist', without a trace of irony or self-awareness. According to RJ, he had 'merely recounted' a story he had been 'led to believe by Shirley Harrison' was true and accurate.

Well I guess there's a first time for anything - like RJ recounting a story he had been led to believe by Paul Feldman [you could not make it up] was true and accurate, that Albert Johnson had told him 'fibs'. No doubt it was Albert's bemused denial that the watch had come down through his family, which convinced Feldy that he was fibbing.

It's just a pity RJ failed to reproduce a true and accurate version of what Shirley actually wrote. He must be busy repairing his glass house after throwing all those stones at everyone else.

The truth is still unclear because--with all thing diary---we are so often given conflicting accounts by the early diary researchers.

And it seems RJ is keen to continue and develop the trend into 2023, with his own account, which seriously conflicted with Shirley's - and not a lying Barrett in sight to blame these days for shifting stories.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

I was musing to myself the other day how those who would have us believe that the Barretts of Goldie Street created a hoaxed journal of Jack the Ripper's crimes resolve some of the more challenging questions which their own theory necessitates them to be able to answer. Then I wondered - if they were right all along and Anne Graham confessed at last - how would she answer those very same questions.

Imagine a world in which Anne Graham, who has kept shtum about her role in the creation of the text in the Victorian scrapbook for thirty years, suddenly decided to admit that – yes – she and her husband Mike wrote the text, sourced the scrapbook, and transferred the former into the latter, presumably exactly as has been argued by those who claim they ‘did it’ based upon Mike’s seemingly deeply fallible confession of January 1995. And imagine she agreed to give a one-off interview, I wonder what answers she would give to the following questions; and I wonder which other questions you would choose to pose to her so long after the crime was committed?


On Motive

• Why did you think that middle class Liverpool cotton merchant James Maybrick would make a suitable candidate for the world’s most infamous unsolved crimes?
• Did you and Mike realise that James Maybrick’s first and last two initials form the name ‘Jack’?
• Did it bother either of you that - not only was James Maybrick as obscure a choice for Jack as arguably has ever been proposed – the fact that he already featured in one of the nineteenth century’s most celebrated court cases would immediately make his candidature even less plausible than it already was?
• Did it ever occur to you that the effort required to create such a document would almost certainly never be worth the likely financial return?
• Were you and Mike driven by a need to pay the mortgage on 12 Goldie Street, as Mike claimed so often or was there a different motivation?
• Mike claimed that he personally was driven by a need to pay the mortgage on 12 Goldie Street. Your bank statement for May 1992 does not suggest that you and he had financial challenges which might otherwise has inspired a cash-making exercise of this (or some other) sort. If it was about money, in what sense were your finances so bad that this was seen as a necessity?
• The penalty for selling this fraud as genuine would be gaol sentences for both of you – possibly multiple years long. Did it ever occur to you that this would leave your precious daughter Caroline effectively orphaned and humiliated and her future significantly less secure?
• Your father’s health was not good. Did it occur to either of you that his daughter and son-in-law being convicted of fraud might adversely affect his health and potentially hasten his demise?
• Were the two of you really so desperate for money and/or fame, that you were willing to risk so much with so little certainty of gain and with no previous track record of having acquired any hoaxing skills?
• Why did you agree such a tight timeframe with Doreen Montgomery to bring the scrapbook to London to show her (amongst others) when you had not even acquired a suitable document until some twelve days before the scheduled visit?

On the Document

• At the same time that Mike made his ‘phone call to Doreen Montgomery, he requested a diary from the period 1880 to 1890, presumably because you were now under self-inflicted pressure to produce a believable document. Given that the Victorians did not have Tipp-Ex, what would you and he have done with one from 1889 or 1890?
• In the end, you and Mike were seriously running out of time but were ‘miraculously’ saved by an auction at Outhwaite and Litherland on March 31, 1992, where Mike managed to purchase a genuine Victorian or Edwardian scrapbook. What would you and he have done if this unlikely artefact had not been for sale that day (or if someone else had outbid you for it)?
• Would it not have made more sense to have acquired an appropriate document - perhaps even a far more suitable document - before arranging to bring to London something you did not have nor could be certain to have?
• Why did it take eleven days to produce a document most people could have written from a transcription in less than a day?

On the Text

• Given that you and Mike did not attempt to replicate Maybrick’s handwriting, how did you ever think anyone would take the document seriously?
• Why did you decide to start the text in the middle of a sentence?
• Why did you decide to have Maybrick – a reasonably educated man - use a word such as ‘rendezvous’ when you do not appear to have known how to spell it?
• How did the two of you learn the symptoms of arsenic poisoning?
• Why did the two of you suggest that Maybrick thought his brother Michael wrote lyrics for his songs when it was commonly believed at that time that he only wrote the music?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that Michael Maybrick did indeed on occasions write the lyrics to his own songs?
• Why did you decide Maybrick should write doggerel?
• Why did you then decide that some of the doggerel you made up should be crossed-out?
• Why did you choose to focus in on the ‘Poste House’ as a place where Maybrick may have decided to begin his ‘campaign’ (as you called it) when the ‘Poste House’ in Liverpool was not so-named until the mid-nineteen-sixties?
• Getting this simple point wrong could potentially have derailed your text immediately. Did it occur to either of you to check that there even was a public house in Liverpool (or indeed anywhere) in 1888 called the ‘Poste House’?
• Did you choose the misspelled ‘Poste House’ because you knew that a ‘post house’ was any location which accepted mail prior to its subsequent collection?
• Given that the limited medical history of the Maybrick children implied that James Junior was the more sickly child, why did you decide to have Maybrick fretting that young Gladys was ill ‘again’?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that a letter dated March 1889 referred to Gladys being ill ‘again, she worries me so’?
• Why did you use the term ‘bumbling buffoon’ without verifying first that it was a term commonly used in Victorian England?
• Why did you have Maybrick believe that Florence was having an affair long before she was supposed to have developed an infatuation with Alfred Brierley?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that she and Brierley did at least know one another as early as the previous Christmas?
• How did you know that Maybrick would be very likely to have referred to his drugs as his ‘medicine’?
• Why did you and Mike decide to have Maybrick claiming two murders in Manchester for which there is no documented evidence?
• Why did you and Mike decide to have Maybrick claiming to have met a lady by the surname of ‘Hammersmith’ for whom there is no documented record?
• Why did you use the term ‘gather momentum’ without verifying first that it was a term commonly used in Victorian England?
• What did you and Mike mean when you had Maybrick describe his anger at his young clerk Thomas Lowry of whom you had Maybrick write, ‘How dare he question me on any matter … should I replace the missing items? No that would be too much of a risk. Should I destroy this?’?
• Why did you and Mike decide that Maybrick should not use the possessive apostrophe?
• Why did you and Mike decide that Maybrick should claim to have rented a room in Middlesex Street rather than in one of Whitechapel’s more familiar streets?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent geoprofiling by others twice pinpointed the specific area around Middlesex Street (Dr. David Canter) and even the street itself (Dr. Kim Rossmo)?
• Why did you and Mike decide that Maybrick should claim to have taken a body part from Annie Chapman and subsequently eaten it when it was understood that Jack the Ripper had taken her uterus which was commonly understood to be inedible?
• Why did you use the term ‘spreads Mayhem’ without verifying first that it was a term commonly used in Victorian England?
• Why did you and Mike decide to include the expression ‘tin match box empty’ when it is more or less a verbatim from a list of Eddowes’ possessions first made public in 1987 - ‘1 Tin MatchBox, empty’?
• Why did you and Mike decide to claim the red leather cigarette case as Maybrick’s own when this had never previously been suggested?
• Why did you and Mike decide that Maybrick should refer to himself as ‘Sir Jim’?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that James was indeed on occasions referred to as ‘Sir James’ within his own household?
• Why did you use the term ‘one off instance’ without verifying first that it was a term commonly used in Victorian England?
• Why did you and Mike decide to have Maybrick seemingly randomly quote from Crashaw (‘Oh costly intercourse of death’) when no other quotations were given in the text?
• Did it not occur to Mike to immediately get rid of the Sphere book he claimed he used to locate the Crashaw quotation?
• Why did you and Mike have Maybrick using the expression ‘Exchange’ when – it is claimed – it was common practice between cotton traders to refer to it as the ‘’Change’?
• Given how much the ‘Dear Boss’ letter has been derided as the work of an ‘enterprising’ journalist, why did you decide to use language from it in the scrapbook which could only have cast suspicion on it by those who did not believe that the ‘Dear Boss’ letter had been written by Jack the Ripper?
• Why did you decide that Maybrick should claim just before the timing of the Goulston Street graffito, ‘If they are to insist that I am a Jew then a Jew I shall be’?
• What did you intend his claim to mean?
• After the timing of the Goulston Street graffito, why did you have Maybrick claim, ‘I wonder if they enjoyed my funny Jewish joke’?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that the word ‘Juwes’ in the Goulston Street graffito could also be read as ‘James’?
• Why did the two of you decide to refer to the chalk used to write the Goulston Street graffito as ‘talc’?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that ‘talc’ was a term synonymous with French chalk commonly used by tailors?
• What did you mean when you had Maybrick write after Eddowes’ murder, ‘left my mark’?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that the two triangular cuts in Eddowes’ cheeks – when conjoined – formed the ‘M’ of Maybrick?
• Given that it was still commonly believed in 1992 that Jack left Mary Kelly’s breasts on the side table, when he actually left one by her feet and the other by her head, why did the two of you write the crossed-out doggerel which stated ‘I kissed them, I kissed them, they tasted so sweet, I thought of leaving them at the whore’s feet?’.
• If you had genuinely believed that Jack had left at least one of Mary Kelly’s breasts at her feet, why did you also have Maybrick claiming that he left them on the side table where he ‘thought they belonged’?
• When writing about Mary Kelly’s death scene, why did you decide to write, ‘Her initial there’ in doggerel before crossing it out?
• Had you and Mike noticed that Mary Kelly’s arm has a very clear ‘F’ carved into it by Jack the Ripper?
• Given that Jack the Ripper had carved an ‘F’ into Mary Kelly’s arm, is this why you then had Maybrick claiming, ‘I wonder if next time I can carve my funny little rhyme on the whores [sic] flesh’?
• When writing about Mary Kelly’s death scene, why did you decide to write, ‘An initial here, an initial there, will tell of the whoring mother?’.
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that Florence Maybrick’s initials were indeed visible on the wall behind Mary Kelly’s body?
• How surprised were the two of you, further, that the ‘M’ featured the distinctive rising second-half which you and Mike had used in your hoaxed text?
• What inspired you to use the obscure term ‘mole bonnet’ as in ‘Christmas save the whore’s mole bonnet’?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others decades later showed that mole bonnets were indeed sold in Victorian times?
• When you typed-up your text – either before you wrote it into the scrapbook or indeed afterwards – why did you type the semantically meaningless ‘Christmas soul the whore’s mole bonnet’ instead of the 'Christmas save the whores mole bonnett' which you used in the final scrapbook version?
• After the ‘double event’, you had Maybrick musing over the possibility of taking three lives in one evening. How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that a Jack the Ripper letter dated October 5 (a few days after the ‘double event’) had claimed that Jack would attempt a ‘triple event’?
• How did the two of you react when that same letter used quasi-religious language very similar to that which you had Maybrick using at this very point in your hoaxed text?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that a Jack the Ripper postcard sent to the Liverpool Echo and published on October 10, 1888, signed off with ‘Jack the Ripper, DIEGO LAURENZ (Genuine)’ given that ‘Diego’ is Spanish for ‘James’ and ‘Laurenz’ is a passable rhyme for ‘Florence’?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that a Jack the Ripper letter fromLiverpool dated September 29 (and presumed to have been sent in 1888) used the name ‘Jack the Ripper’ before it had been published and therefore had become common knowledge?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that James Maybrick in his younger days lived near Whitechapel with Sarah Ann Robertson?
• How did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that James had worked for Gustavus Witt whose office was in the Minories, a short walk from Whitechapel, and that Witt had stated in writing that Maybrick continued to do work for him right up until the 1880s?
• How did the two of you react when either you or subsequent research by others highlighted to you that a Jack the Ripper rhyme mentioned ‘as time will show’ which is a clear synonym of Maybrick’s family motto ‘Tempus Omnia Revelat’ and also referred to Jack as ‘society’s pillar’ which is a more than passable play on Maybrick’s surname?
• Once the book was published, how did the two of you react when subsequent research by others showed that the floorboards in James Maybrick’s old home had been lifted for the first time on record in one hundred years on the very morning that Mike telephoned Doreen Montgomery to ask if she wanted to see a ‘diary’ of Jack the Ripper which the two of you had not yet even transcribed into a suitable document?
• Mike claimed from the middle of 1994 onwards that he had been attempting to reveal the hoax since December 1993. What was it about December 1993 that caused him to suddenly want to reveal the hoax, risking as it did your liberty as well as his and therefore young Caroline’s secure future?
• Given your and Mike’s complete lack of experience at creating literary hoaxes, how surprised were you when the Victorian scrapbook and its text were published and – thirty-odd years later – still not be proven categorically to be a hoax until you finally confessed?
• In retrospect, Anne, was any of it worth it?