Maybrick--a Problem in Logic

[rjpalmer]

Ike, old man, don’t go all metaphysical on me, because it isn’t convincing.

Any number of firms manufacture blank, bound pages knowing they will be turned into diaries. Do you really expect them to be sold with the handwriting already inside, so they live up to your hairsplitting definition?

If you want to call these blank objects caterpillars, do so, but they will be butterflies by the end of the story.

That is, once the ink hits the page. If you like, I can go down to the local bookshop right now and pick one up for you. They sell them by the dozens from a little shelf labeled “diaries and journals.” (I think it’s a sex difference thing. “Real Men Write Journals, not Diaries”—Clint Eastwood)

For your continued edification, below is a formerly blank book from 1888 which some German fellow named Bagley wrote in. He also had the generic word ‘diary’ stamped on the cover, but he added his own dates as he went along. Strange as it sounds, everyone is calling it a diary! (and they didn’t even need Schopenhauer or Hegel to work it out).

Anyway, the important element of Barrett’s request is not 1880-1890 (which, for all we know, is only Martin Earl’s interpretation of what Barrett was after, and not the precise instructions, which we will never know), the important element is that Barrett (be it Mike or Anne or both) needed at least TWENTY BLANK PAGES.
Ergo, it was the blank pages he/she/they were after. Blank. Unwritten upon. It’s not a smoking gun, it’s a howitzer, and no amount of metaphysical tap-dancing will change that fact.

But thanks for admitting that you have no explanation for Barrett’s highly unusual request. Your honesty is commendable, but I’m afraid it means that Chief Inspector Swanson has no choice but to demote you from the Bunco Squad back to light traffic duty.

[rjpalmer]

Morning R.J,

Could you direct your readers to the evidence you found for Anne Graham being marked down as a late payer, not Michael Barrett?

Good afternoon, Caz.

I didn't know I had any readers.

No, I have no evidence. This was just my interpretation of what Keith said, and I admit I may be mistaken. Keith holds the purse strings for this info, much as I suspect Anne once held the purse strings in Goldie Street.

If I assumed Anne was the late payer, would it be fundamentally more awful than you assuming Mike was? Do we really know who made the initial call to H. P. Bookfinders? (Asking for a friend).

Enjoy your evening, I'll check back tomorrow. RP

(Note to self: write a short novella in the style of Gabriel García Márquez using the working title ‘Sophistry in the Time of Covid-19.” A drunken would-be journalist, known to have recently gone shopping for blank paper from the 1960s, comes forward with what proports to be the deathbed confessions of Lord Lucan, circa, 1968. The writing fails a simple ink solubility test, and the drunken journalist eventually confesses to his hoax, but, trapped in the crushing isolation of self-quarantine, and crazed from repeated silver nitrate consumption, our hero, Elmo Schopenhauer, slowly becomes convinced that Lord Lucan’s confessions are genuine, thus beginning a remarkable twenty-seven year odyssey to uncover the truth of Lucan’s final days in the slums of south eastern Los Angeles. He doesn’t find Lucan, but meets Juanita, in what turns into a tender and deeply moving love story).



PPS. [gratuitous political message deleted - RP]

[Joshua Rogan]

Good afternoon, Caz.

I didn't know I had any readers.

You've got at least one reader here, for your novella!

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Well, glad to have contributed. Admittedly, the idea of Mike nicking scrap is speculation on my part, for dramatic purposes. The rest I heard from a man in a pub, The Poste House or something similar?

[caz]

Evidently Keith called H.P. Bookfinders and confirmed the late payer was 'Barrett,' but I haven't seen his documentation.

So in other words, R.J, it is pure speculation on your part that the name Williams or Mrs. Barrett was ever used in connection with the enquiry for a Victorian diary, or that Anne made the enquiry herself and gave her husband's name. I'm sure your readers will be grateful to you for the clarification.

What irritates me is that at some point it must have been blindingly obvious that if Barrett's purchase of red diary was 'worthless' the scrapbook must have been bought later, but no one checked the correct dates with O & L. Alan Gray tried to inspect their books, but was turned away. However, I won't use the unkind word 'incompetent' that you use on the other thread. I'd say it was more a matter of impotence, or, at worst, a lack of any sense of urgency. Keith and Shirley and Gray and Harris didn't have the power of the police, so their 'failure' to unravel the mystery to your remarkably high standards of evidence is what it is. They couldn't subpoena, etc., and since Smith never filed a complaint, no thorough police investigation of the Barretts could ever happen, despite your insistence that it did.

'Blindingly obvious' to Alan Gray and Melvin Harris, I should think, because they were - initially in Gray's case - only too receptive to Mike's forgery claims. His O&L story, as far as I'm aware, did not materialise until the latter part of 1994, and Gray, followed by Harris, would have been the first to know about it. If Melvin Harris had had the slightest suspicion, when the red diary featured in Mike's January 1995 affidavit, that this had not been purchased until 1992, he would have been more than capable of badgering O&L until they agreed to search their records for the scrapbook right up until April 12th, but only if he could conceive of the Barretts being capable of turning it into the diary at that late stage, and he was very much of the opinion that neither actually penned the thing. But remind me, did Mike not claim in that affidavit that all the forgery action had taken place back in 1990, while Tony Devereux was alive? Wasn't this precisely why Shirley et al didn't think at the time to ask O&L to check their records for 1992? Might the investigators on both sides not have been similarly misled into assuming that Mike was either telling the truth and giving broadly accurate dates for the diary's creation process, or was inventing every detail? With hindsight, we can see that if anything in that affidavit was true, the dates he supplied were certainly not, making it difficult, if not impossible to get confirmation of anything until the relevant records may no longer have been available. And that would, of course, have depended on whether any confirmation existed in the first place. If Mike had said in 1995 that he didn't get the scrapbook until months after Tony had died [August 1991], and just days before showing it to Doreen [April 13th 1992], it would have been so easy to check with O&L and it would have been game over had their records confirmed it. Not even Feldman would have been in denial at that point. But how do you prove a negative - if Mike didn't obtain the scrapbook from O&L - unless you can prove where he did get it from? If O&L had failed to find any sign of it, would the goal posts not have shifted to allow for their incompetence? Or to allow for Mike to have been confused over which auction house it was? Or even to suggest that Mike may have bought the scrapbook years earlier, meaning to do something with it, and eventually came up with the bright idea to turn it into Jack the Ripper's diary?

Let me put it this way. If ten years from now, you still haven't nailed Fast Eddy for the Great Battlecrease Floorboard caper, and he's still roaming the streets freely calling you crazy, I promise not to call you and Keith incompetent. It's not like you can drag him down to the nick and beat a confession out of him! All you have is the power to persuade.

Have a jolly day.

Well thanks for that - I think. Are we not all in the same boat here? Using loopholes that allow for our speculation to be correct? An investigator is hardly incompetent if the evidence to form any firm conclusion either way is lacking. But if Barrett hoax believers want to claim the evidence is, or was there for their preferred conclusion, it would be nice to think they were not simply relying on the investigators to have screwed up by failing to produce it for them. That in no way means it must have been there for the finding.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Hi Caz - I do have to run, but why was it up to Melvin to check with O & L? Wasn't anyone on Feldman's team investigating Barrett? Or by now were they so convinced they had an old document on their hands that they didn't bother? I can't call Harrison, nor Gray incompetent---that's your word. At least they gave it the old college try.

You can't drag the lake after it has been cemented over, as I am sure Keith has discovered by now--he did say something about re-checking with O & L this past winter.

I am rather surprised that HP Bookfinder sent the 1891 appointment book to Goldie Street before receiving their 25 quid. I'd think they would have demanded payment up front. I've never bought a book in my life without forking out in advance. Did the check (be it signed 'Barrett' or 'Williams' bounce, or what?)

I don't recall if Lord Orsam addressed this point, or can say whether this was standard procedure in 1992. It makes me wonder if there was something more going on than mere 'late payer.' In the U.S. we print "In God We Trust" on all folding money. In other words, we trust Allah, Krishna, Jehovah, etc., but us humanoids must place cash on the barrelhead.

P.S. "my readers," all three of them, had the intelligence to know that I was recreating a speculative dialogue between Barrett and the bookseller. 'Williams' was speculation based on other events. I've seen you engage is this sort of thing on these threads many a-time, and everyone knows it was fantasy and speculation and nothing to do with reality. But thanks for asking and clarifying this point for my three readers. Cheers.

I suppose if they had 'late payers,' the must have allowed purchases to be made on credit. Quite a liberal system, but I guess they 'know where you live'

[caz]

Good afternoon, Caz.

I didn't know I had any readers.

No, I have no evidence. This was just my interpretation of what Keith said, and I admit I may be mistaken. Keith holds the purse strings for this info, much as I suspect Anne once held the purse strings in Goldie Street.

If I assumed Anne was the late payer, would it be fundamentally more awful than you assuming Mike was? Do we really know who made the initial call to H. P. Bookfinders? (Asking for a friend).

Hi R.J,

Could you remind me ‘what Keith said’ to allow you to interpret his words in the way you did? And what ‘purse strings’ do you imagine he holds?

Admittedly, Mike’s affidavit from January 1995 tells us that Anne took the initiative and purchased the little red diary ‘roughly round about January, February 1990... through a firm [whose name Mike can’t remember] in the 1986 Writers Year Book’.

However, relying on Mike’s affidavit might not be such a good idea, because the letter from Martin Earl to Shirley Harrison, dated June 23^rd 1999, begins: ‘I can confirm we had an inquiry from a Mr Barrett who asked us to locate a Victorian Diary. We did locate such a diary for 1891 and that was supplied to Mr Barrett on March 26^th 1992.’

It’s up to you who you choose to believe: Mike in his sworn affidavit, which is quite specific about Anne making the purchase, or Martin Earl, whose records point to Mike Barrett making the initial inquiry.

The thing is, R.J, I don’t think I was ‘assuming’ anything. I was asking for your evidence that it was Anne who was ‘put down as a late payer’. As a matter of fact, it was Martin Earl who had Mike’s name highlighted in his records as a late payer.

Incidentally, Keith informs me that he sent you an email on July 30^th 2004 with all of this information – so now your own memory has been suitably refreshed, you can phone that friend, who I’m sure is just itching to know the answer and will be delighted, whether it confirms an assumption, corrects it, or still leaves room for further speculation - presumably that Anne may yet have made the enquiry, but using her husband's name. At least it should now be clear that it was NOT Anne whose name was put down as a late payer.

Hi Caz - I do have to run, but why was it up to Melvin to check with O & L? Wasn't anyone on Feldman's team investigating Barrett? Or by now were they so convinced they had an old document on their hands that they didn't bother? I can't call Harrison, nor Gray incompetent---that's your word. At least they gave it the old college try.

You can't drag the lake after it has been cemented over, as I am sure Keith has discovered by now--he did say something about re-checking with O & L this past winter.

I am rather surprised that HP Bookfinder sent the 1891 appointment book to Goldie Street before receiving their 25 quid. I'd think they would have demanded payment up front. I've never bought a book in my life without forking out in advance. Did the check (be it signed 'Barrett' or 'Williams' bounce, or what?)

I don't recall if Lord Orsam addressed this point, or can say whether this was standard procedure in 1992. It makes me wonder if there was something more going on than mere 'late payer.' In the U.S. we print "In God We Trust" on all folding money. In other words, we trust Allah, Krishna, Jehovah, etc., but us humanoids must place cash on the barrelhead.

P.S. "my readers," all three of them, had the intelligence to know that I was recreating a speculative dialogue between Barrett and the bookseller. 'Williams' was speculation based on other events. I've seen you engage is this sort of thing on these threads many a-time, and everyone knows it was fantasy and speculation and nothing to do with reality. But thanks for asking and clarifying this point for my three readers. Cheers.

I suppose if they had 'late payers,' the must have allowed purchases to be made on credit. Quite a liberal system, but I guess they 'know where you live'

May I ever so humbly suggest, R.J, that you now go back and do some reading to remind yourself of dates and the relationship between Melvin Harris and Paul Feldman. That was one of the main reasons we wrote ‘Ripper Diary’, to try and present an accurate chronology of the events. Why not also listen again to the taped conversation between Alan Gray and Mike Barrett when they were outside O&L on November 7^th 1994? Mike was intent on going in to check their records, but Gray felt the time was not right, telling Mike they would need ‘some pretty heavy guns’. He said it had to be done professionally, and Mike appeared to be in no fit state on that occasion. If Gray ever did make an official approach to O&L, I don’t think I have seen any record of it. Keith did follow this up, when he finally got to hear the story, but drew a blank. Even though he has been told that no records are now held, he still plans a return visit to O&L, as and when the world gets back to some semblance of normality.

My understanding, which you may be able to confirm or correct, is that Gray was in close contact with Melvin Harris, not Feldman or Shirley, in which case Mike’s O&L story, and other physical evidence he was using to support his forgery claims, such as his Sphere book, was being fed mainly to one side of the investigation, and ended up in his affidavit the following January. As far as I am aware, there is no evidence that anyone on the ‘other side’, including Anne, was aware of what was going on, let alone the finer details of what Mike was going to claim next, until after he’d gone and done it. And the dates he gave were not exactly helpful to either side, were they? If the first reference to the red diary was in that affidavit, and Feldman knew nothing about it before then, only learning of its existence from Anne, when she heard that Mike had referred to it, it’s difficult to see how it could have been investigated any sooner than it was.

Anyway, the cheque didn’t bounce. It was signed by Anne, as I’m pretty certain Mike had no bank account in May 1992. She rang Keith in November 1995 to say the bank had just sent her a photocopy of it, which she would send to him along with her cheque book. They arrived on November 16^th. Keith recalls this as the starting point for being able to trace Martin Earl, as the cheque carried the stamp mark of where it had been paid in.

In that context, can you be sure that Mike was being truthful when he claimed that Anne had asked for the red diary ‘specifically recently’ when he saw her at her home address? How recently, I wonder? Because if she didn’t know he was planning to make a sworn statement, using the red diary she had paid for to implicate her in forgery, why would she be asking Mike for it? And, more to the point, if Mike knew he had the red diary and could use it against her, why would he have agreed to hand it over, giving away yet another bit of his forgery jigsaw puzzle, after his sister had relieved him of the writing materials and supposedly destroyed them for his protection? And if he didn’t bring the red diary with him on the day he visited Anne, he must have retrieved it for her even more ‘specifically recently’. Did she offer to collect it from where he was living, or did he make a return visit to her home specially? Maybe their relationship was not in such a mess after all. Or up one minute, down the next? We do have Mike’s affidavit, in which he claims that around the first week of December 1994, Anne had visited him and she ‘was all over me and we even made love’, but it was all very odd because just as quickly ‘she threatened me and returned to her old self...’.

This reminds me of some of the most disturbing dreams I had around the time of my divorce in 2013. My ex would be there with me, and then change in an instant from nice to nasty. I’d wake up with a feeling of dread, quickly followed by relief that it was only a very bad dream. But then, I wasn’t pouring gallons of booze down my neck, so I could tell the difference and wasn’t suffering from ‘altered awareness’ or anything of the sort.

The first week of December 1994 was an interesting and eventful one for the Barretts. I wonder which day they fitted in their steamy love making session. On Tuesday 6^th, Mike went to his solicitor’s office, where he was finally able to hand over a copy of the Sphere book to Alan Gray, to be used to incriminate himself in his affidavit the following month. On Wednesday 7^th, Anne’s divorce from Mike came through. And then on Thursday 8^th, the Evening Standard quoted Melvin Harris: ‘There is now no doubt whatsoever that they [the diary] are a recent fake...The identities of the three people involved in the forgery will soon be made known.’

Of course, these events may have been totally unrelated, and I may be seeing a pattern – aside from the sex – that is not really there. But I can’t see the Christmas decorations and for the life of me I don’t know why not.

Finally for now, dear reader, I invite you to compare and contrast the following:

An interesting aspect of the transaction is that Graham was put down as a late payer. She delayed paying for the diary for quite a long time. Does this mean that she was initially refusing to cooperate with Barrett's little scheme, or was she deliberately and rather cleverly trying to diminish the paper trail by making it look like the red diary hadn't been purchased until after the 'Maybrick' journal had already been made public?

P.S. "my readers," all three of them, had the intelligence to know that I was recreating a speculative dialogue between Barrett and the bookseller. 'Williams' was speculation based on other events. I've seen you engage is this sort of thing on these threads many a-time, and everyone knows it was fantasy and speculation and nothing to do with reality. But thanks for asking and clarifying this point for my three readers. Cheers.

I do wonder if R.J actually knows the difference between stating something as fact and indulging in ‘fantasy and speculation’ that has nothing to do with reality. If he doesn’t, I’m not sure how his three readers are expected to do so. Moreover, the question I actually asked, and the point I wanted clarified, was his statement about Anne Graham being put down as the late payer. R.J knew this because he freely admitted he had no such evidence for it, but then I read his curious P.S, whereby he manages to make it appear that I had actually asked him for evidence of an imagined conversation between Mike and the bookseller.

So while I don’t suggest he deliberately engages in ‘this sort of thing’ on a regular basis, it might be more worrying if it happened by accident.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Anyway, the cheque didn't bounce. It was signed by Anne, as I'm pretty certain Mike had no bank account in May 1992.

Hi Caz

if Barrett didn't have a checking account in March-May 1992, and relied on Anne to write his checks for him, why is it inappropriate to call Anne Graham the late payer?

You're splitting hairs, aren't you? She paid for the red diary and she paid for it late, ergo I call her a late payer, though I see now that you are insisting that Martin Earl had 'Mike Barrett' down as the late payer, and not 'Anne Barrett,' even though it was she who paid for the purchase. Mike gets the blame because there is evidently documented evidence showing that it was Mike who had placed the initial order? I'm fine with that, but may I ask: did Keith get this first-hand from HP Bookfinders, or did he get it from Alan Gray's statement about 'Mike' being the late payer?

You see, if Keith already knew Barrett was down as a late payer, I am confused about his line of questioning at the Cloak and Dagger meeting in April 1999, where he seems to still be trying to ascertain the exact details for the purchase of the red diary.

KS to Mike Barrett: "In fact, Anne purchased the Diary, a red leather backed diary, for £25"

Those are Keith words: Anne purchased. But what I assume he now means is that Mike purchased it (ordered it) and Anne only paid for it. Or was he still uncertain in 1999 as to who did what?

And later:

KS: "I’ve got the apology to make because I’ve got the red diary. What I’ve also got and I got it from Anne, because she sent it to me, Christ knows why because it just incriminates her, but she sent it to me. She sent me the red diary. She sent me the cheque book with the stub. She sent me the account, a statement showing, as you say, money going through the account, £25."

And still later: 'What I don’t understand is that the statement that Anne sent me which backs your story beautifully is dated May 1992. May 1992 by which time you’ve been to see Doreen Montgomery with the Diary.'

This is curious. As David B. points out in his article “The Man in the Pub,” at Orsam Books, this exchange, (or a similar one made at some other time??), seems to have led to Shirley Harrison to write, three of four years later in “Jack the Ripper: The American Connection:

'The red diary was in fact purchased after the Diary had been brought to London.”

Technically true, but once again, the confusion between “ordered,” “obtained,” and “purchased” leaving a false impression that it all happened in May 1992,after the ‘Maybrick’ diary had made its way to Crew in London, thus rendering a potentially suspicious purchase irrelevant and harmless.

Now, I can’t imagine it was Keith’s intention to leave Shirley with a wrong impression, and at the C & D meeting Keith even alludes to the possibility of Mike ordering the red diary back in early March 1992—but, if Keith already had documentation showing that it WAS Mike who had made the initial call to HP Bookfinders, and further, that he had already obtained documentation showing that the red diary had reached Goldie Street by 28 March, then I am at a loss to understand his line of questioning and why Harrison and evidently others still believed Anne hadn’t purchased (ie., obtained) the red diary until May?

What I am really asking is this: did Anne deliberately mislead people about buying the diary in May 1992?

I don’t know the answer, but considering that O & L was never contacted about an auction held in March 1992, I can only assume that the hard dates for the arrival of the red diary and Earl’s advertisement were not really worked out until considerably later. Evidently after April 1992.

It also seems to me that any conversation/correspondence with Anne Graham in August-November 1995 would be of great relevance. Ditto HP Bookfinders.

Judging by Keith’s questions, it seems to me that it must have been HP Bookfinders that revealed ‘Barrett’ was a late payer---Anne Graham never mentioned it. But I am willing to stand corrected if he has documentation that shows otherwise.

Finally, why did Keith say that the red diary implicated Anne, if it he knew it was Mike who ordered it in March 1992?

[rjpalmer]

P.S.

Caz - By holding the ‘purse strings’ I didn’t mean anything monetary, it was a clumsy metaphor; I meant Keith holds the relevant documentation—the data he obtained from Anne Barrett and presumably Martin Earl in and around August - November 1995, that led him to conclude it was Mike and not Anne that was the late payer. If you know this, why not just upload the relevant documentation?

Personally, I’m fine with everyone assuming it was Mike who ordered the red diary (he probably did) but this doesn’t really tell us the most relevant details: was he ordering it with or without Graham’s knowledge? If Barrett had no checking account of his own, then Anne would have had to ultimately cooperate, no? Nor do I know whether Anne deliberately waited two months to pay for the purchase, in order to leave a ‘paper trail’ that suggested a later, non-damning purchase date—as ultimately reported by Harrison in 2003 and --kind of, sort of-- implied by Keith at the C & D in 1999.

But, frankly, I'm more than willing to take Graham's advise (Graham, the poster, not Anne Graham) and remove myself from the conversation.

[rjpalmer]

In Post #323:

"I don’t know the answer, but considering that O & L was never contacted about an auction held in March 1992, I can only assume that the hard dates for the arrival of the red diary and Earl’s advertisement were not really worked out until considerably later. Evidently after April 1992."

For "April 1992," read "April 1999"--the date of Keith's interview with Barrett at the Cloak and Dagger. I am forced to speculate, but it doesn't appear to me that Keith S is aware that Barrett was down as a late payer at this point (or why else would he be confused about the May 1992 purchase date and cancelled check?) which I find curious, since he evidently obtained his information from Martin Earl shortly after Nov 1995.

This is not to nitpick, nor to insinuate anything. It's just puzzling.

[caz]

Hi Caz

if Barrett didn't have a checking account in March-May 1992, and relied on Anne to write his checks for him, why is it inappropriate to call Anne Graham the late payer?

Because the diary was sent to Mr. Barrett, so it was down to Mr. Barrett to pay for it, and when payment wasn't received on time, it was Mr. Barrett whose name was put down as a late payer. The invoice presumably stated that payment had to be made within a certain number of days unless the diary was returned. Martin Earl wouldn't have known that only Mrs. Barrett had a bank account, or that she'd be the one to pay the bill when Mr. Barrett got a further demand.

You're splitting hairs, aren't you? She paid for the red diary and she paid for it late, ergo I call her a late payer, though I see now that you are insisting that Martin Earl had 'Mike Barrett' down as the late payer, and not 'Anne Barrett,' even though it was she who paid for the purchase. Mike gets the blame because there is evidently documented evidence showing that it was Mike who had placed the initial order? I'm fine with that, but may I ask: did Keith get this first-hand from HP Bookfinders, or did he get it from Alan Gray's statement about 'Mike' being the late payer?

Alan Gray? Read my post again, R.J. The information came from Martin Earl and his records.

You see, if Keith already knew Barrett was down as a late payer, I am confused about his line of questioning at the Cloak and Dagger meeting in April 1999, where he seems to still be trying to ascertain the exact details for the purchase of the red diary.

KS to Mike Barrett: "In fact, Anne purchased the Diary, a red leather backed diary, for £25"

Those are Keith words: Anne purchased. But what I assume he now means is that Mike purchased it (ordered it) and Anne only paid for it. Or was he still uncertain in 1999 as to who did what?

Are you sure Keith wasn't quoting Mike's words back to him from his January 1995 affidavit? It sounds very much like it to me.

And later:

KS: "I’ve got the apology to make because I’ve got the red diary. What I’ve also got and I got it from Anne, because she sent it to me, Christ knows why because it just incriminates her, but she sent it to me. She sent me the red diary. She sent me the cheque book with the stub. She sent me the account, a statement showing, as you say, money going through the account, £25."

And still later: 'What I don’t understand is that the statement that Anne sent me which backs your story beautifully is dated May 1992. May 1992 by which time you’ve been to see Doreen Montgomery with the Diary.'

This is curious. As David B. points out in his article “The Man in the Pub,” at Orsam Books, this exchange, (or a similar one made at some other time??), seems to have led to Shirley Harrison to write, three of four years later in “Jack the Ripper: The American Connection:

'The red diary was in fact purchased after the Diary had been brought to London.”

Technically true, but once again, the confusion between “ordered,” “obtained,” and “purchased” leaving a false impression that it all happened in May 1992,after the ‘Maybrick’ diary had made its way to Crew in London, thus rendering a potentially suspicious purchase irrelevant and harmless.

Now, I can’t imagine it was Keith’s intention to leave Shirley with a wrong impression, and at the C & D meeting Keith even alludes to the possibility of Mike ordering the red diary back in early March 1992—but, if Keith already had documentation showing that it WAS Mike who had made the initial call to HP Bookfinders, and further, that he had already obtained documentation showing that the red diary had reached Goldie Street by 28 March, then I am at a loss to understand his line of questioning and why Harrison and evidently others still believed Anne hadn’t purchased (ie., obtained) the red diary until May?

What I am really asking is this: did Anne deliberately mislead people about buying the diary in May 1992?

I'll let Keith get back to you about all this if I may. I suspect it's a case of when the various pieces of information were tracked down. The cheque Anne signed in May was found first, but when did Mike tell her about the bill he had received for the little red diary he was sent towards the end of March? Might he only have told her about it in May, when he received a final demand? Did she even see a bill, or know how long Mike had held onto it? She claimed she signed the cheque and threw it at Mike to fill in the payee details himself. She may only have learned the details of how and when Mike had set about trying to acquire the red diary when Keith learned them himself.

I don’t know the answer, but considering that O & L was never contacted about an auction held in March 1992, I can only assume that the hard dates for the arrival of the red diary and Earl’s advertisement were not really worked out until considerably later. Evidently after April 1992.

A bit difficult, considering Mike dated both back to 1990! It was only when Anne was asked about the red diary, at some point after Feldman et al had seen Mike's January 1995 affidavit, that she confirmed its existence and was able to date her payment for it to May 1992, because she kept her old cheque books. Mike could not reasonably have dated either the arrival of the red diary or the O&L auction to 1992, while at the same time claiming to have acquired the scrapbook while Tony Devereux was very much alive. In order to use the red diary to implicate Anne, Mike claimed it came first, but was obviously no good for the forgery, so he then had to find something that was. But what he couldn't then admit was that the red diary arrived months after Tony's death.

It also seems to me that any conversation/correspondence with Anne Graham in August-November 1995 would be of great relevance. Ditto HP Bookfinders.

Relevance to what, exactly? Are you suggesting that Keith is in possession of evidence of Anne's involvement in the diary's creation?

Judging by Keith’s questions, it seems to me that it must have been HP Bookfinders that revealed ‘Barrett’ was a late payer---Anne Graham never mentioned it. But I am willing to stand corrected if he has documentation that shows otherwise.

I have seen no evidence that Anne knew Mike had been put down as a late payer, until Keith learned about it himself.

Finally, why did Keith say that the red diary implicated Anne, if it he knew it was Mike who ordered it in March 1992?

Again, this would be for Keith to address. Mike certainly wanted it to implicate Anne, and it would have done if only there was any evidence that she paid for it, knowing it had been ordered for the purpose of forgery.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

P.S.

Caz - By holding the ‘purse strings’ I didn’t mean anything monetary, it was a clumsy metaphor; I meant Keith holds the relevant documentation—the data he obtained from Anne Barrett and presumably Martin Earl in and around August - November 1995, that led him to conclude it was Mike and not Anne that was the late payer. If you know this, why not just upload the relevant documentation?

Personally, I’m fine with everyone assuming it was Mike who ordered the red diary (he probably did) but this doesn’t really tell us the most relevant details: was he ordering it with or without Graham’s knowledge? If Barrett had no checking account of his own, then Anne would have had to ultimately cooperate, no? Nor do I know whether Anne deliberately waited two months to pay for the purchase, in order to leave a ‘paper trail’ that suggested a later, non-damning purchase date—as ultimately reported by Harrison in 2003 and --kind of, sort of-- implied by Keith at the C & D in 1999.

But, frankly, I'm more than willing to take Graham's advise (Graham, the poster, not Anne Graham) and remove myself from the conversation.

There is no documentation I have seen, which shows that Anne knew about the enquiry from 'a Mr. Barrett', when it was made, what was asked for, when 'Mr. Barrett' was sent the bill, or how long he was given to return the item or pay for it. No evidence that Anne was even aware that Mike was sitting on an unpaid bill until the day in May when he asked her for the cheque. I can't 'upload' documentation that doesn't exist, R.J. Nor can I prove Anne knew nothing about the red diary until after it was delivered to Mike and she gave him the cheque for it.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

In Post #323:

"I don’t know the answer, but considering that O & L was never contacted about an auction held in March 1992, I can only assume that the hard dates for the arrival of the red diary and Earl’s advertisement were not really worked out until considerably later. Evidently after April 1992."

For "April 1992," read "April 1999"--the date of Keith's interview with Barrett at the Cloak and Dagger. I am forced to speculate, but it doesn't appear to me that Keith S is aware that Barrett was down as a late payer at this point (or why else would he be confused about the May 1992 purchase date and cancelled check?) which I find curious, since he evidently obtained his information from Martin Earl shortly after Nov 1995.

This is not to nitpick, nor to insinuate anything. It's just puzzling.

At this point, R.J, if I were in Keith's shoes, I might be tempted to tell you to go boil your head.

But here in my own fluffy slippers, I would merely ask how you decide when seeing is believing, and when you won’t believe without seeing.

Compare and contrast:

You appear to have taken the unsupported word of Mike Barrett, a man who lied compulsively, that he had in his possession, as late as 1999, an auction ticket from O&L, proving where and when he obtained the scrapbook used to forge the diary. As we know, Mike never produced it, even when he wrote Anne a death threat in 1997, for apparently allowing their daughter to be labelled a Maybrick who was related to Jack the Ripper. Had Mike lost the ticket by then, or just the plot?

You now want to see all the documentation in Keith Skinner’s possession, related to the order and purchase of the little 1891 diary. It appears that Keith’s word, unlike Mike’s, is just not good enough, despite the fact that it was Keith, with Anne Graham’s help, who tracked down the advert for it and revealed its wording.

If you can believe without seeing, that Mike had that auction ticket, to name just a single example, would it make a blind bit of difference if Keith were to spend the rest of his life providing you with all the unpublished documentation in his possession? It wouldn’t alter the wording of the advert, and you'd still have a Barrett making the enquiry for a Victorian diary with blank pages, so what would it achieve?

I’ll throw you a lifeline here. As has already been speculated, Anne could still have made the initial enquiry. For all we know, she could have put on her best secretary voice and claimed it was on behalf of a Mr. Barrett, who had requested that the diary and bill be sent to him at his home address. If her object had been to make sure any paper trail would lead back to Mike, in the event that it produced an old book that was suitable for faking Maybrick’s diary, she could have made the call without giving her own name or her relationship to this Mr. Barrett. Her only proven, recorded input would be the cheque she eventually signed to pay for it - which is where we are today.

If this line of speculation is not ruled out by what has already been quoted from the related correspondence, how will it make any difference to see it for yourself?

If your honest answer is none at all, because the advert is sufficiently incriminating in its own right, then I would suggest you prepare a large pan of boiling water.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Relevance to what, exactly? Are you suggesting that Keith is in possession of evidence of Anne's involvement in the diary's creation?

Yawn.

Hi Caz - your posts admirably demonstrate why it is pointless to discuss the Maybrick hoax with you or Keith Skinner. Pretending that Keith's integrity has been challenged has always been the most useful way to duck the hard, cold facts, and to avoid the tough questions. That game has grown old and stale, however, so I'll be off.

But let me first spell out the relevance of the above to you, since you seem to be confused. To repeat, Keith stated in his Cloak and Dagger interview with Barrett, ""I’ve got the apology to make because I’ve got the red diary. What I’ve also got and I got it from Anne, because she sent it to me, Christ knows why because it just incriminates her, but she sent it to me. She sent me the red diary. She sent me the cheque book with the stub."

I am not accusing Keith of anything. I am trying to understand his thinking at this point in time, and what it might tell me.

Note the line in bold. What is Keith saying? Are we supposed to draw a conclusion from Anne's cooperation., as if it is proof of her integrity and fair-mindedness? She cooperated with Keith, we are told--against her own best interests, "Christ knows,"---and since she handed over the red diary willingly, it must have been an innocent purchase. In other words, "Move along, nothing to see here, folks."

Isn't that what is being implied? I mean, Anne's behavior IS pretty impressive isn't it? She boldly hands over potentially the most damning piece of evidence, and, along with it, even the cheque stub for its purchase!

Impressive. But wait a minute.

WHY would the purchase incriminate her?? Why did Keith say it would? If it was ordered and purchased in May 1992--after Doreen Montgomery had already seen the "Maybrick" diary, then it WOULDN'T HAVE INCRIMINATED HER, would it? Her purchase was odd, yes, but it couldn't have been connected with any attempt to purchase the raw materials for a forgery, because it was bought two months too late, after an independent party (Doreen) had already seen the Maybrick document.

So, OBVIOUSLY, whether Anne was truly cooperating or whether she was being evasive would entirely depend on what she had told Keith: whether she had admitted it was actually purchased in March 1992, or whether she had left Keith with the false impression that it wasn't purchased until May 1992. In other words, it would be highly RELEVENT if she FAILED to make it clear that the red diary was actually ordered BEFORE Doreen laid eyes on the Maybrick diary, and, further, it would also be highly RELEVANT if she failed to tell Keith that Barrett had been put down as a late payer.


And all I am saying is this: judging by Keith's line of questioning, as already detailed above, it certainly appears to me that Anne HAD left him with a false perception. Hence Keith's following question:

Keith to Barrett:

'What I don’t understand (RJP's emphasis) is that the statement that Anne sent me which backs your story beautifully is dated May 1992. May 1992 by which time you’ve been to see Doreen Montgomery with the Diary.'


Why would Keith want to boil my head for pointing out this question?? I think it goes to the heart of the matter, but, like I say, outrage has it's usefulness.

No, Caz, sorry to disappoint, but I am not suggesting Keith is being deceptive to the audience. I am suggesting that he is genuinely confused over the May purchase date. To me, he is behaving as if he has caught Barrett in a lie--as if he has caught Barrett with his pants down. Mike had been telling everyone he bought the red diary before contacting Doreen, but--voila!--Anne's cheque stub disproves this. It wasn't bought until May! And Keith isn't wrong. It WASN'T BOUGHT until May, and how would he know any differently? Unless Anne told him. I am NOT saying she did---in fact, I am suggesting the opposite. I am suggesting his question shows that SHE DIDN'T give him all the relevant facts, and he eventually had to figure it out on his own.

Do you think I'm mistaken? If so, what DO YOU think the question implies???

If you can't see the relevance of what Anne Graham may have told Keith, then I don't know what to tell you. Boil my head away, but it's an entirely fair question. By your answers above, I can only conclude that Anne's conversation with Keith wasn't recorded, nor her letters on the subject kept, so all we really have to go on is this indirect confirmation that Anne had left the early diary researchers with a false impression that was later debunked. FINIS.

[rjpalmer]

P.S.

"May 1992 by which time you’ve been to see Doreen Montgomery with the Diary."

It's not really a question, of course, so much a simple statement of fact, but that makes it all the more relevant. Clearly, the interviewer believes this to be true, based on what Anne Graham had revealed to him, and he's throwing it in Mike's face. And Mike doesn't understand the implication, and thus (as Lord O points out) simply thought that Anne must have lied to Keith about it. (This could also mean that Barrett didn't know/didn't recall that the purchaser had been put down as a 'late payer').

As for Barrett's auction ticket, I always kind of figured Mike was just yanking everyone's chain. He states in his Jan 1995 confession that his sister destroyed the physical evidence and why wouldn't the ticket fall into that category? Of course, Lord O suggests that the reference to a police officer sitting in the audience may have had a chilling effect on Barrett's cooperation that evening. Who knows? Ciao.