Maybrick--a Problem in Logic

[caz]

Hi Caz,

Yes, I have a few odds and ends to finish up.

I sometimes get the feeling that Ike is a wee bit bashful. He recently wrote that he’s even a little afraid of you, so let me ask a question on his behalf, and he’ll have to forgive me if I’m overstepping my authority.

From Paul Feldman, p. 129:

“We had promised to take the Barretts to lunch. A cab was ordered…[and]…Caroline asked if she could travel with us….There was no attempt to discourage her. Paul Begg and Martin were relentless. The poor kid had barely sat down in the car when they started a cross examination. ‘Do you remember when your dad came home with the diary? Do you remember whether your dad phoned Tony and asked him where he got the diary from?’…

“….I wish I had trusted my instinct. Caroline remembered clearly the day that would change the Barretts’ life forever. She remembered the day her dad came home with the diary. She remembered her dad pestering Tony, and she could not forget the row between her mother and father….”

Here’s Ike’s question.

He’s wondering how Little Caroline could have had a clear memory of Barrett pestering Tony Devereux about the diary, if the black ledger was underneath Dodd’s floorboards until March 1992? Didn’t Devereux die in August 1991? (Let me answer that second question. 'Yes.' 8 August 1991).

We've been through this before, R.J. But for Ike's benefit, I suppose the question I would ask is how little Caroline would have remembered that her dad had pestered an old boy called Tony, and that it was definitely not a younger bloke called Eddie. Was she not at school whenever her dad saw Tony in his own house? If she witnessed her dad pestering someone over the phone, did she actually hear him call the man Tony, or was she going by what she heard about it later? It's interesting that the clear memory she had, of the unforgettable row between her parents, would have been separated from the other two clear memories - of the diary arriving and the subsequent pestering - by almost a year if it was indeed Tony, but they would all have happened very much in the same time frame if it was Eddie. How much easier would it have been for Caroline, at her tender age, to recall those three interconnected events, the last of which was pretty traumatic for her, if they happened pretty much one after the other, just a year previously in 1992, than if the first two dated back to 1991, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the fight she witnessed a year later?

The question you might like to consider is how Caroline could possibly have recalled her dad bringing the scrapbook home and pestering Tony - or indeed anyone else - about where he got it from. You believe Mike knew precisely where his scrapbook came from - an O&L auction - and that he didn't bring it home until long after Tony had died.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Caz. Here's the second bit, and my apologies for the long delay.

You’ve asked me a couple of times to provide evidence that Mike Barrett had once referred to Bernard Ryan’s “The Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick” as a source in the creation of the diary.

Unfortunately, I do not have access to the Barrett tapes at the moment, but I did find the following excerpt from Melvin Harrison’s long article “The Maybrick Hoax: A Guide Through the Labyrinth.” (It’s towards the end, about 80% in) showing that Harris, too, had noticed this.

In a discussion of the mythical “Manchester murder,” Melvin recalls Barrett having discussed its genesis with Alan Gray.

“Barrett did in fact offer an answer that was taped by private investigator Alan Gray. Shorn of its repetitions and over-ripe oaths, a transcript reads: "That other book, The 'poisoned Life' one, says he was in thick with Thomas.. He only lived 20 miles away in Manchester.. See the connection?... It's all about plotting... It's just a big circle.. .The first was in Manchester so the last has to be in Manchester. It's put down like that in the diary. F... .it, he was only 20 miles away.. .You don't need a f...... excuse to hop over and see your brother... Everyone visits everyone else at Christmas time...”

One argument frequently used by Diary believers is that Barrett only had a very superficial understanding of the ‘Jack the Ripper’ case and the Maybrick poisoning case and thus wouldn’t have had the expertise to create or help create the text. (See Paul Begg’s opinion in Feldman, p. 130. Begg describes Barrett’s knowledge was ‘negligible,’ evidently based on the fact that Mike was unfamiliar with his book). Yet here we see Barrett confidently citing Bernard Ryan chapter and verse, and he obviously knows (correctly) that Ryan had mentioned Maybrick’s obscure older brother Thomas living in Manchester. Barrett even seems to be recalling a specific passage in Ryan’s book (see below).

So how negligible was Mike’s knowledge, really?

And note: this is Barrett referring to Ryan in 1995, back when people were still suggesting that Moreland, Christie, etc. were the probable sources of the Maybrick diary. It was only afterwards that textual studies convinced many that Bernard Ryan’s book was almost certainly used... and yet, here is Barrett already alluding to it in another context….


(Here is the passage in Ryan to which Barrett is alluding. Am I to believe that someone with a 'negligible' knowledge of the Maybrick case would recall this obscure passage in a secondary source? Or are you suggesting that Barrett memorized these bits to "fool" us into believing he knew his stuff? Even that shows some ability, doesn't it?) Have fun with it.

At this point, R.J, I think I'll spend the rest of the day and the weekend watching the grass grow, and next week I'm hoping to watch paint dry. I wasn't really expecting any acknowledgement of my efforts to correct some of the erroneous assumptions you were making in order to fuel your speculation about Anne's relationship with the red 1891 diary. It would just be nice to think you absorbed all the fine details of who knew what and when, before changing course and bringing up something else entirely. It would be a total waste of your own time, and everyone else's, if you were come back here a year from now, repeating suspicions which should now have been put to bed.

Tell you what – why not give everyone still here a lockdown treat when you are finally reunited with the tapes you don't have access to 'at the moment'? You know, the tapes which feature the enduring and endearing comedy double act that was Barrett and Gray? Let everyone hear all their hilarious conversations in context, including the one you quote from, where Barrett loses the plot and forgets he wrote the diary himself, telling Gray: "That other book, 'The Poisoned Life' one... It's all about plotting... It's put down like that in the diary", when the line should have been: "I got it all from Ryan's book, that's why I wrote it like that".

Let 'em split their sides over the sketch – sorry, scene - where Barrett gives Gray the address where Tony Devereux lived, telling him there is evidence of the forgery hidden there, and Gray heads off expectantly to Fountains Road, only to find the number given him by Barrett doesn't actually exist. They can then imagine Gray smiling and shaking his head, thinking: "The little tinker. He was having me on."

I do wonder, though, why any of this matters to you, R.J, whether it's the Barrett & Gray Show, or The Red Diary of Anne Barrett. If you have satisfied yourself that Mike's request for a Victorian diary with blank pages, made over the phone between 6^th and 12^th March 1992, is proof of his intentions to create the Maybrick diary, and that he told the truth about acquiring the scrapbook from O&L after rejecting the red diary, despite no sign that he ever had that auction ticket, what more do you need? Or are you trying to convince those of us who are far from satisfied that Mike ever told the truth about anything related to the diary, including the real reason he tried to obtain that Victorian diary, at a time when he was telling Doreen about the one already in his possession? If so, you have your work cut out, if you seriously imagine 'Barrett & Gray In Conversation' will make us believe a single word the funny man was feeding his stooge.

This is from a transcript I just dug up of 'Williams and Montgomery In Conversation', circa 9^th / 10^th March 1992:

DM : It all sounds horribly fascinating, Mr. Williams. Did you say this is an actual diary you've found? Are the entries dated, for instance?

MW : Well, to be perfectly honest and what have you, when I say 'diary', it's more like a very old book with writing in it that's hard to read, and the only date I seen is 3^rd of May 1889, in the same writing, on the last page where it's signed Jack the Ripper. Then there's about 20 blank pages not filled in.

DM : I see, so that date sounds about right, but what about the book itself? Is there any way to tell if it's genuinely Victorian, if you say it's not a diary in the strict sense of the word?

MW : Well now you say that, you've got me thinking 'cos I never seen a real Victorian diary before, so what the hell have I got here?

DM : It will certainly be interesting to find out, Mr. Williams.


At least the record shows that Doreen did have a chinwag with Mike about his diary, even if there is no record, or surviving memories, of what was said.

In the case of O&L, there is nothing to indicate there ever was a record of the old scrapbook being put up for auction there, or of Mike attending and snapping it up, or of the ticket he claimed he was given but failed to produce.

We can argue forever about whether Mike had it in him to create the diary, using Ryan or any other author as a source, but you'll need cold hard facts to demonstrate that he actually did it.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

22.8.1995

Anne’s recollections re Victorian Diary –

Thinks it was pre [KS underlining made at time] Doreen... thinks Mike got it by phoning up Yellow Pages – wanted to see what a Victorian Diary looked like – All Ann can clearly remember is having to pay £20 for it – is going to search for cheque stubs ! [KS exclamation mark made at time]

Added in pencil and squashed up in the top right hand corner is an additional note:

3.30pm Anne phoned back – has been looking at statements and old cheque books – between 17 May 1992 and 21 May 1992 there is a stub which says £25 – book. Anne is going to see whether bank can identify who cheque is payable to...

Hope this helps.

Send along my thanks to Keith for supplying this detailed information, Caz.

As I already admitted, Anne's willingness to cooperate is very impressive indeed. Standing alone, it is a big mark in her favor. I would almost feel ashamed for doubting her if it wasn't for the fact that you and Keith are also willing to doubt her veracity, though evidently not on this particular point.

Unfortunately--and be prepared to cry foul-- Anne’s cooperation does not diminish the stark implications of Martin Earl’s advertisement. It’s unfair, perhaps, but it just doesn’t. The prosecution is hardly going to dismiss potentially damning evidence just because someone willingly handed it over. Cooperation is more of a question for the psychologists than the police, perhaps, but I think your friend Lord Orsam suggested, rather persuasively, that Anne and Mike would not have been aware of Earl's methods, and thus wouldn't have known that the damning advertisement could be traced.

Cheers.

[rjpalmer]

Let 'em split their sides over the sketch – sorry, scene - where Barrett gives Gray the address where Tony Devereux lived, telling him there is evidence of the forgery hidden there, and Gray heads off expectantly to Fountains Road, only to find the number given him by Barrett doesn't actually exist. They can then imagine Gray smiling and shaking his head, thinking: "The little tinker. He was having me on."

Just one more comment, Caz, and have a good weekend.

The above is amusing, of course, but the difference between your example and mine is that while it is a simple matter for someone to fake ignorance (and, in my opinion, Barrett faked ignorance on many occasions with many people) it is not quite so easy to fake genuine knowledge—this is why Mike’s sudden revelation of the source of the Richard Crashaw quote has been so vexing to you and Ike and others. You are forced to admit that your prize ignoramus outdid half a dozen professional researchers by coming up with the correct attribution.

Similarly, Barrett’s citation of Bernard Ryan is highly relevant, because it demonstrates genuine knowledge: it is correct, fairly obscure, and surprisingly astute. A dozen anecdotes about Gray dashing around on wild goose chases, while endlessly humorous, doesn’t really change that fact. It’s easy to dumb down, but how did Mike occasionally manage to smarten up?

No, it won’t convince the Maybrick partisans, nothing ever will—but, similarly, showing grotesque clips of Barrett in a blackout state of intoxication won’t make me forget the rare moments when Mike did seem to show inside knowledge, nor can I forget that this sad drunkard is the same man who published interviews in the 1980s, belonged to a writer’s circle, and correctly attributed ‘O Costly’ when no one else could.

You've got your Barrett, I've got mine.

[rjpalmer]

We've been through this before, R.J. But for Ike's benefit, I suppose the question I would ask is how little Caroline would have remembered that her dad had pestered an old boy called Tony, and that it was definitely not a younger bloke called Eddie. Was she not at school whenever her dad saw Tony in his own house? If she witnessed her dad pestering someone over the phone, did she actually hear him call the man Tony, or was she going by what she heard about it later? It's interesting that the clear memory she had, of the unforgettable row between her parents, would have been separated from the other two clear memories - of the diary arriving and the subsequent pestering - by almost a year if it was indeed Tony, but they would all have happened very much in the same time frame if it was Eddie. How much easier would it have been for Caroline, at her tender age, to recall those three interconnected events, the last of which was pretty traumatic for her, if they happened pretty much one after the other, just a year previously in 1992, than if the first two dated back to 1991, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the fight she witnessed a year later?

The question you might like to consider is how Caroline could possibly have recalled her dad bringing the scrapbook home and pestering Tony - or indeed anyone else - about where he got it from. You believe Mike knew precisely where his scrapbook came from - an O&L auction - and that he didn't bring it home until long after Tony had died.

I don't want to be accused of ducking this question, so let me quickly answer.

Your explanation is clever, Caz, and I can see why you consider it an attractive possibility. You only need to change Caroline's testimony slightly--turning 'Tony' into 'Eddy' and it conforms to the Battlecrease provenance.

But I would counter that we don't really have any evidence that Barrett knew Eddy, but we have an abundance amount of evidence that Barrett knew Tony. It's difficult to believe that Little Caroline wouldn't have heard of her father's friend during these months, especially since he died. Children remember death.

You probably consider Anne's question "did you nick it, Mike?" as evidence in support of your theory. Fair enough.

I consider Devereux lending his daughter Mike's copy of 'Tales of Liverpool' as evidence in support of my own.

But, like you, I am also guilty of slightly changing Caroline's testimony: substituting a phone discussion about a Jack the Ripper typescript in the Summer of 1991 for an alleged discussion of a black ledger in the Summer of 1991.

Others will say we're both wrong and Little Caroline was simply prompted.

[Observer]

I was looking at Mike Barrett's January 5th 1995 confession and something struck me. Look at this section of the confession

"Page 228 of the book, page 22 Diary, centre top verse large ink blot which covers the letter 's' which Anne Barrett wrote down by mistake."

Sure enough, when I looked at this page in my copy of "The Diary Of Jack The Ripper" there was the blot. Now, I wonder if there is the technology out there to see through this blot to determine if there is indeed an S underneath that blot. If this is the case, then it's game over wouldn't you say?

[Observer]

Just to add. The success of this business with the blot would greatly improve if the S,( should it be there) had a chance to dry before the blot was applied to hide it.

[Iconoclast]

I was looking at Mike Barrett's January 5th 1995 confession and something struck me. Look at this section of the confession

"Page 228 of the book, page 22 Diary, centre top verse large ink blot which covers the letter 's' which Anne Barrett wrote down by mistake."

Sure enough, when I looked at this page in my copy of "The Diary Of Jack The Ripper" there was the blot. Now, I wonder if there is the technology out there to see through this blot to determine if there is indeed an S underneath that blot. If this is the case, then it's game over wouldn't you say?

It would be extremely interesting to find that there was a dry or indeed still wet 'S' underneath that ink blot. It would be even more interesting if - in micro-writing - there was also the explanation for:

1) Why Anne Barrett (as was) was starting a new word precisely there (the centre of the page) where no other line on that page did so, and (far more importantly)

2) Why she and/or Mike would care enough about the error to blot it out (when so many entries in the scrapbook are simply scored out by a line of ink).

I think Mike was trying too hard, Observer - a rather transparent trap that you might be advised to avoid falling into.

Ike

[Observer]

Mike trying too hard? Well that remains to be seen doesn't it. As far as traps are concerned you've fell into the mother of all traps if you believe Maybrick was the author of the scrapbook. Also, if you look at page 267 in the book he starts a new line halfway across the page. He might have been contemplating something similar here, and changed his mind.

[Observer]

The thing is, there's no way in the World that the present owner's of that hoax of a Journal would agree to such a test

[Observer]

I think Mike was trying too hard, Observer - a rather transparent trap that you might be advised to avoid falling into.

Ike

Just one more thing. It's apparent that you believe Mike Barrett has looked at the scrapbook, and formulated an idea whereby insinuating that an S lies beneath an inkblot, people will believe that it was he who forged the Diary. If this is the case it shows a certain cunning, a certain imagination, a certain intelligence does it not? And this from a man who couldn't sign his own sick note. Talk about having your cake and eating it.

[Observer]

Now I realise I'm going over old ground here, apologies to the well initiated, but I've never heard a satisfactory answer to this this old chestnut. From Mike Barrett's confession 1995

"Page 250 book, page 44 Diary, centre page, quote: "OH COSTLY INTERCOURSE OF DEATH". This quotation I took from SPHERE HISTORY OF LITERATURE, Volume 2 English Poetry and Prose 1540-1671, Ediated by Christopher Ricks, however, Anne Barrett made a mistake when she wrote it down, she should have written down 'O' not 'OH'."

How did Mike Barrett know that "OH COSTLY INTERCOURSE OF DEATH" appeared in SPHERE HISTORY OF LITERATURE, Volume 2 English Poetry and Prose 1540-1671, Ediated by Christopher Ricks?

Answer. He owned such a book. By the way Barrett is correct in pointing out that it's "O COSTLY", and not "OH COSTLY"

[Iconoclast]

Now I realise I'm going over old ground here, apologies to the well initiated, but I've never heard a satisfactory answer to this this old chestnut. From Mike Barrett's confession 1995

"Page 250 book, page 44 Diary, centre page, quote: "OH COSTLY INTERCOURSE OF DEATH". This quotation I took from SPHERE HISTORY OF LITERATURE, Volume 2 English Poetry and Prose 1540-1671, Ediated by Christopher Ricks, however, Anne Barrett made a mistake when she wrote it down, she should have written down 'O' not 'OH'."

How did Mike Barrett know that "OH COSTLY INTERCOURSE OF DEATH" appeared in SPHERE HISTORY OF LITERATURE, Volume 2 English Poetry and Prose 1540-1671, Ediated by Christopher Ricks?

Answer. He owned such a book. By the way Barrett is correct in pointing out that it's "O COSTLY", and not "OH COSTLY"

You are well fooled, sir.

Barrett claimed he had a brand new copy (from a Hillsborough disaster donation that no-one wanted to buy - clearly too erudite a freebie for even a Scouser to jump at) but the reality is that he purchased a second-hand version from a Liverpool book shop a few days after he found the quotation in the Liverpool Central Library. The copy he purchased was dog-eared, well-thumbed, and evidently originally belonged to an English Literature student who had annotated relevant sections they were working on for an essay (quite unrelated to Crashaw, by the way). I think I may be right in saying that this book is now owned by the researcher Keith Skinner who purchased it from Barrett's Ace Detective Alan Gray (who was probably just relieved to get some form of payment 'out of' Barrett, albeit indirectly).

So it matters not a jot that Barrett pointed-out that Maybrick spelled 'O costly ...' as 'Oh costly ...' - he knew it because he had the original scrapbook and he discovered the poem itself. He correctly noticed the erring rendition in the scrapbook (big deal!) but the spelling error is quite irrelevant to Barrett's claims to have written the scrapbook. And - for the record - Maybrick did not cite a reference for 'Oh costly ...' nor did he use inverted commas to indicate a quotation, so in that regard he was not 'incorrect' when he wrote 'oh costly ...' - he was entitled to write whatever he wanted. If I choose to write in my personal journal something along the lines of That there’s some corner of a foreign field that's forever England, I may intend to write it this way and not the original way. To have erred, I would have to have prefaced it along the lines of, ' as Rupert Brooke wrote ...' at which point my errors would have significance.

And you are attempting to well fool your readers, sir.

The short piece of doggerel (tis love that spurred me so) which appears merely (and logically) indented on page 267 could never be described as 'a new line halfway across the page'. The line may end up in the centre of the page but it most certainly does not start there. You are either mistaken or you have attempted to deceive and we have too much of that on this Casebook - false reporting to make a point at the expense of honour and honesty.

Ike

[rjpalmer]

but the reality is that he purchased a second-hand version from a Liverpool book shop a few days after he found the quotation in the Liverpool Central Library. The copy he purchased was dog-eared, well-thumbed, and evidently originally belonged to an English Literature student

Hold your horses, Ike.

And does Keith have the receipt/auction ticket for Mike's purchase of this dog-eared copy of the Sphere Guide, or are we just taking it on faith this time around?

From what I've been reading all week, only a receipt will settle matters once and for all when it comes to Mike's mysterious purchases.

Unless you can produce the receipt for this alleged purchase, I'll be forced to draw my own conclusions about why Barrett never turned the receipt over to Keith when he assumed ownership of the book. I learned that attitude from Caz.

PS. This pot, kettle, black, tit for tat is getting kind of old, isn't it? It might interest you that Robert Smith pointed out several years ago on this site that that particular edition of The Sphere Guide is not easy to find. Smith wrote that he looked for it in dozens of bookshops and had never seen it. So, the Miracle of Research set aside, it still stretches credibility well beyond the breaking point that Barrett ran out and found a copy of The Sphere and then had the wherewithal to lodge it with his solicitor. The tour de force of deception that you describe is more difficult to believe than Barrett simply taking part in the creation of the hoax. And you have your ignoramus Bongo doing it!

[Iconoclast]

Hold your horses, Ike.

And does Keith have the receipt/auction ticket for Mike's purchase of this dog-eared copy of the Sphere Guide, or are we just taking it on faith this time around?

I very much doubted that Keith had the receipt for Barrett's purchase of the dog-eared Sphere volume which Alan Gray sold him and I wasn't even vaguely concerned about that fact but - just to clarify it for you - I wrote to Keith last evening to ask him and he has confirmed that he doesn't have the receipt (indeed, again for clarity, never had the receipt). Unless Barrett had left it inside the book, it is unlikely that Gray would have had it. Barrett - for the record - was not present when Gray sold it to Keith (as I understand it).

PS. This pot, kettle, black, tit for tat is getting kind of old, isn't it? It might interest you that Robert Smith pointed out several years ago on this site that that particular edition of The Sphere Guide is not easy to find. Smith wrote that he looked for it in dozens of bookshops and had never seen it. So, the Miracle of Research set aside, it still stretches credibility well beyond the breaking point that Barrett ran out and found a copy of The Sphere and then had the wherewithal to lodge it with his solicitor. The tour de force of deception that you describe is more difficult to believe than Barrett simply taking part in the creation of the hoax. And you have your ignoramus Bongo doing it![/FONT][/COLOR][/LEFT]

Well I am genuinely surprised to find that Robert said that as I could have sworn (but may well be wrong or getting mixed-up with some other) that it had gone into print by Robert that a number of copies had been available around the time Barrett purchased his dog-eared one.

Just for clarity from you Roger - what sense do you make of Keith Skinner purchasing from Alan Gray a clearly-used copy of the Sphere text which Gray claimed he had received from Michael Barrett? I assume that you believe that Bongo had the copy all along and had turned to it for a single 'quotation' (it's not actually a quotation, as I explained to Observer yesterday - it's more of an 'inspiration') before putting it back on his shelf. Assuming that this is what you believe, do you also believe that Barrett received it from Sphere in pristine, saleable condition or do you think he made that bit up? If he made it up, did he buy the dog-eared copy intentionally (for poetic 'inspiration' for his hoax) or do you think he had it anyway on his bookshelves? If you think the latter, do you think there were many Liverpool working class households with just such a text within their walls?

The questions just go on and on (if you try to argue that there is some sort of mystery to this). Alternatively, if you reflect on what we know for a FACT (now always remember that, ladies and gentlemen), there is a Victorian scrapbook containing the ramblings of Jack the Ripper, a man who owns it, the same man who revealed where the quotation came from, the same man who got pissed-off, pissed-up and suddenly said it was part of a hoax he dreamed-up using a pristine copy of a text which was in his loft, the same man who employed a private detective who sold a dog-eared copy of that text to Keith Skinner saying it was the one Barrett owned.

Call me crazy, but it sounds to me like Michael Barrett came into possession of Jack the Ripper's scrapbook. He then researched it sufficiently to believe in it. He then sought to have it published. As part of his contribution to the ongoing research, he and his wife were asked to help locate the 'inspiration' which - because he had nothing else to do all day - he successfully achieved. Seeking his own copy of the source, he then seeks out a copy in bookshops in Liverpool. He finds a dog-eared ex-student copy and purchases it. He then eventually gives it to Alan Gray who he doesn't pay for his services in tracking down his errant wife, so Gray sells it to Keith Skinner, who does not request any receipt for the purchase never mind the original one.

Hey - and why not make the dog-eared Sphere book part of his sworn affidavit of January 5th 1995, as well as the O&L auction ticket, the red diary, and the receipt for the red diary? In fact, why did he not show any of this forensic evidence to Harold Brough? Actually, he did show the book to Alan Gray but Gray might have been astute enough to realise that it didn’t quite look like it was part of an unused series sent to Mike by Sphere in order to raise funds for Hillsborough. Gray was keen to support Mike's tale, but not keen enough to ignore the blatantly obvious fact that the Sphere book he possessed looked nothing like Mike was claiming it to be.

Hmmm. Pots, kettles, black and white stripes, jumpers for goalposts, Saudis dancing on the sand at Titley Bay … it's not getting even vaguely old for me, Rog.

Ike