Maybrick--a Problem in Logic

[caz]

Also lets look at the whiter than white Albert Johnston. If you believe that the watch came from under the floorboards of Battlecrease House then that makes Albert Johnston a liar because he said he bought it from a jeweler in Chester.

Whoa there, Observer. It's a documented fact that Albert bought the watch from a jeweller in Wallasey on July 14th 1992, 3 months after the diary was first seen in London. How does that rule out the possibility that both were removed from Battlecrease House on March 9th that year?

If Albert created a hoax out of it the following year, how did he know the jeweller wouldn't be able to give it a perfect provenance going right back to whoever the prominent and professionally engraved initials JO had belonged to? Instead, it had been sold by a stranger, walking in off the street, so nobody knew a thing about its previous history. Lucky old Albert, eh?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Everyone of them remembers scratches in the back? Yes, but there are scratches to the back of the watch in a neater hand than those associated with the "Maybrick" scratches, that is they are not associated with the Maybrick group...

May I just stop you there, Observer? Which 'neater' scratches are you referring to here? None of the scratches could be dated precisely, but the order in which they were made was easily determined, and the 'I am Jack' and 'J Maybrick' were made before any of the other discernible marks. Would it not have been obvious to anyone remembering these 'neater' scratches of yours, if they had vanished by the time the tests were conducted, and been replaced by the more crudely scratched Maybrick ones? You seem to be suggesting that the hoaxer removed every last trace of these 'neater' scratch marks before setting to work on a pristine surface, or they would have shown up in the tests beneath the hoaxed ones.

If the scratches you refer to are still there, and were remembered by 'everyone', as you say, then they are on top of the Maybrick scratches, which must have been there when the watch was sold.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Jenny still has Sphere volumes minus the relevant one which Mike took when he left + Ł70!
KS asked Shirley to see whether we could get hold of these books from Jenny.

Surely this is game, set, and match?

As far as I am concerned, the note must refer to Harrison speaking directly with Jenny--if it had been Barrett, why would Mike have referred to stiffing his estranged girlfriend for seventy pounds? It's not something the average bloke would want to admit to. And why would Keith have asked Shirley to get hold of these books from Jenny, if she had only been speaking to Mike? Wouldn't Keith have written something along the lines of "has Shirley confirmed this with Jenny?," because, by now, Keith and everyone else would have been more than leery of taking anything Mike said on faith without the appropriate confirmation.

And, accord to "Ripper Diary" page 145: "Harrison phoned Barrett's friend Jenny Morrison, who corroborated his story..."

No, this must be Shirley confirming these events with Jenny Morrison.

So, to conclude, Jenny Morrison had a complete seven volume set of Sphere's (except Vol 2, the "Crashaw" volume which Mike had either held back or fetched back), and these she had received from Mike the previous summer (1994) which entirely jives with her account of the books having been "too advanced" for her son--the graduate level Sphere histories certainly falling with that category.

Thus Barrett already owned the volume before the CLL charade in late Sept 1994.

It's of course entirely possible that the volume Barrett eventually handed over to Gray, and now in Keith's possession, isn't the missing volume from Jenny's collection, if Barrett had lost or destroyed the original incriminating copy.

I also still see no explanation from Keith or anyone else why Harrison would have stated in Oct 1994 that Barrett had found the quote "by chance" if she had specifically sent Barrett to the CLL to hunt down the quote. Her memory of having sent him on this task wasn't recorded until nearly a year later (14 Sept 1995) and it seems obvious that she is misremembering sending Mike to the CLL to get a photocopy of the correct page AFTER he had already revealed the correct citation over the phone. Any comment she made at the time of these events must carry far more weight then any recollection recorded a year later.

Ok, back to the backseat.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Observer - I'm going to leave it in your capable hands to duke it out with the believers, but one small note about my own beliefs.

You could be correct that Albert was involved in the hoax of the watch—it certainly is a reasonable and plausible assumption-- but here’s my current thinking, which, incidentally, keeps Albert out of the loop…to some degree.

From my reading of Feldman, Robbie seems to have had a lot of extra time on his hands. I reckon Robbie “discovered” the scratches while he was visiting Albert’s house one afternoon. Discovered them while holding a corroded brass etching tool, if you get my drift.

He shows the markings to Albert.

Albert is intrigued, but also skeptical. He knows Robbie has a history of getting involved in dodgy schemes, so he takes the watch to the college in order to get a second opinion. Here he stages his own “discovery” of the scratches, to distance Robbie from the timepiece, knowing that his brother would fall under immediate suspicion if it was revealed that he had been the one who had first noticed the markings, because, alas, Robbie had been recently released from the penitentiary.

So now everyone believes it was Albert, and not Robbie, that first found the markings. In this scenario, the only falsehood Albert ever committed was not fully disclosing how and by whom the marking were first noticed--he was protecting his brother.

Meanwhile, Albert’s skepticism starts to wane after the tests by Turgoose and Wild, and he becomes a ‘true believer’…to a degree. But even now, he knows Robbie’s ways and can’t help but notice how keen Robbie is to sell the watch. During the negotiations with the Texan Robert E. Davis, all the old doubts resurface, and Albert pulls the plug. He doesn’t like the possibility of a fraud being perpetrated and refuses to sell. His reluctance reveals his doubts and fears. In brief, he has decided to keep the watch as a pleasant conversation piece. His professed belief in its authenticity over the ensuing years is just another way of saying that he believes his beloved younger brother didn’t try to scam him.

Which is an entirely human and forgivable belief.

That is how I see it.

To borrow from what Macnaghten said of Druitt, “I have but little doubt that Robbie’s own family suspected that he was the hoaxer.”

As did Barrett’s. We are told in one of the notes above that Barrett's own mom threw him out of the house after she had read Harrison’s book... And no one knows us and our naughty ways like dear own mum.

[erobitha]

Hi erobitha,

I don't believe Feldman 'concocted' anything with Anne. I simply think she told him what he was waiting and expecting to hear, and convinced him as much as he had already convinced himself. He ruined his health and his marriage, and threw good money after bad, chasing an impossible dream, not spending a weekend concocting a lie with Anne, which would have required no actual research, just the hubris to get enough people believing it.

There, never let it be said [not by Mandy Rice-J Palmer at least] that I only ever challenge the opinions of Barrett hoax believers.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

Thanks for the comments.

I trust your reading of the situation more so than mine from a distance, as you have more experience of all the players involved.

Regards,

James

[caz]

Surely this is game, set, and match?

As far as I am concerned, the note must refer to Harrison speaking directly with Jenny--if it had been Barrett, why would Mike have referred to stiffing his estranged girlfriend for seventy pounds? It's not something the average bloke would want to admit to.

Funny, I got the impression that Mike left Jenny richer to the tune of Ł70 when he took the book away. I suppose it's the way one reads these scraps of information, jotted down for the benefit of the person making the note. Maybe you are right though. Mike may well have touched her for some drink money if he was broke at that point.

I also still see no explanation from Keith or anyone else why Harrison would have stated in Oct 1994 that Barrett had found the quote "by chance" if she had specifically sent Barrett to the CLL to hunt down the quote. Her memory of having sent him on this task wasn't recorded until nearly a year later (14 Sept 1995) and it seems obvious that she is misremembering sending Mike to the CLL to get a photocopy of the correct page AFTER he had already revealed the correct citation over the phone. Any comment she made at the time of these events must carry far more weight then any recollection recorded a year later.

To be fair, I'd imagine only Shirley would be in a position to explain that one, and why would you believe she was remembering it accurately if you were to ask her today, since you believe her memory was unreliable all those years ago? But what about your own memory? I could be wrong but I'm fairly sure I posted the following timeline entries very recently, which make it obvious enough that Shirley was not misremembering a year on, but making the comment at the time of the events, that she had to send Mike back to the library to find the reference, after he mistakenly thought the quote came from Volume 6, The Victorians:

Monday 3^rd October 1994
KS notes ansafone message from SH:
Mike seems to have found “Oh Costly Intercourse of Death” – quite by chance.
Is in the Sphere Companion To English Literature Vol 6 (MB thinks) – did not even make a note of it!
Source: copy of notes by KS, 3^rd - 12^th October 1994 (CAM/KS/1994)

Thursday 6^th October 1994
Fax sent to SH by L’Pool City Library, with page from Sphere volume containing ‘O costly…’ quote.
Source: copy of fax (CAM/KS/1994)

Tuesday 11^th October 1994
KS conversation with SH:
MB v. upset (w/b Sept 26^th 1994) by remarks in p/back about him being alcoholic…determined to do something serious about this he spends week in L’pool library trying to find source of O Costly Intercourse (p231 of Shirley’s p/back)…
Finds it but does not make a note of it. Phones Duocrave on Fri 30^th Sept…
Around this time his mother has read p/back – upset – throws MB out of house
Mon Oct 3^rd – MB phones Shirley – Shirley tells MB to go back to library and find the reference… By Oct 6^th Shirley has reference.
Source: copy of notes by KS, 3^rd - 12^th October 1994 (CAM/KS/1994)

While I appreciate there has been an awful lot to absorb of late, I would also appreciate it if you took a little more time absorbing it, considering how much more time I am taking over providing the information in the first place!

Love,

Caz
X

Yep, thought so. I posted these entries for you a week ago, on 7th May. See #435

Not happy. I bend over backwards and you throw it all back in my face, undigested.

[caz]

It's of course entirely possible that the volume Barrett eventually handed over to Gray, and now in Keith's possession, isn't the missing volume from Jenny's collection, if Barrett had lost or destroyed the original incriminating copy.

Oh and I gave you that line myself in another recent post, so it's hardly an original thought. But it leaves you today, as it would have left Mike back in December 1994, with no evidence at all that Volume 2 was ever in the 'set' allegedly sent to him, to be held back or fetched back from Jenny. If Mike did have to hotfoot it round there to collect the 'relevant' volume, in order to phone Shirley with his bombshell, it would have been Volume 6, because that was the one he thought was 'relevant' when he spoke to her.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Not happy. I bend over backwards and you throw it all back in my face, undigested.

No, Caz. I'm afraid you're wrong, and you misunderstood my point. You might want to follow your own advice and go back and re-read my post again...SLOWLY.

I have fully "digested" what you're saying. But all the above notes about the discussions between Harrison and Barrett were recorded in OCTOBER 1994.

I AGREE that she sent Barrett "back" [sic?] to the Library to get the page number at that time. (Whether Mike had gone in the first place might be debatable, so it may only be "back" from Shirley's perspective; she believes Mike's account of having been at the library, but that doesn’t prove that he was telling the truth).

To repeat: Shirley's claim that she had sent Barrett to the CLL in the first place, to discover the quote, is nowhere to be found in these October 1994 notes; it was a claim not recorded until her letter to Keith Skinner on 14 September 1995, which is 11 months after these events. (See below. Taken from your post #472).

So to repeat: the notes dating to Oct 1994 don't really explicitly state that Barrett had been sent to the library (the "first" time) on Shirley's orders. All they state is that Barrett told her he found the quote at the library (he could have been lying) and she told him to "go back" some three days later, because he didn't give the page number. This is entirely different from the claim that Barrett had been specifically asked to search the CLL by Shirley. Indeed, we are elsewhere told that Barrett went on his own volition because he had been humiliated due to his drink problem.

Now do you get it? I am only trying to establish that Barrett was telling two different sets of people two different tales on or around 30 September 1994. Sheesh! RP

- - - -
Thursday 14^th September 1995....

KS adds note: MB told SH and Sally on 22^nd June 1994 that he was going to say he forged diary – then, after Brough article and prior to paperback coming out, MB calmed down and SH told him to do something constructive – ie. source 'O costly…' quote.

RJP comments: This shows Harrison's memory of having Barrett 'do something constructive' (find the quote) dates to 14 September 1995, unless she has a CONTEMPORARY note from 22 June 1994 proving that Mike had been given this task. Indeed, her contemporary notes (from Oct 1994) indicated Barrett found it 'by chance.' How hard is this, Caz? What is there to dispute? I am only adhering to a strict analysis of the original sources. Isn’t this what we are supposed to do?

I am suggesting that on 14 Sept 1995 Shirley could have been remembering having asked Barrett to go to the library to find the quote (because SHE DID), but this was on 3 Oct 1994 and not in June 1994. I only say this because that is all that Keith's documentation shows.

Ciao.

PPS. My guess is only 3 people in the entire world would bother to analyze the tedium written above: me, Keith Skinner, and David B.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Caz -- I should let it go, but let me put it this way; maybe it will help.

You seem willing to believe that when Shirley Harrison asked Paul Dodd about his floorboards being lifted, and he said it was in 1989-90, he was misremembering an event that actually took place in March 1992. Correct? You are willing to accept that Dodd’s memory may have been flawed about the chronology, even though all these events only happened as recently as 3 years or so.

And yet, at the same time, you find it outlandish that I am suggesting that when Keith asked Shirley in Sept 1995 about whether she had asked Mike to search the library for ‘O Costly,’ she is misremembering an event that happened on 3 Oct 1994, wrongly attributing it to late June or early July 1994—before the Crashaw citation had been discovered.

I don’t think my suggestion is outlandish at all; I think that it is what the notes suggest. I admit that it is only my interpretation.

I’m fairly certain that I had asked Harrison about this some 15 years ago, but her recollection of the chronology was not clear, which is entirely understandable considering everything that had gone on.

I’m open to persuasion if further documentation suggests otherwise.

[Note to self: when did the paperback come out?]

[Iconoclast]

I'm open to persuasion ...

Ey'up - I see the Exaggeration Shoppe has evidently been let out of lockdown ...

[rjpalmer]

To Keith S.

I found the following email from your old friend Melvin Harris, dated Tue, Oct 31, 2000 at 2:54 PM


Dear RJP:
Please note that the Sphere book was in the Barett's house 2 years before the Diary emerged. This is confirmed by his sister and not disputed at any time by Anne Barrett.

Melvin Harris.

I don't know Melvin's precise source, though obviously he was implying that either he or Gray had questioned Barrett's sister. I leave it up to you to decide whether or not she (not Jenny Morrison) was able to confirm Barrett's account.

[Iconoclast]

To those who so casually dismiss the Maybrick watch with the thoroughly cavalier and wholly unjustified notion that Robbie Johnson did the aged-particle embedding in Albert's back bedroom with a handily-placed aged implement, etc., am I not right in thinking that the 'J. Maybrick' signature - unlike the handwriting of the scrapbook - was a very good approximation of Maybrick's known signature (i.e., on his Will)?

If this were so, I can't help but wonder at the remarkable depths of Robbie's research before doing his clever metallurgy magic.

[rjpalmer]

Ey'up - I see the Exaggeration Shoppe has evidently been let out of lockdown ...

The drive-thru of the Persuasion Café is open for business; I'm just not ever seeing anything on the menu that looks appetizing.

[Iconoclast]

The drive-thru of the Persuasion Café is open for business; I'm just not ever seeing anything on the menu that looks appetizing.

It's not what's on the menu that you have to worry about, Roger - it's WHAT'S-ON-THE-MENU you have to fear ...

[c.d.]

It's not what's on the menu that you have to worry about, Roger - it's WHAT'S-ON-THE-MENU you have to fear ...

Yes, and beware of menus found under floorboards.

c.d.