Who were they?

[c.d.]

Hello Herlock,

Welcome back! Hope your "vacation" was a restful one and you are tan, fit and ready to take on the world (or just certain posters as the case may be).

By the way, I am reading The Man from the Train. Amazing story and quite good.

c.d.

[caz]

Anne made up her 'in the family provenance tale' to take the narrative away from Mike.

And what was Mike's 'narrative'?

That he and Anne wrote it!

Well done that man! Except that a narrative doesn't actually prove anything. Anyone can dream up a narrative, and Mike had a different one for every occasion. Narratives require supporting evidence, and Anne could not have taken that away from Mike, if he had any and was determined to use it.

The irony is that the little red 1891 diary is meant to be a damning piece of physical evidence for the Barretts trying to source the raw materials for a Battlecrease hoax as late as March 1992. Yet Mike not only falsely claimed in his affidavit of 5th January 1995 that Anne had purchased this red diary back in January 1990, but he also tried to claim that he still had this incriminating item in his own possession until very recently, when Anne had allegedly asked him for it and - quite incredibly - he handed it over! Anne was divorcing Mike after suffering his emotional and physical abuse, which had supposedly included bullying her into co-operating with him in a blatant act of fraud. He began spilling beans back in June, and he was primed to spill them all when Anne came out with a very different story, effectively emasculating him.

So what on earth did Anne do to make Mike hand over the red diary so meekly? Did she hold a gun to his head? Or was she now the bully and Mike her helpless, submissive victim? She could so easily have destroyed it, along with her old cheque book, and the means to trace the actual cheque, the transaction and all the details.

Don't let RJ tell you that Anne had to keep both the red diary and her cheque book from 1992, and was then obliged to supply Keith and Shirley with the means to track down her payment, the payee and therefore when the supplier received Mike's request, the nature of that request and when the diary was located and supplied. RJ needs to explain why Anne thought, in July 1995, that it would be safer for her to volunteer the documentary evidence that could unlock all these details, which only she possessed at that time, than to risk the remote chance of Mike or anyone else being able to get there under their own steam.

RJ sometimes appears to forget his own narrative, which is that Anne knew where, when and - crucially - why Mike obtained the scrapbook: it was for creating their hoax in time to be shown off in London on 13th April 1992. Well she certainly knew about the red diary by the time she supplied the cheque for it in the May, so it follows that if RJ's narrative is the correct one, she'd have worked out that if it represented an earlier failed attempt by Mike to get hold of something suitable, it was likely to be highly incriminating, because it would have been requested, ordered, supplied and rejected before March was out. How is it that between then and 1995, Anne never once wondered what incriminating details may have survived from Mike's hopelessly inept attempt - details that were just waiting for her to expose, by giving Keith the payee's name and the means to learn what Mike had asked for and when?

Another little problem for RJ's narrative is that he has included the suggestion that Anne deliberately held back paying for the red diary until May 1992, when the hoaxed one had already been seen in London, so it would not look like a suspicious purchase if it came to light. But this would only make her decision, three years later, to give Keith the payee's name - and with it the means to learn that it was requested back in the March - all the more difficult to understand.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

Another little problem for RJ's narrative is that he has included the suggestion that Anne deliberately held back paying for the red diary until May 1992, when the hoaxed one had already been seen in London, so it would not look like a suspicious purchase if it came to light. But this would only make her decision, three years later, to give Keith the payee's name - and with it the means to learn that it was requested back in the March - all the more difficult to understand.

Yes, Caz, it has always struck me as bizarre that on the one hand Anne and Mike are accused of being master hoaxers but that neither of them thought to hide the evidence of their attempts to source a suitable artefact for the hoax. Mike was indiscreet when he ordered the 1891 diary, surreally stupid when he accepted it even though he knew by then it was plastered with 1891 all over every page (plus it was little bigger than a book of stamps), but then Mike and Anne were both incredibly foolish and indiscreet for 1) Mike handing it over to Anne when he could have used it to 'prove' the hoax he'd been apparently trying since December 1993 to unmask, and 2) Anne handing it casually over to Keith as though it were no more consequential or incriminating than a shopping list for SuperBuy.

It just feels overwhelmingly as if neither had anything to hide?

[rjpalmer]

Let's not go over again, Caz. I don't accept your analysis of these events and never have.

I am not 'forgetting' my own narrative--I am rejecting yours.

Circumstances FORCED Graham to turn over the stub for the red diary. She never mentioned this suspicious purchase in two years. She could hardly have simply denied the purchase once Barrett leaked it, because she would have known that Barrett might have remembered getting it from a bookseller in Cambridge and the possibility of someone tracing that bookseller and his paperwork was a very real one.

There is no mystery as to why she cooperated--she had to.

What is abundantly clear is that statements later made by both Harrison and Skinner show that Anne must have convinced them that the order for the red diary was made in May 1992 (that's what the cheque showed) and thus could not have been relevant to the creation of the diary. That's where matters stood until it was learned that this was a false impression and the Barretts were late payers. That she may have muttered something about 'pre-Doreen' was just covering her tracks in case the March order was proven. The false impression remained.

We've gone over it two dozen times.

We've gone over EVERYTHING two dozen times. And I do not give a rat's behind whether Mike's affidavit said this suspicious purchase was made in 1066 or 1993. The man was an alcoholic. We have the receipts.

Time to pull the plug, I'd say. We disagree and always will disagree. It's not the end of the world.

I'll leave you alone with the hecklers, as you seem to have little more than contempt for anyone who is actually willing to discuss the nuts and the bolts of the saga--that is, if they can see the holes in your 'narrative' or have drawn different conclusions.

Enjoy the hecklers and the silliness.

There is literally no one else who cares to discuss the diary, beyond a rare post from Bundy. Those that do discuss it and believe it to be a modern hoax are 'insane,' mudlarks, dissemblers, delusional, underread, and/or members of Orsam's clown car.

Why would you care to discuss a hoax with madmen and clowns?

[Iconoclast]

Circumstances FORCED Graham to turn over the stub for the red diary. She never mentioned this suspicious purchase in two years. She could hardly have simply denied the purchase once Barrett leaked it, because she would have known that Barrett might have remembered getting it from a bookseller in Cambridge and the possibility of someone tracing that bookseller and his paperwork was a very real one.

You need to clarify, RJ, for those of us who are not following your argument, why Anne was compelled to do anything at all. Where was the motivating compulsion which meant that denying she still had the cheque book was simply impossible. Was she under oath per chance? Standing in the dock in a court of law being interrogated by a brilliant, persuasive, irresistible lawyer?

There is no mystery as to why she cooperated--she had to.

There is an incredibly large amount of mystery as to why she co-operated with a request she was under no obligation whatsoever to comply with. Here's how she could have cunningly dealt with it: "I have no recollection of any diary purchase and I know Mike has claimed that I paid for it but I'm afraid I don't recall doing so and unfortunately I no longer have that particular chequebook". End of 'obligation'.

What is abundantly clear is that statements later made by both Harrison and Skinner show that Anne must have convinced them that the order for the red diary was made in May 1992 (that's what the cheque showed) and thus could not have been relevant to the creation of the diary. That's where matters stood until it was learned that this was a false impression and the Barretts were late payers. That she may have muttered something about 'pre-Doreen' was just covering her tracks in case the March order was proven. The false impression remained.

What is abundantly clear is simply that this is the way you would like everyone to think about her actions. Your supposition is no-one else's proof (or, at least, ought not to be).

There is literally no one else who cares to discuss the diary, beyond a rare post from Bundy. Those that do discuss it and believe it to be a modern hoax are 'insane,' mudlarks, dissemblers, delusional, underread, and/or members of Orsam's clown car.

You are exaggerating terribly, RJ. That's just you.

Why would you care to discuss a hoax with madmen and clowns?

Well, you might like to continue to discuss the rather thorny issue that the 'hoax' remains unproven despite the countless empty-vessel claims on here.

[caz]

I’m not sure how that’s a ‘bingo’ nor what exactly a ‘bingo’ is, but I can say that Mike making those claims and Anne knowing those claims to be untrue would be a very strong motivator for her to seek to take the power of the narrative away from her addled husband.

So I think you just ’bingoed’ yourself there, RJ.

Bingo! With great hairy knobs on!

RJ imagines Anne was such a dim woman that she thought she could take a provable 'narrative' away from Mike with an unprovable one of her own.

It just goes to show that however dim that would have made Anne, it would have made her estranged hubby three times as dim, for not taking full advantage of this situation, by proving his own narrative and burying hers in the process.

Call me old-fashioned, but when a man knows an uncomfortable truth and can prove it, and appears to want to unload it on the world, any woman sharing that guilty knowledge would have to be way beyond dim to make up a story, which strips the man of any remaining self-esteem, and imagine it might appease him and nip his unloading in the bud.

In fact, it's just about the dimmest narrative ever.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hello Herlock,

Welcome back! Hope your "vacation" was a restful one and you are tan, fit and ready to take on the world (or just certain posters as the case may be).

By the way, I am reading The Man from the Train. Amazing story and quite good.

c.d.

Hi c.d.

Im fighting fit thanks (although ‘fit’ might be a bit of an exaggeration) Hope you’re well too?

The Man From The Train is great. I think it’s destined to end up on those online lists of ‘must read’ true crime books.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Please see my replies below.

Response to 498 and 499

I go by the evidence.

Someone here suggested that Lawende's suspect may have been wearing Jewish religious garb and that Lawende did not notice it.

Naturally, his suspect is Jewish.


This isn’t evidence. It’s someone’s opinion.


Some would say it is someone's fantasy.


If the man seen by Lawende had a fair moustache then he is much more likely to have been German than Jewish.


And he was just as likely to have been Swedish. Or a man with a brown moustache which looked lighter under a street lamp.


I did include that possibility when I long ago described the man as Nordic and I did write the other day that the construction of the graffito suggested that its author was German or Germanic.

As I argued before, if you are going to have the street lamp turning a brown moustache fair, then why not have it turn a red neckerchief pink?


If he was a sailor, then he is much, much more likely to have been German than Jewish.


But there’s no evidence that he was a sailor. He might have been or he might not have been.


There is evidence that he was a sailor.


If the writer of the graffito was Jewish, he could reasonably be expected to spell 'Jews' correctly.


We have no way of deducing the nationality of the writer.


We have ways of determining whether he was Jewish.


If he were German, he might have been influenced by the German spelling, which begins 'Ju'.


So an unknown person might have done something if happened to have been German?


A German-speaking person who was unfamiliar with the idiosyncratic English spelling of the word, could reasonably expect it to begin 'Ju'.


We do not have certainty but we do have evidence.


It’s a pity that only you can see it PI.


I recommend to readers that they follow the evidence and not the negations of the evidence that so often appear here.

I think Swanson's version is more reliable than the others because it describes the man's build, his jacket, mentions the neckerchief being tied in a knot, and mentions his having the appearance of a sailor.

So when it suits you Swanson is reliable, but when he wrote “Kosminski was the suspect” in the marginalia he was a fantasist?



He mentioned four important details which are missing from the other versions.

And he was writing a report.

You may recall that one of my complaints about the Swanson Marginalia is that they lack details of the kind that someone involved in the events he related would know.

The reply then came that Swanson could not be expected to give such details as he was not writing a report.

The description of the suspect contained in the report obviously came directly from the statement made by Lawende to the police.

Swanson's later claim that Kosminski was identified as the murderer has no basis in fact and, unlike the description of the suspect given in his report, is not based on any known record of any witness having provided a description of a suspect, let alone identified someone as the suspect.

[rjpalmer]

Yes, Caz, it has always struck me as bizarre that on the one hand Anne and Mike are accused of being master hoaxers but that neither of them thought to hide the evidence of their attempts to source a suitable artefact for the hoax.

To the contrary. Thom. This shows why there is little point in discussing the diary with the True Believers.

Neither Mike, nor Anne, mentioned this relevant purchase to Shirley Harrison during the 2 1/2 years that Mike was working with her as a collaborator. That is "hiding the evidence." When the existence of this purchase was finally revealed, Anne still left the false impression that it was purchased in May 1992--a distortion that was still being repeated by Diary researchers at least as late as 1998.

Have fun with the Hecklers!

[rjpalmer]

Bingo! With great hairy knobs on!

RJ imagines Anne was such a dim woman that she thought she could take a provable 'narrative' away from Mike with an unprovable one of her own.

And she was right, wasn't she?

You're the one who co-wrote a book in defense of Anne's unprovable narrative. And one of your co-authors wrote a letter to the Ripperologist defending her unprovable (and ridiculous) narrative and stating how consistent her story has been.

So, it worked rather well, didn't it?

And there you go again--mispresenting someone else's viewpoint. I suggested--correctly as it turns out--that Anne concluded that it would become a matter of 'he said/she said' with one half of that dynamic being a man suffering from alcoholic psychosis. Not really much of a choice was it, especially to those who were eager to discount Barrett.

Barrett was a liar, but he still managed to prove inside knowledge--that is, for those wise enough to discern it.

[erobitha]

If I was intent on hiding a hoax I co-authored with my wife, I don't think the smartest thing to do is hand over evidence which could be interpreted as intent to buy a Victorian diary prior to a Victorian diary being shown to a literary agent in London to a team of researchers.

So is RJ claiming Anne was the brains behind this so-called hoax operation? Or is he saying Mike was so drunk and abusive he just handed it over no questions asked?

I get awfully confused by RJ’s narrative.

Yours faithfully,

A. Heckler

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Yes, Caz, it has always struck me as bizarre that on the one hand Anne and Mike are accused of being master hoaxers...

Hi Ike,

Not master hoaxers, just regular hoaxers. In fact, not very good hoaxers in my opinion. More opportunists than geniuses.

[caz]

Let's not go over again, Caz. I don't accept your analysis of these events and never have.

I am not 'forgetting' my own narrative--I am rejecting yours.

Circumstances FORCED Graham to turn over the stub for the red diary. She never mentioned this suspicious purchase in two years. She could hardly have simply denied the purchase once Barrett leaked it, because she would have known that Barrett might have remembered getting it from a bookseller in Cambridge and the possibility of someone tracing that bookseller and his paperwork was a very real one.

There is no mystery as to why she cooperated--she had to.

Garbage in, garbage out. For a chap who thinks the psychology and personalities of his suspected hoaxers have no bearing on the case, RJ feels the need to return again and again to his own eccentric insights into what Anne Graham's reasoning would have been when volunteering the red diary documentation - which went on to unlock all the 'suspicious' details, as she must surely have anticipated when giving Keith the payee's name, IF she knew Mike had originally requested it in March 1992 for faking their Battlecrease diary. What more could Mike have possibly 'leaked' that would have trumped what Anne freely gave to Keith? RJ may as well argue that if Anne had the blasted auction ticket as well, she'd have been FORCED to turn that over too, because she could hardly have simply denied the purchase once Mike leaked it, because she would have known that he had attended that auction and the possibility of someone at O&L tracing the sale of the photo album and compass to a Mr Williams was a very real one. RJ can't use Mike's claimed date of January 1990 this time to argue against that possibility, because it applies to the red diary too.

What is abundantly clear is that statements later made by both Harrison and Skinner show that Anne must have convinced them that the order for the red diary was made in May 1992 (that's what the cheque showed) and thus could not have been relevant to the creation of the diary. That's where matters stood until it was learned that this was a false impression and the Barretts were late payers. That she may have muttered something about 'pre-Doreen' was just covering her tracks in case the March order was proven. The false impression remained.

We've gone over it two dozen times.

And RJ's narrative still makes no more sense than it did first time round.

Again, he must think Anne very dim indeed, if she hoped that by giving Keith the date in May 1992 and the payee's name, following Mike's claim that the red diary had been bought for a hoax that went to London in April 1992, this conflict of dates [between January 1990 and May 1992] would not be followed up with the payee, who could establish the relevant facts. Anne did tell Keith that she thought Mike's enquiry had been "pre-Doreen", and that's what Keith heard and wrote down, 'muttered' or not. So she wasn't trying to convince him that it was all "post-London", and she was not to know if this would be followed up with the payee the next day, the next month or even the next year. Keith wasn't living and breathing the diary 24/7, contrary to the impression sometimes given around here by people trying to score cheap points against him. He handed the red diary investigation over to Shirley in 1999, following his Cloak & Dagger interview with Mike, and eventually traced the advert himself. How could Anne possibly have been confident in 1995 that the payee wouldn't immediately be contacted and reveal her worst fears, unless she had nothing to fear from whatever information he could provide?

Time to pull the plug, I'd say. We disagree and always will disagree. It's not the end of the world.

Far from it. It's the reasoning RJ employs when disagreeing with me that reassures me that I'm doing something right. But if he wants to pull the plug - finally - I won't try and stop him.

Love,

Caz
X

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Bingo! With great hairy knobs on!

RJ imagines Anne was such a dim woman that she thought she could take a provable 'narrative' away from Mike with an unprovable one of her own.


In fact, it's just about the dimmest narrative ever.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

That's exactly what happened though. Her unprovable narrative was believed by many rational and intelligent people. Mike was a shambles, no one believed a thing he said, so Anne's story worked a treat. Dim or otherwise, Anne's made up provenance was accepted, until it wasn't.

[rjpalmer]

Again, he must think Anne very dim indeed, if she hoped that by giving Keith the date in May 1992 and the payee's name, following Mike's claim that the red diary had been bought for a hoax that went to London in April 1992, this conflict of dates [between January 1990 and May 1992] would not be followed up with the payee, who could establish the relevant facts.

And yet, once again, Barrett's interviewer (KS) was still repeating--apparently believing it to be true--the wildly misleading May 1992 date as late as 1998 at the Cloak and Dagger Club, and you and your co-authors were still parading, without irony, Anne' version of these event in The Inside Story.

So, I don't think she was so much 'dim' as desperate and perhaps even a little insightful that the years would roll by before her deceptions were realized.

You're talking in circles, Caz..as always.

As I say, have fun with the hecklers.