Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes
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That would have helped him and let him know that although her cheque stub was dated 18th May, she thought Mike's attempt to obtain this genuine Victorian diary had dated back to before 13th April, when Doreen was sufficiently impressed by what she saw to set the publishing wheels in motion. I can't see how "pre-Doreen" could reasonably be interpreted to mean after that date, or why Anne would have used those words if that is what she wanted to imply.
Just to add one final comment. When responding to Roger's statement that it was wildly unlikely that Anne knew about the advertisement, you comment that this would mean it was wildly unlikely that Mike "was keeping Anne fully informed in March 1992" and you refer to "Mike's advertisement". Might I suggest, though, that Mike probably didn't know of the existence of the advertisement himself. Why would he? Why would Earl have told him how he sourced his books? And, if Mike didn't know, it's not just wildly unlikely that Anne knew about the advertisement but pretty much a certainty that she did not.
Assuming Mike knew at the time who he was going to call, and what he was going to ask for, it doesn't matter to me how little he knew about the procedure, or how many people might become directly involved in the search, or how widely his request might be broadcast, but it ought to have mattered to anyone attempting to source the raw materials for faking Jack the Ripper's diary. Forewarned is forearmed, but if it is pretty much a certainty that Anne knew considerably less than Mike could have told her, or ever did tell her, about who he contacted and what he had actually asked for, she was arguably in more danger from what she didn't know about it, if she had helped Mike to turn a photo album, bought from an auction sale, into Maybrick's diary, after the red diary had to be rejected for being 'very small'.

A call to 'M Earl', when Anne was able to retrieve the cheque with the name of the payee, was bound to reveal details that she didn't know in 1995, but if Mike had had forgery in mind she'd have known it, and would have been enabling Keith to uncover potentially incriminating evidence. Her best bet in that case would have been to call Mr Earl herself to ascertain all the facts. Assuming she didn't do that, she may have considered the tiny 1891 diary, with all its 1891 dates, to be proof positive, if anyone should need it, that it had not been purchased to fake Maybrick's diary, so she was more than happy to hand it over along with the means to investigate further. Had she destroyed it, Mike's description of it as merely being 'very small' might have been left in limbo, with no physical evidence to challenge his claim that it had been purchased for forgery purposes.
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