The Diary — Old Hoax or New or Not a Hoax at All?​

[Iconoclast]

I tried to explain this to you last time, Caz.

Caz, you need to understand that Sherlock is cleverer than you so he 'explains' things - he doesn't postulate theories, he explains things to us because he's right and the rest of us are wrong. Hey - exactly like Orsam used to do!

[rjpalmer]

Hi Herlock,

I think we can breathe easily.

The public is not as easily misdirected as Ike thinks they are. Both he and C.A.B. have written multiple posts over the years trying to shift attention away from what is DOCUMENTED--Martin Earl's original advertisement in Bookdealer, issue No. 1044, 19th March 1992---to what is shadowy and uncertain---an unrecorded and undocumented phone call between Earl and Barrett. Ike goes as far as to invent dialogue for this call!!

This is the three-shell game, and the public will know it. They won't ignore the documented evidence in favour of a walk down the garden path with Ike and Caz.

Even if a few easily led souls scratch their heads and wonder why Barrett accepted the 1891 diary, they are still going to harken back to the original advertisement and ask themselves why this ex-con and future inventor of the Loot Magazine scam was seeking a blank diary almost immediately after hanging up the phone with Doreen---ie., at a time when there is no compelling reason to believe that the Maybrick Hoax even physically existed.

They will also wonder why Anne was so disgusted with this purchase---and so eager to distance herself from it---that she only signed her name and the amount of the purchase, forcing Barrett to fill in the other details--leaving the paper trail in his name and not (truly) in hers.

This suggests (to me) that Anne wanted no part of it, realizing it was crooked. And as is so often the case, C.A.B. has misstated my views in a previous post through sins of omission. I suggested--and it was only a suggestion--that Mike could have later tried to mollify a reluctant Anne by falsely claiming the diary would be a marketing gimmick. In other words, that it was a fictional story that blurred the lines between fiction and reality. Such books exist.

That said, I never claimed that Anne would have BELIEVED Barrett's explanation. Rather, as I have stated many times, I think she cooperated with Barrett to humor a violent alcoholic on the mistaken but reasonable belief that Londoners like Doreen Montgomery and Robert Smith would have mustered enough commonsense to see through such an obvious scam--that they would "just send Mike packing."

Unlike Ike's invented dialogue, these are not my words--they are Anne's own! "Doreen would have just sent Mike packing.'

No one who truly believed the diary was genuine or even a competent scam would have said such a thing, but Anne did. If we take her at her word, she was literally gobsmacked that Mike's project actually worked. If the wrestling match on the kitchen floor, as described by young Caroline was real (and I realize that you are skeptical of it) it might have occurred when Mike returned from London, beaming that he had "fish on the line." According to Shirley, who was there at the time, Anne could barely be dragged to the book launch and it was a relatively short time later that she left Barrett for good.

If I'm wrong about this, all it means is that Anne was a willing participant in the hoax. Only Anne can tell us. I doubt she ever will.

RP

[caz]

It so happens that very recently a correspondent has sent me a rare gem: a genuine example of Anne Graham's handwriting dating to well before 1992. It is a rather small sample, but even so, it is of considerable interest for one idiosyncratic element. It struck me immediately.

There was nothing nefarious about how this sample was obtained--it's a matter of public record--so I don't think there would be anything illegal or unethical about posting it here.

I'll have to give it some thought, though.

I wonder if it's worth the bother, as any observations would be dismissed as 'amateur opinion.' But then, when it comes to Anne's handwriting or Kane's etc, that's all we've ever had.

If Palmer strongly suspects Anne of penning the diary and is interested in testing his suspicions, rather than leaving them hanging round indefinitely, like a lingering fart after eating boiled eggs, the onus is on him to make the effort. Could he not ask a professional document examiner to compare this genuine pre-1992 sample with the diary handwriting - at the very least using the facsimile in Robert's book, if not the original document?

If the excuse is that Robert is bound to refuse access to the physical diary, and a negative or inconclusive result using the facsimile would prove nothing, I wouldn't be remotely surprised. But a positive result, or even a vaguely promising one, would be the evidence against Anne that is currently lacking, which would then put pressure on Robert to allow the direct comparison.

But are Palmer's suspicions sufficiently strong for him to test them in this way? Or is his sample just a copy, which he is seeking to compare with a copy of the diary handwriting, which would make this latest public stab at nailing Anne a bit like a blunt pencil - pointless?

[caz]

Hi Roger,

I was assuming that Caz was talking about the evidence in Rupert Crew's file which at least records what Mike said at the time. But is interesting is that she evidently discards the note typed by Anne of her husband's supposed research notes which is headed "Transferring all my notes since August 1991". Those notes, if accurately titled, would provide evidence of the existence of the diary prior to 9th March 1992 but, if they don't, and Caz doesn't seem to think they do, it means they are fake, which means that Anne was complicit in creating a fake document on Mike's behalf in support of the historic nature of the diary.

I don't think we've ever been provided with a satisfactory explanation as to why, absent her having been involved in forging the diary, she would do this, have we?

The clue is in the words: 'if accurately titled'. How would we know, since these notes were not produced until the summer of 1992, many months after the magic date of 9th March? Now you and RJ Palmer should finally have worked out between you what I was counting as 'evidence' in this saga and what I wasn't. Nothing diary related provably originates from before that date.

I love the reference to supporting 'the historic nature of the diary'. Hardly, since neither Barrett in 1992 was going back any further than the previous summer, when Tony Devereux had given the diary to Mike without explanation and promptly snuffed it. That was the story Mike had given Doreen and he was sticking to it. For whatever reason, Anne chose to go along with it, and I don't consider it to be a 'satisfactory' explanation that she would only have done this if she had helped Mike to create the diary. She knew her husband was a liar from long experience, and not a very good one. I dare say she'd have been able to learn from his mistakes when the time came, but in April 1992, when she was supposedly up to her elbows in Diamine? How could she have trusted Mike not to have told a dozen fatal lies already about the diary she was busy writing for him, and not to tell a dozen more before the month was out?

If Mike lied to Doreen and Shirley about how long he'd had the diary and how it came into his possession, and had involved Anne in this deception from the outset, it would point to a dodgy source, but it doesn't follow that it came from the pen of a Barrett - certainly not, when the suggestion of it originated with a Barrett, the one who told lies like other people breathe.

The alternative suggestion, that Mike had no legitimate claim to the diary and Anne was worried that it would all go tits up when his lies caught up with him, has a lot more going for it in terms of circumstantial evidence and independent accounts in support of it being found during electrical work at Battlecrease. Anne would have had a reason for letting it go, if it was Mike who came up with the title for his notes to keep the Devereux story reasonably straight. The wording does sound contrived, but I had Anne down as a bit brighter and more subtle than that, which is why I suspect it was Mike's idea and she went along with it, because by then it was all a bit late to change the record. Anne didn't change the record in July 1994 either, but came up with a prequel. It must have suited her at the time and there was no going back, so I can only assume she had no fear of Mike ever being able to implicate her in anything potentially criminal.

[Herlock Sholmes]

How have you been led so far down the Barrett rabbit hole, Herlock? The 'fact' that Anne 'didn't manage to remove every trace of her own handwriting from the diary' doesn't seem all that surprising to you?

Do you wish to reconsider your definition of a fact? Or is there no hope for you?

Well, Caz,I repeat and draw your attention to my #948 to which you haven't yet responded.

You yourself said that a forger would give away their identity by looping their letters in a certain way. So I'm agreeing with you here. Despite an attempt disguise her handwriting, I'm suggesting that she couldn't disguise all the loops etc.

That seems simple stuff. If Anne was the forger, which is what I’m assuming, even if I don't repeat this every single time, then it is an obvious fact that she didn't manage to remove all traces of her handwriting. So, no, I do not wish to reconsider my definition of what a fact is, thanks.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Has anyone else noticed how Herlock is the only one who appears to have understood what's going on? The number of times he says the equivalent of, "You've been told ..." and the likes is truly astonishing for some who is only recently here at the party. It's the tone of a Lord Orsam preaching down at us all from his self-built pulpit not from the low-ground of someone who prior to 2025 didn't seem to have any skin in this game whatsoever. Astonishing.

No, I hadn't misunderstood the discussion - primarily because I don't read Sholmes 'discussions' (they land so hard on the head). Nope, I was merely passing through and saw this wonderful line and couldn't resist a response:



And that gem was followed by this gem:



It is literally like reading Orsam of five years ago or whatever. I imagine that I am about to be assailed by endless screeds of why the date of a diary doesn't matter but I doubt I'll read it. I read it all when he said it before he was 'resigned' from the Casebook back in the day.



No ****, Sherlock. We all know that the guy knowingly bought an 1891 diary. The last sentence, you just took from Orsam's playbook because you haven't got one of your own (that's my polite version) and can't stop saying even though there is absolutely no evidence for it bar your interpretation of what we all know doesn't then make sense.



But I don't. It's the very sequence of events I assume occurred. He knew it was an 1891 diary. I'm not sure what difficulty you have in understanding this very simple event. And he was willing to 'pay' (loosely speaking) £66 in today's money for it ($90, RJ). Sometimes I think as the years pass the £25 is ever diminished by inflation that we cease to think that it was very much at all - but it wasn't at all not very much at all; why would he continue with the purchase of such an expensive item which he clearly could do nothing with if you and your dad are to be believed? Make it make sense, man. He clearly still had a use for the diary which was created two years after his 'innocent' target died. Think it through. Don't just cut and paste the ideas of the most pompous poster ever to grace these boards.

Look, I know you think you have a smartarse excuse and apology for why Michael Barrett wanted an 1890 diary but settled for an 1891 diary even though both of these shatter Orsam's theories into quarks, but I for one do not think that anyone would have wanted an 1891 diary with at least twenty blank pages because I - unlike you perhaps - know exactly what an 1891 blank diary would look like. It would be an 1891 diary and its entries would not yet have been made.

But maybe that's too simple for you?

Or just too awkward?

Ike, your posts aren't making any sense at all, it's like they're written by two different people.

Earlier, in your #950 you wrote (in response to my statement: "If Martin Earl had correctly described the 1891 diary to Mike based on the full description provided by Earl's supplier, which I'm sure he did ...").

"Either Martin Earl was not told by his supplier the tiny red diary was for 1891 or he was and he failed to tell Michael Barrett or Michael Barrett wanted that tiny red diary for some other reason than creating a hoaxed diary from the period 1888-1889."

Please tell me how that sentence follows on from what I posted? Neither of the two alternatives you posited are even vaguely credible. It's obvious that Earl knew it was an 1891 diary and told Barrett it was an 1891 diary. So I just don't understand your response.

Now you say "No ****, Sherlock. We all know that the guy knowingly bought an 1891 diary". Great, but if that's the case why do you write the sentence "He knew it was an 1891 diary." in bold. Surely we are all agreed MIke knew it was an 1891 diary.

I don't get it.

Yes, he was willing to pay £25 because he needed a Victorian diary with blank pages in order to create a fake Victorian diary of Jack the Ripper for which he expected to make considerably more than £25, having received interest from a literary agent. It was investment.

Tell me, because I'm confused, why do you think he was willing to spend "very much" money on a Victorian diary with blank pages?

You may well know, or think you know, with hindsight, what an 1891 diary would look like but there are plenty of diaries from the Victorian era (including 1891 presumably) in which dates are not printed and which could be from any year were it not from the handwritten dated entries. Are you prepared to agree that much? Or are you in still in denial about it?

Btw I see you are still suffering from Orsam Derangement Syndrome. Hope you manage to get some professional help for that some day.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Caz, you need to understand that Sherlock is cleverer than you so he 'explains' things - he doesn't postulate theories, he explains things to us because he's right and the rest of us are wrong. Hey - exactly like Orsam used to do!

In the particular case you are speaking of, Ike, I do think I needed to explain to Caz what Mike said at the 1999 meeting because, although she was there, she doesn't give any impression that she's read the transcript from that meeting in order to refresh her memory of what Mike said that day.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

I think we can breathe easily.

The public is not as easily misdirected as Ike thinks they are. Both he and C.A.B. have written multiple posts over the years trying to shift attention away from what is DOCUMENTED--Martin Earl's original advertisement in Bookdealer, issue No. 1044, 19th March 1992---to what is shadowy and uncertain---an unrecorded and undocumented phone call between Earl and Barrett. Ike goes as far as to invent dialogue for this call!!

This is the three-shell game, and the public will know it. They won't ignore the documented evidence in favour of a walk down the garden path with Ike and Caz.

Even if a few easily led souls scratch their heads and wonder why Barrett accepted the 1891 diary, they are still going to harken back to the original advertisement and ask themselves why this ex-con and future inventor of the Loot Magazine scam was seeking a blank diary almost immediately after hanging up the phone with Doreen---ie., at a time when there is no compelling reason to believe that the Maybrick Hoax even physically existed.

They will also wonder why Anne was so disgusted with this purchase---and so eager to distance herself from it---that she only signed her name and the amount of the purchase, forcing Barrett to fill in the other details--leaving the paper trail in his name and not (truly) in hers.

This suggests (to me) that Anne wanted no part of it, realizing it was crooked. And as is so often the case, C.A.B. has misstated my views in a previous post through sins of omission. I suggested--and it was only a suggestion--that Mike could have later tried to mollify a reluctant Anne by falsely claiming the diary would be a marketing gimmick. In other words, that it was a fictional story that blurred the lines between fiction and reality. Such books exist.

That said, I never claimed that Anne would have BELIEVED Barrett's explanation. Rather, as I have stated many times, I think she cooperated with Barrett to humor a violent alcoholic on the mistaken but reasonable belief that Londoners like Doreen Montgomery and Robert Smith would have mustered enough commonsense to see through such an obvious scam--that they would "just send Mike packing."

Unlike Ike's invented dialogue, these are not my words--they are Anne's own! "Doreen would have just sent Mike packing.'

No one who truly believed the diary was genuine or even a competent scam would have said such a thing, but Anne did. If we take her at her word, she was literally gobsmacked that Mike's project actually worked. If the wrestling match on the kitchen floor, as described by young Caroline was real (and I realize that you are skeptical of it) it might have occurred when Mike returned from London, beaming that he had "fish on the line." According to Shirley, who was there at the time, Anne could barely be dragged to the book launch and it was a relatively short time later that she left Barrett for good.

If I'm wrong about this, all it means is that Anne was a willing participant in the hoax. Only Anne can tell us. I doubt she ever will.

RP

Misdirection is a good word to describe what's going on here, Roger. I post about one thing and the response is invariably about something entirely different.

As you say, the advertisement shows clear as day what Mike wanted. But they don't want to talk about that. They just want to talk about the thing that even he said, once he saw it, wasn't suitable!

[Iconoclast]

Even if a few easily led souls scratch their heads and wonder why Barrett accepted the 1891 diary ...

Honestly, dear readers, it's gaslighting and you mustn't fall for it. "Even if a few easily led souls scratch their heads and wonder why Barrett accepted the 1891 diary". Is RJ having a laugh? Barrett accepted an 1891 diary for what RJ claims was an 1888 to 1889 hoax, and he describes any concerns anyone may have regarding this as implying that they are 'easily led'! He even invents a little cameo for Stan Laurel when he implies that those dim enough to wonder might "scratch their heads" in confusion.

Seriously, why would anyone be considered easily-led by using their brains with little actual effort? Why would they 'scratch their heads' and wonder why Barrett accepted an 1891 diary? Our readers are not stupid, RJ - they may lack knowledge of the case (which is so handy for your lot) but they are not incapable of firing off a few synapses on this one. Here's how it goes:

Premise: Someone accepted an 1891 diary.
Conclusion: Oh, simple one that - he clearly was not planning to use it to create an 1888 to 1889 hoax.

But then we get the switchback to drive right across that very valid conclusion when RJ reminds us again that Barrett was seeking a blank diary. You see, I've stopped scratching my head and I can see RJ's truth here: it's the blankness of the artefact that we should be focusing on here not the trivial detail that the artefact was utterly useless to him if filling those pages with the 'events' of 1888 and 1889 was his intention. We must concentrate on the evidence that he wanted his 1890 (and, ultimately, 1891) diary to be blank, you see?

I've got an unused 1971 diary - Barrett should have asked me, I'd have given him it for free!

at a time when there is no compelling reason to believe that the Maybrick Hoax even physically existed.

And there it is. RJ's coup de grace - there is no 'compelling' evidence that the Maybrick document existed on March 9, 1992. Anne and Billy Graham went on the record to say they had seen it long, long, long before March 9, 1992. I find that rather compelling, though I can't prove it is true; and I also find rather compelling the 'double event' that occurred on that most mythical and magical of days (the Battlecrease 'provenance') though I can't prove it is true. Not being able to prove something does not make the evidence which might point to that conclusion 'weak' or unsubstantive, and certainly not not compelling.

I can't prove that the first was true nor that the first was untrue and the latter was true, but I couldn't sit here and say neither potential provenance was not 'compelling' - they patently are compelling and would be for any jury, though perhaps not compelling enough to convict on the strength of either.

It's just the language of dismissal RJ constantly uses to fool you into thinking there is 'nothing to see here'. It's a form of gaslighting to me.

[Herlock Sholmes]

If Palmer strongly suspects Anne of penning the diary and is interested in testing his suspicions, rather than leaving them hanging round indefinitely, like a lingering fart after eating boiled eggs, the onus is on him to make the effort. Could he not ask a professional document examiner to compare this genuine pre-1992 sample with the diary handwriting - at the very least using the facsimile in Robert's book, if not the original document?

If the excuse is that Robert is bound to refuse access to the physical diary, and a negative or inconclusive result using the facsimile would prove nothing, I wouldn't be remotely surprised. But a positive result, or even a vaguely promising one, would be the evidence against Anne that is currently lacking, which would then put pressure on Robert to allow the direct comparison.

But are Palmer's suspicions sufficiently strong for him to test them in this way? Or is his sample just a copy, which he is seeking to compare with a copy of the diary handwriting, which would make this latest public stab at nailing Anne a bit like a blunt pencil - pointless?

I'm intrigued, Caz. What do you think a handwriting expert can do that Roger or the rest of us aren't able to do with our own eyes?

If there are similarities in the handwriting of Anne and the diarist, which there clearly are, as many people have agreed, that is surely enough for us to form our own opinion, especially in circumstances where Mike repeatedly said that the diary was in Anne's handwriting, even though on the surface it doesn't look like it.

Do you believe that Mike just got very lucky that the diarist looped or curled certain letters in the same way Anne does? Or do you think he'd cleverly spotted this himself through careful examination and thus falsely attributed the writing to Anne?

[Herlock Sholmes]

The clue is in the words: 'if accurately titled'. How would we know, since these notes were not produced until the summer of 1992, many months after the magic date of 9th March? Now you and RJ Palmer should finally have worked out between you what I was counting as 'evidence' in this saga and what I wasn't. Nothing diary related provably originates from before that date.

I love the reference to supporting 'the historic nature of the diary'. Hardly, since neither Barrett in 1992 was going back any further than the previous summer, when Tony Devereux had given the diary to Mike without explanation and promptly snuffed it. That was the story Mike had given Doreen and he was sticking to it. For whatever reason, Anne chose to go along with it, and I don't consider it to be a 'satisfactory' explanation that she would only have done this if she had helped Mike to create the diary. She knew her husband was a liar from long experience, and not a very good one. I dare say she'd have been able to learn from his mistakes when the time came, but in April 1992, when she was supposedly up to her elbows in Diamine? How could she have trusted Mike not to have told a dozen fatal lies already about the diary she was busy writing for him, and not to tell a dozen more before the month was out?

If Mike lied to Doreen and Shirley about how long he'd had the diary and how it came into his possession, and had involved Anne in this deception from the outset, it would point to a dodgy source, but it doesn't follow that it came from the pen of a Barrett - certainly not, when the suggestion of it originated with a Barrett, the one who told lies like other people breathe.

The alternative suggestion, that Mike had no legitimate claim to the diary and Anne was worried that it would all go tits up when his lies caught up with him, has a lot more going for it in terms of circumstantial evidence and independent accounts in support of it being found during electrical work at Battlecrease. Anne would have had a reason for letting it go, if it was Mike who came up with the title for his notes to keep the Devereux story reasonably straight. The wording does sound contrived, but I had Anne down as a bit brighter and more subtle than that, which is why I suspect it was Mike's idea and she went along with it, because by then it was all a bit late to change the record. Anne didn't change the record in July 1994 either, but came up with a prequel. It must have suited her at the time and there was no going back, so I can only assume she had no fear of Mike ever being able to implicate her in anything potentially criminal.

Still no satisfactory explanation, then, as to why, apart from her having been involved in forging the diary, Anne was complicit in creating a fake document on Mike's behalf in support of the historic nature of the diary?

[Iconoclast]

Even if a few easily led souls scratch their heads and wonder why Barrett accepted the 1891 diary ...

Honestly, dear readers, it's gaslighting and you mustn't fall for it. "Even if a few easily led souls scratch their heads and wonder why Barrett accepted the 1891 diary". Is RJ having a laugh? Barrett accepted an 1891 diary for what RJ claims was an 1888 to 1889 hoax, and he describes any concerns anyone may have regarding this as implying that they are 'easily led'! He even invents a little cameo for Stan Laurel when he implies that those dim enough to wonder might "scratch their heads" in confusion.

Seriously, why would anyone be considered easily-led by using their brains with little actual effort? Why would they 'scratch their heads' and wonder why Barrett accepted an 1891 diary? Our readers are not stupid, RJ - they may lack knowledge of the case (which is so handy for your lot) but they are not incapable of firing off a few synapses on this one. Here's how it goes:

Premise: Someone accepted an 1891 diary.
Conclusion: Oh, simple one that - he clearly was not planning to use it to create an 1888 to 1889 hoax.

But then we get the switchback to drive right across that very valid conclusion when RJ reminds us again that Barrett was seeking a blank diary. You see, I've stopped scratching my head and I can see RJ's truth here: it's the blankness of the artefact that we should be focusing on here not the trivial detail that the artefact was utterly useless to him if filling those pages with the 'events' of 1888 and 1889 was his intention. We must concentrate on the evidence that he wanted his 1890 (and, ultimately, 1891) diary to be blank, you see?

I've got an unused 1971 diary - Barrett should have asked me, I'd have given him it for free!

at a time when there is no compelling reason to believe that the Maybrick Hoax even physically existed.

And there it is. RJ's coup de grace - there is no 'compelling' evidence that the Maybrick document existed on March 9, 1992. Anne and Billy Graham went on the record to say they had seen it long, long, long before March 9, 1992. I find that rather compelling, though I can't prove it is true; and I also find rather compelling the 'double event' that occurred on that most mythical and magical of days (the Battlecrease 'provenance') though I can't prove it is true. Not being able to prove something does not make the evidence which might point to that conclusion 'weak' or unsubstantive, and certainly not not compelling.

I can't prove that the first was true nor that the first was untrue and the latter was true, but I couldn't sit here and say neither potential provenance was not 'compelling' - they patently are compelling and would be for any jury, though perhaps not compelling enough to convict on the strength of either.

It's just the language of dismissal RJ constantly uses to fool you into thinking there is 'nothing to see here'. It's a form of gaslighting to me.

[Iconoclast]

Tell me, because I'm confused, why do you think he was willing to spend "very much" money on a Victorian diary with blank pages?

Asked and answered ages ago, Johnny.

You may well know, or think you know, with hindsight, what an 1891 diary would look like ...

Well, I would hazard a guess that it would say '1891' somewhere, yes?

And - if told by Martin Earl that it was an 1891 diary - I would (if I were your version of Mike Barrett) have asked if '1891' were printed once or twice only, or - crikey! - five times on every page and - informed that it was the latter - I would rapidly lose interest. But that's only if I were your version of Michael Barrett, note. But did Earl not know how many times '1891' was printed on the diary and said so and Barrett said "Send me it anyway"? Well, that would be as interesting to me as the possibility that he would simply accept an 1891 diary at all. That tells me his purpose had nothing whatsoever to do withy creating a hoax diary with an 1891 diary. He clearly wasn't that fussed about the actual date - what he needed was a diary from around that time and with at least twenty blank pages, just like the one he had in his hands when he asked for it.

... but there are plenty of diaries from the Victorian era (including 1891 presumably) in which dates are not printed and which could be from any year were it not from the handwritten dated entries. Are you prepared to agree that much? Or are you in still in denial about it?

Yes, I imagine there were plenty of notebooks around in those days just as there are now. What's your point? If Martin Earl knew that his supplier had produced an 1891 diary, how could he have known that if it was not clearly stated somewhere? Which is something Michael Barrett would have had to fully understand if he was going to create a hoax. But he just took the totally inappropriate diary anyway which tells me he did not need it for the hoax you are trying to fit him into.

Btw I see you are still suffering from Orsam Derangement Syndrome. Hope you manage to get some professional help for that some day.

It would help if you would stop sounding so much like him. And I mean exactly like him.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Honestly, dear readers, it's gaslighting and you mustn't fall for it. "Even if a few easily led souls scratch their heads and wonder why Barrett accepted the 1891 diary". Is RJ having a laugh? Barrett accepted an 1891 diary for what RJ claims was an 1888 to 1889 hoax, and he describes any concerns anyone may have regarding this as implying that they are 'easily led'! He even invents a little cameo for Stan Laurel when he implies that those dim enough to wonder might "scratch their heads" in confusion.

Seriously, why would anyone be considered easily-led by using their brains with little actual effort? Why would they 'scratch their heads' and wonder why Barrett accepted an 1891 diary? Our readers are not stupid, RJ - they may lack knowledge of the case (which is so handy for your lot) but they are not incapable of firing off a few synapses on this one. Here's how it goes:

Premise: Someone accepted an 1891 diary.
Conclusion: Oh, simple one that - he clearly was not planning to use it to create an 1888 to 1889 hoax.

But then we get the switchback to drive right across that very valid conclusion when RJ reminds us again that Barrett was seeking a blank diary. You see, I've stopped scratching my head and I can see RJ's truth here: it's the blankness of the artefact that we should be focusing on here not the trivial detail that the artefact was utterly useless to him if filling those pages with the 'events' of 1888 and 1889 was his intention. We must concentrate on the evidence that he wanted his 1890 (and, ultimately, 1891) diary to be blank, you see?

I've got an unused 1971 diary - Barrett should have asked me, I'd have given him it for free!



And there it is. RJ's coup de grace - there is no 'compelling' evidence that the Maybrick document existed on March 9, 1992. Anne and Billy Graham went on the record to say they had seen it long, long, long before March 9, 1992. I find that rather compelling, though I can't prove it is true; and I also find rather compelling the 'double event' that occurred on that most mythical and magical of days (the Battlecrease 'provenance') though I can't prove it is true. Not being able to prove something does not make the evidence which might point to that conclusion 'weak' or unsubstantive, and certainly not not compelling.

I can't prove that the first was true nor that the first was untrue and the latter was true, but I couldn't sit here and say neither potential provenance was not 'compelling' - they patently are compelling and would be for any jury, though perhaps not compelling enough to convict on the strength of either.

It's just the language of dismissal RJ constantly uses to fool you into thinking there is 'nothing to see here'. It's a form of gaslighting to me.

You're going to have to explain to me Ike, in simple words I can understand, why an 1891 diary would not have been suitable for a fake 1888/89 diary.

While you're doing that, could you also explain to me how we know that the actual diary (i.e. the photograph album) was not manufactured in 1891.

[Iconoclast]

Still no satisfactory explanation, then, as to why, apart from her having been involved in forging the diary, Anne was complicit in creating a fake document on Mike's behalf in support of the historic nature of the diary?

Then you don't understand the dynamics that occur in a marriage. It doesn't have to be nefarious. If she knew it was stolen, it was in her interests to deflect attention on to Tony Devereux whom she knew had nothing to do with it.