New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[Lombro2]

Caz came up with a new idea about the "alleged" Saddle pub transaction:

Mike conned Eddie out of the diary with no cash changing hands, on the pretext of having 'contacts' who would know how best to handle and place it. In short, he nicked it off the nicker. Mike promised to get back to Eddie when he knew more... [Then] Eddie learned that Mike had only gone and hooked a book publisher, and not just some private collector who would pay in cash and ask no questions.

So Eddy had the Diary and immediately went to a pub at a time when Mike Barrett was known to regularly stop in. Why? Was it just because he was a published author? Mike was already a dealer in scrap metal and we know he was a thief. So dealer and thief equals fence or, at least, it strongly suggests the possibility. Mike claimed it and ran with it, apparently knowing that Eddy couldn't call the cops on him.

So now it looks to me like there's a good possibility that Mike was a regular fence and dealer in stolen property, and he and Eddy already had some sort of association. Otherwise why would Eddy give him the book? Eddy must have trusted him because of previous dealings and got "conned".

[Iconoclast]

Caz came up with a new idea about the "alleged" Saddle pub transaction:

The idea of Mike being a regular fence of stolen goods is an interesting one, Lombro2, though there is zero evidence for it - but, for clarity, Caz's idea about why Mike received the scrapbook is not new, she and others have proposed this many times over the long years of this debate.

[Scott Nelson]

How about Mike already possessing the diary when he meets Eddie in the pub (without the actual diary in hand)? Eddie only gives Mike the idea that it could have come from Dodd's house, so Mike is comfortable with that provenance, should he need to use it in the near future.

[Lombro2]

This is the problem I posed in post 1.

The Battlecrease Provenance is clearly written in the Diary. If Barrett used it and was given confidence to use it by Eddy’s information, why didn’t he embrace it when the rumors started trickling out?

[Lombro2]

Then of course, the electricians, and the rumours they apparently started, provided Michael with his “air-tight” cookie tin alibi to take care of the INKonsistecies. But he didn’t think to use that either even though he invented or incorporated a Battlecrease Provenance.