New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[caz]

According to Robert Smith, in his 2017 book, Eddie Lyons "told me that he had found a book under some floorboards at Battlecrease...". Then a little later he says, "Remember, Lyons told me at The Saddle on 26th June 1993 that he found a book under the floorboards at Battlecrease..." A little bit later in the same paragraph he asks "Had Lyons found "a book" at Battlecrease on 9th March 1992....?"

Three references to what Lyons told him, all of which are "a book", none of which are an "old book".

So Lyons can't be the "witness" who mentioned an old book, if Robert Smith's account is correct, of course.

The only issue I thought I was dealing with was who was the witness who mentioned an "old book". If you want me to comment on what Eddie Lyons said to Robert Smith in June 1993 Caz I'd be happy to have a stab at it but could you first tell me where I can find a copy of Robert Smith's contemporaneous note of his conversation with Eddie? If no such note exists, I'm worried that, writing 14 years later, Robert may have forgotten what Eddie said to him. Memory, as I've said elsewhere, can play tricks on anyone. I'd also like to see exactly what Eddie Lyons said when asked about this meeting. Are you able to direct me to a transcript of any interview in which he was asked this question?

When Eddie was asked about his conversation with Brian Rawes on Friday 17th July 1992, in the drive at Battlecrease, he naturally denied telling Brian he had found anything in the house which he thought could be "important", or had asked what he should do about it, but suggested instead that he may have mentioned to Brian in passing that there were a lot of "old books" in the house - which would be an odd thing to say in isolation, just as Brian was collecting the firm's van and about to reverse back down the drive to go to another job. Brian never actually set foot in the house and had not expressed any interest in it, when Eddie caught him as he was leaving to impart this fascinating snippet of useless information.

I don't 'want' you to comment on anything, Herlock, if you don't have easy access to all the information you think would qualify you to do so. In fact, it would be better for all concerned if you didn't.

Robert Smith's original notes on his stranger than strange encounter with Eddie in the Saddle in June 1993 are Robert Smith's property, and I'm quite sure you would not be too worried if Robert had forgotten what was said during their brief conversation, when writing about it in his book. I wouldn't worry on Robert's behalf anyway, as his memory is arguably better than most and he would have referred to his notes in any case, if not directly quoting Eddie's exact words in his book.

As I think you have already been told, Herlock, I am not at liberty to direct you to any material that has not already been made available here by those in possession of it. But it has been posted on the boards that Eddie has denied on more than one occasion that he ever met Robert Smith or had any conversation with him in the Saddle. It has also been posted that Robert positively identified Eddie from a photograph, as the man introduced to him by Mike Barrett that evening.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Perhaps I'm not making myself clear, Caz. If Mike was the forger, he must have been under immense pressure due to the imminent exposure by Nick Warren of him having been a journalist. Indeed, assuming he was the forger, there is a very good chance that he realized that the game was up because he would inevitably be exposed as a liar and a scam artist who must have created the diary. For that reason, he could very well have decided to own it, get ahead of it, and tell the world about how he was a master forger who fooled everyone. That seems to fit perfectly with human behaviour as I understand it.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this point, Herlock. You are making yourself clear; I just don't agree that your argument makes any sense, either logically or from what we know happened following Mike's first attempt to confess to fraud. He'd have known the game was very much not up, because there were no consequences, either from his 'exposure' [ha ha] as the world's least well known and most untrained journalist, or from every subsequent attempt made by himself or anyone else to demonstrate how he 'must have' created the diary. He died without having been exposed as a proven co-conspirator in the diary's creation - even after trying every trick in the book over several years to expose himself [don't titter at the back there, it's not a pretty image]. Nobody who knew the man believed a single word of it. So remind me again - what 'game' did he realise was 'up' back in June 1994, and how did that pan out?

I note that you didn't quote (and respond to) the part of my post which said "And we certainly know that Mike was extremely agitated by Warren's forthcoming article in May 1994, don't we? He even threatened to sue him for libel if he went ahead with publication?" Was that a problem for you to deal with?

No, I just didn't think it merited an answer. Not all your questions do. This isn't Mastermind or the Spanish Inquisition.

Mike threatened people with solicitors like other people frown and walk away. He went down to see Eddie Lyons in Fountains Road in 1993 and threatened him with solicitors if he said he found the diary in Dodd's house. Around the same time, Mike decided to swear an affidavit to the effect that he had been given the diary in good faith by the late Tony Devereux, as he had been claiming since the start, because his ownership was now under threat.

What is your source for Mike being 'extremely agitated' by Warren's forthcoming article? How did this manifest itself? Or was he just miffed by Warren's interference and anti-Mike agenda? He wasn't planning to give Mike or the diary an easy ride, was he?

If the surprising news of Mike having been a journalist didn't come as a complete shock or disaster when it was revealed in July 1994, that can only be because there had been an even bigger shock and disaster of Mike having confessed to having forged the diary.

If you say so. It was no doubt a nasty shock at the time, for those closely involved, but it wasn't a 'disaster' because Mike tried and failed, and tried again to produce a credible account of how and when the diary was written and by whom, and still he failed.

So, of course, the journalism issue paled by comparison. Absent the confession, though, surely it would have led to some very uncomfortable questions for Mike, unless the researchers at the time were completely incompetent or, worse, unwilling to consider any evidence which pointed towards him being the forger.

Look, if Mike himself had no evidence to prove he was a forger, I'm not sure how any of the researchers were meant to find it. These included Melvin Harris, Nick Warren and Stanley Dangar, among other less prominent players, who would each have given their eye teeth at one time to expose Mike as a forger, or co-conspirator, so were they completely incompetent? Mike was even helping them to work up a case against him, with Alan Gray as a hapless middle man, and still they got no lasting joy.

As for Mike allegedly "changing his mind like the weather" I'm well aware that he told two different stories about where the diary came from. One was that he was given it by Tony Devereux, the other that he (and his wife) had forged it. But when saying that a person changes their mind like the weather it implies constant, irrational changes doesn't it? Yes, we can see that when Mike saw an opportunity from making money from the diary he would say he got it from Tony Devereux. But on other occasions - and I would suggest all other occasions - he said it was a forgery. I think it just paints a false picture to suggest he kept changing his mind like the weather as if he couldn't work out what story he liked best.

I hesitate to say that you don't know the half of it, because I will only be accused of being mean to the 'newbie' but - and it's a heck of a big but - you really don't know the half of it.

From March 1992 to June 1994, Mike was adamant that Tony Devereux had given him the diary for being a good friend.

In June 1994, Mike claimed that he had forged it by himself.

After reading Shirley's paperback, Mike decided to accuse Anne of holding the pen - not unwisely, as nobody sane could ever attribute the handwriting to him.

In January 1995, Mike added his late father-in-law, his former friend Tony and even his young daughter Caroline to the list of people in the know or involved somehow in the process of forging the diary.

We had various changes of story from that point, where Mike would revert to his original Devereux provenance whenever it suited him in the moment, restating a belief that the diary was genuine one minute, before carrying on with his forgery claims the next, allocating the various roles to himself or Anne, depending on the questions he was being asked and the effect he wanted to have on his audience. There wasn't a single coherent account that could be relied upon, right up to 1999 at the aptly named Smoke & Stagger [thank you, Keith Skinner], and yet a tiny scrap of paper with an auction date and proof of purchase would have saved Mike years of fannying about trying to maintain some sort of personal control over the diary story.

In his final years, when sobered up and less of a live wire, Mike reverted once more to the Devereux provenance and his stated belief that the diary was genuine. He tried his hand at writing a novel, and sent a chapter to Robert Smith for approval, not to try and show how he could have written the diary - that was a long gone busted flush - but in the forlorn hope of finally getting someone to believe he had it in him to be a writer in his own right.

Think of all the sad people who have auditioned for tv singing or dancing competitions, who couldn't hold a tune in a bucket or had two left feet, and you may get some idea of the mountain Mike had set himself to climb, without any of the God-given equipment.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Let me help with the confusion.

The blog at Orsam Books directly quotes Robert Smith's own account, and Smith reported that Eddie described a 'book,' not an 'old book.'

What was being disputed is Lombro and C.A.M. putting 'old' into the horse's mouth, which disagrees with what Smith wrote in 2017.

--for those interested in the minutia being strictly accurate.

Of course, calling it an 'old book' is somewhat more suggestive than calling it a 'book,' which could have been a water damaged romance paperback by Danielle Steel circa 1984, which in Wonderland at least, is more likely to be tossed into a non-existent skip than an oversize photo album with a confession of Jack the Ripper inside.

Meanwhile, I'm still puzzled why Paul Dodd never pursued the lawsuit in light of Eddie's alleged "confession," since he had sought legal advice on the matter.

But now it seems that it wasn't Eddie who called it an old book, but people who had never even seen the book, but were passing along second and third hand accounts in interviews that have not been made public.

Okay, got it.

Thanks. I guess that's progress.

Blimey, now who's desperate? Palmer doesn't believe Eddie found any book in Paul Dodd's house, despite what Eddie told Brian Rawes on Friday 17th July 1992, and went on to tell Robert Smith in June 1993. Brian had no reason to lie to anyone about this, and Eddie would have had no reason to say anything at all on either occasion, if he had found nothing at any time.

But when we know the skip didn't exist, and therefore Eddie could never have tossed the diary into it or anything else, I'm not sure how useful it is to misdirect the impressionable with the distinctly incongruous vision of Paul Dodd ever giving house room to a 'romance paperback by Danielle Steel circa 1984', which an eagle-eyed Eddie would have instantly recognised in 1992 as the odd one out, from among all those "old books" he mentioned to Brian Rawes, and taken it upon himself to spare its owner's blushes by getting rid.

What does it matter what type of book would more likely have been tossed into a skip, when we know there was no skip and nobody was claiming to have thrown Mike's diary into one? Eddie was hoping to misdirect Robert into believing that the rumours circulating about him concerned a different find, and one which did not involve theft.

I imagine any lawsuit would have failed because Dodd admitted he could not prove the diary was ever in his house, and we know Eddie went on to deny everything, so it would have come down to rumour and speculation at that time. Had the worksheet evidence been known about, in conjunction with Mike's call to Doreen on 9th March 1992, things might have been different, but the evidence would still have been circumstantial, and Dodd would have had to claim ownership - if he wanted to pursue it - on the basis of probability.

[rjpalmer]

I had the same effect on Feldy. He never posted again on the Dairy Google Group.

Victorian humor.

[Abby Normal]

even iconclast and ero are seemingly done with this nonsense lol

[Lombro2]

I had the same effect on Feldy. He never posted again on the Dairy Google Group. I guess he didn't mean I was cool when he said I was "sick"!

And you thought you were a Maybrickian's worst nightmare!

[rjpalmer]

The thought had occurred to me, yes.

[Lombro2]

Straight answer? Yes, I did. Do you think that's what did it?

[rjpalmer]

At least, I got rid of the ghost of Tom Mitchell.

Did you send an email to historyvsmaybrick@gmail.com with the subject line, "I Agree"?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Have you ever answered a straight question?

[Lombro2]

ooooo....aaarg...i am the ghost of james maybrick ohhhhh ....oooooo ..... i am ....jack the ripper

What does that nonsense mean? Where's Father Amorth when you need him?

At least, I got rid of the ghost of Tom Mitchell.

And Squatch season is starting soon so, before long, you can have this haunted house to yourselves again with only CAZper the Friendly Ghost to haunt you. You can "booooooo" her all you want.

[Herlock Sholmes]

ooooo....aaarg...i am the ghost of george damon ohhhhh ....oooooo ..... i am ....the guy who hired the american jack in the ripper to kill carrie brown …..oooooo

keep up the good work…

What does that nonsense mean? If you’re going to post stuff Lombro at least allow everyone else the chance of understanding it.

[Lombro2]

ooooo....aaarg...i am the ghost of george damon ohhhhh ....oooooo ..... i am ....the guy who hired the american jack in the ripper to kill carrie brown …..oooooo

keep up the good work…

[Herlock Sholmes]

Apart from ‘one off instance’ Abby which shows unequivocally that the diary is a forgery, there is content in the diary which whilst not being 100% proof certainly comes close. It shows how very, very unlikely it was for Maybrick to have been the ripper. The red handkerchief is one obvious example. This, along with other things, count strongly against the diary being genuine…and these are without the total proof of one off instance (on the subject of which, all that we get is “surely someone could have used”…and that kind of thing. Every suggestion against that has been put forward so far have been embarrassing and feeble to be honest)

[John Wheat]

ooooo....aaarg...i am the ghost of james maybrick ohhhhh ....oooooo ..... i am ....jack the ripper

Best not let a serious thread descend into silliness Abby LOL.