The Night She Died

[BLUE WIZZARD]

Chava,

Sam Flynn can explain the latch better than I can, as he did research on it.

BW

[c.d.]

Hi BW,

Your point is well made. But even if she described in detail what actually took place and described the conversation verbatim, it is still possible that she made a mistake as to the DAY when this encounter took place. That is not an uncommon occurrence.

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

Sam Flynn can explain the latch better than I can, as he did research on it.

Thanks for the compliment, Wiz, but I was merely passing on what others (long ago, in the mists of time) found out

[perrymason]

I thought that the latch thing was clear by now...Chava, its as simple as you described your "sneck"...this was called a Spring Latch, and it mounted partially on the jamb and partially on the back of the door. If the latch is set "off", it means that the locking mechanism engages automatically with the doors closure. This was additional to the lock that was on the door itself, with the key issued by McCarthy. It was a secondary system used as a primary.....only because they could reach it to adjust the lock from outside the room.

I always thought that it was strange logic that the broken pane for accessing the latch is the one assumed to have been broken accidentally by a fight they had. Its evidently their sole means of entering a locked room. It seems too fortunate that the pane that breaks accidentally is in the most useful place.....when there is another broken pane in that same window, in the upper left....based on a photo POV.

Cheers.

[Sam Flynn]

And I now think that the white thing is part of the sheet that has gotten pushed over on to it.

It seems rather thin, narrow and regular in outline for that, Chava. It has more the characteristics of a white sock/stocking or (if that's too much to swallow) a silk scarf or a strip of bandage... that sort of thing. Not a part of the sheet - unless, for some reason, it had oblong strips of cloth sticking out of it at weird intervals.

[perrymason]

extra latch thought.....although a small incidental facet of the crime scene, it is important because the killer left the latch "off" himself. If he is let in by Mary, she likely has had the latch "on", it will need to be set to "off" to lock behind him later...if it is "on" when he arrives, and he just pushes the door open......he must later switch it "off" when leaving,.....if he opens it through the window, meaning it was "off" and locked, he switches it to "on" to get in and he must return it to that "off" state as he leaves.

He intentionally inhibited access to the victim,...its pretty solid evidence of it anyway. And its another first.

edited to add......if you look at the physical circumstances of the other four Canonicals, is there any evidence that the killer sought to either hide, or restrict access to a woman he had finished with before Mary Jane? He could have closed the gate at Dutfields Yard, he could have closed the lodging house door that led through to the yard at Hanbury, he left Kate in near darkness but without any cover. All he has to do is leave and close the door.....but he switches the latch first.

Something habitual maybe?

All the best.

[Jane Coram]

HI,

Bob Hinton was kind enough to post up a photo of a typical spring lock some time ago and I'm sure he won't mind me putting it up here again, as it does at least show you what it looks like.

Hugs

Jane

xxxxx

[perrymason]

Hi Jane,

Always great to see you. Thanks to you and Bob for the image, its clear that the cosmetics of the device leave some room for improvement....looks like something for a jail cell.

Which for a 10 x 10, is almost appropriate.

All the best Ms Coram

[perrymason]

A friend asked me about my comments on the spring latch as being a "secondary system". I admitted that I dont recall where I got that, and I didn't recall immediately seeing somewhere that there were in fact two keyholes in the door, if the spring latch normally required one,... I may just have assumed as much. I had assumed that the spring latch was a surface applied latch, with internal settings. The picture Jane posted of a key beside the latch made me think I may be mistaken, that there was only a single lock system on the door, and they didnt lose a key to a lock that was into the door jamb, built inside the door itself.

I would like to know definitively, so Ill look back at my notes, but if anyone knows, or recalls that the key lost by Mary and Joe wasnt the spring latch key, please pipe in.

Cheers all.

[Chava]

Gareth, I was certain it was a stocking as well. But when I look at the whole picture, I'm not so sure any longer. If you look closely at the picture it looks as if her right leg is lying on top of material that is not the under-sheet and is part of whatever is draped over the blanket.

[BLUE WIZZARD]

The lock theory is interesting.

1) Mary lets killer in, then locks door for privacy.

2) The killer lets himself in via the use of the broken window unlocking the door, then lets himself in then locks door so as not to be interrupted.
Mary must have been sleeping.

If Mary is sleeping then she would have been covered with her blanket, after the kill, the blanket is pulled aside and the butchering begins.

Even though the door is presumably lock while he is slaughtering her, he has to be very confident that he will not be caught, stuck in the room in a dead end ally.

When he leaves the room will the lock automatically lock?
If so then will it make a noise that could be heard by the people upstairs?
A spring lock would snap shut; too bad we could not be sure as to how loud it would be.

If the people upstairs from Mary could hear her say “Oh Murder” then they could have heard the lock snap shut.

I believe that the people in 1888 or any year before the big noise, had a very good sense of hearing, and could hear whispering at a distance we could only hope to have.

Today with all the noise of Radio, TV, Rock bands, cars, trucks….etc. our hearing is not as good as it should be.

I understand that Mary may have said “Oh Murder” in her sleep, or she could have been surprised by the killer and said it.

Mary was drunk and it was very late, I doubt very much she would have even known the killer was in her room, she must have been used to hearing people walking around and talking outside all the time, and her mind may have just ignored it.

I know how that works, one summer I rented a cabin, that just happened to be a few feet from a railroad track, the first night that train passed by and sacred the crap out of me, but the following nights I did not even notice the train passing by.

Could it be that the mind does not feel any danger after the first night?

Maybe Mary’s mind sensed Joe unlocking the door to let himself in as he did many times before. The mind never sleeps and if someone opens the door in an unfamiliar way it will set the alarm off in hear head, and she should have wakened.

We will never know. Or maybe we will.

BW

[perrymason]

Latch update....

Although I have not found a specific reference that the lost key was for a lock that was in the door, vs one that is applied to the inside surface of the door...I have found by some research some probable corroboration to that comment...

Im attaching examples of Victorian Spring Latches and catches and spring hinges, you will note that they are a 2 piece bit of hardware that is set to lock or not based on the manual setting, and it is applied to the inner facing side of the door and frame. The catch itself is on a spring, and can be set to engage automatically or not.

I did not find any source or evidence that Spring Latches were operated, on/off, by using a key... from the outside of the door.

For that reason I believe the lost key was for the lock that was an integral part of the door itself, and the Spring Latch was simply a supplementary interior locking mechanism which was not designed to be key accessed from outside the door. So it can only be used by the parties living in room 13 as a primary device due to the perfectly positioned broken pane.

Best regards all.

[perrymason]

Hi again,

All this window and latch stuff has me thinking....its too convenient to imagine that the pane that happens to get broken by Mary and Joe is the one that is used to access the spring latch. There are two broken panes within that same window frame, another in the opposite, upper side. I believe that part of the window was three individual panes high, and 5 smaller ones across...something like that. Im thinking that low broken pane was intentionally broken at some point specifically to access that latch.

Now...does that mean that Mary and/or Joe did it one night because they inadvertently left the latch off when they left the room and locked themselves out, or was it done by someone on the outside locked out by someone on the inside and wanting entrance anyway? Did Joe break that pane himself from outside the room when this fight occurred? Did Mary lock him out?

edited to add....or I suppose a more interesting option is whether or not that particular pane was broken in an attempt by someone unknown as yet to enter the locked room some weeks earlier.

Best regards all.

[perrymason]

Nobody cares about the latch or window?

For me I see the latch playing a role that night and that the window pane that is used to access the latch as being broken for that very reason....albeit prior to that night.

Who broke that particular pane I wonder?

Cheers

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Perry Mason!

It was broken by MJK as far as I can recall!

All the best
Jukka