If Schwartz Lied ...

[caz]

Here’s my rough ideas, for what it’s worth.

02:00 ish - Mrs Stride helps clean 2 rooms at Flower and Dean doss house.

05:00 - Fixed point officer takes over the duty at cnr. Grove and Commercial

6:00 ish - Mrs Stride cleans up (not to met a man as has been suggested, but to go to the Queens Head, Commercial St.

07:00 ish - Mrs Stride returns to the doss house, sans a man. She gives Catherine Lane a piece of velvet to mind.

8:00 ish - She leaves the Doss house...

I have often wondered how and when Stride got that piece of velvet. If it was the first and last time she asked anyone to mind it for her while she was out, that would strongly suggest a recent acquisition, especially if she gave it to Catherine on her return to the doss house, knowing she would be going out again. Was this also when she asked to borrow a clothes brush?

Could she have been approached earlier in the Queen's Head, by a man who gave her the velvet as a token of good faith? A down payment for another transaction later the same night? Is that why she was heard to turn some other punter down, with a "Not tonight, maybe some other night"? Was she waiting for Velvet Man to sweep her off her feet?

Nichols - a jolly bonnet?

Chapman - a scarf?

Stride - a piece of velvet? Cachous? Grapes?

Eddowes - all the booze she could wish for? A leather cigarette case?

Kelly - a fish supper?

Love,

Caz
X

[Joshua Rogan]

I see you may have missed 2 nooks or crannies on the stretch on Commercial Road between Gower's Walk and Backchurch Lane. They look like they could be a dead-end alley and a yard like Dutfield's Yard, but I'm not sure.

Hi Frank,
These two straddled a cooperage, and both led to a large roofed yard at the rear where barrels were stored. I can't see that there were any private dwellings within, so suspect that the gates would likely have been closed overnight. Although there may have been a watchman or caretaker and, if so, Smith might have checked in with them.

The next best thing would be the sort of square just above Batty Gardens, right opposite the entrance to Brunswick Place on the eastern side of Backchurch Lane.

This was also a cooper's yard (different owners), so the same goes as above. And also a stable-yard (seaparate entrances) to the south. Don't know how this would have operated. But it looks to be related to the cooper's business.

[GBinOz]

I have often wondered how and when Stride got that piece of velvet. If it was the first and last time she asked anyone to mind it for her while she was out, that would strongly suggest a recent acquisition, especially if she gave it to Catherine on her return to the doss house, knowing she would be going out again. Was this also when she asked to borrow a clothes brush?

Could she have been approached earlier in the Queen's Head, by a man who gave her the velvet as a token of good faith? A down payment for another transaction later the same night? Is that why she was heard to turn some other punter down, with a "Not tonight, maybe some other night"? Was she waiting for Velvet Man to sweep her off her feet?

Nichols - a jolly bonnet?

Chapman - a scarf?

Stride - a piece of velvet? Cachous? Grapes?

Eddowes - all the booze she could wish for? A leather cigarette case?

Kelly - a fish supper?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

I think Velvet man was already sweeping her off her feet. She wanted a clothesbrush to look her best for him. Witnesses at the Bricklayers Arms and Marshall describe an affectionate couple. The couple seen by Brown were right where Mortimer placed the young couple she saw and spoke to after Liz's death. Velvet man had also bought her a flower and grapes. I might be naive, but I see a tragic woman desperately trying to salvage a little romance from an otherwise wretched life.

Cheers, George

[FrankO]

Hi Frank,
These two straddled a cooperage, and both led to a large roofed yard at the rear where barrels were stored. I can't see that there were any private dwellings within, so suspect that the gates would likely have been closed overnight. Although there may have been a watchman or caretaker and, if so, Smith might have checked in with them.

This was also a cooper's yard (different owners), so the same goes as above. And also a stable-yard (seaparate entrances) to the south. Don't know how this would have operated. But it looks to be related to the cooper's business.

Thanks for the information, Joshua - much appreciated!

Do you, perhaps, know what the yard below the "A" of "TRAMWAY" was, almost in the middle between Backchurch Lane and Berner Street? Would that have been checked by Smith?

And, what do you think could explain why Smith wouldn't have heard any shouting, especially by Eagle & Kozebrodski? Do you have you any ideas on that?

Cheers,
Frank

[Joshua Rogan]

Do you, perhaps, know what the yard below the "A" of "TRAMWAY" was, almost in the middle between Backchurch Lane and Berner Street? Would that have been checked by Smith?

This was the yard of Mr William Murray, carman, at 68 Commercial Road. The yard gave access to stables and van-sheds which took up the centre of that block. Like the other yards, I'd imagine this was locked up out of business hours, but can't say for sure. There is one dwelling in the yard so possibly not, but then, there's a fair chance this was Murray's own residence.

And, what do you think could explain why Smith wouldn't have heard any shouting, especially by Eagle & Kozebrodski? Do you have you any ideas on that?

Not really, other than I don't know if a shout would carry as far as Gower's Walk. Certainly if a cart or tram was passing nearby I'd think it would make it very difficult to hear things from any distance.

It strikes me that Smith's beat would have been one of the more fragrant ones (apart from the ubiquitous smell of horses, of course). There was a confectioners making jam for a biscuit manufacturers at Gower's walk, and another biscuit factory and a spice & drug mill in Fairclough Street. I used to drive past a Mr Kipling's cake factory on my way to work and always wound down the window for a lungful. Maybe Smith was stood outside one of these having a quick inhale!

[Herlock Sholmes]

.
Eagle told the coroner that he lived at 4, New-road, Commercial-road. Not particularly far from the club.
London Evening News, Oct 1:

I frequent the club. I went into it about 12:40 on this night that you are asking me about, which was about 20 minutes before the body was discovered. I had been in the club before that evening, and had left the premises at midnight in order to see my girl home, with whom I was keeping company. I saw my sweetheart to the door of the house where she was living, and then walked back to the club through little small streets. On my way I saw nothing to excite my attention. There were numbers of persons about of both sexes, and several prostitutes; but there are always a lot of people in the streets, and they are generally very lively at this time of night. I can swear that there was nothing in the streets to arouse my suspicions or the suspicions of any other man in his senses. After seeing my girl home, I went back to the club in Berner-street. The front door was closed, so I went round to the back door on the left-hand side. Later on I went over the same ground with Diemschitz. There is nothing unusual in members of the club going in to the club by the side door; in fact we often do so, when we go in to the club late at night, so as to prevent the knocking at the door, which might be a nuisance to the neighbours. There is no light of any sort in the yard, though there are lights in the street, as there are in every other street. In the club we had a rare good time. We were singing songs and all that sort of thing. Then there was a sudden scare among us; Diemschitz came in and said a woman had been murdered outside. I ran into the yard immediately and I saw in the yard a stream of blood. There was a general hue and cry for the police. I and others went off to find the officers, so I had no opportunity of seeing the body. Besides, I did not want to look at it, as those sights make me feel ill.

The blue highlight is for anyone who supposes that Eagle could not have possibly seen Stride on his return to the club, or that the entire episode that involved Schwartz, could have gone completely unnoticed.
The red highlight should be considered against the following from the inquest.

I had been there about 20 minutes, when a member named Gilleman came upstairs and said, "There is a dead woman lying in the yard."

Who came in and told the members about the murder - Diemschitz or Gilleman?

You just can’t help imagining mystery when there is none can you? Eagle obviously knew that it was Diemschutz who found the body and that it was Diemschutz who told those inside about the body. Diemschutz came in and then Gulleman relayed this message to the members upstairs.

Another attempt to create a mystery.

[JeffHamm]

To zero or less?



He sharpened up his arrival time, from an estimate, to a precise time supposedly determined by reading a clock in shop window. That is the evidence. Memory does not sharpen up over time.

Actually, it can, though like anything related to human cognition, there can be other things going on as well when we view it in the wild. But basically, here's a simple research type paradigm, where one can control the situation a lot more. You get people to go over a list of random words, let's say something like 20 of them to make it a challenge. Then you ask them to recall them after some delay. They'll not get the whole list on their first attempt at recall (unless you give them so much time to commit it to memory verbatim, and combine that with a short retention interval of course, but that's a different situation). However, if you give them another chance, and another, they'll generally recall words they missed before, improving their recall over a series of repeated attempts. Since each attempt at recall is later in time, their memory performance is "sharpening" over time.

Now, to directly translate the above controlled experimental type situation to the complex situation of witness testimony and such, is a bit dangerous from an investigative perspective as memory is a funny thing, and there is the danger of false details creeping in and getting misremembered as actual events. Repeated retellings of events can risk the danger of "filling in the blanks", and cementing in details that did not occur.

Does this mean that Deimshutz's statement that he saw the clock is a false memory? No, of course not. Might it be, I suppose it could be. But, the fact that he says "about 1 o'clock" in one telling of his information, and "exactly 1 o'clock" in a different retelling is also the type of change in wording that happens when you ask someone to tell the same story multiple times because they are not repeating a script, they are putting words together to convey a gist. So, if Deimshutz checked the clock, as appears to have been his habit upon his return, then it would not be surprising if he at one time says he "arrived about 1 o'clock" and on another tells it as "exactly 1 o'clock"; it would simply reflect the whether or not his memory of checking the clock influenced his spontaneous word choice to convey the gist of his arrival time. The fact he uses different phrasings is reflective of normal human speech. When someone tells a story, in exactly the same way each and every time, it begins to look like a rehearsed story, and that would be suspicious particularly early after discovery. That would be the sort of thing that might point to a cover story, but we don't see those sorts of speech patterns. We see the normal variation in phrasing, with more or less detail at different points in the telling, exactly like someone recalling a real event on multiple occasions.

In other words, the fact that there are some differences between the various statements is pretty much what one would expect to see if, in fact, someone is giving an account of an event they actually did take part in. A lack of differences is what one expects to see if someone has rehearsed a story. Sometimes it is the errors, or lack thereof, that tell you whether or not what the person is relating is a real event. And of course, the expected differences between versions only increase when you have the same event retold by different people. What you look for, to try and get an idea of what happened, is if there is a common underlying gist to the various tellings, with the conflict being in the finer details. Focusing on and magnifying the details is to lose sight of the bigger picture.

Of course, one should never completely blind themselves to contradictions, as they can be important. When someone is making up events, keeping the details, and the gist, straight can be complicated. When people are making up a story, to mask their guilt, what often happens is a conflict in the details arise, but that conflict in the fine detail fundamentally conflicts with the underlying gist between the two versions. We don't have that conflict of gist here. We have him arriving at 1 o'clock, and saying "about" or "exactly" is a minor change based upon whether or not the telling at that time draws upon his memory of his having checked the time.

- Jeff

[NotBlamedForNothing]

He's not writing a technical report, he's speaking and saying how he came up with the time. He knows his travel times, and he estimated he was back for about 20 minutes, he adds up those times (a calculation by the way) and gives his estimate.

No, he's not writing a technical report, but he is speaking under oath. He could only know the walking time from his girlfriend's place to the club, if he were in the habit of walking her home and going back to the club for supper. I think he stretched his calculation to include his time at the club, to make his estimate sound more credible.

He may have passed her, she was seen in the area by others, but he didn't take notice of her and didn't recall seeing her if he did. What that's hardly surprising, not everyone remembers every person they pass while going to and fro, it doesn't constitute proof he did see her, it only allows the conjecture he may have passed her. Some people do recall random people they see, some don't, and some people pass an area when others are not there.

So you think it possible that Eagle well remembered how long he had been back at the club, but not that he had passed the to be victim, right before entering the club? So no chance of his memory sharpening up when he saw her lying on the ground?

C: Did you see anyone about in Berner-street?
E: I dare say I did, but I do not remember them.

I dare say he did see some people, and at about 12:40, who else could it have been other than Stride and Smith's man?

That seems pretty simple, Diemshutz came in, told people, and the news spread. At some point Gilleman hears, probably when Diemshutz first made his announcement but I can't say that for sure, and then Gilleman went upstairs to tell others. It is the sort of thing that people would likely pass on once they hear it after all.

You just can’t help imagining mystery when there is none can you? Eagle obviously knew that it was Diemschutz who found the body and that it was Diemschutz who told those inside about the body. Diemschutz came in and then Gulleman relayed this message to the members upstairs.

Another attempt to create a mystery.

So when Diemschitz came in, was Eagle downstairs or upstairs?

Morning Advertiser:

C: When did you hear of the murder?
E: A member named Gidleman came up and said there was a dead woman in the yard.

Daily News:

E: As soon as I entered the gateway on the night in question I heard a friend of mine singing-perhaps the window was partly open, but I am not sure. He was singing in the Russian language. I went up and we sang together. I had been there about 20 minutes when the man I mentioned-Gigelmann-came and said, "There is a dead woman lying in the yard." I went down in a second, struck a match, and saw a woman lying on the ground near the gates with a lot of blood near her.

Apparently he was upstairs. So the story has changed from the LEN account...

We were singing songs and all that sort of thing. Then there was a sudden scare among us; Diemschitz came in and said a woman had been murdered outside. I ran into the yard immediately and I saw in the yard a stream of blood.

Eagle said he then struck a match. AF agrees...

Comrades Morris Eygel, Fridenthal and Gilyarovsky were standing around the body. Eygel struck a match and shouted to the figure lying there: “Get up!”

One wonders where Diemschitz was at this point. Perhaps on Commercial Road, about to turn into Berner street.

Sure, I can see that, as I indicated earlier that she could be referring to Eagle, but from what you presented, she could have been referring to Lave as well. We don't know where Lave went, but as I said, he could easily enter the club and not have been seen doing so by Mrs. D. That's still not a thing.

If it were Lave, then it would seem he told Mrs D very similar things to those said by Eagle at the inquest, regarding his entry to the club, including the possibility of having missed seeing the body. So that would be as though Lave and Eagle were reading from a script, which is ironic considering I'm supposed to be the conspiracy theorist.

Lave: I am a Russian, and have recently arrived in England from the United States. I am residing temporarily at the club. About twenty minutes before the alarm I went down into the yard to get a breath of fresh air. I walked about for five minutes or more, and went as far as the street. Everything was very quiet at the time, and I noticed nothing wrong.

If Lave were out on the street before Eagle's return, how could he have missed seeing Stride? If he re-entered the club after Eagle, how could he not have seen Stride at the gateway? If she were not there at that time, where was she? At the board school corner? Was she still there when James Brown was returning home?

And if Lave did go into the club, then the editor's office would be a losing bet. We don't know where he went as it is not, to my knowledge, recorded. All else is guess work.

- Jeff

So what is your best guess as to when the incident involving Schwartz occurred?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I have often wondered how and when Stride got that piece of velvet. If it was the first and last time she asked anyone to mind it for her while she was out, that would strongly suggest a recent acquisition, especially if she gave it to Catherine on her return to the doss house, knowing she would be going out again. Was this also when she asked to borrow a clothes brush?

Could she have been approached earlier in the Queen's Head, by a man who gave her the velvet as a token of good faith? A down payment for another transaction later the same night? Is that why she was heard to turn some other punter down, with a "Not tonight, maybe some other night"? Was she waiting for Velvet Man to sweep her off her feet?

Nichols - a jolly bonnet?

Chapman - a scarf?

Stride - a piece of velvet? Cachous? Grapes?

Eddowes - all the booze she could wish for? A leather cigarette case?

Kelly - a fish supper?

Love,

Caz
X

What might she have done with the velvet? Make a dress? Was she planning on getting married?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

And, what do you think could explain why Smith wouldn't have heard any shouting, especially by Eagle & Kozebrodski? Do you have you any ideas on that?

Eagle: When I got outside I saw Jacobs and another going for the police in the direction of Fairclough-street, and I then went to the Commercial-road, all the time shouting "Police!"

Abraham Hershburg did not hear these shouts, although he did hear the sound of a police whistle from inside his place at 28 Berner street, even though the sound had supposedly originated from behind intervening buildings. So perhaps Eagle shouted while running up Berner street and beyond, but not very loudly?

[JeffHamm]

Hi NBFN,

No, he's not writing a technical report, but he is speaking under oath. He could only know the walking time from his girlfriend's place to the club, if he were in the habit of walking her home and going back to the club for supper. I think he stretched his calculation to include his time at the club, to make his estimate sound more credible.

Doesn't matter that he's under oath, he's speaking, using language as people do. And, regardless, adding up his estimated times to arrive at an estimate of when he first saw the body is by definition a calculation, even if one of those estimates is his subjective idea of how long he was at the club after having returned. It's still addition, and addition is a calculation.

And why wouldn't he be in the habit of walking between his girlfriend's home and the club? That's hardly something that might be considered unusual behaviour, and certainly far more likely to be correct than our guesses as to his internal motivations for providing an estimate that happens to correspond with other witnesses. The far more simpler explanation is that the body was found at 1 o'clock (thereabouts, given Deimshutz's spotting of the clock at 1, the body finding was probably between 1:00, 1:01, or 1:02 type thing, all of which would be satisfactorily testified to as "about 1".

So you think it possible that Eagle well remembered how long he had been back at the club, but not that he had passed the to be victim, right before entering the club? So no chance of his memory sharpening up when he saw her lying on the ground?

C: Did you see anyone about in Berner-street?
E: I dare say I did, but I do not remember them.

I dare say he did see some people, and at about 12:40, who else could it have been other than Stride and Smith's man?

yes, I think that's very possible. His return to the trip would be of personal interest to him, random people on the street he might pay very little attention to at all, which he seems to indicate was the case. He's not even saying he did see anyone, only that he dare says he did, which is more or less saying "there probably were some people around, but I took no notice". He says he doesn't remember them, and given his response we can also suggest he doesn't remember the street being empty either. That indicates he paid no attention, and therefore would have no memory to jog when he saw the body.

And, as I've said, it's not unreasonable to suggest that Eagle did walk past Stride when he returned at around 12:40, and if that's correct, then she's still alive at around 12:40.

Who else could it be? Spooner and his girlfriend were in the vicinity, though further down on Fairclough, but if they were strolling about maybe them? Also, Mrs. M. mentions a couple other than Stride (a man and his sweetheart I think she refers to them as?), so it could have been them. Mrs. M herself, out on her step, could be someone he vaguely recalls, and she's forgotten him and only remembers the man with the black shiny bag (or her suggestion that the man may have come from the club has conflated shiny bag man with Eagle's return). There's all sorts of people he dare could have passed, but paid no attention to, and so hasn't the foggiest idea what they looked like.

So when Diemschitz came in, was Eagle downstairs or upstairs?

Morning Advertiser:

C: When did you hear of the murder?
E: A member named Gidleman came up and said there was a dead woman in the yard.

Daily News:

E: As soon as I entered the gateway on the night in question I heard a friend of mine singing-perhaps the window was partly open, but I am not sure. He was singing in the Russian language. I went up and we sang together. I had been there about 20 minutes when the man I mentioned-Gigelmann-came and said, "There is a dead woman lying in the yard." I went down in a second, struck a match, and saw a woman lying on the ground near the gates with a lot of blood near her.

Apparently he was upstairs. So the story has changed from the LEN account...

Almost all comparisons of the newspapers will result in similar conflicts. This is why the newspapers cannot be relied upon. Also, how people talk to the newspapers and what gets put into the stories, results in this sort of thing. For example, let's say that what actually happened was that Eagle was upstairs singing, and Gigleman was the one who comes up and tells everyone that Deimshutz has found a body of a woman outside the club. When Eagle speaks to the news, that could easily get reported as Deimshutz told him directly, as in he tells them something like "I was at the club when Deimshutz told us of the body he found", which describes the situation (the us meaning the club in general in this statement), and the reporter writes it up as if there were direct communication between them. That doesn't even require "dressing up" by the reporter to make the story more captivating.

We were singing songs and all that sort of thing. Then there was a sudden scare among us; Diemschitz came in and said a woman had been murdered outside. I ran into the yard immediately and I saw in the yard a stream of blood.

Eagle said he then struck a match. AF agrees...

Comrades Morris Eygel, Fridenthal and Gilyarovsky were standing around the body. Eygel struck a match and shouted to the figure lying there: “Get up!”

One wonders where Diemschitz was at this point. Perhaps on Commercial Road, about to turn into Berner street.

No, by this time Diemshutz has returned, as he's the one who alerted the members of the club to the body in the first place. He can't do that from Commercial Road.

If it were Lave, then it would seem he told Mrs D very similar things to those said by Eagle at the inquest, regarding his entry to the club, including the possibility of having missed seeing the body. So that would be as though Lave and Eagle were reading from a script, which is ironic considering I'm supposed to be the conspiracy theorist.

Yes, if it were Lave. I rather suspect after the body was found, anyone who recently entered the club was probably saying things like "I came in not long ago and I didn't see anything in the ally", and so forth. Given that both Eagle and Lave apparently enter through the back door around 12:40ish, it would not be unlikely that they both said something to that effect at some point (probably after the police are there and everyone's standing around talking about the events of the night). They're not all going to stand around and have minute's silence, they're going to act like people do under tragic situations and talk about what's going on.

Lave: I am a Russian, and have recently arrived in England from the United States. I am residing temporarily at the club. About twenty minutes before the alarm I went down into the yard to get a breath of fresh air. I walked about for five minutes or more, and went as far as the street. Everything was very quiet at the time, and I noticed nothing wrong.

If Lave were out on the street before Eagle's return, how could he have missed seeing Stride? If he re-entered the club after Eagle, how could he not have seen Stride at the gateway? If she were not there at that time, where was she? At the board school corner? Was she still there when James Brown was returning home?

Again, lot's of ways to miss seeing someone. Stride could be further down the street at that time, and he's not looking in that direction. Or, he wasn't paying attention to people standing off down the way, and so forth. There's no reason for anyone at this point to be on guard and scanning for anything. It's a night out, probably drinks being enjoyed, with singing and what not. Not everyone engages in people watching, so at this point, it's hardly surprising when someone admits they don't recall seeing anything. Maybe she was there and he just didn't take note, hence, doesn't remember her.

So what is your best guess as to when the incident involving Schwartz occurred?

What makes a guess better or worse than another? They're just guesses after all. But, given we have Eagle and Lave returning around 12:40ish, and there's no indication of a struggle going on (that would have been noticed), nor is there evidence of a recently roughed up Stride fixing herself up (indicating that B.S. left after throwing her to the ground, and she was still alive), nor did they see her body in the ally (indicating B.S. hadn't killed her after Schwartz left the area), that would suggest that Schwartz's events occur after their arrival. Since she's found dead at 1:00, it had to have happened before that. So, sometime after 12:40 and before 1:00 seems to be the time window we're looking at. There may be other testimony that narrows that further of course, but given what we've been focusing on, we can at least get that far.

- Jeff

[GBinOz]

Hi NBFN,


What makes a guess better or worse than another? They're just guesses after all. But, given we have Eagle and Lave returning around 12:40ish, and there's no indication of a struggle going on (that would have been noticed), nor is there evidence of a recently roughed up Stride fixing herself up (indicating that B.S. left after throwing her to the ground, and she was still alive), nor did they see her body in the ally (indicating B.S. hadn't killed her after Schwartz left the area), that would suggest that Schwartz's events occur after their arrival. Since she's found dead at 1:00, it had to have happened before that. So, sometime after 12:40 and before 1:00 seems to be the time window we're looking at. There may be other testimony that narrows that further of course, but given what we've been focusing on, we can at least get that far.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

The 12:40 is being deduced as 20 minutes before the alarm. If the alarm was at 12:40, as stated by Kozebrodski, then Eagle and Lave returned before anything happened and there's no mystery at all.

Whose testimony can be believed is a difficult choice. Some will propose that Mr and Mrs Diemshitz and other witnesseses say Louis arrived at 1 o'clock and therefore that is a fact. Then when the question of grapes arises they will say Mr and Mrs Diemshitz and other witnesses are wrong - there were never any grapes. It seems the reliability of witnesses testimony can be adjusted in accordance with whether their statement happens to agree with the poster.

Cheers, George

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

The 12:40 is being deduced as 20 minutes before the alarm. If the alarm was at 12:40, as stated by Kozebrodski, then Eagle and Lave returned before anything happened and there's no mystery at all.

Whose testimony can be believed is a difficult choice. Some will propose that Mr and Mrs Diemshitz and other witnesseses say Louis arrived at 1 o'clock and therefore that is a fact. Then when the question of grapes arises they will say Mr and Mrs Diemshitz and other witnesses are wrong - there were never any grapes. It seems the reliability of witnesses testimony can be adjusted in accordance with whether their statement happens to agree with the poster.

Cheers, George

Hi George,

Yes, 12:40 is 20 minutes before Deimshutz's arrival at 1:00, which he testifies is based upon reading a clock, and for which there is no evidence that calls that into question. There's lot's of conjecture, and supposition, but in the end nothing of substance. Now, the only other clock based time that springs to my mind is the arrival of the doctor at 1:16, and as far as I can recall all other times are estimates. Given 1:16 is so far after the fact it would, by itself, offer little in the way of an anchor point upon which to work with to try and deduce the other times (like Eagle's or Lave's arrival times), if we were for the moment to set aside Deimshutz's 1 o'clock, then what do we now mean by time? What's our common reference point? What does it mean to say the murder happened at 12:55? Do we mean 12:55 real time, or do we mean 12:55 as an estimate of real time (since all we are left with are estimates)? And if we're going to describe a time-line based upon estimates of real time, why set aside Deimshutz's time at all, as it would have to be viewed as just another estimate; what is gained by saying "he estimated 1:00, but I'm going to say he should have estimated 12:55?" We also have Eagle estimating he saw the body around 1:00, admittedly he's estimating the time, but now we have 2 people estimating the discovering of the body to be around 1:00. Trying to deduce a "real time of 12:55" but calling all the statements of time to work with estimates is to set up an impossible situation. The most common time, either testified as being based upon a clock or presented as an estimate of the time, set the body discovery at 1o'clock, hence I use that as the reference point. If someone wants to change the reference point to something else, say 12:50, or 1:10, then just subtract or add 10 minutes to all of the times I give accordingly. It doesn't really matter, particularly as the Doctor's watch is unlikely to be in sync with Deimshutz's clock, so even that 16 minute window could be 18 minutes, or 14, etc. We don't know by how much the two clocks were out of sync, or in which direction. We can, however, try and work out the comings and goings, the relative order people arrive and leave, and based upon that, and using our two anchor points of 1:00 and 1:16, work out if more, or less, time was needed. If more is needed, and it's within a few minutes, we might be satisfied that reflects the Doctor's watch being slow relative to Deimshutz's clock. Personally, I rather suspect 16 minutes will be enough time to fit in the fetching of the police, the arrival of Spooner, and the eventual arrival of the Doctor, and the other events that were all going on simultaneously. And if those estimates of duration and so forth seem accurate enough, then we can extend our trust backwards a bit to try and work out the estimated times for the events prior to Stride's discovery, which of course include narrowing down the time window in which Schwartz's incident was supposed to occur.

The grapes are another matter, one which I've not kept abreast of. As I recall, there is no mention of a grape stalk by either the police who examined her, or by the doctor. It's not clear to me when the grapes start appearing in people's statements, whether it is before or after Packer was in the news. Packer made a bit of a fuss, I believe, and I think there's reports he talked quite freely about serving grapes to Stride and a man (presumably JtR), not just to the press but to the people in general. Not sure where I get that memory from, and it could be something my brain has made up, but if it's not a confabulation then it probably is found or implied in some of the letters and/or communications between the police and HO. Anyway, the medical opinion was that Stride had not consumed the skin or pips of grapes that evening, but some have argued she may have spat them out, and only swallowed the soft fleshy bits. As such, there's conflicting evidence that cannot co-exist easily, either she ate grapes, was holding both cachous and a grape stalk at the time of her murder (dropping neither), but that the grape stalk was lost by the time she was examined by the police (or during that examination) and so was not there when the doctor examined her, or there never was a grape stalk in her hand but due to rumours going around and Packer's claim of having sold grapes to Stride and a man, people then convinced themselves they saw them. That too can happen. But being incorrect about the grapes doesn't mean incorrect about everything. Each topic of evidence needs to be explored in its own right. Anyway, I'm sure I've got some details wrong about the grapes, as I say, I'm working off of very old memories here as I've never paid much attention to the grapes and all of the ins and outs of the statements surrounding them.

- Jeff

[drstrange169]

>>Whose testimony can be believed is a difficult choice. Some will propose that Mr and Mrs Diemshitz and other witnesseses say Louis arrived at 1 o'clock and therefore that is a fact. Then when the question of grapes arises they will say Mr and Mrs Diemshitz and other witnesses are wrong - <<

In isn't a question of witnesses being all right or all wrong. It's more a case of testing their statements against external factors. The Deimshitz's are likely to be right about 1:00 a.m. because so many external factors point to it.

The issue of the grapes has to also be weighed by external evidence.

[drstrange169]

With regards to Smith's beat, I turn to Monty's book which has an official route in it (Mizens).

What seems clear to me and makes sense, is that, unless they are going down a dead end, the beat bobby never goes up and down a street at the same time.
For example in Smith's case he might go down Berner along Fairclough then up Batty, covering the "up" Berner later. The advantage of this from a policing point of view is that the same street is covered twice at different times, thus increasing the police presence.