Move to Murder: Who Killed Julia Wallace?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Yawn...
from someone who remembers....

'The Liverpool Corporation was the local government body and apart from owning most of the new housing estates they also ran the transport system of cream & green buses and trams which ran like clockwork, there was a bus or tram into the city every fifteen or twenty minutes.'

http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/showthread.php?33935-1948-Those-Were-The-Days-My-Friend

Even more frequently in 1931, actually, every 8 or 9 minutes - as detailed in Antony's book...

Keep digging the holes Rod and I’ll keep filling them in.

If you’re suggesting that the Liverpool tram system in 1931 never had a tram arrive late then you’re living on Fantasy Island. And if Wallace, as you suggest, planned his journey to get to the club at exactly 7.45 the tram would only have had to have been one or two minutes late for Wallace to have been late.

A sensible, conscientious man like Wallace would have aimed to get there at least 5 or 10 minutes early rather than risk being late.

No question.

[RodCrosby]

A sensible, conscientious man like Wallace....

So...
Where is your evidence that he was ever late, let alone late that particular evening?

[Herlock Sholmes]

As a landlord, holding a couple of dozen properties for 20 years, all I know is that locks are one of my biggest bugbears...

Another pathetic attempt at boasting. Just like the time you said ‘from the random £50 I have in my wallet’. You needn’t waste your time Rod unless you have a collection of Wendy houses.

a) when a lock 'fails', it seems to fail intermittently. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes it seems to be problematic, then 'perfect' again...

Convenient that. You have an experience which ‘just happens’ to provide you with some kind of weak lifeline. Nothing to see here...

b) external doors, in particular, seem to exacerbate any lock problem. Wooden doors expand and contract throughout the year.

My locks aren’t affected. Neither are anyone that I’ve ever known.

c) when stressed, as in when dealing with a 'problem' at a property, my impression (and it is probably just my impression) is that the above issues seem to loom large. I try the wrong key, or I am too violent - or too timid - when trying to gain entrance. I have to take a deep breath, and start again. Then the door yields....

An utter fabrication to try and rescue an already lost argument.

Just my 2c, of course

It’s becoming too easy.

Your having to make stuff up to stay in the race.

It ain’t workin’ Rodders.

I’m off to bed. My foots hurting.

[Herlock Sholmes]

So...
Where is your evidence that he was ever late, let alone late that particular evening?

Wallace was seen arriving at the chess club by Caird at 7.45.

I didn’t say that he was late. I said that he arrived on the dot of the deadline. No one, least of all Wallace, would plan on arriving on the exact deadline. I said that he was risking being late.

I also never said that he was ever late in the past. No one can know that.

It’s simple Rod....no one, and I mean, no one plans to get to a venue where they have a deadline, on the dot of that deadline. It makes no sense whatsoever. No matter how good the tram service was.

[RodCrosby]

Well, when I was dumb-enough to be office-working, PAYE, etc. some 25 years ago - before I saw the light - I would quite deliberately time my 10 o'clock start to, errrm start somewhere no earlier than 09:59 and no later than 10:01...

99% of the time I had the satisfaction of being perfectly 'on time'...

Then I became self-employed, and then an entrepreneur, and I just started laughing at clocks...

And it was "the £1000 in my pocket" not "the £50 in my wallet", btw.

Wallets are for ponces....

But quite why this has any bearing on the Wallace Case, and why you should be obsessed by it, I cannot fathom...

[Herlock Sholmes]

Well, when I was dumb-enough to be office-working, PAYE, etc. some 25 years ago - before I saw the light - I would quite deliberately time my 10 o'clock start to, errrm start somewhere no earlier than 09:59 and no later than 10:01...

99% of the time I had the satisfaction of being perfectly 'on time'...

Then I became self-employed, and then an entrepreneur, and I just started laughing at clocks...

And it was "the £1000 in my pocket" not "the £50 in my wallet", btw.

Wallets are for ponces....

But quite why this has any bearing on the Wallace Case, and why you should be obsessed by it, I cannot fathom...

Because it’s all fantasy

I recall we were talking about blood on a bank note and you quickly put up a photograph of a £50 note with blood on it from the ‘£1000’ in your pocket! As if anyone would believe the million to one chance example in your pocket! Obviously a £50 note that you smeared a bit of ketchup on?

The reason you are confused Rod is that you can’t see or understand how people laugh at this kind of obvious and constant boasting. It’s a constant need to boost self-esteem.

I’ll repeat and I think you’ll struggle to find anyone to disagree with this:

If you are a player in a tournament/competition/league whatever, who has to meet a 7.45 deadline or risk forfeiting the game, no one - especially a conscientious man like Wallace - plans to arrive at exactly 7.45 - no one. No matter how great the Tram service was at the time trams can still be late. Even by a minute or two causing the game to be forfeit.

So if we accept that the above is a reasonable statement then we might ask ourselves why, on that night, might Wallace cut it so fine in getting to the chess club.

Could it have been due to the problems that he had getting through to the chess club whilst making the Qualtrough phone call? A minute or two’s delay and he might have missed the next tram. After all, the phone box was just yards from his house so he wouldn’t have expected to have allowed himself any leeway. A short walk and a call of say a minute or so could easily have stretched to 3 minutes. Maybe when he got near to the box he saw a figure already in there so he had to hang back out of sight?

[RodCrosby]

Because it’s all fantasy

I recall we were talking about blood on a bank note and you quickly put up a photograph of a £50 note with blood on it from the ‘£1000’ in your pocket! As if anyone would believe the million to one chance example in your pocket! Obviously a £50 note that you smeared a bit of ketchup on?

I think a baseless allegation that I fabricated evidence - on such a trivial minor issue - is a direct personal attack on my integrity.

I refute it, absolutely.

And, for the record, I never stated that it was blood, only that it was a "noticeable mark", and left others to draw their own inferences. I don't know that it was blood. How can I, as I am not a forensic analyst?

But does it look like 'ketchup' that I smeared on?

https://forum.casebook.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=18498&stc=1&d=1520407632

Another specialist in personal attacks (no longer operating) did seem to think it looked like blood. But of course, I must have cut myself deliberately, and smeared the note, just to prove a trivial point...

[Herlock Sholmes]

I think a baseless allegation that I fabricated evidence - on such a trivial minor issue - is a direct personal attack on my integrity.

I refute it, absolutely.

And, for the record, I never stated that it was blood, only that it was a "noticeable mark", and left others to draw their own inferences. I don't know that it was blood. How can I, as I am not a forensic analyst?

But does it look like 'ketchup' that I smeared on?

https://forum.casebook.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=18498&stc=1&d=1520407632

Another specialist in personal attacks (no longer operating) did seem to think it looked like blood. But of course, I must have cut myself deliberately, and smeared the note, just to prove a trivial point...

So you’ve now adopted a different tactic. After a year of personal insults on the Wallace thread you are now trying to play the victim card

What is the relevance of a stained £50 note anyway? We were talking about a blood stained note. Specifically blood. So producing a stained note proves absolutely nothing.

[caz]

A question.

Apparently Wallace got to the chess club around 7.45. (Seen by Caird.)

Wasn’t 7.45 the deadline time for chess matches at the club.?

If so, why did the meticulous, punctual Wallace cut it so fine?

If 7.45 was the deadline time (I’m relying on memory so I could be wrong) surely Wallace wouldn’t have wanted to risk being late for his match.

And was this due to the problems getting through to the club on the phone causing him to miss the earlier tram.

Hi HS,

If Parry made the call, he presumably didn't want Wallace to have arrived yet, or he would have taken the call and might well have recognised Parry's voice. But then, if Wallace was normally very punctual, and Parry knew it, he was lucky that on this occasion Wallace was not there early for his match but very nearly too late.

Alternatively, if Parry had an accomplice, whose voice wouldn't be known to Wallace, there would have been a distinct advantage in calling after 7.45, as he would know for sure by then if Wallace was playing or not. If he was, he could speak directly to him and get his agreement there and then to the Tuesday evening appointment.

But the risks of calling too early would have applied equally to Parry or an accomplice: whoever answered the phone might have garbled the message or forgotten to pass it on, or Wallace may not have shown up. He hadn't been attending regularly.

As it turned out, there was no way of knowing, when Tuesday evening rolled around, whether or not Wallace had attended the club the previous evening; whether or not he had got the message; whether or not he had taken it seriously; whether or not he had queried the address and already ascertained it didn't exist; and whether or not he would finally take the bait and not change his mind at the last minute if, for example, it pelted down with rain, or he wasn't feeling well enough, or Julia asked him not to go. Even if Parry and/or Mr X watched and waited and saw Wallace leave the house, there was no way of knowing if he would be gone for a couple of hours - looking in vain for MGE - or a couple of minutes, seeing someone else much closer to home.

All these problems vanish if Wallace made the call and then had to get a shift on to make it to the club on time to play and pick up the message. I wonder what would have happened if Beattie had failed to tell Wallace about the call??

Is it a bit of a coincidence that the meticulous, punctual Wallace cut it fine on both the Monday and the Tuesday? Or did the all-important Qualtrough call hold him up on the Monday and the lateness of the milk delivery on the Tuesday?

Love,

Caz
X

[RodCrosby]

Is it a bit of a coincidence that the meticulous, punctual Wallace cut it fine on both the Monday and the Tuesday? Or did the all-important Qualtrough call hold him up on the Monday and the lateness of the milk delivery on the Tuesday?

The evidence shows beyond any doubt that Wallace arrived with ten minutes in hand at Menlove Gardens on the Tuesday. He was in no way "late" or cutting it fine.

As for the Monday, Wallace was not late either. Did he forfeit his match? Nope. He won it!

Why should anyone pay heed to someone who repeatedly argues in the face of the evidence?

[caz]

c) when stressed, as in when dealing with a 'problem' at a property, my impression (and it is probably just my impression) is that the above issues seem to loom large. I try the wrong key, or I am too violent - or too timid - when trying to gain entrance. I have to take a deep breath, and start again. Then the door yields....

Just my 2c, of course

Don't faint, Rod, but I can relate to this. Keys and locks are always getting the better of me. I'm usually okay if I'm on my own and not in a rush, but if someone is watching and waiting for me to open up, I'm all fingers and thumbs, only made worse if there's a bit of a 'knack' to opening a specific door.

The problem here is that Wallace would be infinitely more likely to be all fingers and thumbs and in need of a deep breath if he knew precisely what was facing him in the parlour, and if he would shortly be needing all his acting skill to pretend otherwise.

If innocent, he'd have been annoyed with the mysterious Qualtrough about his wasted journey, but would it really have occurred to him on his way home that he had been got out of the way by someone who meant to harm Julia? Qualtrough would need to have known their home address for starters and, according to Wallace, his wife would only have admitted someone she knew and trusted.

Love,

Caz
X

[ColdCaseJury]

Collaborative Approach

Despite my saying I was leaving the forum, I cannot help but read these posts. And although I have been abused for my views (by e-mail), I still wish to engage and debate because, in my view, unless we can prove something to be the case we should always entertain the idea that we are wrong. As the philosopher Bertrand Russell said, "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt". So, can we have a more collaborative approach, here? No annoying icons, no talking over each other, but just a discussion of the evidence?

If you agree, I would like to focus on ALL the key issues but ONE at a time and see if we can get a (rough) consensus of opinion, or at least see how others are weighting the evidence differently. The first evidential area I would like to examine would be Wallace's behaviour at Menlove Gardens East (MGE) and whether we can infer from this Wallace's guilt, innocence or suspend judgement.

[John G]

Despite my saying I was leaving the forum, I cannot help but read these posts. And although I have been abused for my views (by e-mail), I still wish to engage and debate because, in my view, unless we can prove something to be the case we should always entertain the idea that we are wrong. As the philosopher Bertrand Russell said, "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt". So, can we have a more collaborative approach, here? No annoying icons, no talking over each other, but just a discussion of the evidence?

If you agree, I would like to focus on ALL the key issues but ONE at a time and see if we can get a (rough) consensus of opinion, or at least see how others are weighting the evidence differently. The first evidential area I would like to examine would be Wallace's behaviour at Menlove Gardens East (MGE) and whether we can infer from this Wallace's guilt, innocence or suspend judgement.

I agree!

[Herlock Sholmes]

So do i Antony

I have no issue at all with you leading the discussion.

[ColdCaseJury]

So do i Antony

I have no issue at all with you leading the discussion.

If you agree, HS, I will merely chair the discussion, and ask questions, but I will not press my opinion. Fair?

Thanks also to John G, who has always struck me as a very reasonable poster. I also hope we can get Caz, Abby and Rod to participate. And anybody else reading this. I would also like to get AS re-invited to the forum. He may not wish to participate, of course, but he has been involved from the start, and it would be a little like the Beatles going on stage without Lennon (get the Liverpool metaphor here!). BTW, I believe John Lennon lived in Menlove Avenue, and The Tavern was around the corner from the City Cafe! I'm sure Rod will confirm.