Move to Murder: Who Killed Julia Wallace?

[Herlock Sholmes]

It’s not difficult to claim an ‘encyclopaedic knowledge’ when you can click on a button and it appears on screen so don’t bother with the childish boasting.

We all know very well what Serjeant said. It changes nothing. He’d still told Wallace that MGE categorically didn’t exist.

As Green had told him that it didn’t exist.

By suggesting that he might try Menlove Avenue Wallace, as a normal human being, would have though. “Is it possible that Beattie, the manager of a Cotton Broking firm, wasn’t capable of taking down a very simple message involving one address and a time?” He’d even, quite suspiciously in fact, said “West” only to have Beattie confirm that the address was indeed Menlove Gardens East.

Please get someone to explain this to you Rod. I give up!

[ColdCaseJury]

It’s perhaps worth mentioning that he never bothered to check north or south. He’d mentioned ‘West’ to Beattie and so checked it out.

HS, you are quite correct. Wallace was told twice that MGE did not exist (at approximately 7:25PM by Green and 7:45PM by PC Serjeant). However, Wallace did check out MGN and MGS, or at least that is what was he told PC Serjeant.

[Herlock Sholmes]

HS, you are quite correct. Wallace was told twice that MGE did not exist (at approximately 7:25PM by Green and 7:45PM by PC Serjeant). However, Wallace did check out MGN and MGS, or at least that is what was he told PC Serjeant.

Thanks Antony, I couldn’t remember whether he’d checked the other two number 25’s or not. My point would be though is that, whilst Wallace must have been pretty confident that Beattie had gotten the very simple message correct, and taken that he’d checked West, South and North just to be absolutely certain, I really can’t see Wallace believing that Beattie could have been so wrong that he mistook Menlove Gardens East for Menlove Avenue?

Anyway, have a good Christmas all

Even Rod

[Herlock Sholmes]

The Mitten

Questions:

1. Did men in the 1930’s normally wear mittens?

2. Would ‘Qualtrough’ have thought that mittens were ideal for tasks like opening a small cash box and removing notes, turning down gas jets etc.

3. Couldn’t Parry or ‘Qualtrough’ between them have lain their hands on a pair of gloves?

4. As the mitten allegedly seen by Parkes was ‘bloody’ why was none of that blood transferred to anywhere else in the house or outside. The gas jets, the bolt on the front door and the locks on the back door and the gate. Not to mention any other surface. Would he have taken off the gloves and risked fingerprints?

5. If it’s said that he’d taken precautions then we would have to ask...why? Qualtrough could have written ‘death to Julia’ in blood from the mitten on the wall at no risk to himself. No blood implies care - which for the accomplice was completely unnecessary or preplanning (preventing getting blood on him or a clean up) - neither apply to the accomplice.

6. If Parry was involved, he could have had little else on his mind once he’d learned about the murder. Is it therefore plausible that he’d get rid of the other (presumably clean glove) and yet keep the bloodied one, 3 hours after the murder, for Parkes to find?

[RodCrosby]

I count 12 out of 16, or fully three-quarters as mittens in this 1920s advertisement...

Antony will tell you all about the quality of my research. (^_-)

[Herlock Sholmes]

I count 12 out of 16, or fully three-quarters as mittens in this 1920s advertisement...

Antony will tell you all about the quality of my research. (^_-)

Might explain why he changed so much.

Ok so you’ve shown that mittens existed even though I don’t recall asking the question.

I asked did men normally wear them. Perhaps I should have asked how common they were? Anyway, number 1 was the least of my questions.

I can’t see a pair of them being on the top of any sneak thief’s list of things required to commit some sneak thievery? Imagine trying to pick some bank notes out of a small cash box in them.

Good job he didn’t choose one of those pairs that were connected together with a cord

[Herlock Sholmes]

It’s not particularly your research that I question. It’s your poor and biased interpretations.

[etenguy]

Questions:
5. If it’s said that he’d taken precautions then we would have to ask...why? Qualtrough could have written ‘death to Julia’ in blood from the mitten on the wall at no risk to himself. No blood implies care - which for the accomplice was completely unnecessary or preplanning (preventing getting blood on him or a clean up) - neither apply to the accomplice.

This is an interesting point, I think. The killer does appear to have taken care to contain any blood to the room in which the murder took place, and even then not to spread it about that room beyond the splatter and pool that were part of the murder.

It may simply be that the murderer remained reasonably clean of blood - though that would undermine Parkes statement if the Parry/accomplice theory is correct. Or there was another reason that we can only speculate about.

[Herlock Sholmes]

This is an interesting point, I think. The killer does appear to have taken care to contain any blood to the room in which the murder took place, and even then not to spread it about that room beyond the splatter and pool that were part of the murder.

It may simply be that the murderer remained reasonably clean of blood - though that would undermine Parkes statement if the Parry/accomplice theory is correct. Or there was another reason that we can only speculate about.

I think that most people accept that for the killer to have remained relatively blood free he would have had to have taken precautions of some kind (possibly/probably involving the mackintosh in some way.) Possibly then followed by some kind of clean up (maybe just hands?) A sneak thief however, killing on the spur of the moment, would have taken no such precautions and certainly wouldn’t have cleaned up and so blood contamination would have been unavoidable.

It seems unlikely that the killer would then have taken off the mittens and risked leaving prints. And, as I said earlier, he would have had no reason at all to do so. He touched the gas jets, the back door, the gate not to mention an other surfaces and any that he might have rubbed up against when walking around the house (especially in the dark after inexplicably turning off the gas jets.) Our Accomplice would have had no reason for caution when it came to leaving blood traces, drops, smears, smudges or whatever.

When we combine this with the fact that the killer removed the weapon which he had absolutely no need to as it couldn’t have been connected to him in any way this surely has to point away from anyone other than Wallace.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Alternatively, what if Wallace had simply worn the mackintosh backwards along with a pair of gloves? The only part of his body on show would have been his face and with a bit of good fortune we have a blood-free Wallace. He dumps the gloves when he goes out; possibly one at a time and away from the weapon. After all, the police werent looking for gloves.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Can anyone reasonably explain how the mackintosh, if Julia had worn it over her shoulders, ended up bunched up underneath her body? Surely it would have just fallen to the floor and the accomplice wouldn’t have bothered pushing it underneath her body?

If, as Rod suggests, she put it on to ‘go out’ then when the accomplice brought her back she obviously took it off. Why would he stand there with it bunched up in her hands and keep hold of it during the attack until it ended up wedged beneath her?

The most logical and plausible answer is that the killer placed it underneath her deliberately. Only Wallace might have done that hoping to smudge the blood spatter.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Isn’t it strange that the idea of the mackintosh being used as a shield is mocked by some and yet Wallace himself makes the same suggestion in his John Bull articles.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Why would the accomplice bother bolting the front door as he’d have no way of being sure that Wallace wouldn’t return the way that he went out...by the back door?

We might suggest that he bolted both doors; only unbolting the back door when he made his escape but we could still ask why he would have bothered.

Wallace’s journey to and from Menlove Gardens took around an hour or so. The accomplice could have expected Wallace to have taken 15-20 minutes say in his search giving him ample time to complete his task. Even if he went in 15 minutes after Wallace left he would have had a full hour. Why bother bolting doors?

[ColdCaseJury]

Isn’t it strange that the idea of the mackintosh being used as a shield is mocked by some and yet Wallace himself makes the same suggestion in his John Bull articles.

But it does not give a convincing explanation of how it caught fire. If Julia was struck as she lit the fire, and we know that the blood splatter was to the left of the fireplace, it is reasonable to infer she fell forward after the first blow, her head landing by the foot of the armchair.

Wallace believed the killer now retrieved the mackintosh from the hall... surely he would have stood in front of the armchair and the unconscious Julia and not on the hearth by a hot fire to deliver more blows.

Under the HS scenario the mackintosh is used for the first blow, but Julia would still be between the fire and the killer (Wallace) or to the left of the fire; so again, it is hard to see how the mackintosh ignites. I think HS suggested that Wallace helped lite the fire and it caught alight then, although it is hard to fathom why Wallace would stand on the hearth holding a mackintosh when the fire was being lit. What do you think, HS?

P.S. In his memoir (from early 1932 I believe), Wallace says he could think of no explanation of how the burnt mackintosh came to be in the front room, and accepted the suggestion that his wife put it around her shoulders, although he had never known her do this. In the John Bull articles (April 1932), he suggests the killer used it as a shield. Clearly, Wallace was thinking very hard about how someone else could have perpetrated the crime a year after he had been freed.

[Abby Normal]

But it does not give a convincing explanation of how it caught fire. If Julia was struck as she lit the fire, and we know that the blood splatter was to the left of the fireplace, it is reasonable to infer she fell forward after the first blow, her head landing by the foot of the armchair.

Wallace believed the killer now retrieved the mackintosh from the hall... surely he would have stood in front of the armchair and the unconscious Julia and not on the hearth by a hot fire to deliver more blows.

Under the HS scenario the mackintosh is used for the first blow, but Julia would still be between the fire and the killer (Wallace) or to the left of the fire; so again, it is hard to see how the mackintosh ignites. I think HS suggested that Wallace helped lite the fire and it caught alight then, although it is hard to fathom why Wallace would stand on the hearth holding a mackintosh when the fire was being lit. What do you think, HS?

P.S. In his memoir (from early 1932 I believe), Wallace says he could think of no explanation of how the burnt mackintosh came to be in the front room, and accepted the suggestion that his wife put it around her shoulders, although he had never known her do this. In the John Bull articles (April 1932), he suggests the killer used it as a shield. Clearly, Wallace was thinking very hard about how someone else could have perpetrated the crime a year after he had been freed.

I think the most obvious answer re the mac is that she had it on when she was attacked-it would explain her burnt skirt and the mac-and that she was attacked (either by wallace or someone else)while either lighting or standing near the fire.


I think the second most likely scenario is the killer used it to block the blood spatter and or wipe blood off himself and then jammed it under her to obsfuscate.


I could see either wallace or someone else doing both, but the first scenario points more toward a visiter and the second toward wallace.


I have little doubt though that she was standing near the fire in the parlor when she was attacked.