** The Murder of Julia Wallace **

[NickB]

Some people find it difficult to say: "I am sorry, I forgot."

[NickB]

Wallace may have thought that someone at the chess club had recommended him to Qualtrough.

Chess guy: I know someone at the chess club who could help you, name of Wallace.

Qualtrough: Do you know his address?

Chess guy: No, but they are meeting tonight. Give them a call!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Wallace may have thought that someone at the chess club had recommended him to Qualtrough.

Chess guy: I know someone at the chess club who could help you, name of Wallace.

Qualtrough: Do you know his address?

Chess guy: No, but they are meeting tonight. Give them a call!

That could have been the case Nick. It’s strange that Wallace never acknowledges even the slightest concern about the call though. As if it was an every day occurrence even though no one had ever contacted him at the club before.

[ColdCaseJury]

It is the Southern edition of Radio Times but the same programme was being broadcast up north.

Mark's book says: "Katie Ellen Mather was listening to 'The Geisha' on the radio when Wallace called". You will see that this was an item on the programme.

Yes, actually she did say she was listening to The Geisha in her statement - a detail I missed.

[ColdCaseJury]

But the caller began by asking for his address. So on top of it all why ask for a persons address when you are about to request that the person comes to your house?

Parry had absolutely no way of knowing that neither Beattie or any other club member didn’t know Wallace’s address and so if Beattie had said “yes, he lives at.....” how much more suspicious would this call have been if the caller had then gone on to ask Wallace to go to his house.

If the call was by Parry he was taking a completely pointless, unnecessary risk of putting Wallace off from going in search of MGE by making the call seem even more suspicious.


If the call was made by Wallace the question made no difference whatsoever as he’d intended to go to MGE all along

I agree that this was a surprising question for both Wallace or Parry to ask, more so for Parry. If it was Parry, perhaps he realised that asking for Wallace's address made it look like that (a) the caller was a stranger to Wallace and (b) it seemed more genuine to ask Wallace to visit MGE after the caller could not visit Wallace's house. It's a bit thin, but not implausible, especially as Wallace would have presumably asked for his address because of (a) too.

[etenguy]

When the call was made the caller, before mentioning MGE, asked Samuel Beattie for Wallace’s home address. Whilst it difficult to see any benefit for the caller (whoever he was) we might ask who was least likely to ask for this information? Was anyone taking an unnecessary risk in asking it? I’d say that it would be anyone who wasn’t Wallace. I’ll name Parry as he’s the other person named as a potential caller.

Parry is trying to get Wallace to leave his house on the Tuesday night to facilitate a robbery so he needs the call to be as believable as possible. He wants it to work. After all wouldn't Wallace have been just a little suspicious to gave been called at his chess club by Qualtrough (how would some random bloke from a different area know that he’d be at his club that night let alone the fact that he was even a member in the first place?) Why would Qualtrough have specifically wanted Wallace (a man that he’d never met?) What was so special about Agent Wallace? Why hadnt Qualtrough simply contacted The Pru and asked them to send an agent round? So even as it stands this call should have appeared mighty suspicious to Wallace. Obviously Wallace doesn’t think so. But the caller began by asking for his address. So on top of it all why ask for a persons address when you are about to request that the person comes to your house?

Parry had absolutely no way of knowing that neither Beattie or any other club member didn’t know Wallace’s address and so if Beattie had said “yes, he lives at.....” how much more suspicious would this call have been if the caller had then gone on to ask Wallace to go to his house.

Wallace however knew very well that Samuel Beattie didn’t know his address (Beattie didn’t even know what work Wallace did either) The only member who knew Wallace’s address was his friend James Caird and Caird only got to the club after he’d shut up his shop for the night. Therefore Wallace would have known very well that at 7.15/7.20 there was no one in the club that knew his address.


If the call was by Parry he was taking a completely pointless, unnecessary risk of putting Wallace off from going in search of MGE by making the call seem even more suspicious.


If the call was made by Wallace the question made no difference whatsoever as he’d intended to go to MGE all along

Hi Herlock

I have been re-reading Beattie's statements and trial evidence and notice the following:
* In the typed police statement dated 21 January, it does state the caller asked for Wallace's address.
* In Beattie's hand written statement in Munro's files, where he recounts the full phone conversation, this question is not included.
* The request for Wallace's address wasn't specifically asked about at trial and not volunteered as far as I can find.

I assume Beattie simply forgot the detail about the caller asking for Wallace's address when writing his statement, though all the other points covered during the call seem to be aligned.

Regarding the call, Wallace does not appear to realise that the time of the call was recorded by the exchange when he presses Beattie to better remember the time of the call because it was 'important to him'. This, I think, makes it unlikely, if Wallace made the call, the issue with the 'scam' was to pinpoint the time - since he seems unaware the exchange had done this.

[Ven]

Hi All,

good to see a Wallace thread back up...such a great mystery.

Just thought I'd like to clarify some of the points around the phone call. I believe the following reconstruction from statements made by the telephone operators show that the caller did not try to swindle their two pennies back, therefore knocking out one of the "supporting" arguments that Parry must have made the call and, in fact, that Button A was indeed pressed.

”The telephone box is a modern one where the money is put in before making the call“– from Lillian Kelly’s evidence statement dated 19th Feb 1931.

R.M. Qualtrough (RMQ) inserts two pennies and gets the Operator.
Operator Louise Alfreds (LA) - "Operator, what number please"
RMQ - "Bank 3581 please"
RMQ hits button A as he believes he has been connected however the call does not connect.
RMQ has to insert another two pennies and tries again.
Operator Lillian Kelly (LK) answers.
RMQ - "Operator, I have pressed button A but I have not had my correspondent yet"
LK – “What number did you ask for?”
RMQ – “Bank 3581”
LK then speaks to LA, who sits next to her, and, as a result of that conversation, LK says to RMQ - "Please press button B and regain your two pennies"
RMQ presses button B and receives his coins back.. because he had pressed A initially and lost his first two pennies
LK tries to connect to Bank 3581 but fails (2^nd attempt) and refers the call to her supervisor Annie Robertson (AR)
AR tries to put the call through and eventually does so (3^rd and final attempt) and passes the call back to LK who listens to RMQ ask ”Is that the City Café?”.
Gladys Harley (GH) at the club acknowledges such and LK leaves the call.

The call is logged because of the fault in connecting to BANK 3581 not that there was anything wrong with the actual kiosk phone or that someone tried to save themselves two pennies.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock

I have been re-reading Beattie's statements and trial evidence and notice the following:
* In the typed police statement dated 21 January, it does state the caller asked for Wallace's address.
* In Beattie's hand written statement in Munro's files, where he recounts the full phone conversation, this question is not included.
* The request for Wallace's address wasn't specifically asked about at trial and not volunteered as far as I can find.

I assume Beattie simply forgot the detail about the caller asking for Wallace's address when writing his statement, though all the other points covered during the call seem to be aligned.

Regarding the call, Wallace does not appear to realise that the time of the call was recorded by the exchange when he presses Beattie to better remember the time of the call because it was 'important to him'. This, I think, makes it unlikely, if Wallace made the call, the issue with the 'scam' was to pinpoint the time - since he seems unaware the exchange had done this.

That’s an great point Eten. The police didn’t find out about the call being recorded until after that conversation. I’ve always felt that Wallace’s response to being asked why he’d asked Beattie to try and be more accurate as to the time of the call to have been strange to say the least. He appears reluctant to give a proper answer. It doesn’t appear that he was trying to ‘guide’ or persuade Beattie toward a time which might have provided him with an alibi so why was he pressing him for greater accuracy. It might be suggested of course that he was hoping that Beattie might have recalled some incident that could have enabled him to fix a more accurate time which might have been favourable to Wallace, in which case it suggests innocence. But why didn’t Wallace just say this instead of waffling about being indiscreet?

[ColdCaseJury]

Hi All,

good to see a Wallace thread back up...such a great mystery.

Just thought I'd like to clarify some of the points around the phone call. I believe the following reconstruction from statements made by the telephone operators show that the caller did not try to swindle their two pennies back, therefore knocking out one of the "supporting" arguments that Parry must have made the call and, in fact, that Button A was indeed pressed.

”The telephone box is a modern one where the money is put in before making the call“– from Lillian Kelly’s evidence statement dated 19th Feb 1931.

R.M. Qualtrough (RMQ) inserts two pennies and gets the Operator.
Operator Louise Alfreds (LA) - "Operator, what number please"
RMQ - "Bank 3581 please"
* RMQ hits button A as he believes he has been connected however the call does not connect *.
RMQ has to insert another two pennies and tries again.
Operator Lillian Kelly (LK) answers.
RMQ - "Operator, I have pressed button A but I have not had my correspondent yet"
LK – “What number did you ask for?”
RMQ – “Bank 3581”
LK then speaks to LA, who sits next to her, and, as a result of that conversation, LK says to RMQ - "Please press button B and regain your two pennies"[/B]
RMQ presses button B and receives his coins back.. because he had pressed A initially and lost his first two pennies
LK tries to connect to Bank 3581 but fails (2^nd attempt) and refers the call to her supervisor Annie Robertson (AR)
AR tries to put the call through and eventually does so (3^rd and final attempt) and passes the call back to LK who listens to RMQ ask ”Is that the City Café?”.
Gladys Harley (GH) at the club acknowledges such and LK leaves the call.

The call is logged because of the fault in connecting to BANK 3581 not that there was anything wrong with the actual kiosk phone or that someone tried to save themselves two pennies.

Ven, the sequence is correct apart from - if I may say - you are assuming what you are trying to show. We don't know the caller pushed A. As Dorothy Sayer pointed out in 1936, you only pushed A after you heard your correspondent speak. At point *, he should have pushed B and re-connected to the operator not pushed A.

[etenguy]

It doesn’t appear that he was trying to ‘guide’ or persuade Beattie toward a time which might have provided him with an alibi so why was he pressing him for greater accuracy. It might be suggested of course that he was hoping that Beattie might have recalled some incident that could have enabled him to fix a more accurate time which might have been favourable to Wallace, in which case it suggests innocence. But why didn’t Wallace just say this instead of waffling about being indiscreet?

Hi Herlock

Frustratingly, as with much in this case, this interaction can be argued to suggest either Wallace's innocence, as you have done, or his guilt. It might be argued that Wallace knew the time of the call was later than Beattie had stated because he had made the call. The later the time of the call, the less likely that Wallace could have made the call and reached the cafe by 7.45pm. Therefore pushing Beattie to really think about the the time the call was made would benefit a guilty Wallace.

[ColdCaseJury]

Hi Herlock

Frustratingly, as with much in this case, this interaction can be argued to suggest either Wallace's innocence, as you have done, or his guilt. It might be argued that Wallace knew the time of the call was later than Beattie had stated because he had made the call. The later the time of the call, the less likely that Wallace could have made the call and reached the cafe by 7.45pm. Therefore pushing Beattie to really think about the the time the call was made would benefit a guilty Wallace.

etenguy, as you say, this point cannot differentiate clearly between guilt and innocence, although it can be interpreted as being consistent with either, depending on your prior position. That's the Wallace case all over. As I see it, Wallace wanted Beattie to fix the time more accurately (remember Wallace was a chronomaniac): that's about as far as we can go. Or am I missing something?

[Ven]

Ven, the sequence is correct apart from - if I may say - you are assuming what you are trying to show. We don't know the caller pushed A. As Dorothy Sayer pointed out in 1936, you only pushed A after you heard your correspondent speak. At point *, he should have pushed B and re-connected to the operator not pushed A.

Hi CCJ, In the actual trial transcript Louisa Alfreds answers "Yes"to question 130 "Did anyone from Bank 3581 come on the line?" (this is when she put the initial call through so we know it was answered)
Do you know how much time you had, after the call was answered, that you could press B and still get your coins back?

The caller claims they pushed A (this may be true or not) however the call may have dropped out and the second time they tried to put the call through they were unable to, which shows that there was something wrong with the line.

[ColdCaseJury]

Hi CCJ,
[1] In the actual trial transcript Lilian Kelly answers "Yes"to question 130 "Did anyone from Bank 3581 come on the line?" (this is when she put the initial call through so we know it was answered)
[2] Do you know how much time you had, after the call was answered, that you could press B and still get your coins back?
[3]The caller claims they pushed A (this may be true or not) however the call may have dropped out and the second time they tried to put the call through they were unable to, [4] which shows that there was something wrong with the line.

Hi Ven, some good points (I've numbered them). [1] If Kelly was accurate, this shows that the phone box and both phone lines (from Anfield 1627 and to Bank 3581) were all OK on the first call. [2] About seven seconds. [3] The claim they pushed A is the disputed fact here. [4] the problem with the line to Bank 3581 occurred only on the second attempt if [1] is true.

It seems to me [1] can be questioned. Here's two balloons I'm floating:

[1A] Kelly was supposed to stay on the line to check the call went through (as part of her job), did not, but said she had done when her boss became involved.

[1B] Kelly mistakenly heard the caller from Anfield 1627 say "Hello?" (as in "Is anyone there?") and thought this was Bank 3581 answering.

Post Script for [2]. You had seven seconds to Push A after the correspondent picked up before the line was disconnected.

[Ven]

Thanks CCJ,

Hmmm, I think this clouds it even more, doesn't it. And sorry, I edited my previous post as it was Louisa Alfreds that took the first call.
In regards to the lines being ok on the first call, there is also the possibility that it did drop out after he pushed A... besides my Iphone dropping out even today, i remember crossed or broken lines back in the seventies... the second failed call would support this.
The thot plickens!

[Ven]

Again, it's another case of the correct questions being asked at trial... as per your [1A] above, was she meant to stay on the line to watch the lights change to make sure the caller pressed A?...and the full story not being written in their initial police statements...was it just taken for granted in those days