Читать книгу The Diary of Jack the Ripper - The Chilling Confessions of James Maybrick - Shirley Harrison - Страница 9

In September 1993, the Sunday Times banner-headlined the word ‘FAKE’ across its centre pages, launching an attack on a recently discovered handwritten journal, signed starkly, ‘Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper.’ They produced no evidence, undertook no investigation and ended their unsupported onslaught with the admission that the diary must be either a modern forgery – or it could be genuine.

One month later, the first edition of my book The Diary of Jack the Ripper was published in Britain and later internationally in fifteen countries. In my narrative, I chronicled the full story behind my research into this extraordinary document, which had been brought to my literary agent out of the blue from Liverpool the year before.

During that year, I had established that the Diary appeared to be a confession to the Whitechapel killings, apparently by well-known 19^th century Liverpool cotton-merchant James Maybrick. He had died in 1889 from arsenic poisoning and his young American wife, Florence, was condemned to death for his murder. She was not, however, executed but imprisoned for fifteen years and eventually released to her native country in 1904.

Scientists, historians, handwriting experts, psychologists, Ripperologists, museums and laboratories had all pored over the document and argued vociferously amongst themselves and in public. The ink and paper were subjected to the relevant scientific tests.

Then to add to the confusion, a watch was discovered in Liverpool – and, under a microscope, the scratches inside its case read, ‘J. MAYBRICK. I AM JACK’ and around the edges ran the initials of the five murdered prostitutes from London’s East End. The scratches were also laboratory-tested by professionals. They too were old – tens of years old and ‘possibly much longer’.

The only consensus from all the tests was that the Diary is NOT modern. This left the dilemma – was it an old forgery, possibly written to point the finger at Maybrick? Or, could it really be genuine?

Today, seventeen years and four editions of my book later, we are sure that the Diary does not belong in the 20th century but its true origin continues to remain elusive.

James Maybrick is still the public’s favourite suspect, at the top of the leader board on Casebook: Jack the Ripper (http://www.casebook.org), the lively and often vituperative forum for Ripper detectives and historians worldwide. The majority of regular correspondents continue to be sceptical about Maybrick’s involvement, and have delighted in fuelling the ongoing argument about the diary in the most colourful language, even labelling me, on one occasion, a ‘practised deceiver’.

There has been a great deal of more measured discussion too. One historian, Professor William Rubinstein, has contributed articles to serious magazines explaining his own belief in the Diary. Several features have appeared in The Whitechapel, a balanced magazine focussing on Ripper-related material.

In 2007 new star Christopher Jones appeared on the scene. He is a history teacher in Liverpool, who decided to stage his contribution to the “Liverpool Year of Culture” with a Trial of James Maybrick. The event took place in May at Maybrick’s former cricket club in Aigburth and was attended by 150 people, some of whom had even flown in from America. Profits were donated to a local charity run by Paul Dodd, who now lives in the Maybricks’ former home, Battlecrease House, which overlooks the cricket ground.

In the chair was Jeremy Beadle. Jeremy was not only a television star; he was a keen criminologist with an extraordinary library of crime books housed in his converted swimming pool. I now know that he had privately believed the Diary to be genuine. But he was always scrupulously even-handed and even I was not sure then where he stood. None of us realised that this was to be one of Jeremy’s last public appearances. We all knew he was very ill and were distressed and moved by his cheerful courage in the face of obvious suffering. He died shortly after.

Speakers for the prosecution and the defence outlined their arguments and the audience was the jury. I spoke, as did Professor William Rubinstein, Donald Rumbelow (the former policeman and Whitechapel tour guide), local crime historian Vincent Burke and Professor David Canter; also Paul Begg and Keith Skinner, co-authors with Martin Fido, of The Jack the Ripper A-Z, made statements.

Probably the most surprising of all witness statements was that by Keith Skinner, the professional researcher who had investigated the diary for both Paul Feldman and for me. We all knew that Keith as a non believing sceptic who played his cards close to his chest. But in giving evidence he said that if he were free to disclose all the information and evidence in his possession, he had no doubt that if placed before a jury they would have no choice but to conclude that the Diary had come out of Battlecrease.

Christopher Jones went off to start work on his own book about the Maybricks and to design a new web site: jamesmaybrick.org – which had received 250,000 hits by 2009. He has now travelled several times to America and produced a remarkably thorough investigation into the once shadowy life of our little known 19th century family from Liverpool.

Then, in 2007, news reached me of a book entitled HOAX, which was being written by Steve Powell, an Australian musician and lifetime member of the Australasian Performing Right Association Australia.

Preliminary details of his book were leaked onto the Ripper website and there began a ferocious debate about his claims. He told the world how those of us chronicling the Diary – that is my agent, Doreen Montgomery of Rupert Crew Limited and anyone else who was helping me, were simply ‘patsies’. We had been ‘used’ in what he described as a complex modern forgery.

He claimed that the Diary had been created in the 1970s in Australia by an ex-Liverpudlian Steve Park, film director the late Paul Feldman, with their friend, a young English nurse named Anne Graham. It was, he said, taken to Britain by Paul and Anne. She later married Michael Barrett – the one time scrap-metal dealer who brought the Diary to my agent in London.

Steve claimed that we had been chosen, unsuspectingly, to front the scam leaving the original fraudsters behind the scenes ready to share the pickings. If this were so, they must have been sorely disappointed – especially as they had apparently waited almost twenty years for their non-existent reward!

I then received a letter from the proposed publisher – Melbourne Books. The editor, David Tenenbaum, wrote in January 2009, in which he explained that they were apparently waiting for conclusive evidence before publishing the book HOAX and they just believed that I was the victim of an elaborate set up.

At this point Doreen Montgomery decided that she must set the record straight. Here is the relevant section of her response. ‘I have just seen your current email to Shirley, and I can see that your evaluation of the circumstances surrounding the ultimate publication of The Diary of Jack the Ripper is erroneous. Paul Feldman was never in the equation until much later, and only came to know about the Diary because of a break-down in confidentiality by one of the parties the ultimate publisher brought in for research purposes. At the time, Paul was himself researching the possibility of a film about the Ripper, and had someone entirely different in mind as the suspect. However, he speedily latched on to the prospect of the Diary, once the journal was made known to him, as you may readily imagine! And he did his utmost to take the property over and, indeed, to acquire the document personally.

‘As for me, I held an auction for the publishing rights, and nobody could have known in advance that Smith Gryphon would have been the successful bidder. It was I who brought Shirley Harrison to the table as the investigative writer to produce a text to complement the journal. Yes, there was a subsequent time when Paul Feldman tried to “relieve” Shirley of this role: he was unsuccessful.

‘Please beware of slanderous comments about either Shirley or myself. Shirley has been a writer for the whole of her own working life, always devoting herself to producing material true to her particular task. At no time, until The Diary of Jack the Ripper emerged, has she ever been accused of lying, of fabricating material, or any other unworthy act. And there is absolutely no reason why she should be subject to any such accusations, now.’

Finally in 2009, with Hoax still unpublished, Steve Powell put a jubilant message on the Jack the Ripper Message Boards.

NEWS FLASH! 29/10 2009 I have received new information I have been waiting for from the Freedom of Information Office concerning official files relating to the diary. These files are proof that what I have been telling you are not imaginary or simply made up. I have shown the publisher of Melbourne Books this file and he is now reconsidering publishing my book for all to read and to understand the fraud that has been perpetrated by certain individuals for the basic greed of money. You will be astounded, of that there is no doubt, and it is my pleasure to let you see the truth of the lies that have been so carefully placed before your eyes, for far too long. So, the trail continues with fresh tracks which will lead us to our final destination, of truth and justice. Not only for you and I, but for James Maybrick as well.

Tally Ho Troopers! Steve Powell

So here we are in 2010. Many of those involved, one way or another, in the last seventeen years have died… the Diary controversy has not.

We remember:

Brian Maybrick, who worked quietly with us on his family tree.

The gentle, deeply religious Albert Johnson who first brought the Maybrick watch to London – perhaps the only person whose integrity has never been questioned and who spent a considerable amount of his own money on scientific tests. The watch remains uniquely unchallenged in the story.

Paul Feldman, who gave up making a Ripper film about a different suspect and lost a fortune in his passionate quest for the truth about Maybrick.

The American businessman who flew to England offering many thousands of pounds for the watch and whose offers were refused.

Our fiercest internet critic Melvin Harris.

Stanley Dangar, the horologist who flew in from Spain also to see the watch.

There will doubtless be many now who will read The Diary of Jack the Ripper for the first time. They will, in turn, join the debate with the old timers and make up their own minds – or maybe not? – one way or the other.

The Diary itself is in a bank safe.

The Watch When Albert Johnson died he left the watch to Daisy, the baby granddaughter for whom he had bought it as an investment when she was born 18 years ago. No-one had heard of James Maybrick in those days. It remains in the care of the Johnsons – it has not been sold although the family would love to find a buyer who shares Albert’s belief in the watch and could afford to give it a worthy home, perhaps on public view.

Both Diary and watch challenge someone, somewhere, to unlock their secrets and explain the true meaning of the enigmatic Maybrick family motto ‘Tempus Omnia Revelat’ – Time Reveals All.

So now please read on…