Just between you and me .. updated.
None of us have any idea as to the basis of the relationship between Carl and Jessica.
Not everybody believes Webb was carried to the place where he was found dead.
Many think Young Strapp’s insistence that the man he was looking at on the evening of November 30 was mistaken in that his belief the duds being worn by the fellow were striped when Webb’s were found to be plain.
Nearly everybody thinks there is no discernible pattern in the Rubaiyat code.
There is no reason to suspect Prosper Thomson, great opportunist that he was, was convinced by a higher authority not to accept any lucrative offers from newspapers to tell his own story.
Most believe that the Police investigation, flawed as it was was typical of the times.
Professor Abbott reckons Webb was wearing a cardigan under his coat so who am I to argue.
Five foot eleven is the same as five foot eight .
Electrical fitters use their own cut-down tools.
A man contemplating suicide often enjoys a snack prior to the event.
Whoever rifled the dead man’s pockets wasn’t a smoker as he didn’t take Webb’s Kensitas, a superior smoke.
Some find it easy to believe PC Moss missed finding a box of matches when he searched the body, others don’t.
The easiest way for a Coroner to unclog his backlog of Sine Dei adjournments is for him to contradict himself then issue a different finding.
Nobody believes that the investigation was manipulated in order to protect whatever Harkness knew and to deny the Coroner the opportunity to question her.
Chemist Freeman’s decades of anonymity was the result of his perfectly reasonable request that it be so.
Jessica Harkness’ decades of anonymity was the result of her perfectly reasonable request that it be so.
And nobody believes the Freeman Rubaiyat and the torn page were not photographed, meaning they believe the images we’ve been fed for over 70 years cannot possibly be fakes.
We could go on … but to quote the eminent Professor, who has forgotten his years of learned insistence that Webb’s ears were the answer to part of the mystery .. ‘It’s all quite pedestrian.’
The Somerton Man 
“Professor Abbott reckons Webb was wearing a cardigan under his coat so who am I to argue.”
A warm place is Adelaide in December.
If he caught a bus around 11.15 from North Terrace to Glenelg then he was traipsing around the beach areas during the hottest part of the day…supposedly without a hat.
Was there no sign of sunburn on this guys unattired bonce???
I’d hate to be wearing a suit and tie, with a cardigan, as well, in those conditions! He must have been sweating like Gary Glitter wearing a wetsuit whilst watching a nativity play.
Somerton Man (I can’t bring myself to calling him Carl Webb…just yet) seems to have been totally over dressed with all that clobber on.
@Guzz The weather has been discussed a lot (elsewhere) and despite people saying things like ‘Unseasonably warm’ the 30th of November had a max of just under 25C. While you’re right December can be hot in Adelaide (in fact the 1st Dec was 36C), SM would have dressed for the weather on the 30 Nov – and not necessarily for the beach (and while cardigan and pullover seems a bit OTT even in that weather, if the morning was cooler (the overnight had been 11C or 12C) it may account for the clothes some….
Incidentally the source for Cardigan and Pullover seems to be an article in the days after the body was found (something along the lines of ‘… having previously cut manufacturers’ tabs from an inside pocket of his coat and also from the neck of
his pullover…..”
BTW…is NO ONE over there (I’m an old Adelaide boy but have been living in Manchester for 40 years so am a bit out of the loop) been mithering the authorities as to an update concerning how the DNA testing, etc, is going on.?
(This seems to be taking forever…or am I just an impatient old barsteward…)
https://tomsbytwo.com/2023/02/16/why-are-we-waiting/
There’s your answer, Guzz, looks like quite a queue down there.
Thanks for that update, Pete.
Seems that, in Adelaide, even when you’ve been dead for 70 odd years, you still end up having to queue in order to get things done.
Guzz: Perhaps Carl/SM was wearing the clothes deemed necessary from where he came from? In other words, he did not take into account what the possible temperature could be in Adelaide by 30th November? So, how come Chemist Freeman remained anonymous, if all he did, was to have handed the Rubaiyat over to the police? Ok, reporters besieging his shop would not have been in his interests granted, but there must have been some other reason why the police kept his name out of the public eye?
Clive… It seems a bit of a dead end to me.
If Freeman had any involvement in SM’s death then I can’t think of any scenario where he would think it was a good idea to respond to the police appeal and bring the book to them.
If I were him, on hearing that this book was of interest to the police, the first thing I would do is get the book and burn it!!!
Only a madman would bring themselves to the attention of the police with the only scrap of evidence that links them to SM’s death, if they had anything to hide.
I can only think that the police thought that, as well…and that’s why they didn’t name him to the press. It wasn’t a case of deliberately withholding his ID as much as they believed he was totally inconsequential to the case.
Then again…that might be EXACTLY what Freeman wanted them to think! 🙂
I’d say that Freeman got caught up in this whole thing in the way Umbrella Man accidently caught himself up in the JFK assassination…
Clive…You might enjoy this….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuoZWb9gqv0 )
Guzz, there’s always the possibility that Webb bought the poison thought to have killed him at Freeman’s pharmacy. That being the case, it would provide a reason for Freeman to request anonymity.
Peter…That’s a very good point but still leaves the question; If Freeman had anything to do with SM’s death (even inadvertently) why would he be so eager to bring himself to the attention of the police when it would have been so easy to destroy the book. No one would have ever known.
Considering there are so few known players in this (SM, Harkness, Thomson, Boxall, Freeman) there’re so many permutations it’s enough to drive you batty.
Guzz .. Put yourself in his position. A regular local businessman eager to help but not wishing to be dragged into it, the same goes for the other three in his car at the time the book was found. Not a word from any of them from that day to now. The police quite happy to oblige Freeman knowing the inquest was now adjourned without much chance of it being resumed in the near future. They did the same with Jessica and we suspect the coroner didn’t learn anything about either of them from the police, otherwise he may have resumed the inquest and considered their depositions instead of changing his ruling many years later and closing the file permanently.
Another possible reason is that Jessie was a customer at Freeman’s chemist shop, although not named by the police when she viewed the bust, I wonder if Freeman put two and two together? He had a good idea the type of person Jessie was and wanted to distance himself from her and possible consequences, for his business etc., if they decided to investigate further. The police were only too happy to forget Freeman, as they, seemingly did the same for Jessie.
Guzz: Thanks for the YouTube on JFK. I guess the question comes to mind, why was no one else using an umbrella?
216 Domain Road Sth Yarra then Menwith Hill