1949 inquest transcript
Inquiry
Cleland’s hearing is the legal heart of the old file: an unidentified man and an uncertain cause. It is not a spy novel.
Evidence quality is moderate for a 1948 unexplained death and, after 2022, stronger for a name than for a mechanism.
What survives is good enough to write the beach and the book, and not good enough to prove a poison or a second person’s crime.
Exhibits
Tamám Shud scrap
Physical
The torn Rubaiyat phrase found in a fob pocket. It named the English case and did not name the man.
Glenelg Rubaiyat
Document
The matching book with a missing phrase, pencil lines and Jestyn’s number. Central to later myth; not a decrypted official text.
Railway Station suitcase
Physical
Property linked to the dead man. It supplied clothing details and no accepted identity in 1949.
1949 plaster bust and hair
Forensic
Made for identification; later the source of DNA used to name Carl Webb. Chain-of-exhibit arguments remain part of the mixed status.
2022 genealogical identification
Forensic
Abbott and Fitzpatrick’s match to Webb relatives. Leading public account; not, by itself, a coroner’s amended finding on cause.
How strong is the record?
Identity of the man72
Carl Webb is the leading 2022 claim; police review and coronial formality lagged the announcement.
Cause of death18
Suspected poison, never identified to the inquest’s satisfaction.
Meaning of the pencil lines10
No court-accepted decryption. Hobby readings are not findings.
Contemporary police paper60
A usable 1948–49 file survives in archives and published accounts.
The strongest new evidence is a name from hair. The weakest remains any story that treats the Rubaiyat as a completed cipher.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.