So! Officer Baker, as he's at the front door of the building, asks a bunch of folks standing there where the stairs are. Officer Baker has this event fresh in his memory as he is giving his affidavit. And yet... nobody else will seem to remember having heard, seen or been co-participants in this event. How peculiar!
Well, I tell a lie... For
Mr Oswald remembered that selfsame event, and backed Officer Baker's story up 100% by telling Captain Fritz all about it. We know this thanks to Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes' WC testimony.
Now! There's an interesting
nuance to the answer Postal Inspector Holmes gives to Mr Belin's question, "By the way, where did this policeman stop him when he was coming down the stairs at the Book Depository on the day of the shooting?":
Mr. HOLMES. He said it was in the vestibule.
Mr. BELIN. He said he was in the vestibule?
Mr. HOLMES. Or approaching the door to the vestibule. He was just coming, apparently, and I have never been in there myself. Apparently there is two sets of doors, and he had come out to this front part.
Mr. BELIN. Did he state it was on what floor?
Mr. HOLMES. First floor. The front entrance to the first floor.Either
in the vestibule (i.e. front lobby) or
approaching the door to the vestibule. Hmmm...
This puts the encounter either
................
inside---------i.e. in the vestibule, Officer Baker having already gone through the front door
or
................
still outside-------------i.e. at the front door leading to the vestibule. (After all, 'approaching the door to the vestibule' can only mean
outside: if you're already inside, then the glass door is the door
to the front steps, not the door to the vestibule!)
Mr Oswald had indeed "come out to this front part" (in order "to watch P. parade", of course), and it would seem from what Mr Holmes is saying that Mr Oswald put the encounter with the cop
at the front door but
still outside.
This tallies with the information put out (albeit with an anti-LHO spin) by DPD later that day:
he was stopped at the front door as he was trying to leave. This too was Mr Lovelady's (erroneous) impression when he turned around and saw the cop speaking with Mr Oswald--------he hadn't noticed Mr Oswald's presence on the steps at the time of the shooting, and so thought Mr Oswald had only just arrived out front.
Officer Baker's same-day affidavit gives us the true character of the encounter: he wasn't in the least bit
suspicious of Mr Oswald, he was merely asking Mr Oswald (A.K.A. Prayer Man, probably) where the nearest stairs were. And then Mr Truly stepped up... and the rest is history (or
was history for a few hours before the authorities saw fit to replace the real story with a fictional one about a lunchroom!)...