I would be very surprised indeed if the DPD felt it had to justify itself to some member of the public. I would imagine anyone finding the rods would be taken in and grilled about every single detail of the discovery. The DPD didn't need to make a fake copy to impress someone off the street.
Well, we're not talking about some member of the public/someone off the street but a Depository employee. Tricky business.
I totally agree that the testimony regarding the taking of the rods from the Paine house has an air of pantomime about it. Really over the top. And the thing that makes the least sense would be for the DPD to take the rods on the 23rd then pretend they had been found elsewhere over a week earlier.
Agreed on all counts!
But a lot of things don't make sense:
Why the change of sign-out date?
My working hypothesis is that there were two sets of curtain rods, one set found in the Depository, the other taken from the Paine garage. The latter set were tested on 11/25-----------
The original document (with release date 3/24) was not made public (and only came to light in the 1990s!)
If the rods were discovered elsewhere why go to the trouble of putting them back in the Paine house then do the "pantomime of discovery"?
Again, they weren't put back for Ms Paine's in situ deposition (the release date of 3/24 is too late for that). The rods found at the Depository (which
were marked with the digits 275 & 276) were 'disappeared' into the rods taken from the Paine garage (which--------in a blatant contrivance--------were 'marked' as Exhibits 275 & 276). Those numbers are a real giveaway.
If they were first discovered in the Paine house, why pretend they were discovered earlier?
Again, I believe we are dealing two different sets of rods.