Month: June 2021

Frederick Nodder’s name had been very much in the news. It was clear to readers of the newspapers that the police were very interested in Nodder’s movements at the time of the crime and just before it, but interest and suspicion are not enough to substantiate a charge at law. The police needed proof and they had not been able to get it. Neither had they been able to find Mona Tinsley, dead or alive. “Assuming the child has been killed, where would you say the murderer hid the body?”…

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Inside, the house was bare from top to bottom; every stick of furniture had gone. Left to roam as I pleased, I went first to the staircase and climbed to the two rooms above. I received no psychic impressions in the first room I entered, but in the second, at the back of the house, particularly near the water tank, I could feel the presence of Mona. I went downstairs again and walked around the two lower rooms. It was in the front one that Mona had spent her time…

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I wrote to the Chief Constable at Newark-on-Trent, and told him that I believed I might be able to bring some comfort to the unhappy parents if he would send me some garment belonging to the missing girl. I received a reply in which the Chief Constable, Mr. Barnes, said: “This is forwarded at the request of the parents of Mona Tinsley and I shall be glad if you will refrain from giving my action any official interpretation.” As this was in accordance with my desire for no publicity, we…

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CHAPTER SIX,MURDER AND SUICIDE When I had a telephone call from Douglas Sladen, an old friend whose books I enjoy, I guessed from his tone that he was diffident about coming to the point. After some humming and hawing he said: “Look Estelle, I have just been talking to an editor. He asked if I thought you could do anything to help find this child.” I knew at once whom he meant by “this child.” It was 1937, when the disappearance of tenyear–old Mona Tinsley had been making headline news…

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I was asked to investigate at a house whose occupants were suffering physical violence at the hands of an earthbound spirit entity. The attacks always followed a similar pattern. Every now and then one of the residents using the staircase would be pitched down the steps. This was not only disconcerting but dangerous. When I arrived at the house, I stood at the bottom of the staircase and looked up. There, half-way up, was the spirit figure of a grizzled old man who came directly to the point.“If you come…

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“It was what is known as a psychic rod,” I told them. “Red Cloud says that such a rod may build up anywhere where there is a strong concentration of wickedness.”“But there is no concentration of wickedness here,” they protested. “No longer perhaps, but who knows what happened here before your coming?”“ ‘The evil that men do lives after them. . .’” Somebody quoted. “Precisely that,” I agreed. “I think that if you care to do a little research you may find that this house was the scene of some…

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Ever since they had moved in, calamities, great and small, had increasingly befallen them. In as many months, half-a-dozen deaths had occurred, ranging from domestic pets to the girl’s own mother. This accumulation of misfortunes had so preyed on her mind that she was beginning to be obsessed with unreasoning fear for the life of her small son. Of course, all this might have been a chain of circumstances simply explained by an overlong streak of bad luck. Or there might be something in the hoodoo theory. Colonel Castello asked…

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As we had done all we could in the gallery for the time being, we left to the comfort of the drawing room. Here Red Cloud took control and speaking through me, he told us what lay behind these visitations. The spirit form I had seen was a brother of a former owner of the house who had been strangled to death in an upstairs room. Before his death the murdered man had concealed some ancient manuscripts which his earthbound brother was now perpetually hunting. “Is there anything distinctive about…

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The owner had several times been awakened by the piteous howling of a Dalmatian dog which shared his bedroom. Each time the howling was followed by the sound of footsteps moving about the house in places where there was no human being. The secretary had been awakened several times at night to find a ghostly face peering at her from the darkness. The housekeeper had a similar unnerving story to tell. Altogether it was not the sort of atmosphere in which anyone could live comfortably for any length of time.…

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The present owner agreed that these details confirmed the information she had obtained from other sources. She told us that, though many potential customers had come to look at the bed, none had liked it well enough to buy it. Her opinion, with which I agreed, was that prospective buyers were influenced by the bed’s evil emanations, though they were not conscious of this being the reason. She told of a craftsman she had called in to make some repairs to the bed shortly after she had bought it. After…

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CHAPTER FIVE,HAUNTING Haunted houses and sometimes the furniture in them are of special interest to people sensitive to psychic emanations because of the immense energy that is nearly always present. Even people who are not normally receptive of psychic phenomena can often sense its presence, though they may not appreciate its source. Tax them with it and they will tell you vaguely that it is “just a feeling” and will probably deny it if you suggest they are being influenced by the supernormal. Because of my mediumship a visit to…

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“How did he die? What does he say happened to him?”“He was in The Navy, in Scotland. There was an air raid. He was blown overboard and drowned. He says his mother still lives in the old house.” Terry waited to hear no more. He pulled his companion to her feet, saying: “I know where Mac used to live. We’ll go along and check.” They came back two hours later, tired but convinced. They had spoken to Jimmy’s mother. She had been reluctant to discuss the details of her son’s…

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The day of his enlightenment occurred during the war when he came home on a week-end leave from the Royal Air Force, bringing a young woman with him. He had told her I was a medium and she, never having come into contact with the occult before, was eager to learn what it was all about. In this she got no encouragement from Terry, who was almost belligerent in his antipathy to Spiritualism. She persisted in her questions until Terry, with such good grace as he could muster, offered to…

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