Mediums are considered to be the connecting link between the two worlds - ours and the other world. Through them, the spirits of dead people communicate with the living. And often these are the spirits of innocently killed people, yearning for one thing - to take revenge. Therefore, it is not surprising that it was with mediums that the cooperation of the British police and psychics began.
This was facilitated by two more important circumstances. Firstly, in London, already at the end of the 19th century, the first parapsychological society was created, which is still operating today. Secondly, the fact that esoteric issues in England were involved and interested in important and popular persons: lords, prime ministers, writers (A. Conan Doyle, O. Wilde, etc.).
Conan Doyle vs. Scotland Yard
The creator of the world famous Sherlock Holmes was sincerely fond of esotericism, was interested in people with parapsychological abilities. It was he who left us a story about the medium George Valentine - one of the first psychodetectives in Great Britain, who helped Scotland Yard solve crimes, receiving information from the spirits of the slain. He submitted the very idea at one of the meetings of the London Parapsychological Society. To prove the reality of this idea, George Waffenine held a public session.
This session was also attended by the Hungarian Nandor Fodor, with whose deceased father Vapentine came into contact. Fodor was a journalist, lawyer, psychoanalyst, and psychic researcher. Subsequently, his judgments were confirmed by the subsequent works of other researchers.
So, during the session, Fodor turned to Fletcher, the spirit that possessed Valentine's body, with a request to bring someone who could speak Hungarian. Flat-Cher promised to try to fulfill his request.
After a short silence, Fodor heard a voice. A cold shiver ran down his spine. A voice sounded from afar. He repeated: "Nandor … Nandor …"
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"Who is it? Who do you need?" Fodor asked. And I got the answer: "Fodor … a journalist!"
The last word was spoken in German. The only word his father knew in that language, Nandor explained. He called his son a journalist, proud of his profession.
Father Fodor's speech was not very legible, and then Fletcher, who unexpectedly replaced him, said that the old man was trying to speak for the first time after death. It is difficult for him.
After uttering a few phrases and blessing his son, the old Hungarian left, making way for the brother of Nandor's wife. He said that he was always close to his family and knew everything about the life of his relatives. He regrets one thing - poor Uncle Vilmos will soon go blind. Later, his sad prediction came true: Uncle Vilmos really went blind.
One session was not enough for the distrustful leaders of Scotland Yard, and Conan Doyle gathered everyone who, in his opinion, should participate in the experiment, which, he believed, would be the beginning of a brilliant collaboration between police and psychics. As the famous writer has said more than once, in the future, thanks to the mediums of the police, it will be possible to nullify any crime, because at first it will be able to catch already "accomplished" villains, and then it will conduct preventive arrests, taking into custody those who are still hatching their nefarious plans.
In order to break the stubborn, unfounded mistrust of the police towards Valentine in particular and mediums in general, Conan Doyle organized a completely unusual session. Mitchell Kenerly's Psychological Adventures in London (1924) details this experiment.
It was attended by Professor A. Wyment, who taught Chinese at Oxford. He was asked to attend Valentine's session and help him figure out which language one spirit speaks. No one understood him, while Wyment knew 30 languages and dialects.
Wyment knew that there are several classic poems that scientists cannot decipher in any way. Wyment himself never read them, but remembered the first few lines from the books of his colleagues. If everything that happens is a grandiose hoax, he decided, then now it will be revealed.
And Wyment asked the spirit to explain to him what is said in the third ode of the first book ("Chounan") of the collection of poetic classics "Shi King". Then he recited the first line of the poem, the only line of sixteen he could remember.
As soon as he was silent, Valentine went on and read the other fifteen lines. I read it in such a way that the previously seemingly meaningless text linked into a normal poem.
It remains only to add that during the 16 sessions that Wyment attended, Valentine spoke in different voices in 14 languages. Among them were Chinese, Hindi, Farsi, Sanskrit, Hebrew and others.
Indeterminate result
Impressed by the results of the mediumistic session, the leadership of Scotland Yard decided to involve Valentine in the investigation of the recent murder. At the time when the medium started the case, the police had the following information. Edgar Wendy, a 37-year-old engineer, went with a friend to a private estate in Sussex, England, where the owner's sister served as secretary.
There they decided to swim in the lake and went to change into the bushes located not far from the shore. Edgar turned out to be more agile than his friend and was the first to enter the water. The bushes were thick, and the friend did not see what happened to Wendy. When two or three minutes later he emerged from the bushes to enter the water, Edgar was already drowning.
A friend swam to him, managed to grab the poor man by the hand, but he could not hold back, and he immediately went to the bottom. Then the confused bather rushed for help.
The police found that, entering the water, Wendy fell, hit his jaw hard on the rocks, lost consciousness and choked. Several versions of the accident were proposed, and all the known facts fit perfectly into their framework. But nevertheless, the police believed that this case had some kind of unhealthy odor, and therefore they decided to involve Valentine in the investigation.
According to Arthur Conan Doyle, there were six sessions. The details of the circumstances of E. Wendy's death were revealed, which were not revealed in the usual way. All six sessions gave the following identical information: skillful deception or the action of otherworldly forces.
Optimists say the glass is half full, while pessimists say that it is half empty. The police did the same as the latter. Valentine's confident conversations with the spirit in ancient Chinese and the inability to say for sure whether Wendy's death was an accident or murder made them question the medium's abilities. However, Conan Doyle did not back down.
According to Valentine's "tips", police were later able to establish that Wendy was killed by a friend who brought him to the lake estate. He gave him sleeping pills and hit him on the head with a stone.
London Freddy Krueger
So often these days they call the assassin of the First World War, whom George Valentine helped to catch. The villain got his nickname because he used especially cruel methods of killing and destroying the bodies of his victims …
… Neil Turner, a member of the Serious Crimes Investigation Team, was thirty-five years old, writes Arthur Conan Doyle. He was in civilian clothes; blond hair and a boyish pretty face made him look like an avid yachtsman. He and his assistant were at the scene of the crime - in a luxurious bedroom.
“Looks like bed games have gone to the wrong place,” Turner said.
“The rich have their quirks,” added his assistant Sergeant Bob Chandler, and handed Turner his wallet.
“We found this on the floor at the foot of the bed. Perhaps it was dropped while trying to tie someone up. Inside is an identity card in the name of Raymond Hengler.
He gestured toward a table on which a tray sat with a bottle and a glass pipette.
“We found this on the floor by the bed - right here where I’m standing. Strychnine.
“An unsightly death,” Turner winced.
“Yeah,” Chandler replied.
Strychnine is obtained from the seeds of chilibuha - emetic. After being introduced into the body, the poison is rapidly absorbed from the stomach and begins to affect the central nervous system. Initially, the victim is seized with excitement, anxiety, signs of suffocation appear.
Then, as the damage to the central nervous system deepens, the slightest vibration or noise causes excruciating spasms, the pectoral muscles contract, and the spine arches until the head and heels close. Remaining fully conscious, the victim suffers repeated attacks of seizures until death occurs - from exhaustion or from suffocation.
Sergeant Bob George was nicknamed the Pathfinder by his colleagues. A purebred Cree from America, he was the only Redskin in Scotland Yard. The leadership endured him for his phenomenal ability to see, hear and smell what no white man could see, hear or smell.
The sergeant was now examining the black silk sheets through a large magnifying glass. All the finds - hair, threads - he lifted and carefully studied.
“I can tell,” the Cree said, “whoever was tied to the bed was in terrible pain.
- How do you know? Turner asked.
“Ropes,” said George. - Some of the fibers are torn. They were not just trying to free themselves from the bonds. I see a man struggling in convulsions of unbearable pain.
“Like strychnine poisoning, for example,” Turner put in.
His assumption was fully confirmed. Raymond Hengler was one of the 13 victims of Sean Slide - London Freddy Krueger.
… Turner went to the bathroom door. Two men squatted beside the bathtub in gas masks, rubber aprons and rubber gloves - Turner's partner, Constable Gaetan Dubois and Nick White, a forensic pathologist at Lyons Tate Hospital.
In a bath full of acid, a yellow oily sludge floated on the surface. A piece of fine mesh with weights along the edges, cut to the shape of a bath, was bent against the wall above the taps. Seeing the yellow mucus dripping slowly from the fibers, Turner realized that this mesh held the body under the surface of the corrosive liquid until it finished its work.
On the floor beside the tub were bottles labeled Concentrated Sulfuric Acid and a pump. On a rubber sheet were two polished-faceted pebbles the size of cherries. They were wet; they were certainly taken out of the bath.
Concentrated sulfuric acid is an extremely corrosive liquid. A body completely immersed in acid dissolves in a day or two without a trace along with bones and other things. However, fats are stored as an oily sludge.
At this stage, George Valentine stepped in, prompting the forensic pathologist that the two pebbles from the bathtub were nothing more than gallstones. Over time, it was established that the number was taken by a certain Rosanna Keith.
The unhappy woman suffered from gallstone disease, was the widow of a successful financier and Slade's mistress. If not for these two pebbles, the police, perhaps, would not have caught the maniac for a long time, since they had absolutely no idea who exactly should be caught …
V. Potapov
