Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

Dear Dr. Waring:

I feel that I owe you an explanation of some of the circumstances which surrounded my appearance in a recent case which came to your attention. Part of the story you guessed, but since I can now speak freely, I am glad to set the matter straight.

My father, Jackson Drummond, a diamond importer, became ill several years ago and specialists told us that he was losing his mind. He became steadily worse, and as my brother was abroad studying, it fell upon me to nurse and watch him. While he was in a hospital,

I was informed that my brother bad been arrested and sent to prison as a smuggler through the scheming of Barton and Blake.

Determined to possess the letter which I learned Barton had written to Blake, I cultivated the acquaintance of the latter and confided my father’s condition to him. He removed father to the island, where he was kept in a building near the mill. I believed that Blake was sincere in his efforts to help me and thought he would aid me in recovering the letter which I believed to be in your possession.

Father died the day after you escaped from the island, and I had gone away with his body when you returned with the policeman.

It is all over now and, thanks to you, my brother and I are very happy. I have told him all about it. He says he wants to meet you.

Yours,

Sonia Drummond.

P. S. — I am living at 412 Riverview Place.

“Heywood,” said I when I had finished reading, “I hate to leave you when I have not had the pleasure of your company for so long, but an important matter has arisen which cannot wait. It is what you might call a crisis.

“In other words, Heywood, old fellow, I’m about to put on my hat and dash out to propose to a young lady who once wore a green dress and played burglar in my library.

“If you will wait here long enough, you can be my best man, if any. And while you are waiting, here is something you might amuse yourself by reading.”

And I tossed the letter to him.

“It’ll be worth waiting to see you with a wife,” he sighed.

Haunts of the Invisible-1 by Alexander Stewart

A Story of Fact

Striking tales are these, from the phantom world, submitted just as they occurred — you to be the final judge

* * *

“Who has not either seen or heard of some house, shut up and uninhabitable, fallen into decay and looking dusty and dreary, from which at midnight strange sounds have been heard to issue — knockings, the rattling of chains and the groans of perturbed spirits? A house that people thought it unsafe to pass after dark, and which has remained for years without a tenant — which no tenant would occupy, even if he were paid for it?

“There are hundreds of such houses in England and the United States to-day. Hundreds in France, Germany and almost every country in Europe, which are marked with the mark of fear.”

The above statement was made more than fifty years ago. It still holds good at the present time. For the so-called “haunted” houses are still with us.

In the pages which follow, the records of several of these houses have been set down. No explanations have been attempted. No theories have been advanced. The account here given is merely a plain statement of the facts so far as they are known.

In studying them the reader is asked to remember just one thing—

Although this is the age of science, there are some things which science has not explained. Haunted houses have been recognized by European law for several centuries. Their story is not just a mere fantastic romance.