TCDE-Team at 23:29, 17 February 2026

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← Older revision		Revision as of 01:29, 18 February 2026
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			{{Cargo_Research_Articles
			\|date=1926-12-21
			\|author=William Linton Andrews
			\|topic=Agatha Christie
			\|summary=About Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's attempt to find Agatha Christie when she disappeared.
			}}
	''Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Psychic Sherlock Holmes'' is an article written by William Linton Andrews ("W.L.A." was the Editor of The Leeds Mercury) published in [[The Leeds Mercury]] on 21 december 1926.		''Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Psychic Sherlock Holmes'' is an article written by William Linton Andrews ("W.L.A." was the Editor of The Leeds Mercury) published in [[The Leeds Mercury]] on 21 december 1926.

	About [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] attempt to find Agatha Christie when she disappeared.		About [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s attempt to find Agatha Christie when she disappeared.

TCDE-Team at 12:36, 12 January 2026

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← Older revision		Revision as of 14:36, 12 January 2026
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	== Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Psychic Sherlock Holmes ==		== Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Psychic Sherlock Holmes ==
	[[File:The-leeds-mercury-1926-12-21-p4-sacd-s-psychic-sh.jpg\|thumb\|~~240px~~\|right\|[[The Leeds Mercury]] (21 december 1926, p. 4)]]		[[File:The-leeds-mercury-1926-12-21-p4-sacd-s-psychic-sh.jpg\|thumb\|200px\|right\|[[The Leeds Mercury]] (21 december 1926, p. 4)]]

	~~LEEDS~~, Monday.		Leeds, Monday.

	I thought we had said nearly all there was to say about Mrs. Christie. I want to leave the poor invalid in health-renewing obscurity. But here comes [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] with so remarkable a claim that it calls for critical examination. He says the case has afforded an excellent example of the uses of psychometry as an aid to the detective. I fail to see it. [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle\|Sir Arthur]] called in a psychometrist, but it was the alertness of some people at Harrogate — their Yorkshire gumption, if I may use the word — that ran Mrs. Christie to earth. They were the Sherlock Holmeses this time.		I thought we had said nearly all there was to say about Mrs. Christie. I want to leave the poor invalid in health-renewing obscurity. But here comes [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] with so remarkable a claim that it calls for critical examination. He says the case has afforded an excellent example of the uses of psychometry as an aid to the detective. I fail to see it. [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle\|Sir Arthur]] called in a psychometrist, but it was the alertness of some people at Harrogate — their Yorkshire gumption, if I may use the word — that ran Mrs. Christie to earth. They were the Sherlock Holmeses this time.

TCDE-Team: Created page with "''Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Psychic Sherlock Holmes'' is an article written by William Linton Andrews ("W.L.A." was the Editor of The Leeds Mercury) published in The Leeds Mercury on 21 december 1926. About Sir Arthur Conan Doyle attempt to find Agatha Christie when she disappeared. == Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Psychic Sherlock Holmes == [[The Leeds Mercury (21 december 1926, p. 4)]..."

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Created page with "''Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Psychic Sherlock Holmes'' is an article written by William Linton Andrews ("W.L.A." was the Editor of The Leeds Mercury) published in The Leeds Mercury on 21 december 1926. About Sir Arthur Conan Doyle attempt to find Agatha Christie when she disappeared. == Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Psychic Sherlock Holmes == thumb|240px|right|[[The Leeds Mercury (21 december 1926, p. 4)]..."

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''Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Psychic Sherlock Holmes'' is an article written by William Linton Andrews ("W.L.A." was the Editor of The Leeds Mercury) published in [[The Leeds Mercury]] on 21 december 1926.

About [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] attempt to find Agatha Christie when she disappeared.

== Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Psychic Sherlock Holmes ==
[[File:The-leeds-mercury-1926-12-21-p4-sacd-s-psychic-sh.jpg|thumb|240px|right|[[The Leeds Mercury]] (21 december 1926, p. 4)]]

LEEDS, Monday.

I thought we had said nearly all there was to say about Mrs. Christie. I want to leave the poor invalid in health-renewing obscurity. But here comes [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] with so remarkable a claim that it calls for critical examination. He says the case has afforded an excellent example of the uses of psychometry as an aid to the detective. I fail to see it. [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur]] called in a psychometrist, but it was the alertness of some people at Harrogate — their Yorkshire gumption, if I may use the word — that ran Mrs. Christie to earth. They were the Sherlock Holmeses this time.

By way of preface let me explain psychometry. The ordinary dictionary meaning of the word is "the art of measuring the duration of mental processes or determining the time-relations of mental phenomena," but many Spiritualists use it to describe a method of getting into touch with a person by means of hypnotising another person.

Certain mediums are described as psychometric. Suppose you want to know what has happened to X. Then you consult a psychometric medium. You hand him or press against his forehead some article that belongs to X. He then, in more or less a hypnotic state, tells you what it suggests to his mind. Sometimes he describes X, and what he or she is doing er was doing when this article was last in his or her possession. The method is not always quite the same, but this is one I saw practised when I was investigating Spiritualism and hypnotism some years ago.

'''What the Medium Said.'''

[[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] saw in the Christie case a chance to vindicate his psychic faith. He obtained a glove of Mrs. Christie's, and asked Mr. Horace Leaf, a well-known psychometrist, for an opinion. We are assured that no clue was given as to what information was wanted or to whom the article belonged. [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur]] laid it on the table at the moment of consultation. This was on Sunday, December 12th. Mr. Leaf at once said the glove suggested to him the name of Agatha. "There is trouble connected with this article," he continued. "The person who owns it is half-dazed and half-purposeful. She is not dead, as many think. She is alive. You will hear of her, I think, next Wednesday."

Mrs. Christie was definitely reported by "The Yorkshire Evening Post" on Tuesday to be at a Harrogate hydro, and she was identified there by Colonel Christie in the evening. [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur]] tells us that it was Wednesday before he received the news that she had been found.

He adds that everything in the reading, so far as he could test it, proved to be true, the only possible error being that the medium had an impression of water, but perhaps the idea of a hydro was at the bottom of this impression. There was also some comment on character and motives about which [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur]], explaining his experiment in the "Morning Post," tells us nothing, saying that it was outside his knowledge.

'''Was it a Guess?'''

[[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur]] is highly pleased with this experiment, and regrets that psychometry is not used by our police as it often is by French and German detectives.

I have seen such extraordinary things done by mediums that what I find most astonishing in this story is that the discovery made was so incomplete and unsatisfactory.

The medium at once said the name connected with the glove was Agatha. It is quite likely that [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur]]'s visit would bring the subject of the missing novelist uppermost in his mind. What was more natural than that, with Mrs. Christie occupying the public attention so prominently, a leading psychic enthusiast like [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] should take a hand in the search by psychometric methods?

I do not suggest any wilful deception by the medium, but I think it extremely likely that it was not the glove, whatever traces of an aura of personality it possessed, that made the medium think of Mrs. Christie — it was [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur]]'s visit, following upon all he had read.

If so, the further information the medium gave becomes of very little more importance than the opinions expressed at the same time by many thousands of ordinary people.

It did not need psychic powers to come to the conclusion that Mrs. Christie was alive, suffering from loss of memory due to private trouble, and that she was near water.

'''An Experiment that Failed.'''

We are given these details after the event. We should not have heard about them if the unfortunate novelist had been found lying dead on a Surrey heath. For this effort, which [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur]] claims to have been successful, there may have been many which failed. There was the experiment conducted by a "[[The Leeds Mercury|Leeds Mercury]]" reporter, as described in this paper for December 16th. The medium, a woman, apparently impersonating Mrs. Christie for the moment, spoke of a mist in which she was groping on the edge of something, with the back of her head cold, oh! so cold, and her foot caught, and now her leg, with excruciating pain. She felt something round her throat, half choking her, a green scarf she thought. Four days from then, she said, the "[[The Leeds Mercury|Mercury]]" would find what it was seeking, something absolutely unexpected. Further, she said there was a strong smell of death, and red tiles, red tiles, red tiles.

Now this was simply all wrong. Mrs. Christie had not been half-choked by a green scarf, and had not caught her leg in a trap. Her discovery was not an immense surprise. Moreover, she had actually been found at the vary moment that the medium was speaking.

Yet people are so prone to believe in marvels, so eager to believe that life is much more mysterious than it is, that the report of even this unsatisfactory effort of mediumship was hailed by some of our readers ag a convincing revelation of psychic powers. Some of them actually took the trouble to submit to us that the red tiles pointed to Abney Hall, the Cheshire house to which Mrs. Christie was taken, because they saw in our columns that it was described as a red brick mansion.

People who can be impressed by that far-fetched coincidence will be deeply impressed by [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s claim. But I think most of us will think that [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur]]'s medium made a good and lucky shot at probabilities, but did no better than many thousands of newspaper readers who had a theory of their own formed without any calling in of mystic powers.

W.L.A.

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Psychic Sherlock Holmes - Revision history

TCDE-Team at 23:29, 17 February 2026

TCDE-Team at 12:36, 12 January 2026