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The Notting Hill Mystery
25 Plays3 years ago
M introduces Josh to the Notting Hill Mystery in this episode of "What the conspiracy?"
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Josh is @monkeyfluids and M is @conspiracism on Twitter
You can also contact us at: podcastconspiracy@gmail.com
You can learn more about M’s academic work at: http://mrxdentith.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Concept of 'What The Conspiracy'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to What The Conspiracy, our tri-weekly show where one of us tries to surprise the other with a conspiracy theory we don't think they've heard of. Sorry, tri-weekly? Is that three times a week or every three weeks? I've never really worked that out.
00:00:15
Speaker
It's like biweekly. Does the bi mean we're bisecting the week? Or is it just another word for fortnightly? At which point, why bother saying biweekly? But I'm glad you've brought this up because bisecting, sorry, trisecting is the name of the game. It is? Oh, yes it is. You see, there's too much reward and not enough risk when it comes to what the conspiracy. So I've decided, especially since we're recording in person this week, to raise the stakes.
00:00:41
Speaker
You know how we start every game with a when, where and what trio of questions? Yes. Well, for each one you get wrong, I'll start trisecting you with the what the conspiracy cleaver.
00:00:54
Speaker
That is a very big knife. Yep, and it cuts through bone like nobody's business. Believe you me, those unsolved murders in Birkenhead proved to be excellent research. There's a lot to unpack here, so if I get the answers wrong to the when, where and what questions, you are going to cut me up. Without a doubt.
00:01:15
Speaker
And what if I get them right? If I get them right, surely that means I get to trisect you. And otherwise, where's the fun in that, eh?
Quirky Humor and Pop Culture References
00:01:25
Speaker
Dr. Denteth, where's the fun in getting things right? And in breaking news, what the conspiracy has been cancelled due to health and safety issues. Oh, no it hasn't. I read your book, you magnificent bastard. And if one of you listeners know where that quote came from, there's a free copy of one of my books in it for you.
00:01:43
Speaker
It's from news radio, isn't it? It's the only thing you could. Yes. Technically, I've just answered a weird question, which means it's time to get chopping.
Trans-Tasman Travel Bubble Discussion
00:02:04
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Addison and Dr. N. Denton.
00:02:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy. I am Josh Edison there, Dr. Emdentith. We are both in Auckland, New Zealand, enjoying some of that sweet, sweet lack of social distancing. I hope you're enjoying some of that just before the recording started, I have to tell you. Like you wouldn't believe. Are you feeling an expansion in your sort of general space, what with the travel bubble with Australia now?
00:02:44
Speaker
not particularly at this stage. No, it doesn't really have much traffic. No, not really. Although we do have a trans Tasman travel bubble now. So if you're a citizen of Aotearoa or Australia or a permanent resident, you can basically travel to and fro each country without having to go through managed isolation or quarantine.
00:03:01
Speaker
Which actually is good because my brother and his wife and their new baby were already planning to come back here, but now they don't have to spend two weeks in quarantine with an infant. So that'll be nice. It will be. It will be. But that's not relevant. Nothing like spending two weeks with a baby. No. Two weeks stuck in a hotel room with a baby. Just spending two weeks with a baby is my personal nightmare. Two weeks in a hotel room. That just sounds like hell.
00:03:30
Speaker
But that's not relevant to what we're doing today. What's slightly relevant is that you've been on the airwaves again, I understand. I have indeed.
Interview Insight: White Supremacism and Conspiracy Theories
00:03:39
Speaker
I did a 45 minute pre-record interview for Yer Na Pasaran, which is a...
00:03:47
Speaker
It's a show on 3CR, which is a community radio station in Australia, where the hosts talk about white supremacism, they're against it, and they interview people who do work adjacent to or
00:04:03
Speaker
those topics like myself and we have a good old chin wag as I believe they say in Australia about throwing some conspiracy theory shrimps on the old white supremacist barbecue I have no idea whether that actually works but I'm gonna stick by it
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, it'll have to do. Now it's actually playing as we're recording. So it's both a podcast and also a radio broadcast. So as we're recording this podcast, it's playing in Australia. Once I've actually got a link to the played show, aka the podcast episode, I'll make sure that people can listen in.
00:04:42
Speaker
And I think that's all we have in the way of housekeeping before we begin. Housekeeping?
Chris Farley's Legacy: Would He Have Aged Well?
00:04:50
Speaker
Oh God, it's not Tommy Boy. No, it is Tommy Boy. Tommy Boy, David Spade and Chris Farley. David Spade and Chris Farley. It's kind of a shame that Chris Farley died. Should have been David Spade, that's all I'm saying. David Spade should have died. Do we think Chris Farley would have feared any better in older age?
00:05:10
Speaker
Probably not in the same way that what's his name from the Blues Brothers Probably wouldn't have survived particularly well as a comedian there are certain people who have what we might consider to be slightly outdated or outmoded views and They remain comedians or they die young at which point we forgive them their sins Like everyone seems to forgotten about the terrible things that Bill Hicks used to say
00:05:38
Speaker
He did say some terrible things. Terrible, terrible human being, Bill Hicks. I'm always happy to speak ill of the dead. You'll get the chance in the bonus episode, but more on that later. But for
Notting Hill Mystery: A Case of Mesmerism and Murder
00:05:51
Speaker
now, I get to kick back and relax. I can throw away my notes. There's no relaxing on this one.
00:05:58
Speaker
I'm going to stretch out. I'm going to make myself comfortable because I don't have to do a damn thing except sit here and listen to you regale me with a conspiracy that I presumably haven't heard of. Well I hope you haven't because otherwise it could be like last time around where maybe I knew about the time cube. Does anyone really know about the time cube though? Well the guy who wrote about the time cube. Yeah but he's dead so...
00:06:24
Speaker
Is he, though? I mean, is he really dead in cubal time-space? Well, yes, maybe he's only dead on one of the faces of the cube, but on the other three, he- he- it lives. To vary how Reske-esque situation we're putting the writer of Time Cube into. I think it's what he would have wanted. Also, it does remind me of Cube 2, Hypercube, which...
00:06:46
Speaker
as one of those sequels to a great film that I really, really struggled to understand at the best of times. Which I think was the point. Anyway, play that sting and let's get into it. It's time to play What The Conspiracy.
00:07:08
Speaker
Right, so it's my turn in the hot seat, or is it your turn in the hot seat? Well, it's your turn in the hot seat to answer the three questions. Okay, yeah, that's a good start. When do you think this occurred? What do you think occurred? And where do you think it occurred? Now you can answer those questions in any order.
00:07:26
Speaker
I think the ones you've managed to get with so far have sort of been esoteric and British. So I'm going to assume you'll just stay on theme. I think it's going to be in the 1600s. I think it's going to be in the state of Denmark, and it's going to be about a prince who gets told by the ghost of his father that he needs to avenge his death.
00:07:51
Speaker
and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, and then so is everyone else. And it's all a big mess. God dammit, you have a hoot of Hamlets after all. All right, hold on. Let me just check something here. Just go into my backup file. Oh, all right, it's OK.
00:08:09
Speaker
I'm gonna back up here. All right, so you're completely wrong about this. It takes place in the middle of the 19th century. Well, kind of the late middle of the 19th century. It takes place in the UK. In fact, it takes place in Notting Hill, not the film. And it's murder slash insurance slash mesmerism.
00:08:36
Speaker
Oh, I do like a bit of mesmerism. So have you heard of the Notting Hill mystery? Is that what anyone saw in Hugh Grant in the 90s? Yes. So you have heard of the Notting Hill mystery. This is going downhill first. So yes, imagine Hugh Grant, but in around about the late 1850s.
00:08:58
Speaker
right dashing affable thoppish but really a bad rum character when you really get down to down to it which is what he seems to play in most things now he's gone from being lovable to a little bit too he even went through the roguish phase and now he seems to be in the know i'm just playing villains now
00:09:16
Speaker
He was fantastic in Paddington 2 though. I haven't seen it. Ah, you must. I've seen Paddington 1. Paddington 1's not bad. Paddington 2 is just, like, it's one of those family films that the whole family could like, which usually means it's a kid's film with a few jokes that any of the adults will get, but this is just a genuinely really good film that anyone can enjoy. I cannot speak highly enough of it.
00:09:42
Speaker
I think we've got to the pop culture phase before we even got through the episode. Normally we do that at the end, but we're very guessing. So the Notting Hill mystery is an investigation into possible insurance fraud, which was published in Once a Week magazine. Let me just get the date of when it was published.
00:10:02
Speaker
So it was published in once a week between 1862 and 1863. So it was a report published in eight parts, understandably, once a week, starting on the 29th of November, running for two months, going into February of 1863. And it's the investigation into what appears to be insurance fraud
00:10:30
Speaker
with a really really weird death which then ends up with hints of the real villain of the piece with a mesmerous inside of us all the entire time. Now this was an investigation by an insurance investigator by the name of Ralph Henderson and I'm going to read from bits of the introductory piece in Once a Week magazine piece by piece because it really does help set the scene. So
00:10:59
Speaker
This is how Ralph leads the first article. I do like a good Baron.
00:11:21
Speaker
Similar policies were held in insurance companies in Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Dublin, the whole amounting to £25,000. The dates are 23rd December 1855, 10th January 25th January 15th February 1856, respectively being in effect almost identical. These companies joined in the instructions under which I have been acting.
00:11:49
Speaker
Before entering upon the subject of my investigations, it might as well be to recapitulate the circumstances under which they originated. Of these, the first was the coincidence of dates above noticed, and an apparent desire on the part of the Assurer to conceal from each of the various officers the fact of similar policies having been elsewhere simultaneously affected.
00:12:12
Speaker
On examining further into the matter, we were struck with the peculiar conditions under which Madam's arm marriage appeared to have taken place, and the relation in which she had formerly stood to the Baron. To these points, therefore, my attention was especially directed, and the facts thus elicited form a very important link in the singular chain of evidence I have enabled to put together.
00:12:36
Speaker
The chief element of suspicion, however, was to be found in the very unusual circumstances attendant on the death of Madamar, especially following so speedily as it did on the assurance for such a large aggregate amount. This lady died suddenly on the 15th of March 1857 from the effects of a powerful acid taken, it is supposed, in her sleep, from her husband's laboratory.
00:13:04
Speaker
In the Baron's answers to the usual preliminary enquiries, forwarded for my assistance, and herewith returned, there is no admission of any propensity to synambulism. Shortly, however, after the occurrence had been noticed in the public prints, a gentleman recently lodging in the same house with Baron Auer gave reason to suspect that in this respect, at least, some concealment had been practiced, and the matter was then placed in my hands.
00:13:31
Speaker
I had once put myself in communication with Mr Aldridge, the writer of the letter in question. That gentleman's evidence certainly goes to show that, within at least a few months after the date of the latest policy, the Baron was not only himself aware of such a propensity in his wife, but desirous of concealing it from others.
00:13:51
Speaker
Mr Aldridge's statements are also to a certain extent supported by those of two other witnesses, but unfortunately there are, as will be seen, circumstances calculated to throw considerable doubt upon the whole of this evidence, and especially on that of Mr Aldridge, from which alone the more important part of the inference is drawn. The saying must unfortunately be said with regard to the other part of the evidence.
00:14:16
Speaker
From his statement, however, in conjunction with other circumstances, I learned enough to induce me to extend my researches to another very singular case which not long since had given rise to considerable comment. Right, so we have a Baron.
00:14:34
Speaker
who has a laboratory. It's the best kind of Baron. I mean, it is. It is the middle of the 19th century. And the gentleman scientist is very much involved. Who has taken out five life insurance policies on his wife and trying not to clue the various companies in that he's taken out identical policies with with other with with their competitors or whatever.
00:15:00
Speaker
The wife has died from ingesting acid. Is this a slightly old-fashioned thing that just means some sort of chemical, or are we actually talking an acidic acid?
00:15:15
Speaker
So the story is, she was someambulistic, so she would walk around in her sleep, she walks into her husband's laboratory and drinks poison. So she walks into the laboratory, there are a variety of different chemical reagents on the laboratory disk, she picks one flask up, drinks it, it contains acid and she dies.
00:15:38
Speaker
OK, and I assume he's now claiming on these numerous life insurance policies. So the reason why there's all this investigation is not only he's claimed on one of them, but several insurance agencies have gone. Oh, he's also claimed on one of ours because this is a notable story. Someone has died noticeably.
00:15:58
Speaker
and she is married to a notable person. So it is the kind of thing that, if you were really thinking it through, people would go, yeah, it's going to come out, there's more than one insurance policy on your wife. But maybe by that point it's too late, the ink has dried, the signatures have been signed, so they all just have to cough up.
00:16:20
Speaker
And I mean, in many cases, these insurance policies seem to be, in some cases, issued about a year before, although the most recent one is basically within a month of the wife dying. Yes, I was going to say it was starting in the late... So this was being reported on in 1862, had it happened a little bit before that, or was the first policy was taken out in 56?
00:16:45
Speaker
Yeah, 55 and the last policy in 56. Yes, so it all seems... I mean, it certainly seems suspicious. It's the sort of setup you'd expect in a sort of a crime drama. Well, precisely. And it's also interesting that the story here is that initially,
00:17:05
Speaker
when they're talking about there isn't it unusual that your wife walked into a laboratory and drank acid. The baron's response is, oh but my wife has no propensity towards synambulism. This seems quite unusual and yet someone who was staying in the houses go, no the baron's been aware that his wife walks around at night all the time in her sleep.
00:17:26
Speaker
which does raise questions as to why is the Baron concealing this? So is the Baron trying to protect his wife's credentials by going, oh no, she's definitely not synambulistic because you might think, well, that indicates some kind of mental unhealth because that's where the people thought about these things back in the day. Or is he denying it because the synambulism is a very convenient story and he's covering up the
00:17:54
Speaker
I was able to engineer a situation such that she synabolistically walked into a space that would cause her harm. Yes, I suppose if it was known that he knew that his wife sleepwalked all the time, then you'd say, well, why didn't you lock up your dangerous chemicals if you knew your wife was doing that? Yes, it would be very suspicious to go, oh, so you created a room of knives for people to walk into in their sleep, and your wife's a sleepwalker in the same way you've got a lot of acid in a bath there,
00:18:24
Speaker
And your wife walks around all the time at night. Maybe you should keep that door locked or closed. Okay, so I'm assuming the story develops further from there.
00:18:34
Speaker
Well yes, because as Ralph Henderson intimates, there is a similar case from several years earlier. So let me resume reading from Ralph's notes. You will no doubt remember that in the autumn of 1856, a gentleman of the name of Anderton was arrested on suspicion of having poisoned his wife and that he committed suicide whilst awaiting the issue of a chemical inquiry into the cause of her death.
Twists in the Notting Hill Mystery: Coincidence or Crime?
00:19:00
Speaker
This inquiry resulted in an acquittal, no traces of the suspected poison being found, and the affair was hushed up as speedily as possible, many of Mr Anderson's connections being of high standing in society, and naturally anxious for the honour of the family. I must however acknowledge the readiness with which, in the interest of justice, I have been furnished by them with every facility for pursuing my inquiries, the results of which are now before you.
00:19:28
Speaker
In reviewing the whole fact, and more especially the series of remarkable coincidences of dates, etc, to which I beg to direct your most particular attention, two alternatives present themselves. In the first we must altogether ignore a chain of circumstantial evidence so complete and close fitting in every respect, as it seems almost impossible to disregard.
00:19:51
Speaker
In the second, we are inevitably led to a conclusion, so it variants with all the most firmly established laws of nature, as it seems almost equally impossible to accept. The one leaves us precisely at the point from which we started. The other involves the imputation of a series of most horrible and complicated crimes. I like the sound of a series of horrible and complicated crimes, but so is he saying
00:20:19
Speaker
Is he saying the similarities are no coincidence? So, yes, this is another case of someone ingesting poison while sleepwalking. So, yes, I mean, that's a weird thing to happen, I suppose. Is the implication that the Baron heard about this case and thought, hey, that's something I could try, or is he suggesting some sort of mastermind who's organising these somnambulistic poisonings all about the country?
00:20:49
Speaker
What if I told you that Baron's wife had a twin? Yep, okay. That's in fitting, I think, with the general tone of where the story's been going. And the twin was stolen at birth. Okay. Eventually marries a mesmerist and then turns out to be the woman in the case who was poisoned by her husband.
00:21:11
Speaker
I see, okay, the plot thickens. It's one of those ones about where the twins were separated from birth and who yet ended up having a whole bunch of nearly identical things happen to them throughout their life. In this case, dying of murder, poisoning, sleep, or poison.
00:21:30
Speaker
also so the sister becomes a practicing mesmerist herself which was considered to be a job inappropriate for a woman at the time and she and her husband shared a mesmerist mentor in common do you know who that was was it the baron it was the baron dang so yes so we have a situation where the baron teaches someone mesmerism
00:21:58
Speaker
And then that person, his wife, dies mysteriously in a way that the Baron's wife, who happens to be her sister, ends up dying as well. Did they know, if they were identical, I suppose they must have known that they were sisters?
00:22:18
Speaker
Well, I mean, so she was stolen at birth, but eventually, yes, they did meet. Right. OK, so that wasn't. Yeah, OK. Does it turn out that the sisters had pulled a switcheroo like in that episode of Jonathan Creek and actually the one who they thought got killed first wasn't?
00:22:37
Speaker
I mean, if only that were the case. I mean, there is some discussion about sympathetic illness in this report. So the idea that when the twin sister to the Baron's wife, Madam R, falls ill, Madam R falls ill as well. But that seems like the kind of thing we can actually probably just clock down to coincidence rather than being some kind of special spectral force that connected both women in life. Although of course they were.
00:23:07
Speaker
They were connected in death by having almost identical death. Now when we're talking mesmerism, mesmerism I know is named after a guy called Mr Mesmer who first popularised it, but is it what we would call these days hypnotism or is it
00:23:23
Speaker
so a bit more spiritual than that. This gets it slightly, this gets it slightly odd because these, the history of mesmerism and the history of hypnotism are often taken to be one and the same. But hypnotism is meant to be a case where you put someone into a hypnotic state through a variety of different mechanisms, whether it's a swinging pendulum or listening very calmly to my voice, and you'll start to feel sleepy, and then you'll give me all the money in your wallet,
00:23:53
Speaker
when I click my fingers like this. Now see, that's ASMR. I'm just becoming aroused at this point. Actually, that's a really good point. Well, mesmerism is actually meant to be using your force of will to be able to make people do things. So the mesmerism is kind of classified by that comic book staple of the glowing eyes where you look into someone's eyes. You are under my power. Under my control. So the mesmerism is meant to be able to induce people
00:24:19
Speaker
into being able to do their bidding without putting them necessarily into a hypnotic state. And kind of what's interesting about the history of mesmerism is that because it was studied to a very large extent in the 19th century, people are now reappraising some of that going, well there's probably something here about dominant personalities
00:24:40
Speaker
and the class structure which explains why people thought mesmerism worked because in certain situations people who are charismatic and in the right social strata are able to induce people to do things ostensibly against their will and because of the way society works you would then explain that by going oh
00:25:01
Speaker
they induce me to do this particular thing. Well so now when we think about it you'd go actually there's a there's a societal analysis here which explains why you might feel compelled to do someone's work just because they looked into their eyes and going I am the master and you will obey me. Nice doctor who referenced me. Okay so where does the story go from here then things are getting very weirdly coincidental
00:25:27
Speaker
Well yes, and so what's interesting is that the husband, Anderton, rather than going to court, ends up committing suicides rather than being in the dark. He takes his own life. At which point Henderson continues with his narrative
00:25:46
Speaker
I must trouble you with a few words to a point which seems to require explanation. I allude to the apparent prominence I've been compelled to afford to the workings of what is called Mesmeric Agencies. Those, indeed, who are so unfortunate as to be the victims of this delusion, would doubtless find in it a simple, though terrible solution to the mystery we are endeavouring to solve.
00:26:08
Speaker
But while frankly admitting that it was a passage from the Zeust magazine quoted in the course of the evidence which first suggested to my mind the only conclusion I have as yet been able to imagine, I beg at the outset most distinctly to state that I would rather admit my own researches to being baffled by an illusory coincidence than lay myself open to the imputation of giving the slightest credit to that impudent imposture.
00:26:35
Speaker
We must not, however, forget that those whose lives have been passed in the deception of others, not unfrequently end by deceiving themselves. There is therefore nothing incredible in the idea that the baron may have given sufficient credence to the statement of the zoist above mentioned, for the suggestion to his own mind of a design, which by the working of a true, though most mysterious law of nature, may really have been carried out.
00:27:03
Speaker
Such, at least, is the only theory by which I can attempt, in any way, to elucidate this otherwise unfathomable mystery. What's this, Zwist business? Isn't that the planet that the Immortals came from, and Highlander 2? No, it's nice. And I think you'll find this. If Highlander 2 were a movie that existed, which it doesn't. No, I mean, if there were only one cut of a Highlander 2, the quickening.
00:27:29
Speaker
then there may be a version of Highlander the Quickening that say came out in the 80s which talks about Planet Zeist but of course as we know Highlander 2 was never released in its original state and then it was re-edited in the 90s and finally released and all of these supposed reference to Planet Zeist
00:27:51
Speaker
have been removed and replaced instead by an almost equally stupid, we actually come from the past and we forgot everything about our own individual histories. And also Michael Ironside. Good old Michael Ironside. Anyway, very angry man. In part because I believe he's spent a lot of his roles detoxing from alcoholism, which drives him but also makes him apparently insufferable.
00:28:16
Speaker
Now Michael, if you're listening, please do write in to correct us. We'd love to hear from you and we'd love to have you on the podcast. Big fans, big fans. We are. Although, I have to say, taking over Roy Schneider's role in the third season of Sequest, DSV, probably not your best idea. Never watched that much. Anyway, back to the mesmerists.
00:28:40
Speaker
So, I guess he's implying that if one were the credulous type who believed in mesmerism, then it would be the Baron, the expert mesmerist, has compelled these two women to kill themselves and then compelled the husband to kill himself.
00:28:56
Speaker
for the insurance money, I guess, or possibly his own sick thrills. See, so that is one interpretation of the evidence. The other interpretation is, of course, the Baron either came up with the plot and the husband of the twin sister carried it out himself and didn't do it particularly well, or the Baron saw his, essentially, brother-in-law's plot and went actually
00:29:24
Speaker
I can do better than that. He didn't get away with what should have been the perfect crime. I will engineer such a crime that I will get away with it because as far as we can tell, there's no particular instance of anyone going, it's definitely murder.
The Notting Hill Mystery: Fiction or Reality?
00:29:41
Speaker
It appears to be a case of synambulism where someone ingests poison, which
00:29:49
Speaker
Could happen, I guess, but it doesn't seem super likely. You seem a little bit incredulous. I am a little bit incredulous, I'm afraid. Would it disappoint you to find out that actually what I've just described to you is fiction?
00:30:07
Speaker
uh a little bit here but then you might ask why am i telling you a fictional story well exactly i mean we have talked about conspiracy theories in fiction before but i mean it is it does seem like a bit of a cheat so i'm assuming you have another another ace up your sleeve i do because what we're talking about here with the Notting Hill mystery is not just the first modern detective novel ever risen
00:30:33
Speaker
but it's also, and arguably, one of the most novel novel detective novels. There's far too many novels there. Most unique modern detective novels ever written, because not only was it serialised, but rather than telling a straight narrative, it presented itself as someone presenting evidence to an author.
00:30:56
Speaker
audience and ending with the, I have no definite conclusion to tell here, other than you must look at the evidence and work out the conclusion yourself. So it's not just the first modern detective novel, it's also a kind of detective fiction that we see commonly now, but actually is well in advance of itself at the time, and was written
00:31:24
Speaker
by a person by the name of Charles Felix whose identity was not known until about 2011. So there's additional mysteries to uncover.
00:31:41
Speaker
to go on. Right, so this story, The Notting Hill Mystery was, as I said, told in Once a Week magazine from the 29th of November 1862 to early 1863. Once a Week magazine was a literary magazine which regularly published fiction. The story itself was initially published anonymously in Once a Week magazine, presumably to keep the idea of the fiction up.
00:32:09
Speaker
So by presenting the Notting Hill mystery as a report by Ralph Henderson to the insurance company he's been asked to investigate on behalf of, you are basically creating the idea that you're reading a true crime story rather than anything else, although
00:32:27
Speaker
given that true crime stories do not exist at this particular point in time. The effect was for people to try to work out what they were reading and they described it as playing a game of solitaire. So you just sit there and every week you get new evidence being presented in front of you
00:32:46
Speaker
and you'd spend time trying to work out what the dastardly conclusion was. So the story starts out with a quite definite, we think the Baron did it, and the mystery ends up being, but how did he commit what appears to be the perfect crime? So the thing which implicates him in the murder are all the insurance policies, but as far as anyone can tell, his wife really did walk in her sleep and ingest poison. As I say, this was
00:33:16
Speaker
This is taken to be the first modern detective novel in that it predates the work of Wilkie Collins, who was famous for writing The
A Revolutionary Detective Novel: Analyzing Its Influence
00:33:25
Speaker
Moonstone, and that of Emile Gaborat, a French writer who wrote Le Fair La Rouge, and these were taken to be the first archetypal detective novel, so that they feature an amateur detective
00:33:40
Speaker
trying to solve a crime where they go through a process of elucidating things. People do like to point out that Edgar Allan Poe had previously written The Murders of the Rue Morgue, which do feature a detective, but it doesn't really read as detective fiction, it reads as an adventure narrative. There's no particular mystery to uncover or solve, you know exactly what went on, it just turns out the hero of the story is a detective rather than anything else.
00:34:08
Speaker
with Collins and Gabrielle, who have cases of people actually investigating a crime and coming into a conclusion, with Charles Felix, who actually have something which seems to be much more in the same vein and published several years beforehand.
00:34:26
Speaker
Okay, so it's a story with certainly conspiratorial elements, but is there more to it? You talk about an anonymous secret writer that speaks to a minor conspiracy to conceal a person's identity. Is there more going on here?
00:34:43
Speaker
Yes, so it was written by someone by the name of Charles Felix. And the story had accompanying illustrations by George de Merrier. I actually know that I've pronounced it correctly. I should always get you to read the names out. Who's the grandfather of Daphne de Moria, a very famous writer of her own elk. So her grandfather was an illustrator. She turned out to be a writer.
00:35:13
Speaker
When the story was republished two years later, as I said initially it was published anonymously, it was published under the name of Charles Felix. And this then led to the mystery of, but who is Charles Felix? So the original serialised story was incredibly well reviewed.
00:35:34
Speaker
and the resultant book two years later was also very well reviewed as well, even though as I said people were very confused as to exactly what they were reading, particularly given that the story is told basically to series of reports, there are partial letter fragments, it has illustrated maps of locations and routes that people took, there are chemical reports and assays,
00:35:59
Speaker
And the story ends with no definite conclusion. So at no point does Henderson say the Baron committed the crime in this particular way. The reader is basically led to go at one or the other. One of the theories seems to go against common sense and mesmerism. The other theory seems equally unlikely. Why would someone walk into a lab and just ingest poison of their own will, even if she was suffering from synambulism?
Unmasking Charles Felix: A Historical Reveal
00:36:26
Speaker
So people became interested into who Charles Felix is. Now he had written one previous book which was called The Velvet Lawn and that was published a year earlier also as a serial by the firm Sanders and Otley and they ended up also producing the version of The Notting Hill Mystery three years after the publication of Velvet Lawn.
00:36:54
Speaker
Now, Sanders and Otley was a very, very famous publication house. They closed in 1869 due to an economic downturn, but prior to that point in time they were very well respected. There's no record of any correspondence in the archives between the publishers, Sanders and Otley, and the author.
00:37:21
Speaker
to the point where there's a list made in the Victorian era of fictitious author names where they give you, this is the pseudonym, this is the person the pseudonym applies to, and the only person in that list is one, Charles Felix. It's, yeah, okay. So, sorry, the only person in that list is,
00:37:48
Speaker
The other person who didn't know who the real person was. Only pseudonym that had never been identified belongs to Charles Felix. Right okay so we have another mystery on top of a mystery. We do and indeed this mystery was not solved until 2011 where people suddenly became really quite interested
00:38:11
Speaker
in the Notting Hill mystery was kind of rediscovered and so Paul Collins ended up doing a whole bunch of investigation into trying to work out who Charles Felix was and so he's scanning through a whole bunch of archive resources trying to work out whether anyone has ever mentioned this name
00:38:34
Speaker
and then one day he discovers from a literary gossip column in the Manchester Times on the 14th of May 1864 the following line and he notes that it's kind of unusual to think that they used to have literary gossip columns but
00:38:53
Speaker
In the 1860s, anything goes. And the line goes...
00:39:11
Speaker
So it turns out there's no record of any correspondence between Charles Felix and the publishers, Sanders, Oatley and Company, because why would you be corresponding with yourself? Right, okay. Is that kosher to be publishing your own works if you're a big publishing company? So here's where things get ever so slightly complicated.
00:39:41
Speaker
It turns out the reason why that Charles Warren Adams was in charge of Sanders, Oatley and Company was that Sanders and Oatley had died. And so he stepped in and rescued the firm from being dissolved after their death. And this occurs in kind of the mid 1860s.
00:40:06
Speaker
Now the film actually still ends up collapsing in 1869, so it turns out that without the benefit of Sanders and Oatley, who were taken to be very good editors, the publication house just isn't able to ever core itself back into respectability. So there's a question here as to, yes, is this an untoward thing, or is Charles Warren and Adam simply trying to
00:40:35
Speaker
No, kind of puff out or fluff out. I don't know why. I actually don't know what word I'm going for. I'm trying to pad out. I don't know why I couldn't think of pad. He's trying to fluff out a publication house. We've all done that. He's always fluffing out his publication house. So yes, maybe he was trying to pad out the resume of work that's being produced and going, well, if I publish my own work and I'm the sole editor of the firm,
00:41:01
Speaker
does look ever so slightly mysterious. So I'm going to hide this. Kind of like we've got no work sign. All we've got to do is publish our own stuff because we don't have any customers or something, I suppose. But then there's a question as to why didn't he then admit to this after the publication house collapsed? Well, maybe he's just got a thing for secrecy. Maybe that's his fetish.
00:41:29
Speaker
Now one theory that has been put forward... Is it that it was his fetish? No. So Charles Warren Adams was actually fairly famous in his own regard as a very prominent English lawyer and anti-vivisectionist.
00:41:51
Speaker
Well, good for him, I suppose. And because of his anti-vivisection views, he was in an acrimonious state with his wife's family. Who were a bunch of vivisectionists?
00:42:04
Speaker
Well, I mean, actually, I don't know whether they were pro-Vivisection, but they were certainly anti-anti-Vivisection, because his wife was Mildred Coleridge of those colleges, and her family so disliked Adams,
00:42:23
Speaker
that they labelled him several times, leading to numerous court cases which he consistently won. So not only were they saying bad things about him, they were saying bad things in such a way that he could go, no, no, I'm going to take you to court for that, my wife's family, I've won that. And so people were going, well, maybe, due to this acrimonious situation,
00:42:50
Speaker
That's the reason why Adams was keeping quiet about things.
00:42:55
Speaker
because he didn't want either the family to use their influence to rubbish his treasured book, or they didn't want to know about the money he was making off of it, or... Or maybe just trying to make sure they didn't have additional things. Oh, I mean, if you're such a good lawyer and head of the end of a section lead, why would you need to publish popular fiction? Now,
00:43:21
Speaker
This story is interesting but can only explain why he doesn't cop to being the writer later in life because he doesn't marry into the Coleridge family until 1885, which according to my math is significantly after the 1860s.
00:43:43
Speaker
like 20 years or something. Yeah, yeah, I mean, given that the story is initially published back in my notes, 1868, sorry, 1867. Yeah, yeah, almost 20 years, almost 20 years.
00:44:01
Speaker
So, and presumably his wife's family didn't start disliking him until he became involved with his wife. I mean, there's no record of them libelling before he gets involved with Robert. Right. OK, so, right. So then that doesn't really explain why he wouldn't have spilled the beans when the company went belly up.
00:44:28
Speaker
Yes, and this was a popular text. It was kind of the best seller of its age. And yet he remains remarkably mum about the situation throughout his life. I mean, he doesn't die until about 1901.
00:44:44
Speaker
So he keeps the secret of being the author of the Notting Hill mystery for a long time, and there's a very big question as to, but why did he do it? Which ends up being as mysterious as whether the Baronard killed his wife, or whether it was just a messy coincidence after all.
00:45:06
Speaker
So we have parallel situations then. We have the fictional situation, which comes to no clear conclusion, and then the real-life situation, which is similar. Is there anything to add on to that, or if we reach the limit of what we know? We have basically reached the limit of what we know. So we have the very first modern detective novel.
00:45:29
Speaker
which is a popular success, it ends up going into print being published by the author under an assumed name through a at that time respectable publication house. There's a mystery as to why he never admits
00:45:47
Speaker
authorship. There's also a question as to whether the illustrator ever knew exactly who he was illustrating work for. So there's also a question of the complicity of the editors of Once a Week magazine. Were they aware who the author of the piece was? There is some indication they might have done. So I said in 2011 it turns out Paul Collins basically solved the mystery.
00:46:11
Speaker
who is Charles Warren Adams. And then of course, like many things, people go, oh, by the way, we've got some prior art, because now that we know what we're looking for, we actually can find out that someone by the name of William Buckley, who wrote an article on the history of Once a Week magazine, actually worked out that Charles Felix was Charles Warren Adams back in 1952.
00:46:37
Speaker
but that was published in a journal article that until recently had never been digitised and no one knew existed. So basically they'd worked out who he was 60 years prior, but no one had actually noticed this. And yes, it's not entirely clear where Buckley got that.
00:46:55
Speaker
that information from he was doing a history of what to read magazine maybe there was some indication the files that the editors knew or maybe had access to additional information which allowed him to make it in front the most likely person is most interesting have we have we come to the end of the tile then we have indeed well there we go it had twists and turns so i mean
00:47:20
Speaker
The fact that the initial story did keep coming up with twists and turns that were worthy of a work of fiction, maybe that should have clued me in at the start. Yes, I must admit, by a lie of omission, so I talked about how a report was published in a once a week magazine,
00:47:39
Speaker
Didn't actually mention that Once a Week magazine was a literary venue. I did ever so slightly edit out some references in the letter about the way that Henderson is quite obviously writing for insurance adjusters rather than a general
00:47:56
Speaker
audience but by and large it's a fairly interesting story in its own right because the mystery of the author of the very first bit of modern detective fiction is itself a mystery worthy of detective fiction itself this would be the point where you go and would you be surprised if i'm all of this is fiction too but i'm not making that jump yep no i'm glad you don't
00:48:25
Speaker
This is not a Christopher Nolan film. No. Or at least... Not as far as we know. No, precisely. It kind of depends on whether you think the audio is good or bad. If the audio is bad, it's definitely a Christopher Nolan film. Well, there we have it. I'll give you this. It was a captivating enough tale that I completely forgot to go...
00:48:55
Speaker
Every time you brought in one of those new revelations, which shows how enthralled I was. Or it could be my mesmeric agency. Possibly you mesmerised me, yeah. Precisely. Had you trained fixed with my eyes the entire time, meaning that you were never able to look away to work out where the button was. That's where it is. Precisely. And we know how to press it.
00:49:23
Speaker
Well, very good. So there we go. The Notting Hill Misters. Was that the name of this fictional story? So what's interesting is after 2011, where Paul Collins writes this book, basically working out exactly what was going on with it, the British Crime Library reissues the book.
00:49:43
Speaker
And people start reading it again and they go, actually, it's an incredibly clever narrative with a little bit of racism. I left out the entire bit about gypsies. But they say the really interesting thing about it is the way it's presented. So it is presented as a series of reports.
00:50:03
Speaker
where the reader is meant to make judgement, Henderson throughout is going, look, what I'm about to tell you seems really weird, and I ask you to keep an open mind about this, but it never at any point does he say, this is the way you should interpret the evidence, and you kind of have to sit down and look at reports and maps and try to work out what you think occurred, because the narrator is never going to state definitively which conclusion you should draw from the evidence.
00:50:35
Speaker
Yes, if that happened today, obviously, the internet would be aflame with all the different theories. But also it's the kind of thing you'd expect with an alternate reality game these days, just being given a whole bunch of evidence leading you to look up more evidence and things.
00:50:53
Speaker
You could imagine that if Charles Warren Adams was writing this today, it would be a bunch of different websites, and you'd end up reading one and then working out which one to go to, and then you'd release new bits and pieces, or those phone games which are very popular at the mall.
00:51:12
Speaker
moment where the whole premise is you've been given someone else's phone and you have to dig through the phone to find evidence of exactly what happened to that particular person. It's the same kind of thing. It's actually, for the first example of the genre, incredibly prescient.
00:51:33
Speaker
Do we know, was there a fan base at the time? People writing about their particular theories of which way they thought the story went? Did the man do it or didn't he? Yes, I believe there was a letters page once a week, so there were people enjoying the rose.
00:51:50
Speaker
it's also because the way it was written you could also imagine that if you don't know once a week magazine was literary magazine you might think you're reading an actual series of reports so it does have that kind of weird war of the world broadcast thing which is often misunderstood by people given lots of people claim that people took that seriously and did things where actually the evidence is not particularly good that anyone took the war of the world's broadcast
00:52:16
Speaker
as being an actual broadcast, but at the same time it was convincing enough that you could be lured into the illusion of thinking you were listening to a news broadcast. Well there we go, another another stirring tale of conspiracy and intrigue. Indeed, so that's another exciting episode of What the Conspiracy. I think it is. So I suppose we should just start cleaving.
00:52:41
Speaker
Well, I got everything wrong, didn't I? You did, so... And... And also... Well, that's the end for me. It's true. You are literally now legless if you don't even drink. I don't.
00:53:01
Speaker
I'm a third of the man I used to be. I mean, that's been true for years. I suppose. Anyway, anyway, that is the end of this episode, but it's not the end for those loveliest of people, our own patrons. And they truly are the greatest. Oh, they are. The most radiant, the most luminous to the point where it's actually quite blinding how luminous our patrons are. I mean, frankly, if the sun goes out, we could launch our patrons into space.
00:53:30
Speaker
and they would provide all the lighter person needs. Unfortunately, that would mean the patrons would die because you might glow, but you can't breathe in space. I'm sorry, but that's a sacrifice you might have to make if the sun goes out. But you're our patrons. You're such wonderful people that you're likely to be willing to make that sacrifice. And there's an ant crawling on our recording deck. I'll leave the poor thing alone. I might get into the internals and then God knows what might happen to us out. Oh, like in phase four.
00:53:58
Speaker
Oh, I haven't watched that in ages. It's an old, old science fiction film, that one. Yeah. That's what it was like. Broadcast during the day, one day, many years ago, back when broadcast television was... It's a giant ant film, for those people. No, it's a space, super-intelligent space ant film. Oh, no, you're right, it is. It's actually about hives, isn't it? It's not the... It's not it. It's not them. No, it's... Yeah, it's about... Ants become super-intelligent because of radiation from space or something and sabotage, scientist's gear and everything.
00:54:27
Speaker
It has nothing to do with the bonus episode. This week, we're going to talk about the royals because there was a royal funeral recently. That's all the excuse we need. We'll never be royals.
00:54:47
Speaker
Having grown up in Devonport, where Lorde comes from, there are many issues I have with the lyrics of my first album. Well, yes. No, hers was not a deprived upbringing. Not at all. I mean, I know where her mother's house is. It's a very, very fancy big house. Now, admittedly, growing up in the 90s, Devonport was not as expensive as it was in the 80s, but it was still incredibly expensive.
00:55:15
Speaker
Anyway, we're not here to critique the works of Ella Yelich O'Connor.
00:55:22
Speaker
Maybe. I can't remember your name. Doesn't matter. We're not talking about who, we're talking about the royal royals. And just a general rundown of royal themed conspiracy theories. There's some good ones. We'll cover the classics, but there's a few in there that you might not have heard of. And if you'd like to hear them, then you'll jolly well want to become a patron, unless you really are. So if you want to become a patron, go to patreon.com and look for the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy. And then Robert's your father's brother.
00:55:52
Speaker
No, Bob's my uncle. And Fanny's my aunt. It's actually true. There's never an Aunt Fanny and an Uncle Bob. I had a Grandma Doris.
00:56:03
Speaker
But then she died, as grandparents do, as indeed the grandfather of Princes William and Harry just did, which is why we're going to be talking about that sort of stuff. Well, that almost worked. Sorry. I didn't hear about your dead grandparents. Well, that was some time ago, so that's all right. Yeah, but you've only just come out with that painful experience to me now. I mean, she made it to almost 91, so that's not bad.
00:56:30
Speaker
Should it use a bit of quality of gas? Possibly. So I think I think we'd be able to just draw a line under this and the Notting Hill mystery, which didn't even involve Julia Roberts. Or re-see funds in his underpants.
00:56:46
Speaker
We need more wreath ephans in his underwear. Yes, draw an under that, stop this episode, start recording a bonus episode about the royals and simply say to those of you listening to this, to whom we are eternally grateful also, just because you're our audience and we kind of need one of those, I'll just say goodbye. And I'll say toodly woo doo, ba doo doo woo. I'll get away from you a bit, thank you.
00:57:17
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy is Josh Addison and me, Dr. M. R. X. Denterth. You can contact us at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com and please do consider supporting the podcast via our Patreon. And remember, they're coming to get you, Barbara.