Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
So, doctor Dan Freeman, co author of a couple of books on Jack the Ripper as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as Jack the Ripper. The new one will be coming out this fall, and of all goes as planned, you'll see a little blurb on the back there Doyle's World Lost and Found. The Unknown Histories are Sherlock Combs and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So if I were to ask you, though, Dan, if I could again, I mean, you mentioned the Robert Louis Stevenson thing.
You mentioned some pieces that it seems like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave to other people to publish under their names. How do you make that determination?
You know?
I actually what I will do. I will go through a Shilla Comb's tale and I will analyze the language, and I will look for clues in there that don't seem to match the storyline, or see if there's something out of place and I don't take that one piece of information, and I will investigate where it was really coming from, what it was really meant to mean, and in one of the stories, it was just that I am your neighbor, and that line, I am your neighbor just comes out of nowhere, and it was the clue
I needed to figure out exactly who this entire story was dedicated to. And it's actually one of the most famous ones. It's the one that resurrected Sholo comes out of the graves. In other words, there was the Hound of the Basketballs that that took Holmes back before he was he fell off Rick and back balls, and the Venture of the Empty House where he says, I've been away in Tibet, and I went to Florence, and I
went to France, and I stopped in on Mecca. And there was just one word in that story, I am your neighbor, that made me look to see what that meant. Who was his neighbor, found out who the neighbor was, and everything about that neighbor fit the entire story.
So, yeah, tell me more specifically about what you mean by that then.
So in other words, so he had a neighbor named Grant Allen. He was a very famous writer at the time. It was kind of like the Isaac Asimov of our time. He like wrote genre possible, like science fiction, but then history, then religion, biology, so and Doyle was asked right before this, before Grant Allen died, he said, you're my neighbor. We know each other for years now. You moved here because of me. I told you to move to this area
for your wife's health, and you did. Could give me a favorite just finished the end of my story for me. I can't do it. And Doyle of course said, sure, you do your story for you. Where are we up to. We're in mystic Tibet and we're going to be meeting with the Dolly Lama. So of course Doyle stores up the story and he starts writing about, you know, the Dolly Lama and the adventures that we're going to happen
after this. So if you take this part of the I am your neighbor of being Grant Allen, and you look and see what happens in the rest of the empty house. We start off in Tibet, Holmes tells you I went to Tibet and that with the Dali Lama, and then I went to Florence. And in Florence is actually a book that Grant Allen wrote because he also wrote about travel guides and one of the most famous travel guys is Florence. I'm actually holding it in my hand. Actually,
it's beautiful. I can't show you because we're not doing it.
Like yeah, but.
All the things in that story are based upon Grant Allen, like where the where homes went to, where he went to, the name of the Murderers are I mean, it's it's all dedicated to Grant Allen, secretly, never acknowledged, and no one's ever figured this out before. That's one of the stories that we're going to be doing. And we're also going to be doing another, the second home story, the Sign of the Four, which is one of the most famous of his novels, probably one of my favorite stories
of all time. But in that one, we learn about this guy with one leg named Jonathan Small and how he has all these adventures. And but when you look at the story and you analyze it, it is the story of Treasure Island being told in reverse. Basically, you're going to be doing a sea story that becomes a land story that goes back to her sea story, to the episode of Tradu Roland. And you know, we have
our character in Doyle story is Jonathan small. But in traju Roland, we have Long John Silver, so we have a long versus a small and we have John as the same first name, so both characters, so the character's names match up two, you know, long and small and but there's more to it than that.
That's like a little you know, that's a teaser. Yeah, I like that. You know what, do you know what what neighbor implies in Hebrew?
No, tell me what does neighbor of imply in Hebrew?
People you cannot avoid?
Yeah, that's exactly.
Yeah, it doesn't mean geographic. It doesn't mean like you only have like four neighbors, people who around your house, So people in your in your life you can't avoid.
Wow.
And I find that concept so fascinating because you know, then it love thy neighbor takes on a whole different thing other than you know, it's like the love that you might have for a neighbor doesn't end at the end of a block.
It's the people that are in your community. Basically, it's like you just cannot avoid that if they're gonna work there, your neighbor, because you cannot avoid them your.
Work, right, or are the people you're going to see a Temple.
Or those two young Yeah, exactly. Anybody you're going to be really with is your your neighbor, you know.
Like, yeah, you may be in conflict with them, but can't avoid them, you might as well work it out.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I was love that. Well, all right, So again that's Doyle's World is Lost and Found. The Unknown History is a sure Combs and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. You can pre order that right now on Amazon. Let's go back to something that I mentioned before the break, which was doctor Catherine ramslan internationally recognized expert on serial killer as a criminologist, and she I've made an offense comment once about some of the things we know that define the
characteristics of a serial killer. And she made a point to say it's a myth that serial killers want to be caught that in fact, it's the opposite. They don't want to be caught. They're not interested in turning themselves in this idea, the sort of you know, Dustyevskian concept about you know, chase me that it's over, there's too fine a point on it. Where are you with that?
Well, I would say that no one knows killer wants to get caught. I mean, it means serving time in jail. I means you don't hanged exactly. But then again, you could be a little game that you're playing when you are. And that's why they leave things behind, I mean, and that's how they get. Remember that's good detective work, is how they find. You know, with serial killer, they their patterns are always left behind. So they are leaving things
behind as far as patterns are concerned. Sometimes they leave little objects behind. The Jack the Ripper crimes themselves left behind some objects and they have meetings to the serial killer, but maybe not to you. And I'm just going to go over the Jack the Ripper ones. I mean, there were two that I really find which were like stand out. There were thimbles left behind, and they were handkerchiefs left behind, and that was always in like you know, when they
did the inquest, those objects always came up. I mean, I know other people say they were coins left behind and brass rings for like some type of black magic visual, which they were not. They that wasn't there. That's all mess and that's all they believe. But the handkerchiefs were there, and they're all part of the inquests and symbols left behind planted, they were you know, they were purposely planted
next to the victims. And those are the ones I like the most because the handkerchief is really intellectually based. You know, if you read or Fellow and you see what you know, Iago does to Desdemona. He manipulates that beautiful fidelity of the handkerchief into something that represents infidelity.
So if the ripper understood or had ever was a student of the board and knew that the handkerchief being left behind could be a symbol of infidelity, it's a clue for his motive or why he killed these women, because really he really didn't have a motive. He wasn't doing it for robbery, he wasn't doing it for lust. You know, there was really no motive why he killed
a specific woman. There was a pattern, but there was no motive that he wasn't doing it to like financial gain, you know, like like HH Holmes would do it for financial game. You know, he would insurance policies on the women with the you know, but that's financial game. That's that's different. But there was nothing here. So he left behind those handkerchiefs as a as as like a calling card saying here I am. I killed this woman, not because of who she was, but she represents infidelity to me.
And the symbol is something that I find is fascinating, and it's it's one of the things you find in actually Peter Pan, which is actually James James Barry wrote Peter Pan. It's actually a friend of Arthur Corona Doyle. They were cricket teammates together and in Peter Pan, Wendy Darling gives Peter a symbol and he says, you know, this represents a kiss. So it's almost like this is a kiss. And the symbols being left away from the woman being planted means this is again an active infidelity.
The symbols not placed on your hand, it's taken away from you. And also they of course the rippers stole all the rings. He took the rings off the and Chat Chapman. She lost her rings, and because rings represented in fidelity, so she couldn't be she couldn't died with a ring on her finger, it would represent the fidelity. So those are the three things that I noticed that the that were being left. But as far as you know, being wanted to be caught, I can say, they probably
like to play with the toy with the police. They like the toy with society. I don't think any serial killer, unless they're really criminally insane, wants to get put into the difference than get hanged or executed or executed now, so I do agree with the you're expert that they don't want to They don't want to be caught.
There isn't a stop me before I kill again motif to the Okay, let's go back. First of all, the thimble changes the way I'm going to play Monopoly next time.
So you.
Play, Yeah, you can have the race car. You can have the race car. I'm going to be the thimble. So but then the that concept of the handkerchief A was there any evidence he said? Says that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was familiar with with Shakespeare, that he was a fan of Shakespeare.
About Doyle was like he Ba said, it was like bathing in Shakespeare. Since he was a child, his mother read him Shakespeare and a Thurian legends. When he went to school, Doyle had to act out the plays during the winter recess, and of course the plays were always Shakespearean, so he knew Shakespeare he could probably quote to Shakespeare as matter of fact. One of the things that are
in our lost stories. He starts off with a Shakespeare quote, and even though it's not officially written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it's his work. And he starts up with a Shakespeare quote. And there's a lot of Shakespeare in the in the Homestales too, all put in there, like little lines that he throws in there. So he was fully aware of the words that Shakespeare used in the and the reasons behind them, like the waking up, the word assassins and all that. He knew all that kind of stuff.
Okay, so then the was there anything on the handkerchief? Had the handkerchief been used to clean a blade or was it a pristine handkerchief that was just dropped you know.
Actually he actually wiped his blades and other pieces of paper that were found near the bodies. He actually left the handkerchiefs in pretty nice conditions as a symbol of infidelity, like I'm giving you this handkerchief which I have manipulated to represent your active infidelity. So no, they weren't like used like with to wipe his hands off, and he just threw them down. That was not what he just actually left them there as like a calling guard.
Okay, and they weren't were were handkerchiefs considered a sign of aristocracy or of success, that the lower classes wouldn't have a handkerchief, but the upper classes would no.
No, the rob they had. Now, even when you look in some of the at the Mary Jane Kelly's room, who was I don't think it was one of the victims, but she had handkerchiefs in her room. There's a lot of the victims carried handkerchiefs with them, but these were not like they actually do an inquest. That was one of the things was did They would ask people that knew the victims did she had? Was this her handkerchief?
And they would always say that was not hers, that did not belong to her, That was not her item. She had that one, but she didn't have this one that.
Was except that, you know, there's a difference between I mean, unless you're saying that there wasn't in this era. There's a difference between male handkerchiefs and female handkerchiefs, and that men's handkerchiefs tend to be, you know, much more simply adorned and if they may even have you know, they may even have a monogram on it, whereas a female may have. I'm going based on my grandmother's handkerchiefs when she treasured and passed down, they were very elaborate.
Oh I'm sure, I know. I don't think you know there was I don't have any you know, photographic you know, things I can look at to see what they was left with. I don't. I would tend to believe that they were not monogrammed, and I would tend to believe they were not that elaborate per se. But I would say they were most likely to be of the color white. And I'll tell you why, because when Doyle was about fourteen years old, he actually writes about an event at
his school. And I told you, if you remember, I told you he had a very bad school experience. He was beaten basically every day, beaten by the professors, and the faculty would always whip him with this thick rubber tlly on his hand and stripped the skin off his hand. I mean, he was really abusive kid. But when he was fourteen, he wrote his mother that a teacher named mister Crea And I'm going to tell that because this
is important for the shot clothes people. C hri A. This teacher, mister Crea basically said Doyle Doyle, I'm going to kill you in the middle of vesper servers and started waving a Doyle writist. He started waving a white handkerchief around over his head, screaming Doyle Doyle, I'm going
to kill you. I'm going to kill you. So he actually uses the word white handkerchief and that that story actually was meant to as a as a way to tell his mother that I know you're having an affair with with the lodger Brian Waller without a human having to say it, because he tells his mother that I was with my teacher and we were reading a story called Durraicher, and d Raicher is a German word for revenge. He actually tells his mother this, and then he says,
you should read the book. You should get the book in English. Now the book is written by Ada Lee Wald, so that means it doesn't mean anything because it's a German book. But he had an English name, which was Kurt Waller, and the name of the mother's well lodger at the time was Brian Waller. So it was a way of saying, I know that you're having an affair.
And that's why he used the word korea because if you in the first Sherlock Holmestail, there's two sections where the killer, well the murderer of the Jefferson basically writes on the wall the word rach in blood. Well, those are the those are the five letters that are in krea r A c h e are the same letters as an anagram of krea c h r e a. So rach in German means revenge. So it was his way of telling his mom, I know you're very educated.
You're going to find the book. You're going to know the name of the book in English is written by Waller, and you're going to understand that the white handkerchief is a method of infidelity, and you're going to know I know that you're you're sleeping with this guy in the house. It's it's Conan Doyle's way of saying, he's really brilliant, but he's not gonna he's not going to embarrass you.
An alternate meaning of of Kurt is wolf.
Oh, it could be world for you to go yeah, wolf, and she's clothing Yeah. Absolutely.
Listen to more Coast to Coast a m. Every weeknight at one a m. Eastern, and go to Coast to coastam dot com for more