Doyle was a big player in the world of spiritualism. When Agatha Christie went missing, the chief constable of Surrey approached him for help. Rather than employing the deductive skills that saw him solving numerous real-life crimes, Doyle instead decided to procure one of Christie’s gloves, which he presented to Horace Leaf and asked him to help in the hunt. Leaf practised psychometry, the art of eliciting information from physical objects. Leaf, who was given the glove, without a name, said that Agatha was quite safe and that they’d all hear from her on Wednesday. This surprisingly turned
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