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The Maniac – A Realistic Study of Madness from the Maniac’s Point of View – E Thelmar

As I waited for the kettle to boil, the voice recommenced talking to me. It told me to tell the Medium about the appointment, and to add that the following day there would be an advertisement in the Daily Telegraph to say that Ray Hall was needing a secretary, but that the number of the house given in the advertisement was not the number to which the Medium was to go, as it was a private hotel consisting of three (or five, I forget which) houses, and the address to which the Medium was to apply was the house containing Ray Hall's private rooms, and that would be how he would know which was the right secretary to engage of all the applicants.  The others would, of course, all go to the number put in the advertisement.

I turned round to the Medium and I said  " Look here, I have never in my life before heard any 'voices' talking to me; but a voice that declares itself to be Ray Hall, the artist, is talking to me most distinctly now, and telling me to tell you the following." I recounted the whole instructions.

"What do you intend to do?" I asked, when I had delivered the message.

"I shall go," she answered unhesitatingly.

"Well," I said," if you take my advice you won't go unless you see that advertisement in the paper mentioned, I tell you candidly I haven’t a notion whether this voice is Ray Hall’s, or whose or what it is. I hear it as distinctly as I hear yours; but I have never heard anything of this sort before, and I can't possibly tell what it is. That advertisement will be a good test of its genuineness. If that advertisement isn't in, it will prove the whole thing to be a mistake. Don't you have anything to do with it unless that advertisement is actually in, as the voice says"

"Very well, I will wait and see the advertisement before calling. ….."