This is the complete series of six stories featuring Victorian adventurer and "ghost exposer" John Bell, as serialised in Cassell's Family Magazine in 1897. I recorded these stories episodically and they're all available to listen individually on the channel, but I've now collected them here as a single video for listeners who'd like to hear the whole cycle straight through, along with John Bell's original introduction to the stories (previously unrecorded).

Timestamps:
00:00:00 Narrator's introduction
00:01:13 John Bell's introduction
00:03:05 The Mystery of the Circular Chamber
00:57:03 The Warder of the Door
01:44:24 The Mystery of the Felwyn Tunnel
02:34:50 The Eight-Mile Lock
03:25:16 How Śiva Spoke
04:18:44 To Prove An Alibi
05:19:06 Credits, thanks and further listening
(See below for story teasers)

Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope, aka Bitesized Audio. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me (and get access to exclusive content):

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About the authors:
L. T. Meade (Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith, 1844–1914) was a prolific author of mystery and suspense stories, dominating the periodicals of the 1880s and 90s. She often wrote in collaboration with medical practitioners, who apparently supplied the scientific details which underpin many of her plots; first with Dr. Clifford Halifax, and later with Robert Eustace (possibly the pen name of Dr. Eustace Robert Barton, 1854–1943, although there's considerable doubt about his real identity). "Robert Eustace" is probably best remembered today for his much later collaboration with Dorothy L. Sayers on her 1930 novel 'The Documents in the Case'.

Together, Meade and Eustace created a number of recurring characters, including John Bell – a more sceptical predecessor of William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki, the Ghost Finder (who first appeared in print a decade or so later). Bell featured in a series of stories in Cassell’s Magazine in 1897, which were later published in book form under the title 'A Master of Mysteries' in 1898.

About the stories:
1. The Mystery of the Circular Chamber | 00:03:05
"Something happens in this house, and no living soul knows what it is, for they who have seen it have never yet survived to tell the tale." Legend says that no-one survives the night in the circular room at the Castle Inn, where several unexplained deaths have been popularly attributed to "fright". John Bell decides that the only way to get to the bottom of this mystery is to stay in the room himself...

2. The Warder of the Door | 00:57:03
The Clinton family is cursed, according to an old legend which describes a terrible fate awaiting each heir in the afterlife. Paranormal investigator John Bell returns in this ripping yarn involving secret tunnels, underground chambers and a door which apparently opens or closes according to an "infernal witchcraft".

3. The Mystery of the Felwyn Tunnel | 01:44:24
John Bell is asked to investigate the mysterious death of a railway signal-man in Wales, close to the mouth of a lonely tunnel which has the reputation of being haunted. The police seem confident it's murder, and have a suspect in custody, but can Bell demonstrate that other forces are at play?

4. The Eight-Mile Lock | 02:34:50
John Bell takes a summer holiday on a friend's houseboat, where he puts aside his ghost hunting to help with the search for some stolen diamonds; but he soon finds himself diverted into investigating a Thames lock-keeper's story of haunting by an uncanny, ghostly voice echoing across the river...

5. How Śiva Spoke | 03:25:16
A doctor acquaintance asks Bell to investigate the case of Edward Thesiger, who claims the statue of Śiva speaks to him. Thesiger seems perfectly sane in other respects, yet his nephew wants him committed to an asylum. Can Bell unravel the mystery of how Thesiger hears Śiva's voice, even though others present in the same room hear nothing?

6. To Prove An Alibi | 04:18:44
Arthur Cressley returns from making his fortune in Australia to take possession of his historic family seat, Cressley Hall in Derbyshire. He confides his fears about the sinister legend surrounding the Cressley heirs to John Bell – are supernatural forces at work, or could Cressley be the victim of a more material plot?

Original recordings © Bitesized Audio 2019–22. This compilation © 2023.