by Hans Holzer
Well, one Horace P. Whitney, editor, business, 128 Fulton Street, home, 287 Fifth Avenue, is listed in Trow.* And 128 Fulton Street is the place of the Globe’s competitor, the New York Mercury, published by Cauldwell and Whitney.†
* * *
That McGowan did not die in 1873 seems certain to me, as the above information proves. But if he did not die in 1873, something very traumatic must have been done to him at that time. Or perhaps the murder, if such it was, took place in 1897?
It could well be that General McGowan will take this ultimate secret with him into the Great Land where he now dwells safely forever.
* 5
The Case of the Murdered Financier
I REMEMBER THE NIGHT we went to visit the house where financier Serge Rubinstein was killed. It was a year after his death but only I, among the group, had knowledge of the exact date of the anniversary. John Latouche, my much-too-soon departed friend, and I picked up Mrs. Meyers at her Westside home and rode in a taxi to Fifth Avenue and 60th Street. As a precaution, so as not to give away the address which we were headed for, we left the taxi two blocks south of the Rubinstein residence.
Our minds were careful blanks, and the conversation was about music. But we didn’t fool our medium. “What’s the pianist doing here?” she demanded to know. What pianist, I countered. “Rubinstein,” said she. For to our medium, a professional singing teacher, that name could only stand for the great pianist. It showed that our medium was, so to speak, on-the-beam, and already entering into the “vibration,” or electrically charged atmosphere of the haunting.
Latouche and I looked at each other in amazement. Mrs. Meyers was puzzled by our sudden excitement. Without further delay, we rang the bell at the stone mansion, hoping the door would open quickly so that we would not be exposed to curiosity-seekers who were then still hanging around the house where one of the most publicized murders had taken place just a year before, to the hour.
It was now near midnight, and my intention had been to try and make contact with the spirit of the departed. I assumed, from the manner in which he died, that Serge Rubinstein might still be around his house, and I had gotten his mother’s permission to attempt the contact.
The seconds on the doorstep seemed like hours, as Mrs. Meyers questioned me about the nature of tonight’s “case.” I asked her to be patient, but when the butler came and finally opened the heavy gate, Mrs. Meyers suddenly realized where we were. “It isn’t the pianist, then!” she mumbled, somewhat dazed. “It’s the other Rubinstein!” With these words we entered the forbidding-looking building for an evening of horror and ominous tension.
The murder is still officially unsolved, and as much an enigma to the world as it was on that cold winter night, in 1955, when the newspaper headlines screamed of “bad boy” financier Serge Rubinstein’s untimely demise. That night, after business conferences and a night on the town with a brunette, Rubinstein had some unexpected visitors. Even the District Attorney couldn’t name them for sure, but there were suspects galore, and the investigation never ran out of possibilities.
Evidently Serge had a falling-out with the brunette, Estelle Gardner, and decided the evening was still young, so he felt like continuing it with a change of cast. Another woman, Pat Wray, later testified that Rubinstein telephoned her to join him after he had gotten rid of Estelle, and that she refused.
The following morning, the butler, William Morter, found Rubinstein dead in his third-floor bedroom. He was wearing pajamas, and evidently the victim of some form of torture—for his arms and feet were tied, and his mouth and throat thickly covered by adhesive tape. The medical examiner dryly ruled death by strangulation.
The police found themselves with a first-rate puzzle on their hands. Lots of people wanted to kill Rubinstein, lots of people had said so publicly without meaning it—but who actually did? The financier’s reputation was not the best, although it must be said that he did no more nor less than many others; but his manipulations were neither elegant nor quiet, and consequently, the glaring light of publicity and exposure created a public image of a monster that did not really fit the Napoleonic-looking young man from Paris.
Rubinstein was a possessive and jealous man. A tiny microphone was placed by him in the apartment of Pat Wray, sending sound into a tape recorder hidden in a car parked outside the building. Thus, Rubinstein was able to monitor her every word!
Obviously, his dealings were worldwide, and there were some 2,000 names in his private files.
The usual sensational news accounts had been seen in the press the week prior to our séance, but none of them contained anything new or definite. Mrs. Meyers’ knowledge of the case was as specific as that of any ordinary newspaper reader.
* * *
We were received by Serge’s seventy-nine-year-old mother, Stella Rubinstein; her sister, Eugenia Forrester; the Rubinstein attorney, Ennis; a female secretary; a guard named Walter, and a newspaper reporter from a White Russian paper, Jack Zwieback. After a few moments of polite talk downstairs—that is, on the second floor where the library of the sumptuous mansion was located—I suggested we go to the location of the crime itself.
We all rose, when Mrs. Meyers suddenly stopped in her tracks. “I feel someone’s grip on my arm,” she commented.
We went upstairs without further incident.
The bedroom of the slain financier was a mediumsize room in the rear of the house, connected with the front sitting room through a large bathroom. We formed a circle around the bed, occupying the center of the room. The light was subdued, but the room was far from dark. Mrs. Meyers insisted on sitting in a chair close to the bed, and remarked that she “was directed there.”
Gradually her body relaxed, her eyes closed, and the heavy, rhythmic breathing of onsetting trance was heard in the silence of the room, heavily tensed with fear and apprehension of what was to come.
Several times, the medium placed her arm before her face, as if warding off attacks; symptoms of choking distorted her face and a struggle seemed to take place before our eyes!
Within a few minutes, this was over, and a new, strange voice came from the lips of the medium. “I can speak…over there, they’re coming!” The arm pointed toward the bathroom.
I asked who “they” were.
“They’re no friends…Joe, Stan…cheap girl…in the door, they—” The hand went to the throat, indicating choking.
Then, suddenly, the person in command of the medium added: “The woman should be left out. There was a calendar with serial numbers…box numbers, but they can’t get it! Freddie was here, too!”
“What was in the box?”
“Fourteen letters. Nothing for the public.”
“Give me more information.”
“Baby-Face…I don’t want to talk too much…they’ll pin it on Joe.”
“How many were there?”
“Joe, Stan, and Freddie…stooges. Her bosses’ stooges! London…let me go, let me go…I’m too frantic here…not up here…I’ll come again.”
With a jolt, the medium awoke from her trance. Perspiration stood on her forehead, although the room was cold. Not a word was said by the people in the room. Mrs. Meyers leaned back and thought for a moment.
“I feel a small, stocky man here, perverted minds, and there is fighting all over the room. He is being surprised by the bathroom door. They were hiding in the next room, came through this window and fire escape.”
We descended again to the library, where we had originally assembled. The conversation continued quietly, when suddenly Mrs. Meyers found herself rapidly slipping into trance again.
“Three men, one wiry and tall, one short and very stocky, and one tall and stout—the shorter one is in charge. Then there is Baby-Face…she has a Mona Lisalike face. Stan is protected. I had the goods on them…. Mama’s right, it’s getting hot….”
“Give us the name!” I almost shouted. Tension gripped us all.
The medium struggled with an unfamiliar sound
. “Kapoich…?” Then she added, “The girl here…poker face.”
“But what is her name?”
“Ha ha…tyrant.”
When Mrs. Meyers came out of her trance, I questioned Rubinstein’s mother about the séance. She readily agreed that the voice had indeed sounded much like her late son’s. Moreover, there was that girl—named in the investigation—who had a “baby face.” She never showed emotion, and was, in fact, poker-faced all the time. Her name?
“My son often called her his tyrant,” the mother said, visibly shaken.
“What about the other names?”
“My son used a hired limousine frequently. The chauffeur was a stocky man, and his name was Joe or Joey. Stan? I have heard that name many times in business conversations.” One of the men involved in the investigation was named Kubitschek. Had the deceased tried to pronounce that name?
A wallet once belonging to Serge had been handed to Mrs. Meyers a few minutes before, to help her maintain contact with the deceased. Suddenly, without warning, the wallet literally flew out of her hands and hit the high ceiling of the library with tremendous impact.
Mrs. Meyers’ voice again sounded strange, as the late financier spoke through her in anger. “Do you know how much it costs to sell a man down the river?”
Nobody cared to answer. We had all had quite enough for one evening!
We all left in different directions, and I sent a duplicate of the séance transcript to the police, something I have done with every subsequent séance as well. Mrs. Meyers and I were never the only ones to know what transpired in trance. The police knew, too, and if they did not choose to arrest anyone, that was their business.
We were sure our séance had not attracted attention, and Mrs. Rubinstein herself, and her people, certainly would not spread the word of the unusual goings-on in the Fifth Avenue mansion on the anniversary of the murder.
But on February 1, Cholly Knickerbocker headlined—“Serge’s Mother Holds A Séance”!
Not entirely accurate in his details—his source turned out to be one of the guards—Mr. Cassini, nevertheless, came to the point in stating: “To the awe of all present, no less than four people were named by the medium. If this doesn’t give the killers the chills, it certainly does us.”
We thought we had done our bit toward the solution of this baffling murder, and were quite prepared to forget the excitement of that evening. Unfortunately, the wraith of Rubinstein did not let it rest at that.
During a routine séance then held at my house on West 70th Street, he took over the medium’s personality, and elaborated on his statements. He talked of his offices in London and Paris, his staff, and his enemies. One of his lawyers, Rubinstein averred, knew more than he dared disclose!
I called Mrs. Rubinstein and arranged for another, less public sitting at the Fifth Avenue house. This time only the four of us, the two elderly ladies, Mrs. Meyers and I, were present. Rubinstein’s voice was again recognized by his mother.
“It was at 2:45 on the nose. 2:45!” he said, speaking of the time of his death. “Pa took my hand, it wasn’t so bad. I want to tell the little angel woman here, I don’t always listen like a son should—she told me always, ‘You go too far, don’t take chances!”‘
Then his voice grew shrill with anger. “Justice will be done. I have paid for that.”
I asked, what did this fellow Joey, whom he mentioned the first time, do for a living?
“Limousines. He knew how to come. He brought them here, they were not invited.”
He then added something about Houston, Texas, and insisted that a man from that city was involved. He was sure “the girl” would eventually talk and break the case.
There were a number of other sittings, at my house, where the late Serge put his appearance into evidence. Gradually, his hatred and thirst for revenge gave way to a calmer acceptance of his untimely death. He kept us informed of “poker face’s moves”—whenever “the girl” moved, Serge was there to tell us. Sometimes his language was rough, sometimes he held back.
“They’ll get Mona Lisa,” he assured me on March 30th, 1956. I faithfully turned the records of our séances over to the police. They always acknowledged them, but were not eager to talk about this help from so odd a source as a psychical researcher!
Rubinstein kept talking about a Crown Street Headquarters in London, but we never were able to locate this address. At one time, he practically insisted in taking his medium with him into the street, to look for his murderers! It took strength and persuasion for me to calm the restless one, for I did not want Mrs. Meyers to leave the safety of the big armchair by the fireplace, which she usually occupied at our séances.
“Stan is on this side now,” he commented on April 13th.
I could never fathom whether Stan was his friend of his enemy, or perhaps both at various times. Financier Stanley died a short time after our initial séance at the Fifth Avenue mansion.
Safe deposit boxes were mentioned, and numbers given, but somehow Mrs. Rubinstein never managed to find them.
On April 26th, we held another sitting at my house. This time the spirit of the slain financier was particularly restless.
“Vorovsky,” he mumbled, “yellow cab, he was paid good for helping her get away from the house. Doug paid him, he’s a friend of Charley’s. Tell mother to hire a private detective.”
I tried to calm him. He flared up at me. “Who’re you talking to? The Pope?”
The next day, I checked these names with his mother. Mrs. Rubinstein also assured me that the expression “who do you think I am—the Pope?” was one of his favorite phrases in life!
“Take your nose down to Texas and you’ll find a long line to London and Paris,” he advised us on May 10th.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Rubinstein increased the reward for the capture of the murderer to $50,000. Still, no one was arrested, and the people the police had originally questioned had all been let go. Strangely enough, the estate was much smaller than at first anticipated. Was much money still in hiding, perhaps in some unnamed safe deposit box? We’ll never know. Rubinstein’s mother has gone on to join him on the other side of the veil, too.
My last contact with the case was in November of 1961, when columnist Hy Gardner asked me to appear on his television program. We talked about the Rubinstein séances, and he showed once more the eerie bit of film he called “a collector’s item”—the only existing television interview with Rubinstein, made shortly before his death in 1955.
The inquisitive reporter’s questions are finally parried by the wily Rubinstein with an impatient—“Why, that’s like asking a man about his own death!”
Could it be that Serge Rubinstein, in addition to all his other “talents,” also had the gift of prophecy?
* 6
The Rockland County Ghost*
IN NOVEMBER 1951 the writer heard for the first time of the haunted house belonging to the New York home of the late Danton Walker, the well-known newspaper man.
Over a dinner table in a Manhattan restaurant, the strange goings-on in the Rockland County house were discussed with me for the first time, although they had been observed over the ten years preceding our meeting. The manifestations had come to a point where they had forced Mr. Walker to leave his house to the ghost and build himself a studio on the other end of his estate, where he was able to live unmolested.
A meeting with Mrs. Garrett, the medium, was soon arranged, but due to her indisposition, it had to be postponed. Despite her illness, Mrs. Garrett, in a kind of “traveling clairvoyance,” did obtain a clairvoyant impression of the entity. His name was “Andreas,” and she felt him to be rather attached to the present owner of the house. These findings Mrs. Garrett communicated to Mr. Walker, but nothing further was done on the case until the fall of 1952. A “rescue circle” operation was finally organized on November 22, 1952, and successfully concluded the case, putting the disturbed soul to rest and allowing Mr. Walker to return to the main house without further fe
ar of manifestations.
Before noting the strange phenomena that have been observed in the house, it will be necessary to describe this house a bit, as the nature of the building itself has a great deal to do with the occurrences.
Mr. Walker’s house is a fine example of colonial architecture, of the kind that was built in the country during the second half of the eighteenth century. Although Walker was sure only of the first deed to the property, dated 1813 and naming the Abrams family, of pre-Revolutionary origin in the country, the house itself is unquestionably much older.
When Mr. Walker bought the house in the spring of 1942, it was in the dismal state of disrepair typical of some dwellings in the surrounding Ramapo Mountains. It took the new owner several years and a great deal of money to rebuild the house to its former state and to refurbish it with the furniture, pewter, and other implements of the period. I am mentioning this point because in its present state the house is a completely livable and authentic colonial building of the kind that would be an entirely familiar and a welcome sight to a man living toward the end of the eighteenth century, were he to set foot into it today.
The house stands on a hill which was once part of a farm. During the War for Independence, this location was the headquarters of a colonial army. In fact, “Mad” Anthony Wayne’s own headquarters stood near this site, and the Battle of Stony Point (1779) was fought a few miles away. Most likely, the building restored by Mr. Walker was then in use as a fortified roadhouse, used both for storage of arms, ammunitions, and food supplies, and for the temporary lodging of prisoners.
After the house passed from the hands of the Abrams family in the earlier part of the last century, a banker named Dixon restored the farm and the hill, but paid scant attention to the house itself. By and by, the house gave in to the ravages of time and weather. A succession of mountain people made it their living quarters around the turn of the century, but did nothing to improve its sad state of disrepair. When Mr. Walker took over, only the kitchen and a small adjoining room were in use; the rest of the house was filled with discarded furniture and other objects. The upstairs was divided into three tiny rooms and a small attic, which contained bonnets, hoop skirts, and crudely carved wooden shoe molds and toys, dating from about the Civil War period.
