At three in the morning on October 17, 1898, the walls of the Epstein Hotel in Thorn Creek, Missouri, began to whisper. Jeremiah Holloway, a traveling salesman from St. Louis, lay awake in room 217 and listened. He could not make out the words.

The murmur came from inside the plaster, a low rhythmic cadence that sounded almost like chanting, like an incantation. It called his name, though not in the way he was used to hearing it. He lit the gas lamp. The whispering stopped.

The room was empty. By the time the morning sun pushed through the heavy Ozark heat, Holloway made a decision. He would go down to the cellar of the hotel, to the small dark door he had seen at the back, the one that had been left slightly ajar during his first visit to the wine store. He jotted a few lines in his black notebook, then paused.

The last phrase he wrote before the page went blank read: “The door is open. Smell of earth, metal. He knows. The walls have eyes.

”

No one saw Jeremiah Holloway again. The summer of 1898 had been brutal. For weeks the temperature sat above ninety degrees, the humidity so thick that people moved slowly and spoke quietly, weighing every word. Thorn Creek was a small mining settlement in the hills southwest of Springfield, and its residents were used to hardship, but they were not used to the Epstein Hotel.

The three-story Victorian structure stood out among the town’s modest buildings. Built by Montgomery Epstein, a 63-year-old businessman who had arrived in 1879 during the lead mining boom, the hotel featured an ornate wraparound porch supported by carved columns, tall windows protected by iron bars, and a rear garden that was once praised as lush and well-tended. By 1898, the garden had been overtaken by weeds. The white paint had weathered to a sickly yellow-gray.

Vines crawled up the peeling walls, creating shadows that seemed to move at dusk. The locals crossed to the other side of Pinewood Trail when they had to pass the hotel after sunset. No one could say exactly why. It was a feeling, an unspoken unease, as if the building watched them in return.

That reputation predated October 1898. Josephine Garner, a laundress who worked for several wealthy families in Thorn Creek, recalled that the hotel was always different. The clothes she washed for the Epstein household smelled not of ordinary dirt but of damp soil and dried herbs, even the clean pieces. Epstein always handed her the laundry himself at the service entrance and never allowed her beyond it.

Once, arriving earlier than expected, she glimpsed the kitchen. It was spotless, unnaturally so, as if no meal had ever been prepared there, yet the hotel served guests daily. Bartholomew Miller, who ran the general store across from the hotel, noticed other oddities. Epstein ordered unusual supplies: specific salts, herbs Miller had never heard of, and large quantities of beeswax candles while everyone else had switched to kerosene lamps.

He insisted on importing certain goods directly from Europe at great cost when local alternatives were available. Strangest of all, the hotel seemed to consume without producing waste. Other establishments of its size filled barrels with empty bottles and food scraps. The Epstein Hotel barely filled a small barrel each week.

Deliveries came irregularly, often at night. Heavy wooden boxes with strange markings were handled by Epstein himself rather than the porter. Traveling salesmen who stayed there often left before their scheduled departure, pale and exhausted. One commercial traveler told Miller he would rather sleep in the stables than spend another night in the hotel.

When asked why, the man simply shook his head and said, “The walls. They’re not right. ”

Montgomery Epstein was born in Philadelphia to German immigrant parents. He made his first fortune in textiles before seeing opportunity in the expanding mining operations of southern Missouri.

County records show he purchased the land in 1880 and spent about a year building what would become the most impressive structure in Thorn Creek. Local newspapers had praised it as a beacon of urban refinement that would surely attract wealthier visitors. Epstein, they noted, spared no expense. His wife, Millicent, died in 1896.

The official death certificate, signed by Dr. Harrison Wells on February 3, 1896, listed the cause as cardiac arrest resulting from typhoid fever. But a more detailed medical report, found years later in the archives of an old Springfield medical college, described symptoms that had nothing to do with a simple fever. The patient suffered bouts of severe agitation alternating with deep lethargy.

She reported disturbing visions and insisted that something inside the walls was watching her. Her pupils remained dilated even under bright light. Her skin showed an unnatural pallor. During her delirium, she sometimes spoke in a language unknown to the physician.

When lucid, she begged not to be returned to the hotel, claiming, “That thing is waiting for me there. ” Her husband insisted these were merely manifestations of fever-induced delirium. Millicent Epstein was buried on February 5, 1896, in a private ceremony attended only by Montgomery Epstein and the officiating minister. No obituary appeared in the local papers.

No funeral announcement was published. When curious neighbors asked, Epstein explained that his wife had requested simplicity in death as in life. On the morning of October 17, 1898, Holloway missed a meeting at the Thorn Creek Mining Company office. This was so uncharacteristic that the company secretary, Abigail Winters, sent the hotel porter, Silas Merritt, to check on him.

Holloway had worked for Westmoreland Mining Supplies in St. Louis for eleven years. He was described as methodical to a fault, a man of fixed habits. His employer expected him back in St.

Louis by October 20 at the latest. Merritt knocked on the door of room 217 for several minutes without a response. The door was not locked, merely closed. He entered, calling Holloway’s name.

Abigail Winters waited in the corridor, close enough to see what happened. The room was immaculate, as if prepared for new guests. On the writing desk beside the window sat a half-glass of water. There were no signs of struggle or disorder.

The bed showed no evidence of having been slept in; the covers were pulled tight, the pillows untouched. Holloway’s suitcase stood open on the luggage rack, containing carefully folded clothes and personal effects. His sales materials, catalogs, order forms, and samples of mining equipment parts were arranged systematically on the desk. His wallet lay on the table with forty-seven dollars and thirty-five cents inside, along with his business cards.

His gold watch remained in place. The sheriff’s report, written by Deputy Marcus Tanner under the dictation of Sheriff Bartholomew Quinn, noted a curious detail. Holloway’s clock on the mantelpiece had stopped at exactly 3:17, as had his pocket watch found on the side table. Winters confirmed that her own watch showed the correct time of 10:43 in the morning.

Three other rooms were occupied that night. Clarence Hargrove, purchasing manager for the Thorn Creek Mining Company, occupied room 5. Thaddeus Blackwood, a lumber dealer from Kansas City, stayed in room 112. Samuel and Margaret Whitfield, a visiting couple from Chicago, occupied room 201, directly across the corridor from Holloway’s room.

All three parties reported hearing unusual sounds around three in the morning. Hargrove stated he woke to what sounded like someone dragging something heavy across the floor above him. The noise lasted about five minutes, then stopped abruptly. Whitfield reported that both he and his wife woke to what she described as whispers inside the walls.

He smelled a strange odor like damp earth or a root cellar coming from the corridor. When he opened his door to investigate, the hallway was empty and the smell dissipated quickly. Their clock read 3:15 in the morning. Blackwood, whose ground-floor room was farthest from room 217, gave the vaguest account.

He claimed he was awake reading when he heard someone running in the corridor. He opened his door but saw no one. The large pendulum clock in the lobby struck three. He returned to bed shortly after and heard nothing unusual thereafter.

Merritt searched the room. In the closet, he noticed something unusual: an old leather traveling bag, open. This seemed odd given Holloway’s known meticulousness. The bag contained grooming tools and small personal items: a pocketknife, a silver tie pin, cufflinks, all arranged with remarkable precision.

Inside, Merritt found a small black notebook that appeared to be a diary. He took it with him and immediately reported the disappearance to Sheriff Quinn. The official investigation was brief. After three days of searching without finding any trace of the businessman, Sheriff Quinn concluded that Holloway had likely left to pursue a business opportunity without informing anyone.

The case was closed. Room 217 was cleaned and prepared for new guests. A telegram was sent to Westmoreland Mining Supplies in St. Louis.

Their response, preserved in the case file, expressed disbelief. “Holloway most reliable. Stop. Eleven years of perfect service.

Stop. Impossible. Stop. That he would abandon his post or company property.

Stop. We will send a representative immediately. Stop. ”

Company representative Vincent Caldwell arrived in Thorn Creek on October 22, but by then the official investigation was already closed.

The notebook Merritt found was never attached to the official case file. Sheriff Quinn claimed he returned it to the porter, who in turn stated he never received it. For decades, the diary’s whereabouts remained unknown. Then, in 1964, during a renovation of an old courthouse in Thorn Creek, a carpenter named Emmett Dawson found a wooden box embedded in a false wall.

Inside, wrapped in black silk, was Jeremiah Holloway’s diary. Dawson initially kept the discovery secret, fearing it might involve some unorthodox religious practice. Three months later, hearing a conversation about the vanished salesman, he revealed his find to his employer, who notified county authorities. Dawson described finding a small rectangular cavity that had been plastered over and hidden behind the wood paneling.

It appeared to have been created when the building was constructed in 1885, not added later. The box itself was made of cherry wood with brass fittings, an expensive item for the time. Reverend Josiah Blackburn, who headed the local historical society, took possession of the document and decided to surrender it to the history department at the University of Missouri. For reasons never explained, the diary was placed in the restricted documents section of the university library, where it remained out of public reach for another five years.

In a letter to the bishop of Springfield, Blackburn wrote: “You will understand my hesitation in deciding the proper destination for this document. Its content, especially in the final pages, raises questions that exceed the scope of our shared theological understanding. I do not suggest anything of a supernatural nature. I am, as you know, opposed to such interpretations.

But there is in these pages testimony to something so disturbing that it should be studied by minds prepared for deeper psychological analysis. What worries me is not what was written so much as the visible transformation of the person who wrote it. ”

The bishop’s reply was equally vague. “I have reviewed the document in question and share your concerns.

Perhaps some accounts are best left unexamined by the general public. The course of action you propose seems wise. However, I would caution you against distancing yourself from further inquiry into this matter. I have observed that those who delve too deeply into certain mysteries often find themselves changed by the experience, rarely for the better.

”

In 1969, Professor Abernathy Crawford, researching the social history of the Ozarks, obtained permission to examine the diary. What he found disturbed him so profoundly that he abandoned his original research and devoted himself exclusively to studying the case. Crawford was a meticulous researcher with secondary training in psychology. Born in 1923 in Kansas City, he had served briefly in the army during World War II before dedicating himself to academic life.

His specialty was documenting oral history and analyzing personal documents to reconstruct the social and psychological aspects of historical periods. The diary’s first entries were dated October 13, 1898, the day Holloway checked into the Epstein Hotel. They were ordinary entries about a businessman’s day: task lists, expense records, occasional reflections on his journey. The handwriting was steady and organized.

An entry from October 14 read: “Met today with Mr. Hargrove, purchasing manager for Thorn Creek Mining. Papers in order. Mining equipment, blasting supplies, safety tools remain strong products.

This hotel is curiously luxurious for such a remote location. The nights are particularly quiet here. The building seems larger and emptier than its number of guests suggests. I sometimes wake thinking I heard someone walking in the corridor, but there is no one there when I check.

The owner, Mr. Epstein, recommended a local drink to help me sleep, but I am hesitant. I prefer mental clarity to drug-induced confusion. ”

Later that same day, Holloway added: “Dinner at the hotel was surprisingly excellent.

Mr. Epstein mentioned his cook trained in New Orleans, which explains the quality. Had an interesting conversation with fellow guest Mr. Blackwood about the region’s timber resources.

He expressed interest in our company’s blasting equipment for stump removal. The weather remains unusually warm for October. ”

By October 15, the first hints of disturbance appeared. “Slept poorly.

Dreams were unusually vivid. Found myself wandering corridors that seemed to belong to the hotel but with a different layout, doors opening onto brick walls and staircases going nowhere. Woke several times thinking I heard my name called, but the corridor was empty each time I checked. I must reduce my coffee consumption after dinner.

”

That same day, Holloway recorded his first exploration of the hotel’s basement. “Went to the cellar today to fetch a bottle of wine Mr. Epstein recommended. The entrance was difficult to find, hidden behind a service door in the kitchen area.

I have never seen a storage area so meticulously organized in such a rural facility. Mr. Epstein seems particularly proud of his wine collection, imported from Europe, he says. Strangely, I found a small door at the back, slightly ajar, though I am sure it should have been closed.

Mr. Epstein appeared suddenly behind me, which startled me considerably. He seemed agitated to see me there, even though he had given me the directions himself. He escorted me back upstairs, his hand gripping my arm with surprising strength for a man his age.

”

That evening, Holloway wrote: “Dinner conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Whitfield from Chicago was pleasant enough, though Mrs. Whitfield seemed distracted, glancing repeatedly toward the walls as if hearing something the rest of us could not.

Mr. Epstein was especially attentive to her throughout the meal, refilling her wine glass with unusual frequency. The Whitfields retired early, around half past eight. I remained in the parlor reading until ten, then returned to my room.

The corridors seem unusually dark tonight despite the gas lamps. ”

On October 16, the diary’s tone shifted. Holloway began recording strange sensations, unidentified nighttime noises, and a persistent feeling of being watched. Objects seemed to move when he was not looking at them.

“Morning. Found my shaving tools arranged differently than I left them. The blade was placed across the soap dish rather than beside it, as is my habit. A small detail, but troubling because I am methodical in such arrangements.

Mentioned this to Silas the porter, who suggested he may have accidentally disturbed my belongings while delivering fresh towels. I accepted this explanation, though I do not recall requesting additional towels. ”

Later that day: “The meeting with the board of Thorn Creek Mining was productive, securing an order exceeding my quarterly quota. This should be cause for celebration, yet I find myself strangely unsettled.

Returning to the hotel, I noticed the garden looks somehow different. The arrangement of the neglected flower bed seems altered, though I cannot say how exactly. When I mentioned this to Mr. Epstein, he looked at me strangely and commented that the hotel adapts to suit its needs.

What a peculiar phrasing. It has stuck in my mind. ”

That night, Holloway wrote: “Again, that sound like fingernails scratching wood coming from the walls. Mentioned it to Mr.

Epstein, who dismissed it as the settling of an old building. But why always at midnight? Found my pocket watch on the desk this morning, though I distinctly remember placing it on the side table before sleeping. The hotel seems unusually empty for a Saturday.

I encountered only one other guest, a pale woman who appears never to leave her room. When I asked Mr. Epstein about her, he looked at me strangely and said I must be mistaken, that there are no female guests currently registered. ”

A late-night entry, written in noticeably less steady handwriting, read: “Three or five in the morning.

Woke to the sound of whispering directly outside my door. Opened it to find the corridor empty. As I was about to return to bed, I saw a figure at the end of the hall. A woman in what appeared to be a white nightgown, standing motionless.

When I called out, she turned slowly toward me but remained in shadow. I began walking toward her, but she retreated around the corner. By the time I reached the intersection, the corridor was empty. All the doors were closed.

I checked with Silas in the morning, who again insisted there are no women currently registered at the hotel. ”

Holloway then reported seeing a dark figure standing at the foot of his bed during the night, which vanished when he lit the gas lamp. He described whispering voices coming from inside the walls, speaking words he did not understand but that seemed directed at him. “The whispers have a cadence like chanting or incantation.

Not English, not any language I know. Yet I feel I should understand, as if the meaning hovers just beyond my grasp. Most disturbing is the feeling that they speak directly to me, calling my name, though they do not use it. ”

On October 17, his final full day at the hotel, Holloway wrote: “Morning.

Found that photograph again at the bottom of my suitcase, though I am certain I did not pack it. How can this happen? The photograph looks different now. Its eyes seem to follow me around the room.

Tomorrow I will burn it, and this time I will scatter the ashes beyond the hotel property. ”

The photograph in question was never found. The diary does not clarify whose image it showed. Holloway refers to the person with a capitalized “He,” leading Professor Crawford to initially assume it was Epstein.

Later entries raised doubts about that interpretation. A mid-day entry on October 17 showed continued mental deterioration. “Attempted to send a telegram to the office in St. Louis but found myself unable to compose a coherent message.

The words seemed to rearrange themselves in my mind before they reached the page. The telegraph operator gave me an odd look when I finally handed him the form. I read it now and I know why. The message is nonsense.

I asked him to disregard it and returned to the hotel. Epstein was waiting on the porch as if expecting me, though I had told no one of my errand. ”

The final complete entry, written late on October 17, revealed a man on the verge of panic. “Evening.

Have not slept again. The sounds within the walls are continuous now, louder, more insistent. They no longer sound like scratches but like rhythmic knocking, as if someone or something is attempting to communicate in code. I have decided to examine the basement again tomorrow.

The small door at the back, which appeared ajar during my first visit. Perhaps there is something there that explains these phenomena. The keys hang beside the cellar entrance. Epstein watches me constantly, though he tries to be subtle.

His eyes never seem to blink. I have begun keeping this diary with me at all times. If anything happens to me, let it be known that I suspect Montgomery Epstein is not what he appears. There is something wrong with this hotel, and something wrong with him.

The walls themselves seem alive somehow, as if the building is not merely a structure but a living organism. I fear for my safety, yet I cannot force myself to leave before understanding what is happening here. ”

The final page of the diary contained only a few words written in trembling script: “The door is open. Smell of earth, metal.

He knows. The walls have eyes. ”

Then came several blank pages. On the last page of the diary, one sentence was written in surprisingly clear, firm handwriting, so different from the preceding text that it raised questions about whether the same person had written it: “I have finally realized what he wanted all along.

”

Professor Crawford spent years trying to construct a clearer timeline of events and determine what actually happened to Jeremiah Holloway. In his research notebooks, found after his death in 1978, he proposed various hypotheses: supernatural explanations he himself rejected as products of fevered imagination, more mundane possibilities, a stalker who tormented the businessman, a local with an interest in eliminating a potential business rival, or even a case of progressive mental deterioration ending in flight or suicide. One aspect that particularly interested him was the synchronization between the recurring time in Holloway’s diary, 3:17, and the fact that all the clocks in his room were found stopped at precisely that time. This synchronization suggested that something significant had happened at that specific moment, perhaps on the night before his disappearance.

Crawford’s notes included a detailed analysis of this temporal anomaly. “The recurrence of 317 in this case cannot be considered mere coincidence. Beyond the stopped clocks in Holloway’s room, we have the testimony of three independent witnesses who all reported unusual events between three and 3:17 in the morning on the night of October 16. Furthermore, Holloway himself mentions waking at 3:17 to investigate strange sounds.

What makes this time significant? In Christian numerology, 317 may refer to John 3:17, a verse about salvation. In a more esoteric context, some spiritualist traditions view 3:17 as a time when barriers between worlds thin. From a purely pragmatic perspective, it represents the deepest period of night when human alertness reaches its lowest point and the mind is most susceptible to suggestion or manipulation.

”

Another troubling element was the diary’s final sentence. Crawford arranged for handwriting analysis by Dr. Elias Mercer, a leading expert in the field. Dr.

Mercer’s report provided a professional assessment: “The final entry shows significant deviations from the writer’s usual patterns. The pressure, slant, and formation of key letters differ markedly from previous entries. While stress or altered mental states can affect handwriting, the degree of difference suggests two possibilities. Either the writer was experiencing an extreme psychological state unlike anything shown in previous entries, or this entry was written by another person attempting to mimic the original writer’s style.

”

One of the most intriguing aspects Crawford discovered was Millicent Epstein’s medical records. Examining the archives of the old Springfield medical college, he found a report providing additional details about her mysterious illness. The report included observations Crawford considered particularly relevant. “The patient alternates between periods of full consciousness and episodes of severe agitation.

During moments of mental clarity, she expresses rational and consistent fear regarding an agreement she claims her husband made during his trip to New Orleans in 1895. Though hesitant to provide specific details, she stated that he obtained an ancient artifact from a dealer in the French Quarter, an object he now keeps in a private chamber in their hotel. More troubling is her insistence that this object is not inanimate. Mrs.

Epstein, an educated woman of prominent social standing, does not appear prone to superstition. Yet she describes with disturbing conviction that the object changed after being brought to the hotel and that it now communicates with her through the walls. When asked about the nature of these communications, the patient becomes severely agitated and refuses to elaborate. Over the past forty-eight hours, her physical condition has deteriorated significantly.

The patient suffers from persistent pupil dilation even under bright light, abnormally low body temperature, and a strange odor emanating from her skin that does not correspond to any disease state known to this physician. There are also unexplained marks on her forearms and neck, resembling bruises but with a regular pattern suggesting deliberate causation rather than accidental injury. As a physician, I must record only observed facts. But I confess this case defies my scientific understanding.

Were I a less educated man, I might suggest that Mrs. Epstein is under the influence of some evil. As I am not, I confine myself to documenting her condition and administering the prescribed sedatives to ease her suffering, though I fear the outcome is inevitable and fatal. ”

A strange addendum to this report, written in Dr.

Wells’s handwriting but on a separate sheet never officially registered with the medical college, read: “Patient died at exactly 3:17 in the morning. At the moment of death, all the electric lamps in the ward flickered simultaneously. Nurse Callaway reported hearing what she described as a whisper in a strange language, though no other persons were in the room. The body shows unusual post-mortem characteristics.

Rigor mortis has not set in after six hours. The skin is unusually pliable. The eyes remain dilated. Mr.

Epstein arrived within thirty minutes of death though no telegram was sent. He insisted on immediate removal of the body without the usual examination. Given his standing in the community, his request was granted against my professional judgment. ”

Millicent Epstein died two days after that report was written.

The death certificate signed by Dr. Harrison Wells himself listed cardiac arrest as the cause of death, ignoring all the troubling details documented in the hospital report. During his research, Crawford interviewed several former residents of the area, including Louella Pierce, who in 1898 had lived in a boarding house adjacent to the Epstein Hotel. According to her testimony: “In those days, no one spoke openly about that hotel, but everyone knew something was strange.

My mother forbade me from passing that building alone. On nights when the moon was full, we sometimes heard sounds coming from there. Not screams, not quite human voices, but a kind of faint wailing, like someone humming a sad tune. ”

On the morning the salesman’s disappearance was discovered, Pierce was returning from the general store and saw something she never told the authorities.

“I saw a man leaving the hotel very early, before the sun even rose. He wore a hat that covered his face and carried something in his arms wrapped in a dark cloth. At the time I thought perhaps a doctor had been called during the night. But thinking about it now, why would a doctor leave carrying something like that rather than simply doing his work and leaving?

”

When pressed for more details about the mysterious figure, Pierce replied: “It was still dark, just before dawn. He was tall, certainly taller than most men in Thorn Creek, very thin, almost gaunt. His hat had a wide brim, pulled down. His coat was dark, perhaps black, reaching almost to his ankles.

What struck me most was the way he moved. It was fluid, but awkward somehow, as if his joints bent differently than they should. I remember thinking it reminded me of a spider. ”

When asked why she never reported this sighting, Pierce answered: “Sheriff Quinn was in Mr.

Epstein’s pocket. Everyone knew that. And there was something about that figure that frightened me terribly. I told my mother, who advised me to remain silent.

She said some things are better not noticed. ”

In a later note on the interview, Crawford wrote: “The description of the man L. P. saw corresponds curiously with reports of a stranger who was sometimes seen visiting Montgomery Epstein in the months before his wife’s death.

According to Silas Merritt, this visitor never revealed his identity, always arrived after dark, and Epstein insisted on receiving him alone in his office or in the cellar. The porter described him as a thin man, very pale, of towering height, always dressed in dark clothing with a wide-brimmed hat shading his face. Coincidence? Or could the same person be connected in some way to both Millicent’s death and Holloway’s disappearance more than two years apart?

”

Crawford’s investigation led him to examine Epstein’s background more closely. Birth records confirmed his Philadelphia origins, but there were strange gaps in his history. Between 1865 and 1877, Epstein seemed to vanish from all public records. No tax files, property deeds, business licenses, or newspaper mentions could be found.

His reappearance in 1877 as a wealthy textile merchant in St. Louis was sudden and unexplained. His marriage to Millicent Gardner, daughter of a prominent banking family, took place in 1878, only one year before they moved to the Ozarks. Most interesting was Crawford’s discovery of a passenger manifest for the steamship “Minon” arriving in New Orleans from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in February 1895.

Listed among the first-class passengers was M. Epstein of Missouri. This corresponded perfectly with Millicent’s claim that her husband had made a trip to New Orleans in 1895 and returned with an unusual artifact. The reason for an Ozark hotel owner’s presence in Haiti in the 1890s remained unknown.

The Epstein Hotel remained open for several years after Holloway’s disappearance. In 1905, it was acquired by Randolph Sullivan, a banker from Kansas City, who undertook extensive renovations before reopening it as “Sullivan’s Ozark Inn. ” Strangely, Sullivan and his family occupied the property for only five months before leaving abruptly, selling the hotel for far below its market value. When asked about the reasons for the departure, Randolph Sullivan was said to have simply stated that the building was unsuitable for a family seeking peace of mind.

Property records confirm the transaction. Sullivan bought the hotel from Epstein’s estate, after the owner’s death in 1904, for $1,500 in January 1905. After investing approximately $7,200 in renovations according to building permits and contractor invoices, he sold the property in June of the same year for only eleven dollars. A significant financial loss that makes no commercial sense without a compelling reason.

According to Crawford’s notes, Sullivan reported that about a month after moving into the hotel, inexplicable events began occurring. Sullivan said it started with small things: objects disappearing and reappearing in different places, strange sounds in the walls resembling scratches or rhythmic knocking. His wife complained of a persistent odor in the master bedroom, a smell of damp earth and something metallic that no amount of cleaning could remove. They replaced the floors, inspected the plumbing, even removed part of the wallpaper, but the smell always returned.

Mrs. Sullivan began talking about voices in the walls whispering at night. At first her husband dismissed it as stress or imagination, but her claims became more troubling when she began repeating phrases in her sleep, which the governess, a Vassar-educated woman, identified as Haitian Creole, a language Mrs. Sullivan had no knowledge of or exposure to.

Sullivan also reported that construction workers renovating the cellar found unusual objects embedded in the walls: small bundles of herbs tied with human hair, animal bones arranged in geometric patterns inside sealed cavities, and most troubling, a collection of old daguerreotypes showing the same man, presumably Epstein, at various ages, but always with the same tall, thin figure standing behind him, his face obscured by shadows. The incident that finally drove them to leave occurred one night in June 1905. Mrs. Sullivan woke up screaming, claiming she had seen a dark entity standing at the foot of the bed.

When Sullivan lit the lamp, there was no one there. But on the dresser they found an object that did not belong to them: a small carved wooden box containing a single photograph. Sullivan said: “It was a picture of a man sitting at a desk. Behind him, there was something like a shadow, but with a vague human form.

What was most disturbing were the man’s eyes. They were completely black, like two holes in the photograph. I recognized him immediately as Jeremiah Holloway, whose picture I had seen in newspaper archives. On the back of the photograph was written: ‘He lives in the walls and wants company.

’”

Crawford pressed Sullivan for what he did with the photograph. The elderly man’s response was telling: “I burned it immediately, but the next morning it was back on the dresser, unharmed. We burned it again, and this time buried the ashes in the garden. On the third morning, when it appeared once more, I knew we had to leave.

Some things cannot be destroyed by ordinary means. ”

The next day, Sullivan contracted workers to pour cement over the entire cellar floor. A week later, the family left the hotel, never returning even to retrieve many of their personal belongings. In subsequent years, the property changed hands several times, with no owner remaining for more than two years.

In 1952, after standing vacant for about a decade, the hotel was finally demolished to make way for a small commercial building. During the demolition, workers made a horrifying discovery. When the concrete cellar floor was removed, they found a small wooden door sealed with what appeared to be black wax. The foreman, Harold Jenkins, decided to open the door to reveal a small chamber.

Inside, there were only three objects: an old matchbox, a broken perfume bottle, and a faded photograph. A newspaper article by local correspondent Calvin Finch described the discovery in measured terms typical of the era: “Workers involved in the demolition of the former Epstein Hotel made an unusual discovery yesterday when breaking up the cellar floor. There was a small hidden room, apparently sealed for decades, containing several artifacts of little monetary value but great historical significance. These artifacts have been turned over to Sheriff Donovan for possible inclusion in the county historical society’s collection.

”

The only evidence of the photograph’s contents came from an interview Jenkins himself gave to Professor Crawford in 1968. “I will never forget that photograph as long as I live. It was a picture of an old man, probably the hotel owner Epstein, sitting in a chair. Behind him was a vague shadow-like figure with a human shape.

What was most disturbing were the old man’s eyes in the picture. They were completely black, as if someone had covered them with ink. And there was a message written on the back of the photograph, but it was so faded that I could only make out a few words. ‘Promise fulfilled.

’ ‘Inside the walls. ’”

Jenkins, a gruff, practical man who had spent more than forty years in construction, became visibly uncomfortable discussing the photograph. He said: “I’m not a superstitious man, Professor. I’ve worked demolition jobs all over Missouri and seen plenty of strange things hidden in old buildings.

But that photograph, there was something wrong about it somehow. When you look at it, you get the feeling it’s looking back at you. ”

Jenkins also revealed a detail he had omitted from the press. Beside the photograph, they found what appeared to be a small box carved from bone.

The box was empty except for a thin layer of dark powder at the bottom. When asked what happened to this object, Jenkins admitted he burned it the same night along with the matchbox. “The box had carvings on it,” Jenkins added reluctantly when pressed for details. “Not any language I knew.

Symbols, spirals, and what looked like stylized insects or spiders. When I picked it up, it was warm to the touch, even though that chamber was cold as a meat locker. The powder inside was fine, almost like soot, but it had small reflective particles in it. I didn’t look too closely, to be honest.

Some things are better left unexamined. ”

Professor Abernathy Crawford died in September 1978 before completing his research on the Epstein Hotel case. His notes and collected materials were donated to the university library, but inexplicably, a substantial portion of this collection disappeared during an archive reorganization in 1972. Only a few field notebooks and correspondence remained.

The university’s official explanation for the loss, stated in a memo from the head librarian to the chairman of the history department, cited space constraints and prioritization of materials with broader historical significance. However, this explanation failed to justify the targeted nature of the disappearance. Only Crawford’s materials related to the Epstein case vanished, while his other research remained intact and accessible. In one of the surviving notebooks, dated August 1970, Crawford recorded a disturbing personal experience.

After months of investigating the case, he began suffering from insomnia and hearing strange sounds in his home. Scratches on the walls, footsteps in the hallway when he was alone, and the creaking of a rocking chair in his study, though he owned no such furniture. Crawford recorded the experience in his usual precise handwriting, but with subtle signs of tension: stronger pen pressure, more pronounced punctuation. “Third night of unusual phenomena.

The scratching in the walls begins at exactly midnight and continues until 3:17 in the morning, when it stops abruptly. The pattern is identical each night. Three slow scratches, three fast ones, then a pause, then repetition. My rational mind suggests mice, but the precision of timing and pattern defies any scientific explanation.

More troubling is the recurring dream: a long corridor with numbered doors identical to the one Holloway described, with room 217 at the end. In the dream, I know I must not open that door, yet I find myself walking toward it anyway, key in hand. ”

In his last known entry on the case, Crawford wrote: “I dreamed of him last night. Montgomery Epstein was standing in the hotel cellar before that door.

He looked directly at me and said, ‘You made a promise, Professor. ’ When I woke, I found a matchbox identical to the one described in the demolition report on my desk. I do not know how it got there. My house was locked.

Tomorrow, I will end this research. There are questions that should not be answered, mysteries that should remain buried. Holloway realized this too late. I still have time.

”

The matchbox, described in detail in a separate entry, was of pre-1900 manufacture, bearing a label with the steamship company insignia of the “Minon,” the same ship on which Epstein had returned from Haiti in 1895. The wood appeared old but undamaged, and the striking surface had never been used. Inside was a single match and a small strip of yellowed paper on which was written, in what initial comparison indicated was Jeremiah Holloway’s handwriting: “For the walls have eyes. ”

Professor Crawford formally abandoned his research into the Epstein Hotel case shortly after this incident.

A curious detail: he insisted on burning all his remaining notebooks related to the case that were still in his personal possession. He began avoiding work after dark, installed additional lighting in his home, and developed a near-pathological fear of enclosed spaces such as cellars and attics. His assistant, Diana, noted in a personal letter that the most visible change in his behavior was his relationship with walls. He refused to sit with his back to any wall, frequently stopped mid-conversation to stare at a wall as if hearing something, and repeatedly called contractors to inspect his home’s walls for structural defects.

He also removed all photographs from his home: family portraits, academic group photos, everything, preferring to store them in his university office instead. When asked about this, he only said that photographs retain impressions of what they have witnessed. The truth about what happened to Jeremiah Holloway in October 1898 remains an unsolved mystery. His body was never found.

Official records still classify his case as a disappearance. In 1960, a journalist from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch named Richard Newton attempted to reopen the investigation. He managed to locate Silas Merritt, the hotel porter who had found the room empty in 1898, and conducted an interview with him.

Merritt, then eighty-five years old, told Newton something he had never officially reported before. “When I entered that room in the hotel, I immediately felt something was wrong. It wasn’t just the silence or the absence of that man. It felt like the room was breathing.

The walls seemed to pulse slightly, like a heart beating very slowly, and there was a smell, not of decay or illness, but of freshly dug earth and candle wax. The strangest thing was what I found in his bedroom. The bed was perfectly made, as if no one had slept in it. On the pillow was a single object: an old large key, perhaps for the cellar, and beside the key, small stains of a dark liquid I preferred to believe was ink.

”

According to Newton’s notes, Merritt approached him after the formal interview and whispered: “Epstein wasn’t human, you know. Not in the end. Whatever was inside those walls, it got into him too. His eyes changed.

I saw him once late at night when he thought no one was watching. He stood before a mirror in the hallway, just stood there, not moving, not blinking, for over an hour. And when he finally moved, it wasn’t like a human moves. It was like something wearing a human body, learning how the parts work.

”

Merritt also revealed a detail he had withheld from the police in 1898 for fear of being considered superstitious or mentally unstable. “When I went down to the cellar to check whether Mr. Holloway was there, I noticed that the small door at the back, which Mr. Epstein always kept locked, was slightly ajar.

A strong smell of damp earth came from it. I approached cautiously, but something compelled me to look. The chamber behind the door was small, like a closet built into the wall, but it seemed deeper than the hotel’s structure would allow. The inner walls were of packed earth, not stone like the rest of the cellar.

In the center was something I could not immediately identify. It looked like a small box carved from a material that was neither wood nor metal. Beside it, a photograph face down. I did not touch anything.

Something about that place filled me with instinctive terror, something I cannot explain. I closed the door, ran up the stairs, and never returned to that part of the hotel. ”

Richard Newton’s article on the case was published in July 1960 but did not generate the interest he had hoped. The disturbing coincidence was Newton’s sudden death only three months after publication.

According to his death certificate, he died in his sleep of a heart attack at the age of forty-three. But a colleague of his in the newsroom confided to Professor Crawford that in the weeks before his death, Newton had become increasingly paranoid, claiming he heard strange sounds in his apartment and felt constantly watched. This colleague, James Harrison, elaborated during his own interview with Crawford. “Rick changed after that trip to Thorn Creek.

He’d always been a jovial man, quick with a joke, but he came back different, quieter. He started covering the mirrors in his office with paper, saying the light reflections bothered his eyes. He would flinch at any faint sound. About a week before he died, he showed me something he kept in his desk drawer.

An old photograph that he claimed had appeared among his research notes, though he didn’t remember collecting it. It showed a man sitting behind a desk, his face partially obscured, but recognizable as the salesman from his article. Behind him stood a tall, thin shadow. Well, it didn’t look quite natural.

The proportions were somehow wrong. Rick had sealed it in an envelope, then placed that inside a metal box. ‘It keeps coming back,’ he told me. ”

Today, the site where the Epstein Hotel once stood is occupied by a small store.

Older employees sometimes comment on strange nighttime events. Merchandise changes position. Footsteps are heard upstairs when the building is empty. Occasionally, a persistent smell of old perfume seems to emanate from the walls.

The current manager, Margaret Reynolds, reports that these events intensify during certain times of the year, particularly in October, the month of Holloway’s disappearance. “It’s something that everyone who works here for a while eventually notices. It’s not scary, exactly. It’s more unsettling.

As if you’re not really alone in the building, even when you clearly are. Some employees refuse to close the store by themselves, especially on Mondays. The air gets heavier, like before a storm, and that perfume smell appears. Sweet, but with a subtle undertone of damp soil.

And sometimes, just for a moment, you get the sense of seeing someone out of the corner of your eye, usually near the stairway that used to lead to the cellar. When you turn, there’s no one there. ”

Reynolds, a practical woman with no patience for supernatural speculation, has nevertheless implemented certain unwritten policies. No employee works alone after sunset.

The store room occupying the space above the old cellar is used only during daylight hours. “We don’t discuss these rules with customers until they’ve spent enough time here to understand why they exist. ”

Recently, during a store floor renovation, workers found embedded in the concrete a small silver medal engraved with the letters “ME1898. ” The artifact was donated to the town’s historical museum, where it remains on display.

Curiously, the museum employee responsible for cataloging the piece, Howard Matthews, reported a strange incident involving the medal. According to him, on the first night after the piece was put on display, the museum’s security cameras recorded an inexplicable malfunction at exactly 3:17 in the morning, lasting seven minutes. When the system came back online, the medal had moved inside the display case, rotated 180 degrees. “We initially suspected vandalism,” Matthews explained.

“But the case was locked. The alarm system showed no entry, and no other exhibits were disturbed. Strangest of all, the security camera showed no evidence of tampering. Yet during those seven minutes, the image showed only static, as if something was interfering with the signal.

”

More troubling was Matthews’s personal experience the following morning. “When I arrived to open the museum, I immediately noticed the medal had changed position. As I approached the case, I clearly heard what sounded like scratching coming from inside the wall behind the exhibit. Maintenance found nothing.

No rodents, no wiring problems, no structural issues. But for several weeks afterward, staff reported hearing the same sound, always starting at opening time and continuing until exactly 3:17 in the afternoon. ”

What really happened at the Epstein Hotel in October 1898? Was Jeremiah Holloway the victim of an ordinary crime?

Did he succumb to madness and isolation? Or is there something darker in the story, something the official records and rational explanations cannot fully contain? Professor Crawford, in his final notes on the case, offered a striking perspective. “After months of investigation, I find myself contemplating possibilities my academic training is reluctant to accept.

The patterns are undeniable. The black eyes in the photographs, the persistent smell of damp earth and metal, the sounds in the walls, the specific time of 3:17 that recurs so frequently, the feeling of being watched, and most disturbing, the mysterious figure described by witnesses decades apart with remarkable consistency. There is an element to this case that resists traditional explanations. Something that seems to persist after the hotel’s demolition, after the deaths of the original witnesses, even after time itself, like an echo that refuses to fade, or a presence that has found a way to transcend the physical boundaries that supposedly contain it.

I dare not articulate fully what I suspect. But the final phrase in Holloway’s diary, ‘I have finally realized what he wanted all along,’ continues to haunt me. What did he realize, and why did this realization coincide with his disappearance? ”

There is an old concept in Ozark folklore, rarely discussed openly, called the “spirit broker.

” An entity that is not quite human, that makes agreements, grants wishes, but eventually returns to collect a price far greater than the beneficiary initially realizes. Could it be that Montgomery Epstein, during his mysterious journey to New Orleans, encountered something of this nature? Crawford’s research into Haitian folk traditions suggested parallels with certain concepts in voodoo, particularly the “ghede,” not the simplified devil of Western interpretation, but a complex entity capable of granting wealth and power in exchange for service and eventual possession. The timing of Epstein’s visit to Haiti, followed by his wife’s illness and death, then Holloway’s disappearance, suggests a sequence.

Speculation, certainly. Yet the chill Crawford felt when rereading the accounts, and the persistent feeling that by investigating this mystery he had attracted a kind of unwanted attention, could not be ignored. Some knowledge is too dangerous to pursue. Some entities should not be acknowledged, because attention is a form of invitation.

Crawford left that final note as a warning to anyone who might continue the research. There are mysteries that, once noticed, begin noticing you in return. Some stories have no definitive ending, only echoes that reverberate across decades, reminding us that not all puzzles were meant to be solved. The Epstein Hotel case is one of those echoes.

A whisper from the past that, even after more than a century, still makes us look with suspicion at old walls and dark cellars, wondering what might be hidden behind appearances. And if you happen to find yourself walking the streets of the historic Ozarks at dusk, feeling a sudden chill as if someone is watching you, and catching a faint whiff of old perfume in the air, it might just be coincidence. Or it might be a reminder that some presences never truly leave. Some promises, once made, are impossible to take back.

There is an old saying in the Ozarks: not all stories end with the death of their protagonists. In the case of the Epstein Hotel, it seems the story was only beginning with the disappearance of Jeremiah Holloway. And perhaps, in a way we do not fully understand, it continues even today.