Psychic Detective
Each month, ex-cop and psychic Nicky Alan teams up with her spirit guides to investigate an unsolved mystery. Here she delves into the disappearance of New York socialite Dorothy Arnold
Picking up her black fox-fur muff, Dorothy Arnold stepped out into the chill of a winter’s morning in New York.
The 25-year-old was expensively dressed in a blue tailor-made suit under a long blue coat and black velvet hat, with a beautiful matching hat pin and earrings.
It was 11am on Monday 12 December 1910, and Dorothy was heading to the exclusive shops on Fifth Avenue. She wanted to buy a dress for her younger sister Marjorie’s upcoming debutante party.
Leaving the family home in the city’s affluent Upper East Side, Dorothy had about $30 in her bag — nearly $1000 today.
Her first stop was the Park & Tilford candy store, where she bought a box of chocolates which she placed in her muff. Dorothy then walked 22 blocks, past shops glittering with Christmas decorations, to Brentano’s bookstore. There, she purchased a humorous book called Engaged Girl Sketches. The sales assistants would later state that she was courteous and polite. She didn’t seem upset and wasn’t behaving strangely.
As she left the bookstore just before 2pm, Dorothy bumped into her friend, Gladys King. The two women chatted about Marjorie’s party. Gladys said Dorothy was in good spirits and told her she was going to stroll through Central Park.
As she walked off down 27th Street, Dorothy turned and gave Gladys one last wave.
She was never seen again. Dorothy Arnold vanished into thin air.
Her parents, Francis and Mary, were distraught when she failed to return from her shopping trip. But they waited six weeks before reporting her disappearance to the police.
Instead, they turned to John Keith, a friend and lawyer, to help them find Dorothy.
Keith knew that a scandal must be avoided at all costs.
The Arnolds were highly respected in American society, on a par with the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds.
Just the year before, another influential family was shamed in the newspapers, when their 13-year-old girl ran off.
She vanished into thin air
Could Dorothy have done the same thing? Francis and Mary feared it was a possibility. Dorothy had become involved with a man called George Griscom Junior. The pair had met at college, and although George’s family were wealthy, they were far below the Arnolds on the social scale.
Earlier in the year, in September, Dorothy’s father and mother were horrified when she lied to them to be with George.
She said she was going to stay with a friend in Boston, but spent a week with George in a hotel.
The Arnolds prohibited Dorothy from having any further contact with George. The last time she saw him was in
