Traffic in Souls

Eustace Hale Ball (1881-1931) was an American author, best known for his novel, The Voice on the Wire (1915), which was made into a film in 1917. The story revolves around some wealthy old men who receive mysterious warnings over their disconnected phone lines before they are killed. The police try to protect the men, but the murderer is a vengeful spirit which was slaughtered by a coven of witches to which the men had once belonged. Mummification, limb transplants and a disembodied hand also feature. It is up to Montague Shirley to apprehend the culprit responsible and save the names and reputations of the innocent. Along the way he cracks secret codes and discovers the secret behind 'the voice' on the phone. Ball also wrote The Scarlet Fox (1927) and The Legion of the Condemned (1928), which was made into a film starring Fay Wray and Gary Cooper.