Please be aware the stories, theories, re-enactments and language in this podcast are of an adult nature and can be disturbing, frightening and in some cases offensive. Listener Discretion is advised – there is very adult content ahead and you have been warned.

Welcome heathens welcome to the world of the weird and unexplained. I’m your host, Nicole Delacroix and together, we will be investigating stories about the weird, wonderful, unexplained, eerie, scary and down-right unbelievable. There will be tales of ghosts, murder, supernatural beings and unexplained mysteries. So, sit back, grab your favorite drink, relax and prepare to be transported to today's dark Enigma....

And on today’s Dark enigma we’re examining another ghostly location, but this time, we have a listener request – so we’re killing two birds with one stone today. But before we get into that, we will be playing our drinking game as always. Please remember the drinking game is only for those of us that are at home and have nowhere else to go tonight. Since today’s episode is Spanish themed, well your drink of choice should also be Spanish themed. So sangria, Orxata, Queimada, whatever wets your whistle really… Alrighty, now for the game part… every time I say Palacio that will be a single shot and every time I say Madrid, that’s a double shot – and for those of you lightweights drinking Sangria, double that up… heheheh kidding. Now that we have the business end out of the way we can jump headfirst into today’s dark enigma… and the story of the beautiful and tragic Palacio de Linares, so let’s hit it my heathens…or in Spanish.. Vamalos

Looking down with a haughty gaze the Marquesa de Linares, her gold-encrusted gown screaming at the seams, would tempt one to mumble something about lipstick and pigs. But the portrait, part of a pair by Pradilla (of Juana la Loca fame), hangs in the private office of the over-the-top Gilded Age manse the Marquesa and her husband built in 1872 on the Gran Via of Madrid. It was the greatest palace built in the Spanish Belle Époque, a “temple of contemporary fine art” and “without dispute the richest one among the modern ones of the court” claimed none other than Eugenio Rodríguez Ruiz de la Escalera, the Elsa Maxwell of Gilded Age Madrid who wrote under the name Monte Cristo. Today it is known as the Casa de América.