Across the UK, across continental North America, and around the world, on the internet, by webcast, and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes, and this is the unexplained.

No shoutouts on this edition. Thank you very much for your emails. Keep them coming. I'm going to do a big roundup of all of your correspondence.

Very soon on this show, I'm just catching up with myself. I'm chasing my tail at the moment. It's been a crazy, crazy year, but I'm not going to dwell or harp on that anymore.

But I know you understand. And thank you very much. Keep the email coming. I see all of it every point you make. Thank you for the nice things you've been saying and the points that you've been making to improve this show and the guest suggestions to. They're all gratefully received.

If you want to contact me, you can do it through the website. It is the unexplained.tv. Follow the message link from there and you can contact me in that way.

And if you'd like to make a donation on the way to help this show continue, that will be very gratefully received. You know, life, as I've said before here, as a broadcaster in radio, can often be a shoe string of fare. And that's been the case for me. Some people make their millions. And good for them. There are very, very few of them.

So, you know, we all have to do what we have to do to keep going. But we do the thing we love. And I certainly do. And I have in my life no regrets. And anybody who's ever heard me doing radio, no.

I will know that I've done so many different things. And in their own different ways, although some of them haven't been happy experiences and a lot of them have been. They've all taught me something. So I've been very, very lucky. Thanks to Adam, my webmaster at Creative Hotspot for keeping the wheels greased.

And for keeping the show out there, keeping the website going. Thanks to him. This edition of the show, we have something that is archetypal, British, if that's the right way of putting it.

I've only got to say one word and people in Britain, but maybe people in other parts of the world too will know exactly what we're going to discuss.

The word I'm saying is a name and the name is Lucan. Lord Lucan, this was the case of a British aristocrat in the 1970s who disappeared into thin air after a brutal murder at his home in one of the richest and most expensive parts of London.

It has all the elements of a great and chilling piece of fiction, but this really happened. The question that's been asked for all these decades since 1974 is what became of Lucan?

Did Lucan run away after this and then kill himself? Did he set up an entire new life in another country? There have been sightings virtually all over the world, including in countries like South Africa.

What became of Lucan? And how did this crime as far as we can understand it unfold in a world without the internet, in a world without the mass media that we have now?

And in a world where the British class system operated as it had operated for hundreds of years, a fascinating case. Laura Thompson, London based author, has written a book about Lord Lucan.

And you know, the book is a couple of years old now, but since there has been some more recent publicity about the Lucan case, I thought we'd have a conversation with her. So that's what we're about to do.

So thank you very much for getting in touch when you do get in touch with me by email. Please tell me who you are, where you are, and how you discovered the show and how you use it, of course.

For those who've been asking, by the way, the radio show does continue and you will be hearing it on air in its usual place.

But thank you very much for emailing me and for asking. That's very kind of you. And it's nice to know that you care about it all, you know. I'm doing my best, as they say.

All right, let's get to Laura Thompson now in Southwest London and talk about the disturbing case of Lord Lucan. Laura, thank you very much for coming on the unexplained.

Absolute pleasure.

I need to ask a little bit about you. I did a little bit of biographical research, Laura. And I see that apart from being an author, you're also involved in acting. You're an actress.

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