“His face, always ugly, and naturally, perhaps, sullen and forbidding, was now positively diabolical; rage, hatred, and triumph vieing with one another for supremacy.
“Catching hold of the Cavalier by his silken tresses, and pulling back his head by brute force, the Cromwellian slowly and deliberately drew the keen blade of his knife across the doomed man’s throat.
“The horrid deed—transacted amid the most preternatural silence—was perpetrated so close to me that I was obliged to witness every revolting detail, and although I felt sure the victim was bad and vicious, I did not think the vileness of his character in any way justified the atrocity of his assassin.
“The murderer had barely accomplished his fiendish design before a deadly sickness came over me, and I fainted.
“On recovering consciousness, the room was once again in darkness, nor could I discover in the morning any sign whatever of the awful tragedy.
“On making inquiries in the town, I learned that the inn was well known to be haunted, other people, as well as I, having witnessed the same phenomenon, and that during the recent renovations a skeleton had been unearthed at the foot of the main staircase.
“I saw it in the local museum, and instantly identified the costume it wore as the one I had seen on the hapless fugitive. But—the skeleton was that of a WOMAN!”
NO. — SOUTHGATE STREET
BRISTOL
THE NOTORIOUS SERVANT WHO
ANSWERS THE DOOR
Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of the dead