For a moment the others gazed at the prostrate form. Then Inspector Sims sprang forward and fumbled with trembling fingers at the fastenings of the mummy-case. Suddenly the front fell forward, and Annette uttered a terrible cry.
In the case, thus revealed, sat the girl who had been Beatrice Vane. She was nude, the chaste beauty of her lovely form standing out against the dark interior of the case. So wonderfully had the madman done his work that no scar marred the grace of the firm bosom, the long, rounded limbs, the head set proudly on the ivory neck. She sat as might have sat the Princess Hora, had she so wished, beside the Pharaoh himself on his Egyptian throne.
Sims drew back and bowed his head reverently as Annette, stumbling forward, laid her head on her dead sister’s knees in a grief too terrible for tears.
The
Parlor Cemetery
A Grisly Satire
By C. E. Howard
“Good morning! I’m getting the information for the new city directory. May I step in and rest a moment while I’m asking you a few questions?”
“Well, ye—es, I reckon yuh kin come in and set,” conceded the old lady who had answered my knock, “but I won’t give yuh no order, Mister. I haint much of a booker.”
“Oh, I don’t sell the books,” I hastened to assure her, as I laid my sample volume on the floor by my chair and placed my hat on it. “I just go around from house to house gathering the names for it. The company publishes and sells the book. I don’t have anything to do with that part of it.”