I now saw that my surmise was right, and that the Contessa had hidden the body of the unfortunate Pallanza in the concealed tomb contrived by Count Mastino Morone for his guilty wife. It was a horribly ingenious idea that revolving pillar, and no one would have guessed its ghastly secret without being shown. Doubtless the wicked Donna Renata, shut up in this circular prison, had there starved slowly to death in an upright position, for, of course, the cavity was too narrow and too shallow to admit of any human being lying down. The skilful devilry of the device made me feel quite ill, especially when I thought how the worthy descendant of Borgia's accursed daughter had utilised this secret cell for her own infamous purpose. In this frightful oubliette the body of Guiseppe Pallanza would have remained for ever concealed; but then, according to the evidence of my own eyes, the body was not there. That the Contessa had placed the corpse in the pillar I had not the slightest doubt, as in showing the hiding-place she evidently expected to overwhelm me by the hideous evidence of her barbarous criminality. That the cavity was empty was as much a surprise to her as to me, and the shriek of terror she had given when flying from the chamber showed me that she was overpowered with fear at the thought that her gruesome secret was shared by another person, for, putting me out of the question altogether, there appeared to be a third party implicated in this singular affair. For my own part I believed it to be the man who had watched with me at the curtained archway, and who, after drugging me, bore me insensible from that terrible place. After doing so, and thus, according to his idea, putting it out of my power to re-discover the palace, he had returned to his post and seen the Contessa conceal the body of her victim in the cavity of the pillar. On her departure, for some reason best known to himself, he had removed the corpse, and hidden it somewhere else. This was, no doubt, the true story of the affair, but who was the man who had watched at the door, and who had taken away the body of Pallanza? It was impossible to guess the reasons for his behaving in this mysterious way, and the Contessa was evidently as ignorant as myself of his actions, judging from her terrified flight on discovering the truth. Whomsoever this unknown person was, he, to all appearances, held the key to the whole riddle, and, could I find him, I would doubtless learn the reason of Madame Morone's visit to the burial-ground, and the final fate of the unhappy tenor whom she had lured to his destruction.