* * * * * Peter Parkinson did not delay his departure and was absent about his affairs for exactly one week. Then he returned weary and cast down, but apparently well satisfied with the results of his expedition. He was good enough to tell us the sequel of Gridd’s baseness, and I cannot do better than employ the good man’s own words in the narrative. Many great ghosts gave ear to him. Indeed, he enjoyed the attention of the highest. “I found the audacious villain at Monte Carlo,” he began, “and Providence so willed that our meeting came plump upon the high-water mark of his ill-gotten fortunes. For he retired to bed in high good humour after breaking the bank at the gambling house there. I suffered him to sink into a sound sleep before availing myself of our spectral privileges. Then settling myself upon the bottom rail of his bed (I spare no detail) I awoke him with his favourite word. I breathed the magic syllables firmly and at the sound of ‘Royalties!’ the wretch turned, gradually roused himself, sat up and beheld me with my phantom eyes fixed upon him. “‘Good Lord! It’s Parkinson!’ he exclaimed, instantly became wide awake and fell into a cold perspiration. Never have I seen guilt and terror at once so horribly manifested as upon that occasion. The terror we inspire, at least upon a sinner, has surely not been exaggerated. “‘Traitor!’ I cried, ‘unhallowed breaker of vows, base thief and cruel coward! You, who would steal a dead man’s fame and fatten on your perversion of the truth, hear me! Even to the nether shades has this infamous treachery descended; each new-come spirit enters indignant with the horror of it; and so out of high justice I am thus allowed to protect my own honour, to revisit the realms of the quick and right such a wrong as all literature can scarcely match. Well may you quail, ignoble murderer of a reputation, who have requited my kindness thus!’ “Thomas Gridd scarcely comprehended all these utterances of mine, for the very madness of terror was upon him. His hair stood on end, his teeth chattered, his limbs were reflexed, his eyes glared and his hands gripped the sheet about his neck. “‘Mercy! Mercy!’ he screamed. ‘Mercy, avenging ghost! Be merciful, even as you were always merciful in this world. Have pity, terrible spirit!’ “‘Miscreant!’ I cried. ‘Wretch to profane that divine word with your lips! I want my autobiography. Where is it?’ “‘Burnt!’ he said. ‘As Heaven’s above us both I burnt every line.’ “It was apparent that he told the truth. “‘In that case,’ I replied, ‘you will send a statement of the fact to the first daily newspaper--a statement signed and witnessed. You will also declare that your own fabrication is devoid of the bare bones of truth--a calculated and cold-blooded lie to gain your own mercenary ends. And, finally, every farthing that has accrued to you from this villainous action must be handed over to the Peter Parkinson Institute at Glasgow.’