There was scant time for speculation. The enactment of this drama was brief as it was lurid; uttering an appalling scream that was quickly converted into a gurgle of the most blood-curdling significance, the old lady clawed the air with her spidery fingers. The murderer was pitiless, the noose coming to with an irresistible snap, jerked the wretched victim off her feet. For one instant--the most harrowing of all--I watched her falling backwards; watched the changing of her deadly pallor into a deep and vivid purple, watched the rolling of her starting eyeballs, the foam-flakes on her lips, and the frenzied movements of her stiffening arms and then--THEN--as she struck the ground with a reverberating crash--all was darkness. The ghostly tragedy for this night at least was over. This I realised, but my nerves being too completely unstrung by what I had witnessed to allow me to sleep, I crept under the counterpane and lay there shivering till the welcome rays of early dawn converted the room into another place. My first movement was to examine the scene of the ghostly murder, and upon turning up the carpet, I discovered not a bloodstain, but a comparatively new piece of boarding! With that, drawing my own conclusions, I had to rest content--there was nothing else in the room that could in any way have been transmuted into evidence. The moment the clock struck six I picked up my valise, and gobbling down a lukewarm breakfast with little relish, quitted the house, determining to pay it another visit before very long. In this, however, I was doomed to disappointment. Some months elapsed before I could again visit the neighbourhood of Euston, and when I did so, I found the hotel had vanished nor have I to this day been able to identify the house wherein I slept. I have but lately been informed that a good many years ago (when we middle-aged fogies were mere children) a singularly repulsive murder was committed at a house in or near Euston Road, the victim being a somewhat extraordinary old lady. Further details I do not know, therefore I can only surmise that what I saw may possibly have been HER phantasm--but please remember, it is ONLY a surmise. PANMAUR HOLLOW MERIONETH THE BLACK PEDLAR Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of the dead Source of authenticity: “Ladies’ Cabinet,” 1835, and elsewhere Cause of haunting: Murder The “Ladies Cabinet” for 1835 contains an account of a haunting in Merioneth that seems to me of sufficient psychic interest to record. Hence I append it; but since the original text is a trifle too intricate in places, I have taken the liberty to tell the story more or less in my own words: