Borgia had
adopted before me; so that no chain of evidence existed.

All that was necessary was for a scarf, a collar or other article of
apparel coming in direct contact with the skin of the subject, to be
placed in my possession. (A glove was the Borgia's favorite medium.)
It was painted with _hlangkuna_ and replaced. When worn, an intense
irritation was produced and a cutaneous eruption which, if scratched
even very lightly, resulted in a puncture of the skin sufficient to
allow the inimical elements of the poison to obtain access to the
system of the subject.

I do not propose to enter into details, but so it was that Roger
Coverly died. Following a brief sojourn abroad, we presently returned
again to the Bell House. This gratification of her bloodthirsty
desires had done no more than to whet the feline appetite of Nahemah,
and she forced me to impose new and almost insupportable conditions
upon Sir Burnham, with the result, as is known, that from being a very
wealthy man he became an impoverished one.

I even held a mortgage on Friar's Park on behalf of Nahemah; for by
this time I had fully recognized the fact that like a second
Frankenstein, I had raised up a monster which sooner or later must
devour me.

Her indiscretions threatened daily to result in exposure; and after
the death of Sir Burnham, which occurred a short time later, these
increased in number and audacity. The dying baronet had impressed upon
his wife the necessity of following my guidance in all things.
Undoubtedly he died hoping that Lady Coverly might live out her days
in ignorance of the grim secret of the Bell House. This dying wish of
his was gratified. The loss of her son, so closely followed by that of
her husband, prostrated Lady Coverly in a mental illness from which
she never recovered, although I exercised all my skill in an endeavor
to restore her reason. She spent the remainder of her days in a
semi-comatose state which so closely resembled death that to this
present moment I do not know the exact hour at which dissolution took
place.

In the man Hawkins, once a game-keeper of Sir Burnham's, I found an
instrument ready to my hand. I closed the Park to the public and took
all those precautions for preserving my secret which prudence
dictated: this at the cost of a reputation in Upper Crossleys which
few men would have survived, but which troubled me not at all, since
it left me undisturbed to those studies which to me were everyt