“I asked: 

“‘What is that?’

“The Englishman answered quietly: 

“’That is my best enemy.  It comes from America, too.  The bones were severed by a sword and the skin cut off with a sharp stone and dried in the sun for a week.’

“I touched these human remains, which must have belonged to a giant.  The uncommonly long fingers were attached by enormous tendons which still had pieces of skin hanging to them in places.  This hand was terrible to see; it made one think of some savage vengeance.

“I said: 

“‘This man must have been very strong.’

“The Englishman answered quietly: 

“‘Yes, but I was stronger than he.  I put on this chain to hold him.’

“I thought that he was joking.  I said: 

“‘This chain is useless now, the hand won’t run away.’

“Sir John Rowell answered seriously: 

“‘It always wants to go away.  This chain is needed.’

“I glanced at him quickly, questioning his face, and I asked myself: 

“‘Is he an insane man or a practical joker?’

“But his face remained inscrutable, calm and friendly.  I turned to other subjects, and admired his rifles.

“However, I noticed that he kept three loaded revolvers in the room, as though constantly in fear of some attack.

“I paid him several calls.  Then I did not go any more.  People had become used to his presence; everybody had lost interest in him.

“A whole year rolled by.  One morning, toward the end of November, my servant awoke me and announced that Sir John Rowell had been murdered during the night.

“Half an hour later I entered the Englishman’s house, together with the police commissioner and the captain of the gendarmes.  The servant, bewildered and in despair, was crying before the door.  At first I suspected this man, but he was innocent.

“The guilty party could never be found.

“On entering Sir John’s parlor, I noticed the body, stretched out on its back, in the middle of the room.

“His vest was torn, the sleeve of his jacket had been pulled off, everything pointed to, a violent struggle.

“The Englishman had been strangled!  His face was black, swollen and frightful, and seemed to express a terrible fear.  He held something between his teeth, and his neck, pierced by five or six holes which looked as though they had been made by some iron instrument, was covered with blood.

“A physician joined us.  He examined the finger marks on the neck for a long time and then made this strange announcement: 

“‘It looks as though he had been strangled by a skeleton.’

“A cold chill seemed to run down my back, and I looked over to where I had formerly seen the terrible hand.  It was no longer there.  The chain was hanging down, broken.

“I bent over the dead man and, in his contracted mouth, I found one of the fingers of this vanished hand, cut—­or rather sawed off by the teeth down to the second knuckle.