A Creature of the Night by Fergus Hume

I managed to take Bianca home without much difficulty, for it was my good fortune to meet a disengaged fiacre in one of the narrow streets leading to the piazza Vittorio Emanuele, and placing the poor girl therein, we drove straight to the Casa Angello. The Signorina was in a very excited state, as that menacing voice, issuing out of the darkness, had quite unnerved her; so, placing her in charge of Petronella, who made her lie down, I went for a doctor. Being a stranger in Verona it was difficult to find one, but at last I did so, and took him at once to see Bianca, for whom he prescribed a soothing draught, and assured me that she would be all right after a few hours' sleep. This trouble therefore being off my mind, I went back to my hotel, in order to consider what was best to be done in the present emergency.

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.