Read "The Lady from Nowhere" by Fergus Hume online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
If the appearance of the room was amazing, that of the dead woman was not less so. The body was lying loosely in an armchair, with sprawling legs and arms, like a saw-dust doll. The head lay limply on the shoulder, and a yellow cord -- evidently torn from a near curtain -- was bound tightly round the lean throat The distorted face, the protruding tongue, the bulging eyes, and discoloured skin, all showed that the poor creature had been strangled in the most remorseless manner. Before her was placed a low cane table, on the yellow coverlet of which a pack of cards was spread out face downward, but in the lap of the dead woman lay another card with the face upward. It was the ace of spades. Mrs. Presk noting it for the first time gave a screech of mingled horror and surprise.
"The death-card! " she gasped, stepping back. "Lord! how awful!"