Explore "The Beetle" by Richard Marsh on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was a woman's clothing, beyond a doubt, all thrown in anyhow -- as if the person who had placed it there had been in a desperate hurry. An entire outfit was there, shoes, stockings, body linen, corsets, and all -- even to hat, gloves, and hairpins; -- these latter were mixed up with the rest of the garments in strange confusion. It seemed plain that whoever had worn those clothes had been stripped to the skin.
Lessingham and Sydney stared at me in silence as I dragged them out and laid them on the floor. The dress was at the bottom -- it was an alpaca, of a pretty shade in blue, bedecked with lace and ribbons, as is the fashion of the hour, and lined with sea-green silk. It had perhaps been a "charming confection" once -- and that a very recent one! -- but now it was all soiled and creased and torn and tumbled. The two spectators made a simultaneous pounce at it as I brought it to the light.