The features were singularly handsome; the brow open and resolute; the hair dark, and crisp with curls.

Looking more closely, I saw that a lock had been lately cut from the right temple, and found one of the severed hairs upon the cheek, where it had fallen.

The dress was that of a jester of the middle ages, half scarlet and half white, with a rich belt round the waist.

In this belt, as if in horrible mockery of the dead, was stuck a tiny baton surmounted by a fool's cap, and hung with silver bells.
Looking down thus upon the body--so young, so beautiful, so evidently unprepared for death--a conviction of foul play flashed upon me with all the suddenness and certainty of revelation.

Here were no appearances of disease and no signs of strife.