The Argosy, Vol. 66

About this issue

Colonel Fane's Secret by Sydney Hopkes continues in this December 1898 Argosy issue. Chapter XLIII depicts the opening of a family coffin in a church vault where mourners discover a hidden parchment signed by Colonel Reginald Fane. The document reveals that Fane had secretly retrieved his deceased wife's remains and placed them in the family vault years earlier, having previously removed her from a presumed empty coffin. Fane claims innocence of charges that once haunted him and seeks forgiveness for his deception. Chapter XLIV shifts to the Vicar questioning Old Brown, the elderly former sexton, about the vault incident. Brown gradually admits to discovering the vault door broken decades earlier and later becoming Fane's accomplice in the reinterment scheme, though the OCR text cuts off mid-revelation.