The Hours After Midnight
J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries
Ghost and Horror Stones
Green Tea and Other Ghost Stories
Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery





The Room in the Dragon Volant




_Prologue_

_The curious case which I am about to place before you, is referred
to, very pointedly, and more than once, in the extraordinary Essay upon
the Drug of the Dark and the Middle Ages, from the pen of Doctor
Hesselius_.

_This Essay he entitles_ Mortis Imago, _and he, therein, discusses the_
Vinum letiferum, _the_ Beatifica, _the_ Somnus Angelorum, _the_ Hypnus
Sagarum, _the_ Aqua Thessalliae, _and about twenty other infusions and
distillations, well known to the sages of eight hundred years ago, and
two of which are still, he alleges, known to the fraternity of thieves,
and, among them, as police-office inquiries sometimes disclose to this
day, in practical use_.