La risa del diablo

This issue of *Selección Terror* (Collection #319, April 1979) contains "La Risa del Diablo" (The Devil's Laugh) by Clark Carrados. Paul Ackers, a young man on holiday, becomes lost in a forest during a violent storm. A lightning flash reveals an ancient mansion where he finds refuge with a servant named Karlo and the beautiful Stella Derwent. After a warm dinner and comfortable lodging, Stella visits Ackers in his bedroom and seduces him in the darkness. He awakens to find himself lying on a decayed bed among ancient ruins, his clothes mysteriously dry. The innkeeper, Georgia Marlowe, reveals the house is Derwent House—a supernatural structure that appears to lost travelers and vanishes by daylight, inhabited by the ghost of Stella Derwent, who died nearly two centuries ago after a tragic love affair involving her parents' interference and a nobleman's violent abduction.