The Chest and the Ghost
by Stendhal
The leathery and slender chief of police don Blas Bustos y Mosquera has a handsome young nobleman, don Fernando, imprisoned for the crime of appearing before him with a fresh complexion and a cool demeanor. Don Fernando's fiancée comes to plead his case, but her beauty merely prompts the sinister don Blas's attempts to secure don Fernando's permanent removal from his native Granada.