Dead Eyes Opened

Edgar Lustgarten reading from "Death on the Crumbles (1924)", from the
 BBC Radio show "Scales of Justice":
 "By strange coincidence, a thunderstorm had been brewing when Mahon, doing
 his grisly work at the bungalow, was dealing with the most grisly job of
 all--the head, the woman's head. He had severed it from the trunk, built a
 huge fire in the sitting room, placed her head upon it, then (I owe a debt
 here to Edgar Wallace, who edited the transcript of the Mahon trial), then the
 storm broke with a violent flash of lightning and an appalling crash of
 thunder. As the head of Emily Kaye lay upon the coals, the dead eyes
 opened, and Mahon fled out to the deserted shore. When he nerved himself
 to return, the fire had done its work. The head was never found..."