He was kneeling beside the coffee table, and he was gagging and sputtering on a foot long, purple, slimy thing that was protruding from his mouth.

He heard a soft hissing noise and then old-fashioned gas lamps sputtered into life all along the walls, casting a flickering insubstantial light over the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet of a long, gloomy hallway, where a cobwebby chandelier glimmered overhead and age-blackened portraits hung crooked on the walls.