Nayland Colum is a young author in London who has published a novel entitled The Watchers on the Other Side, which he himself describes as "outre". Outre or not the book has sold quite well and he's preparing to move out of Soho. Partly because some "fishy" (he he he) people seem to be following him and watching him.
One night who shows up but ol' Doc Shrewsbury himself, Roman nose and prognathous jaw in tow. It seems he's read Watchers and believes Nayland to be hip to the jive. Labs fills him in on the usual b.s. (Cthulhu is real and afoot blah blah blah) including two pages of name-dropping. He explains that he's up to his neck in some serious shit and Nayland could be a big help to him if he doesn't mind risking life, limb and soul. To prove his point he demonstrates that Deep Ones are prowling the apartment building and that, even though he can clearly see, he doesn't have any eyes. Nayland, swayed by Doc Shrews all-knowing-ness and eyeless-ness, signs up.
So it's off they go to the Middle East, followed by Deep Ones swimming alongside their boat, and spying on them in the port cities. They make their way into the trackless desert in search of Irem, the Nameless City, where Shrew hopes to find the manuscript of Al Azif. Despite losing nearly half their men along the way to "saurians" (apparently survivors of the race that once inhabited Irem), their guides and porters stick with them until they are on the outskirts of the region thought to be home to Irem.
Irem is indeed found, and Labs and Nayland fart around with all of its spooky-nifty features, and Nayland is introduced to the suspended animation-ed bods of Andrew Phelan, Abel Kean, and Claiborne Boyd, all in stasis in Irem while their minds are on Celaeno (Auggie hadn't made that detail apparent before, and it feels slightly out of left field). In order to find the ms, Shrew re-animates the remains of Abdul Alhazred himself, conveniently sarcophagied in the city (that public murder attributed to Alhazred's exit was merely an illusion to cover his tracks). Alhazred graciously helps them out, as well as helping point them to where R'lyeh might be. Nayland and Shrew make their way back to civilization, but, when an unnatural storm hits their ship back to Merrie Olde, they realize the jig is up and escape via Byakhee Airlines. Newspaper report they were washed overboard in the storm.
4/5 of the way into Derleth's "Trail of Cthulhu" sequence, and there's signs of hope, as "Keeper" is a cut above its predecessor "The Gorge Beyond Salapunco" and way above its pre-predecessor, the outright bad "Watcher From the Sky". This one isn't outright bad, nor completely pointless, since it does at least take the story somewhere. The motivations are absurd - look, if a guy showed up with Shrewsbury's line at my place, showed me that fish people were in my apartment building, and turnd out to have no eyes but could see, I might believe him, but I'm still not sure I'd sign up to risk life/limb/soul with him. Actually I'm pretty sure I'd go "gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!" and push him out a window. But I guess Nayland is a risk-taker. The casual "oh, ho-hum six of our men got carried off in the night by little dinosaur people" is borderline comical. No it's not borderline, it is comical. The stories saving grace is the resurrection of Abdul Alhazred, which, though it goes on a little too long, is damn effective because, after all, Derleth was a good writer (albeit one who sometimes made bad choices).
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