"The Watchers Out Of Time"

by August Derleth
originally published The Watchers Out Of Time, Arkham House, 1974

It's 1935.  Nicholas Walters, an Englishman, receives a letter (intended for his late father), informing of their inheritance of a large old house in Massachusetts, Springfield ... near Dunwich (dun-dun-dun-DUNNNN!!!!).

It turns out the last owner was Aberath Whateley, apparently Nicholas' father's stepbrother.  The "solictor" warns Nicholas that the surrounding village is backwards, and the people unfriendly.

Nicholas heads out to the Whateley house, with helpful directions from a grumpy old shopkeeper named Tobias Whateley, who warns him to "tek keer" out there. The house turns out to be big, old, in pretty good shape, and with "an ornate carved ornament" of glass set into the wall of the chimney of the main room, a tall triangle with a "convex glass circle" in the center.  Some ledgers on the table make some reference to the Whateley family of "The Dunwich Horror", and the events therein (which of course are lost on Nicholas, but not on us loyal Lovecraftians - heh heh heh).

A few odd bits of info surface, such as Aberath had a caretaker named Increase Brown, who no one liked.  That Aberath's body was never found.  The whippoorwills make a lot of noise at night, and sometimes Walters hears strange animal noises as well.  While developing photographs he's made of the house, two faces are visible in his short of the fireplace ornament.  Going to have another look at said ornament, Walters has a weird, hypnotic experience. 

Walters does some investigating which yields the usual odd rumors re: witchcraft, etc.  On returning to the house, she finds furniture rearranged and an envelope with a note left for "Charles, or the Son of Charles, or the Grandson of Charles or Who Comes After" (that's you, Walter!)

And that's all she wrote, folks.  Derleth never finished the story.  It was published, as found among his papers in `71.

In such a fragmentary state, it's well-nigh impossible to honestly judge the story, or how it might have played out.  What's left is pretty much boilerplate Derleth posthumous collaboration stuff.  The night scenes in the house are moderately evocative, but nothing AD hadn't done a few million times before.  The hallucination scene with the fireplace ornament, too, is somewhat evocative, but also a little unclear.  One assumes Derleth would have revised it had he lived.