"The Shadow in the Attic"

by August Derleth

originally published Over the Edge (Arkham House,1964).  

Adam Duncan is the latest in the long line of Derleth inheritees (yes that's a real word - I looked it up) to acquire a big ol' creepy house on the outskirts of Arkahm.  Great-grandpa Uriah Garrison was the usual - creepy, old, kept to himself, read a lot (esp. occult stuff) - and people who crossed him has a way of dying.

Adam inherits the house and some money provided he spends the summer months there on the first year after inheriting.  He agrees, even though the house is run-down and lacks modern conveniences (Adam has a phone put in). Oh, it also comes with a cleaning lady who no one ever sees - or not for very long anwyay.

Adam's fiancee Rhoda shows up to have dinner with him, and warn him that the house is a bad place and he should clear out.  Oh, and she sleeps in a separate room (which is a little odd since Adam tells us they've slept together before).  However, her polite(?) abstinence allows Adam to wake up next to a naked old crone in the bed next to him (the writing takes a surprisingly sexually explicit tone here).  Rhoda sees a mysterious, expressionless woman in the night.  Adam assume it must be the mysterious cleaning woman and dismisses the thought of anything off the beam here.  He sends Rhoda packing off to town.

Up in the attic, from which Uriah had always forbidden others, Adam finds nothing but the cleaning woman's clothing, rubber gloves, a wig, a rubber mask, and a human-shaped shadowy outline on one wall, across from a mouse-hole and some cabalistic symbols. Some typically unfriendly neighbors inform Adam that they never saw a cleaning woman come and go, and suggest they're not convinced Uriah is actually dead.  Adam finds books on black magic in the library.

Rhoda calls - it seems she's researching the house and knows somethings up.  Adam, as usual, doesn't listen.  He begins to dream of Uriah and a masked woman.  Rhoda finally rescues him just as the smoke-form of Uriah is about to envelop him.  Rhoda sets the house afire, and they escape.

This is a very minor-league Derleth tale without much to recommend it.  No one has ever produced any info on the Lovecraftian origins of the tale.  Certainly the up-front sexuality is a surprise, especially in Lovecraft-inspired story.  But, however spicy, it's not enough to spice up an atmospheric but unmemorable tale.