"The Will of Claude Ashur"

by C. Hall Thompson

originally published Weird Tales, July 1947

Richard Ashur had it made.  Family money, an old manse, the beginnings of a successful literary career.  But then there was always his younger brother, Claude.

Claude was a problem from his entrance, which cost the mother her life.  Dad doted on him, but while Richard was ultra-ordinary, Claude was weird weird weird.  Solitary, secretive - and waaaaaay too interested in the Black Arts(!) We all know where that leads in a Cthulhu story, right kiddies?

Richard tried to be buds, but Claude wasn't having it.  It didn't help when Richard discovered Claude had killed his dog - by black magic(!!)

 Finally, Richard goes off to college.  And soon, Claude does too - to Miskatonic U., natch.  

Things don't go well.  Claude wants to quit college, against their father's wishes.  Soon after, dad snuffs it mysteriously, and Clause is kicked out (of Miskatonic U. - for spending too much time studying the black arts!!! At Miskatonic????).  Richard finds evidence that black magic was the murder weapon, but of course he can't prove anything.

Richard gets on with life while Claude heads off to the Indies and more dark deeds.  Occasionally Richard hears word of Claude's nefarious doings.  Then one day he gets a letter - Claude's coming back to live in the family manse - with his wife!

Claude turns up something a changed man.  And his wife, Gratia Thane, is one hot little number!  It soon turns out (of course) that Claude has her mind-controlled with his magic.  But that ain't all!! No, it seems Claude is gradually working on switching bodies with her.  "Think of what I can do with her loveliness!" he exults.

Well, Richard does his bestest to stop the whole proceedings.  After Claude attacks him, he manages to get Claude committed for good.  But no, that's not where it ends.  Claude's still got the wherewithal to do his body-exhange magic, and this time, he does it on Richard!  Who soon finds himself inhabiting the body of Claude, locked away in an insane asylum - but what's more - it turns out ol' Claude had caught himself a baaaaaad case of leprosy while in the islands, and the docs deem him not only hopelessly insane, but dying fast....

This is Weird Tales pulp horror with a capital "P".  But that's not to say it isn't a fun read.  As some others have pointed out, Thompson has essentially assembled a recipe made up of Lovecraft-ian and pulp horror tropes and stirred them into a story.  But its a coherent and entertaining enough story, with some genuinely gruesome touches, and he doesn't pour on the Lovecraftian cliches to the extent that more accomplished authors such as, say, August Derleth did.

Speaking of Augie, for some reason he took a particular dislike to Thompson's Lovecraftain writhings and slapped him with a cease-and-desist, thus ending the Cthulhoid career of Mssr. C. Hall Thompson.  No one seems to know what this was about, given that Thompson's stuff, though hardly classic, was no worse than any number of HPL-pastiches sanctioned by Derleth and Arkham House over the years.