Halpin Chalmers, occultist and author, invites his friend over for a weird little visit. After arguing about metaphysical vs scientific concepts of time and space (which Frank dismisses as "rubbish"), Halpin reveals his plan. He's gotten his hands on a rare drug from China called Liao, which will allow his mind to be freed of the illusion we call reality and allow his consciousness to roam time and space with impunity. He wants Frank to watch and take notes of what happens and everything he says. This is what people did in the 20's when they got high, being as Pink Floyd hadn't been invented yet. In any case Frank agrees to play stenographer, forgiving Halpin for being so rude as to not offer him some of his high. But he does so grudgingly, with repeated warnings that Mr. Ranger isn't gonna like it.
Frank trips away and begins to describe, in the purplest manner possible, all the things he's witnessing as time and space become simultaneous and he is tripping throughout human history and even pre-history like a coked-up deer (apparently experiencing multiple past lives, all at the same time). Frank takes notes (he must have known short-hand given how verbose Halpin is) and begins to notice a nasty smell in the room.
Suddenly Halpin begins to wig out. He's seen, and been seen, by some things he calls "The Hounds of Tindalos"; beyond good and evil, but living(?) repository of everything bad in the universe - and I do mean everything. More importantly - they're dangerous as hell. More importantly - they're after him!
Frank's had enough and leaves Halpin babbling about angles and curves and The Hounds, declaring his intent to send his doctor over (which he apparently forgets to do when he gets home).
The next morning Halpin calls him up and demands he pick up a shitload of plaster of paris and bring it over to his place forthwith, fifthwith even. Frank thinks nothing of this and complies, not even bothering to ask Halpin to reimburse him. Back at Halpin's place, Halpin has him help pack the corners and angles of the room with plaster until they are rounded out, turning the room somewhat spherical. Meantime he blathers on about the Hounds some more, insults Frank, apologizes, then proceeds to insult him again (Frank's mind is prosaic, he declares, while his own is superhuman! Ah humiity...). Finally having enough of Halpin's bullshit, Frank leaves again, again declaring his intent to send is doctor over (which he again apparently forgets to do).
That night the town is struck by an earth tremor. Halpin is found dead in his apartment, in a perfect triangle of crumbled plaster, naked, decapitated, and covered in some kind of blue goo that turns out to be some kind of never-before-seen sort-of living matter. Oh, and Halpin left a bunch of notes - mathematical forumlas, chants, mad scribblings and a final description of how he's being attacked by monsters, signed off with "aaaaah". Yeah Long actually went there.
Okay, the things that jump out at me herein are that Long was really into physics and the intersection of physics and metaphysics - c.f. "The Horror from the Hills" for a deeper dive into that - but herein they are presented a lot more concisely and interestingly than in the Elephant story (and here I thought the marriage of eastern philosophy and quantum physics was a 70's thing!). This all isn't so revelatory now but in 1929 it must have been a major mindfuck.
This story is techinically slight (barely even a story really), and the writing is purple pulp at its purplest and pulpiest - no one in the world ever talked like Halpin, especially when they're higher than a kite, and the whole scribbling a windy description of being attacked while being attacked by extra-dimensional monsters, even to the point of writing out "aaaah" is hilarious.
BUT - as with "The Space Eaters" (which isn't as good as this one, but has some of the same guilty pleasure charms), I like this story. It's fun, it's interesting, and I have to give kudos to Long for the Hounds - because he manages to make these things menacing and creepy while in fact telling us virtually nothing about them. That's effective.
