originally published Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, June 1932
30 years ago Lady Agatha Tremoth pulled a Madeline Usher. It seems she suffered from catalepsy but this time she was really a goner. So her hubby John stuck her in the family tomb. Oops! A short time later she was wide awake and screaming. And somehow had gotten the heavy coffin lid off of her, a neat trick since she was skinny and frail ... hmmm. Anyway she kept claiming to have woken up to find something white and inhuman staring her in the face. Well no one takes that too seriously. But nine months later she dies giving birth to something distinctly not human. And Sir John, so the story goes, locked it away in an iron-barred room in his manor and became a complete recluse.
Lo these 30 years later Henry Chaldane, son of Arthur, an old school friend of Sir John's, is making a motorcycle tour through England and gets caught in a pea-soup fog. Stopping for directions and/or help, he comes across - surprise! Tremoth Manor. Henry is welcomed by Harper, Sir John's one remaining servant, and Sir John himself, who insists he spend the night, even though he must forgive the inhospitable nature of his house. While being led to his room, Henry passes the infamous locked door, and hears something inside cut loose with a horrible scream.
Henry spends a pretty sleepless night, listening to the thing in the locked room clawing at the walls. He's also troubled by the fact that he saw Harper carrying what appeared to be putrescent meat up to feed it. And by Sir John letting out with a loud groan during the wee hours.
Well Harper wakes Henry up late the next morning. It seems Sir John snuffed it during the night. He left some very specific instructions that he be cremated on a funeral pyre on the estate. And Harper is to watch over him until that time. So Henry volunteers to head into town and scare up some help for tomorrow.
Back at the manor, Harper asks Henry to sit up with him next to Sir John's corpse, to which he reluctanrly agrees. But that thing is clawing at the wall again and before you can say "Abdul Alhzared" it's torn its way in - he gets only a glimpse of something white with canine fangs and clawed hands that goes on all fours - and then it's on Sir John, getting shot in the process and knocking over candles, thus starting a blaze. So Henry gets Harper out and the two follow the clawed footprints from the house to the family crypt, wherein they lost track of whatever it was.
Man this thing's gothic with a capital "G". And a lot of fun. A very dark old house Poe mystery with a does of Lovecraftian ghoul-grue thrown in for good measure. Hardly a classic but like I said, a lot of fun.
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