"I tell you, Vorchek," said Tobias Bentley, "this terrible mystery has become too much for me. I try to live a quiet life here with my books and my manuscripts, but this ugly business has wholly disordered my affairs. Bad enough it was when my beautiful new wife died—Sheila, in the spring of her years, poor child—only now my servants are dropping dead as well, the two healthy young women I had hired from the village. In each case death was without apparent cause. There were three bodies and no explanation—an insupportable situation. Soon I shall be alone here to fend for myself, if this goes on. You must help me."

"I will, for the case intrigues me," suavely replied Professor Anton Vorchek, investigator of the arcane and the uncanny, in his precise, well modulated, slightly accented speech. He had come at the urgent bidding of his friend—who was a near hermit, not prone to receiving or entertaining guests, and a dilettante scholar and wealthy denizen of isolated, forest-cloaked Oak Creek Manor, where they now sat sipping drinks in the Tea Room.

The host was restless and nervously puffing a cigarette, Vorchek casually reclining and easily drawing on his pipe.

Said the professor, "The lack of physical wounds suggests poison, yet you imply that all normal avenues have been explored by competent medical authorities. Does that imply all natural avenues? That, now, would impress me. I take it you have never experienced the unusual here before?"

"Absolutely not," Bentley assured him. "My life has been entirely normal in its relative seclusion, my household happy and conventional."

"Incorrect," Vorchek noted, "at least in part. Besides the two remaining servants I have met, there is one other personage at the manor who is passing strange."

"You mean good old Orvin, of course," said Bentley. "Why, the fellow has been with us as butler, the tyrant of the house, since my father’s day. True and steady, the salt of the earth, is Orvin. Besides, he is the only human being here who can not be suspected of foul play."

"Because," Vorchek observed, "out of the goodness of your heart you keep your butler in a box."

"It is the only way, my friend. Since the unfortunate accident last year that cost him his arms and legs, he has necessarily transferred his mobile duties to others. His brain remains intact, however, and from his odd throne he still governs with an iron hand. Oh dear … you know what I mean. Anyway, I or the other servants cater to his every need."

"I wish to see him." Vorchek’s host led him through the twisting passageways of the vast house to the cavernous hall or den where antique furniture and priceless paintings created an atmosphere of comfort and quality. To the right a fire burned fiercely in a yawning granite alcove. To the left a wide and massively solid marble mantel upheld, along with valuable gold and silver and crystal trinkets, a huge, standing oblong box of mahogany, open to the front, with its ornate door, never shut, hanging wide. Within lurked Orvin, a gray, wizened, Roman-nosed head surmounting a trunk wrapped shapelessly in a heavy black robe.

Bentley performed polite courtesies of greeting, to which Orvin rasped in a harsh but ostentatiously genteel voice, "My pleasure, Professor Vorchek. It has been long since you called upon us. Sadly, I can not see to your needs as once I did. Live has been hard to me, but I make do, and still contribute after a fashion. May I be so bold as to inquire what brings you to us this day?"

"My old and learned friend," said the master, "shall get to the bottom of our sorrows. You know, Orvin, his credentials and background. If anyone can help us, he can."

"You flatter me," Vorchek muttered with a tight smile."

"Those of us who survive must be pleased beyond measure," said Orvin. "It was my understanding, however, that proper procedures have already been undertaken by the relevant officials."

"I know more than they," replied the professor, "of curious matters. Rest assured, good Orvin, that within twenty-four hours I will have solved this case, and taken the necessary steps to defeat the mysterious menace. Now, sir," he said to his host, "I would refresh myself, for I had a long drive up here, and it grows late. I must ponder and sleep before I act."

Bentley and his guest dined on lamb curry and rice. Afterward, over a bottle of Mentothelle ‘83, Vorchek questioned his friend concerning various seemingly random particularities of recent life at the manor. He ascertained that the late and latest Mrs. Bentley had died eight months before, some weeks following faithful Orvin’s tragic accident; that the lost servants had been new hires who proved less than stellar, never living up to Orvin’s rigorous standards. Vorchek asked Bentley about his current research into matters ancient and profound, to which came the reply, "It does not go well. Orvin was always by best and brightest assistant. With him largely out of commission I am often at loose ends. These past years I’ve devoted myself to occult interests, an analysis of rare sorceric texts, very much in your line, yet on my own I found myself routinely stumped." Vorchek then exchanged words with Mr. and Mrs. Stoob, cook and maid, man and wife of long standing at Oak Creek Manor. They could tell him nothing of overt value, preferring to focus on squabbles among the staff, the departed and the still living. After this conversation he took to his prepared bed.

That night he experienced a strange visitation. He woke, suddenly, into what he briefly deemed the continuation of dreams. Out of darkness a hideous phantom form, a gigantic glowing face of indescribable savagery, hovered before him in the bedroom. It closed upon him, shrieking silently and mouthing unheard curses, then merged with him, bathing him in ghostly radiance. A vise seized his heart and daggers pierced his brain, which Vorchek knew for an attack unto death. With all the powers of will and secret knowledge the professor fought to repel the devilish assault. Perhaps the contest raged for mere minutes, but the battle felt endless, a murderous campaign, a seesaw struggle for life. The phantom demanded his death, ordered him to succumb; Vorchek steeled himself to resist and survive. He did so, gaining strength by desperate degrees, until such time as he sprang from bed with a victorious shout and sensed the baleful influence receding. The nightmarish phantom vanished on the instant.

The victor collapsed back onto the soft sheets, entirely spent. Some time elapsed before Vorchek regained full control of his motor functions. Once his subsequent weakness had passed he felt the need for nutritional succor, rang the bell pull for aid. No one came. Wearily he rose, lighted a lamp, and made his way into the hall. At the far end a window emitted a trace of reddish dawn. Vorchek groped downstairs to the servants quarters, knocked briskly at the door of the room shared by the two remaining ambulatory servants. Receiving no response, he pushed open the door. He found the Stoobs in their beds, obviously dead. A quick examination revealed no wounds, but the staring, rigid masks of their sunken features told all. Death had come to them this night, as it had been intended for Vorchek.

A horribly grim possibility occurred to him. He raced from the death chamber, charged up the stairs, stormed into his friend’s bedroom. His surmise had been correct, his intentions far too late, if there had ever been a chance. There, in the antique bed where kings had once slumbered, surrounded by books and scattered parchments and lurid artifacts gathered from the corners of the world, lay Tobias Bentley of Oak Creek Manor, deceased. The death had come to him some time before, perhaps even as Vorchek had wrestled with the insidious horror. It was much the same as with the Stoobs, though with greater evidence of a struggle. The corpse sprawled half off the mattress, the covers thrown wildly back, the teeth tightly clenched, the mouth contorted in a fearful grimace. That made sense to the professor. His friend had known a thing or two of arcane lore—not so much as he believed, unfortunately, nor had his amateurish knowledge prepared him for confronting the grotesque reality—enough, apparently, to afford him a clue when evil struck, providing him a chance, however feeble, to fight back. Bentley had fought and failed, while the devoutly studious Vorchek had triumphed.

With that the professor knew all. He marched solemnly to the great hall (after a short detour to the supply room) to seek the only other human being still living in the house. There in his box hunched Orvin, no longer pathetic to behold, but ghastly, for his face was distorted by maniacal fury—precisely the face of the malicious, murderous vision. Yes, Vorchek had recognized him, only it was not intended that he live to utilize the knowledge. Thus spoke the professor:

"Before I slept last night, Orvin, I had already deduced that you were the instigator of these dreadful events. You had lost the use of your body, which must rankle an active and masterful man, yet you were privy to Bentley’s studies in ancient sorcery. He told me that your keen mind was vital to his work. I could guess, then, that in the absence of physical locomotion you would turn to developing the powers of your mind. This you did, only power was channeled through rage, focused by hate. That you railed at uncaring fate I understand, yet I would know the reasons for the earlier three killings."

"The last Mrs. Bentley," croaked Orvin, "was nothing more than a gold digger, but she I would have tolerated, had it not been her earnest desire to rid this house of my sad carcass. My ruined form sickened her, so she implored Tobias that I be put away. That I would not allow. Those foolish girls were troublemakers who mocked me with simpering smiles, knowing winks and nods, and they were poor household resources to boot. I did my master a favor by removing them."

"You did him no favor this morning," Vorchek observed, "to put the case mildly. Of course you must attempt to destroy me, for you suspected that my investigation meant the end of your monstrous empire. I am trained in the age-old methods of psychic attack, however, through years of study and experience, and therefore defeated you. But the others, Orvin, why the others? Why must you slaughter Bentley and the Stoobs?"

"I lay the blame at your door," hissed Orvin. "The fault is your own. I can send out the claws of my mind, but I do not yet consider myself a proficient. When you, quite without precedent, rebuffed the sending of my ire, I could no longer maintain control or direct it. It acted as an entity unto itself, lashing out at any and all victims at hand. You must realize that I did not mean to destroy them, for they were useful to me."

"Quite so," replied Vorchek. "All is explained. Only you and I remain. Now I must act as the instrument of justice." Orvin screamed, his lips twitching repulsively as he bellowed hostile syllables of antique magic. That crazed face swelled fantastically and lunged through the intervening space at Vorchek, who merely laughed and, with a mental shrug, dismissed the apparition. "Too late," he said. "I am onto your game. Your force cannot affect me. I can imagine many productive solutions to this problem. I choose the simplest." With that Vorchek swung shut the big door of Orvin’s box, produced hammer and nails, driving the latter through the rim of the door into the thick mahogany frame. Orvin squealed and begged for mercy, but his words were muffled, and the professor did not care to hear them. With the deed done Anton Vorchek left the confines of Oak Creek Manor, confident that natural causes would resolve the situation in due course.