September 3, 2025 • 10 mins
What is it about that old house down the road that unnerves Pierre and his wife, Annette? The owners, Eric and Julia, appear to be a lovely couple, yet an unsettling aura of malevolence surrounds them. While Eric seems to radiate a supernatural darkness wherever he goes, Julia bears mysterious injuries that hint at a deeper horror. Are Erics sinister vibes the true source of her suffering, or is there something even more terrifying lurking within the walls of their home? (Summary by Ben Tucker)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter three of Sinister House by Leland Hall. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker,
Chapter three. As I have told you, our house has
every modern convenience. We have electric door bells at every door.
But whoever gave those resounding thwacks the seamed resounding, I
(00:20):
assure you, at that weird hour of the night and
in that storm, was probably unable in the dark to
find the button. So my mind reasoned in a second
or two. You know, pounding on a door is a
very threatening noise, and I confess I was startled. Annette
was really alarmed. For a long while. She would not
loose my hand, but kept dragging at me, and I
(00:41):
was very awkward trying to find the button of the
lamp to my left. Once a little light in the room, however,
she became cautious and alert. She would not let me
leave my bed. Both of us sat up and very strained.
We listened for the blows to come again. It seemed
a long time that we waited. It was probably not
more than a couple of minutes. At any rate. No
(01:01):
sound but the roaring of the wind, the driving of
the rain, and the flapping of the curtain by the
open window assailed our ears. Suddenly, I jumped out of
bed and determined to find who had roused us, so
made my way without slippers or gown into the northeast room,
from the window of which I could lean out and spy.
I didn't switch on any light, because, as Annette said,
(01:21):
that would have made me too good a target for
any one below. As I stumbled along, I heard my
little sun begin to cry, an unusual sound in our
house and disconcerting at that hour. From the north window,
I could see nothing in the blackness of the night.
I opened it cautiously, without making a sound, and leaned out.
The very wall of the house beneath me was invisible.
(01:42):
I might have been leaning over an unfathomable abyss, but
through the noise of rain and wind, my ear caught
the sound of footsteps, heavy and slow on the granolithic walk.
Who's there, I challenged loudly, to my utter amazement. The
voice which answered me hushed, but autumn from out of
the storm was familiar. Ah, Pierre, I got you up.
(02:06):
I'm sorry. I watched your light from half a mile
down the road, hoping it would not go out. I
was just going on for the love of heaven, eric
I shouted back, I'll be down in two shakes of
a lamb's tail, darting back to my room for my slippers.
I switched on the living room lights from upstairs, and
then I rushed down to let him in. He stepped
(02:26):
over the threshold, dripping wet. I saw in a glance
that his clothes were soaked through they hung down heavily
from his shoulders. I caught a glimpse, too, of a
heavy dress suit case he left outside on the porch.
What's the matter, eric I asked him, more than ever,
surprised to see standing before me a man I thought
was a thousand miles away. Nothing's the matter, he replied
(02:48):
in his melodious and somewhat sad voice. He took off
his hat with an apologetic, sidelong smile. The rain ran
in streams from it. I didn't mean to rout you out,
but somehow it's such a devilish knight, and I wanted
to get home quickly. There's nothing the matter with Julia,
is there, I asked, suddenly, and without thinking, with Julia,
(03:13):
he cried, his look transfixing me, and his deep set
brown eyes terribly anxious and searching. I am an idiot,
of course, not we left her not two hours ago,
never saw her looking so well, never saw her livelier.
That relieved him. He undid a button or two of
his coat. I always noticed how lean and sensitive his
hands were, and reached in for a handkerchief to mop
(03:35):
his face. What an expressive wet face it was. He
cleared his throat, putting his fingers to his mouth as
he did so, in a gesture characteristically apologetic. He was
a tall, wiry, gaunt fellow whose face fairly burned with
eagerness at times. Though he was a man of few words,
rather mute, I suppose he was self effacing and extremely
(03:56):
considerate of others, rather than apologetic. Certainly, there was no
suggestion of weakness about him. He wasn't assertive or aggressive,
but he had unusual power of endurance, both physical and
I found out later mental weeks afterwards, Giles said of
him that he was tempered in a white hot resentment.
But Giles was an incorrigible phrase maker. Eric seemed to
(04:18):
me just an attractive, magnetic, dark eyed fellow, taller and
thinner than the average, and a good deal more What
the women call sympathetic resentment was the last thing in
the world I should have associated with Eric Greer. Ah, Well,
I am rambling. Eric had never before been in our
house without his wife, and I've felt as if he
were lonesome all the time. My son upstairs kept yelling
(04:40):
as if he were scared out of his life. It
was like Eric to take upon himself the blame of this,
but I deprecated his apologies. One was always doing that
with Eric. He told me then that he had found
himself in Buffalo with three days on his hands, and
had determined to take a flying trip to his home
and his wife. I can't bear being away from her,
(05:00):
he added, but with no trace of apology. There He
burned when he spoke of his wife. And it's such
a rotten night. I just got into Foresby from New York.
There was no cab at the station, and I started
to walk it. When I saw the light in your window.
I hoped i'd get to your house before you had
gone to bed, and that well, I have only thirty
(05:22):
six hours to spend with Julia at the best, and
I thought you'd perhaps run me over in your car.
He would have driven himself over, But I knew he
couldn't manage a ford very well, and besides, I was
glad to do him a favor, so I rushed upstairs
to dress. There was something abroad in the night that
took away all thought of sleep. Even Bobby kept up
his whimpering, which was very unlike him. I stopped in
(05:44):
his room a second to tell Annette, who was watching
with him, that it was Eric who had roused us,
and that I was going to run him over in
the ford. She had already assured herself of the nature
of our midnight visitor. She thought I was a fool
to drive him over in such a storm, that it
would be much more sensible to keep him with us overnight.
As a matter of fact, she didn't want to be
left alone in the house. Bobby had had terrible nightmares.
(06:07):
She couldn't wake him up. She thought he had a fever.
You know how women are, even the best of them,
like my wife, Just the same. I got dressed, forced
a dry coat on, Eric cranked up the ford and
started out in the storm. Eric paid no attention to
the roughness of the way, while my mind was wholly
intent upon steering the light car through the heavy mud
and keeping her out of ruts. He asked me anxious
(06:29):
questions about the condition of his wife now and then
when we came to a smooth stretch, I would say,
you know how, with my mind only half in it,
she's as bright as a cricket. She's improved wonderfully, or
as a joke, she seems to thrive on your absence. Eric.
I wonder if that pleased him. Perhaps he didn't hear
anything I said. With the wind roaring about us. At
(06:51):
any rate, he couldn't get enough out of me. He
even asked me if she was sleeping better. What a
question from one husband to another, I answered, like a top.
I never knew she had slept in any other way.
All the way, the rain was bouncing and running all
over the windshield and steaming on the engine hood. The
wind was trying to tear the top off the car,
(07:12):
and the whole shebang was rocking and pitching along the
road like a bump the bumps at Coney Island. Even
the lights got to playing tricks. From time to time,
the rain or something reflected them in a queer way,
so that it seemed to me as if a ball
of light or a sort of thick string of it
were flying along just ahead of us, now just over
the engine, now right on the edge of the windshield.
(07:35):
It was so queer that it made me jumpy and nervous.
I found the next morning that the reflector in the
right lamp was broken. That accounted for it, simply enough.
But I remember how I jumped when we turned down
into Eric's driveway in that uncanny light. It was like
an eel, then darted ahead of us and round the
corner as if it were alive. At Eric's request, I
(07:56):
stopped the car under the hemlocks some little way from
the house, and as luck would have it, I stalled
the engine. Doing so. That left us in absolute darkness,
and it felt and sounded as if the wind and
rain doubled their fury. What a friend to man is light.
I don't know why I insisted on stumbling along with
Eric towards where we knew the house must be if
(08:18):
the storm hadn't blown it from the edge of the
cliff into the river. We didn't know where to put
our feet, and in the darkness, the wind sounded like
all sorts of unearthly things. Once it was so like
an anguished human cry that we both stopped trembling. I'm
not sure now that it wasn't. We kept on going,
trying to feel the edge of the driveway with our feet.
(08:39):
Of course, we couldn't see a sign of the house.
Finally I said to Eric, this is absurd. I'll go
back and start the engine. That will give us some light.
And you've got to wake Julia anyhow, Though he remonstrated,
I had already turned when I heard the noise of
bolts shot back with a loud click. We were much
nearer the house than we knew. The front door was
suddenly thrown up open, and I saw Julia standing in
(09:01):
the doorway. She wore a long white nightgown, and she
carried in her hand a lighted candle. She was the
only visible thing in the night save right before me
the clear cut but lightless edge of Eric's face. Behind her,
there was a sort of rosy glow. She must have
lighted a lamp back in the narrow hallway, one wall
of which I remembered was hung with a damask of
deep rose color. She cried out, who's there, And though
(09:26):
she was not more than ten feet from us, I
could hardly hear her voice over the noise of the storm.
Eric answered her almost with a sob, and sprang towards her,
across the lawn and up the steps. He had her
caught up in his arms in a second, and she
let the candle fall. In an instant. The night was
black again, save for that rosy glow, against which I
saw their two figures almost as one, shapeless yet strangely heroic,
(09:50):
like two wanderers, standing embraced on the edge of a cliff,
far above the fires of earth, slipping and almost falling
in the mud. I ran back to my ford. I
bumped good and hard into a tree trunk before I
got there, but I had her cranked and backing before
they could have thought of me. And I doubt if
even the glare of my lights over their lawn, or
the roar of the engine in reverse, recalled to their
(10:11):
minds that there was such a man as Pierre Smith
living in the world. The house was still as death
when I got back, and I tried to sneak into
bed without a sound, But the wife of my bosom
was on a still watch, and in the dark she
tried to pump me for all she could get, and
that being little for her pains, She felt to thinking
that Eric and Julia were both crazy nuts. Not an
(10:33):
elegant phrase, but expressive. It was after two before I
fell asleep. Just drowsing away, I remembered to ask Annette
how Bobby was. He had had terrible nightmares, but had
dropped off to sleep again as soon as Eric and
I had left the house. He had no fever. End
of chapter three,
Chapter three of Sinister House by Leland Hall. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker,
Chapter three. As I have told you, our house has
every modern convenience. We have electric door bells at every door.
But whoever gave those resounding thwacks the seamed resounding, I
(00:20):
assure you, at that weird hour of the night and
in that storm, was probably unable in the dark to
find the button. So my mind reasoned in a second
or two. You know, pounding on a door is a
very threatening noise, and I confess I was startled. Annette
was really alarmed. For a long while. She would not
loose my hand, but kept dragging at me, and I
(00:41):
was very awkward trying to find the button of the
lamp to my left. Once a little light in the room, however,
she became cautious and alert. She would not let me
leave my bed. Both of us sat up and very strained.
We listened for the blows to come again. It seemed
a long time that we waited. It was probably not
more than a couple of minutes. At any rate. No
(01:01):
sound but the roaring of the wind, the driving of
the rain, and the flapping of the curtain by the
open window assailed our ears. Suddenly, I jumped out of
bed and determined to find who had roused us, so
made my way without slippers or gown into the northeast room,
from the window of which I could lean out and spy.
I didn't switch on any light, because, as Annette said,
(01:21):
that would have made me too good a target for
any one below. As I stumbled along, I heard my
little sun begin to cry, an unusual sound in our
house and disconcerting at that hour. From the north window,
I could see nothing in the blackness of the night.
I opened it cautiously, without making a sound, and leaned out.
The very wall of the house beneath me was invisible.
(01:42):
I might have been leaning over an unfathomable abyss, but
through the noise of rain and wind, my ear caught
the sound of footsteps, heavy and slow on the granolithic walk.
Who's there, I challenged loudly, to my utter amazement. The
voice which answered me hushed, but autumn from out of
the storm was familiar. Ah, Pierre, I got you up.
(02:06):
I'm sorry. I watched your light from half a mile
down the road, hoping it would not go out. I
was just going on for the love of heaven, eric
I shouted back, I'll be down in two shakes of
a lamb's tail, darting back to my room for my slippers.
I switched on the living room lights from upstairs, and
then I rushed down to let him in. He stepped
(02:26):
over the threshold, dripping wet. I saw in a glance
that his clothes were soaked through they hung down heavily
from his shoulders. I caught a glimpse, too, of a
heavy dress suit case he left outside on the porch.
What's the matter, eric I asked him, more than ever,
surprised to see standing before me a man I thought
was a thousand miles away. Nothing's the matter, he replied
(02:48):
in his melodious and somewhat sad voice. He took off
his hat with an apologetic, sidelong smile. The rain ran
in streams from it. I didn't mean to rout you out,
but somehow it's such a devilish knight, and I wanted
to get home quickly. There's nothing the matter with Julia,
is there, I asked, suddenly, and without thinking, with Julia,
(03:13):
he cried, his look transfixing me, and his deep set
brown eyes terribly anxious and searching. I am an idiot,
of course, not we left her not two hours ago,
never saw her looking so well, never saw her livelier.
That relieved him. He undid a button or two of
his coat. I always noticed how lean and sensitive his
hands were, and reached in for a handkerchief to mop
(03:35):
his face. What an expressive wet face it was. He
cleared his throat, putting his fingers to his mouth as
he did so, in a gesture characteristically apologetic. He was
a tall, wiry, gaunt fellow whose face fairly burned with
eagerness at times. Though he was a man of few words,
rather mute, I suppose he was self effacing and extremely
(03:56):
considerate of others, rather than apologetic. Certainly, there was no
suggestion of weakness about him. He wasn't assertive or aggressive,
but he had unusual power of endurance, both physical and
I found out later mental weeks afterwards, Giles said of
him that he was tempered in a white hot resentment.
But Giles was an incorrigible phrase maker. Eric seemed to
(04:18):
me just an attractive, magnetic, dark eyed fellow, taller and
thinner than the average, and a good deal more What
the women call sympathetic resentment was the last thing in
the world I should have associated with Eric Greer. Ah, Well,
I am rambling. Eric had never before been in our
house without his wife, and I've felt as if he
were lonesome all the time. My son upstairs kept yelling
(04:40):
as if he were scared out of his life. It
was like Eric to take upon himself the blame of this,
but I deprecated his apologies. One was always doing that
with Eric. He told me then that he had found
himself in Buffalo with three days on his hands, and
had determined to take a flying trip to his home
and his wife. I can't bear being away from her,
(05:00):
he added, but with no trace of apology. There He
burned when he spoke of his wife. And it's such
a rotten night. I just got into Foresby from New York.
There was no cab at the station, and I started
to walk it. When I saw the light in your window.
I hoped i'd get to your house before you had
gone to bed, and that well, I have only thirty
(05:22):
six hours to spend with Julia at the best, and
I thought you'd perhaps run me over in your car.
He would have driven himself over, But I knew he
couldn't manage a ford very well, and besides, I was
glad to do him a favor, so I rushed upstairs
to dress. There was something abroad in the night that
took away all thought of sleep. Even Bobby kept up
his whimpering, which was very unlike him. I stopped in
(05:44):
his room a second to tell Annette, who was watching
with him, that it was Eric who had roused us,
and that I was going to run him over in
the ford. She had already assured herself of the nature
of our midnight visitor. She thought I was a fool
to drive him over in such a storm, that it
would be much more sensible to keep him with us overnight.
As a matter of fact, she didn't want to be
left alone in the house. Bobby had had terrible nightmares.
(06:07):
She couldn't wake him up. She thought he had a fever.
You know how women are, even the best of them,
like my wife, Just the same. I got dressed, forced
a dry coat on, Eric cranked up the ford and
started out in the storm. Eric paid no attention to
the roughness of the way, while my mind was wholly
intent upon steering the light car through the heavy mud
and keeping her out of ruts. He asked me anxious
(06:29):
questions about the condition of his wife now and then
when we came to a smooth stretch, I would say,
you know how, with my mind only half in it,
she's as bright as a cricket. She's improved wonderfully, or
as a joke, she seems to thrive on your absence. Eric.
I wonder if that pleased him. Perhaps he didn't hear
anything I said. With the wind roaring about us. At
(06:51):
any rate, he couldn't get enough out of me. He
even asked me if she was sleeping better. What a
question from one husband to another, I answered, like a top.
I never knew she had slept in any other way.
All the way, the rain was bouncing and running all
over the windshield and steaming on the engine hood. The
wind was trying to tear the top off the car,
(07:12):
and the whole shebang was rocking and pitching along the
road like a bump the bumps at Coney Island. Even
the lights got to playing tricks. From time to time,
the rain or something reflected them in a queer way,
so that it seemed to me as if a ball
of light or a sort of thick string of it
were flying along just ahead of us, now just over
the engine, now right on the edge of the windshield.
(07:35):
It was so queer that it made me jumpy and nervous.
I found the next morning that the reflector in the
right lamp was broken. That accounted for it, simply enough.
But I remember how I jumped when we turned down
into Eric's driveway in that uncanny light. It was like
an eel, then darted ahead of us and round the
corner as if it were alive. At Eric's request, I
(07:56):
stopped the car under the hemlocks some little way from
the house, and as luck would have it, I stalled
the engine. Doing so. That left us in absolute darkness,
and it felt and sounded as if the wind and
rain doubled their fury. What a friend to man is light.
I don't know why I insisted on stumbling along with
Eric towards where we knew the house must be if
(08:18):
the storm hadn't blown it from the edge of the
cliff into the river. We didn't know where to put
our feet, and in the darkness, the wind sounded like
all sorts of unearthly things. Once it was so like
an anguished human cry that we both stopped trembling. I'm
not sure now that it wasn't. We kept on going,
trying to feel the edge of the driveway with our feet.
(08:39):
Of course, we couldn't see a sign of the house.
Finally I said to Eric, this is absurd. I'll go
back and start the engine. That will give us some light.
And you've got to wake Julia anyhow, Though he remonstrated,
I had already turned when I heard the noise of
bolts shot back with a loud click. We were much
nearer the house than we knew. The front door was
suddenly thrown up open, and I saw Julia standing in
(09:01):
the doorway. She wore a long white nightgown, and she
carried in her hand a lighted candle. She was the
only visible thing in the night save right before me
the clear cut but lightless edge of Eric's face. Behind her,
there was a sort of rosy glow. She must have
lighted a lamp back in the narrow hallway, one wall
of which I remembered was hung with a damask of
deep rose color. She cried out, who's there, And though
(09:26):
she was not more than ten feet from us, I
could hardly hear her voice over the noise of the storm.
Eric answered her almost with a sob, and sprang towards her,
across the lawn and up the steps. He had her
caught up in his arms in a second, and she
let the candle fall. In an instant. The night was
black again, save for that rosy glow, against which I
saw their two figures almost as one, shapeless yet strangely heroic,
(09:50):
like two wanderers, standing embraced on the edge of a cliff,
far above the fires of earth, slipping and almost falling
in the mud. I ran back to my ford. I
bumped good and hard into a tree trunk before I
got there, but I had her cranked and backing before
they could have thought of me. And I doubt if
even the glare of my lights over their lawn, or
the roar of the engine in reverse, recalled to their
(10:11):
minds that there was such a man as Pierre Smith
living in the world. The house was still as death
when I got back, and I tried to sneak into
bed without a sound, But the wife of my bosom
was on a still watch, and in the dark she
tried to pump me for all she could get, and
that being little for her pains, She felt to thinking
that Eric and Julia were both crazy nuts. Not an
(10:33):
elegant phrase, but expressive. It was after two before I
fell asleep. Just drowsing away, I remembered to ask Annette
how Bobby was. He had had terrible nightmares, but had
dropped off to sleep again as soon as Eric and
I had left the house. He had no fever. End
of chapter three,
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