An old-fashioned frivolous firm for a long time, which more progressive competitors talk about with good-natured contempt, they were still in the markets of the business world. They called themselves ordinary merchants selling mixed goods from all over the world,...

The book opens with an unnamed narrator’s description of a party held one Christmas Eve in England at which some friends have gathered to share ghost stories. One of the partygoers, Douglas, says that he knows a particularly sinister ghost...