The Thing on the Doorstep | Page 2

those days. I had been through Harvard, had
studied in a Boston architect's office, had married, and had finally
returned to Arkham to practise my profession - settling in the family
homestead in Saltonstall Street since my father had moved to Florida
for his health. Edward used to call almost every evening, till I came to
regard him as one of the household. He had a characteristic way of
ringing the doorbell or sounding the knocker that grew to be a veritable
code signal, so that after dinner I always listened for the familiar three
brisk strokes followed by two more after a pause. Less frequently I
would visit at his house and note with envy the obscure volumes in his
constantly growing library.
Derby went through Miskatonic University in Arkahm since his parents
would not let him board away from them. He entered at sixteen and
completed his course in three years, majoring in English and French
literature and receiving high marks in everything but mathematics and
the sciences. He mingled very little with the other students, though
looking enviously at the "daring" or "Bohemian" set - whose
superficially "smart" language and meaningless ironic pose he aped,
and whose dubious conduct he wished he dared adopt.
What he did do was to become an almost fanatical devotee of
subterranean magical lore, for which Miskatonic's library was and is
famous. Always a dweller on the surface of phantasy and strangeness,
he now delved deep into the actual runes and riddles left by a fabulous
past for the guidance or puzzlement of posterity. He read things like the
frightful Book of Eibon, the Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt,

and the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred,
though he did not tell his parents he had seen them. Edward was twenty
when my son and only child was born, and seemed pleased when I
named the newcomer Edward Derby Upton after him.
By the time he was twenty-five Edward Derby was a prodigiously
learned man and a fairly well known poet and fantaisiste though his
lack of contacts and responsibilities had slowed down his literary
growth by making his products derivative and over-bookish. I was
perhaps his closest friend - finding him an inexhaustible mine of vital
theoretical topics, while he relied on me for advice in whatever matters
he did not wish to refer to his parents. He remained single - more
through shyness, inertia, and parental protectiveness than through
inclination - and moved in society only to the slightest and most
perfunctory extent. When the war came both health and ingrained
timidity kept him at home. I went to Plattsburg for a commission but
never got overseas.
So the years wore on. Edward's mother died when he was thirty four
and for months he was incapacitated by some odd psychological
malady. His father took him to Europe, however, and he managed to
pull out of his trouble without visible effects. Afterward he seemed to
feel a sort of grotesque exhilaration, as if of partial escape from some
unseen bondage. He began to mingle in the more "advanced" college
set despite his middle age, and was present at some extremely wild
doings - on one occasion paying heavy blackmail (which he borrowed
of me) to keep his presence at a certain affair from his father's notice.
Some of the whispered rumors about the wild Miskatonic set were
extremely singular. There was even talk of black magic and of
happenings utterly beyond credibility.
II
Edward was thirty-eight when he met Asenath Waite. She was, I judge,
about twenty-three at the time; and was taking a special course in
mediaeval metaphysics at Miskatonic. The daughter of a friend of mine
had met her before - in the Hall School at Kingsport - and had been
inclined to shun her because of her odd reputation. She was dark,

smallish, and very good-looking except for overprotuberant eyes; but
something in her expression alienated extremely sensitive people. It
was, however, largely her origin and conversation which caused
average folk to avoid her. She was one of the Innsmouth Waites, and
dark legends have clustered for generations about crumbling,
half-deserted Innsmouth and its people. There are tales of horrible
bargains about the year 1850, and of a strange element "not quite
human" in the ancient families of the run-down fishing port - tales such
as only old-time Yankees can devise and repeat with proper
awesomeness.
Asenath's case was aggravated by the fact that she was Ephraim Waite's
daughter - the child of his old age by an unknown wife who always
went veiled. Ephraim lived in a half-decayed mansion in Washington
Street, Innsmouth, and those who had seen the place (Arkham folk
avoid going to Innsmouth whenever they can) declared that the attic
windows were always boarded,