They return at evening

The Story

The collection begins with a chilling confession from a man who has successfully committed the perfect murder. Having pushed his wife to her death and escaped a coroner’s inquest through his status as a "Local Notable," he finds that his life does not settle into peace. Instead, he is haunted by the lingering, violent image of his crime, which manifests as a psychic residue—a phantom coffin and a shrouded figure that appear in his home. His attempt to build a new life with a woman named Margaret is perpetually threatened by these manifestations, leading him to fear that his own consciousness is essentially a decaying vessel for the horror he has unleashed. He is not a man seeking redemption, but rather one trying to maintain his sanity while his inner corruption projects itself onto the world around him.

The narrative threads continue through a series of increasingly unsettling encounters. In one instance, a man recounts an eerie incident involving a local poacher known as "Black Jack." After a wealthy landowner intentionally kills the man’s dog with his motorcar, the poacher performs a strange, ritualistic act over the dead animal—whispering in a foreign tongue and whistling—that leaves the observer convinced the dog is being called back to some form of spectral life. This theme of the "echo" of past events manifesting in the present repeats throughout the book, as characters stumble into situations where long-dead tragedies or intense, unresolved emotions have left permanent scars on the physical landscape.

In another account, a brilliant academic, Professor Pownall, documents a lifelong, poisonous rivalry with a man named Hubert Morisson. Their competition, spanning from school days to the chess board, consumes Pownall’s entire existence. Pownall eventually orchestrates a way to destroy his rival, believing this to be an act of "common sense and justice." His descent is marked by a cold, intellectual detachment that is far more terrifying than any common haunting. He views his life as a series of maneuvers, and when he finally achieves his goal, he leaves behind his records as a final, arrogant testament to his own perceived superiority, having effectively hollowed himself out in the process of his vendetta.

The haunting of the "Red Lodge" serves as a centerpiece for the collection’s focus on malevolent spaces. A family moves into a beautiful Queen Anne house, only to realize that the atmosphere is "off the key." The husband, a painter, perceives the house as a death-trap where previous residents have been driven to madness or suicide. The house is not merely a building; it is a repository of past malice that actively drains the vitality of those who dwell within. The husband struggles nightly against unseen assailants who urge him to commit acts of self-destruction, demonstrating that the house—and the history it preserves—is a predatory force.

Finally, the collection explores how these occurrences impact the living. Whether it is a golf secretary discovering that a newly designed hole at Duncaster is cursed by a history of unexplained deaths, or a publisher becoming unsettled by a cryptic message about his author’s impending demise, the common thread is the intrusion of the inexplicable into the mundane. The stories conclude with a pervasive sense of unease, suggesting that while we may think we are the masters of our environment and our own pasts, we are merely walking through layers of previous lives, any one of which might suddenly reach out to claim us.

The People

• The Murderer: A man of high social standing who feels no remorse for killing his wife. He is driven by a cold, selfish logic and is deeply concerned with whether his haunting is an objective reality or a sign of his own mental breakdown.
• Edward Bellamy: A resilient, observant lawyer who possesses a "Highland grandmother’s" gift for visualization. He is the anchor in several stories, using his sharp, legalistic mind to dissect the supernatural, though he eventually realizes that some phenomena exist beyond the reach of human logic.
• Professor Pownall: A man of immense intellectual vanity whose life is defined by a pathological need to best his rival, Hubert Morisson. He is a chilling study in how obsession can strip a person of their humanity, leaving behind only the mechanics of a cold, calculated hatred.
• The Painter at the Red Lodge: A man whose professional sensitivity to light and tone makes him the first to realize his new home is "off the key." He represents the vulnerable observer who tries to protect his family from an environment that is actively trying to break them.
• Mr. Baxter: The secretary of a golf club who finds himself in the middle of a mystery at Duncaster. He is a student and philosopher by nature, ill-equipped for the visceral, terrifying reality of a place that seems to claim the lives of those who traverse it.

In Its Own Voice

"Myriads of men must have played with the idea of killing their wives, but I killed mine."

The narrator of the opening story reflects on the cold, singular nature of his crime, distinguishing himself from the common man who merely harbors dark thoughts.

"I could see her writhing on the carpet, the blood gushing from her throat."

This vision, which torments the murderer after his first brush with the impulse to kill, demonstrates how his subconscious mind forces the reality of his future actions upon him.

"The Permanent Occupants of the Red Lodge waited till the light was out, but then I felt them come thronging, slipping in one by one, their weapon fear."

The painter describes the nightly onset of the entities that haunt his house, characterizing the atmosphere as a deliberate, aggressive force designed to break his resolve.

What It's Really About

These stories are fundamentally concerned with the idea of the "psychic echo"—the notion that human emotion, particularly intense hatred, greed, or violence, leaves an indelible mark on the physical world. The book argues that places and objects are not neutral. Instead, they act as recording devices for the traumas of the past. A house, a golf course, or even a chess move can become a vessel for a tragedy that refuses to dissipate, repeating itself until the "record wears out."

There is a recurring argument that the "rational" world is merely a thin, comfortable veneer. The characters are largely men of status—lawyers, professors, painters—who rely on intellect, legalism, and social order to navigate their lives. The book systematically dismantles their confidence. It suggests that while we categorize these events as "supernatural," they are actually just as real and material as the laws of physics. The "ghosts" are not necessarily spirits in the traditional sense; they are the unavoidable consequences of human behavior.

Furthermore, the collection explores the relationship between guilt and perception. The murderer’s haunting is indistinguishable from his own psychological collapse; the book refuses to clarify whether the entities he sees are external demons or the manifestation of his own "rotting brain." This ambiguity is intentional. It posits that the distinction between a guilty conscience and a haunted existence is a distinction without a difference. If a man’s mind is filled with the image of his crime, that image becomes his reality, as tangible and suffocating as any physical phantom.

Finally, the book deals with the predator-prey relationship in human society. The "crooks" and the "mugs" are constantly locked in a cycle, and the haunting of a place like the Red Lodge is often the result of someone profiting from a "pest-house." The supernatural is frequently a reflection of human greed. The "Red Lodge" is not just haunted by spirits, but by the malice of the owner who knowingly rents out a dangerous property for financial gain. The book suggests that the true horror is not the ghost, but the cold, calculating human who facilitates the conditions under which such horrors thrive.

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate the quiet, creeping dread of early 20th-century English ghost stories will find this collection particularly effective. It captures a specific period—the late 1920s—where the stiff upper lip of the professional class begins to tremble in the face of things that cannot be explained by a brief or a ledger. The writing is precise and restrained, which makes the sudden flashes of violence or madness all the more jarring.

You should approach this book if you enjoy the feeling of being unsettled rather than shocked. It does not rely on cheap scares, but rather on the slow, methodical erosion of the reader's sense of security. The language reflects the period’s formal, sometimes detached, tone, which serves to heighten the contrast when characters finally confront the terrifying realities of their situations.

One challenge for the modern reader may be the occasionally opaque references to contemporary social dynamics or the specific, sometimes cold-blooded, attitudes of the narrators toward their own actions. These men are not always sympathetic, and their intellectual arrogance can be off-putting. However, this is precisely what makes the collection interesting; it is not a book about heroes, but about men who are forced to confront the limits of their own intelligence and the endurance of their own sins.

What stays with you long after the final page is the sense that the world is far more crowded with the past than we realize. You will find yourself looking at empty corridors or quiet rooms with a new, guarded suspicion, wondering if you are merely the latest person to "play the record" of a place. It is a haunting, intellectual exercise that refuses to provide the comfort of a neat, rational conclusion, leaving the reader with the lingering, prickling feeling that the "permanent occupants" of our own spaces may be closer than we think.