“The Fireplace”
Henry S. Whitehead
originally published in Weird Tales, January 1925
reprinted in Weird Tales, February 1935
currently available in Voodoo Tales: The Ghost Stories of Henry S. Whitehead
paperback $8.51
ebook $3.99
Henry S. Whitehead (1882-1932) was born on this date, March 5. He was well on his way to becoming one of the major authors for Weird Tales when he died far too young.
I was going to take a look at “The Lips” for today’s post, which I had intended to call “The Lips of Henry S. Whitehead”.
I’ll show myself out.
I decided not to because by today’s standards that story would be considered racially insensitive. It does have a disturbingly gruesome ending, which I rather liked.
Instead let’s consider “The Fireplace”. This story was first published in the January 1925 issue of Weird Tales. That’s it over on the right. Farnsworth Wright reprinted it in the February 1935 issue.
The story concerns a fireplace in a hotel in Jackson, Mississippi. The story opens by recounting a fire that started in a particular room on December 23. The only fatalities are four men, two local, one from Georgia, and one from Tennessee. They were all prominent men in their communities.
The scene skips back in time a few years to when a young lawyer is traveling through town from Biloxi on a business trip north.
He checks into a particular room, the one where the fatal fire will start a few years later. He’s seated before the fireplace enjoying a roaring fire and reading a book by Arthur Machen when he hears a knock on the door.
Yes, he’s really reading a book by Machen. I’m definitely going to have to read that guy.
Anyway, there a knock on the door shortly before midnight. When he goes to the door, there’s no one there. But there is someone sitting in his chair when he returns to the fire.
The man proceeds to tell a grisly tale of murder and robbery in a poker game gone bad. His own murder in that very room sixteen years before. The murderers, well, they’re the same four men who will be in the same room when the hotel burns down a few years later.
The fireplace plays a role in the crime. To prove his story, the ghost shows the lawyer where the murderers hid the personal items that could be identified as belonging to the murdered man, such as a watch, cuff links, and other such items.
The ghost gives these items to the lawyer with a pledge that he will use them to bring the killers to justice.
A few years pass. The lawyer experiences growth in his practice. And while he never forgets his pledge to bring the murders to justice, he never really does anything about it, either.
Henry S. Whitehead
Then one night in late December, he finds himself back in Jackson on business and being given the same room at the hotel…
I wasn’t expecting the ending. It was quick and unexpected and left me wanting more. Whitehead’s intentional failure to address some questions in the reader’s mind was, in my opinion a good one. The story lingers in the mind that way.
I’ve not read a great deal of Whitehead’s work, certainly not even half. But I’ve liked everything I’ve read by him, especially “Seven Turns in a Hangman’s Rope“.
If you’ve not read Whitehead, check him out.