Black Spirits and White: A Book of Ghost Stories

In the spring of 1886 a curious traveler arrives in Paris, drawn to the narrow Rue M. le Prince by a puzzling inheritance. The address, 252, is nothing more than a dark, seventeenth‑century stone arch set between two bright, modern façades, its rusted lantern and cobweb‑laden doorway hinting at forgotten secrets. The narrator’s old friend, Eugene d’Ardeche, has inherited the property from a notoriously occult aunt, yet he lives elsewhere, leaving the strange house to stand empty.

Local gossip swirls around the vacant mansion: three short‑term tenants have fled within days, each plagued by inexplicable horrors that left them in hospital beds. No sounds, no apparitions—only an oppressive sense of dread that seeps into the mind. Intrigued and uneasy, the visitor agrees to explore the house that night, hoping to uncover the source of the unseen terror that has rendered it uninhabitable.