The Monkey's Paw

Rain on the road outside Laburnam Villa, the blinds drawn, a fire lit, a father and son bent over a chessboard while the mother knits: it is the warmest room in English horror, and Jacobs builds it that way on purpose, because everything to come will be let in through its door. A soldier back from India brings a small dried thing, a monkey's paw with three wishes in it, put under a spell by a holy man who wanted to show that fate ruled people's lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow.