When Michael Flint is asked by American friends to look over an old Shropshire house they have unexpectedly inherited, he is reluctant to leave the quiet of his Oxford study. But when he sees Charect House, its uncanny echoes from the past fascinate him - even though it has such a sinister reputation that no one has lived there for almost a century. But it's not until Michael meets the young widow, Nell West, that the menace within the house wakes...