The Last Tenant

Edward is a contented, unambitious husband whose quiet domestic life is upended when Maria decides their long-occupied home is no longer good enough. Armed with a formidable list of objections and a secret savings fund for improvements, she drives the household into a frantic search for a better house, turning every viewing into a comic battle between her restless ambition and Edward's resigned wit. Their hunt leads them to Mr. Gascoigne, who offers an astonishingly cheap house in Lamb's Terrace, spacious and promising, yet shadowed by Edward's unease and the sense that the deal is too perfect. That unease deepens when Edward is unexpectedly reunited with Bob Millet, a boyhood friend grown worn by hardship but still cheerful and kind. Bob's loneliness, practical courage, and knowledge of the house draw the men into a night of tense vigil, where cards, brandy, and forced calm give way to creeping dread. As they search the darkened rooms, the story shifts from domestic satire to gothic mystery and supernatural suspense, finally revealing not a monster but a neglected child sleeping in the basement kitchen, hinting at poverty, hidden suffering, and a far darker secret beneath the house's strange haunting. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.