"The Terrible Old Man" (1921)

This very short H.P. Lovecraft story alas comes with the usual note of xenophobe panic, the insidious feature you are never far from with him. In this case, the specific miscreants are named Angelo Ricci, Joe Czanek, and Manuel Silva, so we know where they're coming from. Never mind how, in 1921, one Italian, one Eastern European, and one Latino—swarthy babbling immigrants all, no doubt—have come to be allied in crime. (Or, as they say on the internet, "Sounds legit!") The story is so short it might be fair to call it a short-short, which is refreshing from the normally prolix Lovecraft, who still manages to be ponderous even in the brief space here. It's actually intended as homage to Lord Dunsany, which is a nice idea, but few, of course, are as good at this kind of thing as the canny Irish aristocrat. The trio of America-destroying immigrants here are determined to rob a grizzled old sea captain who lives in a shack on the outskirts of a small New England town. He is the "Terrible Old Man" (Lovecraft's capitalization), "so old that no one can remember when he was young, and so taciturn that few know his real name." The three are convinced the old creaker's house is full of treasure from the sea and also that he is feeble. They are wrong, however, at least about his being feeble, and the charm of the story is how powerful this Terrible Old Man actually appears to be, in his wonderfully unassuming muttering way, most of it off-stage. It's Lovecraft doing Lord Dunsany, but it's still Lovecraft, so for example there's a lot of unseemly shrieking that goes down in the violation itself. Lovecraft the author wants us to think it's the old man being tortured, but we know better, and sure enough, it's the trio who come to a swift and dreadful end. "Little things make considerable excitement in little towns, which is the reason that Kingsport people talked all that spring about the three unidentifiable bodies, horribly slashed as with many cutlasses, and horribly mangled as by the tread of many cruel bootheels, which the tide washed in." No one, naturally, has noticed that three immigrants went missing, because no one in a Lovecraft story cares about immigrants except to hate them. It would be a better story without the overt bigotry, which is a main thing Lord Dunsany understood better. I appreciate Lovecraft paying respects, even in his limited way, and it's not a bad story if you can get past the sour notes. But you're better off going directly to Lord Dunsany.

The Big Book of the Masters of Horror, Weird and Supernatural Short Stories, pub. Dark Chaos
Read story online.