The Haunted Chair by Gaston Leroux

Book Details

The Haunted Chair – A thrilling novel of murder by light-rays, murder by strange sounds, and murder by tragic perfumes—by the author of “The Phantom of the Opera.”

Candidates to succeed Monsignor d’Abbeville for the coveted fortieth chair of the French Academy repeatedly die as they give their acceptance speeches. The chair must be haunted…

The Haunted Chair (1931) – A thrilling novel of murder by light-rays, murder by strange sounds, and murder by tragic perfumes
1- Death Strikes Twice
2- The Haunted Chair
3- The Walking Box
4- Martin Latouche
5- Death Strikes Again

The Haunted Chair —Part II
6- A Scream in the Night
7- The Man Who Could Not Read
8- Eliphas de la Nox
9- Lalouette Becomes Afraid

The Haunted Chair —Part III
10- The Dungeon of Living Death
11- A Flight Into the Night
12- The Assassin Confesses

The Haunted Chair was published in three parts in Weird Tales in the December 1931, January and February 1932 issues.

Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux (1868-1927) was a French journalist and author of detective fiction. He is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, 1910), which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon Chaney, and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 musical.

The Haunted Chair has 3 illustrations.

Available for and

1. HauntedChair.epub
2. HauntedChair.mobi

Also available at Barnes & Noble

Excerpt: The Haunted Chair

1. Death Strikes Twice

“THEY say the man doesn’t know what fear is.”

“Maybe so, but he’s courting death. Let’s hope, though, that he’ll escape. Come on, we must hurry!”

Gaston Lalouette looked up, startled. He was a kindly man, around forty-five, who for the last six years had kept a shop in the Rue Laffitte where he sold pictures and antiques. Today he had been wandering about the left bank of the Seine examining the old prints and oddities which the stall-keepers of that section of Paris display to lure the leisurely passerby.

As he turned he was jostled by a group of college boys, wearing the students’ beret. Coming down the Rue Bonaparte, they were too absorbed in excited conversation to beg Lalouette’s pardon as they hurried past. Lalouette hid his impatience, and laid their incivility to the fact that they were probably on their way to witness a duel, the outcome of which, he gathered, would be fatal.

He turned back to the stalls to examine a rare jewel-box, which had caught his eye. Claiming to date from the days of St. Louis, it was carved in an exquisite fleur-de-lys design, and Lalouette liked to fancy that perhaps it once had held the love-letters of some beautiful court favorite.

Over his shoulder he heard:

“No matter what any one says, he’s without fear.”

“Yes,” said a second voice, “but I don’t mind telling you I’d rather be in my shoes than his. Come on, we mustn’t be late.”

Again Lalouette turned around. This time he saw two elderly men hurrying as fast as they could in the direction of the French Academy.

“Is it possible,” thought Lalouette, “that these old men have suddenly gone as crazy as the young ones? Those two sound as though they were on their way to the same duelling-ground.”

Occupied with these thoughts, Gaston Lalouette was sauntering up the Rue Mazarin, when he came face to face with four men in frock coats and silk hats. They also were very much excited.

“All the same, I can’t believe he has made his will.”

“Well, if he hasn’t, it’s a pity.”

“They say he’s faced death more than once.”

“True. And when his friends called to plead with him, he put them out of the house.”

“Still, don’t you think he may change his mind at the last moment?”

“You don’t think he is such a coward, do you?”

“Look! Here he comes!”

The four men started to run, and darted across the street.

Gaston Lalouette gave no more thought to antiques. His one idea was to see the man who was about to risk his life, for what reasons Lalouette did not yet know. Mere chance, he thought, had brought him close to a hero.

He hurried to overtake the four frock-coated men and soon found himself in a little square packed with people. Automobiles were trying to move forward; drivers cursed each other. Under an arch leading to the outer court of the Academy, a noisy crowd was pressing around a man who seemed to be having great difficulty in making his way through the admiring throng. And whom should he see but the four dignified men shouting “Hurrah! Hurrah!” at the top of their lungs.

Lalouette lifted his hat, and turning to one of them asked, quite timidly, what was happening.

“Can’t you see? It’s Commander d’Aulnay.”

“Is he going to fight a duel?” asked Lalouette, very respectfully.

“No, of course not. He’s been made one of the forty members of the French Academy and is about to deliver his speech accepting the honor.”

Meantime, Lalouette had been caught up in the milling throng. Friends of Maxime d’Aulnay, who had escorted him in and congratulated him warmly, were now trying to fight their way into the auditorium.

LALOUETTE found himself pinned in between the peaceful paws of the stone lion that guards the threshold of the Academy.

Now Monsieur Gaston Lalouette, in his profession of antiquarian, held literature in very high esteem. He was himself an author. He had published two books—the pride of his life. In one he treated of the signatures of celebrated painters and the means of recognizing the authenticity of their works. The other concerned the art of picture-framing. As a result of this authorship, he had been awarded an honorary title, “Officer of the Academy.” But he had never been inside the Academy. Moreover, the idea he had been able to form of it did not agree at all with what he had just heard and seen in the last fifteen minutes. Never, for example, in order to make an address, would he have thought it useful to have made one’s last will and testament, and to have fear of nothing under the sun. So the good man fought his way from between the lion’s paws and after accepting humbly the hundred blows rained on all parts of his anatomy, squeezed into as good a place as possible in the gallery. Every one around him was on tiptoe, eagerly straining to see what was going on.

Maxime d’Aulnay, looking somewhat pale, entered just then. On either side walked his sponsors, paler even than he.

A shiver went through the audience. Women, numerous and of the best society, could not suppress their admiration or their anxiety. One pious dowager crossed herself as he passed, and when he ascended the steps to the platform every one stood up, moved by the same deep respect shown a funeral cortege as it passes in the street.

The newly elected member reached his seat and sat down between his sponsors. He raised his eyes and looked steadily around at his colleagues, the audience, the speaker’s desk, and then upon the somber faces of the members of this illustrious Academy whose duty it was to receive him into membership.

While Lalouette was taking in this panorama he lost not a word of what was being said around him.

“Poor Jean Mortimar was young and handsome, too, just like him.”

“And so happy about his election.”

“You remember how he looked when he stood up to make his address?”

“Yes indeed. He seemed radiant with the joy of life.”

“You can’t tell me it was a natural death. People don’t die that way.” Lalouette turned around to ask whose death they were talking about. He saw he was addressing the very same man who had answered his questions so crabbedly a few minutes before. This time he didn’t mince words.

“What’s the matter with you? Don’t you ever read your newspapers?”

Well, no, Monsieur Lalouette didn’t read the papers and for a reason we shall have occasion to explain a little later, and which Monsieur Lalouette did not shout from the house-tops. So, as he was not in the habit of reading the newspapers, the mystery into which he had walked was deepening more and more every minute. That was why he didn’t understand the meaning of the protest that was apparent when an important-looking woman, whom he had heard some one call Madame de Bithynia, came into the box reserved for her. That was why also he did not understand what she meant when she looked at the audience with an expression of proud arrogance, spoke a few words to friends with her, and then leveled her lorgnette on Maxime d’Aulnay.

“She’ll bring him bad luck,” a voice called out.

“Indeed she will. She’ll bring him bad luck, too.”

“Why is she going to bring him bad luck?” Lalouette asked, but he got no answer. The man on the platform, ready to make his speech, was Maxime d’Aulnay, he gathered; he was commander of a ship; he had written a book called A Voyage Around My Cabin; he had been elected to fill the chair in the Academy formerly occupied by Monsignor d’Abbeville.

Then with shouts and crazy gesticulations the mystery began to unfold. Those seated in the galleries jumped to their feet and yelled:

“Just like the other letter!”

“Don’t open it!”

“Look, the letter!”

“Like the other one!”

“Just like the other one!”

“Don’t read it!”

“Don’t let him read it!”

Lalouette leaned over and saw a messenger carrying a letter to d’Aulnay. The sight of the letter was enough to throw the audience into a state of great excitement. Only the members of the reception committee were self-possessed, but it was evident that Monsieur Hippolyte Patard, secretary of the Academy, was all a-tremble.

MAXIME D’AULNAY arose, stepped forward, took the letter from the messenger and read it. A smile passed over his face. The gallery murmured:

“He’s smiling, he’s smiling. Mortimar smiled, too.”

Maxime d’Aulnay passed the letter to his sponsors, but they did not smile. At once the import of the message was in every one’s mouth. Lalouette learned that it was: “There are some voyages more dangerous than those one makes around one’s cabin.”

That line threw the audience into the the highest pitch of excitement. When order was restored, the unimpassioned voice of the president announced that the meeting had opened. A dramatic silence fell.

Maxime d’Aulnay was on his feet—more than brave—reckless!

Now he had begun to read his address in a deep, sonorous voice.

He began with great dignity by thanking the members of the Academy for honoring him. After a brief allusion to a loss that so recently struck into the very body of the Academy itself, he spoke of Monsignor d’Abbeville.

He spoke at length.

The man seated beside Lalouette murmured under his breath words which Lalouette thought—wrongly, of course— were inspired by the length of the speech.

“He’s holding out longer than the other one.”

As d’Aulnay came to the end of his eulogy of Monsignor d’Abbeville, he showed excitement. He talked with great animation of the great prelate’s talents. Then in a splendid outburst, he cried:

“Six thousand years ago, gentlemen, divine vengeance chained Prometheus to his rock. I too am not one of those who fear the thunder of men, I fear only the lightning of God.”

Scarcely had he uttered these words when he tottered forward, passed his hands over his face desperately, and crashed to the floor.

A cry of terror rang through the auditorium. The members of the Academy rushed forward; they leaned over the lifeless body.

Maxime d’Aulnay was dead!”

Excerpt From: Gaston Leroux. “The Haunted Chair.”