Weird Tales, Vol. 3, No. 4

"The Spirit Lover" by Houdini is an exposé article in which Houdini investigates fraudulent spiritualist mediums. Three men—a minister, a lawyer, and a third associate—visit his hotel room in Montana requesting his help exposing a medium whose materializations in a locked, examined room defy explanation. The lawyer admits he is nearly convinced of the medium's supernatural powers, though he resists believing in spiritualism. Houdini agrees to investigate the deception. "Ebenezer's Casket" by J. U. Giesy and Junius B. Smith is a speculative fiction narrative featuring Ebenezer Clay, a casket maker who claims foreknowledge of his own death at precisely 11:01 p.m. After completing an especially fine casket, he quits his job and purchases it for himself, arranging delivery to an undertaker. When hospitalized, he endures a stomach-tube procedure administered by skeptical interns and a sympathetic nurse named Miss Coombs. As 11 p.m. approaches, he lies in bed awaiting the predicted moment. The story concludes to-be-continued. "The White Ape" by H.P. Lovecraft details Sir Alfred Jermyn's violent death in a boxing match with a circus gorilla in Chicago, followed by the history of his son Arthur Jermyn, an Oxford-educated poet and family heir investigating African ethnology and his ancestor Sir Wade's mysterious jungle discoveries.