Russell Harley travels to an isolated part of the American South-West to take possession of his inheritance, a ramshackle house known as Harley Hall, willed to him by his late uncle Sebulon Harley. Finding that the house is apparently haunted by a ghost, he flees in terror. In a bar, he is accosted by a mysterious stranger known only as Nicholls, who persuades Harley to let him place magical paraphernalia in and around the house in an effort to control the ghost.