Nothing fits a spooky mystery better than a decaying old estate filled with dark, secret passages, strange sounds, uncanny occurrences, unopened rooms, unanswered questions, and a ghoulish, threatening monster. The Serpe chateau is all these things, with its owner, the ominous Monsieur Serpe, playing the part of the monster. Once the grand eighteenth-century home of French aristocrats, the chateau and its owners, the Serpe family, have fallen on hard times. The building itself is close to ruin, and the family that owns it has grown so poor that they are reduced to renting out its few decent rooms to summer vacationers like Roger's family.

It is from these decent rooms that Roger explores the rest of the chateau, sometimes accompanied by Melusine, whom he first encounters milking goats in a pen near the chateau. His explorations lead him to the filthy, fly-infested kitchen Monsieur Serpe seems to make...