(chapter 1)
Many years earlier, Whilst still a junior solictor for Bently, Aurthur kipps is summoned to Crythin Gifford, a small market town of England, to attend the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow and settle her estate. He is reluctant to leave his fiancee, Stella but eager to get away from the dreary London fog. The late Drablow was an elderly, reclusive widow who lived in the desolate and secluded Eel Marsh House. On his train ride there, he meets Samuel Daily, a wealthy land owner.

At the funeral, Kipps sees a woman dressed in black and with a pale face and dark eyes whom a group of children were silently watching.
When a local coach takes Kipps tothe house, he learnt that it is sutuated on Nine Line Causeway
At high tide, it is completely cut off from the mainland, surrounded only by marshes and sea frets...