The man who was pale

A kindly, meddlesome landlady rents out rooms and takes in an unnervingly pale, very tall tenant who insists on a damp cellar and pays a large advance. He exhibits nocturnal habits, animalistic features, a mysterious wooden box of earth, and a preference for entering and leaving through a private cellar door while claiming horticultural interests and refusing to dine at home. Domestic routine and tenantly eccentricity collide with subtle menace, blending homely humor and creeping horror as the household grows increasingly unsettled by the stranger's presence.