The Fourth Door

The story takes place in an English country village, where an old manor stands abruptly. Twenty years ago a woman's corpse was found in a sealed attic room; ever since, people have often heard terrifying sounds late at night and seen ghostly glimmers, and no tenant has dared stay in the house. A pair of spirit mediums arrive unexpectedly, claiming they can speak with the dead. To expose the truth of the so-called wandering evil spirit, they decide to spend a night in the ill-omened attic. The door is sealed with wax, and an unmatched ancient coin is pressed into the wax as a marker. Yet when the door is reopened, a stranger's corpse has appeared inside: the window is locked from within, and the seal shows no sign of tampering. Soon afterward a second body turns up in the deep snow, and the killer once again pulls off a miraculous instant disappearance. Séances, bilocation, locked-room mysteries, murder foretold in dreams—everything seems to point to a ghost's revenge. The narrator tells this village murder case, entangled with family and love, in the first person, and the reader follows him in pursuit: is a crazed killer playing tricks, or has a ghost truly returned? What secret lies behind the fourth door? The reversals come one after another in the middle and later sections, and the solution is wholly unexpected.