The Man Who Could Not Shudder
John Dickson CarrThe house is called Longwood, and its history is wet with blood. It is closed up for good in 1920, when a massive chandelier falls, crushing an eighty-year-old butler. Oddly enough, the old chandelier was sturdy, and there was no way it could have fallen unless the butler leapt and swung on it. Was he mad? Suicidal? Or was he being pursued by something from beyond the grave?
Seventeen years later, Longwood is purchased by Martin Clarke, a rakish young man with a taste for the supernatural. He invites his friends for a paranormal housewarming, but it is not long before the festivities turn gruesome.
Chairs fly, guns fire on their own, and a mysterious fire threatens to engulf the whole mansion in flames. Clarke and his guests came for a ghost hunt—but could it be that the ghost is hunting them?