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b"Beyond the Door is a story of a haunting. A man is haunted by visions of something coming out of the well in his cellar and by the scratching sounds in the passages of his old house.If You Appreciate The Work I\\u2019ve Put In here you could buy me a coffee\\xa0https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker)Beyond The Door by J. Paul SuterThis story was recommended by Terry Illikainen and this version was from Weird Tales volume 01 number 02, 1923-4.Jospeh Paul Suter wrote pulp tales during the early to middle part of the 20th Century for the magazines that specialised in genre fiction. He wrote mystery, detective, and supernatural stories. He was prolific and had more than two hundred stories published in these magazine.He was an American author born in 1884 who died in 1970.\\xa0And that\\u2019s about all I can find about him.Beyond the DoorIt seems to me that Beyond The Door is one of those stories that leaves it up in the air whether the narrator is insane or haunted. In this it is like The Yellow Wallpaper or The Horla or The Beckoning Fair One.\\xa0It\\u2019s a common sub-type of the ghost story genre.\\xa0My feeling is that this eccentric driven, bookish man who is focused on his interests in the scientific study of insects cannot tolerate deviation from his routine. He sees the love interest of his Australian lady as a threat to his work, and the anxiety thus provoked drives him to hill her and throw her down the well.If I was meeting him today, I would probably think he had Asperger\\u2019s Syndrome and that he couldn\\u2019t remember his murder due to dissociation.\\xa0Clues to the fact it\\u2019s a murder not a haunting are that he keeps having visions of a dog and he comments how she nuzzled his hand like a dog. No one else sees or hears anything supernatural, though the freaky house decorated with bugs dose unsettle them.\\xa0The body is bruised again supporting the coroner\\u2019s theory that the stone slab of the well came down on him when his guilt just wouldn\\u2019t let him leave the crime scene alone.\\xa0The coroner\\u2019s theory that the slab somehow paralysed him is a nasty end for anyone. Apparently the stone caused an injury that left him paralysed for two days, head down the well and thus he died.\\xa0He screamed, but no one heard.Suter wrote a whole bunch of crime thrillers, so perhaps he preferred a criminal to a supernatural explanation in this story too.Although listening it again, it seems that the girl killed herself, but then entomologist blamed himself for her death because he had refused to marry her. I don\\u2019t think it\\u2019s his fault. He apparently covers her up with dirt at the bottom of the well. Out of guilt? The coroner talks about people rarely being punished accurately for his sins, though the entomologist was.I still think it\\u2019s a lot to blame him for her suicide.\\xa0Ghosts however are often the agents or retribution and the paying out of sins. So even if this is a ghost that only appears mentally, it still has the same role.\\xa0Not supernatural retribution but some psychological expression of karma.\\xa0As well as the pulp genre, this story reminds me strongly of Edgar Allan Poe, particularly The Tell-Tale Heart, where the subconscious pressure of a crime won\\u2019t let the criminal rest until a confession comes out.It is told as is very common in older stories through a frame: we don\\u2019t hear the protagonist themselves, but have the story related through a witness or documents. This is much less fashionable these days: I don\\u2019t think Steven King or Neil Gaiman for example use this structure, but it was very common in older stories and lots we\\u2019ve read on The Classic Ghost S tories Podcast follow this pattern: The Turn of The Screw.\\xa0H G Well\\u2019s Support the showVisit us here: www.ghostpod.orgBuy me a coffee if you're glad I do this: https://ko-fi.com/tonywalkerIf you really want to help me, become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/barcudMusic by The Heartwood Institute: https://bit.ly/somecomeback\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices"