“You have no idea of the darkness that dwells in that house. And in him…”
Anna Goring is travelling to meet her fiance's parents in Cornwall, when she and her family's governess, the medium Barbara Darke, are forced to seek shelter for the night at Trellyn House - infamous for the terrible murders which happened there two years before. Their reluctant host is the man universally suspected, but never formally accused of the slaughter, talented young pianist Sir Salvador Carnwyth.
Despite his abrupt, ungracious manner, and the neglect of his once beautiful Gothic home, Anna is fascinated by her troubled host. None of Barbara's warnings can prevent Anna falling in love with him. When she breaks her engagement and Carnwyth seeks her out in London to propose, her happiness is complete.
Until he returns to Trellyn House alone. Anna cannot wait for his summons but when she follows him, her welcome is anything but joyful. What is he hiding from her? Why does he lock himself into his private sitting room so obsessively? Who is it who plays the piano insanely in the middle of the night and makes the blood curdling cries? She knows instinctively it's all to do with the murder of his family, the crime even his uncle suspects him of. And the danger isn't over, from this world or the next.