The Red Inn

This is rare indeed but not particularly special; a costume morality play from the time when that was how you told a thriller, with dread coming from more abstract notions of guilt and wrongdoing rather than on-screen action.

Two stories, one told inside the other during a dinner gathering. It tells about two men who came to an inn on the same night as a diamond merchant passing by. The merchant woos the company with his shiny diamonds, eventually securing a bed in exchange. That night desire gets the better of them.

There's a pretty harrowing scene as one of the two men walks out into the night with the diamonds, tormented by guilt. The morning after we discover a graver wrong was committed after he had left the room and he's been transmuted at the center of that narrative. Back in the dinner gathering, one among the company is fidgeting and looks worried.

Not as visually arresting as other works from the time, my guess is a commercial project that Epstein flitted to inbetween other work. The print doesn't do it much favor either.

But it points to a world where order is restored by the power of storytelling - initially in the form of a letter that gets out - and the abilities of stories to affect a viewer who responds; the culprit is finally exposed, sussed out by his reaction.