old cursed painting of hanging; found rolled up; cut by mistake; it bleeds

seaside town 1980's(?) two pirate-types sail in, one hangs out with merchants, courts wealthy menchant's daughter, jilts her, he is hanged, she paints picture of hanging using cursed ink, years later man found it, cuts it & her lover writhes in anguish & painting drips blood.

Cool. Looking forward to finding out what that is too.

#1: I think there's a thread somewhere on LT that helps people find books/authors just by the plot. Have you tried that yet, juddygal? They might be quicker at finding it for you. :)

#1 The link below will take you to the "name that book" group. I think this is the thread saraslibrary was thinking of. I hope you find what you're looking for. :-)

http://www.librarything.com/groups/namethatbook

Yep, that's it. Thanks, pgmcc! I guess it would help if I could've remembered the name of the group. ;)

judygal2323, I passed your description along to some friends who I thought could help, and I got the response that this story is by Henry S. Whitehead, and it's called "Seven Turns in a Hangman's Rope". He also used the idea in two earlier stories, sort of dry runs for "Seven Turns". Those are called "The Intarsia Box" and "West India Lights". Hope one of the three is the one you were thinking of.

#6 - You have some interesting friends. I don't know if that is the correct answer since I'm not the one that asked the question, but very good detective work regardless.