It’s not just the “For” syllable in “Fortunato” that is an indicator. At the end of the story, the last thing Fortunato says before only jingling his bells is the cry: “For the love of God, Montresor!”

Montressor agrees: “Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”

So “for” is called out quite clearly in the story’s climax.

The only room mentioning a black cat in its text is Room 4 – which is the correct answer door in this room. The text in room 4 says “A small black cat ran out of a door to my right… …It was fortunate…” and the use of word fortunate in that paragraph might link with Fortunato.

In “The Black Cat” the dead body is found because the black cat makes a sound. Here in the text we hear about hammering and chopping sounds – and the axe and hammer are in room 4.

Here in the text it says “I said loudly and, with as much commotion as possible, hurried them out of the room to”. I had a hunch that “commotion” is about commas in the text. I ran a quick script on all MAZE text and it appears that the maximum number of commas seen in a sentence in MAZE is 4 and it happens only once: In room 4 when talking about the black cat: “A small black cat ran out of a door to my right, sniffed at us, and, before I could move, ran out of the hall”. Room 4 is a room the player already visited once before when doing The Path, and they may have noticed/recalled the excessive commas in the sentence about the black cat. As much commotion as possible…

That is to say, if it is a clue, it’s one that seems it can’t be everywhere trusted; but whether it’s an untrustworthy clue, or not a clue, may be a distinction without difference.

First timer here, and not sure if this one is too obvious to be plausible, but seeing as how the group hears either hitting or splitting (which the Guide attempts to obscure), and given how on the path they’re guaranteed to have passed by Room 4 (in which there was a hammer and a splitting axe), could that not be considered a hint towards room 4?

As vewatkin suggested years ago couldn’t the 1st syllable of poor Fortunato’s name also be an indicator?

And to rephrase what DG said even earlier, I only see 10 bottles on the rack, but one of the bottles is turned (in the text “bottles turned” is spoken by the Guide). It looks to me like the turned bottle is pointing not to door 11 but to the 4 upright bottles you mention.

Lots of clues here, the incorrect 1X1=2 saying that 11 and 12 are bad, the trowel leaning toward the Montresor escape door while the wine area means foolishness. To me, the clues in this room make it seem like it isn’t an odd one in type.