The old mansion loomed darkly in the night. Thick fog swirled around the decrepit walls. Suddenly, a scream pierced the eerie silence. A woman's voice, shrill with terror and anguish. Footsteps pounded across the foyer floor. The butler burst into the room, candle held high. There, sprawled before the fireplace, lay a man. His throat had been brutally slashed, almost severed. Beside him crouched his wife, hands red with gore. She rocked back and forth, wailing and keening. "I found him like this," she sobbed brokenly to the butler. "He's dead, I tell you! Dead by his own hand!" Her eyes were wild with shock and disbelief. The butler knelt to examine the grisly wound. "No, madam. This slash was made from behind. Your husband could not have inflicted it himself." He rose slowly, face grim and tight with dread. "Then there is a killer loose in the house! God help us, someone has murdered Lord Ashford! Quickly, we must alert the staff and the authorities!" The butler hurried off, leaving the grieving widow alone with her husband's mangled corpse, a new and terrible mystery beginning on that fateful night in the manor of Ashford Park, a mystery that would soon embroil them all in a web of lies, betrayal and darkest secrets long buried in the past that were about to be dragged to light... |<|end_of_text|>