Run: 2026-02-16-01KHK9B02PKN7TDTXZ6P5T731S

Rain hammered the stained glass windows as the guests assembled in Ashcroft Manor, pretending civility over simmering resentments that evening. I had not planned to attend, yet Sir Lionel's cryptic telegram promised revelations impossible for any investigator ignoring this summons. The drawing room smelled of cigar smoke, expensive perfume, and something metallic beneath, faint yet persistent like a guilty memory. Lady Beatrice drifted between conversations, smile brittle, pearls twitching whenever her gaze brushed the locked study at the landing door. Colonel Hargrove monopolized the fireplace, booming anecdotes from forgotten campaigns, though his watchful eyes measured every entrance and exit carefully. Near the piano, Reverend Cole shuffled hymn sheets he would never play, glancing repeatedly at the decanter of whisky nearby. Only Marianne, Sir Lionel's ward, seemed genuinely cheerful, though her laughter stopped whenever footsteps sounded overhead in corridors above us. The butler, Pritchard, announced dinner precisely at eight, his gloved hands trembling as though the silver cloche concealed dynamite tonight. We had barely taken our seats when a thunderclap shook the chandeliers and extinguished three candles nearest Sir Lionel himself. When the lights flickered back, Sir Lionel slumped forward into his soup, a dark ribbon spreading silently across porcelain surface.