Run: 2026-02-16-01KHK9RVS8Z7SPYBS8MCCSYDZ8

Rain stitched the harbor fog as Inspector Mara Voss arrived, summoned to the Halloway Hotel before sunrise, alone at once. Inside, the lobby clock ticked too loudly, and the clerk avoided her eyes, offering a brass room key without comment. On the third floor, a corridor smelled of lilies and coal smoke, though no fireplace burned there tonight at all. Room seventeen stood ajar, its lamp still lit, casting honeyed light across scattered letters and broken glass shards on carpet. The victim, Judge Halloway, lay facedown by the window, hands ink stained, throat bruised, pockets empty despite his locked door. Mara noted no blood, no weapon, only a damp footprint beside the radiator, pointing toward the stairwell and then vanishing. A violin played somewhere below, a slow waltz repeating, while guests slept, or pretended, behind polished doors through the night. She picked up the letters, realizing each bore her name, and one carried fresh ash from yesterday's train to Blackport. When the clerk returned, he whispered that everyone had alibis, yet the judge checked in under hers using her signature. Mara closed the door gently, listening to the waltz stop, and understood the murderer watched her already from the shadows.