Run: 2026-02-16-01KHKA1MNFAZ14G2V33T3DS1S2

Rain hissed against the fogged windows while a clock in the hallway struck midnight with indifferent, metallic patience and secrets. On the rug beneath the chandelier, a crimson stain bloomed like a vulgar flower, dark and impossibly deliberate this morning. Detective Marlowe arrived wearing an overcoat still damp from the storm, eyes tired, hands shoved into pockets and cigarette smoke. He swallowed the night like medicine, examined the room with professional hunger, cataloguing alibis and small conflicting truths and lies. A woman in mourning sat perfectly still by the piano, fingers white around glass, lips pressed to a memory only. Guests lingered in corners, pretending conversation, relishing scandalous whispers, shifting like restless moths around the corpse's dim glow and suspicion. A single neighbor claimed he heard raised voices, then a peculiar silence, the kind that settles before impossible things tonight. Footsteps led away toward an iron gate squeaking like an accusation, leaving muddy prints and a scent of lavender always. The victim's hand still clutched a torn letter, ink bleeding like a failing pulse, the signature scrawled in haste yesterday. Marlowe's assistant waited by the doorway, a small man with a notebook of questions and a tendency to cry often.