Run: 2026-07-09-01KX4068ZNJ3GD1YR53E5SFRB2

Rain lashed Blackthorn Manor as guests arrived for dinner promptly. At midnight, the lights failed, swallowing laughter and music whole. When candles returned, Sir Alistair lay beneath the staircase dead. His silver watch ticked loudly near the bloodied marble floor. Detective Mara Venn, invited reluctantly, studied every shocked face carefully. Outside, thunder concealed the footsteps of someone leaving silently nearby. Inside, the butler whispered that every door remained locked afterward. Mara noticed muddy footprints ending precisely beside the victim there. Then Alistair's daughter smiled, though her gloves were wet strangely. She clasped a handkerchief embroidered with a crimson fox emblem. Across the hall, rainwater dripped from Colonel Vale's umbrella steadily. Mara remembered he claimed arriving before the storm began outside. Someone, therefore, had lied before the murder ever happened tonight.