Run: 2026-07-09-01KX417HZ1343C4205YHTS1YG7

Rain tapped the manor windows as midnight silenced every clock. Inspector Vale arrived before the servants discovered Lord Ashcombe dead. His body lay beneath a portrait slashed across its throat. In one pale hand, he clutched a silver chessman tightly. The black queen was missing from the library’s locked board. Everyone denied entering, though muddy footprints circled the corpse twice. Vale noticed one print pointed inward, but none departed outward. Then the grandfather clock struck thirteen, and someone screamed upstairs.