Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCPP79G0SDE5WCPGK6QZR68

The rain had been falling on Ashgrove Manor for three days, turning the gravel drive into a river of mud. Inspector Nora Kell stepped from her car and counted seven lit windows, though the household should have been asleep. She had received the telephone call at four in the morning, a woman's voice, breathless, refusing to give names. The front door stood open, swinging gently, and rainwater had already darkened the Persian runner just inside the threshold. In the library, beneath a portrait of a man holding a spaniel, lay Sir Edmund Ashgrove, quite thoroughly dead. His right hand still gripped a fountain pen; his left had torn a page from the ledger on the desk. Nora crouched beside him, noting the absence of blood, the odd blue tinge along the lips and fingernail beds. Behind her, someone cleared their throat, and she turned to find four people watching her from the darkened hallway. None of them wore nightclothes, which struck her as the single most interesting fact she had learned that morning. "Which one of you telephoned?" she asked, and the silence that answered lasted precisely eleven seconds by her watch.