Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCQVCXCMJFFE09WNFCCZQZV

The rain had washed the gravel drive clean by dawn. Inspector Hale parked beside the dry fountain and waited briefly. Nobody had thought to close the front door last night. Inside, a grandfather clock counted seconds nobody wanted to hear. The body lay face down across the library's Persian rug. Lord Averill Wren had been dead for roughly six hours. One shoe was missing, though the other gleamed like glass. A brass letter opener sat squarely in his left palm. Hale noted the wound sat high between his shoulder blades. No man stabs himself there, then folds his hands neatly. The housekeeper waited in the doorway, wringing a dry cloth. She said the family had all been asleep by eleven. Hale looked at the whisky glasses again and counted seven. Someone in this house had drunk with a dead man.