Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCQY4FAXGHPC8Y7VAG3PMZ5

The rain had been falling on Ashgrove Manor since midnight, and now the gravel driveway shone like freshly polished obsidian. Inspector Vera Lund parked her car beneath the dripping yews and waited one long, deliberate moment before opening the door. Three constables stood on the terrace, hunched inside their coats, pretending that the weather was the worst thing about tonight. The body lay in the library, they told her, and nobody had touched anything since the first scream after eleven. Vera doubted that; people always touched things, then lied about it with the wholly sincere faces of badly frightened children. Inside, the house smelled of woodsmoke, wet wool, and that particular sourness which fear always leaves behind in crowded rooms. Nine guests waited in the drawing room, gathered around the fire like figures inside some badly composed old oil painting. One of them had killed Sir Edmund Ashgrove, and one of them would be the first person to say so. Vera unbuttoned her wet coat, took out her notebook, and asked very quietly who exactly had discovered the dead man. Eight of them looked at the ninth, whose hands shook so badly that her teacup rattled against its china saucer.