Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCR8H2DV1AWRQKBGPR4PBKX

The rain had been falling on Ravensworth Hall since midnight, and by dawn the gravel drive resembled a shallow river. Inspector Margaret Cole parked beside the fountain, killed the engine, and sat listening to water drumming against the car roof. A young constable waited under the portico, hatless, holding an umbrella that the wind had already turned completely inside out. He said the body was in the library and nobody had touched anything, which she doubted on general principle alone. Inside, the house smelled of woodsmoke, wet wool, and the particular staleness of old rooms kept too warm too long. Sir Edmund Ravensworth lay face down across his desk, one arm extended toward a telephone that he never quite reached. Blood had dried black in his silver hair, and his reading glasses lay folded neatly beside the green leather blotter. Cole crouched, studied the wound, and decided that whoever swung the poker had done so with a terrible, unhurried patience. Nine people had slept beneath this roof last night, and one of them had washed, changed, and returned to bed. Outside, the rain kept falling, erasing footprints, tire tracks, and every small mercy an investigator might otherwise reasonably hope for. Cole straightened, wiped her hands, and asked the constable to start waking the household, one careful person at a time.