Run: 2026-09-23-01M37PERXWC8G3FT514BB9HJZM

The rain had not stopped for three days when Inspector Clara Venn arrived at the iron gates of Blackmoor House. A young constable waited beneath a black umbrella, his face pale and his hands trembling as he opened the door. She stepped out into the mud and looked up at the dark windows, where only one light still burned faintly. "The body is in the library, ma'am," the constable said quietly, as though afraid the house itself might overhear him. Clara followed him through the grand hallway, past portraits of stern ancestors whose painted eyes seemed to track every step. Lord Edmund Ashcroft lay face down beside the cold fireplace, a silver letter opener buried deep between his broad shoulders. The fire had long since died, yet the room smelled of smoke, lavender, and something sharper she could not name. "Who found him?" she asked, kneeling beside the corpse without disturbing the scattered papers that surrounded him like fallen leaves. "The butler did, just after midnight, but he swears the door was locked from the inside when he first arrived." Clara rose, glanced at the only window, and noticed that its heavy latch had been fastened with a black ribbon. "Somebody wanted us to believe this was impossible," she murmured, "and somebody in this house is still very much awake."