Run: 2026-10-08-01M4DYKEV53E53EHSFRN0R0ZXX

The rain had not stopped falling since early Tuesday evening. Detective Mercer stood beneath the flickering lamp outside Ashgrove Manor. She pulled her collar higher and counted the dark windows. Somewhere inside, a dog barked twice and then fell silent. Constable Reid met her at the door, his face pale. Portraits of stern ancestors watched them from the corridor walls. A woman in grey silk waited motionless on the stairs. Reid swallowed hard, then whispered, "Nobody has moved him yet." The library smelled of cold cigars and something sharper beneath. Edmund Vane lay slumped across his desk, one hand outstretched. A fire had burned down to embers in the grate. Only one teacup rested on the tray beside the decanter. A second saucer sat empty beside it, its cup missing. Mercer crouched beside the body and noticed the stained fingertips. Dark ink had bled into the creases of his skin. An uncapped pen lay beside an unfinished letter to Ruth. It began, "My dearest Ruth, I know what you did." Mercer asked Reid, "Who else has been in this room?" Reid stared at the carpet and did not answer her. Beyond the door, a floorboard creaked and a shadow shifted. The mantel clock had halted at a quarter past eleven. Someone had stopped its pendulum by hand, Mercer realised quietly. That missing cup, she suspected, had been washed and hidden. Whoever killed Edmund Vane had wanted the hour to lie.