Run: 2026-10-27-01M5YG9WZ0BJ03D8PTASK2PNSQ

The rain had stopped before dawn, but Blackwood House still dripped as though the night refused to release its grip. Detective Mara Venn found the gates open, lanterns burning, and a silver key waiting beside the body in the mud. Sir Alden Blackwood lay beneath the cedar, one hand clutching a white camellia, the other pointing toward his silent house. There was no blood upon his waistcoat, only a neat dark hole above his heart and the smell of almonds. Inside, six guests sat around the breakfast table, each wearing yesterday’s clothes and insisting that nobody had left their room. Above them, the mantel clock ran thirteen minutes slow, while fresh ash drifted beneath the study’s locked and silent door. Mara set down her umbrella, studied their pale faces, and asked who had telephoned the station before she had arrived. The butler answered that the telephone wires had been cut at midnight, then laid Mara’s missing glove upon the table.