Blackvale Manor

Blackvale Manor — 1:12 a.m. The storm has taken the phone lines, and Lord Edmund Blackvale lies dead in his study, struck down in the middle of his own dinner party. The guests are still in the house. Nobody has left it. One of them did this.

Walk the manor by candlelight. Examine the stopped watch, the wiped candlestick, the half-burnt ledger in the grate — twelve pieces of evidence, each one a sentence in a story somebody is trying to burn. Then question the four guests: the impassive butler, the widow cold as marble, the nervous family doctor, and the partner who keeps calling the dead man his oldest friend. Press them where their stories bend, and every answer you break is written into your case file.

When the folder is heavy enough, make your accusation — name the killer and the weapon. Get it right and the truth comes out in full. Get it wrong and the case collapses, the storm clears, and Blackvale's murderer walks free to the four winds. A wrong accusation ends the case; the evidence never lies, and it is always exactly where you left it.