A Murder in PiecesPRRCIINDUEEMASE

Chapter One

The Anonymous Note

They found Sir Reginald Vane at first light, slumped across the writing desk in the study at Greywater House, a wine glass in glittering pieces on the floor, and the whole house pretending to sleep. The doctor needed only one breath of the glass to say the word aloud: poison. No door had been forced. No window stood open. Whatever had entered that room had been invited, and had walked out again on quiet, familiar feet.

The detective arrived before the frost had lifted, and stood a long while in the doorway, learning the room the way one learns a face. The lamp had burned itself out. The blotter was squared. The dead do not tidy their own desks, and yet nothing was disturbed. Nothing except a single card, folded twice over, still held in Sir Reginald Vane’s cold hand as though it were the last thing worth keeping in this world.

The card was covered edge to edge in a private cipher, each letter traded for another with a patience that spoke of practice. Sir Reginald Vane had written it in the final hours, dreading precisely the night that came, and had meant the truth to outlive it. Somewhere beneath that lattice of wrong letters, the dead were still speaking.

Decode the card, and let them speak first.