The clock in the foyer of Blackwood Manor didn't chine;it groaned.It was a heavy, mechanical sound thelat seemed to vibrate through the floorboards and into arthur's marrow. He checked his watch—11:58pm.Two minutes until the reading of the will,and two minutes until he would have to look his siblings in the eye for the first time in a decade.
The air in the library smelled of old paper and woodsmoke,but underneath it was something sharper. Metallic .
"He's late," Julian whispered,leaning against the mahogany liquor cabinet . Julian ,the eldest ,still wore his grief like a tailored suit—perfectly fitted and entirely performative.
"The lawyer or the corpse?" Clara snapped from the velvet armchair .She was nursing a gin antonic that looked more like a glass of ice ."Because one is dead ,and the other is likely billing us by the minute to stay hidden in the study."
Authur didn't join the bickering. Hello walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows.Outside ,the strom had turned the sprawling estate into a watercolor of grey and black. Hello caught his reflection in the glass:gaunt,tired and holding a secret that felt like a stone in his pocket.
Suddenly,a dull thud echoed from the floor above.
It wasn't the sound of a fallen book. It was the sound of something heavy hitting the rug—soft ,yet final.
"Did you hear that ?" Clara asked ,her glass frozen halfway to her lips.
Julian straightened his tie ,his face paling ."The lawyer is upstairs in the master suite .He said he needed to retrieve the physical copy of the ledger ."
They as one,a reluctant procession of ghosts returing to the scene of a crime they hadn't comitted yet.they climbed the spiral stair case,their footsteps swallowed by the thick persian runners.when they reached the heavy oak doors of the master suite,they found them slightly ajar.
Arthur pushed the door open.
The room was freezing.The balcony doors were swinging wide,leting in a spray of freezing rain that socked the carpet.In the center of the room lay Mr.Henderson,the family's trusted attorney.He was sprawled face-down,his hand out streched towards the safe that stood wide open and completely empty..
There was no blood.But as Arthur steped closer,he noticed a small,crystalline vial shattered near lawyer's head.A faint,almond-scented vapor drifted upward.
" Don't breathe it in,"Athur warned,pulling his sleeve over his mouth.
"The will," Julian hissed,ignoring the body."Arthur,the safe is empty.the will is gone."
Arthur looked from the empty safe to his siblings' terrified faces.He realised then that the Mistry wasn't just about who killed the lawyer—it was about what their father had hidden in that safe that was worth killing for twice.