The Fog
Keeps
Its Secrets.

At seven minutes past eleven, the clock in the narrow hall ceased. No draught troubled the flame; no visitor crossed the stair. Yet upon the sill lay a crescent of soot, sharp as a printer’s mark and scarcely wider than a thumbnail.

The witness insisted the chamber had remained sealed since dusk. Her account was exact in every respect save one: she remembered the bell before she remembered the silence. That small reversal supplied the missing hour.

We measured the ash, examined the brass, and compared each indentation against the ledger. The answer had not been concealed. It had merely been reduced to the size of a detail.

By morning the fog withdrew from the square. What remained was orderly: one false key, two honest scratches, and a scarlet thread caught beneath the iron plate.