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Death Behind a Locked Door

Case 005 · 30 July 2026 · Easy

Sir Edmund Carrow spent every evening alone at Fen House with the door locked, because he had signed a new will that week and did not trust the people under his roof. On Tuesday the door was still locked at nine, and he was dead in his chair behind it. The terrace window was another way in, and three people knew it. Who killed him, what did they use, and where were they between eight and nine?

Suspects

• Rose Whitlock

  Housekeeper

  Thirty years in the house and the only one who still calls him Sir Edmund. She was cut out of the new will on Monday, and she knew it on Monday.

  160 cm

• Henry Ashford

  Nephew and heir

  Came down from the city on Sunday, owing money he will not talk about. He spent the evening answering letters that nobody has found.

  184 cm

• Victoria Grant

  Private secretary

  Wrote the new will out by hand and posted the copy to the solicitor herself — except the solicitor never received it.

  172 cm

Possible weapons

• The fire poker

  Iron, hooked at one end, and back in its stand by the library fire — though the fire had not been lit for a week.

  2.4 kg

• The letter opener

  Silver, sharp, and from the desk in the study. Somebody has cleaned it with the wrong cloth.

  90 g

• The glass paperweight

  A heavy dome of green glass that lives on the study desk and had somehow crossed the house that evening.

  900 g

Places

• The study

  Two desks, a cold grate and the household's only telephone, three doors from the library.

  Indoors

• The library

  Locked from the inside every night at eight, with one tall window onto the terrace that does not lock at all.

  Indoors

• The conservatory

  Glass, ferns and wet floors, and the shortest way round the outside of the house to the terrace.

  Indoors

Evidence & statements

1. Rose Whitlock was carrying the glass paperweight.
2. The fire poker never went into the study.
3. Whoever was in the library is taller than whoever was in the conservatory.
4. Henry Ashford was not in the library.
5. The blow came from something iron with a hooked end: the killer is whoever was carrying the fire poker.

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