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The Last Guest at Harrow House

Case 011 · 10 September 2026 · Hard

Snow closed the valley road on Friday and Harrow House kept its four guests whether it wanted them or not. Gerald Harrow spent Saturday telling each of them, separately, that he was calling in what he was owed on Monday. At midnight the generator failed, and when it came back he was lying on the floor with the door wide open. Nobody had left the house; the snow outside was unbroken. Who killed him, what did they use, and where were they in the dark?

Suspects

• Beatrice Lyle

  Novelist

  The smallest person in the house and the sharpest. Harrow had paid for her last two books and wanted his name on the third.

  159 cm

• Evelyn Shaw

  Business partner

  Signed for half of Harrow's debts in March and has been trying to sign them back ever since. She asked for the cellar key at eleven and nobody saw her return it.

  178 cm

• Nathaniel Poole

  Family solicitor

  Drew up every agreement in this house and knows which of them will not survive a court. He drank nothing all evening and carried a full decanter about with him anyway.

  167 cm

• William Hart

  Estate manager

  Tallest man here and the only one who can start the generator. He says he was doing exactly that; the generator log says it started itself at ten past.

  191 cm

Possible weapons

• The crystal decanter

  Cut glass, full to the neck, and far heavier than it looks in a steady hand.

  1.4 kg

• The bronze head

  A bust of Harrow's father that has stood on the hall table for forty years, and was found on the drawing-room floor.

  6.3 kg

• The ice axe

  From the boot room, for the path to the gate, and the head of it has been scrubbed with snow.

  2.9 kg

• The cellar key

  Iron, cold, the only one in the house, and back on its hook by morning.

  90 g

Places

• The gun room

  Cases, cabinets and the estate's keys, at the cold end of the house where nobody goes at night.

  Indoors

• The study

  Harrow's desk, Harrow's papers, and the drawer that was open when the lights came back.

  Indoors

• The drawing room

  The only warm room in the house, with a fire that was built up at midnight by somebody who then left it.

  Indoors

• The wine cellar

  Stone steps, one bulb, and a door that cannot be opened quietly.

  Indoors

Evidence & statements

1. The bronze head never went down to the wine cellar.
2. If Nathaniel Poole had the crystal decanter, then whoever was in the drawing room is the shortest of the four.
3. The ice axe was in the gun room.
4. William Hart is taller than whoever had the crystal decanter.
5. At least one of these is true: Evelyn Shaw was carrying the lightest of the four things, or Beatrice Lyle was in the study.
6. Exactly one of these is true, never both: Nathaniel Poole had the crystal decanter, or Evelyn Shaw was in the study.
7. Exactly one of these is true, never both: Beatrice Lyle was in the drawing room, or William Hart was in the wine cellar.
8. The blow was struck with a steel head that was wet when it touched him: the killer is whoever was carrying the ice axe.

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