London, 1891.
The night air hung heavy with a biting chill, thick with fog that rolled off the Thames like breath from some ancient beast. Gas lamps flickered weakly in their iron cages, giving more shadow than light, and the clatter of hooves echoed against narrow lanes still slick from the day's drizzle.
Detective Edmund Harrow, though only twenty-one, had begun to find his name whispered in circles far beyond the police station. His success in solving the Vanishing Heiress case had brought him attention he neither expected nor quite welcomed. There were those who lauded him, yes, but also others who muttered of a boy who had gotten lucky, a pup still untested against the crueler labyrinths of crime London could produce.
It was on one such night, the fog curling about his boots like a cat, that a messenger from Scotland Yard reached him. A note, folded with haste, was pressed into his hand:
"Suspicious death at Leicester Square. Harold Mornay, painter of some repute. Suicide is claimed. Inspector Dallinger requests your immediate presence."
Harrow tucked the note inside his coat and hailed a carriage.
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The Scene of Death
The studio of Harold Mornay was a tall, drafty chamber above a frame-maker's shop. The windows, long and uncurtained, yawned open to the fog, and a single gas lamp sputtered against the gloom. The body was easy enough to find: Harold Mornay lay slumped against a chair, a length of cord pulled tight about his throat, one hand still clutching at it as though in desperate struggle. His easel stood near, an unfinished canvas upon it—broad, wild strokes of crimson and black, as though painted in some furious haste.
Inspector Dallinger, a stout man with little patience for riddles, gestured when Harrow entered.
"Suicide. That's what it is, plain and simple. Man owed debts. Critics panned his last exhibition. Found him here by his landlady after she heard a dreadful crash. Case closed, if you ask me."
Harrow crouched, studying the scene in silence. The floor bore marks of struggle—a kicked-over stool, a smear upon the wooden boards where the man's boots had scraped. He lifted the artist's hand gently. The fingers were stained with vermilion pigment, still wet, though the man's pulse had long ceased. On the easel, the crimson swirls seemed less like an abstract storm than…something deliberate.
"Inspector," Harrow said quietly, "if he hanged himself, why is the cord knotted in such a way that his arms bear the bruises of restraint? Look here. Wrists reddened, as if bound."
Dallinger frowned. "Mornay was a drunkard. Could've tied himself poorly. You think otherwise?"
Harrow did not answer at once. He looked again at the canvas—at the shapes hidden in the chaos of paint. Not random at all. A pattern. Perhaps even a message.
---
Suspects in the Circle
The following day, Harrow began the careful process of unraveling Harold Mornay's life. A painter of some renown a decade ago, Mornay had once charmed society with portraits of the elite. But fashion is fickle, and whispers of scandal had driven him into obscurity.
There were three names that surfaced repeatedly in conversation with the bohemian crowd of Leicester Square cafés:
1. Clara Whitfield, a young muse who had sat for Mornay in recent months. Known for her beauty and her fiery temper.
2. Arthur Pembroke, rival painter, who loathed Mornay and once accused him of plagiarism.
3. Mr. Silas Grey, a dealer in art, last seen quarreling with Mornay over unpaid debts.
Harrow visited Clara first. She lived in a cramped flat near Covent Garden, walls littered with sketches. She received him with swollen eyes, her grief half-hidden by defiance.
"I told him he was losing himself," she whispered. "Harold painted as though the canvas were an enemy to be slain. That last week, he scarcely ate, scarcely spoke. And then…he dismissed me, saying my face belonged to another time."
Her eyes fell to the floor. "Do you think he truly killed himself, sir?"
Harrow only said, "I think he left something unfinished."
Arthur Pembroke proved a different encounter entirely. His studio, bright and orderly, smelled of turpentine and pride. He sneered when Mornay's name arose.
"A pitiful end, if true. But the man courted it. He had no discipline, no craft. He painted madness and called it genius." Pembroke turned sharply, as though bored with the subject. "If you've come to imply I had hand in his death, sir, you'll find my alibi sound. I dined with the Royal Academy until near midnight. Ask any of the gentlemen there."
The third, Silas Grey, was more pragmatic. His office, cluttered with frames and ledgers, spoke of commerce rather than art.
"Mornay owed me near forty pounds," Grey admitted. "But murder? Bah. A dead debtor pays nothing. I warned him his ways would ruin him, but he laughed. Said his next work would 'outlive us all.' Mad words from a madman."
---
Clues in the Paint
Back at the scene, Harrow studied the unfinished canvas again. He had requested the studio remain untouched, though Dallinger grumbled. The strokes of crimson and black, at first wild, began to reveal themselves in the lamplight. Lines curved into shapes: a face—no, many faces—distorted, half-formed. But there, in the corner, half-hidden beneath a smear, was a single word.
Not painted, but carved with the tip of a brush handle. Letters scratched into the wet paint.
"LIAR."
Harrow's heart quickened. Whom had Mornay named? A rival? A lover? Or…a dealer?
He traced the cord again. Not suicide. Too neatly tied, too cruelly tight. The wrists bore marks not of self-infliction but restraint. Mornay had fought.
Someone had silenced him. But why leave the canvas? Why not destroy it? Unless…the killer had not seen the word at all.
---
A Twist in the Darkness
That evening, Harrow walked the fog-shrouded streets near Leicester Square, retracing Mornay's final steps. Witnesses recalled seeing him at a tavern two nights prior, speaking animatedly with a man in a dark coat. A quarrel, perhaps. But who?
A whisper of sound behind him drew his attention. A footstep, deliberate. Harrow turned, but the fog revealed no face. Only the echo of breath. He pressed on, alert now, hand brushing the revolver beneath his coat.
When he reached his lodgings that night, a slip of paper awaited him beneath the door. No sender, no mark. Only a single sentence, scrawled in a hurried hand:
"The canvas sees more than you."
Harrow froze, the words burning in his mind. Someone was watching him. Someone who knew he had seen meaning in Mornay's final painting.