The heavy rain lashed the carriage as it ground to a halt on the cobblestone street. Flickering gas lamps barely lit the uneven stone. Clutching my suitcase, I trudged toward the boardinghouse. Its shutters rattled violently in the storm. The rickety wooden door groaned with each gust of wind. If I had any sense at all. I would have turned back then.

I pushed the door open. The sharp chime of the doorbell echoed in the reception hall. The front desk stood vacant, a single candle flickered, casting twisting shadows across the warped floorboards and peeling wallpaper. The air reeked of cigar smoke and mildew, and a faint metallic tang I couldn’t quite place.

To my left, the parlor hummed with life. A few of the guests sat in stiff chairs, reading newspapers. Their eyes lifted at my arrival, and stayed fixed on me, latent with scrutiny. One man folded his paper slowly. Another tapped his foot impatiently. Each movement, each hushed whisper made me feel like a trespasser.

I stepped forward cautiously, the candlelight glinting off the wet buttons of my coat. A sliver of wind pushed through a cracked window, sending a chill crawling up my spine. Just for a moment, a shadow seemed to slip along the far wall and climb the staircase. Perhaps it was just my imagination. Still, I felt watched, by something more than just the eyes back in the parlor.

As I reached for the bell, a small, thin woman appeared from the doorway behind the desk, giving me a startled glance. Her face was impossibly pale, with dark heavy circles under her eyes. She looked more dead than alive, her chest heaving just a little too fast. Her black hair, streaked with grey was pulled tightly into a bun. Her tight black dress and crisp white apron looked out of place in this dingy house.

“Ah, Detective Adderly I presume?” She said, shuffling papers. “Didn’t expect you tonight. Not with this storm.”

“Yes, well...” I replied, “I didn’t wish to delay my investigation.”

She frowned briefly. “Right, with a killer on the loose, one might wish to hasten things.” She laid a guestbook on the counter. “Sign here, sir.”

I glanced at the open guestbook, frozen. My name had already been signed. Jon Adderly, no title. Just my name, written with a hurried hand.

A tightness gripped my chest. Surely a coincidence. Perhaps another guest who shared my name? Surely, I would have signed Detective Adderly, never so plain... So ordinary.

I cleared my throat forcing the thought aside. “May I borrow this, for the evening Missus...?” I trailed off as I slipped the guestbook under my arm.

Miss, sir. Miss Drowly. And of course, anything to aid in the investigation.” She handed me an old brass key, green with patina. “Room number four, just up the stairs to the left.”

She leaned in close and whispered, “You think the killer might be one of the guests, sir?”

“In my line of work Ms. Drowly, everyone’s suspect... Even you.” I said, sliding the key into my pocket.

As I climbed the stairs, the feeling of being watched never left me. Shadows clung to the corners, and every creak of the boards beneath my boots felt like a warning, crying for me to turn back. Something in this house was watching and waiting. I just had no idea who, or what it was.

The parlor was even more lively when I returned later that night, guestbook in hand. The warmth of the fireplace cut through the chill that gripped me tightly. The guests in the room quietly turned their attention to me as I entered. Their eyes lingering just a little too long. Scanning my coat, my hands, my face, as though as they were the ones investigating me.

“Right.” I said, “Evening gentlemen... And lady.” Forcing my voice to remain steady. A cough rang through the room as a someone muttered something under their breath. It was a simple sound, but I heard it as sharp judgement. “My name is Detective Adderly, and I’m investigating a string of unfortunate events that has happened.”

“You mean the throat-cuttings?” said a man closing a book, sitting in a wingback chair near the fireplace.

“Precisely.” I answered, taking a step toward the man looking down at the open guestbook in my hand. “Mr... Corbitt is it?” I asked, noting the way he anxiously fidgeted with the corners of the book's pages. His sunken eyes appeared slightly too small for his head. “Studying late tonight?”

“Just... Just reading.” he replied carefully, his eyes darting toward the flickering fire. “Catholic texts... Latin” His voice was measured, yet drenched in hesitation, as if the words were rehearsed. I took a mental note.

Next, a pretty, young woman seated at the piano glanced up from her sheet music. Her fingers rested lightly on the keys. “Ah, Miss Towley.” I said scanning the guestbook again. She forced a smile, tucking a ribbon tied around her wrist back into her sleeve. Her hand trembled slightly thought the rest of her body was stiff, like rigor mortis had overcome her that very instant. The gesture was almost unnoticeable. But to me, it spoke volumes.

Finally, an elderly man, tucked into the corner of the room, huddled in a high-back chair. His knuckles white against the armrests. His complexion was odd, almost as though his whole body was one big bruise. His stare followed me without moving, as he sat silently. “Doctor Billings, I assume.” I said, though he made no reply aside from the slow lift of an eyebrow. Something about his silent stillness was heavy and raised my suspicion.

Each one of them seemed ordinary enough. Yet every gesture carried the weight of secrets, suffocating the room. I could feel it. Perhaps it was nothing, but I doubted that. My pulse quickened with the absolute certainty that each one of them must be hiding knowledge they have no right to conceal during this investigation.

I moved across the room to the fireplace, setting the guestbook on the mantel, watching shadows flicker as the flames twisted grotesquely. Then something shifted behind me, just a subtle movement in the corner of the room. When I turned, there was nothing there that could have possibly stirred. Everyone went back to their papers, and books, and music, their eyes occasionally flicking my direction.

Yes... Someone in this room was hiding something. I just need to figure out what it was, and how its connected to the string of murders that brought me here.

Late that night after everyone had returned to their rooms, I quietly left my own. Careful to not wake anyone, I crept through the hall. The house seemed to have changed in my absence. Shadows clung heavier in the corners, then stretched irrationally across the warped floorboards. The candle in the reception hall below, flickered so low it barely lit the way ahead. Every step I took seemed louder than it should. Every tiptoe like a drum, each squeak beneath my foot a high-pinched scream echoing through the empty corridor. A lightning strike illuminated the window at the end of the hall. My reflection flashed before me. I stared. I wasn’t smiling. Was I?

A faint sound pierced the silence. Piano music, soft and practiced. Miss Towley, I thought. But the music felt...Wrong. Disjointed, as if each note was taunting my effort to remain undetected. I paused, straining to hear over the storm still raging outside. I stepped closer, as my heart hammered my chest.

At the bottom of the stairs, a shadow darted just beyond the glow of the candle. I froze. Was it one of the guests? Or just a trick of the flickering light? Then my pulse quickened as that familiar metallic tang filled the air. I still couldn't quite place it, but it weighed heavily on my mind.

I pressed on, sneaking towards Mr. Corbitt’s room. The door was closed, but a faint light leaked through the keyhole and crack beneath. A scraping sound, like metal against wood, made me stop dead in my tracks. I knelt low, pressing my ear to the door. Then silence. I knocked lightly on the door. No response. When I peeked through the keyhole, the room seemed perfectly normal. Neat, void of any wrongdoing, books stacked perfectly straight on the desk.

I made my way down to the parlor. The piano I heard moments before sat empty, nothing but a ribbon sat on the bench. Was this always here? I swear I’d seen it somewhere else before. My fingers lightly brushed it. It was wet and drenched in the unmistakable smell of iron. A shiver crawled up my spine. The notes of the piano hung in the air, though the key remained untouched.

A creak of the stairs startled me. I spun around in an instant. The stairway appeared empty, but a shadow lingered, unmoving on the far wall. I blinked, and it had gone. Still the feeling of being watched was stifling.

I moved back to the reception hall, my heart still racing. I took note of each flicker of light, each whisper of wind. Something wasn’t right. Someone in this house knew far more than they led on. I just needed to uncover who it was. Yet a small, nagging doubt pulled at the corners of my mind, a doubt I couldn't fully understand.

I approached Dr. Billings room last. The old man was asleep, gurgling as he snored. His door was closed, but beneath it I spotted a dark stain on the carpet. Blood? I thought, could it have come from him? Every happening in the house now seemed menacing, every creak a footstep, every shadow, the perpetrator lingering just out of sight. I was being stalked.

I quicky returned to my own room, my notebook full of observations, theories, and suspicions. Everything was pointing towards the tenants. All of them. Every piece of evidence had been meticulously recorded. I was going to crack this case. But that damned metallic smell followed me, stronger than before. Elusive and familiar. A tiny nagging thought whispered in the back of my mind. You smell like blood.

I shook my head angrily. Absurd. Impossible. I couldn’t be the killer. I’m the detective, the inspector. I’m the mind untangling this chaos! And yet, each room, each clue each note of music, each reluctant introduction, seemed to accuse me. I still couldn’t quite understand it.

The next morning, I sat patiently in the parlor waiting to confront the tenants and the land lady with their lies. Their concealment of valuable evidence. But early morning started to dwindle, and no one emerged. I sat motionless, not a sound but the crackle of the fireplace behind me and the storm, still battering the house. Shadows quivered with each flash of lightning. The metallic tang was no longer faint but suffocating, as if the very air was bleeding.

I glanced down opening my notebook to go over my notes again. My heart skipped. A cold sweat broke over my brow. My notebook slipped from my grasp, thudding to the floor. The guestbook beside it bled with my name, page after page. My hands were covered in that unmistakable shade of red, still dripping to the floor. Slowly, and horribly I understood.

Every note of music, every scrape of metal, every dark stain on the floor. They were mine. My notebook held no clues. No evidence. Instead, the pages were filled with frenzied confessions written by my hand. Page after page spoke of blood, knives, names and pleas scratched so deep the ink cut the paper.

In the mirror across the parlor, a stranger sat in my place. My reflection’s face streaked in crimson, shirt soaked through. His eyes lit with joy I did not feel. Then his mouth distorted into a sinister smile before my own. The storm roared. My reflection spoke.

“Who’s next?”