This novel starts off with Mr. Samson, a man whose average height was only made more unremarkable by the perpetually amused tilt of his dark-skinned face, adjusted the lapel of his slightly wrinkled, yet impeccably tailored, tweed jacket. The midday sun of Tredex City beat down, but Samson felt only a delightful warmth. After all, the journey itself had been a masterpiece of bureaucratic nonsense, perfectly suited to his eccentric taste.
"Tredex," he muttered, pulling out a slim silver notepad with his unusual, deliberate flourish—a left-handed movement that often caught observers off guard. "Sounds like a brand of industrial polish."
He had been summoned by Mayor William himself via a cryptic, almost theatrical phone call that had promised a "matter that would rather amaze Mr. Samson." To an ordinary detective, such hyperbole would suggest a routine political scandal cloaked in grandiosity. But to Samson, it was a challenge, a promise of a puzzle with beautifully messy edges.
The Mayor's office in the grand Tredex Municipal Building was a monument to polished marble and transparent deceit. Mayor William, a man whose hairline was receding faster than his poll numbers, rose from behind a mahogany desk large enough to land a small plane on. He exuded an air of meticulously curated anxiety, the kind only politicians can manage when something truly inconvenient has happened.
"Mr. Samson, thank you for coming on such short notice," the Mayor said, extending a hand that was conspicuously clammy. "I trust your journey was satisfactory."
"Satisfactory?" Samson replied, his voice a smooth, low baritone that seemed to caress the syllables. He didn't shake the Mayor's hand, instead offering a precise, yet slightly exaggerated, bow. "Mayor, the train ride here was a symphony of delays, crying children, and the distinct aroma of questionable pastrami. It was, in short, a marvelous catastrophe. I haven't been this entertained since I accidentally glued my thumb to a suspect's doorknob last Tuesday."
Mayor William blinked, a tiny bead of sweat forming near his temple. He clearly wasn't used to a detective who treated professional interaction like performance art.
Behind the Mayor, seated at a small side table, was his secretary, Ms. Cynthia. She was the antithesis of the Mayor: composed, sharp-eyed, and radiating the controlled energy of a coiled spring. She wore a severe black suit that looked expensive and entirely unforgiving.
"Ms. Cynthia," Samson said, turning his full attention to her and offering her a charming, lopsided grin. "You, I suspect, are the actual engine of this operation. The Mayor, bless his political soul, seems like a man whose primary function is signing forms and worrying about his tie."
Ms. Cynthia did not smile, but a tiny, almost imperceptible twitch near her mouth betrayed her amusement. "Mr. Samson, I merely handle the Mayor's calendar. He called you here for a delicate matter concerning the city's greatest benefactor."
"Ah, the benefactors," Samson sighed, walking over to a sprawling window that overlooked the city's meticulously clean central park. "The people who buy statues of themselves and expect everyone else to ignore the small print. Pray tell, which generous soul has recently met an unfortunate end?"
Mayor William finally found his voice, a nervous tremor still in it. "It's Mr. Walter. Mr. Walter, the most honored man in Tredex City. He... he was found dead on the morning of July 13th. His death is being treated as a potential accident, a fall. But..."
"But you have a politician's gut feeling,"
Samson finished, tapping his finger against his chin. "And perhaps a distinct lack of desire for a high-profile accidental death to muddy the waters right before an election cycle. Tell me everything, Mayor. Leave out the polite euphemisms, and give me the sordid truth."
The Mayor gestured for Ms. Cynthia to take over, which she did with cold efficiency. "Mr. Walter was found at the foot of the main staircase in his estate. The official, preliminary assessment leans toward a fall during the early hours of the morning. However, the family, Mrs. Walter specifically, insists there was foul play. Given Mr. Walter's standing and the complicated personal dynamics in that house, the Mayor agreed that an independent, discreet investigation was warranted."
Samson turned back from the window, his eyes narrowed in genuine interest now. "Complicated dynamics? That is the best part of the whole circus. Give me the cast list, Ms. Cynthia. I love a good theatrical production of domestic malice."
Ms. Cynthia recited the names from memory, ticking them off on her fingers: "Mrs. Walter, his second wife, considerably younger. Theodore, Mr. Walter's son from his first marriage, a perpetual source of disappointment, apparently. Chris, Mrs. Walter's son from a previous marriage, who Mr. Walter insisted on putting through the city's finest schools. Penelope, Theodore's fiancée. And a host of staff."
Samson listened, his head cocked, and then added two names, purely from intuition: "And the mysterious 'friend' of the stepson, Allen, I assume. And the one who keeps the Mrs. company when Mr. Walter is busy—a man named Lorenzo. Am I warm?"
Mayor William choked slightly on his bottled water. Ms. Cynthia merely raised one elegant eyebrow. "You are unsettlingly accurate, Mr. Samson. Lorenzo is known to Mrs. Walter socially. And you forgot to mention my son, Theressa, who is often a guest at the Walter residence."
"Ah, a perfect tapestry of interconnected dysfunction!" Samson clapped his hands together lightly. "Tell me about Mr. Walter himself. Was he honorable, or simply wealthy enough to buy the reputation?"
The Mayor sighed. "He was a pillar of Tredex. Generous, a shrewd businessman. But... demanding. Controlling. He ruled his family and his business with an iron fist."
"In short, a man plenty of people had good reason to wish ill upon," Samson concluded. "Excellent. The stage is set. Let us proceed to the crime scene, or as I like to call it, the 'Place Where Honor Went to Die.' I need to see the staircase and observe the grief, or lack thereof."
Samson and Ms. Cynthia (the Mayor claiming he had a critical zoning meeting) were driven to the Walter Estate, a sprawling gothic mansion that screamed 'old money and new problems.'
As they approached the massive front door, Samson noticed a peculiar detail on the manicured lawn. The gardener, a burly man named simply 'Gardner' according to the brief report, was meticulously trimming a small, low hedge near the porch, even though the rest of the grounds looked immaculate. It was an act of almost frantic, misplaced focus.
"Gardner is busy," Samson remarked, pulling his notepad out again. "A busy man is either innocent or hiding something very big under his wheelbarrow. I'll keep an eye on him."
They were met inside by the housekeeper, a woman with a face etched with genuine weariness, who directed them to the main hall.
The staircase was a magnificent, sweeping spiral of dark wood. At its foot, a distinct, faint, dark mark remained, a morbid chalk outline drawn by the initial responding officers.
Samson didn't rush to the mark. Instead, he stopped ten feet back and slowly scanned the area. He didn't use a magnifying glass or a fancy kit. He used his eyes, which seemed to drink in the environment with a profound, almost meditative stillness that contrasted sharply with his previous playful demeanor.
He walked up the first three steps, testing the solid mahogany under his shoe. Then he turned, looking down from the approximate height where a body would begin its fatal tumble.
"Tell me, Ms. Cynthia," he murmured, his voice now serious, "did the family mention what Walter was wearing?"
"A silk dressing gown, sir. He often read late in his study on the second floor," she supplied.
"A silk dressing gown," Samson repeated, nodding. "Slippery fabric on a polished wood surface. A classic accident, yes. But observe the geometry, Ms. Cynthia." He pointed to the top railing. "If one were to simply slip from the top, one would likely tumble straight down the center line of the stairs, hitting a few steps on the way. The body was found further to the left, near the wall. And the head injury was severe, indicating a specific point of impact."
He then did something utterly unusual. He knelt near the wall, not where the body was found, but a few feet above it on the second step. He pressed his left palm flat against the riser, feeling the cool, slightly dusty surface.
"An accident is a sloppy occurrence," he mused. "But this... this has the faint whiff of an event being guided."
He stood up, brushing his hands off. His eyes landed on a small, framed photo sitting on a nearby mahogany credenza. It was a picture of a triumphant-looking Mr. Walter, shaking hands with Mayor William during a city event. The Mayor looked slightly subservient in the picture, a fact Samson did not miss.
"The Mayor said he was amazed," Samson said, finally approaching the faint mark on the floor. "I believe him. But I suspect he's amazed not by the death of Mr. Walter, but by the fact that the person responsible had the audacity to execute it in his own house, under the eyes of a whole cast of suspects."
He glanced at the mark again. Then, his left hand shot out and plucked something tiny from the corner of the baseboard, something easily missed by the official search, caught in the shadow of the wall. It was not hair, not blood, but a small, stiff piece of gold-colored thread, woven through with a distinct, faded green pattern. It looked like it had been violently snagged and pulled from something.
He carefully tucked the thread into a small glassine envelope from his inner jacket pocket, his dark hand making the tiny gold artifact seem even brighter.
"This, Ms. Cynthia, is not from a silk dressing gown. This is a clue that introduces an element of the unexpected. A tiny, glittering anomaly in a house full of calculated despair." He offered his charming, eccentric grin. "The plot, I believe, has just thickened."