OptionalFiction

Detective Sumai locked the door. “Ladies and Gentleman, we've had a lot of excitement this evening, but I have figured it out. The murderer is in this room. But who is it? Each and every one of us had a motive to kill Lord Winslet. The obvious suspect would of course be the wife, Lady Winslet. Earlier today I noticed some white chips of paint under her fingernails. At first, I thought nothing of it, but then I saw the chessboard in the master bedroom. Black had won. A chess match turned deadly? Mayhaps. But let's turn our attention towards the next suspect, the gardener. While taking a leak at the back of the shed earlier, I noticed that for the past six weeks the Lord had been buying cheaper soil than before. Surely that was punishment for the shoddy work the gardener had done on the hedge around the back terrace. The gardener got angry and stabbed the lord with his garden clippers. Could be. But maybe the fact that the lord wasn't stabbed but shot tells a different story. The butler has resented Lord Winslet for a while now. You are probably wondering how I know that. Well, let me enlighten you. When I arrived earlier this evening and the butler took my coat I noticed him pulling on it a bit too hard for my liking. This leads me to conclude that the butler is letting his frustration shine through in the subpar butlering he's doing. Or maybe it was the worker that installed the windows in the mansion's guess bedroom. I noticed a very slight draft there. Not enough to tip off a regular person, but only one as observant as myself. The original goal surely must have been to get Lord Winslet to catch a cold from the draft and die from that illness. When this turned out to be a slow process which relied on a lot of chance—such as cold weather and the lord spending lots of time in the guest bedroom—you decided to hasten things along with a bullet to the temple. And I don't want anyone to think I'm not being rigorous in my work, so let's talk about my motives. Everyone knows Lord Winslet and I go way back. He loved to make fun about my excellent observation skills when he thought I wouldn't hear him. In a letter sent to his son he accused me of being nosy. And he called me a nitpicky complainer. To which I would reply that being nitpicky does already kind of imply being a complainer and that I don't agree with such a characterization of myself. Would I kill over it? Maybe. But I didn't. Lastly, Lord Winslet himself. Did he have motive for a suicide? I'd argue that the letter provides reason. There's an embarrassing amount of blood on here. And the text itself reads pretty cringe as well. Listen to this:

Oh God. It's that Sumai guy again. Why does he always come visit? He just complains about drafts in the house, the way the butler does his work, imperfect hedges, and he calls my wife's nails unclean. I have also seen him open my mail. He's making my life hell and he keeps ignoring the restraining order I put on him. I see no other way out of this. Sorry to my wife and son. I know you two understand.

Yikes.”