Nothing is more comfortable than an old library but Ambrose Varney’s library was the exception. Leather bound volumes beautifully gilded lined the room floor to ceiling. Sunlight flooded between the velvet curtains. Lemon oil scented air greeted each visitor. The library’s unpleasantness came the inhabitants both living and dead.

Detection Consultant Finch Cassoway admired the stately library where he had once spent many an hour with his dear old friend, Ambrose. Some trick of the light made Finch see his old pal swathed in blanket in his favorite chair, buttery soft emerald leather, by the roaring hearth. Care for a brandy, old man, the words danced in his ears and his chest stung thinking he would never hear that voice again. Cassoway’s eye then fell on the current occupants of Ambrose’s library.

Stiff-backed as the Queen Anne chair she sat in was Lady Varney, the merry widow. To her Lady’s left, Dinah “Pidge” Thistle, Ambrose’s secretary, perched terrified on a tufted footstool. Lounging—the boy always seemed to be lounging—against the hand carved maghony mantle of Alice In Wonderland characters was Leonardo Varney, the heir apparent. His younger brother Percy was in the library’s far corner staring at a fine bust of Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter. And sniveling in my dear friend’s favorite chair was a saucy bit of baggage calling herself Wanda Amore and Ambrose’s pen pal. Felix, the butler, waited at attention by the library’s heavy oak panelled door.

Hanging slightly ajar, the door held the marks of yesterday’s damage when it was forced to give access to poor Ambrose. The butler stood by the door as if its current state embarrassed home but Cassoway knew by Felix’s pale face that of all the room’s inhabitants Felix missed Ambrose the most. Felix had been a young servant when Ambrose was a babe in the fine manor house. Cassoway looked away from Felix’s grief to his room of suspects.

“Really this is most disgraceful. This a house of mourning. My dear husband suffered apoplexy alone locked away from help. We have matters to attend to as a family. There is no time for your silly games,” Lady Varney said.

“Please, Mater,” Percy pleaded. “Uncle Finch was Daddy’s closest friend—“

“He’s nobody’s uncle,” Leonardo said coolly.

Pidge threw Leonardo a furtive look and for some unknown reason the Wanda creature burst into tears anew. Hurrying to hand the woman a handerchief Percy tripped over the thick Persian rug and landed at her feet. Augustus scoffed and lit a cigarette.

“Lady Varney or should I call you Kitty like the girls from bakery used to call you. Kitty, I am not here for games. The police surgeon will issue a report tomorrow announcing Ambrose’s death as suspicious. Dear Ambrose sent me a letter asking me to solve his murder. And that ladies and gentlemen, I am here to find out which one of you killed him.”