The Daughter on the Cylinder

[SFX: Archive shelves creak. Cylinder cases knock softly]

NARRATOR: Imogen admitted she was not merely an archivist. Her mother had worked at Mourning House twenty-seven years ago and left with a settlement, a false reference, and a child Gideon never acknowledged. Imogen had come to prove that she was his daughter. Celeste received the news without surprise.

CELESTE MOURNING: Father collected secrets because apologies required surrendering them.

IMOGEN ROOK: He promised the cylinder would name me in the will.

LEON VALE: An unexecuted recording is not a will.

ADA MERCER: But it might prove motive for whoever altered the executed one.

NARRATOR: Ada examined every cylinder in the cabinet. Wax captured fingerprints poorly, but paper sleeves retained pressure marks. The missing sleeve had rested on top of a memorandum concerning the Mourning charitable trust. Ada shaded the sheet with graphite. A column of figures appeared: yearly transfers to a company called Vale Security Consultancy.

LEON VALE: My firm provides risk advice.

CELESTE MOURNING: Your firm has no office, Leon. I checked after Father told me the trust was empty.

[SFX: Window glass cracks]

NARRATOR: A rifle shot crossed the archive and shattered the cabinet. Imogen dropped. Ada followed the angle to a snow-covered gallery roof. No footprint disturbed it. The bullet had come from inside the house, through a ventilation grille aligned with the speaking tubes.

PETER BELL: There is a spring gun in the west wall. An old alarm trap.

ADA MERCER: Triggered by the same cord as the practice bell. Whoever wound the locked-room mechanism also scheduled this shot.

NARRATOR: The bullet struck the slot where the missing cylinder should have been. It was not intended to kill Imogen. It was meant to destroy evidence the killer believed remained in place.

IMOGEN ROOK: Then the killer did not take the cylinder.

ADA MERCER: No. Gideon moved it before he died. He expected someone to search this cabinet.

[SFX: Floorboard taps]

NARRATOR: Three taps answered from inside the wall. Imogen tilted her head. The pattern repeated, carried through an old speaking tube from the frozen bell tower.