The Tide House
A world by Ari Weaver
The Tide House
Cornwall, August 1931. Sir Anthony Pellow kept his sixtieth birthday on Carrack Island, a granite rock whose causeway is dry for only a few hours at low tide. At dinner he stood up and changed his will. At seven the next morning his study is locked from the inside, he's dead at his desk, and the sea has closed the causeway until half past two. Everyone still on the island had a reason to want him gone.
Playing as Traveler·
At five to seven on Sunday morning Penhale knocks on the study door for the third time and tries the handle again. The butler is sixty-one and has not raised his voice in this house in thirty years. He raises it now.
“Sir Anthony. Sir Anthony, it's Penhale.”
Rain is coming in hard against the long window at the end of the passage. Through it you can see the causeway going under, the last of the cobbles turning grey as the water slides over them.
Lady Margaret comes along the passage in a camel dressing gown with her hair still in its night plait. She stops two yards short of the door. Behind her Mrs. Coates is already fully dressed with her notebook in her hand. Nobody remarks on it.
“His key's in the lock on the inside,” Penhale says. “I can see it through the keyhole. He always locks it when he works late. He's never not answered.”
Lady Margaret looks at the door for a long moment. Then she looks at you, because you're the nearest person who isn't a servant or in a dressing gown.
“There's a coal hammer in the boot room,” she says, very evenly. “Would you mind fetching it and breaking the lock? I don't think Penhale should have to.”
The study door1 of 3