This is page consists of the lore of the first iteration of Cryptic Notes, A Bringer of Doom I. The lore found on this page is gradually unlocked through the completion of quests in the game mode. The first chapter of “A Bringer of Doom” is told from the perspective of a group of people investigating the tragedy that befall the Winston family at their manor 10 years ago. Please refer below to the complete lore as we know it below. Everything is written as is from what is found in-game.
“In the secret study hidden deep within the manor, I found more than the diary alone. There was also a curious collection, from “A Bringer of Doom” to “Phosphorescence Disease”, from The Gift of Olympus to Beyond the Field of Reeds. All of them were published works by Mr. “Orpheus.” Yet when I leafed through them carefully, I discovered that these specially bound volumes contained none of the stories for which they were known. Instead, the clues lay buried in darker and more peculiar secrets, as though each book had been fashioned as an allegory, waiting for someone to unravel it.”
-Alice DeRoss in the Opening Dialogue for Cryptic Notes.
The infamous Winston Manor as seen in Cryptic Notes. Credit: Identity V Wiki.
1. Dust-Sealed Land
“Can you smell it?” Herald took a deep breath, as if tasting fine wine. “A rich, old mold. This manor has been empty for at least ten years.”
“Ten years and three weeks,” I corrected him. “The murder took place on October 22, ten years ago.”
The iron gate was unlocked. Warrior gave it a push. The rusted hinge on the handle let out a long, strained groan, as if the manor itself were protesting our arrival. But the protest was useless. Our employer wanted a report far more detailed than the police’s half-hearted record, and we needed the money.
2. Intruders
Warrior crouched by the door to inspect it.
“Forced from the outside,” he said, running his finger along the warped latch. “At this force, they probably used a hammer or an axe.”
“Bandits?” I asked.
“Maybe. Or someone curious who came later.” He stood and headed for the foyer.
3. Strange Obituary
A framed obituary on the table in the foyer caught our attention.
“Arthur Winston, 45, his wife Isabella Winston, 38, and their child Jules Winston, 8, were tragically killed at Winston Manor on the night of October 22, 1863. May they rest in peace.”
“Who put this here?” I asked.
Warrior glanced at me. “Relatives, police, or the parish. Someone must have come in after the murder. At least to handle the bodies and the aftermath.”
He had a point, and I nodded. But placing the obituary where everyone would see it felt less like mourning and more like a warning. It seemed to say to anyone who entered, You know what happened here.
4. Unrecorded “Guest”
The visitor register was coated in dust, but the pages inside were still intact.
“The last entry is October 15, ‘Mrs. E. Parkinson, afternoon tea.’ After that, nothing but blanks.”
Warrior flipped through the pages, then stopped.
“One page has been torn out.”
I leaned in. He was right. After the October 15 entry, a page had been ripped out at the root, leaving jagged edges. The pages after it were blank.
“The missing page should be a day after October 15,” I said. “Sometime between the 16th and the 21st.”
5. Missing Servant
A note was nailed to the back of the servants’ room door. The nail had rusted brown. The handwriting was neat, but hurried, the kind that tries to look calm while racing the clock:
“Wages settled. Leaving the estate today.”
No signature. No date.
“The servants were gone before the murder,” I said. “All of them. Paid off and gone.”
“Someone knew something was going to happen early?” Sage’s voice was a question, but it sounded more like a statement.
I wrote it down in my notebook. I drew two lines under the word “servants.”
“Hey, look at this,” Herald said, shining his flashlight on the wall beside the bed in the far corner.
“Mr. Winston keeps nailing boards up at night. God, when will I get a decent night’s sleep?” It was a crooked line of handwriting, clearly a servant’s complaint about living conditions. I made a note of it too.
“So Arthur Winston knew something was coming.” Sage had clearly reached the conclusion she wanted.
6. Odd Planks
According to the police report from that time, when they arrived at the house, they found every window nailed and boarded from the inside. They could hardly remove them as evidence from within, so they had to break them open from outside.
“The job was clumsy,” Warrior said. “But deliberate. He must have feared something outside.”
“What he feared still got in,” I said. I regretted it the moment I spoke. It sounded like a line from a bad novel.
No on laughed, because Warrior was crouched beside a window near the dining room on the side of the parlor, inspecting a board. That board had been pried open from the outside. Before the police arrived, it was the only one disturbed. That was the point of entry.
7. The Last Supper
Warrior pushed open the dining room door. It was not locked, not even fully closed. As the door swung inward, dust rose in the draft and spiraled through the flashlight beam like a tiny blizzard.
Then we saw the table set for three.
That was the first detail that truly hit me after entering the house. The porcelain plates were broken, but the pieces still lay where they had fallen, as if someone had smashed them with a fist. Yet the white shards of china still formed a rough circle. The silver knives and forks lay crooked across the table, blackened with tarnish. Three crystal glasses, two large, one small. The smallest one still stood untouched.
No guest place. Just three members of the family. That night, they were only having an ordinary dinner together. A bottle of red wine had been knocked over onto the floor. The bottle itself was intact, the cork still in place. Wine had once leaked from its mouth. spread across the floor ten years ago, then dried into a dark red stain on the stone tiles, irregular in shape, like blood.
But it was not blood. The blood was elsewhere.
8. The Bloody Night
I had been avoiding the walls, but the flashlight did not care. It lit whatever it wanted.
Behind the dining table, the wall was covered in a huge smear of dried blood. Blood had been sprayed from a certain height and with a certain force, forming an uneven radial pattern across the wall. Ten years had turned the bright red into a deep rust-brown, nearly blending with the peeling dark wallpaper. Unless you looked closely, you might think it was part of the pattern.
But it was not.
It was a human-shaped outline.
9. Frozen Time
On the dining room mantel once stood an exquisite clock, the kind often seen in salons of old aristocratic homes, perhaps Wedgwood or Spode. It had been shattered and fallen beneath the mantel. It did not look deliberately smashed. The debris suggested it had been knocked down in the chaos. The pieces were scattered on the floor below, but the clocks movement still sat inside the largest shard of porcelain, its hands intact.
9:17.
“That’s the time of death,” Sage said, rising from the fireplace. “When the clock fell, it stopped at that moment. October 22, 1863, 9:17 p.m.”
Late October in Yorkshire. 9:17 p.m., long after dark. The family was having dinner. Perhaps Arthur was about to open the wine. Perhaps Jules was complaining about the peas. Perhaps Isabella was saying something, something so ordinary it would be forgotten by morning.
Then the intruders arrived.
10. Unsealed Letter
In dining room, I found a letter inside the sideboard. Fine paper, folded in thirds, no envelope. It had not even been sealed yet.
I opened it carefully. It was Arthur Winston’s handwriting, neat but strained:
Dear William,
I trust this finds you well. Lately, we have heard dogs barking and horses on the road at night. I fear bandits may be near. I have written to Sheriff Barnes and asked for more patrols, but you know the police in Yorkshire. One sheriff for sixty square miles of moorland. What can one expect? Isabella is deeply unsettled, and Jules has began to have nightmares. Though I have boarded and nailed every window and door, it still does not feel enough. If you have any contacts in London, please help arrange private guards to come after the 25th. I will bear the cost.
The letter ends there. A drop of ink stains the last line, left by a pen held too long in place. He heard something, or saw something, and set the pen down. The date at the bottom is October 20. Two days before the murder.
“He knew they were coming.” My voice sounded smaller than I expected in the empty dining room. “He sealed the windows, wrote to the sheriff, wrote to his brother in London. But it was too late.”
11. No Way Out
The kitchen told another story.
There were bloody footprints on the floor. Bare feet, or indoor slippers. Small ones, a woman’s. They came from the dining room, through the kitchen, toward the back door. In places, the prints overlapped in confusion. She had fallen, gotten up, and kept running.
The cabinets had been ransacked. Someone had shoved them open in panic, either looking for a weapon or searching for a way out. A pot lay on the floor. Plates shattered everywhere.
On the windowsill, there was a clear bloody handprint. A small hand. Fingers up, as if trying to climb.
Sage stepped forward to inspect it. She said nothing at first, only raised her flashlight, then lowered it, again and again, over the print.
“Blood from two people,” she said at last. “By shape and size, the handprint is one person’s, an adult woman. But the blood in the footprints…it may come from two different sources. There are drops between the prints. She was running with someone’s blood dripping from her.”
“She was carrying Jules?” I asked.
“Or she was wounded herself, and stepped in blood in the dining room.” Sage stood. Her voice stayed calm. “The back door?”
Warrior checked it. Locked. Bolted from inside.
“She didn’t leave through the back door,” he said.
“Then where did she go?”
12. The Ransacked Study
The study was the one room in the manor where Arthur Winston felt less like a victim and more like a person.
In the dining room, he had been only a human outline. In the letter, he was a terrified husband and father. But in the study, he was whole. He had habits. He had secrets.
When Warrior opened the door, we saw that this room had been spared better than the others, through not spared well.
It had been torn apart.
Books had been ripped from the shelves and thrown to the floor. Papers were swept off the desk. Drawers were yanked out and dumped upside down, their contents scattered across the room. But the fireplace was stuffed with charred paper. A lot of them. Not one or two letters, but stacks of documents crammed into the fire in haste.
“The safe,” Warrior said, pointing beside the desk.
A plain wooden cabinet on the outside, with an iron safe hidden inside, about two feet square. The door had been forced open, or rather smashed open. The hinges were ruined, the iron door hanging crooked to one side. It was empty.
“Professionals,” Warrior said. “And they knew where the safe was. This wasn’t random. They did their homework.”
13. Wanted Notice
Herald pulled a crumple sheet from a pile of papers. To be exact, two halves torn in two.
“A wanted notice.”
He fitted the halves together. A standard county court notice, rough print, yellowed paper. It showed three male sketches, crude police drawings with strong features, not exact but unmistakable. All three wore course jackets, all had beards, and all looked dangerous. Under the images were the names:
“The Shane gang.” Leader Daniel Shane, members Patrick Doyle and Colin Fleming. Charges: robbery, arson, murder. Reward: twenty pounds for information leading to their capture.
“Arthur knew who was after his manor,” I said.
“More than knew.” Herald turned the notice over. “This was torn. Deliberately. Look at the tear. Straight down the middle, one clean pull.”
“Why tear up a wanted notice?” Warrior asked.
“Anger?” Herald guessed.
“Or fear,” Sage said. “Sometimes people tear up what frightens them, as if that can destroy the threat itself.”
14. Correspondence with the Sheriff
Warrior found three letters, all exchanged between Arthur and Sheriff Barnes. I laid them out by date.
First, September 28. Arthur to Barnes: Sheriff Barnes, strange men have been seen near the estate lately. My gamekeeper spotted two ragged men at the edge of north wood last Thursday. Please send someone to inspect the area.
Second, October 5. Barnes to Arthur: Mr. Winston, I have dispatched my deputy. No irregularities were found. However, given reports of drifter activity in the neighboring county, I advise you to tighten security and keep the servants indoors at night.
Third, October 12. Arthur to Barnes: Sheriff, the situation is worsening. My dogs have barked through three nights in a row, all facing the woods west of the manor. Last night I saw fire in the distance, like a campfire. They are close. I bef you to act. A single deputy’s patrol is not enough. My wife and daughter are here.
October 12. Ten days before the murder.
“And after that?” I asked.
“There should be more,” Herald said, still searching. Nothing.
Ten days. What happened in those ten days? Did Barnes answer? Did he send more men? Or was a manor lord’s fear nothing in a county sheriff’s six hundred square miles?
15. Prescription
“This,” Sage said, coming from the corner of the study with a paper in hand. She did not hand it to me. She read it aloud. “A prescription. Chloral hydrate, ten drops each night, for sleep. Dr. Hall’s signature. The date is September 1863. Patient: A. Winston.”
“What is chloral hydrate?” Herald asked.
“A sedative,” Sage said. “Also, a sleeping drug. Very strong. Ten drops are enough to keep an adult man asleep until morning. Hard to wake.”
The words hung in the air.
“He was so afraid he couldn’t sleep,” I said. “He had not slept properly since September.”
“Or longer,” Sage said, setting the prescription on the desk. “September was when he finally saw a doctor. The insomnia may have started earlier. A man alone in this manor, wife and young daughter depending on him, bandits circling outside, police useless. He boarded the windows, dismissed the servants, and still the nightmare would not let him go.”
16. Clipping
On Arthur’s chaotic desk, I noticed a frame lying face down. The stand was folded shut, as if someone had deliberately knocked it over. I turned it over, inspected it, and found a newspaper clipping hidden in the loose backing. It was cut from a local paper, dated August 1863.
“Local news. The Woodley family of Woodley Farm near Harrogate in the neighboring county was brutally robbed and murdered by drifters last week. Mr. John Woodley, 52, his wife, and both sons were killed at night. The property was stripped clean. Police suspect wandering bandits and are investigating.”
Arthur had hidden this clipping behind the frame. Not displayed. Hidden.
Maybe he did not want Isabella to see it. Maybe he read it every day to remind himself that the danger was real. Maybe both.
I tucked the clipping into my notebook.
A man reads a report of a family slaughtered in a neighboring county. He begins to lose sleep. He starts taking sleeping pills. He writes to the sheriff. He sends the servants away. He nails the windows shut. He pleads for help from his brother in London. He does everything he can.
And he still dies.
So do his wife and eight-year-old daughter.
17. The Stairway of Death
The foot of the stairs to the second floor was like a witness that would not speak, yet could not keep silent. In scraps and blood, it told us what we were about to find.
First, there was a shred of coarse hemp caught on the banister. Gray-brown, rough fiber, matching the clothing described on the wanted notice for the Shane gang in Arthur’s study. Ten years of dust had made it look as though it had grown there on its own.
Warrior plucked it free and held it under the lantern. “Torn off in a struggle. Or snagged while running.”
Then there was the blood.
Up the stairs ran a broad dark smear, as if someone had been dragged, or had crawled upward badly wounded.
There were nail marks on the handrail.
I did not go up at once. I stood at the foot of the stairs, flashlight raised, watching that blood trail vanish into the darkness at the turn of the landing. Ten years ago, someone, Isabella, almost certainly Isabella, fled the dining room after her husband fell, ran through the kitchen, found the back door locked, then turned back, or was overtaken, and clawed her way up the stairs.
She had gripped the rail as she climbed. Her nails had left marks in the wood.
18. Family Portrait
“There’s a painting here.” Herald’s voice drifted down from above. He had already gone ahead, reckless treasure hunter that he was.
I followed and saw an oil painting on the wall. A large family portrait. Arthur, Isabella, and young Jules. Formal posture, formal clothing, formal expressions. Arthur sat in the center in a dark suit, stern but not cruel, a man in his early forties. The portrait must have been painted a few years before the murders. Isabella sat to his right, with dark blonde hair and a face that had perhaps once been gentle, though the painter had stiffened it into proper dignity. Jules stood between them in a white dress, holding a rag doll.
An ordinary Victorian family portrait. If not for the slash across Arthur’s face. A sharp blade, knife, or dagger had carved diagonally from the upper left to the lower right, cutting straight through him. The canvas had split open, and under the flashlight, Arthur’s face looked torn in two, the plaster wall showing through the wound.
The frame hung crooked on its nail, as if it might fall at any moment.
“The intruders did that,” Warrior said. “Spite after the looting. Or simple malice.”
“They only cut Arthur’s face,” Sage pointed out. “They left Isabella and Jules untouched.”
“Maybe it was just a wild slash that happened to cross him,” Warrior said, unimpressed.
19. The Final Struggle
The second floor was darker than the first, because the windows here had also been boarded shut from the inside, and the police had not pried all of them open.
The flashlight could only reach five or six feet ahead. Beyond that lay darkness so thick it seemed to have weight. Our shadows shivered along the walls like four restless ghosts.
“Here.” Warrior stopped in the middle of the corridor and pointed at the floor.
A second human outline.
This time it was on the hallway floor, between the master bedroom and the nursery. Smaller than the one in the dining room, a slimmer figure, narrower shoulders. The blood around it had dried into a crust so dark it was almost black.There was a bloody handprint on the wall. Larger and clearer than the one on the kitchen windowsill. Five fingers spread wide, palm pressed flat against the wallpaper. But this time, the print pointed toward the far end of the corridor, toward the nursery.
“Isabella.” Sage’s voice trembled slightly. I knew at once it was not fear. It was anger.
“She came up from downstairs, reached the corridor, and here she…” I did not want to say the word died.
“She was stopped. Stopped before she could reach the nursery,” Sage crouched and examined it again. “She fell facing the end of the hall. You can tell from the direction of the outline. Her last position was toward the nursery.”
She had been trying to reach her daughter’s room.
But she never made it.
20. A Prayer Unheard
The master bedroom was the second-largest room upstairs. Its great mirror had been smashed. Shards from the entire glass lay scattered across the floor, glinting fully in the flashlight beam. Ten years of dust had robbed them of their sharp reflection, but they were still there, like a thousand dimmed eyes. The dressing table drawers had been pulled out. Inside was a delicate green velvet jewelry box, of course, already empty.
“That was one of the reasons they came,” Warrior said.
But one thing on the dressing table had not been taken. A prayer book, left open.
Ten years had yellowed and curled the pages, but the words were still clear. Between them was a lock of hair, golden child’s hair tied with a ribbon. The ribbon was blue, embroidered with the letter J.
It was Jule’s.
Inside Isabella’s prayer book was her daughter’s baby hair. It was a mother’s custom in those days to keep the child’s first lock, tied with a ribbon, and hidden in the book she cherished most.
I looked at that strand of gold. Ten years, and its color had barely faded.
21. Father and Son
Herald was searching the wardrobe in the master bedroom. The doors stood open. Arthur’s side had been torn apart. Coats were emptied, shirt pockets turned out, clothes thrown to the floor. Isabella’s side was more or less intact, dresses still hanging, dust settled on the shoulders.
“There’s a trunk at the bottom.” Herald dragged a leather case from the wardrobe base. The lock had been pried open. The intruders had searched here too.
There was little value left. Only another stack of old letters. I skimmed them quickly, most from Arthur’s father, harsh and cold, the usual voice of patriarchy in correspondence. There was also a faded photograph. From the writing on the back, it appears to be an earlier Winston family portrait. Arthur was still a boy, standing beside a stern-faced man. The man, Arthur’s father, stared straight into the camera with a disturbingly empty look.
“Winston senior,” Herald said. “I’ve seen him in the archives. The last manor lord. Supposedly died of a stroke.”
I did not take the photo as I usually would. Those empty eyes unsettled me. Not because they were frightening, but because they expressed nothing. No love, no hate. Just empty.
22. Futile Resistance
The nursery was small. About twelve feet square.
Toys were strewn across the floor. A half-finished hand-sewn doll, its head already split, lay face down in the center. Blocks were scattered everywhere. Under the dust, I made out J, U, L, E. Someone had once used those blocks to spell Jule’s name.
In the corner between the bed and the wall, a space small enough only a child could curl into, sat a pair of brand-new children’s shoes. Black leather, copper buckles, nearly unworn.They were placed side by side, perfectly neat.
That detail broke me. Not the blood, not the axe marks, not the human shape on the wall. It was the shoes. The thought of a little girl hiding under the bed and taking off her shoes to keep quiet. It made me think of my daughter.
23. Murder Weapon
“Here.” Warrior’s voice came from the other side of the bed.
He had found something. A dagger.
The blade was about eight inches long, stained with dried blood. The hilt was wrapped in coarse hemp, the same material as the torn cloth by the stairs. The blade had a nick in it, as if it struck something hard. Bone, maybe. Furniture. Cheap, rough, not a gentleman’s weapon. The kind a laborer or drifter might carry.
It was one of the murder weapons left behind by the police.
“After the killings, they threw it down here,” Warrior said, wrapping it in his handkerchief. “They didn’t care about evidence. That means they weren’t afraid of being traced. Either they knew they could get away, or they did not care.”
“They must have had other weapons too,” Sage said. She stood at the door, not entering. It was the first time I had seen her stop outside a room and refuse to come in.
24. They Came at Night
Jules’ bedside held a thick stack of drawings. I went through them one by one.
The bottom showed a garden. The next showed the sun, a bouquet, and a brown four-legged creature, probably a dog. Above that was a picture of three people holding hands in front of a house. The tallest was labeled “Dad,” the middle “Mom,” and the smallest “me.” There was also a Christmas tree, gifts beneath it, and a big star drawn in red crayon.
Typical drawings from an eight-year-old. Sunlight, garden, family, holidays. A child loved and sheltered.
Then came the top sheet.
Completely different.
No color, only black. Black crayon, pressed so hard it nearly tore the paper. It showed a human shape. Not Dad, not Mom, but a strange, blurred, dark figure. It stood beside a bed, Jule’s bed. No face, only a silhouette, as heavy as a shadow.
Beside it, in crooked letters: THE MAN AT NIGHT.
I flipped it over. The date on the back was October 19.
Three days before the murder.
“Jules drew this three days before the murder,” I said, sounding like someone else. “She drew a man who came at night.”
“A child’s nightmare,” Warrior said, leaning in. “Her father said she had started having nightmares. In that letter to his brother in London.”
“Nightmares are not usually this specific,” Sage said, finally stepping into the room. She took the drawing and stared at it for a long time. “This was not a dream. At least, she did not think it was. She though someone had really come into her room.”
“Bandits scouting the place?” Herald said. “They had been watching the manor for days before the murder. Maybe one of them actually came inside one night. Not to kill. Just to see the layout. And Jules saw him.”
25. Mother’s Warning
Under Jules’ bed was a large wooden toy chest. In its false bottom, I found a folded note. Isabella’s handwriting. I knew her writing from the prayer book i the dressing room. Same round, neat cursive, but this note was more hurried, with unnatural pauses between strokes:
“If anything happens, hide under the bed. Stay quiet. Mother will come for you.”
A mother’s survival plan for her eight-year-old daughter.
Hidden in the false bottom of a toy chest, because if it were left out in the open, the child would be afraid every day. But inside the hidden compartment, opened only when needed, this was the best Isabella cold do.
Like Arthur, she did everything she could. she taught her daughter how to hide, how to be silent.
And Jules did as she was told. She heard something and hid beneath the bed.
26. Ritual
The largest room on the second floor was the gallery, better preserved than the others, because almost nothing here was easy to move.
On the long table lay a white funeral cloth. It was not folded neatly, but it had clearly been placed there on purpose. Beside it were several candles, wax frozen on the floor. There was also an open prayer book, another one.
I picked it up. The pages were yellowed and brittle, but the text was clear. It had stopped on the Book of Job.
“The Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
“The Lord gives, and the Lord takes,” Sage translated in a soft voice.
“These were left after the murder,” Warrior judged. “The cloth, the candles, the prayer book. someone came here after it happened. The one who handled the aftermath. Maybe a relative, maybe the parish priest. The obituary downstairs may have come from him, too.”
“He held some kind of rite for the dead.”
“Only briefly. Look at the candles. Less than an hour.”
Three lives. One hour.
This time, were their prayers heard?
27. The “Full Truth” of the Tragedy
Beneath the prayer book in the gallery was a neat official record, a copy of the county court file. Formal paper, header from the Yorkshire magistrates’ court. The clerk’s hand was neat, cold, and emotionless:
Case No. 1863-YK-0347
Case: Winston Manor Massacre
Victims: Arthur Winston, 45; Isabella Winston, 38; Jules Winston, 8
Time of Incident: Night of October 22, 1863
Scene: All three victims died from blade wounds and blunt force trauma. Manor was ransacked.
Suspects: Remaining members of the Shane gang, leader Daniel Shane, members Patrick Doyle and Colin Fleming, at large.
Status: Suspects still wanted, investigation ongoing.
This was the full record of the tragedy.
At least, that is what the police believed. The Shane gang, three roaming criminals behind a string of robberies and murders in Yorkshire and neighboring counties had supposedly scouted the manor for days, then broke in through a side window on the night of October 22. They murdered Arthur at dinner, chased Isabella when she tried to flee, broke into the nursery, and killed Jules as she hid under the bed. Then they looted the safe, the jewelry box, everything of value, and disappeared into the moorlands of Yorkshire night.
Three killers, Three victims. A manor empty for ten years.
28. Remnant
Before leaving, I decided to return to the study. That pile of burned paper still bothered me. The others agreed, and we searched the room again. Warrior used the fire tongs, still hanging on the mantel, to carefully sift through the ashes. Most of the paper had burned down to pale grey flakes that crumbled at a touch. But in the corner of the hearth, where the fire had not reached evenly, a few fragments survived, half-charred, edges blackened, but with some words still visible.
The four of us crouched before the fireplace like we were performing the least holy prayer imaginable.
First fragment: unreadable, devoured by flame.
Second fragment: a few numbers, perhaps a ledger. “£120,” “£45,” “October,” and then burned away.
Third fragment: the largest piece. I lifted it before the flashlight with tweezers.
The writing was hurried and messy, the ink smeared in places. What remained came in broken pieces, like fragments of a fever dream:
“I can no longer sleep for fear…those eyes…watching me…like…as before…must not let…”
That was all. Beyond it, only blackened edges and ash.
“Arthur’s handwriting,” Herald confirmed after comparing it with the letter to his brother in London. “Same man. But not the same state. The letter was tense, but controlled. This is…”
“Broke,” Sage said.
“Whose eyes?” I asked.
No one answered.
“Eyes…” I suddenly thought of the faded father-and-son photograph, of old Winston’s hollow stare. What was Arthur writing about? Whose “eyes” was he afraid of? Jules’s? Isabella’s? Or his father’s from memory?
“Must not let…” Must not let what? Let them in? Let the family suffer? Something else?
And why had these papers been burned?
If the intruders burned them, the papers must have contained something dangerous. But would drifters bother reading and destroying a victim’s private notes? They were after money and jewelry, not diaries.
If Arthur burned them himself, then it happened before the murder. Why?
“Maybe it was just ordinary waste burned in the hearth,” Warrior said, as if answering the question I had not said aloud.”A ten-year-old manor. Fireplaces burned all the time. Ashes in the grate are nothing unusual.”
For now, the others accepted that. We decided to leave.
29. Far From Over
Back at the inn, I began writing my first report from my employer. I read the police report again, with all its errors and omissions. Once more I saw the line: “Thick oak boards. Four-inch nails. Driven in so densely that we could scarcely remove them as evidence from the inside. In the end, we had to tear them loose from the outside.”
The first time I read it, I saw only one more sign of police incompetence. But now, I checked my notes again and saw the servants’ complaints recorded there too. A wild thought slowly began to take shape in my mind.
I knocked on my companion’s doors and told them we needed to go back once more.
30. Lore Video
This video plays after you complete all the quests in Cryptic Notes for “A Bringer of Doom.” It serves as a visual summary of the treasure hunters venture into Winston Manor from the perspective of the unnamed fourth one.
