Author's Note: Thanks always to everyone who reads and those special few who review, this turned out much darker than I'd initially intended but when you're talking about provoking a baby duckling to murder I guess it will always be dark...I hope it's not too out of character. xx DB

Cluedo Note: Six people (FiBeen, LemmingDancer, PinkFairy23, Ethelfreda, Frienze and I) are playing a fanfic version of MFMM Cluedo. Murdoch Foyle has been murdered in Miss Fisher's House. We must discover the name of the murderer, the weapon and in which room the murder was committed. Every player must 'investigate' by writing a fic (100-1000 words). Each round, more and more clues can be crossed off their list. The first person to solve the mystery will write the story of Foyle's death and earn great praise for their cleverness. If you would like to play your own game please PM GameMaster19 for the rules and instructions.

Dislaimer: SURPRISE! I own neither Miss Fisher nor Cluedo.

He'd fought with bayonets in the war and the cinch as the sword buried itself into the other man's chest was just the same. The sound rippled through him, chilling him to the bone; mixing with the metallic smell of the hot sticky blood pouring out over his hands until he could almost feel the mud of the battlefields under his feet. With the same, soul deep coldness which had so roughly perverted his gentle nature in those long war years he put a hand to the other man's chest and withdrew the blade, his opponent falling as he did so, never to rise again.

But this was no battlefield.

It was the ensuite bathroom in the iconic Melbourne mansion Clunes owned by Arthur Pasley. Son of a man who'd made his fortune on the gold fields of Ballarat from the blood and sweat of his fellow countrymen and Arthur, as though acting by birth right, had dealt out the same ruthless fate on the women in the death-trap factories which financed the his obsession with both gold and power. It was a shame the Eureaka Stockade had only wounded Pasley's father, it would have saved him considerable trouble.

With care he stepped around the body, skirting around the growing pool of blood on the iconic black and white tiles to reach the sink. Without haste he lent the sword against the wall and scrubbed his hands under the icy water, watching the copper rivets of blood swirl down the drain until the water ran clear once more. He took the low stool from below the sink, placing it as close as he could to the central light fitting without dipping it in blood, and standing on it he removed a length of fine wire from his pocket. He carefully secured it to the elaborate gold chandelier above the body before returning to the basin and the sword.

Without haste he wrapped the damp hand towel around the sword just below the hilt and carefully rinsed all trace of blood and fingerprints from it. He didn't bother to dry it before turning and remounting the stool using the hand not holding the sword to wrap the remaining wire tightly around the threaded hilt, suspending the golden sword above the body as though it was held there by divine intervention.

A message to the rich and ruthless who hid in gilded mansions while their workers toiled in hell: all the money in the world was no protection from Nemesis' divine retribution.

And with his darling Alice having been crushed by this man's greed, who better to wield that sword than Cecil Yates? A man whose spirit had not been destroyed by the devastation of war but whose soul had slipped away with the last breath his beloved had taken.