“Are we really not going to talk about this?”

Detective Knox's gaze shifted to look at his partner, his head not wasting the energy required to face him. He was already beginning to regret telling his story, as Lane now wanted to talk about his feelings. Knox had long since put the ordeal behind him, as much as he could, and that was where he preferred it to stay. He could never forget what he had done, nor excuse it, but the scars dulled around the edges when he wasn't constantly being reminded of his mistake.

“I thought we just did?”

“You know what I mean. Are you going to put that out there and just walk away?”

“That was the idea.”

“Too bad. If you're trying to teach me a lesson, you have to explain it with a bit more clarity.”

Knox was not a natural teacher; he lacked the patience for the job. He had learned through attrition, by analyzing his experiences and siphoning out the important details. It didn't occur to him that he might be unique in that regard, that others lacked the ability to discern what was and was not important to know without being shown how. Human nature was frustrating to Knox, because human contact was unavoidable.

“Why can't you just figure it out for yourself? It'll do you more good that way.”

“That will just teach me the lesson I think I should learn from your story. It doesn't mean I'll learn the lesson you want me to.”

“Dammit, that actually makes sense.”

“I thought it might.”

Knox was not eager to relive the memory, not because of the feelings it would bring back to the surface, but because of the erosion of respect that was bound to come along with it. He could handle the backwash of guilt that would rise inside him, it was a degree of suffering he had grown to believe he deserved. What he could not accept as easily was the way people who knew his secret looked at him, how fellow sinners could pass judgment so easily. It struck him as absurd that, no matter the dark secrets others hid, he was condemned by all who knew.

“I told you that story so you might understand the importance of not getting ahead of yourself. It's easy to start believing something, and then forget that you might be wrong. We're all liable to bouts of hubris, and the best thing we can ever do is learn how to be critical of ourselves. If I had learned that at the time, maybe things would have turned out differently.”

“Why were you so sure you were right?”

“That's the question, isn't it? Honestly, I can't tell you why. Back then, I didn't think I could be wrong, so when I had a hunch, I ran with it.”

“I'm sure you had done it before.”

“Of course I had. And that just made it worse. Every time you take a risk and it pays off, you become goaded into taking more and more risks, until it eventually blows up in your face.”

“Which will always happen.”

“Absolutely. Luck doesn't run forever, and it's only a matter of time until you strike out. When that happens, you have to hope it's not at a critical time. I didn't get fortunate that way.”

“Basically, you're telling me that I need to challenge everything I assume, to make sure the foundation of my conclusions is solid.”

“Right. If you're wrong at the start, you're never going to get to the right finish.”

“So, with that in mind, what if we've been working with a wrong assumption on this case?”

“What are you thinking?”

“We've been assuming that no one could have been in the room to commit the murder, but what if there is a way to get in and out that we missed?”

“That's not a half-bad idea. Do you think we should go back again and see if we can figure something out?”

“If nothing else, it'll get your mind off the past.”

“Let's go.”

* * *

Puzzles have solutions, but they aren't always obvious, and can escape you if you don't know what it is you're looking for. Detective Knox realized the truth of the axiom as they stood at the scene once again. No matter how closely they had looked before, they could not catalog every detail. The information they acquired was filtered through the lens of what they already knew, meaning the needle in the haystack could be ignored if they weren't looking for one.

That there was no escape from the room was obvious, otherwise they would have already identified it upon their first inspection. They had assumed the locked doors and windows led to a single conclusion, but Lane was right to challenge this assumption. Plenty of antique buildings contained hidden secrets and passages, the sorts of tricks that made escape possible. Without a blueprint, finding those avenues, were they to exist, required patience, skill, and a degree of luck Knox was confident they did not possess.

Lane instructed his partner to lock him out of the room, in order to test his acumen and see if there was a method for breaching the locked door. Knox heard rustling and scraping on the other side of the oak blockade, but didn't expect the brass latch to move. A simple examination of the mechanism had told Knox everything he needed to know; that there was no method of moving it from outside the room without conjuring magic into reality. Lane made a valiant effort, considering every possibility.

Hearing a knock, Knox let his partner back in, confident they could now cross that point of contention off their list. Lane did not seem frustrated, but rather disappointed that he had not stumbled upon an elegant solution to their problem.

“There's no way anyone got through that door.”

“I agree, but I could have told you that before you wasted your energy trying to get through it.”

“We're here to challenge assumptions. You can't do that without a little experimental methodology.”

“Have it your way. If you want to fail, be my guest.”

The pair continued their search, scouring the walls for any clue that a hidden door lay waiting behind them. Lane plucked books from the shelves, hoping each one was the trigger to open a portal, while Knox ran his hands over the smooth surfaces, looking for a crease that could conceal a hinged escape. No inch of the room was left untouched, but they were unable to find anything they had missed in their earlier inspections.

Lane dropped to his knees, anxious to see if the answer had been under foot the whole time. A wooden floor could easily hide a false board that might cover a tunnel, and Knox watched as his partner scoured the floor for a sliver of wood out of place.

With a thought in mind, Knox left the room and went into the adjoining one. He paced out measurements, doing rudimentary architectural calculations in his head. Having satisfied himself, he walked outside, around the building, examining the walls that contained the scene from the prying eyes of the outside world. He was confident in what he could see, and returned to find Lane sitting on the floor, his head hung in despair.

“I can't find anything out of the ordinary. There's not a loose board in this floor, so there's no hidden trap door. We're stuck.”

“Yes we are. I looked around, and none of the walls surrounding us are deep enough to accommodate a hidden passage. There really was no way for anyone to have gotten in and out of here, other than the locked doors and windows.”

“Which no one could have done.”

“Exactly.”

“So we just wound up right back where we started.”

“Yes, but you were right about needing to challenge ourselves. It didn't work this time, but it will eventually.”

“You sound more confident than I do. How can that be?”

“Because you didn't hear the good news yet.”

“We got kicked off the case?”

“No. The tech guys have finished decrypting the drive we found. Let's go find out if there's anything useful on it.”

“There had better be.”

“Admit it, you had fun ripping this place apart.”

“Sure, but puzzle solving is only fun when you know there's an answer waiting for you. For all we know, we're trying to lasso the moon.”