Dead Boarder

Stepping away from the corpse and black candles, Perry inspects the window. Dried blood spots cover the curtains and glass but the window itself is latched from the inside. No-one escaped through here. A small radiator sits beneath the window frame.

As the others have seen, Florence sees the deep fresh cut around the head, as if a knife traced a spiral from the crown to the neck. His clothes are blood-soaked and beneath the unbuttoned shirt, there are strange marks on his chest. The blood is now dry.

Across the back of his hands, legs and arms and across his chest are scar-marks, shapped like small spirals. They apoear to cover his whole body and some look older than others, as if done over a long period. The Face an head are free of these marks.

Florence also sees the knife in a pool of blood under the body.

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Lang moves round to the other side of the room to look at the bookshelf and notices a familiar book, a rare first edition of The Dreamer's Dictionary, under Sam's arm, who is also looking at the bookshelf.

The bookcase itself is finely carved and has glass fronted doors, either side of which are the busts of two flute-playing cherubs carved into the upright moldings that support the doors. There is a drawer at the bottom of the unit.

There are numerous books on finance and banking, a few travel books for obscure places and some occult books including:

Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E.M Berens
The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud,

The top shelf does not have enough books to fill it so a bookend has been used to keep the books upright. The bookend is a monstrous thing, looking like some human-like squid creature.

The wounds on the head and neck are deep and appear hastily made. Blood loss was severe and inevitably fatal once the neck was slashed.