Clockmaker's Final Hour

Old Mr. Fenton had been the town’s clockmaker for decades, known for his impeccable precision and obsession with timepieces. One morning, his apprentice found him slumped in his chair, surrounded by hundreds of ticking clocks, each frozen at a different hour. On the floor lay a shattered hourglass and a small vial of liquid tipped over near his hand. No windows were open, the door was locked from the inside, and the workshop was perfectly neat aside from the hourglass. A note on the workbench read: “Every second counts.” The coroner immediately knew what had ended the old man’s life.