From Divination: A Conspiracy of Blood:
“Dee was almost vibrating with excitement.
The innkeeper knocked again, even louder this time. “Master Kopernik?”
“I’m not sure his hearing is great. He is somewhat old, you know,” explained Dee, reaching forward to try the handle.
The innkeeper slapped away Dee’s hand and opened the door himself, swinging it wide on silent hinges. “Forgive the intrusion, sir,” he began.
The words died on his lips as he gazed at the scene of disarray before him. Not the casual disorder of an untidy guest, but the chaos of a ransacked room. Papers were strewn on the floor, a chair lay overturned, a travelling chest gaped open with garments spilling out in confusion. And there, sprawled half on and half off the narrow bed, lay MikoĊaj Kopernik himself.
Dee pushed past the immobile innkeeper and rushed to Kopernik’s side, lifting a cool, limp hand, then feeling for a pulse at his neck where it lay exposed from a half-wrenched off ruff.
The old man’s face was frozen in an expression of surprise, his lips slightly parted and his blue eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. The hand that Dee had raised had been flung out across the rumpled bedclothes, the sleeve pulled back revealing a thin wrist. A dark splash of dried ink stood out against the pale white skin.
Kopernik had been dead for hours.
Dee turned back to the innkeeper. “You’re first finder,” he said, partly as an automatic attempt to avoid bureaucracy whenever he could.
“Aye, aye. I’ll fetch the parish constable,” he said recoiling backwards from the body.
“No, wait,” called Dee. “Was Trinity College paying for his room?” The man nodded. “I thought so. Then you’d better alert the Master of the college and let him take it from there.”
The man nodded dumbly and shuffled away in a daze.
Dee’s analytical mind clicked into action, and he surveyed the room.
The disarray of the room suggests it has been searched, and thoroughly. Yet there are no visible wounds on the body. Perhaps he died naturally? But surely not; where is his calculating device? He definitely had it on him after the lecture – in that leather case about his neck.
He quickly checked the papers on the floor.
And his forecast, charts and leather-bound journal…none of them are here.
With growing alarm Dee realised what this might mean. The old man had muttered cryptic warnings about bringing danger to one’s door. Had he been killed for what he knew? Or for what the stars might reveal?”