“Alas, poor mouse!” Professor Montgomery held up the frozen rodent, its rigid form casting strange shadows in the lamplight. “What secrets dost thou keep?”

Detective Sarah Chen watched the eccentric professor with barely concealed impatience. The laboratory, with its gleaming equipment and shadowy corners, felt more like a stage set than a crime scene.

“Professor, please focus. The mouse was found next to Dr. Wilson’s body. Do you believe there’s a connection?”

Montgomery’s eyes sparkled with theatrical intensity. “My dear detective, everything in this mortal coil is connected! Notice how unnaturally stiff this creature is - frozen not by cold, but by something far more sinister.”

“A poison?” Sarah leaned forward, her professional detachment momentarily forgotten.

“Indeed! But what manner of poison freezes its victim so completely?” He gestured dramatically. “The same poison, perchance, that claimed our dear colleague?”

The laboratory door creaked open, revealing Dr. Elizabeth Hayes, her face pale in the dim light. “I couldn’t help but overhear. James - Dr. Wilson - he was researching a new neurotoxin. Something that caused immediate muscle rigidity.”

“Aha!” Montgomery exclaimed. “The plot, like the mouse, thickens!”

Sarah turned to Dr. Hayes. “And where were you when Dr. Wilson died?”

“I…” Hayes faltered. “I was in my office, reviewing his research notes. He’d been acting strangely, paranoid. He thought someone was trying to steal his work.”

“Or perhaps,” Montgomery interjected, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper, “someone already had?”

The lights suddenly flickered, casting eerie shadows across the walls. Sarah noticed Hayes’s hands trembling.

“Those notes,” Sarah pressed. “May I see them?”

“They’re gone,” Hayes whispered. “Stolen, just like James feared. But the mouse…” She pointed at the rigid creature. “That’s not from his experiments. That mouse belongs to me.”

Montgomery’s eyebrows arched dramatically. “Plot twist! Our lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

“It was an accident,” Hayes continued, her composure cracking. “James discovered I’d replicated his formula. He threatened to expose me. The mouse was my test subject, but James… James touched it before the toxin had fully dried.”

Sarah stepped forward, handcuffs ready. “Dr. Elizabeth Hayes, you’re under arrest for the murder of Dr. James Wilson.”

As Sarah led Hayes away, Montgomery picked up the frozen mouse again. “A tragedy worthy of the Bard himself! But wait…” His expression changed. “Detective, this mouse… it’s moving!”

Sarah turned back sharply, but the laboratory had plunged into darkness. When the lights returned seconds later, both Montgomery and the mouse had vanished, leaving only a cryptic note:

“All the laboratory’s a stage, And all the scientists merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one mouse in its time plays many parts…”

The case of the frozen mouse remains unsolved to this day, leaving behind more questions than answers. Was Hayes truly the murderer? What became of Montgomery and the mysteriously reanimated mouse? In this theatrical game of cat and mouse, perhaps some players are still waiting in the wings…