  
 
The idea behind ClubFloyd is that each week at a pre-arranged time, a group of people meet online to cooperatively play a game of interactive fiction. Below is a transcript of An Act of Murder by Hugh Dunnett, a fictional character created by Christopher Huang. An Act of Murder was originally released as part of the 2007 IF Competition, where it took second place. You can learn more about the game, including how to download it, by visiting Baf's Guide. A Special Note: Unfortunately, the day we played An Act of Murder, we were having some trouble with Floyd, and he crashed three times. This is an issue with Floyd, not the game. I have included links which allow you to skip over any redundant commands we had to enter (sometimes quite a few) to catch up to where we were in the game prior to the crash. WARNING! Below you will find a transcript of people playing this game, and it goes without saying that the transcript is full of spoilers. So, if you've never played it, and think you might like to at some point, I do not recommend reading any further. Instead, you might want to return to the interactive fiction page. |
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| Jacqueline says, "Oh no! It's noon!" | ||||
| Toyshop and Floyditorium | ||||
| Bulging toychests make this a child's (or child-at-heart's) dream. Play all day, play all night. A small booth has been erected and is staffed by a friendly robot. The sign over it says, "INFOKOM GAMEZ 5 cents". A small notice on the door reads, "PLEASE RETURN TOYS TO THIS ROOM WHEN YOU'RE DONE WITH THEM." | ||||
| You can see: green button, banana machine, faucets, toy catalogue, a crystal ball, cuddly walrus, clicker, cloak, tic-tac-toe, thermometer, yellow button, waldo whisper object, checkers board, Werewolf rules, bunny burger, grape, specimen jar, signaling device, Mike Tyson, IF Programmer Barbie, IF FLOYD'S DOWN, TELL JOTA -- OR ELSE HE WON'T KNOW, Gak, Autohugger, Photocopier, basketball, midterm monster, frobozz magic dispenser, fun shiny toy, madlibs, orange, soda reading 'Don't drink me!', jukebox, Gene Ray, FREE DONUTS machine, storyharp, long-stemmed red rose, dfan's quest, miniature ifMUD, Pun Police Whistle, orange door, a pair of dice, monkey guru, cork nut, cork nut, cork nut, cork nut, jellybean, mind chess, a zorkmid, the 'foobar' cube, apple | ||||
| Players: Waldo, Floyd | ||||
| Visible Exits: northeast (to the Lounge) | ||||
| Bert arrives, ready to play with the toys. | ||||
| baf arrives, full of neither funk nor fun. | ||||
| maga arrives, full of neither funk nor fun. | Jacqueline says, "Sorry, folks, lost track of time. Was making coffee to prepare..." | |||
| Bert asks, "Hmm. Does Jacqueline have enough fun and funk to share?" | ||||
| Jacqueline searches for the file name in the very long list... | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Bert), "Always." | ||||
| Bert asks, "'actofmurder'?" | ||||
| Bert says, "It is, conveniently, filed under A." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Bert), "Thanks." | Jacqueline asks, "We ready?" | |||
| Bert says, "Any time." | Bert asks, "No others?" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "Okay, so discussing is here, game play in the Toyshop. Let's begin..." | ||||
| Bert is just spectating, since A) he's played and B) he'll be idling shortly. | ||||
| schep arrives, full of funk, but no fun. | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "load actofmurder" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | AN ACT OF MURDER Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | An Investigation Floyd | by Floyd | Hugh Dunnett Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Please press SPACE to continue. | ||||
| Jacqueline pushes the green 'space' button. | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | FOREWORD Floyd | Floyd | The following story is set up with a great deal of randomisation, and Floyd | is different each time you start or restart. It would therefore be Floyd | highly advisable to save the game before you even begin your Floyd | investigation. Floyd | Floyd | The story uses the basic "ask X about Y" format of speaking to other Floyd | characters. For the most part, "tell X about Y" will be unimportant: Floyd | it is generally (though not always!) assumed that your questions about Floyd | something will include asking about any new discoveries you have made Floyd | elsewhere about the topic. The main exception to this rule is when Floyd | laying out your case before Chief Inspector Duffy: in that event, you Floyd | will have to depend exclusively on "tell..." instead. Floyd | Floyd | Time in the story proceeds at 15 seconds a turn, allowing you ample Floyd | time (one hopes) to complete your investigation. However, there is in Floyd | fact a time limit: Chief Inspector Duffy will arrive to speak to you at Floyd | 2:00 am; and, whatever time he arrives, he will eventually lose Floyd | patience if you don't manage to make an arrest within a certain time of Floyd | his arrival. Floyd | Floyd | And that's all that's new. Good luck, Inspector! Your public awaits! Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Please press SPACE to continue. | schep says, "yay Hugh Dunnit" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "heehee. That's both a good and bad pun, imo." | ||||
| Bert asks, "Is this one that will have a single interactor, or will it be a free-for-all?" | ||||
| Bert asks (of Jacq), "A good bad pun?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Hm." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "One interactor might be best this go, yes." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Who wants to do it? Not me, as I've played it." | ||||
| schep says, "Let's SAVE first, like it suggests" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Yes, I would save after you press space" | ||||
| schep says, "After pressing space again, I guess." | ||||
| Jacqueline pushes the green 'space' button. | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | "Frederic Sheppard." Chief Inspector Duffy pulls at his moustache Floyd | mournfully and stares up at the house through the windshield. Floyd | "Theatrical sort, usually has a finger in some play or other. He bought Floyd | up Gull Point about ten years ago. Never any complaints from the Floyd | neighbours, never any scandals." He pulls at his moustache again. "He Floyd | was found dead in the cove at the foot of the cliff behind the house Floyd | about half an hour ago. Caller said it looked as though he fell from Floyd | his study window." Floyd | Floyd | "Think he might have jumped?" Floyd | Floyd | "She's your investigation: you tell me. We're treating this as a murder Floyd | unless you can find anything to prove otherwise." Floyd | Floyd | You nod. As you get out of the car, the Chief Inspector yawns and says, Floyd | "All right. I'm heading back to HQ. I'll be back in a couple of hours. Floyd | The investigation's all yours. And if at any time you think you're Floyd | ready to make an arrest, give me a call first, got it?" Floyd | Floyd | "Got it." Floyd | Floyd | What a wonderful way to spend the night. As Chief Inspector Duffy Floyd | drives off into the darkness, you check your watch to see just how late Floyd | it really is -- only to find that your watch has stopped. Floyd | Floyd | An Act of Murder Floyd | An Investigation by Hugh Dunnett Floyd | Release 1 / Serial number 070927 / Inform 7 build 4U65 (I6/v6.31 lib Floyd | 6/11N) Floyd | Floyd | Front Drive Floyd | You are standing on the front drive of Gull Point, residence of noted Floyd | theatrical patron Frederic Sheppard. The house, a rambling old place, Floyd | stands to the south. Floyd | Floyd | Beside the front doors, the large doorbell button gleams amber in the Floyd | moonlight. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a red Triumph Roadster, a blue Austin and a green Floyd | Morris Saloon here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline asks, "There you go. Who's the interactor? Baf?" | |||
| Alex says (to Jacqueline), "Awwwk! Word on the street is that baf is baf's guide, which is baf's guide to the if-archive, which is a database of descriptions and reviews for virtually all the games on the archive, located at http://www.wurb.com/if/." | ||||
| baf says (to Floyd), "l" | ||||
Floyd | Front Drive Floyd | You are standing on the front drive of Gull Point, residence of noted Floyd | theatrical patron Frederic Sheppard. The house, a rambling old place, Floyd | stands to the south. Floyd | Floyd | Beside the front doors, the large doorbell button gleams amber in the Floyd | moonlight. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a red Triumph Roadster, a blue Austin and a green Floyd | Morris Saloon here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| baf says (to Floyd), "ring doorbell" | ||||
Floyd | You ring the doorbell. Somewhere deep in the recesses of the house, Floyd | pleasant chimes announce your arrival. A moment later, the front door Floyd | swings open. Floyd | Floyd | The woman who appears in the doorway appears to be about 30, quite Floyd | attractive, with steel-frame glasses. Her manner is cool and aloof; if Floyd | she is at all disturbed by the current situation, she's hiding it well. Floyd | She looks you up and down through clear blue eyes before speaking. Floyd | "Good evening. I take it you must be from the police?" Floyd | Floyd | She's clearly expecting an answer, yes or no: > | Jacqueline says, "Everyone else can make suggestions for baf to type here on the channel..." | |||
| baf says (to Floyd), "no" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | She raises an eyebrow. "No? What do you want, then?" Faced with a Floyd | distinct lack of anything else to say, you admit that you are, after Floyd | all, the police. The woman draws her lips into a tight line and says, Floyd | "This is hardly the time to be playing the fool, Inspector. Now please, Floyd | come in." Floyd | Floyd | Entrance Foyer Floyd | Theatrical bills on the walls give this otherwise sterile entry hall Floyd | the appearance of a theatrical lobby. The front doors are to the north, Floyd | and the central hall is to the south. The cloak room is to the east. Floyd | Floyd | "My name is Deborah Wolf, by the way. Frederic Sheppard was my uncle. Floyd | My husband and I just arrived today to spend the weekend...." She Floyd | shakes her head. "I'm sorry. It has all been a terrible shock. Please, Floyd | come this way." Floyd | Floyd | She takes a few steps towards the south and pauses, waiting for you. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| baf says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | As she walks with you, Deborah Wolf says, "I should explain that my Floyd | husband is Alexander Wolf, the playwright. He's working on a new stage Floyd | musical called Twisty Passages, with a friend, Elinor Lamb. They were Floyd | going to spend the weekend here, working on it together." Floyd | Floyd | Just as you pass under the arch into the central hall, the grandfather Floyd | clock by the stairs chimes the midnight hour in doleful tones. Floyd | Wonderful. Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is here, watching you attentively. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | As you set your watch and wind it up, a tall, slender young man emerges Floyd | from the drawing room to the east. "Ah," he drawls, "the illustrious Floyd | representative of the Law. How perfectly delightful." He looks down at Floyd | you with a vaguely supercilious manner. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf makes the introductions. "Inspector, this is Mr Benedict Floyd | Lamb, Elinor Lamb's brother. As I mentioned, Miss Lamb is collaborating Floyd | with my husband on a stage musical; and Benedict here is acting Floyd | chaperone." Floyd | Floyd | "Never trust a Wolf alone with a Lamb, I always say." Floyd | Floyd | > | baf asks, "Is there anyone here who hasn't played it before?" | |||
| schep says, "I" | ||||
| maga shuffles about and looks at his feet | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to maga), "You beta tested. Hush." | ||||
| baf says, "Maybe schep should drive." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I've played, but of course, it's a different murderer every time." | ||||
| Jacqueline asks (of schep), "Want the wheel?" | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask deborah about window" | ||||
Floyd | Benedict Lamb interrupts you, saying, a little sharply, "I think we can Floyd | leave my sister out of any of this, Inspector. She's in a wheelchair; Floyd | her health is practically non-existant. She's quite incapable of any Floyd | acts of violence. Would you agree?" Floyd | Floyd | Benedict Lamb folds his arms, waiting for your reply. > | Jacqueline says, "I hate when he puts us on the spot." | |||
| schep asks, "is it just me, or did the game not mention the wheelchair until now?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to schep), "Yeah, we haven't even seen her... this is where we're introduced to the fact that Lamb's sister is in a wheelchair." | ||||
| baf says, "Looks like it." | ||||
| baf says (to Floyd), "x deborah" | ||||
Floyd | Please answer yes or no.> | Jacqueline says, "It's not Deborah, it's someone else that's in a wheelchair." | |||
| schep says, "oh, he's off the topic entirely." | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "no" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Benedict Lamb's grey eyes flash angrily, but Deborah Wolf quickly says, Floyd | "The Inspector hasn't even seen the -- the body yet. You can't honestly Floyd | expect him to make that sort of a judgement without evidence!" Floyd | Floyd | Benedict merely sneers. Deborah Wolf rolls her eyes and says, "Where is Floyd | Elinor, Ben?" Floyd | Floyd | "She's in the conservatory, of course." Benedict jerks his head to the Floyd | northwest arch, through which you can see the dining room. "I told her Floyd | she should go to bed and get some rest, but she insists on staying up Floyd | for the investigation." He looks in your direction. "Any time you want Floyd | to speak with her, Inspector, be my guest. Though I assure you it won't Floyd | be necessary." Floyd | Floyd | Benedict turns on his heel and strides back into the drawing room. Floyd | Deborah heads towards the door to south. "Shall we continue, Floyd | Inspector?" Floyd | Floyd | > | Fang asks, "What's the game?" | |||
| Alex says (to Fang), "Awwwk! Word on the street is that Hangman is a game." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Alex), "Hush." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Fang), "An Act of Murder." | ||||
| Alex exclaims (at Jacqueline), "Awwwk! Just trying to help!" | ||||
| Jacqueline shakes her head at the parrot. | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "yes" | ||||
Floyd | Deborah lowers her voice and says, "Ben's very protective of his Floyd | sister, which is sweet but perhaps a little obsessive, in my opinion. Floyd | Elinor may be wheelchair-bound, but she is nowhere near as delicate as Floyd | he seems to think." Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is here, watching you attentively. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | A short, red-headed young man is bent over a leather briefcase as you Floyd | enter the Library. He looks up, startled, as you come in, and hurriedly Floyd | shuts the briefcase. Then he's all smiles and cheerful camaraderie as Floyd | he tosses his briefcase into a corner and comes forward to shake your Floyd | hand. Floyd | Floyd | "Inspector," says Deborah, "I'd like you to meet Mr Cedric Crane, my Floyd | uncle's former accountant. He was the one -- along with Mr Lamb -- who Floyd | discovered the crime and raised the alarm." Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane pumps your arm with all the excessive energy of a Floyd | campaigning politician. Close up, you realise that he must actually be Floyd | quite a bit older than he appeared at first glance. "A pleasure to make Floyd | your acquaintance," he says expansively, beaming from ear to ear. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Fang arrives, full of neither funk nor fun. | baf says, "High text/command ratio in this one." | |||
| schep says, "really" | ||||
| schep says, "perhaps it settles down after we've met the characters" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "It does." | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about briefcase" | ||||
Floyd | Cedric Crane doesn't seem to have much to say about the leather Floyd | briefcase. Floyd | Floyd | There is a short burst of music from the west. Cedric Crane says, "We Floyd | left Mr Sheppard's wireless on. Since it was part of the crime scene, Floyd | we didn't want to disturb it." Floyd | Floyd | "You'd best take the Inspector to the body," says Deborah to Cedric, Floyd | "since you were the one who found him, after all." Floyd | Floyd | Cedric does not look too happy at this, but turns towards the Floyd | southeastern exit. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "get briefcase" | ||||
Floyd | "Inspector, that briefcase is private." Cedric smiles, but it doesn't Floyd | quite reach his eyes. Floyd | Floyd | The door to the east suddenly crashes open, revealing a Floyd | broad-shouldered, truculent-looking man holding a billiard cue. He Floyd | glares at you. Floyd | Floyd | "This is Alexander Wolf," says Deborah, "my husband." Alexander makes a Floyd | brief sweeping gesture by way of greeting, and growls, "let's get this Floyd | over with as quickly as possible, eh?" Floyd | Floyd | "Alex, you've been drinking." Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane whispers to you, "We'd best head on out, Inspector." He Floyd | quietly exits the room to the southeast. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Taleslinger arrives, full of fun and funk. | ||||
| Marvin arrives, full of fun, but no funk. | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "follow cedric" | ||||
Floyd | That's not a verb I recognise. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "wah" | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | East Terrace Floyd | The wide, stone-paved terrace overlooks the sea here to the west and Floyd | south, and stairs lead down towards the beach. French doors go north to Floyd | the billiard room and northwest to the library. The terrace itself Floyd | continues to the west, around the corner of the library. Floyd | Floyd | You can see Cedric Crane here. Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane nods to you. "Right then. You've met the Wolfs, of course; Floyd | have you met the Lambs? Benedict and Elinor? The five of us would be Floyd | the only people in the house at the moment, other than yourself. Floyd | Anyway, it seems plain that Mr Sheppard must have been killed in his Floyd | study," he says, pointing to a part of the house just west of the Floyd | library, "but Mr Lamb and I found him among the rocks down by the Floyd | beach. Come on, I'll show you." Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane turns and descends the stairs to the cliffside path below. Floyd | Floyd | From the direction of Library, you hear Alexander Wolf's raised voice, Floyd | and then the slamming of a door. Floyd | Floyd | > | Taleslinger asks, "sorry, what are you playing?" | |||
| olethros arrives, full of fun, but no funk. | * Marvin has joined the channel. | |||
| baf says, "An Act of Murder" | ||||
| olethros says, "I have come to state that my presentation remains incomplete." | ||||
| Gunther votes to lynch baf. | ||||
| olethros says, "nevertheless.." | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "d" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Rocky Cliffside Path Floyd | On one side is the steep cliff, punctuated with scrubby bushes clinging Floyd | to crevices in the rock face; on the other side, you are completely Floyd | exposed to the wide expanse of the sea. Stairs go up to the terrace of Floyd | Gull Point, not quite visible from here, and the path itself winds down Floyd | to the rocky beach below. Floyd | Floyd | You can see Cedric Crane here. Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane goes down. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "d" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Beach Floyd | It is a quiet, moonlit night. The waters of the lagoon lap gently Floyd | against the sand. Treacherous-looking rocks surround the beach, but a Floyd | narrow path back up to the house has been cut into the cliff face Floyd | behind you, and the rocks to the northwest look just safe enough to Floyd | clamber over. Floyd | Floyd | You can see Cedric Crane here. Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane looks around at you and points off to the northwest. Floyd | "There's a small tide pool out that way. That's where Mr Lamb and I Floyd | found the body. I think it must have been a bit after 11:00 pm -- Floyd | probably about 11:10 pm -- we're not surrounded by clocks out here as Floyd | we are up in the house. We did take a closer look, of course, to make Floyd | sure we weren't just making a horrible mistake, but otherwise we didn't Floyd | touch anything." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "thank cedric" | ||||
Floyd | [thank -> think] Floyd | I only understood you as far as wanting to think. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "think about strawberries and punting" | ||||
Floyd | [punting -> hunting] Floyd | I only understood you as far as wanting to think. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "nw" | ||||
Floyd | As you begin picking your way through the rocks, Cedric Crane turns and Floyd | heads back up to the house. Floyd | Floyd | Rocks Floyd | If the beach was isolated, this rocky area is even more so. Seawater Floyd | filters in through the rocks all around to fill this little tide pool, Floyd | currently at a low ebb. On one side, the cliff rises sharply up, and Floyd | from here you can just make out the broken window of Frederic Floyd | Sheppard's study. The least treacherous path through the rocks goes Floyd | southeast, back to the beach. Floyd | Floyd | A sturdy wooden post stands upright in the water, just a short distance Floyd | from the body. Floyd | Floyd | Frederic Sheppard is sprawled across the rocks, clearly dead. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Taleslinger has had his fill of playing for now, and goes back to the Lounge. | ||||
| olethros arrives, full of neither funk nor fun. | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x body" | ||||
Floyd | In life, Frederic Sheppard was a big man, still quite robust at the age Floyd | of 60. Right now, he's looking quite battered from the precipitous drop Floyd | from his study window; it is not immediately apparent if it was the Floyd | fall which killed him, or something else. He is also quite thoroughly Floyd | soaked, though he's mostly clear of the water. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Taleslinger arrives, full of fun, but no funk. | ||||
| New default channel: if/clubfloyd | Jacqueline says, "Sorry, stepped away for a second. Shame about >FOLLOW CEDRIC. I wish more games implemented 'follow.'" | |||
| schep says, "it's tricky, of course, but generally worth it when NPCs move around." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "mmhmm" | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "search body" | ||||
Floyd | What's this? There's a bit of a broken branch clutched in his hand. He Floyd | must have pulled it off of one of the scrubby little bushes in the Floyd | cliffside, on his way down. Floyd | Floyd | Further examination of the body reveals a a number of injuries Floyd | consistent with either a sharp blow with a blunt object, or an Floyd | unfortunate encounter with the side of a cliff. You're not quite enough Floyd | of a forensics expert to distinguish between the two. Floyd | Floyd | > | Taleslinger says, "follow lemming" | |||
| baf exclaims, "A clue!" | ||||
| schep exclaims, "Write it in your handy-dandy Notebook!" | ||||
| baf says, "Ooh, look at the notebook." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "It should do that automagically." | ||||
| schep says, "(Blue's Clues joke. If you didn't get it, be glad.)" | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "get branch" | ||||
Floyd | You already have that. Floyd | Floyd | > | Bert says (to schep), "Yay" | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x window" | ||||
Floyd | You can't make out any details from here. Floyd | Floyd | > | Bert says, "(I am being glad, prt recommendation.)" | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x post" | ||||
Floyd | A bold, white line near the top of the post indicates the high water Floyd | mark. It seems pretty accurate: the wood still seems wet from the last Floyd | high tide, right up to the mark itself. Floyd | Floyd | > | Taleslinger asks, "Is shep our assigned player?" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "Yes" | ||||
| schep says, "yeah, it seems like a timed game, so we don't want too many frivolous commands. But please give suggestions and requests." | ||||
| Taleslinger says, "Okay." | ||||
| Bert says, "The time limit isn't an especially stringent one." | ||||
| schep says, "that's good" | ||||
| schep asks, "anything else here, or back to look at the study / talk to people?" | ||||
| Jacqueline keeps quiet. | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x cliff" | ||||
Floyd | By the light of the moon, you can make out a few stunted, twisted Floyd | bushes clinging desperately to the rocks of the cliff. Floyd | Floyd | > | Gunther says, "gasp! then YOU are the werewolf" | |||
| schep votes to gag Gunther. | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "heehee" | ||||
| Taleslinger asks, "Wouldn't a werebear be more likely in Jacq's case?" | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Beach Floyd | It is a quiet, moonlit night. The waters of the lagoon lap gently Floyd | against the sand. Treacherous-looking rocks surround the beach, but a Floyd | narrow path back up to the house has been cut into the cliff face Floyd | behind you, and the rocks to the northwest look just safe enough to Floyd | clamber over. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "u" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Rocky Cliffside Path Floyd | On one side is the steep cliff, punctuated with scrubby bushes clinging Floyd | to crevices in the rock face; on the other side, you are completely Floyd | exposed to the wide expanse of the sea. Stairs go up to the terrace of Floyd | Gull Point, not quite visible from here, and the path itself winds down Floyd | to the rocky beach below. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "u" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | East Terrace Floyd | The wide, stone-paved terrace overlooks the sea here to the west and Floyd | south, and stairs lead down towards the beach. French doors go north to Floyd | the billiard room and northwest to the library. The terrace itself Floyd | continues to the west, around the corner of the library. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "Hmm, a way around the outside of the house above the cliff." | |||
| Jacqueline says, "Yeah, it's quite useful, I think." | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | West Terrace Floyd | This section of the terrace is essentially a five-foot-wide walkway Floyd | connecting the study to the north with the main part of the terrace, to Floyd | the east. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | You can't go that way. Floyd | Floyd | There is a sudden swell of dramatic music. It seems to be coming from Floyd | the study. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "If you want a map, I can link to one." | |||
| Jacqueline | http://www.allthingsjacq.com/images/act-of-murder-map.jpg | ||||
| schep says, "ah, but not the outside of the window in question" | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Study Floyd | This is Frederic Sheppard's study, a neat, spacious, modern room Floyd | decorated with old theatrical bills. The library is through a door to Floyd | the east, and french doors open south to the terrace. Cold, damp air Floyd | flows in through the broken window to the west. Floyd | Floyd | The well-ordered study desk stands to one side of the broken window. Floyd | On the study desk are a Faberge egg clock, a black telephone, a scrap Floyd | of paper and an annotated ledger. Floyd | Floyd | A corner fireplace occupies, well, a corner. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a wireless, an antique fireplace poker and a hunting Floyd | rifle here. Floyd | Floyd | There is a sudden commotion: you hear raised voices and the sound of Floyd | breaking glass from the wireless. Floyd | Floyd | > | Taleslinger says, "Scrap of paper, imho." | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x scrap of paper" | ||||
Floyd | Odd that this scrap of paper would be found sitting on Frederic Floyd | Sheppard's pristine study desk, but perhaps he never got around to Floyd | clearing it away. A telephone number has been hastily scrawled across Floyd | it. Floyd | Floyd | From the wireless comes the soft hiss of static and the dramatic Floyd | tension of a late-night radio show. Floyd | Floyd | > | Taleslinger says, "Schep, use telephone" | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "call number" | ||||
Floyd | You're not messing with the dead man's telephone any more than you can Floyd | help. A fancy country house like this ought to have another telephone Floyd | that you can use, probably out in the hall. Floyd | Floyd | You hear a muffled explosion from the wireless. It's rather convincing, Floyd | but in fact it is merely part of tonight's radio show. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "get scrap of paper" | ||||
Floyd | Taken. Floyd | Floyd | From the wireless comes the soft hiss of static and the dramatic Floyd | tension of a late-night radio show. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x poker" | ||||
Floyd | This poker hails from a time when fireplaces were the sole source of Floyd | household heating, and, as such, were much larger and required pokers Floyd | nearly the size of pool cues to reach properly into their recesses. Floyd | Well, perhaps that's an exaggeration, but you certainly wouldn't want Floyd | to be poked by this particular poker. Floyd | Floyd | From the wireless comes the soft hiss of static and the dramatic Floyd | tension of a late-night radio show. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "fingerprint poker" | ||||
Floyd | The forensics crew will be taking everybody's fingerprints in the Floyd | morning, if you can't determine a Most Likely Suspect before then; Floyd | frankly, the Chief Inspector would really prefer to spare everyone the Floyd | inky fingers. So right now, the only useful set of prints you're likely Floyd | to have are Frederic Sheppard's ... and this being his home, they're on Floyd | absolutely everything. Floyd | Floyd | From the wireless comes the soft hiss of static and the dramatic Floyd | tension of a late-night radio show. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x desk" | ||||
Floyd | Frederic Sheppard's desk is spacious and tidy, with everything easily Floyd | visible and within reach. A pair of drawers are stacked one atop the Floyd | other on one side of the desk. Floyd | Floyd | From the wireless comes the soft hiss of static and the dramatic Floyd | tension of a late-night radio show. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Nice... at least there's a response." | |||
| Jacqueline says, "(To >FINGERPRINT, I mean.)" | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "search fireplace" | ||||
Floyd | Which do you mean, the corner fireplace or the antique fireplace poker? Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "corner" | ||||
Floyd | You find nothing of interest. Floyd | Floyd | From the wireless comes the soft hiss of static and the dramatic Floyd | tension of a late-night radio show. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "turn off wireless" | ||||
Floyd | And not a moment too soon. That thing was as annoying as all hell. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "l" | ||||
Floyd | Study Floyd | This is Frederic Sheppard's study, a neat, spacious, modern room Floyd | decorated with old theatrical bills. The library is through a door to Floyd | the east, and french doors open south to the terrace. Cold, damp air Floyd | flows in through the broken window to the west. Floyd | Floyd | The well-ordered study desk stands to one side of the broken window. Floyd | On the study desk are a Faberge egg clock, a black telephone and an Floyd | annotated ledger. Floyd | Floyd | A corner fireplace occupies, well, a corner. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a wireless, an antique fireplace poker and a hunting Floyd | rifle here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x window" | ||||
Floyd | It doesn't look as though it was ever particularly sturdy; positioned Floyd | as it is over a steep drop into the sea, it probably never needed to Floyd | be. The casement opens outwards; the panes are cracked but otherwise Floyd | intact. The latch, a rather flimsy affair, is twisted half off the Floyd | frame. The sill is quite high off the floor: it seems highly unlikely Floyd | that anyone might have fallen through it by accident. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "l through window" | ||||
Floyd | You find nothing of interest. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x bushes" | ||||
Floyd | By the light of the moon, you can make out a few stunted, twisted Floyd | bushes clinging desperately to the rocks of the cliff. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x ledger" | ||||
Floyd | This ledger details the investments and various business dealings of Floyd | Frederic Sheppard and the Sheppard Trust. While the numbers seem to Floyd | indicate a perfectly healthy state of affairs, someone has gone through Floyd | this ledger with a red pen, making annotations in the margin, and Floyd | pointing out subtle discrepancies. While he is far from ruined, Floyd | Frederic Sheppard is clearly not quite as well-off as everyone seems to Floyd | think, nor is the Sheppard Trust quite so healthy. The annotations Floyd | culminate in a note to "Please speak to Cedric" written across the Floyd | final page and underlined twice. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "dun dun DUHHNN" | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x clock" | ||||
Floyd | An ostentatious antique: a clock in the shape of a gold easter egg, Floyd | with all manner of baroque designs picked out over its surface. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x rifle" | ||||
Floyd | It's fancy enough to be purely decorative, but it is after all a Floyd | working firearm. A careful inspection shows it to be loaded. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says (to schep), "heehee" | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "open drawer" | ||||
Floyd | Which do you mean, the upper drawer or the lower drawer? Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "upper" | ||||
Floyd | You open the upper drawer. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "search upper drawer" | ||||
Floyd | The upper drawer is empty. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "close upper drawer" | ||||
Floyd | You close the upper drawer. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "open lower drawer" | ||||
Floyd | You open the lower drawer, revealing a pistol. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x pistol" | ||||
Floyd | This little pistol is so small, it might easily be mistaken for a toy. Floyd | It is, however, quite the real thing. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "He seemed to be a bit paranoid already..." | |||
| schep says, "anything else here? We can go find a different phone and find out what the number is." | ||||
| Taleslinger says, "Better take the pistol." | ||||
| Taleslinger says, "Just to be on the safe side." | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "take pistol" | ||||
Floyd | Taken. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "Not sure this is that sort of story, but sure." | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | Bert asks (of schep), "What are you, un-American?" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "heh" | ||||
| schep asks, "oh, probably. why?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Because you're obviously anti-gun!" | ||||
| (from Jacqueline) Schep says, "You'll pry this tiny toy pistol from my cold dead hands!" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Except it's not a toy, but whatever." | ||||
| Taleslinger sings: "Don't even bring their guns to the ma-hahaha-hal... | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x tide table" | ||||
Floyd | Your eye goes straight for the present date. It seems the last high Floyd | tide was 8:40 pm yesterday (or, if you prefer, 8:40 pm earlier Floyd | tonight). Low tide is at 3:05 am and the following high tide at 9:30 Floyd | am. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep asks, "I'm a bit confused on the timeline. This means the tide has been receding since the murder evidently happened?" | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "time" | ||||
Floyd | That's not a verb I recognise. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x clock" | ||||
Floyd | Its face appears to be formed from a collection of shattered gramophone Floyd | records. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "read clock" | ||||
Floyd | Its face appears to be formed from a collection of shattered gramophone Floyd | records. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Well, we know the body is wet." | |||
| schep says, "yes" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I'll be quiet, since I've played..." | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "i" | ||||
Floyd | You are carrying: Floyd | a pistol Floyd | a scrap of paper Floyd | a broken branch Floyd | your notebook Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "read notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Flipping through your admittedly untidy shorthand, you pick up the Floyd | following points: Floyd | broken branch Floyd | broken window Floyd | annotated ledger Floyd | tide table Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "You can then read individual notes, too." | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "call number" | ||||
Floyd | You find yourself on the line with Frederic Sheppard's bank manager, Floyd | who does not seem particularly happy about being called up at this time Floyd | of the night, especially once you inform him of the circumstances. Floyd | "Yes, I spoke to Mr Sheppard this evening. He called ... must have been Floyd | about 8:20 pm, maybe a little after. I was listening to the wireless at Floyd | the time. Mr Sheppard's been very anxious of late about his financial Floyd | affairs, and I should never have given him my home phone number. Fat Floyd | lot of good I could do him without my files, anyway. Mr Crane could Floyd | probably tell you more." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask manager about finances" | ||||
Floyd | You can't see any such thing. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "I think that's all we get. Just the cut-scene of the call." | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "read tide table" | ||||
Floyd | What do you want to read the tide table in? Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Tides: 8:40 pm (high) Floyd | 3:05 am (low) Floyd | 9:30 am (high again) Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "hey, he left that briefcase behind, didn't he." | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "open briefcase" | ||||
Floyd | The briefcase is locked tight. Apparently a healthy amount of expense Floyd | was put into ensuring its security. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask deborah about cedric" | ||||
Floyd | Deborah Wolf purses her lips before saying: "Not an honest man, I'm Floyd | afraid. Vain, and a little too much in love with his own cleverness. Floyd | Uncle Fred never recognised any of this, of course." Floyd | Floyd | > | Taleslinger asks, "Maybe examine the briefcase?" | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x briefcase" | ||||
Floyd | An expensive-looking leather briefcase, with the initials "C.C." picked Floyd | out in gold on the handle. It appears to be locked. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Hm, perhaps you should take it back to the police station with you." | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "take briefcase" | ||||
Floyd | Deborah looks up from her book. "You shouldn't take that, Inspector. Floyd | Cedric's very touchy about his things, and would probably start Floyd | screaming about whether or not you had a warrant." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Sorry, that was mean. I won't do that again. Probably." | |||
| Jacqueline smiles. | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask deborah about ledger" | ||||
Floyd | "The ledger on Uncle Fred's desk? I was the one who marked that up. I'd Floyd | been wondering how Sheppard Trust was doing, so I took a look in Uncle Floyd | Fred's books ... well, it does appear that Cedric Crane has been Floyd | embezzling from the Trust. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. He's a Floyd | little too extravagant to be satisfied with an accountant's salary. Floyd | Anyway, that was a couple of days ago, and I assume that Cedric was Floyd | invited here today because Uncle Fred wanted to confront him about it Floyd | face-to-face." Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "and here's the first thing that looks like a motive. Let's find him and see if he has an alibi." | |||
| schep says, "find, hmm." | ||||
| Marvin has had his fill of playing for now, and goes back to the Lounge. | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Billiards Room Floyd | The middle of the billiards room is, of course, taken up by the Floyd | billiards table. A bar occupies one corner of the west wall, beside the Floyd | door to the library. The drawing room is through the arch to the north, Floyd | and wide french doors open south onto the terrace. The central hall is Floyd | to the northwest. Floyd | Floyd | Alexander Wolf and Cedric Crane appear to be deeply engrossed in a game Floyd | of pool. Floyd | Floyd | One of those old-fashioned schoolroom clocks hangs on the wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Looks like you found him." | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "cedric, follow me" | ||||
Floyd | There is no reply. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about ledger" | ||||
Floyd | Cedric Crane turns a trifle pale. "You can't prove anything. Mrs Wolf Floyd | is hardly a qualified accountant; she's probably made a mistake." Floyd | Floyd | > | olethros asks, "is this timing-critical?" | |||
| schep says, "there is some timing, but they say it's pretty relaxed." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Yeah, it's fairly relaxed. Don't worry about the time too much." | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about alibi" | ||||
Floyd | "I stayed in the dining room after dinner -- to digest the meal Floyd | properly, you know -- must have been about 6:45 pm. Had a cigar. Floyd | Benedict Lamb was there, as I recall, at least until 8:05 pm when I Floyd | decided to go stretch my legs. I met Elinor Lamb in the library, around Floyd | 9:05 pm. Rather a surprise to see her without her brother hanging Floyd | around, I thought. Anyway, we were together until 10:20 pm, when I Floyd | decided to go take a walk on the beach. Benedict came down some time Floyd | later, about 11:10 pm, I think, and we talked for a while. We wandered Floyd | over to the rocks at the northwestern end of the beach, and that's when Floyd | we found Frederic Sheppard's body." Floyd | Floyd | > | schep asks, "anybody else want to take the wheel?" | |||
| Jacqueline asks (of Taleslinger), "Want to drive?" | ||||
| Jacqueline asks (of schep), "You givin' up?" | ||||
| schep says, "I'd rather watch right now." | ||||
| maga says, "hm. I guess too many people have played this recently" | ||||
| maga says, "it's got replay value, but most of that is automatic-play" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I chose this because there seemed to be so many people who hadn't played Lost Pig." | ||||
| olethros says, "I'd love to but I can only pay fleeting attention to the proceedings" | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "Where'd T go?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Well, see, now I'm all curious." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "'Cause it might be Cedric, but it might not be." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "And I was into watching it." | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask alex about wireless" | ||||
Floyd | Alexander Wolf doesn't seem to have much to say about the wireless. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "wonder if anybody knows what time Fred's favorite wireless program came on" | |||
| Taleslinger says, "Well, I'd like to but I don't know how long I'll be awake." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to schep), "Heh. Don't feel guilted into driving. I might drive, if I'm that curious." | ||||
| Taleslinger says, "And I missed the beginning so I haven't a clue to what's going on." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Problem is, if I drive, we'll railroad pretty quickly." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to T), "Ah." | ||||
| schep says (to Jacq), "Go ahead. Maybe if I get more ideas later I could jump back in." | ||||
| Taleslinger says (to Floyd), "ask wolf about murder" | ||||
Floyd | "It was supposed to be a sort of working holiday -- for Elinor and me, Floyd | anyway. We're working on a musical production, Twisty Passages, for the Floyd | West End, and Fred was supposed to be backing us financially. Anyway, Floyd | Debbie and I arrived separately: I had some stuff to attend to, and Floyd | arrived only just as everyone was sitting down to dinner. That was Floyd | about 5:30 pm. After dinner, we all wandered off to do our own thing. Floyd | Nothing to it. Next thing you know, Ced comes pounding up from the Floyd | beach bellowing for the police, and now Fred is dead and here you are. Floyd | How are we supposed to get financial backing now?" Floyd | Floyd | You ask Alexander Wolf about his movements after dinner, to which he Floyd | replies: "I was playing billiards with Ben from 8:15 pm until about Floyd | 9:35 pm. Round about 10:00 pm, I joined Debbie in the drawing room. We Floyd | were together until 10:50 pm. Sure, it doesn't cover the whole evening, Floyd | and maybe I might have wandered by the study at some point, but I Floyd | didn't kill the old bastard, if that's what you're thinking." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline graphs out who was with who. | |||
| Jacqueline asks, "Hm. Have we asked anyone else for their alibis?" | ||||
| schep says, "nope" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Mmkay, I'm going to start there, methinks." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Drawing Room Floyd | The drawing room is a study in contrasts. The walls are very white, and Floyd | there is a modern-looking fireplace in the middle of the north wall; Floyd | grouped around the fireplace is a collection of the most old-fashioned Floyd | drawing room furniture one can imagine. Wide arches go west to the Floyd | central hall and south to the billiards room. Floyd | Floyd | An oversized carriage clock sits on the fireplace mantle. Floyd | Floyd | Benedict lounges off to one side, watching you discreetly. Floyd | Floyd | A painting of Lord Dundreary, outlandish whiskers and all, looks down Floyd | on the room with a vaguely befuddled air. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask benedict about alibi" | ||||
Floyd | "Let's see. I was in the dining room with Cedric from 6:45 pm until Floyd | 8:05 pm. Later, about 8:15 pm, I wandered into the billiards room and Floyd | played billiards with Alex until 9:35 pm, when I must confess I Floyd | wandered off. Round about 11:10 pm, I decided to head down to the Floyd | beach. I happened to run into Cedric there, and shortly thereafter we Floyd | spotted Fred lying dead among the rocks. And that was my evening. I'm Floyd | afraid that does leave some awfully large gaps, doesn't it? I suppose Floyd | iron-clad alibis only happen in stories, anyway." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "mmkay" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| I don't see that here. | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about alibi" | ||||
Floyd | "I met Elinor in the library as I was taking out a book. That was after Floyd | dinner, about 7:30 pm. We chatted until 8:50 pm. Otherwise, I spent Floyd | most of the evening alone in a quiet corner of the drawing room, Floyd | reading a book. Alex was there as well from about 10:00 pm to 10:50 pm. Floyd | I'm afraid I didn't see anything unusual." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline asks, "So that leaves just Elinor?" | |||
| schep says, "yup" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "several of these people spend awfully large amounts of time walking around alone" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "nw" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Dining Room Floyd | The dining room still bears traces of the evening's entertainment. A Floyd | discreet little door leads south to the kitchen, while a wide arch goes Floyd | southeast to the central hall. Through another arch to the west is the Floyd | conservatory. Floyd | Floyd | An elaborate clock keeps time on one wall. Floyd | Floyd | From the west, you hear the soft tinkling of someone muddling around on Floyd | a piano. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says (to schep), "Yeah, they do." | |||
| Jacqueline says, "Which is probably normal, I guess." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I spend tons of time alone myself. Hope no one I know ever dies nearby while I'm meditating or something. heh" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I was picturing myself napping in a bed of moss in the sun beside a quiet stream, officer. You can ask the imaginary squirrels!" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Conservatory Floyd | Evidently an addition to the house before Frederic Sheppard ever bought Floyd | the place, the Conservatory is only half-heartedly furnished. A few Floyd | sad-looking plants testify to the man's lack of any real interest in Floyd | horticulture. The dining room is back to the east. Floyd | Floyd | A baby grand piano sits in a corner of the room. Evidently there was Floyd | some indecision as to which definition of "conservatory" to adopt. Floyd | Floyd | A girl in a wheelchair is parked in front of the piano. Floyd | Floyd | A large clock hangs from a bracket by the door. Floyd | Floyd | The girl in the wheelchair, a fragile-looking blonde, looks up as you Floyd | enter, and for a moment you get the impression of some sort of Floyd | "fight-or-flight" instinct kicking in. Then she smiles hesitantly and Floyd | introduces herself as Elinor Lamb. "And you must be the police Floyd | inspector investigating the murder. Oh dear, it's such a terrible Floyd | shock...." Floyd | Floyd | Elinor absently fingers the keys of the piano, humming a little as she Floyd | does. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| I don't see that here. | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask elinor about alibi" | ||||
Floyd | "I spent some time in the library. Debbie was there. That was between Floyd | 7:30 pm and 8:50 pm, I think. Cedric came by later, and the two of us Floyd | were together in the library from 9:05 pm to 10:20 pm. I went to the Floyd | conservatory after that to continue with my music. I was alone in the Floyd | conservatory for the rest of the evening after that. I'm sorry, I can't Floyd | think of anything else that might be important." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "I like how everyone remembers, to the 5 minute mark, who they were with, and how the other person always remembers it the same way. Wish it were this easy in real life..." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Flipping through your admittedly untidy shorthand, you pick up the Floyd | following points: Floyd | broken branch Floyd | broken window Floyd | annotated ledger Floyd | tide table Floyd | telephone call Floyd | Cedric Crane's alibi Floyd | Alexander Wolf's statement Floyd | Alexander Wolf's alibi Floyd | guest arrivals Floyd | Benedict Lamb's alibi Floyd | Deborah Wolf's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's alibi Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "read about telephone call in notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Sheppard called his bank manager, 8:20 pm; was concerned about Floyd | finances. Manager suggested speaking to Crane? Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Mmkay. So we know he's alive at 8:20." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "read about tide table in notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Tides: 8:40 pm (high) Floyd | 3:05 am (low) Floyd | 9:30 am (high again) Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "Which rooms are adjacent to the study? I know the Library is." | |||
| schep asks, "should have opened that map; can you repeat the URL?" | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "Hm. Wonder how close to high tide he died. 8:20 for the phone call and 8:40 for high tide - that's a narrow window, but his body probably wasn't right at the high tide line. Did we look at that?" | ||||
| Jacqueline | http://www.allthingsjacq.com/images/act-of-murder-map.jpg | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Sorry it's silly - it's what I sketched out first time I played this." | ||||
| Jacqueline asks (of schep), "You drivin' again? Or should I stick with it?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask elinor about murder" | ||||
Floyd | "It's just horrible. Ben and I arrived at about 3:30 pm; it's his first Floyd | visit, and I wanted to surprise him with the secret passage behind one Floyd | of the kitchen cabinets. But Deborah and Mr Sheppard were fixing Floyd | dinner, and I never got around to doing that. We were all having such a Floyd | fine time ... it seems impossible to believe that that was just a few Floyd | hours ago, and the most important thing on my mind then was some stupid Floyd | secret passage." Floyd | Floyd | Elinor absently fingers the keys of the piano, humming a little as she Floyd | does. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "oHO" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "I didn't see this last time I played. huh" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask elinor about secret passage" | ||||
Floyd | "From the study side, you turn one of the candlesticks on the Floyd | fireplace, and from the kitchen side, you turn one of the hooks in the Floyd | empty cabinet." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "I mean, I knew about the passage, but not from Elinor." | |||
| schep says, "can we compare the body's position to the high tide line? I wouldn't even know what to type" | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "Hm, yeah. Want me to do it?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Stop me when you want me to stop for you to think on stuff." | ||||
| schep says, "you're doing great" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Dining Room Floyd | The dining room still bears traces of the evening's entertainment. A Floyd | discreet little door leads south to the kitchen, while a wide arch goes Floyd | southeast to the central hall. Through another arch to the west is the Floyd | conservatory. Floyd | Floyd | An elaborate clock keeps time on one wall. Floyd | Floyd | From the west, you hear the soft tinkling of someone muddling around on Floyd | a piano. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Kitchen Floyd | This is the large, well-equipped kitchen of a person who takes his Floyd | entertaining extremely seriously. Counters line all the walls except Floyd | the south, which is taken up by a series of tall cabinets. Discreet Floyd | little doors lead north to the dining room and east to the central Floyd | hall. Floyd | Floyd | A large kitchen table occupies most of the southern half of the Floyd | kitchen. Floyd | On the kitchen table is a tape measure. Floyd | Floyd | A simple, round-faced clock on the wall announces that it is now 12:19 Floyd | am. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "take tape measure" | ||||
Floyd | Taken. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "open cabinet" | ||||
Floyd | Going through the contents of the cabinets could take all night. Or, in Floyd | the case of the one empty cabinet, about two seconds. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "turn hook" | ||||
Floyd | You jiggle the hooks, and one of them turns in its place. There is a Floyd | click, and then the back wall of the empty cabinet swings open to Floyd | reveal a room beyond. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "ooh neato" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "I want a house with a sekrit passage." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Anyway, onward to the corpse." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Secret Pantry Floyd | On one side, a kitchen counter with cabinets and a small kitchen sink Floyd | takes up the length of the wall; on the other, narrow stairs lead up Floyd | and down, though the stairs going up are now used as storage shelves Floyd | instead. There are narrow doors to the north and south. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | The door swings open, and you find yourself passing through a secret Floyd | panel into the study.... Floyd | Floyd | Study Floyd | This is Frederic Sheppard's study, a neat, spacious, modern room Floyd | decorated with old theatrical bills. The library is through a door to Floyd | the east, and french doors open south to the terrace. Cold, damp air Floyd | flows in through the broken window to the west. To the north, a secret Floyd | panel leads into a room beyond. Floyd | Floyd | The well-ordered study desk stands to one side of the broken window. Floyd | On the study desk are a Faberge egg clock, a black telephone and an Floyd | annotated ledger. Floyd | Floyd | A corner fireplace occupies, well, a corner. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a wireless, an antique fireplace poker and a hunting Floyd | rifle here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | West Terrace Floyd | This section of the terrace is essentially a five-foot-wide walkway Floyd | connecting the study to the north with the main part of the terrace, to Floyd | the east. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "d" | ||||
Floyd | You can't go that way. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | East Terrace Floyd | The wide, stone-paved terrace overlooks the sea here to the west and Floyd | south, and stairs lead down towards the beach. French doors go north to Floyd | the billiard room and northwest to the library. The terrace itself Floyd | continues to the west, around the corner of the library. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "d" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Rocky Cliffside Path Floyd | On one side is the steep cliff, punctuated with scrubby bushes clinging Floyd | to crevices in the rock face; on the other side, you are completely Floyd | exposed to the wide expanse of the sea. Stairs go up to the terrace of Floyd | Gull Point, not quite visible from here, and the path itself winds down Floyd | to the rocky beach below. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "d" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Beach Floyd | It is a quiet, moonlit night. The waters of the lagoon lap gently Floyd | against the sand. Treacherous-looking rocks surround the beach, but a Floyd | narrow path back up to the house has been cut into the cliff face Floyd | behind you, and the rocks to the northwest look just safe enough to Floyd | clamber over. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "nw" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Rocks Floyd | If the beach was isolated, this rocky area is even more so. Seawater Floyd | filters in through the rocks all around to fill this little tide pool, Floyd | currently at a low ebb. On one side, the cliff rises sharply up, and Floyd | from here you can just make out the broken window of Frederic Floyd | Sheppard's study. The least treacherous path through the rocks goes Floyd | southeast, back to the beach. Floyd | Floyd | A sturdy wooden post stands upright in the water, just a short distance Floyd | from the body. Floyd | Floyd | Frederic Sheppard is sprawled across the rocks, clearly dead. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Okay, here goes." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x post" | ||||
Floyd | A bold, white line near the top of the post indicates the high water Floyd | mark. It seems pretty accurate: the wood still seems wet from the last Floyd | high tide, right up to the mark itself. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x mark" | ||||
Floyd | A bold, white line near the top of the post indicates the high water Floyd | mark. It seems pretty accurate: the wood still seems wet from the last Floyd | high tide, right up to the mark itself. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "measure mark" | ||||
Floyd | The current water level is about 48 inches below the high water mark. Floyd | The body itself is 12 inches below the high water mark, at its, for Floyd | want of a better phrase, highest point. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Hm. So probably fairly close to high tide, then." | |||
| schep says, "9 to 10, I'd say" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Hm, couple of people have gaps round then." | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "Have we prodded Deb much?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "She looks pretty open from 9-10." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Flipping through your admittedly untidy shorthand, you pick up the Floyd | following points: Floyd | broken branch Floyd | broken window Floyd | annotated ledger Floyd | tide table Floyd | telephone call Floyd | Cedric Crane's alibi Floyd | Alexander Wolf's statement Floyd | Alexander Wolf's alibi Floyd | guest arrivals Floyd | Benedict Lamb's alibi Floyd | Deborah Wolf's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's statement Floyd | body position Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Hm, just her alibi. Let's go prod her a bit more, maybe." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "read about body position in notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Body at 12" below high water mark. 12:23 am: sea level 48" below high Floyd | water mark. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Beach Floyd | It is a quiet, moonlit night. The waters of the lagoon lap gently Floyd | against the sand. Treacherous-looking rocks surround the beach, but a Floyd | narrow path back up to the house has been cut into the cliff face Floyd | behind you, and the rocks to the northwest look just safe enough to Floyd | clamber over. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "u" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Rocky Cliffside Path Floyd | On one side is the steep cliff, punctuated with scrubby bushes clinging Floyd | to crevices in the rock face; on the other side, you are completely Floyd | exposed to the wide expanse of the sea. Stairs go up to the terrace of Floyd | Gull Point, not quite visible from here, and the path itself winds down Floyd | to the rocky beach below. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "u" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | East Terrace Floyd | The wide, stone-paved terrace overlooks the sea here to the west and Floyd | south, and stairs lead down towards the beach. French doors go north to Floyd | the billiard room and northwest to the library. The terrace itself Floyd | continues to the west, around the corner of the library. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline asks, "Where is she, the library?" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "new" | ||||
Floyd | [new -> nw] Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "er" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "yay" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "For once that spell checker thing worked!" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about murder" | ||||
Floyd | "It's difficult to believe that just half a day ago I was chopping Floyd | onions with Uncle Fred in the kitchen. We were talking and laughing, Floyd | and then Cedric Crane and the Lambs showed up, and it was just a Floyd | regular kitchen party." Deborah pauses, then says, "Speaking of the Floyd | kitchen, I should probably tell you: there's a secret way from the Floyd | kitchen into the study. From the study side, you have to turn one of Floyd | the candlesticks on the fireplace mantle to get in, and from the Floyd | kitchen you turn one of the hooks in the empty cabinet. The murderer Floyd | might have gotten in and out that way -- though I rather think that Floyd | everybody here already knows about it." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Why yes, Mrs. Wolf, I already knew that through my keen detective work, thank you very much." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about cedric" | ||||
Floyd | Deborah Wolf purses her lips before saying: "Not an honest man, I'm Floyd | afraid. Vain, and a little too much in love with his own cleverness. Floyd | Uncle Fred never recognised any of this, of course." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about benedict" | ||||
Floyd | "Poor boy. He tries so hard to seem aloof and indifferent. Actually, I Floyd | think it's rather sweet how he cares for his sister." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about alex" | ||||
Floyd | "Alex is my husband. He's a brilliant playwright, but he needs Floyd | direction and discipline." She smiles enigmatically and crosses her Floyd | legs. "I'm not sure what else there is to tell you, except to assure Floyd | you that he really is a very talented man." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "I'm sure he is, ma'am." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about elinor" | ||||
Floyd | "I feel sorry for her, I admit. People will insist on treating her as Floyd | though she's a child." Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "If the tide were linear, this would mean about 9:35. But a realistic tide would probably make it later than that." | |||
| Jacqueline says, "I think it's usually more like ... well, like this:" | ||||
| Jacqueline | http://www.mobilegeographics.com:81/locations/5909.html | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Which is not entirely linear, but sorta." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Probably close enough for our purposes here." | ||||
| schep says, "on a 4-hour interval after high tide, it does seem pretty close to linear, yeah." | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "So Benedict and Alex were together until about 9:35, and Deb was totally alone during that approximate time frame?" | ||||
| schep says, "the time points to one of those three, yup" | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "I need to go check on the corndogs I have in the oven. Why don't you try to tie Deb to the murder a bit more?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "She seems to have the biggest window, and a good place to start." | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "l" | ||||
Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "I know you were looking at Cedric, but he seems to have a solid alibi at that time." | |||
| Jacqueline says, "Be right back..." | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Billiards Room Floyd | The middle of the billiards room is, of course, taken up by the Floyd | billiards table. A bar occupies one corner of the west wall, beside the Floyd | door to the library. The drawing room is through the arch to the north, Floyd | and wide french doors open south onto the terrace. The central hall is Floyd | to the northwest. Floyd | Floyd | Alexander Wolf and Cedric Crane appear to be deeply engrossed in a game Floyd | of pool. Floyd | Floyd | One of those old-fashioned schoolroom clocks hangs on the wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about deborah" | ||||
Floyd | "She's a bit of a priss, if you ask me. Always so very superior." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask alexander about deborah" | ||||
Floyd | "Debbie? She's my wife. Are you trying to insinuate something, here?" Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Drawing Room Floyd | The drawing room is a study in contrasts. The walls are very white, and Floyd | there is a modern-looking fireplace in the middle of the north wall; Floyd | grouped around the fireplace is a collection of the most old-fashioned Floyd | drawing room furniture one can imagine. Wide arches go west to the Floyd | central hall and south to the billiards room. Floyd | Floyd | An oversized carriage clock sits on the fireplace mantle. Floyd | Floyd | Benedict lounges off to one side, watching you discreetly. Floyd | Floyd | A painting of Lord Dundreary, outlandish whiskers and all, looks down Floyd | on the room with a vaguely befuddled air. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask ben about deb" | ||||
Floyd | "Deborah's probably the most intelligent woman I've ever met." Benedict Floyd | frowns. "Which makes her marriage to that first class yob, Alexander Floyd | Wolf, so very baffling. Love is blind, I suppose, however trite that Floyd | may sound." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "x notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Flipping through your admittedly untidy shorthand, you pick up the Floyd | following points: Floyd | broken branch Floyd | broken window Floyd | annotated ledger Floyd | tide table Floyd | telephone call Floyd | Cedric Crane's alibi Floyd | Alexander Wolf's statement Floyd | Alexander Wolf's alibi Floyd | guest arrivals Floyd | Benedict Lamb's alibi Floyd | Deborah Wolf's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's statement Floyd | body position Floyd | Deborah Wolf's statement Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "read deb's statement in notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Arrived early, separately from AW. In kitchen prepping dinner when Floyd | others arrived. Mentioned secret access from study to kitchen. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline is back, and reads through the progress. | |||
| schep says, "there is no progress" | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "I love that line from Alex. What *were* you insinuating, schep? Huh? HUH?" | ||||
| baf exits, borne by a pursue. | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > Floyd | Floyd | Kitchen Floyd | This is the large, well-equipped kitchen of a person who takes his Floyd | entertaining extremely seriously. Counters line all the walls except Floyd | the south, which is taken up by a series of tall cabinets, one of whose Floyd | back panels is open, revealing another room beyond. Discreet little Floyd | doors lead north to the dining room and east to the central hall. Floyd | Floyd | A large kitchen table occupies most of the southern half of the Floyd | kitchen. Floyd | Floyd | A simple, round-faced clock on the wall announces that it is now 12:28 Floyd | am. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "oops" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "heh" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "undo" | ||||
Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | [Previous turn undone.] Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "You drive." | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "nw" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Dining Room Floyd | The dining room still bears traces of the evening's entertainment. A Floyd | discreet little door leads south to the kitchen, while a wide arch goes Floyd | southeast to the central hall. Through another arch to the west is the Floyd | conservatory. Floyd | Floyd | An elaborate clock keeps time on one wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Conservatory Floyd | Evidently an addition to the house before Frederic Sheppard ever bought Floyd | the place, the Conservatory is only half-heartedly furnished. A few Floyd | sad-looking plants testify to the man's lack of any real interest in Floyd | horticulture. The dining room is back to the east. Floyd | Floyd | A baby grand piano sits in a corner of the room. Evidently there was Floyd | some indecision as to which definition of "conservatory" to adopt. Floyd | Floyd | Elinor Lamb is parked in front of the piano. Floyd | Floyd | A large clock hangs from a bracket by the door. Floyd | Floyd | Elinor absently fingers the keys of the piano, humming a little as she Floyd | does. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask elinor about deb" | ||||
| Floyd asks, "That game over already? It was just getting good. Wanna play another?" | Jacqueline says, "WHAT" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "Darnit. He did this last week, so Jota updated Nitfol." | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "We haven't saved, have we?" | ||||
| Jacqueline sighs. | ||||
| schep says, "not since the beginning" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Darn. Well, this does tell us one thing." | ||||
| Limax arrives, full of funk, but no fun. | olethros says, "drat, the villain turned the tables on us!" | |||
| Limax exclaims, "AHA!" | Jacqueline says, "Last week we thought it was Lost Pig's fault, but it's not." | |||
| Jacqueline says, "It's a Floyd issue, methinks." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Jota is idle." | ||||
| schep says, "if only we had a way to reproduce it" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Well, we do." | ||||
| Limax asks, "Who hosts Floyd these days?" | ||||
| Limax has had his fill of playing for now, and goes back to the Lounge. | Jacqueline says, "Give me a few minutes, and I can get us back to where we were." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Limax), "Jota, I think." | ||||
| olethros says, "great! I just finished my presentation" | ||||
| schep says, "reproduce the bug, I mean" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "load actofmurder" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | AN ACT OF MURDER Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | An Investigation Floyd | by Floyd | Hugh Dunnett Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Please press SPACE to continue. | Limax says, "See... back in the old days I used to host it and we never had these kind of problems..." | |||
| Limax says, "Of course I also had virtually no room either" | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "no room?" | ||||
| Jacqueline pushes the green 'space' button. | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | FOREWORD Floyd | Floyd | The following story is set up with a great deal of randomisation, and Floyd | is different each time you start or restart. It would therefore be Floyd | highly advisable to save the game before you even begin your Floyd | investigation. Floyd | Floyd | The story uses the basic "ask X about Y" format of speaking to other Floyd | characters. For the most part, "tell X about Y" will be unimportant: Floyd | it is generally (though not always!) assumed that your questions about Floyd | something will include asking about any new discoveries you have made Floyd | elsewhere about the topic. The main exception to this rule is when Floyd | laying out your case before Chief Inspector Duffy: in that event, you Floyd | will have to depend exclusively on "tell..." instead. Floyd | Floyd | Time in the story proceeds at 15 seconds a turn, allowing you ample Floyd | time (one hopes) to complete your investigation. However, there is in Floyd | fact a time limit: Chief Inspector Duffy will arrive to speak to you at Floyd | 2:00 am; and, whatever time he arrives, he will eventually lose Floyd | patience if you don't manage to make an arrest within a certain time of Floyd | his arrival. Floyd | Floyd | And that's all that's new. Good luck, Inspector! Your public awaits! Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Please press SPACE to continue. | ||||
| Jacqueline pushes the green 'space' button. | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | "Frederic Sheppard." Chief Inspector Duffy pulls at his moustache Floyd | mournfully and stares up at the house through the windshield. Floyd | "Theatrical sort, usually has a finger in some play or other. He bought Floyd | up Gull Point about ten years ago. Never any complaints from the Floyd | neighbours, never any scandals." He pulls at his moustache again. "He Floyd | was found dead in the cove at the foot of the cliff behind the house Floyd | about half an hour ago. Caller said it looked as though he fell from Floyd | his study window." Floyd | Floyd | "Think he might have jumped?" Floyd | Floyd | "She's your investigation: you tell me. We're treating this as a murder Floyd | unless you can find anything to prove otherwise." Floyd | Floyd | You nod. As you get out of the car, the Chief Inspector yawns and says, Floyd | "All right. I'm heading back to HQ. I'll be back in a couple of hours. Floyd | The investigation's all yours. And if at any time you think you're Floyd | ready to make an arrest, give me a call first, got it?" Floyd | Floyd | "Got it." Floyd | Floyd | What a wonderful way to spend the night. As Chief Inspector Duffy Floyd | drives off into the darkness, you check your watch to see just how late Floyd | it really is -- only to find that your watch has stopped. Floyd | Floyd | An Act of Murder Floyd | An Investigation by Hugh Dunnett Floyd | Release 1 / Serial number 070927 / Inform 7 build 4U65 (I6/v6.31 lib Floyd | 6/11N) Floyd | Floyd | Front Drive Floyd | You are standing on the front drive of Gull Point, residence of noted Floyd | theatrical patron Frederic Sheppard. The house, a rambling old place, Floyd | stands to the south. Floyd | Floyd | Beside the front doors, the large doorbell button gleams amber in the Floyd | moonlight. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a red Triumph Roadster, a blue Austin and a green Floyd | Morris Saloon here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "load" | ||||
Floyd | [load -> lord] Floyd | That's not a verb I recognise. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "restore" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to load: | Limax says, "Yeah. This was on CSUH's machines and they didn't give a student much room" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "ah" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "l" | ||||
Floyd | Front Drive Floyd | You are standing on the front drive of Gull Point, residence of noted Floyd | theatrical patron Frederic Sheppard. The house, a rambling old place, Floyd | stands to the south. Floyd | Floyd | Beside the front doors, the large doorbell button gleams amber in the Floyd | moonlight. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a red Triumph Roadster, a blue Austin and a green Floyd | Morris Saloon here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ring doorbell" | ||||
Floyd | You ring the doorbell. Somewhere deep in the recesses of the house, Floyd | pleasant chimes announce your arrival. A moment later, the front door Floyd | swings open. Floyd | Floyd | The woman who appears in the doorway appears to be about 30, quite Floyd | attractive, with steel-frame glasses. Her manner is cool and aloof; if Floyd | she is at all disturbed by the current situation, she's hiding it well. Floyd | She looks you up and down through clear blue eyes before speaking. Floyd | "Good evening. I take it you must be from the police?" Floyd | Floyd | She's clearly expecting an answer, yes or no: > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "no" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | She raises an eyebrow. "No? What do you want, then?" Faced with a Floyd | distinct lack of anything else to say, you admit that you are, after Floyd | all, the police. The woman draws her lips into a tight line and says, Floyd | "This is hardly the time to be playing the fool, Inspector. Now please, Floyd | come in." Floyd | Floyd | Entrance Foyer Floyd | Theatrical bills on the walls give this otherwise sterile entry hall Floyd | the appearance of a theatrical lobby. The front doors are to the north, Floyd | and the central hall is to the south. The cloak room is to the east. Floyd | Floyd | "My name is Deborah Wolf, by the way. Frederic Sheppard was my uncle. Floyd | My husband and I just arrived today to spend the weekend...." She Floyd | shakes her head. "I'm sorry. It has all been a terrible shock. Please, Floyd | come this way." Floyd | Floyd | She takes a few steps towards the south and pauses, waiting for you. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | As she walks with you, Deborah Wolf says, "I should explain that my Floyd | husband is Alexander Wolf, the playwright. He's working on a new stage Floyd | musical called Twisty Passages, with a friend, Elinor Lamb. They were Floyd | going to spend the weekend here, working on it together." Floyd | Floyd | Just as you pass under the arch into the central hall, the grandfather Floyd | clock by the stairs chimes the midnight hour in doleful tones. Floyd | Wonderful. Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is here, watching you attentively. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | As you set your watch and wind it up, a tall, slender young man emerges Floyd | from the drawing room to the east. "Ah," he drawls, "the illustrious Floyd | representative of the Law. How perfectly delightful." He looks down at Floyd | you with a vaguely supercilious manner. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf makes the introductions. "Inspector, this is Mr Benedict Floyd | Lamb, Elinor Lamb's brother. As I mentioned, Miss Lamb is collaborating Floyd | with my husband on a stage musical; and Benedict here is acting Floyd | chaperone." Floyd | Floyd | "Never trust a Wolf alone with a Lamb, I always say." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about window" | ||||
Floyd | Benedict Lamb interrupts you, saying, a little sharply, "I think we can Floyd | leave my sister out of any of this, Inspector. She's in a wheelchair; Floyd | her health is practically non-existant. She's quite incapable of any Floyd | acts of violence. Would you agree?" Floyd | Floyd | Benedict Lamb folds his arms, waiting for your reply. > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "no" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Benedict Lamb's grey eyes flash angrily, but Deborah Wolf quickly says, Floyd | "The Inspector hasn't even seen the -- the body yet. You can't honestly Floyd | expect him to make that sort of a judgement without evidence!" Floyd | Floyd | Benedict merely sneers. Deborah Wolf rolls her eyes and says, "Where is Floyd | Elinor, Ben?" Floyd | Floyd | "She's in the conservatory, of course." Benedict jerks his head to the Floyd | northwest arch, through which you can see the dining room. "I told her Floyd | she should go to bed and get some rest, but she insists on staying up Floyd | for the investigation." He looks in your direction. "Any time you want Floyd | to speak with her, Inspector, be my guest. Though I assure you it won't Floyd | be necessary." Floyd | Floyd | Benedict turns on his heel and strides back into the drawing room. Floyd | Deborah heads towards the door to south. "Shall we continue, Floyd | Inspector?" Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "yes" | ||||
Floyd | Deborah lowers her voice and says, "Ben's very protective of his Floyd | sister, which is sweet but perhaps a little obsessive, in my opinion. Floyd | Elinor may be wheelchair-bound, but she is nowhere near as delicate as Floyd | he seems to think." Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is here, watching you attentively. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | A short, red-headed young man is bent over a leather briefcase as you Floyd | enter the Library. He looks up, startled, as you come in, and hurriedly Floyd | shuts the briefcase. Then he's all smiles and cheerful camaraderie as Floyd | he tosses his briefcase into a corner and comes forward to shake your Floyd | hand. Floyd | Floyd | "Inspector," says Deborah, "I'd like you to meet Mr Cedric Crane, my Floyd | uncle's former accountant. He was the one -- along with Mr Lamb -- who Floyd | discovered the crime and raised the alarm." Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane pumps your arm with all the excessive energy of a Floyd | campaigning politician. Close up, you realise that he must actually be Floyd | quite a bit older than he appeared at first glance. "A pleasure to make Floyd | your acquaintance," he says expansively, beaming from ear to ear. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about briefcase" | ||||
Floyd | Cedric Crane doesn't seem to have much to say about the leather Floyd | briefcase. Floyd | Floyd | There is a short burst of music from the west. Cedric Crane says, "We Floyd | left Mr Sheppard's wireless on. Since it was part of the crime scene, Floyd | we didn't want to disturb it." Floyd | Floyd | "You'd best take the Inspector to the body," says Deborah to Cedric, Floyd | "since you were the one who found him, after all." Floyd | Floyd | Cedric does not look too happy at this, but turns towards the Floyd | southeastern exit. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "get briefcase" | ||||
Floyd | "Inspector, that briefcase is private." Cedric smiles, but it doesn't Floyd | quite reach his eyes. Floyd | Floyd | The door to the east suddenly crashes open, revealing a Floyd | broad-shouldered, truculent-looking man holding a billiard cue. He Floyd | glares at you. Floyd | Floyd | "This is Alexander Wolf," says Deborah, "my husband." Alexander makes a Floyd | brief sweeping gesture by way of greeting, and growls, "let's get this Floyd | over with as quickly as possible, eh?" Floyd | Floyd | "Alex, you've been drinking." Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane whispers to you, "We'd best head on out, Inspector." He Floyd | quietly exits the room to the southeast. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "using the transcript verbatim, I see" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "Yeah." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Figure that's the only way to make sure I don't miss a clue or insert one that we haven't found" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | East Terrace Floyd | The wide, stone-paved terrace overlooks the sea here to the west and Floyd | south, and stairs lead down towards the beach. French doors go north to Floyd | the billiard room and northwest to the library. The terrace itself Floyd | continues to the west, around the corner of the library. Floyd | Floyd | You can see Cedric Crane here. Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane nods to you. "Right then. You've met the Wolfs, of course; Floyd | have you met the Lambs? Benedict and Elinor? The five of us would be Floyd | the only people in the house at the moment, other than yourself. Floyd | Anyway, it seems plain that Mr Sheppard must have been killed in his Floyd | study," he says, pointing to a part of the house just west of the Floyd | library, "but Mr Lamb and I found him among the rocks down by the Floyd | beach. Come on, I'll show you." Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane turns and descends the stairs to the cliffside path below. Floyd | Floyd | From the direction of Library, you hear Alexander Wolf's raised voice, Floyd | and then the slamming of a door. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "I'm skipping commands that didn't work, but otherwise yes." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "d" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Rocky Cliffside Path Floyd | On one side is the steep cliff, punctuated with scrubby bushes clinging Floyd | to crevices in the rock face; on the other side, you are completely Floyd | exposed to the wide expanse of the sea. Stairs go up to the terrace of Floyd | Gull Point, not quite visible from here, and the path itself winds down Floyd | to the rocky beach below. Floyd | Floyd | You can see Cedric Crane here. Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane goes down. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "d" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Beach Floyd | It is a quiet, moonlit night. The waters of the lagoon lap gently Floyd | against the sand. Treacherous-looking rocks surround the beach, but a Floyd | narrow path back up to the house has been cut into the cliff face Floyd | behind you, and the rocks to the northwest look just safe enough to Floyd | clamber over. Floyd | Floyd | You can see Cedric Crane here. Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane looks around at you and points off to the northwest. Floyd | "There's a small tide pool out that way. That's where Mr Lamb and I Floyd | found the body. I think it must have been a bit after 11:00 pm -- Floyd | probably about 11:10 pm -- we're not surrounded by clocks out here as Floyd | we are up in the house. We did take a closer look, of course, to make Floyd | sure we weren't just making a horrible mistake, but otherwise we didn't Floyd | touch anything." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "nw" | ||||
Floyd | As you begin picking your way through the rocks, Cedric Crane turns and Floyd | heads back up to the house. Floyd | Floyd | Rocks Floyd | If the beach was isolated, this rocky area is even more so. Seawater Floyd | filters in through the rocks all around to fill this little tide pool, Floyd | currently at a low ebb. On one side, the cliff rises sharply up, and Floyd | from here you can just make out the broken window of Frederic Floyd | Sheppard's study. The least treacherous path through the rocks goes Floyd | southeast, back to the beach. Floyd | Floyd | A sturdy wooden post stands upright in the water, just a short distance Floyd | from the body. Floyd | Floyd | Frederic Sheppard is sprawled across the rocks, clearly dead. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x body" | ||||
Floyd | In life, Frederic Sheppard was a big man, still quite robust at the age Floyd | of 60. Right now, he's looking quite battered from the precipitous drop Floyd | from his study window; it is not immediately apparent if it was the Floyd | fall which killed him, or something else. He is also quite thoroughly Floyd | soaked, though he's mostly clear of the water. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "search body" | ||||
Floyd | What's this? There's a bit of a broken branch clutched in his hand. He Floyd | must have pulled it off of one of the scrubby little bushes in the Floyd | cliffside, on his way down. Floyd | Floyd | Further examination of the body reveals a a number of injuries Floyd | consistent with either a sharp blow with a blunt object, or an Floyd | unfortunate encounter with the side of a cliff. You're not quite enough Floyd | of a forensics expert to distinguish between the two. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "get branch" | ||||
Floyd | You already have that. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x window" | ||||
Floyd | You can't make out any details from here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x post" | ||||
Floyd | A bold, white line near the top of the post indicates the high water Floyd | mark. It seems pretty accurate: the wood still seems wet from the last Floyd | high tide, right up to the mark itself. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x cliff" | ||||
Floyd | By the light of the moon, you can make out a few stunted, twisted Floyd | bushes clinging desperately to the rocks of the cliff. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Beach Floyd | It is a quiet, moonlit night. The waters of the lagoon lap gently Floyd | against the sand. Treacherous-looking rocks surround the beach, but a Floyd | narrow path back up to the house has been cut into the cliff face Floyd | behind you, and the rocks to the northwest look just safe enough to Floyd | clamber over. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "u" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Rocky Cliffside Path Floyd | On one side is the steep cliff, punctuated with scrubby bushes clinging Floyd | to crevices in the rock face; on the other side, you are completely Floyd | exposed to the wide expanse of the sea. Stairs go up to the terrace of Floyd | Gull Point, not quite visible from here, and the path itself winds down Floyd | to the rocky beach below. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "u" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | East Terrace Floyd | The wide, stone-paved terrace overlooks the sea here to the west and Floyd | south, and stairs lead down towards the beach. French doors go north to Floyd | the billiard room and northwest to the library. The terrace itself Floyd | continues to the west, around the corner of the library. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | West Terrace Floyd | This section of the terrace is essentially a five-foot-wide walkway Floyd | connecting the study to the north with the main part of the terrace, to Floyd | the east. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Study Floyd | This is Frederic Sheppard's study, a neat, spacious, modern room Floyd | decorated with old theatrical bills. The library is through a door to Floyd | the east, and french doors open south to the terrace. Cold, damp air Floyd | flows in through the broken window to the west. Floyd | Floyd | The well-ordered study desk stands to one side of the broken window. Floyd | On the study desk are a Faberge egg clock, a black telephone, a scrap Floyd | of paper and an annotated ledger. Floyd | Floyd | A corner fireplace occupies, well, a corner. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a wireless, an antique fireplace poker and a hunting Floyd | rifle here. Floyd | Floyd | Over the wireless comes an advertisement for the Higgins School of Floyd | Elocution. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x scrap of paper" | ||||
Floyd | Odd that this scrap of paper would be found sitting on Frederic Floyd | Sheppard's pristine study desk, but perhaps he never got around to Floyd | clearing it away. A telephone number has been hastily scrawled across Floyd | it. Floyd | Floyd | From the wireless comes the soft hiss of static and the dramatic Floyd | tension of a late-night radio show. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "call number" | ||||
Floyd | You're not messing with the dead man's telephone any more than you can Floyd | help. A fancy country house like this ought to have another telephone Floyd | that you can use, probably out in the hall. Floyd | Floyd | From the wireless comes the soft hiss of static and the dramatic Floyd | tension of a late-night radio show. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "get scrap of paper" | ||||
Floyd | Taken. Floyd | Floyd | From the wireless comes the soft hiss of static and the dramatic Floyd | tension of a late-night radio show. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "poker" | ||||
Floyd | That's not a verb I recognise. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "fingerprint poker" | ||||
Floyd | The forensics crew will be taking everybody's fingerprints in the Floyd | morning, if you can't determine a Most Likely Suspect before then; Floyd | frankly, the Chief Inspector would really prefer to spare everyone the Floyd | inky fingers. So right now, the only useful set of prints you're likely Floyd | to have are Frederic Sheppard's ... and this being his home, they're on Floyd | absolutely everything. Floyd | Floyd | From the wireless comes the soft hiss of static and the dramatic Floyd | tension of a late-night radio show. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x desk" | ||||
Floyd | Frederic Sheppard's desk is spacious and tidy, with everything easily Floyd | visible and within reach. A pair of drawers are stacked one atop the Floyd | other on one side of the desk. Floyd | Floyd | From the wireless comes the soft hiss of static and the dramatic Floyd | tension of a late-night radio show. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "search fireplace" | ||||
Floyd | Which do you mean, the corner fireplace or the antique fireplace poker? Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "corner" | ||||
Floyd | You find nothing of interest. Floyd | Floyd | The sound of hoofbeats thunders from the wireless. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "turn off wireless" | ||||
Floyd | And not a moment too soon. That thing was as annoying as all hell. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "l" | ||||
Floyd | Study Floyd | This is Frederic Sheppard's study, a neat, spacious, modern room Floyd | decorated with old theatrical bills. The library is through a door to Floyd | the east, and french doors open south to the terrace. Cold, damp air Floyd | flows in through the broken window to the west. Floyd | Floyd | The well-ordered study desk stands to one side of the broken window. Floyd | On the study desk are a Faberge egg clock, a black telephone and an Floyd | annotated ledger. Floyd | Floyd | A corner fireplace occupies, well, a corner. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a wireless, an antique fireplace poker and a hunting Floyd | rifle here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x window" | ||||
Floyd | It doesn't look as though it was ever particularly sturdy; positioned Floyd | as it is over a steep drop into the sea, it probably never needed to Floyd | be. The casement opens outwards; the panes are cracked but otherwise Floyd | intact. The latch, a rather flimsy affair, is twisted half off the Floyd | frame. The sill is quite high off the floor: it seems highly unlikely Floyd | that anyone might have fallen through it by accident. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "look through window" | ||||
Floyd | You find nothing of interest. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x bushes" | ||||
Floyd | By the light of the moon, you can make out a few stunted, twisted Floyd | bushes clinging desperately to the rocks of the cliff. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x ledger" | ||||
Floyd | This ledger details the investments and various business dealings of Floyd | Frederic Sheppard and the Sheppard Trust. While the numbers seem to Floyd | indicate a perfectly healthy state of affairs, someone has gone through Floyd | this ledger with a red pen, making annotations in the margin, and Floyd | pointing out subtle discrepancies. While he is far from ruined, Floyd | Frederic Sheppard is clearly not quite as well-off as everyone seems to Floyd | think, nor is the Sheppard Trust quite so healthy. The annotations Floyd | culminate in a note to "Please speak to Cedric" written across the Floyd | final page and underlined twice. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x clock" | ||||
Floyd | An ostentatious antique: a clock in the shape of a gold easter egg, Floyd | with all manner of baroque designs picked out over its surface. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x rifle" | ||||
Floyd | It's fancy enough to be purely decorative, but it is after all a Floyd | working firearm. A careful inspection shows it to be loaded. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "open drawer" | ||||
Floyd | Which do you mean, the upper drawer or the lower drawer? Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "search upper drawer" | ||||
Floyd | You can't see inside, since the upper drawer is closed. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "close upper drawer" | ||||
Floyd | That's already closed. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "open upper drawer" | ||||
Floyd | You open the upper drawer. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "search upper drawer" | ||||
Floyd | The upper drawer is empty. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "close upper drawer" | ||||
Floyd | You close the upper drawer. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "open lower drawer" | ||||
Floyd | You open the lower drawer, revealing a pistol. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "(Sorry, got lost there for a second.)" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x pistol" | ||||
Floyd | This little pistol is so small, it might easily be mistaken for a toy. Floyd | It is, however, quite the real thing. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "take pistol" | ||||
Floyd | Taken. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
Floyd | The Faberge egg clock emits a pleasant, musical chime. Floyd | Floyd | Enter saved game to store: | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Not a valid command. Try typing 'help'. | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x tide table" | ||||
Floyd | Your eye goes straight for the present date. It seems the last high Floyd | tide was 8:40 pm yesterday (or, if you prefer, 8:40 pm earlier Floyd | tonight). Low tide is at 3:05 am and the following high tide at 9:30 Floyd | am. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x clock" | ||||
Floyd | Its face appears to be formed from a collection of shattered gramophone Floyd | records. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "you also missed 'x poker' (left out the x), but I don't think that did anything" | |||
| Jacqueline asks, "hm... did I?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Study Floyd | This is Frederic Sheppard's study, a neat, spacious, modern room Floyd | decorated with old theatrical bills. The library is through a door to Floyd | the east, and french doors open south to the terrace. Cold, damp air Floyd | flows in through the broken window to the west. Floyd | Floyd | The well-ordered study desk stands to one side of the broken window. Floyd | On the study desk are a Faberge egg clock, a black telephone and an Floyd | annotated ledger. Floyd | Floyd | A corner fireplace occupies, well, a corner. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a wireless, an antique fireplace poker and a hunting Floyd | rifle here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x poker" | ||||
Floyd | This poker hails from a time when fireplaces were the sole source of Floyd | household heating, and, as such, were much larger and required pokers Floyd | nearly the size of pool cues to reach properly into their recesses. Floyd | Well, perhaps that's an exaggeration, but you certainly wouldn't want Floyd | to be poked by this particular poker. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "i" | ||||
Floyd | You are carrying: Floyd | a pistol Floyd | a scrap of paper Floyd | a broken branch Floyd | your notebook Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "read notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Flipping through your admittedly untidy shorthand, you pick up the Floyd | following points: Floyd | broken branch Floyd | broken window Floyd | annotated ledger Floyd | tide table Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "call number" | ||||
Floyd | You find yourself on the line with Frederic Sheppard's bank manager, Floyd | who does not seem particularly happy about being called up at this time Floyd | of the night, especially once you inform him of the circumstances. Floyd | "Yes, I spoke to Mr Sheppard this evening. He called ... must have been Floyd | about 8:20 pm, maybe a little after. I was listening to the wireless at Floyd | the time. Mr Sheppard's been very anxious of late about his financial Floyd | affairs, and I should never have given him my home phone number. Fat Floyd | lot of good I could do him without my files, anyway. Mr Crane could Floyd | probably tell you more." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "notebook" | ||||
Floyd | That's not a verb I recognise. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "undo" | ||||
Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | [Previous turn undone.] Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "read tide table in notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Tides: 8:40 pm (high) Floyd | 3:05 am (low) Floyd | 9:30 am (high again) Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "open briefcase" | ||||
Floyd | The briefcase is locked tight. Apparently a healthy amount of expense Floyd | was put into ensuring its security. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about cedric" | ||||
Floyd | Deborah Wolf purses her lips before saying: "Not an honest man, I'm Floyd | afraid. Vain, and a little too much in love with his own cleverness. Floyd | Uncle Fred never recognised any of this, of course." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x briefcase" | ||||
Floyd | An expensive-looking leather briefcase, with the initials "C.C." picked Floyd | out in gold on the handle. It appears to be locked. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "take briefcase" | ||||
Floyd | Deborah looks up from her book. "You shouldn't take that, Inspector. Floyd | Cedric's very touchy about his things, and would probably start Floyd | screaming about whether or not you had a warrant." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about ledger" | ||||
Floyd | "The ledger on Uncle Fred's desk? I was the one who marked that up. I'd Floyd | been wondering how Sheppard Trust was doing, so I took a look in Uncle Floyd | Fred's books ... well, it does appear that Cedric Crane has been Floyd | embezzling from the Trust. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. He's a Floyd | little too extravagant to be satisfied with an accountant's salary. Floyd | Anyway, that was a couple of days ago, and I assume that Cedric was Floyd | invited here today because Uncle Fred wanted to confront him about it Floyd | face-to-face." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Billiards Room Floyd | The middle of the billiards room is, of course, taken up by the Floyd | billiards table. A bar occupies one corner of the west wall, beside the Floyd | door to the library. The drawing room is through the arch to the north, Floyd | and wide french doors open south onto the terrace. The central hall is Floyd | to the northwest. Floyd | Floyd | Alexander Wolf and Cedric Crane appear to be deeply engrossed in a game Floyd | of pool. Floyd | Floyd | One of those old-fashioned schoolroom clocks hangs on the wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about ledger" | ||||
Floyd | Cedric Crane turns a trifle pale. "You can't prove anything. Mrs Wolf Floyd | is hardly a qualified accountant; she's probably made a mistake." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about alibi" | ||||
Floyd | "I stayed in the dining room after dinner -- to digest the meal Floyd | properly, you know -- must have been about 6:45 pm. Had a cigar. Floyd | Benedict Lamb was there, as I recall, at least until 8:05 pm when I Floyd | decided to go stretch my legs. I met Elinor Lamb in the library, around Floyd | 9:05 pm. Rather a surprise to see her without her brother hanging Floyd | around, I thought. Anyway, we were together until 10:20 pm, when I Floyd | decided to go take a walk on the beach. Benedict came down some time Floyd | later, about 11:10 pm, I think, and we talked for a while. We wandered Floyd | over to the rocks at the northwestern end of the beach, and that's when Floyd | we found Frederic Sheppard's body." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask alex about wireless" | ||||
Floyd | Alexander Wolf doesn't seem to have much to say about the wireless. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "af n" | ||||
Floyd | That's not a verb I recognise. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "er" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Drawing Room Floyd | The drawing room is a study in contrasts. The walls are very white, and Floyd | there is a modern-looking fireplace in the middle of the north wall; Floyd | grouped around the fireplace is a collection of the most old-fashioned Floyd | drawing room furniture one can imagine. Wide arches go west to the Floyd | central hall and south to the billiards room. Floyd | Floyd | An oversized carriage clock sits on the fireplace mantle. Floyd | Floyd | Benedict lounges off to one side, watching you discreetly. Floyd | Floyd | A painting of Lord Dundreary, outlandish whiskers and all, looks down Floyd | on the room with a vaguely befuddled air. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask benedict about alibi" | ||||
Floyd | "Let's see. I was in the dining room with Cedric from 6:45 pm until Floyd | 8:05 pm. Later, about 8:15 pm, I wandered into the billiards room and Floyd | played billiards with Alex until 9:35 pm, when I must confess I Floyd | wandered off. Round about 11:10 pm, I decided to head down to the Floyd | beach. I happened to run into Cedric there, and shortly thereafter we Floyd | spotted Fred lying dead among the rocks. And that was my evening. I'm Floyd | afraid that does leave some awfully large gaps, doesn't it? I suppose Floyd | iron-clad alibis only happen in stories, anyway." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about alibi" | ||||
Floyd | "I met Elinor in the library as I was taking out a book. That was after Floyd | dinner, about 7:30 pm. We chatted until 8:50 pm. Otherwise, I spent Floyd | most of the evening alone in a quiet corner of the drawing room, Floyd | reading a book. Alex was there as well from about 10:00 pm to 10:50 pm. Floyd | I'm afraid I didn't see anything unusual." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "new" | ||||
Floyd | [new -> nw] Floyd | Floyd | Dining Room Floyd | The dining room still bears traces of the evening's entertainment. A Floyd | discreet little door leads south to the kitchen, while a wide arch goes Floyd | southeast to the central hall. Through another arch to the west is the Floyd | conservatory. Floyd | Floyd | An elaborate clock keeps time on one wall. Floyd | Floyd | From the west, you hear the soft tinkling of someone muddling around on Floyd | a piano. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "heh - I always do that. grr" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "nw" | ||||
Floyd | You can't go that way. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "oops" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Conservatory Floyd | Evidently an addition to the house before Frederic Sheppard ever bought Floyd | the place, the Conservatory is only half-heartedly furnished. A few Floyd | sad-looking plants testify to the man's lack of any real interest in Floyd | horticulture. The dining room is back to the east. Floyd | Floyd | A baby grand piano sits in a corner of the room. Evidently there was Floyd | some indecision as to which definition of "conservatory" to adopt. Floyd | Floyd | A girl in a wheelchair is parked in front of the piano. Floyd | Floyd | A large clock hangs from a bracket by the door. Floyd | Floyd | The girl in the wheelchair, a fragile-looking blonde, looks up as you Floyd | enter, and for a moment you get the impression of some sort of Floyd | "fight-or-flight" instinct kicking in. Then she smiles hesitantly and Floyd | introduces herself as Elinor Lamb. "And you must be the police Floyd | inspector investigating the murder. Oh dear, it's such a terrible Floyd | shock...." Floyd | Floyd | Elinor absently fingers the keys of the piano, humming a little as she Floyd | does. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask elinor about alibi" | ||||
Floyd | "I spent some time in the library. Debbie was there. That was between Floyd | 7:30 pm and 8:50 pm, I think. Cedric came by later, and the two of us Floyd | were together in the library from 9:05 pm to 10:20 pm. I went to the Floyd | conservatory after that to continue with my music. I was alone in the Floyd | conservatory for the rest of the evening after that. I'm sorry, I can't Floyd | think of anything else that might be important." Floyd | Floyd | Elinor absently fingers the keys of the piano, humming a little as she Floyd | does. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Flipping through your admittedly untidy shorthand, you pick up the Floyd | following points: Floyd | broken branch Floyd | broken window Floyd | annotated ledger Floyd | tide table Floyd | telephone call Floyd | Cedric Crane's alibi Floyd | Benedict Lamb's alibi Floyd | Deborah Wolf's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's alibi Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "read about telephone call in notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Sheppard called his bank manager, 8:20 pm; was concerned about Floyd | finances. Manager suggested speaking to Crane? Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "read about tide table in notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Tides: 8:40 pm (high) Floyd | 3:05 am (low) Floyd | 9:30 am (high again) Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask elinor about murder" | ||||
Floyd | "It's just horrible. Ben and I arrived at about 3:30 pm; it's his first Floyd | visit, and I wanted to surprise him with the secret passage behind one Floyd | of the kitchen cabinets. But Deborah and Mr Sheppard were fixing Floyd | dinner, and I never got around to doing that. We were all having such a Floyd | fine time ... it seems impossible to believe that that was just a few Floyd | hours ago, and the most important thing on my mind then was some stupid Floyd | secret passage." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask elinor about secret passage" | ||||
Floyd | "From the study side, you turn one of the candlesticks on the Floyd | fireplace, and from the kitchen side, you turn one of the hooks in the Floyd | empty cabinet." Floyd | Floyd | Elinor absently fingers the keys of the piano, humming a little as she Floyd | does. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Dining Room Floyd | The dining room still bears traces of the evening's entertainment. A Floyd | discreet little door leads south to the kitchen, while a wide arch goes Floyd | southeast to the central hall. Through another arch to the west is the Floyd | conservatory. Floyd | Floyd | An elaborate clock keeps time on one wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Kitchen Floyd | This is the large, well-equipped kitchen of a person who takes his Floyd | entertaining extremely seriously. Counters line all the walls except Floyd | the south, which is taken up by a series of tall cabinets. Discreet Floyd | little doors lead north to the dining room and east to the central Floyd | hall. Floyd | Floyd | A large kitchen table occupies most of the southern half of the Floyd | kitchen. Floyd | On the kitchen table is a tape measure. Floyd | Floyd | A simple, round-faced clock on the wall announces that it is now 12:19 Floyd | am. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "take tape measure" | ||||
Floyd | Taken. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "turn hook" | ||||
Floyd | You jiggle the hooks, and one of them turns in its place. There is a Floyd | click, and then the back wall of the empty cabinet swings open to Floyd | reveal a room beyond. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Secret Pantry Floyd | On one side, a kitchen counter with cabinets and a small kitchen sink Floyd | takes up the length of the wall; on the other, narrow stairs lead up Floyd | and down, though the stairs going up are now used as storage shelves Floyd | instead. There are narrow doors to the north and south. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | The door swings open, and you find yourself passing through a secret Floyd | panel into the study.... Floyd | Floyd | Study Floyd | This is Frederic Sheppard's study, a neat, spacious, modern room Floyd | decorated with old theatrical bills. The library is through a door to Floyd | the east, and french doors open south to the terrace. Cold, damp air Floyd | flows in through the broken window to the west. To the north, a secret Floyd | panel leads into a room beyond. Floyd | Floyd | The well-ordered study desk stands to one side of the broken window. Floyd | On the study desk are a Faberge egg clock, a black telephone and an Floyd | annotated ledger. Floyd | Floyd | A corner fireplace occupies, well, a corner. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a wireless, an antique fireplace poker and a hunting Floyd | rifle here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | West Terrace Floyd | This section of the terrace is essentially a five-foot-wide walkway Floyd | connecting the study to the north with the main part of the terrace, to Floyd | the east. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | East Terrace Floyd | The wide, stone-paved terrace overlooks the sea here to the west and Floyd | south, and stairs lead down towards the beach. French doors go north to Floyd | the billiard room and northwest to the library. The terrace itself Floyd | continues to the west, around the corner of the library. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "d" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Rocky Cliffside Path Floyd | On one side is the steep cliff, punctuated with scrubby bushes clinging Floyd | to crevices in the rock face; on the other side, you are completely Floyd | exposed to the wide expanse of the sea. Stairs go up to the terrace of Floyd | Gull Point, not quite visible from here, and the path itself winds down Floyd | to the rocky beach below. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "d" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Beach Floyd | It is a quiet, moonlit night. The waters of the lagoon lap gently Floyd | against the sand. Treacherous-looking rocks surround the beach, but a Floyd | narrow path back up to the house has been cut into the cliff face Floyd | behind you, and the rocks to the northwest look just safe enough to Floyd | clamber over. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "nw" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Rocks Floyd | If the beach was isolated, this rocky area is even more so. Seawater Floyd | filters in through the rocks all around to fill this little tide pool, Floyd | currently at a low ebb. On one side, the cliff rises sharply up, and Floyd | from here you can just make out the broken window of Frederic Floyd | Sheppard's study. The least treacherous path through the rocks goes Floyd | southeast, back to the beach. Floyd | Floyd | A sturdy wooden post stands upright in the water, just a short distance Floyd | from the body. Floyd | Floyd | Frederic Sheppard is sprawled across the rocks, clearly dead. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x post" | ||||
Floyd | A bold, white line near the top of the post indicates the high water Floyd | mark. It seems pretty accurate: the wood still seems wet from the last Floyd | high tide, right up to the mark itself. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "measure mark" | ||||
Floyd | The current water level is about 48 inches below the high water mark. Floyd | The body itself is 12 inches below the high water mark, at its, for Floyd | want of a better phrase, highest point. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Flipping through your admittedly untidy shorthand, you pick up the Floyd | following points: Floyd | broken branch Floyd | broken window Floyd | annotated ledger Floyd | tide table Floyd | telephone call Floyd | Cedric Crane's alibi Floyd | Benedict Lamb's alibi Floyd | Deborah Wolf's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's statement Floyd | body position Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "read about body position in notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Body at 12" below high water mark. 12:22 am: sea level 48" below high Floyd | water mark. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Heh - I'm off by one minute from our transcript." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Beach Floyd | It is a quiet, moonlit night. The waters of the lagoon lap gently Floyd | against the sand. Treacherous-looking rocks surround the beach, but a Floyd | narrow path back up to the house has been cut into the cliff face Floyd | behind you, and the rocks to the northwest look just safe enough to Floyd | clamber over. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "u" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Rocky Cliffside Path Floyd | On one side is the steep cliff, punctuated with scrubby bushes clinging Floyd | to crevices in the rock face; on the other side, you are completely Floyd | exposed to the wide expanse of the sea. Stairs go up to the terrace of Floyd | Gull Point, not quite visible from here, and the path itself winds down Floyd | to the rocky beach below. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "u" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "nw" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | East Terrace Floyd | The wide, stone-paved terrace overlooks the sea here to the west and Floyd | south, and stairs lead down towards the beach. French doors go north to Floyd | the billiard room and northwest to the library. The terrace itself Floyd | continues to the west, around the corner of the library. Floyd | Floyd | > Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about murder" | ||||
Floyd | "It's difficult to believe that just half a day ago I was chopping Floyd | onions with Uncle Fred in the kitchen. We were talking and laughing, Floyd | and then Cedric Crane and the Lambs showed up, and it was just a Floyd | regular kitchen party." Deborah pauses, then says, "Speaking of the Floyd | kitchen, I should probably tell you: there's a secret way from the Floyd | kitchen into the study. From the study side, you have to turn one of Floyd | the candlesticks on the fireplace mantle to get in, and from the Floyd | kitchen you turn one of the hooks in the empty cabinet. The murderer Floyd | might have gotten in and out that way -- though I rather think that Floyd | everybody here already knows about it." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about cedric" | ||||
Floyd | Deborah Wolf purses her lips before saying: "Not an honest man, I'm Floyd | afraid. Vain, and a little too much in love with his own cleverness. Floyd | Uncle Fred never recognised any of this, of course." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about alex" | ||||
Floyd | "Alex is my husband. He's a brilliant playwright, but he needs Floyd | direction and discipline." She smiles enigmatically and crosses her Floyd | legs. "I'm not sure what else there is to tell you, except to assure Floyd | you that he really is a very talented man." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about elinor" | ||||
Floyd | "I feel sorry for her, I admit. People will insist on treating her as Floyd | though she's a child." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "l" | ||||
Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Billiards Room Floyd | The middle of the billiards room is, of course, taken up by the Floyd | billiards table. A bar occupies one corner of the west wall, beside the Floyd | door to the library. The drawing room is through the arch to the north, Floyd | and wide french doors open south onto the terrace. The central hall is Floyd | to the northwest. Floyd | Floyd | Alexander Wolf and Cedric Crane appear to be deeply engrossed in a game Floyd | of pool. Floyd | Floyd | One of those old-fashioned schoolroom clocks hangs on the wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about deb" | ||||
Floyd | "She's a bit of a priss, if you ask me. Always so very superior." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask alex about deb" | ||||
Floyd | "Debbie? She's my wife. Are you trying to insinuate something, here?" Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Drawing Room Floyd | The drawing room is a study in contrasts. The walls are very white, and Floyd | there is a modern-looking fireplace in the middle of the north wall; Floyd | grouped around the fireplace is a collection of the most old-fashioned Floyd | drawing room furniture one can imagine. Wide arches go west to the Floyd | central hall and south to the billiards room. Floyd | Floyd | An oversized carriage clock sits on the fireplace mantle. Floyd | Floyd | Benedict lounges off to one side, watching you discreetly. Floyd | Floyd | A painting of Lord Dundreary, outlandish whiskers and all, looks down Floyd | on the room with a vaguely befuddled air. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask ben about deb" | ||||
Floyd | "Deborah's probably the most intelligent woman I've ever met." Benedict Floyd | frowns. "Which makes her marriage to that first class yob, Alexander Floyd | Wolf, so very baffling. Love is blind, I suppose, however trite that Floyd | may sound." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Flipping through your admittedly untidy shorthand, you pick up the Floyd | following points: Floyd | broken branch Floyd | broken window Floyd | annotated ledger Floyd | tide table Floyd | telephone call Floyd | Cedric Crane's alibi Floyd | Benedict Lamb's alibi Floyd | Deborah Wolf's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's statement Floyd | body position Floyd | Deborah Wolf's statement Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "read deb's statement in notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Arrived early, separately from AW. In kitchen prepping dinner when Floyd | others arrived. Mentioned secret access from study to kitchen. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "nw" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Dining Room Floyd | The dining room still bears traces of the evening's entertainment. A Floyd | discreet little door leads south to the kitchen, while a wide arch goes Floyd | southeast to the central hall. Through another arch to the west is the Floyd | conservatory. Floyd | Floyd | An elaborate clock keeps time on one wall. Floyd | Floyd | From the west, you hear the soft tinkling of someone muddling around on Floyd | a piano. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Conservatory Floyd | Evidently an addition to the house before Frederic Sheppard ever bought Floyd | the place, the Conservatory is only half-heartedly furnished. A few Floyd | sad-looking plants testify to the man's lack of any real interest in Floyd | horticulture. The dining room is back to the east. Floyd | Floyd | A baby grand piano sits in a corner of the room. Evidently there was Floyd | some indecision as to which definition of "conservatory" to adopt. Floyd | Floyd | Elinor Lamb is parked in front of the piano. Floyd | Floyd | A large clock hangs from a bracket by the door. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Okay, here's where we crashed..." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask elinor about deb" | ||||
Floyd | "I never know what she's thinking, but she seems quite nice, Floyd | otherwise." Floyd | Floyd | Elinor absently fingers the keys of the piano, humming a little as she Floyd | does. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep asks, "Okay. We're missing a few statements, right?" | |||
| olethros says, "it probably has something to do with some other part of the state of Floyd" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to schep), "I don't think I did." | ||||
| schep asks (of olethros), "Floyd, or nitfol?" | ||||
| olethros shrugs. | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "read notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Flipping through your admittedly untidy shorthand, you pick up the Floyd | following points: Floyd | broken branch Floyd | broken window Floyd | annotated ledger Floyd | tide table Floyd | telephone call Floyd | Cedric Crane's alibi Floyd | Benedict Lamb's alibi Floyd | Deborah Wolf's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's statement Floyd | body position Floyd | Deborah Wolf's statement Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "I tried to reproduce the transcript. Let me compare our notebook to the one from the transcript, examined a few turns before it crashed - there we go." | |||
| Jacqueline says, "Gosh, you're right." | ||||
| schep asks, "I mean, there are some statements we haven't collected. And one alibi?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Sorry 'bout that. Yeah." | ||||
| olethros says, "hm" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "We need to talk to Alex again." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Need his statement and alibi." | ||||
| olethros says, "ok so we are not even at the same game state" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to olethros), "Very close." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I went so quick I missed a few things is all." | ||||
| Ghogg arrives, full of fun, but no funk. | Jacqueline says, "Same murderer and time of death and everything, though." | |||
| olethros shrugs again. | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "So, let me fix that." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Dining Room Floyd | The dining room still bears traces of the evening's entertainment. A Floyd | discreet little door leads south to the kitchen, while a wide arch goes Floyd | southeast to the central hall. Through another arch to the west is the Floyd | conservatory. Floyd | Floyd | An elaborate clock keeps time on one wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | olethros says, "another game on my TO-DO list" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Billiards Room Floyd | The middle of the billiards room is, of course, taken up by the Floyd | billiards table. A bar occupies one corner of the west wall, beside the Floyd | door to the library. The drawing room is through the arch to the north, Floyd | and wide french doors open south onto the terrace. The central hall is Floyd | to the northwest. Floyd | Floyd | Alexander Wolf and Cedric Crane appear to be deeply engrossed in a game Floyd | of pool. Floyd | Floyd | One of those old-fashioned schoolroom clocks hangs on the wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask alex about alibi" | ||||
Floyd | "I was playing billiards with Ben from 8:15 pm until about 9:35 pm. Floyd | Round about 10:00 pm, I joined Debbie in the drawing room. We were Floyd | together until 10:50 pm. Sure, it doesn't cover the whole evening, and Floyd | maybe I might have wandered by the study at some point, but I didn't Floyd | kill the old bastard, if that's what you're thinking." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask alex about murder" | ||||
Floyd | "It was supposed to be a sort of working holiday -- for Elinor and me, Floyd | anyway. We're working on a musical production, Twisty Passages, for the Floyd | West End, and Fred was supposed to be backing us financially. Anyway, Floyd | Debbie and I arrived separately: I had some stuff to attend to, and Floyd | arrived only just as everyone was sitting down to dinner. That was Floyd | about 5:30 pm. After dinner, we all wandered off to do our own thing. Floyd | Nothing to it. Next thing you know, Ced comes pounding up from the Floyd | beach bellowing for the police, and now Fred is dead and here you are. Floyd | How are we supposed to get financial backing now?" Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about murder" | ||||
| Floyd asks, "That game over already? It was just getting good. Wanna play another?" | ||||
| schep says, "bwah" | Jacqueline says, "Okay, it's your fault, schep!" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "heh" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Yeah, let's bag it. We'll put CF on hiatus until Jota and I and whoever can work out the bugs." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "That's... annoying." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I mean, we can start a handful of moves back." | ||||
| schep says, "third time's the charm" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "But I think it'll just crash again." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Oh - if you want to." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I'm up for it." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "load actof murder" | ||||
| Floyd says (to Jacqueline), "Floyd doesn't know that game." | Jacqueline says, "oops" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "load actofmurder" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | AN ACT OF MURDER Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | An Investigation Floyd | by Floyd | Hugh Dunnett Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Please press SPACE to continue. | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "load" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "restore" | ||||
| Jacqueline pushes the green 'space' button. | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | FOREWORD Floyd | Floyd | The following story is set up with a great deal of randomisation, and Floyd | is different each time you start or restart. It would therefore be Floyd | highly advisable to save the game before you even begin your Floyd | investigation. Floyd | Floyd | The story uses the basic "ask X about Y" format of speaking to other Floyd | characters. For the most part, "tell X about Y" will be unimportant: Floyd | it is generally (though not always!) assumed that your questions about Floyd | something will include asking about any new discoveries you have made Floyd | elsewhere about the topic. The main exception to this rule is when Floyd | laying out your case before Chief Inspector Duffy: in that event, you Floyd | will have to depend exclusively on "tell..." instead. Floyd | Floyd | Time in the story proceeds at 15 seconds a turn, allowing you ample Floyd | time (one hopes) to complete your investigation. However, there is in Floyd | fact a time limit: Chief Inspector Duffy will arrive to speak to you at Floyd | 2:00 am; and, whatever time he arrives, he will eventually lose Floyd | patience if you don't manage to make an arrest within a certain time of Floyd | his arrival. Floyd | Floyd | And that's all that's new. Good luck, Inspector! Your public awaits! Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Please press SPACE to continue. | ||||
| Jacqueline pushes the green 'space' button. | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | "Frederic Sheppard." Chief Inspector Duffy pulls at his moustache Floyd | mournfully and stares up at the house through the windshield. Floyd | "Theatrical sort, usually has a finger in some play or other. He bought Floyd | up Gull Point about ten years ago. Never any complaints from the Floyd | neighbours, never any scandals." He pulls at his moustache again. "He Floyd | was found dead in the cove at the foot of the cliff behind the house Floyd | about half an hour ago. Caller said it looked as though he fell from Floyd | his study window." Floyd | Floyd | "Think he might have jumped?" Floyd | Floyd | "She's your investigation: you tell me. We're treating this as a murder Floyd | unless you can find anything to prove otherwise." Floyd | Floyd | You nod. As you get out of the car, the Chief Inspector yawns and says, Floyd | "All right. I'm heading back to HQ. I'll be back in a couple of hours. Floyd | The investigation's all yours. And if at any time you think you're Floyd | ready to make an arrest, give me a call first, got it?" Floyd | Floyd | "Got it." Floyd | Floyd | What a wonderful way to spend the night. As Chief Inspector Duffy Floyd | drives off into the darkness, you check your watch to see just how late Floyd | it really is -- only to find that your watch has stopped. Floyd | Floyd | An Act of Murder Floyd | An Investigation by Hugh Dunnett Floyd | Release 1 / Serial number 070927 / Inform 7 build 4U65 (I6/v6.31 lib Floyd | 6/11N) Floyd | Floyd | Front Drive Floyd | You are standing on the front drive of Gull Point, residence of noted Floyd | theatrical patron Frederic Sheppard. The house, a rambling old place, Floyd | stands to the south. Floyd | Floyd | Beside the front doors, the large doorbell button gleams amber in the Floyd | moonlight. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a red Triumph Roadster, a blue Austin and a green Floyd | Morris Saloon here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "restore" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to load: | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Flipping through your admittedly untidy shorthand, you pick up the Floyd | following points: Floyd | broken branch Floyd | broken window Floyd | annotated ledger Floyd | tide table Floyd | telephone call Floyd | Cedric Crane's alibi Floyd | Benedict Lamb's alibi Floyd | Deborah Wolf's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's statement Floyd | body position Floyd | Deborah Wolf's statement Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "l" | ||||
Floyd | Conservatory Floyd | Evidently an addition to the house before Frederic Sheppard ever bought Floyd | the place, the Conservatory is only half-heartedly furnished. A few Floyd | sad-looking plants testify to the man's lack of any real interest in Floyd | horticulture. The dining room is back to the east. Floyd | Floyd | A baby grand piano sits in a corner of the room. Evidently there was Floyd | some indecision as to which definition of "conservatory" to adopt. Floyd | Floyd | Elinor Lamb is parked in front of the piano. Floyd | Floyd | A large clock hangs from a bracket by the door. Floyd | Floyd | Elinor absently fingers the keys of the piano, humming a little as she Floyd | does. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "okay, so we go get Alex's statements." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Dining Room Floyd | The dining room still bears traces of the evening's entertainment. A Floyd | discreet little door leads south to the kitchen, while a wide arch goes Floyd | southeast to the central hall. Through another arch to the west is the Floyd | conservatory. Floyd | Floyd | An elaborate clock keeps time on one wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Billiards Room Floyd | The middle of the billiards room is, of course, taken up by the Floyd | billiards table. A bar occupies one corner of the west wall, beside the Floyd | door to the library. The drawing room is through the arch to the north, Floyd | and wide french doors open south onto the terrace. The central hall is Floyd | to the northwest. Floyd | Floyd | Alexander Wolf and Cedric Crane appear to be deeply engrossed in a game Floyd | of pool. Floyd | Floyd | One of those old-fashioned schoolroom clocks hangs on the wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask alex about alibi" | ||||
Floyd | "I was playing billiards with Ben from 8:15 pm until about 9:35 pm. Floyd | Round about 10:00 pm, I joined Debbie in the drawing room. We were Floyd | together until 10:50 pm. Sure, it doesn't cover the whole evening, and Floyd | maybe I might have wandered by the study at some point, but I didn't Floyd | kill the old bastard, if that's what you're thinking." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask alex about murder" | ||||
Floyd | "It was supposed to be a sort of working holiday -- for Elinor and me, Floyd | anyway. We're working on a musical production, Twisty Passages, for the Floyd | West End, and Fred was supposed to be backing us financially. Anyway, Floyd | Debbie and I arrived separately: I had some stuff to attend to, and Floyd | arrived only just as everyone was sitting down to dinner. That was Floyd | about 5:30 pm. After dinner, we all wandered off to do our own thing. Floyd | Nothing to it. Next thing you know, Ced comes pounding up from the Floyd | beach bellowing for the police, and now Fred is dead and here you are. Floyd | How are we supposed to get financial backing now?" Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline asks, "How did you get info about the guest arrivals, schep?" | |||
| schep asks, "I did?" | ||||
| schep says, "I mean, some statements mentioned arrivals." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Yeah, that's the only thing different about our notebooks between now and the transcript." | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "read notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Flipping through your admittedly untidy shorthand, you pick up the Floyd | following points: Floyd | broken branch Floyd | broken window Floyd | annotated ledger Floyd | tide table Floyd | telephone call Floyd | Cedric Crane's alibi Floyd | Benedict Lamb's alibi Floyd | Deborah Wolf's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's statement Floyd | body position Floyd | Deborah Wolf's statement Floyd | Alexander Wolf's alibi Floyd | Alexander Wolf's statement Floyd | guest arrivals Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "oho" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "That's how." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "okay, so now we're caught up entirely." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says (to schep), "Now don't crash him! heh" | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about murder" | ||||
Floyd | "I actually arrived earlier than expected: Mr Sheppard was still fixing Floyd | dinner when I came in the door, and I went to join him. I suppose I Floyd | should have gone home straight after dinner, but that always seems a Floyd | little rude. And besides," he adds with a wink, "Mr Sheppard keeps a Floyd | beautifully well-stocked bar. Anyway, I wound up heading down to the Floyd | beach late in the evening for some fresh air and alone time. I'd Floyd | already been there rather a while when Benedict Lamb came down from the Floyd | house, and we happened to wander close enough to the tidal pool at the Floyd | base of the cliff to notice Fred lying there dead, and that's when we Floyd | raised the alarm." He shrugs his shoulders and continues, "I wish I'd Floyd | been paying more attention. For all I know, whatever happened could Floyd | have happened while I was right there, strolling about on the sand." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about Twisty Passages" | ||||
Floyd | "Currently, the main draw on the Sheppard Trust resources would be this Floyd | stage musical production ... Twisty Passages, I think it's called." He Floyd | glances around and lowers his voice. "I shouldn't be saying this, but Floyd | then this is rather a serious business. The others will probably tell Floyd | you that Mr Wolf was writing the script and Miss Lamb the music, with Floyd | Mr Sheppard supplying the funds ... but musical productions generally Floyd | run into greater costs than non-musical stage plays. The entire project Floyd | was sliding deep into debt, and Mr Sheppard was thinking about cutting Floyd | his losses. He let slip about it while we were all in the kitchen, Floyd | before dinner, and there was a tremendous uproar." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline asks, "meta commands don't count against time, right?" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: | schep says, "they shouldn't" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "I don't think they do, and I'm paranoid now." | |||
| Jacqueline winks. | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask alex about Twisty Passages" | ||||
Floyd | "Yeah, Twisty Passages is the working title. Drama, romance, Floyd | swashbuckling goodness, everything the public loves, with the added Floyd | bonus of actually sounding intelligent. The script is mine, the score Floyd | is Elinor's, and the money is Fred's. It's the first time any of us are Floyd | working on a musical, and I thought it was going very well." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Hm - this bit about the musical and him yanking funding points to motive for a few people." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask alex about fred" | ||||
Floyd | "I could respect the guy. Not understand him and his fussiness, mind Floyd | you, but I could respect him." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about fred" | ||||
Floyd | "Poor chap. He was a good fellow -- not wonderful with figures, but you Floyd | can't have everything." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "mainly Alex and Elinor, right? and Elinor has the best alibi" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "Well, Deb, too." | ||||
| schep asks, "how is she involved with the musical?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "She's Alex's wife, after all, and probably would be equally distressed about the loss of income, I would think." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "And she has a big gaping hole in her alibi at that time in question." | ||||
| schep says, "ah, yes. By that same logic, Ben too." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "But I could be wrong - this seriously changes everytime, and I might be missing something." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "There's the author now." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I want to confront Deb." | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "Can we do that? Ask her about the branch, maybe?" | ||||
| schep hands over the wheel | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "snrk" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Well, just for a second." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "i" | ||||
Floyd | You are carrying: Floyd | a tape measure Floyd | a pistol Floyd | a scrap of paper Floyd | a broken branch Floyd | your notebook Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "show branch to deb" | ||||
Floyd | Deborah Wolf doesn't seem to have much to say in response to that. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "aw" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about branch" | ||||
Floyd | Deborah Wolf doesn't seem to have much to say about the broken branch. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about murder" | ||||
Floyd | "It's difficult to believe that just half a day ago I was chopping Floyd | onions with Uncle Fred in the kitchen. We were talking and laughing, Floyd | and then Cedric Crane and the Lambs showed up, and it was just a Floyd | regular kitchen party." Deborah pauses, then says, "Speaking of the Floyd | kitchen, I should probably tell you: there's a secret way from the Floyd | kitchen into the study. From the study side, you have to turn one of Floyd | the candlesticks on the fireplace mantle to get in, and from the Floyd | kitchen you turn one of the hooks in the empty cabinet. The murderer Floyd | might have gotten in and out that way -- though I rather think that Floyd | everybody here already knows about it." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about twisty passages" | ||||
Floyd | "Twisty Passages is one of Alex's better scripts, if I do say so Floyd | myself. Elinor's providing the music, and Uncle Fred's money was Floyd | supposed to actually get it onto the stage. Investing in the theatre Floyd | was something of a hobby with Uncle Fred, you know: he didn't always Floyd | get a good return, but he did love feeling like a great patron of the Floyd | arts. Naturally, when Alex and Elinor started talking about producing Floyd | something, I went straight to Uncle Fred and arranged it all with him." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about funding" | ||||
Floyd | She closes her eyes momentarily. "I was ... disappointed ... in Uncle Floyd | Fred. Very disappointed." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "hm" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about motive" | ||||
Floyd | Deborah Wolf doesn't seem to have much to say about that. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Hm - that's too bad that's not in there." | |||
| Jacqueline asks (of schep), "Ideas?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "not much, other than ask more people about the musical and funding" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "mmkay" | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "We've asked Cedric, Alex, and Deb?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Drawing Room Floyd | The drawing room is a study in contrasts. The walls are very white, and Floyd | there is a modern-looking fireplace in the middle of the north wall; Floyd | grouped around the fireplace is a collection of the most old-fashioned Floyd | drawing room furniture one can imagine. Wide arches go west to the Floyd | central hall and south to the billiards room. Floyd | Floyd | An oversized carriage clock sits on the fireplace mantle. Floyd | Floyd | Benedict lounges off to one side, watching you discreetly. Floyd | Floyd | A painting of Lord Dundreary, outlandish whiskers and all, looks down Floyd | on the room with a vaguely befuddled air. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask ben about musical" | schep says, "Cedric said there was a big fuss when the news came out. Wonder if we can get info on who was angry" | |||
Floyd | "I don't pretend to pay it all too much attention. I know it's called Floyd | Twisty Passages and that Frederic Sheppard was supposed to finance it. Floyd | My sister Elinor, who is writing the music for it, could probably tell Floyd | you more; as could Alex, who is writing the script." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask ben about funding" | ||||
Floyd | "So you heard that Fred Sheppard was cutting the funding. Hmph. Elinor Floyd | nearly had a relapse." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Oh really." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask ben about elinor" | ||||
Floyd | "My sister has had a very unfortunate life: first the accident that put Floyd | her in the wheelchair, then her ... her health issues, and now this. Floyd | She can't possibly have anything to do with this, believe me. As a Floyd | matter of fact, I happen to have her latest medical report in one of my Floyd | coat pockets. Go ahead and see for yourself; my coat's the green Floyd | zimarra in the cloak room." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask ben about health issues" | ||||
Floyd | "Elinor's always been rather delicate. Then there was the accident that Floyd | put her in a wheelchair, and when that happened they discovered she was Floyd | already --" Benedict clears his throat and fidgets. "Well, you did get Floyd | around to looking at that medical report, didn't you? It explains Floyd | things better than I ever could." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "hm. Guess we should go look at that." | |||
| schep says, "yup" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Coat pocket in the cloak room..." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Entrance Foyer Floyd | Theatrical bills on the walls give this otherwise sterile entry hall Floyd | the appearance of a theatrical lobby. The front doors are to the north, Floyd | and the central hall is to the south. The cloak room is to the east. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Cloak Room Floyd | A fancy name for a what is essentially a walk-in closet, with a powder Floyd | room attached. The clutter gives it a more lived-in appearance than the Floyd | entrance foyer back to the west. Floyd | Floyd | Half hidden by the green overcoat is a tall umbrella stand in the shape Floyd | of an elephant's foot. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see five coats (a green overcoat, a leather jacket, a tan Floyd | trenchcoat, a Burberry jacket and a brown blazer) here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "search overcoat" | ||||
Floyd | You spend a few seconds searching -- no, excavating -- through the Floyd | pockets of the green overcoat and finally emerge into daylight Floyd | (figuratively speaking) with issue no. 2 of The Incredible Hulk. As it Floyd | is quite useless to you, you return it to the pockets of the green Floyd | overcoat. You also find and take a medical report, but then you knew Floyd | that would be there. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "heh" | |||
| I don't see that here. | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x report" | ||||
Floyd | This sheaf of documents sets out in excruciating detail the Floyd | circumstances of Elinor Lamb's health. Tucked between the pages is the Floyd | following note: "Mr Lamb, your sister has not much longer to live. Floyd | While it is true that the completion of this magnum opus you describe Floyd | will be a very great thing by which to remember your sister after she Floyd | is gone, and that this is what she most certainly wants, is not her Floyd | comfort now, while she is alive, more important? Why must you insist on Floyd | encouraging her in this foolhardy project?" Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "huh" | |||
| Jacqueline asks, "Fred was a big guy, right?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "If Elinor's really this frail..." | ||||
| schep says, "yes" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x notebook" | ||||
Floyd | Flipping through your admittedly untidy shorthand, you pick up the Floyd | following points: Floyd | broken branch Floyd | broken window Floyd | annotated ledger Floyd | tide table Floyd | telephone call Floyd | Cedric Crane's alibi Floyd | Benedict Lamb's alibi Floyd | Deborah Wolf's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's alibi Floyd | Elinor Lamb's statement Floyd | body position Floyd | Deborah Wolf's statement Floyd | Alexander Wolf's alibi Floyd | Alexander Wolf's statement Floyd | guest arrivals Floyd | Cedric Crane's statement Floyd | musical Floyd | medical report Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "read about medical report in notebook" | ||||
Floyd | EL's med report found in green overcoat. Note from Dr: BL sees musical Floyd | as memorial, insists on EL's continued involvement. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "time" | ||||
Floyd | That's not a verb I recognise. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Hm - think the game gave us the time in the status bar, but I also doubt we're close to running out." | |||
| Jacqueline says, "Well, I'm actually really tempted to wrap it up, but maybe we're not solid yet." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Wait, maybe - hrm" | ||||
| schep says, "I still have no clue who to finger" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I guess Ben's alibi ends right about the Time of Death, doesn't it? Poo." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "So it's not just Deb." | ||||
| Taleslinger asks, "maybe they both did it?" | ||||
| olethros says, "hahaha" | ||||
| schep says, "I guess the new bit points to Ben a bit more" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I think we can rule out Elinor due to frailty and alibi with Cedric. We can rule out Cedric because of Elinor's alibi, too." | ||||
| olethros says, "this is _not_ an agatha cristie novel where the suspect is not in the room" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I don't think the game allows partners in crime, for what it's worth." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "So... Ben, Alex, and Deb. How to sift 'em out." | ||||
| schep says, "maybe we can talk with people about the doctor's note" | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "mmkay - want to drive, or should I?" | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Entrance Foyer Floyd | Theatrical bills on the walls give this otherwise sterile entry hall Floyd | the appearance of a theatrical lobby. The front doors are to the north, Floyd | and the central hall is to the south. The cloak room is to the east. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Drawing Room Floyd | The drawing room is a study in contrasts. The walls are very white, and Floyd | there is a modern-looking fireplace in the middle of the north wall; Floyd | grouped around the fireplace is a collection of the most old-fashioned Floyd | drawing room furniture one can imagine. Wide arches go west to the Floyd | central hall and south to the billiards room. Floyd | Floyd | An oversized carriage clock sits on the fireplace mantle. Floyd | Floyd | Benedict lounges off to one side, watching you discreetly. Floyd | Floyd | A painting of Lord Dundreary, outlandish whiskers and all, looks down Floyd | on the room with a vaguely befuddled air. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask ben about doctor's note" | ||||
Floyd | Benedict seems to have entirely too much to say about that. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "um, okay" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "show note to ben" | ||||
Floyd | Benedict Lamb doesn't seem to have much to say in response to that. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Taleslinger says, "I wonder what happens if I just type 'quit.' " | schep says, "(is that a different note?)" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "oh, might be" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "show report to ben" | ||||
Floyd | Benedict Lamb doesn't seem to have much to say in response to that. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "i" | ||||
Floyd | You are carrying: Floyd | a medical report Floyd | a tape measure Floyd | a pistol Floyd | a scrap of paper Floyd | a broken branch Floyd | your notebook Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Billiards Room Floyd | The middle of the billiards room is, of course, taken up by the Floyd | billiards table. A bar occupies one corner of the west wall, beside the Floyd | door to the library. The drawing room is through the arch to the north, Floyd | and wide french doors open south onto the terrace. The central hall is Floyd | to the northwest. Floyd | Floyd | Alexander Wolf and Cedric Crane appear to be deeply engrossed in a game Floyd | of pool. Floyd | Floyd | One of those old-fashioned schoolroom clocks hangs on the wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask alexander about doctor's note" | ||||
Floyd | Alexander Wolf doesn't seem to have much to say about that. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask alex about medical report" | ||||
Floyd | Alexander Wolf doesn't seem to have much to say about the medical Floyd | report. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask alex about elinor's health" | ||||
Floyd | "It's too complicated for my tiny little brain. Why don't you ask her? Floyd | Or better yet, talk to that nursemaid brother of hers. He'll fill you Floyd | in on the details you want and some that you don't." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ask alex about dinner" | ||||
Floyd | Alexander Wolf doesn't seem to have much to say about that. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x branch" | ||||
Floyd | This small sprig of cliffside greenery was found clutched in the dead Floyd | man's hand. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Hm." | |||
| schep says, "okay, I dunno. We could try presenting a case against Ben to Sarge." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Well, wait a tick." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "maga and I were looking at the timeline again." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "It's a bit sneaky, but maga was a beta tester and has infomed me that only two people can be cleared by alibi." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "One more is cleared by not having the means." | ||||
| maga says, "(meta-game knowledge, cough cough)" | ||||
| schep asks, "right, Cedric and Elinor are cleared by alibi. Means?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "And another cleared by counter-motive." | ||||
| maga says, "means is the murder method" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Fred was alive at 8:20 when he called the bank guy." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "And we know he was wet at 9:35." | ||||
| schep says, "-ish" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "But he could have died anywhere in there, not at 9:35, which is for some wach reason what I was thinking." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "ish, right." | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "So, if we look at the timeline, where's a point where only a couple of people give alibis for one another?" | ||||
| schep says, "all but two were alone from 9:35-10:00" | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "Okay, so you're saying maybe the body was wet a touch later than 9:35?" | ||||
| schep says, "yeah, the whole tide thing is an estimate anyway" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Which makes a bit of sense, as there's some slack tide when it changes." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "But I have no idea how Mis modeled the tide, so." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Let's discuss motives again." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Cedric thinks this is Elinor's grand finale, the musical." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "And would be mad were funding pulled, especially since she was distraught when she learned the news at dinner." | ||||
| schep says, "s/Cedric/Ben/" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Oh wait, yeah." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Sorry." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "So, Elinor is distraught, but also crippled and weak." | ||||
| schep says, "Alex lost a source of income (and so did Deb)." | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "And Cedric... what about Cedric and that ledger? What was up with that?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "This meta-mechanics thing has me puzzled. Maga says someone can't be ruled out by both means and alibi... but Elinor appears to be ruled out by both. The only other block of time we have when only two people vouch for one another is, like, 8:50-9:05, which is a really narrow window." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "But during that window, Ben and Alex vouch for one another, with Cedric, Deb, and Elinor each alone. Elinor is frail and the window is high off the ground, making it hard for her to push a big guy out. That would make it boil down to Deb and Cedric." | ||||
| schep asks, "the body wouldn't have been washed higher up if he died that early?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I think he fell from the window, and was pushed... he was still alive when he went out the window, as the branch would lead us to believe." | ||||
| Jacqueline asks (of schep), "Hm... Well, this would have been right *at* high tide, no?" | ||||
| Ghogg asks, "would you like a hint?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Ghogg), "nah" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Not just yet." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to schep), "High tide is at 8:40." | ||||
| Ghogg says, "you sound like you're doing fine anyway." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Ten minutes before this 15 minute window." | ||||
| schep says, "I guess it could have been then." | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "So, what about Cedric and the ledger?" | ||||
| schep says, "makes a good motive. Especially if he didn't know previously that Deb was the one who spotted the missing money." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "So, we've narrowed it to Deb and Cedric, and we need to dig a bit deeper on those two, I guess." | ||||
| schep says, "C is probably too paranoid to keep a suitcase key in his jacket..." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Maybe we should look through the other coats in the cloakroom." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Timing" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Yeah, let's go." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "nw" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Entrance Foyer Floyd | Theatrical bills on the walls give this otherwise sterile entry hall Floyd | the appearance of a theatrical lobby. The front doors are to the north, Floyd | and the central hall is to the south. The cloak room is to the east. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline has had her fill of playing for now, and goes back to the Lounge. | Jacqueline says, "AHHH I'm LOST" | |||
| schep says, "hee" | ||||
| Jacqueline arrives, full of neither funk nor fun. | Jacqueline says, "heehee" | |||
| Jacqueline asks, "Okay, so, did we move while I was gone?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "l" | ||||
Floyd | Entrance Foyer Floyd | Theatrical bills on the walls give this otherwise sterile entry hall Floyd | the appearance of a theatrical lobby. The front doors are to the north, Floyd | and the central hall is to the south. The cloak room is to the east. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "nope, figured you'd be right back" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "heehee" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "e" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Cloak Room Floyd | A fancy name for a what is essentially a walk-in closet, with a powder Floyd | room attached. The clutter gives it a more lived-in appearance than the Floyd | entrance foyer back to the west. Floyd | Floyd | Half hidden by the green overcoat is a tall umbrella stand in the shape Floyd | of an elephant's foot. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see five coats (a green overcoat, a leather jacket, a tan Floyd | trenchcoat, a Burberry jacket and a brown blazer) here. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Must have missed the >F in >F E" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "search jacket" | ||||
Floyd | Which do you mean, the leather jacket or the Burberry jacket? Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "leather" | ||||
Floyd | You quickly rummage through the pockets of the leather jacket, Floyd | discovering an appointment book, which you take. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x appointment book" | ||||
Floyd | The name on the inside cover identifies this as belonging to Alexander Floyd | Wolf. Paging through to yesterday's date, you find that Alexander Wolf Floyd | had an appointment, which he apparently kept, with Frederic Sheppard's Floyd | lawyer just that afternoon. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Okay, so we should ask about that, I guess." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "search trenchcoat" | ||||
Floyd | You quickly rummage through the pockets of the tan trenchcoat, Floyd | discovering nothing. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "search burberry jacket" | ||||
Floyd | You quickly rummage through the pockets of the Burberry jacket, Floyd | discovering nothing. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "search blazer" | ||||
Floyd | You quickly rummage through the pockets of the brown blazer, Floyd | discovering nothing. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x stnad" | ||||
Floyd | [stnad -> stand] Floyd | In the elephant's foot umbrella stand is an ebony walking stick. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x stick" | ||||
Floyd | It's shiny and black, with a gold inlay ring about six inches down from Floyd | a gold knob handle. It seems a little heavy, but is otherwise Floyd | completely ordinary. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "another blunt object" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "search stand" | ||||
Floyd | In the elephant's foot umbrella stand is an ebony walking stick. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Yeah." | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "search stick" | ||||
Floyd | You find nothing of interest. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Heehee - this is the new record for the longest Club Floyd, but I guess there's just two of us and there was some crashiness." | |||
| schep says, "gold would probably dent..." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x gold" | ||||
Floyd | You can't see any such thing. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "okay, let's ask alex about appointment" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "take stick" | ||||
Floyd | Taken. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "mmkay" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Entrance Foyer Floyd | Theatrical bills on the walls give this otherwise sterile entry hall Floyd | the appearance of a theatrical lobby. The front doors are to the north, Floyd | and the central hall is to the south. The cloak room is to the east. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Billiards Room Floyd | The middle of the billiards room is, of course, taken up by the Floyd | billiards table. A bar occupies one corner of the west wall, beside the Floyd | door to the library. The drawing room is through the arch to the north, Floyd | and wide french doors open south onto the terrace. The central hall is Floyd | to the northwest. Floyd | Floyd | Alexander Wolf and Cedric Crane appear to be deeply engrossed in a game Floyd | of pool. Floyd | Floyd | One of those old-fashioned schoolroom clocks hangs on the wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask alex about appointment" | ||||
Floyd | Alexander Wolf grimaces. "I suppose it'll all come out sooner or later. Floyd | All right. Fred told me a couple of days back that he was thinking of Floyd | pulling out of the project. He hadn't actually made up his mind about Floyd | it, but I figured I'd see what my options were. So I made an Floyd | appointment to find out exactly what sort of control Fred had over the Floyd | Sheppard Trust. I waited all afternoon and the bastards still didn't Floyd | have time for me. At least they left me a copy of Zack Sheppard's will. Floyd | Here, I haven't looked at it yet, thanks to all this mess, but I'm Floyd | guessing you'll want a look at it." Floyd | Floyd | Alexander Wolf takes a plain legal envelope out of an inside pocket and Floyd | hands it to you. Floyd | Floyd | > | olethros says, "kill the merchant by throwing gold coins at him" | |||
| schep asks, "who's Zack?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Zack is Fred's brother, I think." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask alex about zach" | ||||
Floyd | "Deb's father. He died when she was very young, before I ever met her. Floyd | So no, I never knew the man, and have nothing to say about him." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Yeah, Zack is dad, Fred is her uncle." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x will" | ||||
Floyd | You can't see any such thing. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "open envelope" | ||||
Floyd | You open the legal envelope, revealing a copy of Zachary Sheppard's Floyd | will. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "x will" | ||||
Floyd | The main part of the will concerns the Sheppard Trust, the main purpose Floyd | of which is to fund deserving theatrical projects, the secondary Floyd | purpose of which is to provide Mr Zachary Sheppard's heirs with a Floyd | steady income. Frederic Sheppard is named as a manager of the Trust. Floyd | Thanks to some clumsiness in the wording, it seems that the Trust is to Floyd | exist only for the duration of Frederic Sheppard's life, after which Floyd | the capital is to be divided among various charities. Stapled to the Floyd | back of the document is a list of figures detailing large chunks of Floyd | money being shifted out of the Trust and into what appears to be Floyd | Deborah Wolf's bank account. Floyd | Floyd | > | maga says, "dunh dunh DUUUNH" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "I'm thinking this is what the FBI calls a clue." | ||||
| schep says, "I guess that's anti-motive for Deb" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Hm... well, I was thinking the opposite." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Guess we should go confront Deb." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "w" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Library Floyd | The study door to the west is almost obscured by the near-solid screen Floyd | of crowded bookshelves occupying the west wall. The rest of the room is Floyd | occupied with modern art. French doors open north to the central hall Floyd | and southeast onto the terrace. The billiards room is through an Floyd | anonymous-looking door to the east. Floyd | Floyd | Deborah Wolf is curled up in a comfortable armchair, reading a mystery Floyd | novel. Floyd | Floyd | On closer inspection, one piece of modern art turns out to actually be Floyd | a clock. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a leather briefcase and a tide table here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "say to Deb, "Now see here, you guilty little tramp..." while waving will in her face." | ||||
Floyd | [now -> nw] Floyd | [see -> se] Floyd | [here -> her] Floyd | [you -> your] Floyd | I didn't understand that sentence. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Oh." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask deb about will" | ||||
Floyd | Deborah Wolf pauses, then says, "Have you looked at the terms of my Floyd | father's will, Inspector? My father meant the Trust to support Floyd | struggling theatrical projects, yes, but he never meant for it to die Floyd | with Uncle Fred. What we were doing was only practical, to ensure that Floyd | the Trust lived on. Of course, now that Uncle Fred's gone ... I wish we Floyd | hadn't left this so very late." Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "actually, pretty much an anti-motive for everybody but Cedric, assuming they knew the details." | |||
| maga says, "Alex explicitly said that he hadn't read it yet" | ||||
| schep says, "right" | ||||
| schep asks, "wait, what was it 'we' were doing?" | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "heh. We as in you and I, schep?" | ||||
| schep says, "no, as in Deb and whoever else she's trying to involve" | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "Oh, you mean the 'wish we hadn't left this so very late' bit?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Yeah, I'm not sure about that." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "maga thinks it means her and Fred." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "But I'm not sure how we ask her about that." | ||||
| schep says, "I think she's claiming the transfer of funds was to get around the loophole. Which seems sort of fishy." | ||||
| schep says, "wait wait, this makes the ledger business even more complicated." | ||||
| schep says, "let's ask Cedric about the will" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "So, Cedric is allegedly embezzling, but maybe Deb's just framing him with bad math, and Deb may be in for a windfall, but might go ahead and fund the projects anyway. They both have motive and potential anti-motive." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to schep), "mmkay" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | East Terrace Floyd | The wide, stone-paved terrace overlooks the sea here to the west and Floyd | south, and stairs lead down towards the beach. French doors go north to Floyd | the billiard room and northwest to the library. The terrace itself Floyd | continues to the west, around the corner of the library. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "oops" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Billiards Room Floyd | The middle of the billiards room is, of course, taken up by the Floyd | billiards table. A bar occupies one corner of the west wall, beside the Floyd | door to the library. The drawing room is through the arch to the north, Floyd | and wide french doors open south onto the terrace. The central hall is Floyd | to the northwest. Floyd | Floyd | Alexander Wolf and Cedric Crane appear to be deeply engrossed in a game Floyd | of pool. Floyd | Floyd | One of those old-fashioned schoolroom clocks hangs on the wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "ask cedric about will" | ||||
Floyd | Cedric Crane chuckles and says, "Oh, those money transfers? That was Mr Floyd | Sheppard and Mrs Wolf trying to get around the setup of the Sheppard Floyd | Trust. The Trust's supposed to die with Mr Sheppard, leaving Mrs Wolf Floyd | with nothing, so the two of them decided to engage in a spot of Floyd | embezzling and shift the money into her bank account. It was rather Floyd | slow going, but give them a couple more years, and I think they might Floyd | even have succeeded." He shrugs. "Well, it's a victimless crime. Can it Floyd | still be embezzling if you're stealing from yourself, and if you let Floyd | all the lawyers and accountants know what you're up to? I'm not a Floyd | lawyer, so I don't know: I just like calling it that." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "huh" | |||
| schep says, "Okay. So Fred did know about this transfer and approve of it. But then there was something else with the money he didn't know about." | ||||
| schep says, "I guess this puts it into the anti-motive category for Deb." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Yeah." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Which leaves us with Cedric." | ||||
| schep exclaims, "the shifty pencil-pusher!" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "he 'likes calling it' embezzling, does he." | |||
| Jacqueline asks, "Should we call the chief?" | ||||
| schep says, "sure." | ||||
| Jacqueline asks, "mmkay. Where's the phone, in the hall?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "nw" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "yeah, in the center" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "call chief" | ||||
Floyd | You get Chief Inspector Duffy after a couple of rings. "Good man. I'll Floyd | be there in five minutes." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "call chief" | Jacqueline says, "oops" | |||
Floyd | It's a few rings before you get one of the junior policemen at the Floyd | station. "The Chief Inspector is already on his way," he says. "No need Floyd | to get in a twist about it." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "heh" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "yawn" | ||||
Floyd | That's not a verb I recognise. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Entrance Foyer Floyd | Theatrical bills on the walls give this otherwise sterile entry hall Floyd | the appearance of a theatrical lobby. The front doors are to the north, Floyd | and the central hall is to the south. The cloak room is to the east. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Are you sure you want to quit? | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "n" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "man, I don't remember it being this long." | |||
| Jacqueline says, "But I guess it does take him 5 minutes to drive here or something." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "z" | ||||
Floyd | Time passes. Floyd | Floyd | The door swings open, admitting Chief Inspector Duffy. He looks more Floyd | put-upon than ever. "I hope you have something for me, Inspector. I Floyd | want to be home and in bed some reasonable amount of time before having Floyd | to get up and head back to the station." Floyd | Floyd | He sighs. "At the moment, as far as I know, everybody had the means and Floyd | opportunity, and nobody had any motive. Tell me about anything you've Floyd | found that will change this." Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "YAY" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "save" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to store: Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "Don't want to do that all again." | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about elinor" | ||||
Floyd | You haven't really learned anything there that would interest the Chief Floyd | Inspector. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about deb" | ||||
Floyd | You haven't really learned anything there that would interest the Chief Floyd | Inspector. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "except now we can't uncall him." | |||
| Jacqueline says, "ACK" | ||||
| schep says, "'medical report'" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "OH NO" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "I think we're okay, though" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about medical report" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "and ledger, of course" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about ledger" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | "That's a very serious accusation on Mrs Wolf's part. If Mr Crane were Floyd | afraid of Mr Sheppard finding out about his little sideline, it might Floyd | have been a very good reason to want him dead. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about will" | ||||
| Floyd asks, "That game over already? It was just getting good. Wanna play another?" | Jacqueline says, "Heh - but I'm glad I saved, maybe." | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "You have some sense of timing." | ||||
| Floyd says (to schep), "Floyd doesn't know that trick." | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "load actofmurder" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | AN ACT OF MURDER Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | An Investigation Floyd | by Floyd | Hugh Dunnett Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Please press SPACE to continue. | ||||
| Jacqueline pushes the green 'space' button. | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | FOREWORD Floyd | Floyd | The following story is set up with a great deal of randomisation, and Floyd | is different each time you start or restart. It would therefore be Floyd | highly advisable to save the game before you even begin your Floyd | investigation. Floyd | Floyd | The story uses the basic "ask X about Y" format of speaking to other Floyd | characters. For the most part, "tell X about Y" will be unimportant: Floyd | it is generally (though not always!) assumed that your questions about Floyd | something will include asking about any new discoveries you have made Floyd | elsewhere about the topic. The main exception to this rule is when Floyd | laying out your case before Chief Inspector Duffy: in that event, you Floyd | will have to depend exclusively on "tell..." instead. Floyd | Floyd | Time in the story proceeds at 15 seconds a turn, allowing you ample Floyd | time (one hopes) to complete your investigation. However, there is in Floyd | fact a time limit: Chief Inspector Duffy will arrive to speak to you at Floyd | 2:00 am; and, whatever time he arrives, he will eventually lose Floyd | patience if you don't manage to make an arrest within a certain time of Floyd | his arrival. Floyd | Floyd | And that's all that's new. Good luck, Inspector! Your public awaits! Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Please press SPACE to continue. | ||||
| Jacqueline pushes the green 'space' button. | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | "Frederic Sheppard." Chief Inspector Duffy pulls at his moustache Floyd | mournfully and stares up at the house through the windshield. Floyd | "Theatrical sort, usually has a finger in some play or other. He bought Floyd | up Gull Point about ten years ago. Never any complaints from the Floyd | neighbours, never any scandals." He pulls at his moustache again. "He Floyd | was found dead in the cove at the foot of the cliff behind the house Floyd | about half an hour ago. Caller said it looked as though he fell from Floyd | his study window." Floyd | Floyd | "Think he might have jumped?" Floyd | Floyd | "She's your investigation: you tell me. We're treating this as a murder Floyd | unless you can find anything to prove otherwise." Floyd | Floyd | You nod. As you get out of the car, the Chief Inspector yawns and says, Floyd | "All right. I'm heading back to HQ. I'll be back in a couple of hours. Floyd | The investigation's all yours. And if at any time you think you're Floyd | ready to make an arrest, give me a call first, got it?" Floyd | Floyd | "Got it." Floyd | Floyd | What a wonderful way to spend the night. As Chief Inspector Duffy Floyd | drives off into the darkness, you check your watch to see just how late Floyd | it really is -- only to find that your watch has stopped. Floyd | Floyd | An Act of Murder Floyd | An Investigation by Hugh Dunnett Floyd | Release 1 / Serial number 070927 / Inform 7 build 4U65 (I6/v6.31 lib Floyd | 6/11N) Floyd | Floyd | Front Drive Floyd | You are standing on the front drive of Gull Point, residence of noted Floyd | theatrical patron Frederic Sheppard. The house, a rambling old place, Floyd | stands to the south. Floyd | Floyd | Beside the front doors, the large doorbell button gleams amber in the Floyd | moonlight. Floyd | Floyd | You can also see a red Triumph Roadster, a blue Austin and a green Floyd | Morris Saloon here. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "restore" | ||||
Floyd | Enter saved game to load: | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "cfsave" | ||||
Floyd | Ok. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about medical report" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about ledger" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | "That's a very serious accusation on Mrs Wolf's part. If Mr Crane were Floyd | afraid of Mr Sheppard finding out about his little sideline, it might Floyd | have been a very good reason to want him dead. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about will" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | "Interesting. So Mrs Wolf knew the provisions of her father's will, Floyd | and, what is more, she knew she had a lot to lose by her uncle dying Floyd | when he did. I can't say I can picture her as our murderess, in that Floyd | case." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about branch" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | > | schep asks, "now the billiards game? the tide?" | |||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about tide" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about phone call" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | "Financial worries? That's rather vague ... but at least we know Mr Floyd | Sheppard was still alive at 8:20 pm." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about window" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | When you finish, he strokes his moustache and says, "I imagine that Floyd | pushing a full-grown man up against a window, and then through it when Floyd | it breaks open, would entail quite a bit of physical exertion -- Floyd | especially given the height of the window sill." Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about ben's alibi" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about alex's alibi" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about elinor" | ||||
Floyd | You haven't really learned anything there that would interest the Chief Floyd | Inspector. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline asks, "What else?" | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "tell chief about measurements" | ||||
Floyd | This provokes no reaction. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "oh right" | |||
| schep asks, "can we see his status?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about tide table" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "tell chief about body position" | ||||
Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy nods thoughtfully as you fill him in on what Floyd | you've learnt so far. Floyd | Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy reaches for his notebook and begins jotting down Floyd | calculations. "That suggests that the murder probably occurred some Floyd | time before 9:15 pm ... give it another ten minutes; I'd say 9:25 pm Floyd | would be the very latest that the body could have gone into the water." Floyd | Floyd | Chief Inspector Duffy compares his notes. "Well, that clears two of our Floyd | suspects, at least: Benedict Lamb and Alexander Wolf appear to have Floyd | alibis for the small window of opportunity in between Frederic Floyd | Sheppard's telephone call, when he was last known to be alive, and the Floyd | time at which he must have gone into the water. And if they're Floyd | eliminated, then that leaves just one possibility among our suspects. Floyd | Which means, I think, that we can make an arrest and go home." Floyd | Floyd | > | schep says, "tell chief his calculations are off" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "heehee" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "But it means that we can go bust down the door and make an arrest!" | ||||
| schep says, "yay" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "rar!" | ||||
| schep says, "who cares if we're right, time for some drama" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "heehee" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | You can't go that way. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "s" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Central Hall Floyd | The central hall is a two-storeyed room, with wide arches north, Floyd | northwest, southeast and east. French doors to the south open into the Floyd | library, and a flight of stairs leads upstairs. The kitchen is through Floyd | a discreet little door to the west. High above, the night sky is Floyd | visible through a vast skylight. Floyd | Floyd | Loud, ponderous ticking echoes from the grandfather clock by the Floyd | stairs. Floyd | Floyd | The hall telephone stands in its niche beneath the stairs like an Floyd | inscrutable modern art sculpture. Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "se" | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Billiards Room Floyd | The middle of the billiards room is, of course, taken up by the Floyd | billiards table. A bar occupies one corner of the west wall, beside the Floyd | door to the library. The drawing room is through the arch to the north, Floyd | and wide french doors open south onto the terrace. The central hall is Floyd | to the northwest. Floyd | Floyd | Alexander Wolf and Cedric Crane appear to be deeply engrossed in a game Floyd | of pool. Floyd | Floyd | One of those old-fashioned schoolroom clocks hangs on the wall. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline asks, "Do you want the honors?" | |||
| schep says (to Floyd), "ARREST CEDRIC" | ||||
Floyd | "Very well," says Chief Inspector Duffy. "Let's get on with it... Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Please press SPACE to continue. | ||||
| Jacqueline pushes the green 'space' button. | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Please press SPACE to continue. | ||||
| Jacqueline pushes the green 'space' button. | ||||
Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Cedric Crane is still playing pool with Alexander Wolf when you find Floyd | him, leaning across the table for a difficult shot. He looks up as you Floyd | approach. "I was wondering when you'd come for me," he says. Floyd | Floyd | You read out the charges and are about to cuff him when Alexander Floyd | suddenly roars, "Murder AND embezzlement? You bastard! You're the Floyd | reason Fred wanted to bail on us!" Alexander vaults over the table -- a Floyd | surprising feat for a man his size -- and it is all you and Chief Floyd | Inspector Duffy can do to keep him from tearing Cedric Crane apart Floyd | right there. Floyd | Floyd | The commotion draws the attention of all the other former suspects. Floyd | Deborah, looking triumphant in the doorway of the library, says, "I Floyd | told you he was a dishonest man." Floyd | Floyd | Cedric glares at her. "Damn you. It's your own fault -- if you hadn't Floyd | tipped the old man off, we might have gone on for years. As it was, Floyd | engineering this little farce was the last chance I had, given the Floyd | short notice. Shoving the old bastard out the window was child's play; Floyd | and Mr Lamb played right into my hands when he suggested we walk out Floyd | towards the rocks.... I would have gotten rid of that confounded Floyd | ledger, too, but I couldn't find it. I suppose you had it all along and Floyd | left it lying conveniently on Mr Sheppard's desk for the police to Floyd | find." Floyd | Floyd | Deborah says, "Of course I did. When I saw the state of the study, I Floyd | guessed what had happened, and took steps accordingly." She turns to Floyd | you. "Take him away, Inspector. I hope you put him away for a very, Floyd | very long time." Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | *** Curtain *** Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Floyd | Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game or QUIT? Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "w00t" | |||
| Jacqueline says, "So, that's interesting." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Cedric did it one other time when I played, but the story was a touch different." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Very elegantly done." | ||||
| schep says, "I really wanted something different to follow 'I would have gotten'" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Like, 'I would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you darn kids and that stupid dog?.'" | ||||
| Jacqueline gives schep a Scooby snack. | ||||
| schep:0 ~\o | ||||
| Jacqueline asks (of schep), "Anyway - whaddyou think?" | ||||
| maga disappears through an invisible gap in the MUD. You think you may have heard the sounds of chatting before the gap closed again. | schep says, "Not bad. It was sometimes hard to figure out how to act on a hunch." | |||
| Jacqueline says, "Occasionally, yeah." | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "undo" | ||||
Floyd | Billiards Room Floyd | [Previous turn undone.] Floyd | Floyd | > | ||||
| schep says (to Floyd), "calculate" | ||||
Floyd | That's not a verb I recognise. Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "You should play it again on your own sometime soon - I think a lot of the beauty in this is how it can be replayed." | |||
| Jacqueline says, "I had a lot of fun solving it with you, for instance, and this was my third time playing it." | ||||
| schep says, "and some better way of determining what the times mean to the game would be helpful" | ||||
| Jacqueline says (to Floyd), "score" | ||||
Floyd | [There is no numerical score.] Floyd | Floyd | > | Jacqueline says, "In terms of... what time it is, you mean? There's normally a clock in the status line." | |||
| Jacqueline asks, "Or do you mean something else?" | ||||
| schep says, "I mean the whole deal with the body position." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Yeah. Seems if the chief can figure it out, we should be able to, too." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "But maybe that's why he's been promoted, and we haven't." | ||||
| maga says, "yeah, that's a bit of a problem" | ||||
| schep asks, "Linear interpolation? When will I ever need this stuff in real life?" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "heh" | ||||
| maga says, "Mis claims that the tides change along a straight gradient, so in theory you should be able to work it out, but I don't know if they flatten off at the peaks" | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Well, at any rate, thanks for hanging in there with the crashes, schep - I had fun." | ||||
| schep asks, "what time did we make the measurement again?" | ||||
| Roger says, "Tides are sinusoidal if I correctly recall" | ||||
| schep says (to Roger), "which is why I thought the time ought to be a bit later than what linear would give" | ||||
| Jacqueline | Body at 12" below high water mark. 12:23 am: sea level 48" below high water mark. | ||||
| maga asks, "right, and would *you* want to teach Inform how to calculate sine waves with a comp deadline approaching?" | ||||
| Jacqueline giggles at maga. "No." | ||||
| schep says, "pft, no problem. Just a few terms of Taylor series ought to do it, taking care to use an appropriate integer denominator." | ||||
| Jacqueline says, "Oh, well. If that's all." | ||||
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