{ "name": "4 Cranbourne Drive — The Ballroom", "enter_text": "Forty guests, forty coats, and a cake that nobody has been allowed to move since a quarter to eight.", "music": 2, "strokes": [ { "Rect": { "x": 0, "y": 0, "w": 160, "h": 168, "color": 7, "meaning": "Floor" } }, { "Rect": { "x": 0, "y": 0, "w": 160, "h": 60, "color": 15, "meaning": "Wall" } }, { "Rect": { "x": 0, "y": 12, "w": 160, "h": 3, "color": 8, "meaning": "None" } }, { "Rect": { "x": 0, "y": 58, "w": 160, "h": 3, "color": 8, "meaning": "None" } }, { "Rect": { "x": 0, "y": 61, "w": 160, "h": 107, "color": 7, "meaning": "Floor" } }, { "Rect": { "x": 12, "y": 20, "w": 30, "h": 34, "color": 0, "meaning": "None" } }, { "Rect": { "x": 16, "y": 24, "w": 22, "h": 26, "color": 8, "meaning": "None" } }, { "Rect": { "x": 62, "y": 18, "w": 36, "h": 36, "color": 8, "meaning": "None" } }, { "Rect": { "x": 66, "y": 22, "w": 28, "h": 28, "color": 15, "meaning": "None" } }, { "Rect": { "x": 118, "y": 20, "w": 30, "h": 34, "color": 0, "meaning": "None" } }, { "Rect": { "x": 122, "y": 24, "w": 22, "h": 26, "color": 8, "meaning": "None" } }, { "Rect": { "x": 0, "y": 164, "w": 160, "h": 4, "color": 0, "meaning": "Wall" } } ], "spawn": [ 18, 146 ], "exits": [ null, 2, null, 0 ], "exit_flags": [ "", "cake_sealed", "", "" ], "exit_blocked": [ "", "There is one object in this room that was here at 7:40 and is here now, and you have not secured it.", "", "" ], "objects": [ { "name": "cake", "sprite": "cake", "x": 78, "y": 122, "look": "Four tiers, on a trolley, wheeled in at 7:40 by a butler and never lit. Forty guests have had a fork in it in the two hours since, because nobody thought to stop them, because it is a cake.", "synonyms": "trolley tiers candles birthday", "points": 25, "sets_flag": "cake_sealed", "use_text": "You treat it as an exhibit, because Captain Hocken told you to treat it like a body and you do what you are told. You photograph it in situ. You measure the trolley. You take the weight of the cake on the kitchen scales with a witness, and you seal, label and initial every one of the forty forks. Forty-one people in this house watch a police detective weigh a birthday cake, and every one of them thinks less of him, and one of them thinks a great deal less of him and cannot entirely hide it. The cake weighs eleven pounds under what a cake of that size and construction should weigh, and it weighs it in the bottom tier, which nobody cut, because nobody cuts the bottom tier at a children's party. (+25)" }, { "name": "tycoon", "sprite": "tycoon", "x": 42, "y": 130, "look": "Cornelius Vane. Shipping, mostly. He has been on the telephone to three men since eight o'clock and none of them were police.", "synonyms": "cornelius vane father shipping man", "use_text": "You ask him who he has been calling. He tells you: his lawyer, his broker, and a man in Long Beach whose name he would rather not give, and he gives it, because you asked him plainly and he is too tired to do anything else." }, { "name": "governess", "sprite": "governess", "x": 116, "y": 128, "look": "Miss Aldritch, governess, four years in the house. She was in the ballroom at 7:40 in front of forty witnesses and has said so eleven times.", "synonyms": "aldritch miss woman teacher", "use_text": "You clear her in nine minutes, thoroughly, with three independent witnesses and a photograph. You then clear the cook, the two hired girls, the man on the step, and thirty-eight of the forty guests, in order, over five hours, while a butler stands in the corner of the room holding a tray." }, { "name": "butler", "sprite": "butler", "x": 138, "y": 144, "look": "Hobbs. Thirty-one years with the family. He wheeled the cake in at 7:40 and has been standing in the corner of this room ever since, holding a tray, waiting to be asked. You are not going to ask him, because the literature is unanimous, and a detective who arrives at a house like this and immediately suspects the butler is not investigating, he is quoting.", "synonyms": "hobbs servant manservant tray", "use_text": "You do not question the butler. You have now not questioned the butler for five hours. He has brought you a cup of tea twice. The second time he stood beside you for slightly longer than a man stands who is putting down a cup." }, { "name": "shirley", "sprite": "shirley", "x": 132, "y": 126, "look": "Mrs. Shirley Vane-Ashcombe, of the Pasadena Vane-Ashcombes, forty-first guest, who has been trying to leave since a quarter to eight and is being extremely gracious about it.", "synonyms": "mrs guest woman pearls vane-ashcombe", "use_text": "You take her statement. It takes four minutes and it is entirely useless and she is entirely charming about that too.", "dialogue": [ { "says": "Mrs. Vane-Ashcombe: Detective, I have been here since seven. May I go? I have told the other officer everything I know, which is nothing.", "choices": [ { "text": "Nobody leaves until I've cleared them, madam.", "goto": 1 }, { "text": "Everybody in this room is a witness. Even you.", "goto": 1 } ] }, { "says": "Mrs. Vane-Ashcombe: You cannot possibly intend to interview all forty of us.", "choices": [ { "text": "Surely I can, madam.", "goto": 2 } ] }, { "says": "Mrs. Vane-Ashcombe: ...I don't think you can, and don't call me Shirley. You had not called her Shirley. You did not know her name was Shirley. You write it down, because it is now the only thing you know about her, and it goes in the file.", "choices": [ { "text": "Noted, madam.", "goto": -1 } ] } ] } ] }