8c714d56aa
Fifteen cases, all playable, all lint clean, all verified end-to-end. This one came in at 100/100 on the first verification pass, same as The Liaison. John asked for the Clouseau crossover — Drebin dragged into an Interpol team-up chasing a jewel thief to the UK. The archetype that was the wrong shape for the 1958 era is the exact right shape for Nielsen's Drebin: two detectives on one case, one oblivious-competent, one confident-catastrophic, each convinced the other is a genius. Done as always by archetype, never import: Inspecteur Gustave Fouchard of the Surete, twenty years on one thief, introduced disguised as a chalk outline he drew around himself from inside; an accent the parser's literalism keeps faithfully transcribing and correcting for units; Hugo the driver with standing instructions to attack him at irregular intervals, who crosses the Atlantic in an overhead bin (asking to join the programme is a death); and the Heron, a gentleman thief who leaves an engraved card with nothing on it, because he is not telling you who he is, he is telling you he has a stationer. The thief is R. Fanshawe-Root — cousin of the Quartet's Professor. The family that plans versus the family that does. The scheme launders the stolen Rose through the auction house's own catalogue via a paste copy consigned before the stone ever left Antwerp; Fouchard's destruction of the plinth (a structural event, per the insurance filings) is what exposes the paste, because his catastrophes are always accidentally probative. The catch is the most Drebin thing in the campaign: no signal, no weapon, mid-bidding on the next lot — routine inspection, sir, would you mind turning out your pockets. And he does, because in twenty years and forty-one operations involving a submarine and a trained cormorant, nobody has ever simply asked. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
62 lines
5.1 KiB
JSON
62 lines
5.1 KiB
JSON
{
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"name": "Harrogate's of St James's — Viewing Day",
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"enter_text": "Two hundred years of auction house. Everything in this room is worth more than your pension and is insured against everything except what is about to happen to it.",
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"music": 5,
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"strokes": [
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{ "Rect": { "x": 0, "y": 0, "w": 160, "h": 168, "color": 6, "meaning": "Floor" } },
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{ "Rect": { "x": 0, "y": 0, "w": 160, "h": 60, "color": 4, "meaning": "Wall" } },
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{ "Rect": { "x": 0, "y": 12, "w": 160, "h": 3, "color": 14, "meaning": "None" } },
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{ "Rect": { "x": 0, "y": 58, "w": 160, "h": 3, "color": 14, "meaning": "None" } },
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{ "Rect": { "x": 0, "y": 61, "w": 160, "h": 107, "color": 6, "meaning": "Floor" } },
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{ "Rect": { "x": 14, "y": 18, "w": 34, "h": 34, "color": 0, "meaning": "None" } },
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{ "Rect": { "x": 18, "y": 22, "w": 26, "h": 26, "color": 6, "meaning": "None" } },
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{ "Rect": { "x": 112, "y": 18, "w": 34, "h": 34, "color": 0, "meaning": "None" } },
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{ "Rect": { "x": 116, "y": 22, "w": 26, "h": 26, "color": 6, "meaning": "None" } },
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{ "Rect": { "x": 0, "y": 164, "w": 160, "h": 4, "color": 0, "meaning": "Wall" } }
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],
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"spawn": [18, 146],
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"exits": [null, 4, null, 2],
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"exit_flags": ["", "found_paste", "", ""],
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"exit_blocked": ["", "Lot 44 is on that plinth and something about it is wrong, and you do not go to the evening sale until you know what.", "", ""],
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"objects": [
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{
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"name": "rostrum",
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"sprite": "podium",
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"x": 40,
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"y": 112,
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"look": "The auctioneer's rostrum, roped off for tomorrow's evening sale. The catalogue lies open at Lot 44: A PINK DIAMOND OF EXCEPTIONAL PURITY, PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN.",
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"synonyms": "auctioneer lectern catalogue lot",
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"use_text": "You read the catalogue entry for Lot 44 four times. PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN is auction-house language for 'do not ask'. The consignment date is three weeks ago — which is BEFORE the Sazerac Rose left Antwerp on tour. Somebody consigned a pink diamond to Harrogate's while the pink diamond everyone would compare it to was still safely locked up and about to leave the continent."
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},
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{
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"name": "pinkdiamond",
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"sprite": "pinkdiamond",
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"x": 80,
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"y": 118,
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"look": "Lot 44, on its plinth, under glass. Pink, the size of a strawberry, catalogued at four to six million. It is very beautiful. The inspector has been circling it for an hour, at a range of one inch, making a noise like a kettle.",
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"synonyms": "rose lot44 gem stone jewel",
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"use_text": "You look at it the way Olson taught you to look at things: without wanting anything. It is perfect. That is what is wrong with it. The Sazerac Rose has a famous flaw at its heart in the shape of absolutely nothing — and this stone's heart is not empty. It is merely flawless. You cannot prove a stone is the wrong stone because its flaw is insufficiently shaped like nothing. You are going to need the inspector."
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},
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{
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"name": "plinth",
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"sprite": "plinth",
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"x": 118,
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"y": 122,
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"look": "The plinth under Lot 44. Georgian mahogany, museum glass, and a brass plaque asking patrons in two languages not to lean.",
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"synonyms": "stand mahogany base display glass",
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"points": 20,
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"sets_flag": "found_paste",
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"use_text": "You ask the inspector for his professional assessment of the stone. What happens next takes nine seconds and will be described in the insurance filings as 'a structural event'. Fouchard leans in with the magnifying glass. Hugo, arriving from behind a tapestry in fulfilment of his standing instructions, meets the inspector at the plinth. The plinth, the glass, Lot 44, the tapestry, a Regency side table, and a marble bust of the founder all reach the floor in an order that experts will dispute for years. In the wreckage, the truth: Lot 44 has bounced. Diamonds do not bounce. Lot 44 is paste — a copy, consigned three weeks ago, catalogued, verified by the house, and waiting for tomorrow's evening sale, where the REAL Rose would quietly replace it at the moment of sale, laundering eleven million dollars of stolen diamond through Harrogate's own catalogue, with the auction house itself as the unwitting fence. The buyer at tomorrow's sale would walk out with the genuine Rose and a genuine receipt. The Heron did not write the lot number for the police. He wrote it for his buyer — and the sale is tomorrow, and the buyer is coming, and so is he. Fouchard, from inside the tapestry: 'You see, mon ami. Ze room has spoken.' (+20)"
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},
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{
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"name": "inspector",
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"sprite": "frenchcop",
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"x": 138,
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"y": 144,
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"look": "The inspector, being helped out of a tapestry by two porters who have already stopped asking questions.",
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"synonyms": "fouchard gustave surete french detective",
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"use_text": "You confirm the plan for tomorrow: evening dress, the sale, no arrests until the switch — take him holding the real stone or not at all. Fouchard: 'Ze last time I wore ze evening dress, Inspector Drebin, I was mistaken for ze headwaiter by ze Belgian ambassador.' He straightens the moustache. Fouchard: 'Nine people gave me zeir coats. I solved two of zem.'"
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}
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]
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}
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