58471b6a8e
Eight cases playable, all lint clean, all verified end-to-end. John asked what 1950s bumbling criminals Drebin Sr could look good against. Clouseau is the wrong shape twice — 1963, and a bumbling detective rather than a criminal. The right seam is the Ealing comedies: The Ladykillers (1955) and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). Done as archetype parody, never character import, which is exactly what ZAZ did to M Squad — take the form, not the people — and which lets the gang be tuned to make Sr's twist land. Five lodgers calling themselves a barbershop quartet, and in eleven weeks nobody in that house has raised the arithmetic. A mastermind who is nought for eleven and blames personnel every time. Muscle brought for the violence who offers you an aniseed ball. A driver who cannot drive and came with the goggles. A safecracker who is the best in the state and has been deaf since 1943, and has been asking about that since August. An inside man who works at a different company on a different street and has raised it four times. The twist: they tunnel eleven feet through Victorian brick for eleven weeks to reach a vault Frank Drebin Sr emptied five weeks earlier — legitimately, on his own written recommendation, signing the transfer manifest at both ends. Arrested inside an empty room. The paper calls it the finest detective work in the city in twenty years and every word of it is true. This is why he has never been caught: the visible criminals are loud and his own crimes are silent. The case is actually cracked by a seventy-nine-year-old landlady who took a bus to the police station to complain about the noise, and she never learns it. New lint rule, from a real 10-point loss here: two DIFFERENT objects awarding points for setting the same flag — points fire on the false->true flip, so whichever runs second silently pays nothing and max_score goes unreachable. Same object paying via `use` or its own dialogue is fine; those are alternatives. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
373 lines
13 KiB
JSON
373 lines
13 KiB
JSON
{
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"name": "14 Meridian Terrace — The Front Parlour",
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"enter_text": "Doilies, a parrot, and five criminals in matching waistcoats who have stopped mid-note.",
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"music": 4,
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"strokes": [
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 0,
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"y": 0,
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"w": 160,
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"h": 168,
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"color": 8,
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"meaning": "Floor"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 0,
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"y": 0,
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"w": 160,
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"h": 62,
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"color": 15,
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"meaning": "Wall"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 0,
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"y": 14,
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"w": 160,
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"h": 2,
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"color": 0,
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"meaning": "None"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 0,
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"y": 60,
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"w": 160,
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"h": 3,
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"color": 0,
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"meaning": "None"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 0,
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"y": 63,
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"w": 160,
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"h": 105,
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"color": 8,
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"meaning": "Floor"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 10,
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"y": 22,
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"w": 26,
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"h": 30,
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"color": 0,
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"meaning": "None"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 14,
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"y": 26,
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"w": 18,
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"h": 22,
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"color": 15,
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"meaning": "None"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 44,
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"y": 24,
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"w": 22,
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"h": 26,
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"color": 0,
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"meaning": "None"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 48,
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"y": 28,
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"w": 14,
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"h": 18,
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"color": 15,
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"meaning": "None"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 108,
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"y": 20,
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"w": 44,
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"h": 34,
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"color": 0,
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"meaning": "None"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 112,
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"y": 24,
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"w": 36,
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"h": 26,
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"color": 15,
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"meaning": "None"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 128,
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"y": 24,
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"w": 2,
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"h": 26,
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"color": 0,
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"meaning": "None"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 0,
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"y": 100,
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"w": 160,
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"h": 1,
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"color": 0,
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"meaning": "None"
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}
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},
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{
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"Rect": {
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"x": 0,
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"y": 164,
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"w": 160,
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"h": 4,
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"color": 0,
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"meaning": "Wall"
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}
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}
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],
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"spawn": [
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16,
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148
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],
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"exits": [
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null,
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2,
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null,
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0
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],
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"exit_flags": [
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"",
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"knows_plan",
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"",
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""
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],
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"exit_blocked": [
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"",
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"They have not finished telling you. They are nowhere near finished telling you.",
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"",
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""
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],
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"objects": [
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{
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"name": "teapot",
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"sprite": "teapot",
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"x": 34,
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"y": 112,
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"look": "A large flowered teapot under a knitted cosy, on a tray, with six cups. Six. There are five lodgers and one landlady, and a police officer has just arrived, and she has already got the seventh out of the dresser.",
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"synonyms": "tea tray cups pot cosy",
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"use_text": "You accept a cup, because a man who refuses tea in a front parlour learns nothing and a man who accepts one learns everything."
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},
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{
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"name": "parrot",
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"sprite": "parrot",
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"x": 138,
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"y": 108,
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"look": "A grey parrot in a domed cage by the window. Mrs. Pargiter has had it since her husband died. It says one thing, over and over, in a voice that is clearly the Professor's: 'ELEVEN WEEKS AND NOT ONE STRAIGHT ANSWER.'",
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"synonyms": "bird cage polly",
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"use_text": "You listen to the parrot for a while. It has learned eleven weeks of that front parlour by heart, and it delivers all of it, at length, in five different voices, and you take out your notebook and write down every word."
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},
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{
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"name": "banjo",
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"sprite": "banjo",
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"x": 62,
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"y": 116,
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"look": "A banjo, a music stand, and four sheets of the same eleven bars. Nobody in this room can read music. Nobody in this room has tuned anything. Behind the stand, badly hidden by the stand, is a gramophone with the lid up.",
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"synonyms": "music stand instrument gramophone sheet",
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"use_text": "You put the needle down. Eleven bars of a barbershop quartet, recorded in 1949, with a jump in it where the record is worn. It has been playing every evening from seven until ten for eleven weeks, and Mrs. Pargiter has complained about it to the police, in person, on the bus."
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},
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{
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"name": "landlady",
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"sprite": "landlady",
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"x": 96,
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"y": 118,
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"look": "Mrs. Enid Pargiter, four feet eleven, seventy-nine years old, who came into a police station on a bus this morning to complain about the noise and has no idea whatsoever that she is the only reason any of this is going to come out.",
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"synonyms": "enid pargiter old lady mrs woman",
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"use_text": "You thank her for coming in. She says it was no trouble and that the boys are very nice and that she does wish they would learn a second one.",
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"dialogue": [
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{
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"says": "Mrs. Pargiter: You'll be the officer about the noise. Sit down, I've made a pot. Mrs. Pargiter: They're lovely boys. Very quiet. Except for the music, which is the same, and the digging, which is constant.",
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"choices": [
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{
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"text": "The digging, Mrs. Pargiter?",
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"goto": 1
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},
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{
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"text": "How long have they been here?",
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"goto": 2
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},
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{
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"text": "How many of them are there?",
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"goto": 3
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}
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]
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},
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{
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"says": "Mrs. Pargiter: In the cellar. Since August. I said, boys, whatever are you doing down there, and the Professor said 'ACOUSTICS', and I said oh, and that was that. Mrs. Pargiter: They've taken out an awful lot of the cellar. I do hope they're putting it back.",
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"choices": [
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{
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"text": "Where does the cellar go, Mrs. Pargiter?",
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"goto": 4
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}
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]
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},
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{
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"says": "Mrs. Pargiter: Eleven weeks on Thursday. They paid the whole eleven weeks in advance, in coins, in a sack. Mrs. Pargiter: I did think it was a lot of coins.",
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"choices": [
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{
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"text": "It is a lot of coins.",
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"goto": 0
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}
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]
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},
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{
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"says": "Mrs. Pargiter: Five. Mrs. Pargiter: It's a barbershop quartet. She says it without a flicker. In eleven weeks it has not once come up, in that house, that a quartet is four.",
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"choices": [
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{
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"text": "Five is a lot for a quartet.",
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"goto": 5
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}
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]
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},
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{
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"says": "Mrs. Pargiter: Well, east, dear. My cellar goes east. East is the wall of the Meridian Street Bonded Depository. It is eleven feet of Victorian brick and behind it is four million dollars of other people's property, and she has just told a homicide detective about it over a cup of tea because he asked.",
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"choices": [
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{
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"text": "East.",
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"goto": 5
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}
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]
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},
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{
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"says": "Mrs. Pargiter: You'll speak to them about the noise, won't you? Only Thursdays I like the wireless. You tell her you will speak to them.",
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"choices": [
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{
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"text": "I'll speak to them.",
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"goto": -1
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}
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]
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}
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]
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},
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{
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"name": "professor",
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"sprite": "professor",
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"x": 66,
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"y": 138,
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"look": "The one they call the Professor. Threadbare tweed, a scarf that reaches the floor, and the specific radiance of a man whose plans are magnificent, elaborate, forty pages long, and have never once worked.",
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"synonyms": "prof mastermind scarf tweed",
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"points": 20,
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"sets_flag": "knows_plan",
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"use_text": "You ask the Professor what he does. He tells you. He tells you for nineteen minutes without being asked a second question. He tells you about the cellar, the eleven feet of Victorian brick, the gramophone, the eleven bars, the Saturday night when the depository runs a skeleton watch, the van, the route, the fence in Steelton, and the split — which is five ways, evenly, because he is not a thief, he is an *artist*, and artists share. He draws you a diagram. He gives you the diagram. He asks whether you would like him to go over the timings again. You say you would. He does. (+20)",
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"dialogue": [
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{
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"says": "The Professor: A policeman! Splendid. Absolutely splendid. We are a barbershop quartet.",
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"choices": [
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{
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"text": "There are five of you.",
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"goto": 1
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},
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{
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"text": "Tell me about the cellar.",
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"goto": 2
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},
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{
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"text": "What do you do, Mr. — ?",
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"goto": 3
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}
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]
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},
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{
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"says": "The Professor: ... He looks along the row. He counts. He counts again. The Professor: Well now.",
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"choices": [
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{
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"text": "Tell me about the cellar.",
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"goto": 2
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}
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]
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},
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{
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"says": "The Professor: ACOUSTICS. He says it exactly the way the parrot says it. The Professor: We have been improving the acoustics since August. Eastward. Considerably eastward.",
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"choices": [
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{
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"text": "How far eastward?",
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"goto": 4
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}
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]
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},
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{
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"says": "The Professor: Fanshawe-Root. Cecil. And what I do, officer, is I *plan*. The Professor: I have planned eleven operations in this city and not one of them has come off, and do you know why? Personnel. Every single time. Never the plan. The plan is always immaculate.",
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"choices": [
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{
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"text": "Tell me about this one.",
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"goto": 4
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}
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]
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},
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{
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"says": "The Professor: Eleven feet, three inches, and we are through the last course tonight. The Professor: Would you like to see the diagram? I've done a diagram. He has done a diagram. It is four feet across, it is pinned to the wall of a rented front parlour, and it is titled in ink: THE MERIDIAN STREET OPERATION — SATURDAY.",
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"choices": [
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{
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"text": "I would like to see the diagram.",
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"goto": -1
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}
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]
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}
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]
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},
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{
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"name": "muscle",
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"sprite": "muscle",
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"x": 122,
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"y": 142,
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"look": "Eighteen stone of him in a bowler hat two sizes too small, holding a paper bag of aniseed balls and offering them round. He is the one they brought for the violence. In eleven weeks nobody has established whether he understands this.",
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"synonyms": "big heavy bowler large giant",
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"use_text": "You ask him what he is here for. He thinks about it for a while, and then he says: 'They said there'd be a van.' He offers you an aniseed ball. You take one. It would have been rude."
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},
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{
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"name": "cracker",
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"sprite": "cracker",
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"x": 40,
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"y": 132,
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"look": "The safecracker. Seventy-one, waistcoat, spectacles, and a brass ear trumpet. He is, by a distance, the finest hand with a combination lock in the state. He has been profoundly deaf since 1943.",
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"synonyms": "safecracker old deaf trumpet peterman",
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"use_text": "You ask him how he intends to hear the tumblers. He says: 'WHAT?' You say it again, louder. He says 'WHAT?' again, and then, without any change of expression: 'I've been asking them that since August, son. Nobody's answered me yet.'"
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},
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{
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"name": "wheelman",
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"sprite": "wheelman",
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"x": 20,
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"y": 124,
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"look": "The driver. Checked jacket, pencil moustache, goggles pushed up on his forehead, which he has worn indoors for eleven weeks.",
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"synonyms": "driver spiv goggles checked",
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"use_text": "You ask him where he learned to drive. There is a pause of about four seconds, which is three and a half seconds too long. He says he is 'more of a natural'. He has never held a licence. He has never sat behind a wheel. Nobody has ever asked him, because he came with the goggles and the goggles were very convincing."
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},
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{
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"name": "insideman",
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"sprite": "insideman",
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"x": 88,
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"y": 148,
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"look": "The inside man. Celluloid collar, round spectacles, briefcase held against his chest like a shield. He is genuinely a clerk, and he genuinely has keys.",
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"synonyms": "clerk inside briefcase spectacles",
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"use_text": "You ask him which floor he works on at the depository. He says, apologetically, that he does not work at the depository. He works at the Meridian Street Bonded *Warehouse*, which is a different company, on a different street, and has been trying to raise this since September. He has raised it four times. Each time the Professor has said 'ACOUSTICS' and moved on."
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}
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]
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} |