{
  "NARRATIVE": "Victor Hale, director of the Quillfield Playhouse, lies dead on the stage after tonight's dress rehearsal. **Ada Finch**, the usher, found him at 22:20 and is waiting on the Stage.\n\nThe rest of the company had gone home, but two other people were still in the building. **Iris Calloway**, the star who plays the gold-painted queen, is in her Dressing Room. **Simon Pratt**, the stage manager, is in the Director's Office. After Ada found Victor, Simon locked the stage door, and nobody has come or gone since.\n\nFind out who struck Victor down, and prove how, why and when.",
  "GAME_BIBLE": {
    "ID": "quillfield-playhouse",
    "DIFFICULTY": "easy",
    "STORY_CONTEXT": "The curtain is down on a small theatre's dress rehearsal and most of the company has gone home, but someone lies dead and the killer is still inside.",
    "START_PLAYER_LOCATION": "Stage",
    "CRIME_SCENE": {
      "NAME": "Curtain Call at the Quillfield Playhouse",
      "LOCATIONS": {
        "Stage": {
          "NARRATIVE": {
            "first": "Victor Hale lies face down at the centre of the stage, beneath a **painted backdrop** of a palace hall. The heavy curtain is down. By the wings stands the **prop trunk**, its lid closed. **Ada Finch** waits at the edge of the stage, holding her broom.",
            "again": "The curtain is still down. Ada waits at the edge of the stage with her broom."
          }
        },
        "Dressing Room": {
          "NARRATIVE": {
            "first": "Bulbs ring the mirror, and the air smells of face powder. **Iris Calloway** sits at the **dressing table**, still in the queen's gold gown, her face and hands painted gold. A **costume rail** runs along the far wall.",
            "again": "Iris sits at the dressing table in her gold gown."
          }
        },
        "Director's Office": {
          "NARRATIVE": {
            "first": "Papers cover Victor's desk, and its **desk drawer** is closed. A **framed poster** hangs above it. The box office **cash box** sits on a shelf by the door. **Simon Pratt** waits by the window.",
            "again": "Simon waits by the window. The framed poster hangs above Victor's desk."
          }
        }
      }
    },
    "VICTIM": {
      "NAME": "Victor Hale",
      "ROLE": "Director of the Playhouse",
      "LOCATION": "Stage",
      "BIO": "Victor runs the Quillfield Playhouse and directs every play it stages. He is proud and demanding, and loyal to the theatre above everyone in it.",
      "METHOD_OF_DEATH": "A single heavy blow to the back of the head.",
      "NARRATIVE": {
        "first": "Victor lies face down on the boards. The back of his head is bruised and bloody: a single heavy blow.",
        "again": "Victor lies where he fell, beneath the painted palace hall."
      }
    },
    "SUSPECTS": [
      {
        "NAME": "Iris Calloway",
        "ROLE": "Lead actress",
        "LOCATION": "Dressing Room",
        "BIO": "Iris has played the lead in every Quillfield season for ten years. Audiences adore her, and she knows the Playhouse depends on the crowds she draws.",
        "SECRET": "Victor has given her role to her understudy from tomorrow, and told her so after rehearsal.",
        "PROPOSED_ALIBI": "In her Dressing Room with the door locked, from the end of rehearsal at 22:00 until Ada screamed at 22:20.",
        "IS_KILLER": true,
        "NARRATIVE": {
          "question": "Iris turns from the mirror, her eyes red beneath the gold paint.\n\n\"Victor was a hard man to work for, but this theatre was his whole life. I can't believe he's gone.\"",
          "ask_alibi": "\"Here, with the door locked,\" Iris says. \"From the end of rehearsal at 22:00 until Ada screamed at 22:20. I always rest my voice after a dress rehearsal.\""
        }
      },
      {
        "NAME": "Simon Pratt",
        "ROLE": "Stage manager",
        "LOCATION": "Director's Office",
        "BIO": "Simon has run the Playhouse backstage for six years, and the box office too since the cashier left. He knows every rope, ticket and unpaid bill in the building.",
        "SECRET": "He took £200 from the box office takings to pay his mother's care home.",
        "PROPOSED_ALIBI": "In the Director's Office, counting the takings, from the end of rehearsal at 22:00 until he heard Ada scream at 22:20.",
        "IS_KILLER": false,
        "NARRATIVE": {
          "question": "Simon rubs his eyes.\n\n\"Victor and I argued about money now and then. Everyone did. But he kept this place open.\"",
          "ask_alibi": "\"In here, counting the takings,\" Simon says. \"I came up when rehearsal ended at 22:00, and I was still at it when Ada screamed at 22:20.\""
        }
      }
    ],
    "WITNESSES": [
      {
        "NAME": "Ada Finch",
        "ROLE": "Usher",
        "LOCATION": "Stage",
        "BIO": "Ada has shown audiences to their seats at the Playhouse since she was sixteen. She sweeps the stalls after every rehearsal and knows everyone's habits.",
        "NARRATIVE": {
          "question": "Ada grips her broom with both hands.\n\n\"I was sweeping the stalls after rehearsal, the same as always. The curtain was down.\""
        }
      }
    ],
    "KILLER_LOGIC": {
      "MOTIVE": "Victor gave Iris's role to her understudy after she missed four rehearsals, and told her after rehearsal; losing it would end her career at the Playhouse.",
      "MEANS": "Iris struck Victor with a brass stage weight from beside the prop trunk, then hid it inside the trunk.",
      "OPPORTUNITY": "Ada glimpsed Iris's gold gown leaving the stage just after the thud at about 22:10, though Iris claims she last saw Victor at 22:00 and stayed in her Dressing Room until 22:20.",
      "NARRATIVE": "\"Victor gave your role to your understudy,\" you say. \"He told you after rehearsal, and he wouldn't change his mind. You struck him with a stage weight and hid it in the prop trunk. The gold greasepaint on its handle is yours, and Ada glimpsed your gown hurrying from the stage just after the blow.\"\n\nIris looks at her gold hands in the mirror.\n\n\"Ten years I gave him. Ten years of full houses. I went back to the stage to ask him how I'd done, and he told me my understudy would play the queen from tomorrow. A few missed rehearsals, and he threw me away like a broken prop.\" She closes her eyes. \"I begged him. He turned his back on me and walked away, and the weight was right there by the trunk.\""
    },
    "CHRONOLOGY": "That morning Victor finds £200 missing from the box office takings and gives Simon until Friday to repay it, promising to keep it quiet. Before the dress rehearsal, after Iris has missed four rehearsals this month, he signs a contract giving her role to her understudy from tomorrow, notes on it that Iris is to be told after rehearsal, and locks it in his desk drawer. Rehearsal ends with the curtain call at 22:00, and the rest of the company go home by the stage door. Iris goes to her Dressing Room, Simon goes up to the Director's Office to count the takings, and Victor stays on the stage. With the curtain down, Ada starts sweeping the stalls from the back rows. At about 22:05 Iris returns to the stage to ask Victor how her performance went. He tells her she has lost the role and refuses to reconsider. When he turns his back on her and walks to the centre of the stage, she snatches up a brass stage weight from beside the prop trunk and strikes him from behind at about 22:10. She hides the weight under the flags in the trunk and hurries off through the wings to her Dressing Room. Ada hears only the thud, and glimpses the gold gown through the gap at the curtain's edge, but says nothing about it at first. At 22:20 Ada climbs onto the stage to sweep, finds Victor and screams. Simon runs down to the stage, then locks the stage door and calls the police.",
    "LOCATION_OBJECTS": {
      "Stage": {
        "painted backdrop": {
          "NARRATIVE": {
            "first": "The backdrop shows a palace hall in gold and red. Up close, the paint is cracked, and a patched tear runs through the throne.",
            "again": "The painted palace hall looms over the stage."
          }
        }
      },
      "Dressing Room": {
        "dressing table": {
          "NARRATIVE": {
            "first": "Pots of greasepaint crowd the dressing table, the gold one at the front. Good-luck cards, some yellow with age, are tucked around the mirror.",
            "again": "The greasepaint pots stand where Iris left them."
          }
        },
        "costume rail": {
          "NARRATIVE": {
            "first": "The queen's other costumes hang in a tight row: a velvet cloak, a black silk gown, a fur-trimmed robe. Each tag reads \"Miss Calloway\".",
            "again": "The queen's costumes hang in their tagged row."
          }
        }
      },
      "Director's Office": {
        "framed poster": {
          "NARRATIVE": {
            "first": "The poster advertises the Playhouse's very first production. The opening-night company signed it along the bottom, from \"Victor Hale, director\" to \"Ada Finch, usher, aged 16\", squeezed into the corner.",
            "again": "The old poster hangs above Victor's desk, its signatures fading."
          }
        }
      }
    },
    "EVIDENCE_AVAILABLE": {
      "desk_key": {
        "NAME": "Desk Key",
        "LOCATION": "Stage",
        "CONTAINER": "Victor Hale",
        "TYPE": "physical",
        "RELEVANCE": "prerequisite",
        "CATEGORY": null,
        "POINTS_TO": null,
        "DESCRIPTION": "A small brass key from Victor's waistcoat pocket, stamped \"Desk\".",
        "NARRATIVE": "In Victor's waistcoat pocket you find a small brass key stamped \"Desk\".\n\nYou take the key with you."
      },
      "stage_weight": {
        "NAME": "Bloodstained Stage Weight",
        "LOCATION": "Stage",
        "CONTAINER": "prop trunk",
        "TYPE": "physical",
        "RELEVANCE": "critical",
        "CATEGORY": "means",
        "POINTS_TO": "Iris Calloway",
        "DESCRIPTION": "A brass stage weight found under folded flags in the prop trunk. One end is bloodstained, and its handle is smeared with gold greasepaint.",
        "NARRATIVE": "Under a pile of folded flags in the **prop trunk** lies a brass stage weight, the kind used to hold scenery steady. One end is dark with blood. Its handle is smeared with **gold greasepaint**.\n\nYou take the weight with you."
      },
      "ada_account": {
        "NAME": "Ada's Account",
        "LOCATION": "Stage",
        "CONTAINER": "Ada Finch",
        "TYPE": "testimony",
        "RELEVANCE": "prerequisite",
        "CATEGORY": null,
        "POINTS_TO": null,
        "DESCRIPTION": "Ada says that while she swept the stalls she heard a heavy thud from behind the curtain at about 22:10. She found Victor on the stage at 22:20.",
        "NARRATIVE": "\"At about 22:10 I heard a heavy thud from behind the curtain. I thought a piece of scenery had fallen. When I came up to sweep the stage at 22:20, I found Mr. Hale.\""
      },
      "ada_sighting": {
        "NAME": "Ada's Sighting",
        "LOCATION": "Stage",
        "CONTAINER": "Ada Finch",
        "TYPE": "testimony",
        "RELEVANCE": "prerequisite",
        "CATEGORY": "alibi",
        "POINTS_TO": "Iris Calloway",
        "REQUIRES": [
          "stage_weight",
          "ada_account"
        ],
        "DESCRIPTION": "Ada says that just after the thud at about 22:10, she glimpsed the queen's gold gown hurry past the gap at the edge of the curtain towards the wings. She says only Iris wears that gown.",
        "NARRATIVE": "You show Ada the stage weight and the gold greasepaint on its handle.\n\n\"You heard a thud at about 22:10,\" you say. \"Did you see anyone?\"\n\nAda stares at the gold smear for a long moment.\n\n\"Just after the thud, someone hurried past the gap at the edge of the curtain, towards the wings. I only saw a flash of the gold gown. Only Miss Calloway wears it. I didn't want to accuse her over a glimpse.\""
      },
      "iris_account": {
        "NAME": "Iris's Account",
        "LOCATION": "Dressing Room",
        "CONTAINER": "Iris Calloway",
        "TYPE": "testimony",
        "RELEVANCE": "prerequisite",
        "CATEGORY": "alibi",
        "POINTS_TO": "Iris Calloway",
        "DESCRIPTION": "Iris says she last saw Victor at the curtain call at 22:00. She says she came straight to her Dressing Room and stayed there until Ada screamed at 22:20.",
        "NARRATIVE": "\"When did you last see him?\" you ask.\n\n\"At the curtain call, at 22:00,\" Iris says. \"I came straight here afterwards and didn't set foot outside until Ada screamed at 22:20. I never saw him again.\""
      },
      "recast_contract": {
        "NAME": "Understudy's Contract",
        "LOCATION": "Director's Office",
        "CONTAINER": "desk drawer",
        "TYPE": "physical",
        "RELEVANCE": "critical",
        "CATEGORY": "secret",
        "POINTS_TO": "Iris Calloway",
        "REQUIRES": [
          "desk_key"
        ],
        "DESCRIPTION": "A contract signed by Victor gives the queen's role to Iris's understudy from tomorrow. His note on it reads: \"Tell Iris after rehearsal. Four missed rehearsals: no more chances.\"",
        "NARRATIVE_LOCKED": "Victor's **desk drawer** is locked. It needs a small key.",
        "NARRATIVE": "The brass key turns in the **desk drawer**. Inside lies a contract, signed by Victor, giving the queen's role to Iris's understudy from tomorrow. Across the top, in Victor's hand: \"Tell Iris after rehearsal. Four missed rehearsals: no more chances.\"\n\nYou take the contract with you."
      },
      "takings_book": {
        "NAME": "Box Office Takings Book",
        "LOCATION": "Director's Office",
        "CONTAINER": "cash box",
        "TYPE": "physical",
        "RELEVANCE": "misleading",
        "CATEGORY": "secret",
        "POINTS_TO": "Simon Pratt",
        "DESCRIPTION": "The box office takings book shows last week's cash £200 short of the tickets sold. Beside the total, Victor has written: \"Simon. Friday.\"",
        "NARRATIVE": "Inside the **cash box** is the takings book. Last week's cash comes to £200 less than the tickets sold. Beside the total, in Victor's hand: \"Simon. Friday.\"\n\nYou take the book with you."
      },
      "simon_explanation": {
        "NAME": "Simon's Explanation",
        "LOCATION": "Director's Office",
        "CONTAINER": "Simon Pratt",
        "TYPE": "testimony",
        "RELEVANCE": "misleading",
        "CATEGORY": "secret",
        "POINTS_TO": "Simon Pratt",
        "REQUIRES": [
          "takings_book"
        ],
        "DESCRIPTION": "Simon admits taking £200 from the takings for his mother's care home. He says Victor found out this morning and gave him until Friday to repay it, promising to keep it quiet.",
        "NARRATIVE": "You open the takings book at last week's page and show Simon the missing £200.\n\nSimon sits down heavily.\n\n\"I took it. My mother's care home was threatening to send her away. Victor found out this morning. He gave me until Friday to pay it back, and he promised to keep it quiet if I did. Why would I hurt the one man giving me a chance?\""
      },
      "alibi_contradiction": {
        "NAME": "Iris's Alibi Contradiction",
        "LOCATION": null,
        "CONTAINER": null,
        "TYPE": "deduction",
        "RELEVANCE": "critical",
        "CATEGORY": "alibi",
        "POINTS_TO": "Iris Calloway",
        "REQUIRES": [
          "iris_account",
          "ada_sighting"
        ],
        "DESCRIPTION": "Iris says she last saw Victor at 22:00 and stayed in her Dressing Room until 22:20. Ada says she glimpsed Iris's gold gown on the stage, where Victor was found, just after the thud at about 22:10, contradicting that account.",
        "NARRATIVE": "Iris says she last saw Victor at the curtain call at 22:00, then stayed in her Dressing Room until Ada screamed at 22:20. Ada glimpsed Iris's gold gown hurrying off the stage towards the wings just after the thud at about 22:10.\n\nThe sighting contradicts Iris's account and places her on the stage, where Victor was found, just after the thud."
      }
    },
    "AFTERMATH": {
      "iris": [
        {
          "TITLE": "The Final Curtain",
          "PORTRAITS": [
            "Iris Calloway"
          ],
          "NARRATIVE": "Iris Calloway was convicted of Victor Hale's murder. On the night of her sentencing, the Playhouse opened its new season with her understudy in the gold gown.\n\nThe programme thanked **{player}** on its last page, in small print."
        }
      ],
      "simon": [
        {
          "TITLE": "Paid by Friday",
          "REQUIRES": [
            "simon_explanation"
          ],
          "PORTRAITS": [
            "Simon Pratt"
          ],
          "NARRATIVE": "After hearing his story, **{player}** urged Simon to tell the theatre's trustees himself. He did, and repaid the £200 by Friday, as he had promised Victor.\n\nThe trustees kept him on as stage manager and found someone else to run the box office."
        },
        {
          "TITLE": "First In, Last Out",
          "NARRATIVE": "Simon kept the Playhouse running through the next season, arriving first and leaving last, as he always had.\n\nIn the spring the trustees hired a new cashier for the box office. Simon looked more relieved than anyone."
        }
      ],
      "poster": [
        {
          "TITLE": "Front of House",
          "REQUIRES": [
            [
              "Director's Office",
              "framed poster"
            ]
          ],
          "PORTRAITS": [
            "Ada Finch"
          ],
          "NARRATIVE": "When the Playhouse reopened, the trustees asked Ada Finch to cut the ribbon. **{player}** had told them about the old poster in Victor's office, signed by the first company down to \"Ada Finch, usher, aged 16\".\n\nThe trustees moved the poster front of house, where every audience would pass it, and Ada hung the ribbon beside it in a frame of its own."
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}