On Wednesday, August 5th, 1932, you and eight other passengers boarded a three-day express train from Bombay, India to Lisbon, Portugal. Unfortunately, one did not survive the journey. It is now up to you and the seven passengers left to decide who killed the eighth.
This is your story. It details your background, your current position in life, and your actions on the fated three-day express liner. Read carefully, because you have many key pieces of evidence that must be used in combination with the knowledge of other passengers to unmask and convict the murderer.
You will also find a map of the train, which includes any structure that a visitor to the train would notice upon cursory inspection.
Ground Rules
Do not show this script to anyone else at any time.
Please refrain from reading directly from the script when presenting evidence to others, unless you find it absolutely necessary.
Play your character to some modest degree. You need not go to great efforts to mimic the character's personality - although it would be much more fun if you did - but at least speak as though you were your character (i.e. “I saw such-and-such an event” instead of “my character saw...,” and so on).
If someone asks you a basic question about your character that you should know (e.g. your age), but the information was not provided in your story, you may make something up - just as long as it's consistent with the rest of your story.
This story contains historical falsities and devices of science fiction. Take them for granted (but not anything else).
Lying
Lie with caution. Your story interweaves with the stories of many other people who may know things about you that you might not think they know.
You may not lie about the following things:
• Something you heard someone else say.
• An action you saw someone else doing.
• Something that you saw someone else carrying.
• A piece of background information about someone else, unless you are involved in their background story.
You may lie about the following things:
• Something that you said or did.
• A piece of background information about yourself, or about someone else if you were involved in their background story.
Locomotive
Locations of chairs, mirrors, and various other items are not given. Fill in the blanks using your story.
Closet Closet
Desk
The setup is different in each person's room. The pricetags of each room are also different, but it's up to you to guess the relative cost of each.
Map of Three-day Express Liner from Bombay to Toledo
Bathroom
The Lord
You are reading The Art of Being a Gentleman when you feel a slight tickle in your throat. You attempt to clear it with a grunt. A gentleman does not cough if a woman is present even if that woman happens to be his wife. And your wife is present, all right. She is sitting on the bed ruthlessly studying her face looking for imperfections. There aren’t many but she manages to find a crease of the brow which must be quickly filled with a deftly placed dab of powder. The train hits a switch and she hits her eye. She screeches – a most vulgar screech. And you grunt – a most grotesque grunt. If one were to listen carefully, they would hear your lungs purring with phlegm and mustard gas. Even a decade later, the sounds of the Great War are still with you.
You read: “A gentleman always holds the door open for a lady. For the purposes of common courtesy, a gentleman operates under the assumption that every woman is a lady whether the ocular evidence supports or debunks this premise. Chapter 24: The Pecuniary Affairs of a Gentleman. Here I defer to the sagacious advice prescribed to young Hamlet on the eve of his departure for college…”
In accordance with chapter 8, you take out your notepad to jot down such words as
“pecuniary,” “ocular” and “debunk.” Chapter 8 says that “a gentleman must furnish his conversational lexicon with a prodigious vocabulary from which he can readily pluck a bon mot, in the most literal translation of the phrase.” It is no surprise then that the first listing in your notepad is “bon mot.” It has yet to be defined.
You check your pockets for a pen. “Honey,” you ask, “Did you pack away my pen? Or is it still -- ” Here you pause to consult your conversational lexicon. “-- festering away at the manor?”
The powder is out of her eye and the crease has been filled. If only the British labor unions could fill potholes so quickly.
“The pen, my darling sweetest, have you packed away my pen?” She is now squeezing her breasts together measuring their circumference with her eyes. You take a glance and help her measure. It’s a lot of inches, if you had to guess. You resume your book before she looks over. It is not gentlemanly to measure a woman’s breast size, even if that woman happens to be your wife.
Where were you, again? Oh, yes, you were just beginning the pecuniary affairs of a gentleman. “…the sagacious advice prescribed to young Hamlet on the eve of his departure for college, ‘Neither a borrower or a lender be…’” You hear the powder case snap shut. “For loan oft loses both itself and friend.”
“The pen, my Lord? Are you still working on that preposterous list of yours?”
You leave your book a moment. “Yes, my glistening sugarplum, I believe I was until I noticed that I did not have my pen with me.” Your chest purrs like a Cheshire cat.
“If every man were to look after his own pen, I believe we would not have any missing pen problems in London.”
“So you forgot it back home at the manor?”
“Change the personage of your pronoun and I believe you will have the correct answer.”
You prefer the passive voice. “The pen was forgotten at the manor.”
She clips the back of her shirt to tighten it. Judging from her two natural thermometers, it appears to be chilly on this train.
She purses her lips together and paints them a flamboyant pink.
The Lord
She informs you that the tendinitis in her left arm is flaring up and wishes to visit the Doctor for a thorough examination.
“Don’t you serve with your right?” you ask.
“Yes, but I toss with my left.” You let it stand. You know about as much tennis as you do British laws and traditions. That is to say, you’re not sure whether you bow to the Queen or give her hand the kind of good firm shaking that she’ll remember for many Tea Times to come. You’re rather new at this position of Lord. A little callow, a gentleman might say. And thankfully you’ve never been placed in that predicament of having to choose between bowing or shaking because you might just do both at once out of uncertainty.
Your purr has relocated from your lungs to your windpipe. It no longer has that Cheshire sound about it. Rather, it rasps with every breath.
Your wife stands up and flattens her tennis skirt against her tanned thighs. If only her serve were as good as her looks, you say to yourself, she’d be a bona fide tennis star.
By the time she gets to the door, you’re fully aroused. Maybe it’s the fluttering of her skirt or the almost sensual rocking of the train. You very gentlemanly phrase a not-so-gentlemanly idea, but the proposal does a number on your respiratory system. You cough a mighty cough and hack up a thick glob of goo. You spit it onto the floor and it sits there looking like a dropped remnant off a tray of lime gelatin dessert, though perhaps not quite as appetizing. She takes a look at it, frowns, and says that she cannot be late to her appointment. The door closes behind her.
But you feel a lot better having expectorated –no, spit out – that gelatinous little badge of honor from the war. It doesn’t require a chapter of grandiose prose from the book to tell you that it was not the most gentlemanly thing to do. But you’ve never taken much to being a gentleman.
After all, a proper gentleman would never even dream of marrying a raunchy ballplayer who promises a lifetime of lascivious pleasures in exchange for one dirty deed. No, you say to yourself, I am no proper gentleman. With that thought, you toss the book atop the glistening lump of phlegm.
There’s something to be said for the taste of a corncob pipe, you think as you take a puff from your own. You’ve smoked Briar – Too stodgy. Clay? – Too earthy. Meerschaum? – Too unpronounceable. But corncob? -- Now that’s natural tasting pipe. And the word itself flows off the tongue with a nice alliterative beat. Corn-cob -- a simple one-two repetition. It’s a simple pipe, all right. It’s a simple pipe for a simple man with a simple taste. You decide it’s the pipe for you.
You take another puff and let the smoke ruminate in your mouth a minute savoring every nuance of its simplicity. It’s a shame that you will never be able to smoke this boy at Winchester.
But the public has its expectations about a lord. You have to talk stodgy, eat stodgy, think stodgy, marry stodgy – well, you avoided that one, but all around you have to be stodgy. That’s why a lord has to smoke a briar. Only a French wood can be requisitely stodgy.
The tobacco has burned itself down to ash and you check your pocket watch. It is 2:30.
Your wife has been examined for full half-an-hour already. It must be a very peculiar case of tendinitis. You decide to check it out for yourself because it doesn’t seem like the doctor is making much progress on his own. You stuff your corncob pipe into your desk drawer and pull out a Briar placing it snugly in your front pocket with the bowl conspicuously showing. You have to keep the sham alive.
On your way to the Doctor’s you run into the Peasant. He is sitting in his car wide-eyed and high-browed stacking and unstacking his gold coins. He rubs a coin between his rough fingers and a
2
-The Lord
string of drool drops from his mouth onto the table. There are great dark circles smattering the table and you surmise this is not the first time a drop of spittle has escaped the Peasant’s prodigious lips. All in all, that man reminds you of a Saint Bernard that has yet to attend obedience school.
You shudder to think that he supplies your manor with tea.
He spots you and wipes the dribble off his chin. The back of his hand glistens with spit. “I knew you were here, Lord. I just knew it. You know how I knew it? I could smell it. The air took on the smell of royalty. It’s a rich smell. If I could ever figure it out, I’d bottle it and make every man a Lord.”
“Don’t waste your time, Peasant. It’s called Magi’s Gold. They sell it at Harrod’s for a couple of those coins.”
The peasant looks about nervously. He walks to each end of the car and places his ear against the door. He pulls out a chair for you and you sit.
“Do you still want her?” he asks.
“Does she still play violin?”
The Peasant’s face takes longer to break than a German infantry unit dug in with cannonade.
But when it breaks it shatters. “Tee hee hee,” he laughs. “Tee hee hee.” Big globs of mucous flow from his eyes over his cheeks down his chin and jump off in jubilant celebration. “Of course, of course. One does not forget such a thing as the violin. Here, I’ll bring her in. You should become acquainted with your new daughter before you…” He strokes a couple coins.
“Later,” you say. “Right now I am searching for my wife. I believe she is rather tardy.”
You glance at your pocket watch for the added effect.
The Peasant produces a pack of cards from under his dirty coat and tosses it on the table.
He tells you to join him for a few hands. “You and me,” he says. “Just you and me.” You desist but he insists. “Don’t worry about it, Lord. I just saw your wife and there were no problems I could see. She would sell for a pretty pot on the market unless she has some sort of…” He sours his face and grabs his crotch. “But I’ve always known you to be a clean man, Lord.” He slaps you on the shoulder and leaves a streak of sweat.
You have no intention of selling your wife to this man. You are strictly a buyer in the Peasant’s market. After all, every gentleman needs an heir – it’s spelled out in black-and-white in the penultimate paragraph of the twenty-third page. You’ve circled that paragraph and dog-eared the page. Yes, every gentleman needs an heir and even an impotent Lord – such as yourself – needs a successor.
You take the cards and shuffle. A few hands never hurt a man, especially against a fool with stacks of gold on the table. “Texas Hold’em, if you please.” The game reminds you of your past and that’s why you chose it. It reminds you of your nights in the trenches and, further back, of your days fixing electrical circuits on Long Island for the Leibowitz family. It reminds you of the time before tardy was a functioning participant in your conversational lexicon and commands were not softened with such vacuous formalities as if you please. Those were the days when talk was tough and life was tougher. Those were the days.
“Funny, I would have pegged you a Bridge man myself,” the Peasant says.
“I occasionally dabble in games from the States. The war should have taught us, Peasant, that the Americans can now extend their grimy hands across the ocean and shape the very life of our precious British Isles. Unfortunately, we Brits must accept this grisly bit of news and view the world
The Lord
through a more Neapolitan lens if we wish to survive the remainder of the 20th century.” Or so said this morning’s London Times. But you’re fairly certain the Peasant does not read such publications of high repute.
“I’ve never held a thing against Napoleon either. We’ll play a game for those rotten doughboys. But only because you say we must, Lord.”
The Peasant bets wildly. When his cards are high, he bets low. When his cards are low, he bets high. When his cards are neither high nor low, he folds. And the more gold he loses, the more saliva he produces. By the three o’clock hour, the Peasant’s side of the table is soaked with spit and sweat and your side of the table is glittering with gold.
You apologize to him. A gentleman should always apologize for his winnings. “Don’t worry about me, Lord,” he says. “I’ve got plenty more coming my way by the end of the ride.
Spread the wealth, right Lord? That’s always been my mantra. Spread the wealth. Mantra -- you like that word Lord? I’ve been hanging out with you so much we’re both starting to talk the same.”
The thought of any similarity with the Peasant disgusts you. The man smells like an improperly refrigerated bologna sandwich that has been left to fester about an hour too long in the hot summer’s sun. You are unsure whether the aroma is a product of his dietary practices, or his sanitary habits, or rather his delinquency thereof, but your stomach turns and your throat chokes both at once.
His tongue laps greedily at his underarm. It is the source of the malodor, you assume, judging from the Peasant’s hungry grunts. You had not realized the tea industry was doing so poorly that a tea farmer would view his underarms as a viable source of sustenance.
You request that he call down the Violinist immediately to play a few sonatas in G minor.
That is your favorite chord. It is largely baritone with a slight hint of discordance.
“You know what I’ll make her play, Lord? I’ll make her play some Green Leaves, just like the tea I sell you. Green Leaves – maybe that will bring me some luck.”
“By Green Leaves, might you mean Greensleeves, the traditional British romanesca?”
“Yes, that is it. Greensleeves. Did I say Green Leaves? Green Leaves – what a terrible name for a song. What was I thinking? Yes, Greensleeves. I will call her up here right now to play some Greensleeves.”
“You filthy, no good, daughter of a whore” the Peasant shouts up to the Violinist’s suite.
“Get your two-pence body up here – “ The Peasant chokes on his own saliva and looks over at you.
You look back at him. He gets the message. “Yoohoo, Violinist, please grace us with your angelic self, if you wish. A nice British man would like to take a look at you -- ”
But the Peasant has already said enough. You can read the newspaper articles right now --
“Upon the passing of the Lord of Winchester, a filthy, no good, daughter of a whore will assume the title and the requisite role.” You can feel a chill. You know you never should have consulted this Peasant to find you a suitable daughter. You reach over to pick up your winnings and find a child trafficker of good breeding.
“I apologize, Lord. You see – it’s just the relationship we have. I call her a whore. She calls me a bastard. Think nothing of it. Come on, let’s play another hand. I have some gold to win back.”
4
-The Lord
A gentleman never refuses his opponent the opportunity to win back his loses. You sit back down, like a gentleman, and take out your monocle. You would like to properly inspect your future daughter before you purchase her.
What you see through your corrective lens makes you take out your Briar, fill it, light it, and take a puff out of pure relief. Your search for a suitable heir has -- barring some catastrophic monetary crisis or happenstance intervention by John Law – arrived at a most fortuitous conclusion.
She has a sassiness about her that cannot be mistaken for anything other than self-knowledge of her own superiority. You can tell this by the look she gives the Peasant. A look that possesses a vocabulary of its own and says to the Peasant that he is worth less than the market value of the
She has a sassiness about her that cannot be mistaken for anything other than self-knowledge of her own superiority. You can tell this by the look she gives the Peasant. A look that possesses a vocabulary of its own and says to the Peasant that he is worth less than the market value of the