HINT! ep4: Just Deserts

This is the sound of Worlds Beyond Number.

When last we saw this tense and frightful scene at the mansion, Mrs.

White and Mustard had found the scene of the cleanup of the crime, a little toilet by the kitchen, with just a tiny smudge of blood on the handle of the faucet.

Meanwhile, in the library, the rest of our guests had just recently uncovered the secret of Urania's boobs and the treasure hidden therein.

There's a moment after the globe has slid open and you see the gun there inside the recess.

I would like to walk slowly towards the gun in the globe and look and make eye contact with others around me to make sure that we all are approaching gingerly and together towards the weapon.

Plum is lingering as the words that Mr.

Green last said to him cold weight.

Approaching the revolver, I would like to delicately, delicately grab with my handkerchief and touching just the end of the barrel and the sort of back corner of the handle, deposit the weapon on the desk.

Scarlett's perfect red lips are pursed.

You can tell she's breathing heavily through her nose.

Mrs.

Peacock is still slumped in the armchair, clutching the copy of the old man in the sea.

I would like to open the revolver to count the number of bullets still within.

There are still four bullets in the revolver.

Then they are the original four silver bullets.

That's correct.

They match the one that you had found in the wall.

I will step back from the desk and gesture to the gun with my hand and say, the four of us here in this room can see plainly four bullets remaining in the gun.

Normally, as a member of the legal profession, I would never advise one to interact with a murder weapon, but given the unique circumstances and that the murderer is, within a very high probability of chance, still wandering the halls of the body mansion, I find it to be prudent to remove the remaining bullets from this weapon.

Are there any here in disagreement?

No.

No protest from me.

Go on and do what you gotta do.

Uh we'll gingerly remove the bullets from the weapon, and we'll...

We're in the library, right?

I will leave the gun on the desk, take the four bullets in the handkerchief, walk over and deposit them some 15 feet away from that gun, standing upright, lined up on a shelf in clear sight of everybody.

Is Mrs.

White around with her

flower?

Yes, we should wait for her to return from the bathroom.

We'll soon know.

Mrs.

White, after Colonel Mustard points out the one little bloody bloody smudge, what do you do?

When you should get back.

All right.

We know whatever happened happened.

Close the kitchen, and clearly there was a cleanup.

Yes.

All right.

Let's return to the others.

Okay.

So you move back across the mansion.

You open the door.

Yeah, what's the vibe of this room as we go in?

Like, okay.

I think this is the moment that creates the classic illustration on the front of the

you open, and it's just a,

everyone turns to face you.

I think, and I think you just feel the silence of the past few minutes.

Yeah, I'm standing by the curtain in three-quarters profile with a leg cocked out.

Miss Scarlett is draped on one of the mantelpieces.

I'm standing next to the fireplace, just looking down into the fire, smoking my pipe.

And then Mrs.

Beacock is like seated in a seat.

How close did we get it?

Let us go online.

How close.

Were we there?

At that moment,

a blinding flash of light illuminates the room at this tableau before you.

And the heavy, heavy, oppressive silence.

As you see, four bullets lined up on one of the many shelves.

Gun.

Found the gun.

Claude, if you'd be so kind, and I'll nod my head towards the gun on the desk.

Oh, okay.

One more time.

Uh, and I will explain to them like the smudge that I found in the sink in the powder room as I pull out my last little bit.

We gotta be out of this flour by now.

The last bit of flour.

All right, as you blow

a dusting of the fine pastry powder onto the gun, you see a set of prints.

Now, Mr.

Green, you have the records of the prints, yes?

I do.

That's correct.

You take a look at them.

Not Mrs.

White's, not Professor Plum's, not your own,

not Colonel Mustard's.

The Scarlet's are not on there.

The lady sitting in the armchair, clutching a flask in the book.

Those would be her fingerprints.

She meets your eyes.

Steady gaze.

A little steadier than the five sheets to the wind, but still is at least one.

Well, well, well.

Imelda, I think it's high time.

You tell us all how your fingerprints came to rest on the side of this revolver.

Well, they're there because I used it.

You're a smart young man, Cassidy.

Surely we don't need to mince words this way.

We're not in court.

You shot Mr.

Body.

I did.

Yes.

Claw looks a little delighted.

Miss Scarlett looks also a bit amused and impressed.

Yeah.

Colonel Mustard at first looks to the other men in the room as if perhaps we should be do

something.

Yeah, what are you gonna do?

Uh, Fred?

Yes, right.

I'm gonna narrow my eyes.

Why did you shoot Rutherford?

Well,

we all had reason to shoot Rutherford, but I did it because

he did doing.

What is your reason for killing him?

You're allowed to not like him and do whatever you want.

No one...

I'm not allowed to do whatever I want.

Not the way that he was.

Legally speaking, none of us are allowed to murder.

Okay, well, you're the lawyer, I suppose.

In my professional estimation, none of us are allowed to murder.

Now, the question posed to you is this.

Why?

I know that you'd have found him distasteful, but why tonight?

Why take the gun into your own hands?

And please, with specificity, walk us through the events that unfolded after dinner.

Well,

when everybody left for dinner,

And uh I saw Susie taking the candlestick and I thought, well, why don't I take myself a little souvenir?

So I brought the gun with me.

It fits nicely in my pocket.

Oh, she had pockets.

Yes, again.

I'll teach you how to sew your own, should.

Well,

depending on how this night shakes out, dear.

Took the gun, had that awful dinner.

Well, not the dinner.

The dinner was lovely, but the conversation.

Absolute garbage.

Rubbish.

And

he...

He has been spitting on the legacy of his mother this entire time.

Johnny, he was alright.

Self-made man and all that.

But really, what did he do for the people that he had control over?

Nothing.

Nothing, I tell you.

But Betty, you know, I say, I say sometimes that she was too nice for her own good and too good for this world.

And when she passed, well, he started, that young Rutherford started undoing every good thing that she had done.

Her her trust set up for the orphanages and the public libraries and

the

crimes around town, running the business into the ground.

And I see the way he treats you all.

The way he treats life like it's some sort of little fun game and then there are no consequences.

Well, I'll tell you what, where I'm from, where my mother was from, there were consequences.

And,

well,

after dinner, I

caught him out in the hallways and I

took the the

he had the he had the pipe on him.

And I took it and I and I hit him over the head with it.

That's right.

And I

pushed him.

He stumbled over to the study.

And then I put a bullet in his brain to make sure I'd finished the job.

Because I may not be long for this world, but I'm sure as hell gonna leave it better than I found it.

Betty taught me that one.

And she sits there in the chair, resolute, still a little tipsy, but with that kind of courage that comes from a couple of drinks.

You took the revolver from the lounge.

That's right.

And the pipe as well?

No, no.

Young body had that on him.

Goodness knows why.

Rutherford was holding the pipe.

You had the gun in your hand.

What room were you in?

We weren't in a room at all.

We were

somewhere outside.

I don't quite remember everything.

All I know is that I killed a man.

You were in the corridor.

Yes, that's right.

No recollection of which corridor exactly.

Oh, all these tacky rooms look the same to me.

How did you...

How did you come into possession of the pipe in order to be able to strike Rutherford in the head?

Well, he had it on him, and I have quick little fingers, don't you know?

We're supposed to believe that you were able to pull a heavy copper pipe off of a man in in his prime and then hit him hard enough to daze him

striking rutherford with the pipe he then stumbled into the study

where he sat down at his desk sat down at that horrible desk yes at which point you

draw the revolver

stand in the doorway yes fire how many shots two shots i my my sight isn't what it used to be but connecting connecting with the temple, that's the finishing blow.

No, he had to already have been dead by the time the finishing blow hit.

Sorry?

No, Claudette, I'm right there with you.

Describe the events following your murder of Rutherford.

Having fired the two shots, you then did what?

I

uh

well, I came in here to the library and I managed to put the gun into this hiding place that I knew about.

Again, distasteful if you ask me.

And then I had the pipe on me and I managed to get it back

get it back into the lounge when all of you were busy running around and finding all the secrets.

Rutherford and his secrets.

Understood.

So, from the door of the study, you were able to quickly move into the library.

You were aware of the secret compartment in the globe and hid the revolver in there, having spent two bullets from it.

You kept the bloody pipe on your person as we all

was the pipe on your person as we all gathered in the study.

That's right.

That's right.

None of you, none of you even noticed.

None of you noticed

poor old drunk Imelda.

I'm happy to declare it here.

A confession.

Yes, that's right.

Imelda Parvati Peacock.

It will be my obligation as an officer of the court to inform the police that I believe you to be guilty of a felony.

Yes, I think that the mutilation of a corpse.

I...

Don't under.

I don't quite follow you.

I did just tell you everything.

Are you also again?

Which of us is senile?

your events as reported to us paint a picture which explains the presence of two weapons used in the murder of rutherford q body it explains how the revolver came to be hidden in the globe in this library and it explains how the pipe came to be deposited once again back in the lounge ignoring for a moment the logic of a woman even in her cups hiding two separate murder weapons in two separate locations when time was of the essence The question remains:

who moved through the passage to the kitchen and why was there blood to clean up there?

Your story doesn't paint the full picture of what happened on this night.

Well, what do you want, Mr.

Green?

We have a person here saying that they killed Mr.

Bottom.

That's what the police will want.

That's what we'll give them.

That's right.

Why

make this more complicated than it needs to be?

I

did it.

Listen, again, I'm so old.

I...

And I...

Listen.

I don't remember everything.

I may have shot him out.

I shot him outside the kitchen.

It must have been it.

And then we went through the passage afterwards.

Why are you covering for him?

For who?

For whoever did this.

I'm not covering for anybody.

I

did it.

I did it.

What more do you want?

Do you have my fingerprints on this gun?

We do have your fingerprints on this gun, and this gun is not the murder weapon.

That bullet made impact with a skull which no longer had blood flow going to it.

Why?

You are guilty of mutilating a corpse.

That and that alone, I am sure.

But the idea that Mrs.

Peacock, a woman of your advanced age, would have walked through the hallway with a loaded revolver in her pocket and seen a young man in the prime of his athletic peak with a pipe and gone for that as the primary murder weapon defies even the logic of someone inebriated.

It doesn't make sense.

Colonel Mustard nods and says, I've seen some crazy drunken stupors and this

still is far beyond the pale.

And the blood.

The blood in the kitchen.

There was a cleanup.

How could she have possibly cleaned up in time?

I'm going to turn to face the professor.

Arnold, you're a man of science and of learning.

Why the urgency to see this matter resolved?

The police will accept a confession.

The police have no interest other than maintaining their precincts, arrest, and conviction statistics.

Sure, if they can pin the murder on Imelda, they'll do just that.

But you and I both know that Mrs.

Peacock didn't have the strength to drag a body from the kitchen to the study.

Well, why do you care?

Yes.

Why?

Uh, at this point, Professor Plum is going to open the briefcase, pull out the documents.

Don't you want this?

Don't you want these, this, this mansion, these monies?

They'll take her.

You'll get what you want.

We have a confession.

We've d this was not our job.

I came here tonight for drink and and amusement and now we've descended down this long road to solving this crime

We we've done it Cassidy.

We've done it.

Why did you have a spoon in your pocket?

I told you

for the baked Alaska which you went into the kitchen for to get a knife for your cigar that Cass brought you, but when we turned out our pockets you had a cigar cutter.

You're a thorough man.

You would have prepared for this.

And

didn't you see anybody

at any time?

Or didn't you hear anything in the kitchen?

No, no, I was only there for a few moments.

I cut my cigar.

I had a bit of baked Alaska.

I stepped out onto the balcony to smoke the cigar to dry out.

That's right.

I seen it.

I smelled the cigar smoke by the time that I had was poking Mr.

Body in through the secret passage.

That was it.

That was it.

Arnold, I've known you for some years at these soires and get-togethers of Rutherford's.

You're a decent man.

You have a gentility and a camaraderie with your fellow guests.

There are a lot of holes in the stories that have been painted of the events of this evening, but there's one thing I can't make myself believe.

That you would take a cigar as a gift and smoke it by yourself.

Oh, Sugar Plum, why?

You know nothing of me.

I am not a decent man.

I've done awful things.

Things

I choose not to think about.

The man I am now,

he is kind.

That is who I am.

That is who I will continue to be.

Arnold,

and this is me saying this.

You have brought far more joy into this world than sorrow.

We've talked about this.

The music playing from the ballroom.

You step out of the dining room.

I speak to Rutherford for a few minutes.

Arnold, do you go straight to the kitchen or do you stop anywhere else?

I went straight to the kitchen.

How did the pipe come into your possession?

We can go back and retrieve it.

paint our steps.

But as past the threshold of conviction, I am certain that Rutherford walked into that kitchen and found you waiting.

He did.

He did.

And it was he

who carried the pipe and waved it in my face

and told me of Empire.

Told me of what we could build, what he was building for me.

And how if I would just put away my candies and return to his serious science endeavors, if I were to put my mind to his work,

that I could build something greater than anything I could do alone.

Scarlett purses her lips in disgust.

He was always like that.

You could be great if I let you.

Yeah.

And I just sort of like

chin towards her little ruined corner of his plans for Mrs.

White, too.

I think perhaps it's time to have a slightly different conversation.

And I'm going to back to the door, like, like back up towards the door and shut it and

push the handle of the chef's knife so it hits the ground and then pick it up off the ground.

Six of us here know what really happened to Rutherford tonight.

I'm staring

from the desk with the unloaded gun beside me, the flower fresh on it.

How many steps away is the fireplace where the professor is standing with the contract in his hand?

The professor knows what he's doing

and is

probably seven to ten steps and has his eyes trained on you and you alone.

How close are we?

You're probably right next to me because you got the flower on the gun and you just put the knife out.

Even with the noise of a knife being produced in this tense moment, Cass has not broken his eyes off of Arnold.

Then I'm going to like actually kind of grab your hand, feeling like the tension between the two of you.

The events of the night unfolded.

Rutherford produced the pipe from the lounge.

He must have seen that the candle was already missing.

Susie had had already made a way to the ballroom, trying to look for the blackmail material that Brotherford had collected on her.

Fred in the hall.

And he brought the pipe to, yes, intimidate you, most likely.

Or to make a point of empire.

Vespasian II.

Arriving in the kitchen, things came to blows.

Matted hair on the side.

I put my hands on him

and demanded he tell me

how many boys' lungs had to burn for his empire.

He called me mad, and I showed him the depths of my anger.

My hand shakes.

Passageway moving to underneath the rhinoceros in the study.

The blood would have spilled there in the kitchen.

Quite a mess.

But you've always been a thorough man.

Used to laboratory work.

Understanding how to keep things clean, how to erase any compromising biological matter.

However, a few drops had to escape, moving Rutherford into position in the study.

You would have had enough time to find Mrs.

Peacock,

who, for some reason, is willing, based on her own animosity towards Rutherford, perhaps assuming that she is an unlikely

face of villainy.

Oh, this was actually

an unhappy accident.

I had no idea that the young professor would be up to this this evening.

So you

invented the story of hitting him with the pipe.

Why?

Well, because clearly somebody at one of one of the rest of you had done that, and you know, if I was in for a penny, I was in for a pound.

But you...

Well, I'm sorry, young man.

I should have been more thorough in my story.

No, you were my first stroke of luck, Miss Peacock.

And Mr.

Green, you my second.

And I waggle the photo.

Let's be clear.

I think Imelda may have had a point.

Everyone in this room benefits from the death of Rutherford.

No cops have been called.

This doesn't have to go badly.

I think we need to have a different kind of conversation.

And maybe, with a little secret and a little collaboration, everyone walks away with what they want.

Fred is white as a sheet at Plum's description of their conversation.

He had to clutch the shelf nearest to him.

You can tell that he is close to collapse.

But he nods, gulping as if to swallow bile.

And he says, She's right, she's right.

I have no reason to want to tell any of the events of tonight.

This could be just a simple suicide.

But...

But Cass,

you...

you might fall under suspicion.

Nothing we say here tonight will clear any of us of suspicion.

Save the truth.

The holes in these stories were unravelable by six dilettantes in a matter of hours.

These matters will come to light.

There is no blood on that desk in the study.

Your story, Imelda, will fall through to scrutiny.

I mean,

I thought he was still alive until I shot him.

Maybe they might believe that as well.

I'm going to say something a little crazy.

I'm going to let go of your hand and back away a couple steps.

What if we make it look like he got on the boat?

No one knows he's dead.

Ships sink all the time.

Things happen in travel.

I just got back from Paris, and you all believed without a second glance or thought that I was a woman married.

Something can happen in the travel, something that clears Mr.

Green of suspicion, and we all get what we want.

I knew I liked you.

I

didn't know I liked you until tonight.

Cassidy?

I'm gonna take a step towards the professor.

Cass.

Arnold, I'd like you to remit those papers to my custody.

What do you think of Mrs.

White's plan?

Because if I give these papers to you, your investment in it is null.

My life

has been been destroyed tonight.

Murder has been committed here.

There is no walking out of this manner, either in Rutherford's murder or disappearance, which will not follow all of us like a long shadow for the rest of our days in this world.

And you think that the best bet of having that not happen

is to tell the police the truth.

It is the only chance.

If any of us are discovered in a lie, that is the end.

I will never

know the life I might have known if Rutherford had lived a day, a week, a month longer.

If anyone on his board of directors had been informed of his decision.

That ship has sailed.

People will speak of me as a villain for the rest of my life.

If you burn that contract, they will as well.

I am either doomed to be the underworld conciliary, the purveyor of illicit goods, or I'm the man who stole the body business empire.

One way or another, your choices, Arnold, will have me walk out of here as a specter on the underside of New York for the rest of my days.

That you have guaranteed.

I killed two men this night, then it seems.

You did.

Arnold's going to let the paper slide from his hand into the flames.

I'm going to leap as fast as I can to grab them.

Miss Scarlet snatches the bullets from the shelf and goes towards the gun.

Mrs.

White slips to the other side of the door and is going to use the, like,

I want to use the knife to break the lock and lock them in there

So all of us are on yeah, you're all scrambling for things farther in the room.

I'm getting out and trying to pin you all in uh Fred goes after you and hammers at the door

Come up Claudette Claudette

Yeah, what happens

all the time?

Yeah,

I am leaping for the papers before they get into the fire.

Do you think that you make them in time?

Seven steps away?

No way.

What if I have no regard for my physical well-being?

What if, in other words, depending on

where the papers drop in the fire, if I plunge my hands into the flame and try to grab it before Mr.

Plum interposes his body with yours?

Let's go.

We will die together.

I'll go into the fire with you.

I let them slip from my hand and then move to tackle Cassidy before he can get to them.

Erica, what do we do?

A crack of lightning strikes the road outside, illuminating this scene as if in slow motion.

Professor Plum throwing the papers into the fireplace.

Mr.

Green diving after them.

The professor interposing his body between Cassidy and the flames, only to be bowled into the hearth under the Brazilian wood mantle that screams, science!

Suddenly, everything is back in motion.

You two are in the fire.

Miss Scarlet is trying desperately with shaking hands to load the bullets into the gun.

Fred Mustard sprints over to the two of you, pulling you both.

Do you let him?

I.

If we have both gone into the fire, I will risk my own life to try to grab the contract from wherever it is, in whatever state it is.

I am grabbing at his hands, trying to stop him at all costs to keep him from recovering these papers.

The body empire must fall.

And I

wordlessly just reaching into the coals, trying to, again, wherever the papers fell, you know,

a cold contract falling onto open flame needs a second or two to catch.

I think, but I will say, Professor Plum, I mean, we're now just kind of imagination fighting.

Professor Plump was prepared to put the, like, was holding these papers in such a way that it's not like a gentle, and that I let it fall.

There is an intentional burn.

Shove.

Okay, then, then,

I'll leave it up to you or dice or whatever, but yeah, just reaching for it.

Professor Plum is a man of science, not a man of action.

Cassidy, after his years of lacrosse at the

Hutchings Institute for Cultured Boys.

After his years of lacrosse at the Hutchings Institute for Cultured Boys, his years of hunting, literally having to chase after body on his world tours.

He's quick, and he manages to grab the contract, not before it gets singed.

As Fred Mustard's strong arms, though he has still gone to seed, he is a man of action and ready.

He pulls both of you out.

Cassie, you holding this burning contract.

Both of you singed from the flames.

Mustard rolls both of you out of the fireplace, grabs his jacket off, and starts striking at the flames.

I will roll over, badly burned, onto the contract, try to smother it with my body and lie on top of it.

The contract is, for the most part, intact.

But you look up and Miss Scarlett has the gun trained on the three of you.

Okay.

Nobody.

Nobody move.

I can feel shooting lancing pain from ruined fingers clutching this like singed thing.

And I'm just looking at it, trying like deep in a legal framework of being like,

if enough of this is legit,

as long as the signatures are still on what can be legibly understood to be a boilerplate trust, and I'm just shaking, I'll try to get to my feet.

Is Fred in between me and the professor?

Yes.

All right.

I will stand up.

I said don't move.

And she fires into the mantelpiece behind you.

You can't tell if it was intentional or not.

I'm gonna look, look at Arnold, look at Fred, look at Susie.

I go, Susie, listen to me.

This is gonna be another scandal that follows you.

But you can get those photographs of Marlene out of here.

You can save her reputation.

There is no world where we walk out of here.

There is no world where all our stories sink.

There is no world where someone doesn't change their mind 5, 10, 15 years from now, but you can protect Marlene.

I think you'll find, Mr.

Green, that I am the one that has the revolver, and I can burn them anytime I damn well please.

With shaking hands, she reaches between her breasts and pulls the photographs out, tossing them into the fireplace behind her.

The one that says, imagination.

You hear them start to crackle as they go up.

I think by this point, a sprinting, like once I've done my best to break the lock from the outside of the library.

Sprint to the lounge for the gold-plated wrench, and I'm headed to the kitchen.

I love a revamped kitchen, and according to my research, gas stoves are dirigour now.

Oh, absolutely.

I had a plan, and if no one wanted to listen to my very good plan,

clean hands.

Get out of the kitchen.

As you set to work on that, Susie, trembling, points the gun at both of you.

Okay,

that evidence is gone.

This is gonna be a scandal no matter what.

But I don't wanna see anybody else have to suffer for all of his carelessness.

That's all we've had to do.

We've suffered for it.

Because he's been so...

He's

Rutherford Gewbody.

He had the money to make it all go away, the power and the influence.

And you helped him.

But you don't have to help him anymore that's right when you're as rich as rutherford was you really didn't need to face consequences and

seems to me you're as rich as rutherford was only you know how to manage it better and you have better friends

the body empire is not going anywhere without rutherford to helmet the board of directors Stakeholders will have a vote.

The wheels of empire will keep turning.

Arnold, the wheels will keep turning.

You've burned the photos of Marlene.

I think that's a kind thing to do.

And just.

Panic is going to tell us that we can walk away from here scot-free.

And I'm telling you that's not true.

Men like Rutherford don't die with no one paying the price.

There will be a cost for all of us associated with having been here this night.

Plum is going to look up at the Colonel.

Fred,

yes, old man.

Whatever happens to me, will you look after Rhys,

my dog?

Yes, of course.

Thank you.

I'll make sure that he gets the very best of everything.

Peanut butter's his favorite.

Does anyone else smell something burning?

Oh, yes.

Gasoline-gasoline, if I'm not mistaken.

Claudette?

Um

Yay

Wrench to the gas entry points

and there are so many like there's can't there's candle stick you described candles and sconces in the ballroom and you've described how many fireplaces are in this place the only thing I have left to do to help once I've unscrewed everything and can like hear and smell that little bit of like the funky sulfur that they add so you know when gas is in the area.

Got a couple minutes.

It's a very big house and it needs to fill up.

I'm gonna go find every hidden little cache that I know Cass has.

And you guys can hear maybe the breaking of like bottles once I get tired of slowly pouring them out.

I will cover every bit of like wood and shitty gilding.

Anything that needs help catching, I will coat with illicit booze.

Susie is still moving the gun back and forth, looking at you, but a little more unsure now.

Imelda has stood up and has slowly shuffled over to the doorway.

Knock, knock, knock.

Hey, Claudette, dear, where are you?

Do you need help?

No, I've got it.

Thanks.

Have a great night.

And I'm gonna leave out of the like back door to the kitchen.

It would have been nice to go through the front, but if you're gonna treat me like a servant, I'm gonna leave early like the rest of them.

Well, I suppose the rest of us should be on our way as well.

I want to reach down and

is the briefcase within arm's reach of me?

I believe it was further away to where...

It is next to the fireplace.

Okay.

I am going to smell the burning smell, and I am going to look at where the briefcase is, see that it's near near Arnold, and just look at you and say, would you mind kicking that over to me?

With some scooching due to the burned hands, Arnold uses his left leg to shove it towards you.

I'll pick it up, put the paper in it, close it, look over at you, and go,

I can't fold you.

Men like Rutherford shouldn't have the power that they wield.

I don't think you did anything wrong.

And I'm going to duck my head and take a running leap at the windows in the library and try to smash through them into the storm outside with my briefcase.

Um, you can absolutely do that.

It is the first, it is a first-story floor.

Um, those windows are, uh, although they be uh mullioned, are purely decorative and not in any way rated for safety.

Um, looking out, running out after you, uh, Miss Scarlett takes a look at the broken glass, uses the butt of the revolver to start smashing out the rest so that she can delicately step over it.

Um, are the rest of you

are you alright?

Can you can you make it?

I can try.

All right, uh, okay.

And she delicately does her best to climb out the window while retaining a measure of ladylike decorum.

Mustard stands up, brushes himself off, offers you a hand.

Thank you, Colonel.

All right.

I suppose we should make our exit as well.

Yeah.

Uh, Mrs.

Peacock?

And he offers her an arm.

Ah, yes.

Very, very good.

So am I, am I going to jail or?

Oh, only if you want to.

Oh.

I don't think I'd like the food or decor there any bit more than I'd like it here.

And the three of you walk out into the night.

Think.

I think I want to sprint through the rain far, far away from the mansion.

Burned, I clutch the briefcase to my chest.

I'm under my breath, go, I'm coming home, Mindy.

I'm coming home.

And

I want to turn around at whatever feels like a safe distance to see the mansion go up.

The mansion is at the top of a hill, and

you can see it.

Everyone, miles away, can see it.

A smudge of black smoke against a dark sky.

Here the flames still at this distance, licking, devouring what was just

the most awful, oppressive, gilded cage that you'd ever known.

I look up at it.

My eye twitches.

I think about

all of the clues in that vast mansion pointing to the truth of what happened and thinking about what will occur.

And I...

I wonder what they will say.

And

I think that I look

at the mansion for a while and end up getting in my car and driving quickly home.

And I think when I arrive home, I check in on my sleeping children, Kelly, Forrest, and Montgomery, my beautiful wife, Martha, and then I double-check our copy in our home of our fire insurance policy.

It would be a terrible thing if we were to have a sudden fire occur at my residence.

And I just want to review our policy as clearly as possible and check whatever stipulations there are in cases of potential arson.

Colonel Mustard assists Professor Plum in returning to his home, which is down the lane from the Vadi Mansion.

He sits on his own illustrious porch,

scratches the head of his dog, Rhys,

and enjoys a few gummy squids,

awaiting what will come in the morning.

Mrs.

Claudette White

is going to make her way to the Dusenberg Model J.

And with the golden wrench and a bit of that bullion from the stupid safe,

rich people.

Well, the cops will never know it was taken because why would they know there's a stupid little safe behind a painting inside of a building that's actively burning down?

That's for me.

I will make my way and maybe 30 minutes to an hour after leaving the body estate, will arrive at a police station.

Her optic white silk, satin, shiny pajamas still unbesmirched, takes a couple deep breaths and walks through the front doors and reports a murder.

Young lady, please

slow down.

Yes, sorry.

I'm so sorry.

I was I was hired by um mr.

Ruther Miss Mr.

Rutherford Q Body

to

make dinner for his salon.

Ah, yes, one of his famous salons.

Yes, and I did that, and then there were gunshots, and then there was an argument and a fight,

and I just, and then it was on fire, and I just ran.

Well, who, who, who was there with you?

Oh,

who did this?

It was Mr.

It was Mr.

Cassian Green and Professor Arnold Plum and Colonel Colonel Mustard and Mrs.

Peacock and Miss Scarlett in the study with a revolver.

Good lord.

Here, sit down and put this blanket around me.

Yes.

All right.

I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

I has cars outside.

I didn't know what to do.

I just wanted to report it as fast as possible.

Well, you've done the right thing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Book.

Listen, this is New York in 1927.

How do you grow up?

He can say that, we can't.

That's hateful.

And once everyone gets like put into motion...

Oh, yes,

immediately

when you drop the name body,

suddenly the police station is a hive of activity.

Every squad car is going out.

Everybody is running around.

They have very little time to take care of you, but they put a blanket around you, give you a cup of tea,

and tell you,

stay where you are.

Yes, of course.

And as soon as enough people have left that I am relatively alone, I will take the blanket off of my shoulders and fold it down from its like six foot wingspan into a nice tidy third, step out to the Dusenberg, reach into the back seat, grab a couple of those bars of gold bullion, and my prize, my gold wrench.

Fold them into it, throw it over my shoulder like a little bindle,

and it's time to go.

I cannot wait to figure out how to translate this story into French, but I think I've finally hit eccentric dilettante.

They are gonna love these stories, and it's time to go home.

So, in your bindle, you have a golden wrench, gold bullion, and a couple of stacks of untraceable dirty cash with you.

You use that dirty cash to buy passage on the next ship out to Paris.

The city of lights, my home forever.

And on the

journey there, I will perfect my French accent so that if anyone asks, I was born in this city and I've always been here, though I spent some time in New York.

Very quickly following the flight of Mrs.

White from New York, police quickly decide that

perhaps the testimony of an unmarried young black woman against a respected businessman, a Hollywood star, a grand dowager, a war hero, and Mr.

Body's school chum from Hutchings Institute for Cultured Boys is perhaps not the most reliable.

And in fact, it seems the most likely that she, the help, might have done it.

I look forward to seeing in like Paris newspapers the sort of trickle-down reports of this, where I've gone from Mrs.

White to a black widow.

That's fun.

Wow.

In the weeks following this great scandal,

which is quickly laid to rest due to the nature of the accused and the nature of the accuser,

Miss Scarlett returns to Hollywood, having grown tired of the Broadway lights.

It turns out that in Hollywood, being part of a secretive soiree so wild it burned down the mansion it was in is actually beneficial for one's career.

Colonel Mustard returns to his government post and continues to advocate for peace, though increasingly it seems that the machine of war churns on.

Imelda still holds court in Golden Creek and at the Peacock Mansion in London, and occasionally will pop by to Paris for what she calls some real food.

Ooh, I

use one of my gold bricks.

I don't know how money works when it's in bar form.

I will open my own restaurant.

It'll be in the style I like most: Bauhaus.

Clean lines, precise, immaculate.

And even though it's in France,

its name is in English and it's simply White House.

Cassidy Green.

Preparing to potentially burn my own home down to the ground

to explain the singe status of the contract and the burns on my hand,

I await the next day to see if

the

police are in fact coming to arrest me.

You receive a knock on your door.

It is not incredibly aggressive, as you had stayed up all night worrying it would be.

I allow my wife to answer the door.

I don't want anyone to see my injuries.

Let Martha handle the police at the door.

Ah, yes.

Mrs.

Chartreuse?

Green, I see.

Your husband is, we'd like to ask him a couple of questions about

the state of the party last night.

You see,

there was, yeah, well, clearly you know,

but

we had some

rather unreliable witness

tell us what happened, and we'd like a little more clear testimony from somebody who, between you and me, might have a bit more of a head on their shoulders.

Oh, very well.

You know, I imagine that it might have been a lot for him, but

may we speak to him?

Your wife, Martha, pokes her head back and looks at you.

Have you told her anything?

I have told her nothing, but am obviously visibly injured.

I look at her and say, tell them I'm not home, Martha, and if you'd be so kind, ask what the state of the body manner is.

You hear her, in soft tones, ask these questions of the policeman and inform him, sadly, that you are unavailable right now, but that you will contact them at your earliest convenience.

And you hear.

A complete conflagration, almost nothing salvageable from it.

But we have no idea what happened to have caused such a thing.

It seems to have been there was quite a lot of shoddy workmanship in the construction and all these new fangled stoves that were put in were quite the hazard.

So, you know, well, we'll be investigating along those lines.

After the police leave, I'll go up to my wife and go, Martha, I'm going to reach out.

I need to retain counsel for myself.

Are we in some sort of trouble?

No, I don't think so.

You just never want to talk to those dirty micks without legal representation.

Oh, God.

I don't know what I would have done with our little pickle along the way.

Fuck out of here.

Free me.

Both a racial slur and just a fun, cute baby name.

within two sentences of each other.

I'm going to,

I think, I think Cassidy just gums up the word, just like only speaking through a lawyer.

Am I under arrest?

Am I a suspect?

Just full legal, you know, movement.

Seeing Claude's sudden flight and her the salaciousness of her Parisian life and the wedding ring and seeing that that becomes the area of focus, Cassidy centers his story around the conflagration, the sudden fire, the singeing of the contract, and

breathes not any extra word of what happened that night other than what is needed to exonerate himself from suspicion.

He is every bit the attorney that is going to give no extra information to the district attorney or to the police and keeps his mouth fucking shut.

You are incredibly careful in covering your tracks, but it almost seems unnecessary as they continue to ask leading questions about the chef that was present and about where her husband might have been.

And perhaps this was an attempt at another such affair.

You are not even taken into custody at any point, and you maintain a measure of that decorum.

There is talk amongst the board when it comes to examining the paperwork.

However, knowing how close you and Body were,

and again, given your education, your contacts,

I mean, whom amongst us in this jet set of New York at this moment is not without a few sordid underworld contacts.

I think that

I am very

surprised at the ease with which the board accepts my social connections to Rutherford as I inherit this controlling stake from the heirless, you know, libertine Rutherford.

But I think that there are probably one or two board members whom

I lean on having run into them some Friday or Saturday night out on the town with some pinstriped associates, being amazed to run into them here in an illicit place and suddenly having in common that both of us are somewhere we shouldn't be.

It is a bit of a standoff of mutually assured destruction with some members of the board.

And they are also perhaps a little more eager to welcome you as an inheritor of the body estate because it is not what it once was.

Rutherford's lascivious activities, his spendthrift ways, and his

eagerness to try and snap up shady deals on both a criminal and government level have left the company a shadow of its former self.

self, and they seem to rely on you and your common good sense

to try and save them.

Well, we need to clean up the image of the body business empire.

That's very obvious to me.

Number one, these governmental contracts are a huge liability, and we need a consultant that has some military experience.

So an extremely lucrative contract lands on the desk of one Friedrich Moussillard to help us navigate some possible pitfalls of these contracts.

And come to think of it, we could be doing much more work for charity and cultural rejuvenation of the city.

So a lucrative contract for one Immelda Peacock, seeing her pockets lined to restore the prestige of the organization.

And I've been thinking for a while that probably we need to have some kind of imprint in entertainment.

There is

a very glowing biopic that is optioned in Hollywood.

And it seems that it falls across the desk at one point of Ruby Shu, aka Susie Scarlett.

And I think as this all comes into focus,

I think Cassidy thinks a lot about the two

people to whom he was closest that know what actually happened on that night.

And I think we'll

get into his town car and try to make his way to find Professor Arnold Plum.

And how does he find him?

What has happened between that fateful night and the day that Cassidy Green finds you?

I think in the days following the infamous fire at the body mansion, I think Professor Plum, similar to Mr.

Green, leans on his attorneys

in terms of handling the police.

Though I think as his wounds heal and the burns on his hands recede, I think he can't help but feel like

this

place and this

city and these people and this society is not for him.

He wants a quieter life.

One where he might continue to dedicate himself to his work, but be immersed in a community that is a little quieter, a little bit more off the beaten path.

And so he heads south to Pennsylvania and a little town

called Hershey

And there in Hershey, Pennsylvania,

with his sweet

dachshund

race,

we set about creating new confections to inspire delight across the world, including mean greens, blancoco's,

and all, of course, Reese's Cups,

and all manner of confectionery treats.

So if you were to set out looking for Professor Plum, it would be quite a drive.

I think as she takes that long drive to Hershey, Pennsylvania, and

knocks on the door.

I think there's the barking of a dog.

Rhys, quiet, quiet, Rhys.

The door opens, and you see an older, I think, bigger beard, larger gut,

Professor Plump standing before you.

Mr.

Green.

A deep, dark green Joseph A.

Bank overcoat as I take a...

Looking...

Hey, this is the good life.

So you see,

with a little bit more ostentation than before,

Cassidy produces two cigars.

I neglected to bring my cigar, Cutter.

You have a knife in the kitchen.

You dog.

I'll walk through with you smiling as I.

How's Mintgomery?

How's he doing?

How's Montgomery?

Oh, Montgomery is doing fine.

Mint's on his way to

started playing

stickball out in the street with some of his friends.

They grow up so fast.

Now, we're worried about Little Pickle.

Oh.

You had another child.

Yes, yes.

Another son, Lil Pickle.

Martha wants five.

Five it shall be.

Five it shall be.

I wonder if Little Hunter will be on the way one of these days.

That's a good name.

I think so, too.

As we walk in, he hands you one of the cigars and says,

I wanted to approach you because

there was a number in the budget that was chartered for you, and I believe there was some pressure from a business plan that had been established by Rutherford to contract your services in a Defense Department contract.

I wanted you to know that

after our quarterly review, that budget has been reserved.

And I slide a sort of manila folder across the table to you.

What's this?

It's an offer

for the money that had been promised to you.

We would like to make an investment for a minority stake in your company.

Professor Plum's going to open the manila envelope and examine the offer.

It is a flat-out offer for a non-controlling stake in Plum's confectionery empire, and

the money that was promised with no mention of machines of war or anything of that sort to instead get in on the ground floor of what we see as an extremely promising confectionery business empire.

There are

storm clouds clouds on the horizon, things in Europe and beyond.

Been talking to Fred about some of the things that are to come, but I know this money had been promised to you, and I don't want to break the word of our company.

However, the brief has changed.

I think people are going to need sweets in the time to come.

I hope it's not rude, but I am going to have to reject this offer.

Is that so?

Yes.

I think

I moved here

to put that all behind me.

That's the man that I was.

This is the man that I am.

I respect your integrity.

You have your own

chart, your own course.

I think in some ways I

wanted to bring you into the fold because of what we share.

That,

well,

Claudette saved both our lives.

Yes, well, as far as I'm concerned, we don't need a contract to acknowledge that.

No.

I just know that any point of contact endangers both of us.

Her life in Paris, our lives here.

They'll keep on believing that it was Mrs.

White in the study with the revolver.

And as long as they believe that, they'll know that it wasn't.

And he takes a small small little manila envelope and cracks it open and looks inside with a long detailed event in his handwriting, which is every single piece of evidence detailing from top to bottom the events of that night exactly as they unfolded, the stamps of time, the corroborating evidence, and at the very end saying,

Despite the evidence of the silver bullet lodged in his brain, this murder was committed by Professor Arnold Plum in the kitchen with the lead pipe.

I wrote this as soon as I got home.

And with his badly burned hand,

here in your kitchen, gas stove, clicks it on,

lights the descriptions of the events on fire, and hands you a cut cigar.

I take it,

put it in the corner of my mouth, reach into my pocket.

For these, you've got to try one of these little morsels.

See that?

Pure chocolate.

Doesn't melt in your hand, melts in your mouth.

How the hell did you do that?

And as these two men, these two friends who have been forged in the fire together.

I have one more stupid stinger.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just one year, like a year or so later down the line, just two postcards to her two friends, the people that knew what happened that night now that everything settled down.

The postcard that goes to Professor Plum is blank on the front, nothing

specific about it, but on the back, just a drawing.

of the French wrapper of one of your candies.

Like it's finally reached across the coast.

And it just says underneath it, Sugar Plum, I'm so proud of you.

And to

Cass,

it's actually a postcard with her restaurant.

Like that's the photo on the front and on the back, it's just a detailed recipe for baked Alaska

with one little note that's like, and remember, this is the hard part about how to light it on fire at the end.

The three of you, although, although six of you shared that night and it changed all of your lives forever, the three of you

remain in contact with each other, are there for each other.

And as the world continues to change,

you still remember that night at the height of the jazz age at the body mansion

where you found out who

was important to you.

You found out where you wanted to be in life.

You found out how you were going to make it there.

You made it happen

even though that night you couldn't have had a clue.

That was Abria Iyengar as Miss White, Lou Wilson as Professor Plum, Brendan Lee Mulligan as Mr.

Green, and Eriki Ishii as Everyone and Everything Else.

Hint was edited and designed by Kate Sanders.

Music appears courtesy of artless.io and the Creative Commons and the great public domain.

Thanks for joining us here on the ghastly grounds of the Body Estate.

But even more wonders await you beyond the veil on our Patreon.

Come and join us by the fireside, won't you?

We'll see you