Interactive Storytime - Season 2

1.
You sit in a hard metal chair on the street outside a café, a few doors down from the church. The venerable Drainpipe Von Staffen occupies the chair opposite you, neatly threaded between the seat and the back such that it can stand approximately upright. The top of its charred-spring-crowned head partially obstructs the doorway, causing anyone using the door to dip their head and shoulders, but you recognise that they should all be bowing to Drainpipe’s majesty regardless and therefore see no need to suggest that Drainpipe moves. Sitting opposite one another, your clean, shining spring-crown juxtaposes Drainpipe’s own. You are two halves of a single mystery-resolving machine.
Sitting down in a chair is awkward with all the springs and grass clippings stuffed into your pockets. A few blades of grass litter the floor around you, and your legs are starting to go numb from the persistent pressure against them. To distract yourself you idly pass a short, stubby candle you found on the table from crab-clawed-hand to crab-clawed-hand.
A waitress is looking at you from inside the café with a distrustful look on her face. You suspect that she’s too embarrassed to approach someone of Drainpipe Von Staffen’s social standing.
A menu sits open in front of you, listing several beverages, a few light snacks, and a number of lunch options. The prices alongside those items are significantly in excess of the quantity of pennies lost in the mulched grass you possess. There’s no explicit signage saying that payment in the equivalent value of garden waste won’t be accepted, but you’ve been fooled by that one before.

A. Wait Patiently for the Vicar to Arrive
B. Avoid Eye Contact with the Waitress
C. Order a Cup of Tea and Some Crumpets
D. Ask Drainpipe if it Wants Anything

2.
>> Order a Cup of Tea and Some Crumpets
As you sit across from your the-last-few-hours-long friend, Drainpipe Von Staffen, you feel that perhaps the café experience is simply incomplete without a hot drink and something baked. If it were only to be a five-minute affair then you’d be able to tolerate it, but the vicar said he would take around an hour to catch up to you. Your lamentable financial situation be-damned, you take the plunge and decide to make an order.
Looking through the window you stare at the waitress, unblinking, in the hopes of catching her eye. Drainpipe keeps a vigil across the street to ensure that the vicar can’t sneak up on you. A slight breeze blows across your face, making your eyes start to water, while the waitress fusses over clearing a table inside.
For the next few minutes you refuse to break eye contact, knowing that the waitress will turn around in every one of the very next moments. Tears stream down your cheeks, you squint horribly, and even Drainpipe is starting to express concern, but nothing will hold you back from attracting the serving staff’s attention.
Finally, while casually looking around, the waitress sees you and seems to flinch in horror. You presume that horror to have stemmed from leaving you waiting for so long, although there’s a lot more fear and revulsion in her face than you’d normally expect. Hurrying somewhat, she exits the café and approaches you, nearly bonking her head on Drainpipe’s crown.
“Is everything OK ma'am?” she asks, her gaze flitting across your apparel and your companion with a series of confused expressions. “You were grimacing horribly in at me, I thought you might be choking or crying.”
“No, everything’s perfectly fine! I was just hoping to place an order.” You tell her, smiling broadly as you scrunch your eyes tightly shut and feel a burning pain across them. They are drier than your trousers have been for the last several hours.
“Oh, well yes that’s fine. What can I get you?”
“I’ll have a cup of tea and some crumpets please.” You tell her, blindly pointing at the wrong items on the menu.
“Certainly. How many crumpets?”
“Some.”
The waitress sighs, in what you can only assume to be respect.
“Right. I’ll be back with them shortly. Also, I’m sorry to inconvenience you but could you please move your drainpipe? It’s blocking the fire exit and presenting a bump risk.”
From the uncomfortable look on her face, you know that she’s just too star-struck to address Drainpipe directly, instead electing to speak to you.
“I’ll pass on the message.” You say, smiling knowingly and winking. The waitress frowns at you, and leaves, ducking under Drainpipe again as it also chuckles softly.

“Fans.” Drainpipe says simply once she’s out of earshot.
A. Discuss Theories on the Case with Drainpipe
B. Look Around for any Approaching Vicars
C. Examine Interior of Café
D. Examine Street

3.
>> Discuss Theories on the Case with Drainpipe
With the comforting knowledge that tea and crumpets are on the way, you relax a little into your chair. Immediately this increases the pressure with which springs are forced into your thighs, and so you sit up again with a jolt.
“Ah, so you’re eager for action?” Drainpipe observes, either mistaking or tactfully and deliberately misinterpreting your motion for enthusiasm to get on with the case.
“Ow… of course!” You say convincingly, with no hint of your pain or bare-faced lying. “We should use this time to run over the facts and see if any obvious explanations come out.”
“Great idea. First, we know that money has gone missing from the church.” Drainpipe says, getting the train of thought chugging along.
“And that it’s been going missing for a few months, so the perpetrator must be more than a few months old.” You add, making a razor-sharp inference.
“Inspired deduction!” Drainpipe exclaims. “And I would note that from what we’ve been told of that harlot Ellen Gertie, the description of ‘more than a few months old’ fits her perfectly.”
“Agreed. Volunteer secretaries are almost always a year old at least.” You say, unleashing raindrops of knowledge like a thunderstorm of erudition.
“Maybe she volunteered specifically for the purpose of stealing money!” Drainpipe declares excitedly. One of the patrons inside the café turns to look at you both, probably attracted by the unbridled and fierce logic at play.
“I think that’s a certainty, friend. She probably looked at her old, worn doilies and shabby cardigans one time too many and just couldn’t take it anymore. One morning, after a service or before a mass or instead of flushing the toilet she snuck into the back room with a key and opened the collection box up.” You use the candle as a makeshift token to represent Ellen Gertie and her movements. “Snatching one, two, perhaps even three pounds she then made a dash for the nearest high-class homeware and clothing shop to spend her illicit gains.” The candle hops from one side of the table to a menu, browsing along the sandwiches and settling at the salads.
“Getting rid of the hot money and covering her tracks? Sounds like a professional move from a hardened thief.” Drainpipe assesses.
“Exactly. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few skeletons buried under those doilies and gallons of blood on her hands. The vicar might well be in danger; we’ll need to work double-time to stop that miserable cow before she strikes again.” You say with gravitas.
“I think so too.”
“And when we find her…” you say, looking down at the candle. Once you’re satisfied that Drainpipe has followed your gaze, you set the candle into the centre of one of your springs, like a long cylindrical prison. “… there’ll be no doilies where she’s going.”
“Ha!” Your companion bellows, assured that you have both got the right of the situation again. From the doorway, the waitress reappears and casts an irritated glance at Drainpipe’s continued presence across the door.

A. Casually Ask Drainpipe if it Wants Anything
B. Push Drainpipe to One Side in a Frenzy
C. Move the Spring-Imprisoned Candle to Make Space for Tea and Crumpets
D. Examine Surroundings, Using Spring as a Telescope

4.
>> Move the Spring-Imprisoned Candle to Make Space for Tea and Crumpets
As much as you want to shift Drainpipe out of the way before the waitress can complain about it again, your priorities are firmly rooted in the pursuit of having a pleasant drink and some crumpets. You look in front of yourself at the table and see with horror that you’ve left the candle’s spring prison in the prime crumpet space.
Panic starts to set in as you look at the bare spaces left on the table-top. To your right there’s a small space dangerously close to the edge, which would lead to tea, crumpets, or both tumbling down to the cruel pavement below. To your left the menu takes up all the spare real estate, leaving only Drainpipe’s half of the table. You glance up and see the waitress rapidly approaching; time is running out.
There’s no way you’re willing to let the waitress gift your tea and crumpets to Drainpipe Von Staffen, knowing full well that she would feel humiliated to her core when you then dragged it over to yourself. Thinking fast, you grab the spring prison, your fingers half-catching the coils and half passing between them, and shift it along the table with a horrific screeching sound. Since it is a well-built detention-centre, the candle remains incarcerated, but perhaps a little rattled.
“Um… thanks?” The waitress mumbles as she places your order in front of you, looking askance at the spring. “I think I asked you to move your drainpipe.”
“Ah, yes. I will do. It just needs a moment to choose a spot where the sun won’t be in its eyes.”
Standing up straight and taking a short, hasty step back, the waitress fixes you with a stare as if you’ve just said something preposterous. You start to consider that maybe she has highly resilient eyes which don’t suffer with glare from sunlight.
“Do you have someone looking after you?” she asks. It strikes you as an odd and out-of-place enquiry regarding the support network available to you, but you’re grateful for it all the same and decide to put her fears to rest.
“I certainly do. The vicar has said he’ll meet me here once he’s taken care of some business. About an hour he said, but that was a little while ago.” You tell her with what you hope to be a disarming smile.
Still appearing to be fully armed, the waitress gives a short nod and hurries back in, ducking underneath Drainpipe without another word.
With a shrug you look at your plate and see that you’ve been given four buttered crumpets, a generous cup of tea, a small jug of milk and a bowl of sugar cubes.

A. Offer Drainpipe the Sugar Cubes and Drink the Milk
B. Liberate and Subsequently Loot Candle
C. Add All Sugars to Milk and Dunk Crumpets in Tea
D. Eat All Crumpets in a Single Stack

5.
>> Add All Sugars to Milk and Dunk Crumpets in Tea
>>Offer Drainpipe the Sugar Cubes and Drink the Milk
Regret is a funny feeling. It’s part memory, part speculation on what might have been, and part introspection on the abstract nature of choice. It wells up inside you as you chew on the soggy, buttery, tea-soaked bread mass you have wrought. Clearly you should have accepted that it wasn’t meant to be when the crumpet didn’t fit in the top of the cup, but you’re no quitter and you mastered the art of folding long ago. Now, though, you feel that you have abused your powers.
Drainpipe Von Staffen watches you impassively as your face contorts into a displeased grimace. It’s impossible to hide the revulsion you feel as tea squeezes out of the soft spongey bread and combines with the melted butter to make something that humanity should never have conceived. Your companion’s stoic acceptance of the life choices you’ve made wavers a little when you dunk your crumpet a second time.
It didn’t get any better. Despite your optimism, it wasn’t just the shock of an unexpected marriage of flavours that caused you to reel. If anything, the prolonged experience has only made things worse.
“Are you enjoying your tea?” Drainpipe asks uncertainly. It sounds like its own mouth is sympathetically full of damp crumpet.
“Very much so.” You reply. It’s important that you maintain a brave face for Drainpipe’s sake. Trying to look cool and act nonchalant, you reach for the sugar cubes. But then the thought crosses your mind that the last thing your tea and crumpet concoction needs is to be sweet as well as foul. In a smooth move you instead hold the cubes out in your open palm.
“Care for the cubes?” you ask casually. Every motion of your jaw refreshes the taste of hot, bitter, buttery crumpet.
“As much as I would love to, I’m watching my figure right now.” Drainpipe replies, with uncharacteristic self-consciousness and bashfulness. “Can’t be accused of turning into a water butt now can I?” it adds with a chuckle.
“You’ve nothing to worry about in that regard, friend. I’ve been carrying you around for hours and I’m not tired at all.” You tell it.
“Your words are kind, but all the same I’ll refrain.”
With a nod you respect Drainpipe Von Staffen’s wishes. Not knowing what else to do with the cubes, you drop them into the small jug of milk with a defiant plop. In answer to Drainpipe’s quizzical gaze at your latest food choice, you lift the ceramic sugar dish and pour the remaining cubes into the jug as well.
You dunk a third time and hold Drainpipe Von Staffen’s eye, daring it to question the mountain of slowly dissolving sugar which rises from the milky depths as you chew on disintegrating mess of baked goods.
The first crumpet is finished off, and you start on the second, giving this one a little longer to soak in the tea in case that helps.
It doesn’t help at all.
Looking around yourself to distract your mind from the taste, you see the waitress standing inside the window and watching you with significant distress. Your eyes meet like lost lovers on either side of the water, one of you drifting away on a ship across the ocean and the other left to wonder what is happening. She visibly shudders at the plea for help in your eyes, but still allows it to go unanswered and turns away.
With each dunk of the second and third crumpets the tea level within the cup falls, and the oily layer of melted butter on its surface grows thicker. Feeling equal parts full and remorseful, you set to work on the last crumpet. This one is cooler, but that doesn’t help at all. The only relief is knowing that none more shall follow after this final ordeal.
No sooner is the last bite of crumpet swallowed than you grab the milk jug to wash away the taste of your sins. Like a tidal wave of dairy syrup the sickly sweet milk hits your tongue and overwhelms your tastebuds. It flows across flesh tainted by tea-crumpets and drowns it in richness. Then, like rocks carried by floodwater, the remnants of sugar cubes come crashing grittily into your mouth. Their crunchiness is a welcome change from the soggy crumpet and you swallow the whole lot down.
Drainpipe is silent. The dishes in front of you are empty. ‘Do you feel like a hero now?’ a voice in your head asks.

A. Say “Drainpipe, I feel like a hero.” While Pushing Plate Away
B. Say “Drainpipe, I don’t feel like very much of a hero.” While Placing Plate on Ground
C. Say “Aha! Our first new lead! If Ellen Gertie dunks her crumpets then she’s probably evil.”
D. Put the Cup of Remaining Buttery Tea in its Own Spring Prison, Just in Case

6.
>> Say “Aha! Our first new lead! If Ellen Gertie dunks her crumpets then she’s probably evil.”
>> Say “Drainpipe, I feel like a hero.” While Pushing Plate Away
Your mind churns, as does your stomach, while you consider what your actions have taught you. On the surface are superficial outcomes, like ‘going through with a bad idea four times doesn’t make it any better’, and ‘the waitress won’t help much in a life or death situation’. Once you clear those conclusions from your mind however, the bright white flash of an epiphany overtakes you.
“Aha!” you exclaim. “Our first new lead! If Ellen Gertie dunks her crumpets then she’s probably evil.” You inform Drainpipe with satisfaction.
“So that’s the result of your latest bold experiment! You truly are committed to the cause of solving mysteries and stopping evildoers.” Drainpipe congratulates.
“Drainpipe, I feel like a hero.” You say whilst pushing the plate away from yourself, lest more crumpets spontaneously form upon it. “I took no joy in learning that, but it had to be done.” You continue, trying desperately to justify to yourself why you went through with such torture.
“It gives us an excellent route to interrogating any witnesses or suspects without tipping them off, too. Maybe we should check with the vicar in case he’s trying to set us up…” Drainpipe suggests, ever the paranoid piece of outdoor plumbing.
“Certainly it wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to send me down.” You seethe with a gravelly voice, largely from the crumpet-based retching. In a melancholic flashback you remember the elderly woman growing smaller in the distance after offering you, nay promising you, a high five she had no intention of providing. You remember the air on your palm and the hope in your heart, standing strong and waiting for her for far longer than she deserved. Your faith took so long to waver, and that only made it fall harder when eventually it crumbled.
Dramatically you look down to one side, pause for a moment, and then turn back to Drainpipe Von Staffen.
“But we won’t be fooled by that.”
In quiet contemplation you and Drainpipe sit outside the café as the sun sinks in the sky. After a quantity of time you estimate to be longer than thirteen seconds but shorter than six days, you hear a familiar voice.
“Ah, there you are.”
The vicar has found you.

A. Present Wild, Baseless Speculation About Ellen Gertie as Fact to the Vicar
B. Suggest you all Leave Immediately for the Church, and Loot Candle
C. Attempt to Wink at Drainpipe and Ask the Vicar if he Likes his Crumpets Dunked in Tea
D. Clear Your Throat at the Vicar as you Mention the Bill

7.
>>Attempt to Wink at Drainpipe and Ask the vicar if he Likes his Crumpets Dunked in Tea
“Hello vicar.” You say as you turn around. Unfortunately the chair is not the rotating sort, so you twist your torso awkwardly and push a hard armrest into your ribs. Once again, you greet someone with a grimace from your chair.
“Sorry to keep you waiting… I suppose…” he says, looking at the empty plates and the spring littering the table. “I see you’ve sampled what the café has to offer.”
Little does the vicar know that you’ve sampled it all too well, and learned one of its deadly secrets. Unable to contain your investigative instincts, you decide to find out the vicar’s true allegiances immediately, before you get in too deep and he can double-cross you.
As a private investigator, you suspect that subtlety and keeping cards close to your chest are of paramount importance: two of the most important tools in your belt. You have a partner, however, and your legendary ability to make nuanced and practically invisible actions might throw even Drainpipe Von Staffen off the scent. You need to make it aware.
Drainpipe is on one side. The vicar is on the other. Your head darts from side to side as you weigh up options on how to conduct this espionage. Taking the plunge you throw out a wink before launching into an apparently innocent question.
“So, vicar. Do you prefer your crumpets dunked in tea once, or twice?”
As your eyes focus, you realise in horror that you are facing Drainpipe. Far from notifying Drainpipe of your plan and then interrogating the suspect, you winked at the vicar and questioned your partner.
The vicar takes a deep breath.
“I don’t dunk my crumpets in tea at all. And please never wink at me again.” The unaccountably hostile clergyman snaps. Your wink tipped him off. Your questioning gained you nothing.

A. Stand up and Head Towards the Church Without Paying
B. Loot Spring-Imprisoned Candle and Offer Plates to Vicar
C. Ask Drainpipe not to Wink at the Vicar
D. Send Vicar into the Café to Pay the Bill

8.
>> Ask Drainpipe not to Wink at the Vicar
>> Stand up and Head Towards the Church Without Paying
>> Send Vicar into the Café to Pay the Bill
In the wake of your failure to cross-question the first witness, you desperately seek a way to save face in front of your client. You don’t know if it’s the lingering taste of tea-soaked crumpets, the agony in your thighs, or the heavy feeling of a jug of milk sitting in your stomach atop the afore mentioned fouled baked goods, but your mind isn’t working properly. Multiple possibilities vie for precedence, but you can’t find a way of choosing between them. You finally elect not to.
“Drainpipe, please refrain from winking at the vicar. He doesn’t like it because…” you start, but then you realise that the vicar didn’t elaborate on why he wished for a wink-free existence. You make a snap judgement based on your knowledge of him. “… because he’s scared of eyelids in odd numbers.”
The vicar turns towards you and looks as though he’s about to launch into one of his trademark angry comments, but you cut-him off to calm him down.
“Now, I believe we have a job to be getting to.” You say, standing and immediately feeling relief as the springs release their pressure on your legs. You are scared to look down in case you see blood. “This way Drainpipe!” you add as you grab your scarfed and crowned companion.
“Are you not planning to pay for this?” the vicar snaps angrily, apparently not at all soothed by your decisive action and attempted theft.
“No time! You’ll have to go in and pay for me while I start my investigations.” You reply. Clearly the vicar was angry about the injustice of stealing crumpets, so he’ll be thrilled to personally make things right by paying.
Patting yourself on the back for your expert psychology, you make a dash for the church before the vicar can try to give chase.
A short jog brings you to the church. The late afternoon sunlight blooms around the steeple, the silhouette possessing even more of an imposing presence than the impressive bell tower otherwise would. The body of the building is largely rectangular and made of slate-grey stone bricks, extending away from you with a forest of tombstones filling the grounds. The large wooden doors at the front of the building are shut firm, and a noticeboard stands to one side of the front path. You don’t see anyone nearby.

A. Wait outside the Church and Ask Vicar for Your Receipt When he Arrives
B. Investigate Church Grounds, Leaving a Trail of Grass Clippings
C. Squat for Stealth and Enter Church
D. Read Church Noticeboard

9.
>> Investigate Church Grounds, Leaving a Trail of Grass Clippings
You know that the vicar would probably want to show you around the crime-scene himself, admittedly potentially to hide evidence of his own wrongdoing, so despite your eagerness to see the pulpit, you force yourself to wait. The grounds around the church, however, are too inviting to resist.
You and Drainpipe hop over a short wall, your own hopping more effective than that of your pipe companion because of your unreasonably practical high-heeled wellingtons, and land in soft grass. Ahead of you is the labyrinth of gravestones, tasteful flowers, and the other walls of the church. So densely packed are the grounds that you fear the vicar might not be able to find you if he arrives before you finish exploring. Staying put is clearly not an option. A part of your mind screams at you to squat, as if that would somehow help, but you quell the urge, instead drawing inspiration from history’s greatest explorers: Hansel and Gretel.
Bouncily marching among the graves, you cast a casual eye over the dates engraved upon the stones and make a mental note that all of them are in the past. There’s no evidence of time-travelling here, which flies in the face of one of your better theories about Ellen Gertie’s light-fingered ways. Behind you, settling onto the ground, is a trail of mulched grass clippings from your pocket. There’s no way the vicar will fail to recognise the fortune he discarded, and it will lead him straight to you.
You round the corner of the church and find more of the same at the rear of the building. Stained glass windows overlook well-tended grounds with a variety of new and old grave markers. For a fleeting moment you think that you can see a treasure chest, but closer inspection reveals it to be a crisp packet. Still, you’re not too proud to accept small gifts.
Pocket now rustling in the space where grass clippings used to be, you continue your sprung walk. Around the next side of the church you finally come across something to make the crisp packet look worthless: a set of rusty secateurs resting against the base of the wall. Claiming the prize of your short walk, you complete your loop of the church and return to the front door, standing next to the notice board.

A. Combine Secateurs With Crisp Packet
B. Attempt to Climb Notice Board and Read it From Above
C. Lean Casually Against the Wall and Examine Secateurs for Clues
D. Enter Church to Seek Secateuring Targets

10.
>> Attempt to Climb Notice Board and Read it From Above
>> Enter church to Seek Secateuring Targets
With no vicar present still you continue your investigations with Drainpipe Von Staffen. The exterior of the site has been thoroughly reviewed for any kind of clues as to Ellen Gertie’s misdeeds, leaving only the church itself and the notice board outside it.
As a private investigator of great-enough renown to be called into this case, possibly the greatest theological crime in living memory, you know that your fee comes with certain expectations. No stone will be left unturned, you tell yourself.
“Except stones in the gravel path of course.” Drainpipe reminds you, seeming to know exactly what you are thinking. What a great buddy.
“Gravel stones might be turned by my feet as I walk, but you’re correct that I won’t be including them within the stone-rotation rule.” You confirm. “This noticeboard, however, is no gravel path.”
You both look at the noticeboard. It faces you with an array of leaflets, notices, advertisements, and what look like a series of child’s drawings. The wealth of information on its corked backboard is tempting, but to your left is the front door to the church itself and these are precious moments you could spend snooping away from the watchful gaze of the vicar.
“Which one do I choose.” You ask Drainpipe, your rock and confidant.
“Why choose at all? We are a hasty team with unimaginably powerful thighs. I’ll bet we can investigate both with time to spare before the vicar gets here.” Drainpipe fires back without pausing to think. You trust its gut feeling implicitly.
“You’ve not steered me wrong yet, Drainpipe.” You say with a beaming grin. Looking back at the noticeboard you wonder how best to absorb the information. It comes to you immediately, and you lean Drainpipe against the church doorway to keep a look out.
Secateurs clutched in one crab-claw and grass clippings staining the other, you extend them to the top of the noticeboard. Old, treated wood holds steady under your grasp without splintering, and the secateurs handles scrape against it slightly. Bending your knees a little and feeling the now-familiar sensation of springs being pressed into your legs, you warm up the unreasonably practical high-heeled wellingtons for a leap. The springs creak underneath you. Your ankles wobble slightly, the wellingtons proving so catastrophically practical that balance becomes difficult. With a grunt you push off and try to vault straight onto the top of the notice board.
Practicality is only half the battle. Since they are such a revolutionary and new invention, you have yet to build up the requisite experience to pull this manoeuvre off sufficiently. Although you attain enough height, you do so with a lateral motion and careen away towards Drainpipe, narrowly missing it as you land on the gravel path. Luckily your buttocks take the brunt of the impact, saving you from driving steel and grass remnants into your flesh.
You didn’t manage to read anything during your short flight.
“Are you OK old bean?” Drainpipe asks with deep concern.
“All in a day’s work.” You mutter back, standing up and brushing yourself off. Your trousers are filthy.
“We should inspect the interior of the church for an opportunity to use your new treasure, I think.” Drainpipe suggests. “The vicar would likely take a dim view, and it could impact the case.”
“Fine idea, Drainpipe. The notice board will be here for another attempt later.” You agree.
Hoisting your tubular friend onto your shoulder, you pull on the huge wooden doors to the church. With a creak the left hand door yields towards you. Stepping inside you see a typical church. Rows of pews to either side of you extend towards a raised dais in the chancel. On the dais is a pulpit, with a raised seating area to one side for the choir. You can already imagine Ellen Gertie’s doily-stained claws curved around the edge of those seats as she snuck through, theft on her deviant mind.
A doorway behind the pulpit leads to what you presume to be the vestry, a potential hot-bed for secateurs-vulnerable materials and evidence of The Great Demon Gertie’s misdeeds.
Stepping along the central passageway you see that a few hymn books and cushions adorn the pews, all made to look enticingly ripe for cutting with garden implements.

A. Press on for the Vestry and Secateur the First Thing You See
B. Unleash Bladed-Hell Upon the Cushions
C. Desecrate the Hymn Books With Sharpened Steel
D. Carve Theories Regarding Ellen Gertie into Pew with Secateurs

11.
>> Press on for the Vestry and Secateur the First Thing You See
Everything around you, from the cushions to the hymn books to the curtains, cries out for a snipping with your rusty tool of vengeance. No doubt Ellen Gertie plans to make off with all of it, so a scorched-earth policy of severely cutting whatever you see would ensure that she is unable to profit. But maybe, you consider, that’s what she wants you to do. She left those secateurs there for you to find, so that you’d tire yourself out hacking the chapel to pieces and have nothing left for the really juicy stuff, like all the evidence of her crimes stashed away in the vestry. Why she’d be concerned about you destroying the evidence of her theft you cannot say, but you know deep down that it’s just the sort of sickness she embodies.
“This way Drainpipe. I have a feeling the real bladesmanship is to be performed in the vestry.” You say to your companion.
“What-ho!” Drainpipe adds.
Jogging bouncily between the rows of pews you fix your gaze on the vestry door. Pale brown with a brass handle, it stands closed yet inviting behind the pulpit. You bet that Ellen Gertie spent many a sermon peering through it, making sure the vicar’s back was turned before necking the communion wine and grinding Eucharist bread into the carpet. You resolve yet again to make her pay. Nothing will stay your wrathful hand.
Filled with the righteous fury of a private detective recently armed with old gardening supplies, you grab the door-handle roughly and push it hard, making the important discovery that it is a pull door. Bracing your feet and shifting your weight, you yank the door open, swing into the doorway.
“SECATEURS!” you bellow, as you bring the opened blades down to your right. The rusted steel sails downwards through the air and slams home into an ageing armchair. Snipping rapidly you set about carving a path through the threads and stuffing, pulling loose strings and tassels out in a tornado of upholstery. Drainpipe cheers you on as you chop deeper and deeper, the blades blunted by time and erosion and forcing you to make several attempts to slice even the thinnest of threads.

“What are you doing!?” the vicar’s voice shouts from just outside the door.
A. “Investigating the case! The Abominable Gertie hid a clue in this chair!”
B. “Exercising my right to prune away lies and support the buds of truth!”
C. “Going to town on this armchair, duh.”
D. “Showing Drainpipe the appropriate way to chastise couch potatoes.”

12.
>> “Investigating the case! The Abominable Gertie hid a clue in this chair!”
“Investigating the case! The Abominable Gertie hid a clue in this chair!” you shout proudly to the vicar.
“What?! My chair! You vandal!” he shouts back, sounding a lot angrier than you’d expected having hired you for this exact purpose.
“This damage was done by Gertie Goat-face when she hid the clue. We’re just exposing it.” Drainpipe explains. You high-five it with your free crab-claw whilst the secateurs continue their good work.
“You are paying every penny for that!”
“You can take it from my fee. Or maybe from the stolen fortune that Ellen Gertie is hiding.” You offer, distracted by your ongoing hacking. Several chunks of padding fly past your head, but something catches your eye in the depths of the chair.
“Stop it this instant! You will not find any evidence in there!” The vicar shouts, interfering in your case yet again. The evidence is mounting of his duplicity.
“Oh yeah?” you say back, defiantly. “Then what do you call this?!”
Plunging a hand into the chair you pull out a length of grey wire, connected to a small black box at one end and a crudely wired battery pack at the other.
The vicar’s mouth drops open.

A. Examine Chair Device
B. Attempt to Squirt Packet of Hollandaise Sauce into Vicar’s Mouth
C. Ask Vicar if you can Charge Your Phone
D. Flip Drainpipe’s Scarf Sassily, for a Job Well Done

13.
>> Flip Drainpipe’s Scarf Sassily, for a Job Well Done
As gratifying as it is to discover that your outright lie regarding the chair assault happened to be true, and as intriguing as it is to have found a strange device to investigate, both of those feelings are eclipsed by the vicar’s reaction. Having been unaccountably hostile to you this entire time despite your exemplary professionalism and your efforts to clear up the grass clippings in his garden, you take a smug satisfaction in his shock. He’ll have no choice but to admit that you are a great private detective now, just as you have known for over an hour.
“Just as I suspected. I’ve found a critical piece of evidence for cracking this case wide open thanks to my supreme detection abilities.” You boast, clapping one crab claw hand and using the other to click the secateurs equally crabbily
You turn to your companion, Drainpipe Von Staffen, and see the end of its scarf dangling enticingly in mid-air. Not one to waste such an opportunity, you give it a casual flick, looping the free end over Drainpipe’s narrow, curved back once more.
“And that’s the end of that chapter.” You say. You don’t know why.
“What is that? How did you know it was there?” the vicar asks with disbelief.

A. “I simply had to think like a vile old hag. The rest was child’s play.”
B. “Invariably, gardening tools are the path to epiphanies.”
C. Flex Like an Old-Timey Strongman
D. Make a Point of Ignoring the Vicar and Examine the Chair Device

14.
>> “I simply had to think like a vile old hag. The rest was child’s play.”
You flip Drainpipe’s scarf a second time, flinging it all the way around its neck and reducing the length of the dangling end to the point that its sassiness is mitigated.
“I simply had to think like a vile old hag. The rest was child’s play.” You tell the vicar, whilst staring upwards into the middle distance. Aside from the corner of the ceiling, which has its fair share of cobwebs, there is very little of interest.
“That’s not much of an explanation. I know Ellen well and she never seemed like the sort of person who would hide something in a chair.” The vicar replies, not sounding entirely convinced by your explanation.
“Maybe you didn’t know her quite that well at all.” Drainpipe says. It’s slightly muffled, and you realise that you must have wrapped the scarf around its mouth. It doesn’t seem to mind.
The vicar scowls a little, before his expression softens to betrayed disappointment.
“Perhaps I don’t quite have the eagle eyes I thought when spotting the sins of my congregation.” He says.
“Chicken eyes.” You correct reflexively. Seeing the vicar’s face starting to morph into anger again, you hurriedly change the subject. “Regardless, I am a trained professional and I will uncover all of Dirty Gertie’s crimes, even if it means taking the Lord’s own secateurs to everything in this church!”
“You will do no such thing.” The vicar snaps.

A. Squat and Examine Chair Device
B. Examine Room for Further Secateurables
C. Attempt to Climb into Tear in Chair Upholstery
D. Ask Vicar if you can Charge Your Phone and Order Pizza

15.
>> Squat and Examine Chair Device
A strange feeling comes over you. It’s one you’ve not felt in a long time, but immediately it is recognisable and undeniable. You glance down at your feet, oh so far away from you at the end of straight legs, and you feel it again. As hard as it is to admit, the vicar might be right. You might well do no such thing as rend the church with secateurs, because there are more critical matters to attend to for the good of your soul.
“You’re right.” You say, surprising the vicar and Drainpipe equally. Pushing your crab-claws out in front of you as a counterbalance, one of them clutching the secateurs still, you slowly lower yourself down into the position of a true hero; the squat.
As you travel down you feel the collection of springs and other sundries in your pockets reassert their pressure upon your thighs. Although recovered from their previous squatting escapades earlier in the day, the battle against your pockets has reached a peak. There is no room for the springs to travel downwards.
A loud and conspicuous tearing sound erupts from your thighs, drawing everyone’s attention, and springs tumble to the ground around you. They roll across the floor, covered in remnant grass clippings and tangled with shoelaces. Your keys and your phone fall among the pile of detritus along with several batteries. Your lint collection holds firm.
Regardless of the devastation of your trousers, you continue descending until you can go no further. Like a blanket being thrown over your head, tranquillity immerses you. You’re back where you need to be. Calmly and securely you take the chair device from the ruins of your trousers and start to examine it.
Two AA batteries are nestled into the battery pack of the device. It’s crudely soldered together and appears to have been made from scavenged parts. What you originally thought was a grey wire is in fast a red wire and a blue wire secured together with duct tape. Running it through your hands to the other end you see that the black box has a number of perforations, much like a speaker or a microphone. Or perhaps both. There are no obvious switches on the surface, but you determine that this, much like the rest of the assembly, is made from reclaimed materials. A line of glue holds the two halves of the black box together.

A. Shout into the Box to Deafen Potential Listeners
B. Listen to the Box for Potential Chatter
C. Ask the Vicar for a Backpack to Store your Important Belongings
D. Attempt to Prise Open the Box

16.
>> Ask the Vicar for a Backpack to Store your Important Belongings
>> Shout into the Box to Deafen Potential Listeners
Over the course of the day, you think you’ve learned three things about yourself. Firstly, you are a champion of subtlety, working with nuanced movement and understated calm to achieve your goals. Secondly, you are a person of science, and will test every hypothesis you devise in a controlled and pragmatic manner. Finally, you are impeccably well organised. At no stage have you lost track of anything which was crammed, stuffed, stuck or otherwise incarcerated within your now ruptured pockets. With your previous storage solution out of the picture, it is imperative that you find a way of keeping your hard-won treasures and tools close by, but you can’t waste a moment in investigating this white-hot lead on the case.
You suspect that the box may be a listening device, and speculate that it may have been used to determine when the church funds would be at their most vulnerable. You know that Ellen Gertie would have had access to this room in her position as volunteer secretary, or technically a paid secretary if theft counts as a salary. Additionally, you suspect that Ellen Gertie is just the sort of conniving old battle-axe who would know how to make covert spy devices. Well, if she wants to eavesdrop on you like that, you decide, then you’ll give the craggy old ghoul something to hear.
From the corner of your eye you catch the reflection of a battery underneath some springs. You can’t lose track of it all or let it escape you. You look at the box in one of your crab clawed hands, and hold the other out towards the vicar. You bring the box close to your mouth.
“COULD I PLEASE HAVE A BACKPACK TO STORE MY DELICATE EQUIPMENT?!” you bellow at the top of your lungs, taking the vicar by surprise and causing Drainpipe to swoon in shock. “IT’S JUST THAT MY POCKETS SEEM TO HAVE BEEN RUINED BY ALL THIS SQUAT PRESSURE!” you explain, adding vital context to appease the vicar and really give Gertie what for. The exertion of shouting makes you wobble precariously on your springs.

A. Wait Patiently for a Backpack
B. Listen to the Box for Cries of Aural Agony
C. Ask the Vicar if you can Charge your Phone to Play Mood Music
D. Attempt to Spring onto Torn Chair

17.
>> Listen to the Box for Cries of Aural Agony
Shouting complete, you hold the box up to your own ears and listen for any evidence of displeasure from the other side.
“Careful young bean! The she-devil might return fire with her own demonic wail” Drainpipe warns. Clearly when it comes to audio warfare this isn’t its first rodeo.
You nod to acknowledge Drainpipe’s counsel, and hold the box half-an-inch farther from your ear. That ought to do the trick.
“Your delicate equipment?” The vicar asks, totally behind the curve yet again. You wonder how he manages to dress himself in the morning. “This is a pile of scrap metal and rubbish!” You get the impression that he’s misunderstood the true value of your inventory.
“My dear man, although these items may appear as rubbish to the untrained eye, perhaps that of a certain fowl, they are in fact my greatest assets. Aside from my cutting wit, keen senses, sharp companion Drainpipe Von Staffen, and unreasonably practical wellingtons, of course.” You inform the misguided fellow, still listening for any sign of Ellen ‘Probable Murderer’ Gertie. You hear nothing.
The vicar shakes his head and looks at the floor. This brings him little comfort, because it’s still covered in everything that fell through your trousers.
“I think I have a spare backpack in the lost and found. It’s been here for a couple of years now so I suppose there’s no harm in letting you have it.” He says, sounding defeated. “I’ll be back in one moment. Don’t touch ANYTHING else until I’m back.”
The vicar walks out without waiting for you to agree to his request. You suspect that he just doesn’t want to miss the next great discovery, but also realise that you have a few moments for uninterrupted investigation again.
Silence continues to pour out of the box, unabated. You find yourself wondering if these batteries still work.

A. Remove Batteries from Box and Lick Them
B. Combine AA Batteries from Floor with Box and Listen Again
C. Scope Out the Vestry for Things to Touch When the Vicar Returns
D. Touch as Much as Possible Before the Vicar Returns

18.
>> Touch as Much as Possible Before the Vicar Returns
As quickly as they arrived your troubleshooting ideas for the box disappear, pushed out of place by a much higher priority; disobeying a direct order. The vicar might be paying you, but you don’t see why that should give him any say over which of his belongings you do or don’t interfere with and vandalise, even though he’s engaged with providing you with a backpack at no cost.
Pushing the door closed quietly, you survey the room for touchable items. The armchair next to you has been thoroughly touched already, but it sits next to a sideboard covered in picture frames, mantle clocks and bibles. Beyond that, pushed against the wall, is a second armchair which still has its upholstery in complete working order for the time being. Running your eyes along the wall you see a writing desk with a wooden chair tucked underneath it. Another bible and a collection of stationery are distributed across the surface. Against the third wall is a window facing out across the graveyard.
“We’ll show him, Drainpipe.” You say as you leap towards the sideboard. Drainpipe isn’t sure of what you’ll be showing whom, but chuckles supportively nonetheless.
In a wide, uncontrolled swipe you hand sweeps across the sideboard and knocks several picture frames over, one of them slipping onto the floor. Allowing your momentum to carry you forwards you stroke the top of a mantle clock and flip several pages of a bible in a single fluid motion. You feel some of the pages fold and crease, but there’s no time to stop. You overbalance and land on the second armchair, touching it by definition, and crumpling into an untidy heap with your face pressed into the back cushion.
While it’s not the least pleasant thing you’ve tasted all day, the flavour of the armchair still isn’t to your liking. Slightly furry fabric dries your tongue alarmingly quickly and you feel sure that every nasal inhalation is moving far more dust than air into your body.
“Hurry friend! There is still work to be done!” Drainpipe cries to you. Steeling yourself thanks to your companion’s encouragement, you push away from the armchair and slap both palms down onto the writing desk. You grab at every pen you can find, dropping them as soon as they’re in your grasp like a frenzied if ineffective juggler, and push the chair over.
Panting, you turn your attention to the window. A few steps bring you close, and you rest your cheek against the cool glass.
A few moments pass in silence.
“Hm. Maybe we hurried too much.” Drainpipe assesses.

A. Search Writing Desk
B. Stare Wistfully Out of Window
C. Check Flooring
D. Toggle Lightswitch

19.
>> Search Writing Desk
You are inclined to agree with Drainpipe’s observation that your haste was over and above the requirement. Now that everything in the room has had at least some cursory contact, you decide to dive deeper into the writing desk, wondering at what mysteries it might hold, or what Ellen Gertie might have done to sabotage it.
On closer inspection the writing desk has two shallow drawers set into the front, each one completed by a looped metal handle. They look perfectly operable by the clawed fingers of evil incarnate, so you feel sure that Ellen Gertie might have used them in the past. The lack of scratch-marks in the wood can only be an indication of the care she takes when conducting her vile business.
You attempt to gently pull the left drawer open but find that it slides asymmetrically and knocks into one side. A second gentle tug reverses the angle and bumps the other edge instead. Knowing that the vicar could return at any moment, and your patience apparently thin at the best of times, you hook fingers from both hands around the handle and really put your back into the next attempt. With a quiet grinding of wood against wood the drawer shoots out towards you, sending you toppling over backwards with the lack of resistance. As you pivot backwards, facing the ceiling, you see the contents of the drawer flying overhead in an arc in slow motion. Various pens and folded pieces of paper, a handful of coins, unidentified plastic objects, and some paperclips soar across the room and clatter to the floor as you land roughly on your back.
“I see you’ve maintained the same urgency.” Drainpipe says.
Neglecting to respond you scrabble back to your feet and approach the second drawer. Previous experimentation has taught you that full force is too much, but minimum force is too little. Having therefore ruled out ‘too little force’ and ‘too much force’ the only remaining option is ‘the right amount of force’. With a proud smile you grasp the handle and apply the correct amount of drawer-liberation force. Your shoulder jerks uncomfortably as the drawer refuses to move. You give it another test pull and again it says in place, but you hear a quiet metal clinking. It appears to be locked.

A. Rummage Around on the Floor to Search Loot from First Drawer
B. Search for your Dropped Keys and Combine with Locked Drawer
C. Combine Batteries with Chair Device
D. Toggle Lightswitch

20.
>> Combine Batteries with Chair Device
Having suffered a major defeat at the hands of a small lock you turn your attention away for easier avenues of investigation. Lying on the floor next to the ruins of the first armchair is the plastic box you pulled from its upholstered prison, among the scattered equipment which spilled from your ruptured inventory. With a mind hopping from place to place excitably you remember that the battery life of the box had been called into question.
“I think we should focus on the device for now.” You tell Drainpipe as you drop to your knees. You land painfully on a spring and make a series of sucking noises, under the impression that it will somehow help.
It doesn’t.
You can feel Drainpipe cringing in a sympathetic pain.
After a few moments of writhing you regain enough composure to find the battery packet. Several of the batteries have rolled out and made a break for it across the floor, but there are a handful left in the cardboard confines. You tip two out into your palm and snatch up the chair device.
Its existing batteries are crammed tightly into their holder with very little room to catch your fingers on the edge.
“Why not make use of rudimentary tools, much like antediluvian man must have done?” Drainpipe suggests in a needlessly complicated manner.
“Good idea.” You say, understanding that the ends justified the means. You snatch up one of the springs, ensuring that it’s not the treacherous one that hurt your knee, and use the sharp end to scratch and pull at the batteries.
Several trenches are carved into the plastic of the holder as you attack the batteries like a starved anteater trying to bust into a termite mound. Fine plastic dust sprays behind the spring-end in tracer jets, only adding to the already significant floor-cleaning burden, and you’re concerned about the quantity that you must be inhaling.
Finally, with a triumphant ping, the first battery pops free and skitters underneath the armchair. With a victorious “Ha!” you use the space created to get underneath the second battery, which plops out a little underwhelmingly. In your excitement you snatch it up and pitch it hard at the second armchair, managing to embed it in what must have been a thoroughly rotted portion of a cushion.
Not worrying about furniture rot, you push the fresh batteries into the chair device.
“Are they in there the right way round?” Drainpipe asks. “I always get it wrong the first time, but then again I don’t have thumbs so there are bigger problems in my life.”
You nod gratefully at Drainpipe for his diligent battery best-practices, and double-check that the batteries are the correct way round. You discover that you had put them in sideways.
Adjusting the batteries into an orientation which makes even vague sense, you listen closely to the box again.
A burst of static rings out.
“…know… right thing to do… deserve… meek…” is all you can make out of a distorted voice recording. With a crackle and spark from the battery pack the voice stops. Smoke rises from the box.

A. Speculate Wildly About the Voice
B. Try to Find Dropped Keys and Combine with Locked Drawer
C. Search Floor for Loot from First Drawer
D. Toggle Lightswitch

21.
>> Speculate Wildly About the Voice
“Did you hear that Drainpipe?!” you cry, your voice hoarse and breaking with the excitement. “There was a voice!”
“Yes, I heard it just as clearly as you.” Drainpipe responds. So strong is the bond between you, that sometimes you could swear that you share senses. “What did it mean by ‘right thing to do?’ and all those mysterious crackling noises?”
“I don’t know for sure” You start “but I think it could be the voice of a shady benefactor seeking to influence someone or some-many within this room. Possibly, nay probably, Ellen Gertie herself, sowing the seeds of her discontent among the other volunteer staff with a hidden voice.”
“It didn’t sound like the voice of an elderly woman.” Drainpipe observes naively.
“Pah! Ellen Gertie is evil incarnate, of course her voice would sound strange. She will have snuck in here under cover of darkness, capable of moving through the shadows themselves on account of her malign powers, and carefully made an incision in the armchair. After setting her voice-box in place she then used the dark art of haberdashery to mend the wound she had given the furniture and cover her tracks. As one final insult, she pushed over everything on the sideboard, threw a drawer across the room, and left the other drawer locked to frustrate any innocent vestry-goer.” You conclude, covering every logical step Ellen Gertie must have taken. “Either she was trying to subliminally plant an idea in everyone else’s head, or she was using it to recite an evil incantation about meek people, knowledge, and who deserves what.”
“Only she didn’t reckon with our mighty intuition.” Drainpipe Von Staffen says, with a sparkle from the place where its gleaming teeth would be, if it weren’t a piece of drainage equipment.
“Quite right. It’s all too possible that we have a demon to exorcise from this church.”
The door swings open suddenly.
“It’s not huge, but it should…” the vicar starts, before dropping into one of his trademark furious sighs at the sight ahead of him. “I told you not to touch anything!” he growls.

A. Recount the Voice from the Box as a Distraction
B. Offer to Clear up the Mess and Loot Subtly into New Bag
C. Deny any Involvement in the Mess
D. Inform Vicar that Ellen Gertie is Definitely a Demon

22.
>> Recount the Voice from the Box as a Distraction
“The box played a voice to me!” You answer, bravely changing the subject to avoid an ecclesiastical dressing down. “It was a speaker.”
“And was it loud enough to forcibly eject the drawers from my writing desk?” the vicar questions, once again fixated on trivia.
“Don’t think about that!” Drainpipe interjects “Listen, the box spoke to us.”
“Yeah. It was crackly and hard to hear but it told me ‘know’, ‘right thing to do’, ‘deserve’ and ‘meek’. Concentrate on that. Ignore everything else.”
The vicar is visibly bristling, seemingly a constant victim of his own over-sensitivity regarding vandalism.
“That’s all it said? Whose voice was it? Play it again.” He responds finally.
“I can’t. It burned out; can’t you smell the smoke?”
The vicar scrunches his eyes closed. You presume he does so to better smell the electrical fire.
“I’m fairly sure it was Gertie, because it resonated with the echoes of abyssal horror, and I suspect that I could hear doilies in the background.” You explain, throwing in more details to add false legitimacy to your story. As far as you’re concerned, it’s indistinguishable from the truth.
“And let me guess: she also compelled you to throw picture frames and rummage through my drawers?”
“I’ve found a valuable clue here! Don’t question my methods. I’ll rummage through this whole church if I have to!” you say, switching from a defensive position to one of aggression now that your distraction has failed. “Now may I please have my bag to clear up your frankly shamefully messy vestry?”
The vicar throws the bag at your feet silently and turns the other cheek. It’s a pink and lime backpack with baby blue binding.

Item Acquired: Gaudy Backpack

A. Gather Inventory and Loot from Floor, and Toggle Lightswitch
B. Gather Inventory and Loot from Floor, and Tear Fabric from First Chair
C. Gather Inventory and Loot from Floor, and Ask Vicar for Drawer Key
D. Gather Inventory and Loot from Floor, and Offer Vicar Hollandaise Sauce

23.
>> Gather Inventory and Loot from Floor, and Offer Vicar Hollandaise Sauce
“Thank you.” You say as you squat to pick up the bag. This time there are no further tearing sounds.
You open the bag and find that it is empty. Any loot must have been snapped up by the vicar in the lost and found. Accepting that the bag must constitute loot enough, you start to grab handfuls of your precious cargo and stuff them into the backpack, taking care to point the sharp spring ends away from the fabric of the bag wherever possible.
Scraping sounds follow your movements as you crab-walk around the vestry gathering the detritus previously incarcerated in your pockets. As you reach the contents of the first drawer you look up the vicar and see him examining the hole you tore in the first armchair. Recognising this opportunity, you stuff the folded sheets of paper from the drawer into your bag, tucking them among a dense thicket of springs and shoelaces.
Your tidying completed, you rise back up from the squat position with your packet of hollandaise sauce in hand. Although he has seemed ungrateful for your whole professional relationship, you can’t help but feel some pity for the vicar. His whole vestry has been torn apart by the machinations of Ellen Gertie and whichever demonic force is driving her actions and supplying her with small speaker boxes. He needs a win, however small.
“Here, your worship. This is for you.” You say, holding the packet of hollandaise sauce out in an open palm.
The vicar turns to face you, and slowly looks down at the packet in your hand. Wordlessly he lifts it from you and places it into his own pocket.
“Thank you…?” he says. You can hear the question mark clearly.
“That’s the appropriate response to a gift, yes.” You say, hoping to provide the clarity he needs. “But thanks are not necessary this time. Think of it as good will for my intentions to bring Ellen to justice.”
The vicar blinks twice, and turns back to the armchair.

Item Acquired: Folded Note (6)
Item Acquired: Biro (3)
Item Acquired: Unidentified Plastic Object (4)
Item Acquired: 12p
Item Acquired: Paperclip (5)
Item Acquired: Burned-out Plastic Speaker

A. Ask Vicar for Drawer Key
B. Toggle Lightswitch
C. Leave Vestry Subtly to Read Folded Notes
D. Ask for Directions to Ellen Gertie’s House

24.
>> Ask Vicar for Drawer Key
>> Leave Vestry Subtly to Read Folded Notes
Having given the vicar a gift as a nice gesture, you start to feel like he owes you something in return. There’s been no advance payment unless one were to count the crumpets and tea, and you don’t feel inclined to on the basis that they were terrible together. Asking for something might set off the vicar’s hair-trigger temper however, and that might impede your progress in the case.
An epiphany strikes you.
“Vicar, the other drawer of your writing desk appears to be locked. Could I please have to key in order to complete my sleuthing?” you ask, patting yourself on the back mentally. This way he’s giving you something to help himself, so it won’t go against the man’s inherently selfish and anti-you demeanour.
“Why do you want to look in there?” he asks suspiciously.
“I found a speaking device hidden in a chair and a locked drawer nearby. This is basic private investigation stuff, chapter one of How to Investigate Other People’s Privacy.”
“I can verify that.” Drainpipe Von Staffen adds from his position reclined against the armchair.
“I’ll unlock it for you.” The vicar says tersely. You count it as a victory, but make a mental note to give lower quality gifts to the vicar in future.
“Thank you.” You say magnanimously, despite this snub. As the vicar crosses to the writing desk, you realise that he’s once again distracted, giving you yet another shot at secrecy. Recognising that stealth is key, you resume your squat and creep from the room to the clattering sound of wellington springs against wood.
Darting to the side of the door, such that you are hidden from the vicar’s all-seeing chicken-eyes, you take the folded notes from your backpack. They are slightly grass stained.
Opening the first one you see several rows of small, neat handwriting. Immediately the word ‘meek’ catches your eye and draws you in, but you see that it says ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’. It seems that someone is planning for doomsday and making a will for humanity. Worrying indeed, but apocalyptic disasters are nothing compared to the crimes of Ellen Gertie. You fold the note and return it to your bag.
The next three notes appear to be partially completed sermons, each one peppered with references to different passages of scripture and one of them strangely fixated on a popular programme about selling antiques. Feeling no wiser for the vicar’s chosen words, you stuff them back into your backpack.
The fifth note appears different to the previous ones, folded into four rather than two and written in pen. You unfold it and see that the writing is still neat, but much larger and of a decidedly different style. You wouldn’t outright say that it was the writing of a demon, but you could believe it if someone else told you. The potentially otherworldly text is a description of how to open a safe, a plan for how to conceal the money, and steps for how to smuggle it out of a crowded church during a Sunday service.
You can’t put your finger on it, but something about that fifth note seems suspicious, and like it might be related to the sum of money missing from the church funds. If only you could make the connection. You resolve to consult with Drainpipe on the matter.
“Where have you gone?” the vicar shouts with worry from the vestry.
“I’m just out here.” You reply. “I… er… wanted to get a run-up at opening the drawer. The other one was stiff.” You bluff, sure that he’ll never see through your words.
There is no response, but you can feel a disappointed sigh fill the church.
Not one to leave a job half-finished, you open the final note and see that it is a return to the vicar’s neat hand. This time, however, it’s a rough plan of a daring sci-fi space opera, in which a heroic interstellar vicar saves the people of Greatest Washburnia IV, a planet orbiting in a halo of systems around a golden star. Plot details are thin on the ground, but you get the impression that with the use of a few well-delivered sermons, a tremendous understanding of Leviticus, and bird-disambiguation skills second-to-none, the interstellar vicar is able to spread the good word so thick that it buffets away an invading force from the planet of Heathenius. Next to this name is a note reading ‘too subtle?’.
Folding the paper away again, you worry that your sleuthing may have gone too far.

Privacy’s Bane: +1 Duplicity, -1 Serenity, -1 Insolubility

A. Squat-Run into Vestry and Open Drawer
B. Spring into Room and Quote Plot of Space Vicar Story
C. Squat-Run into Vestry and Toggle Lightswitch
D. Squat-run into Vestry and Show Vicar Safe Robbery Plans

25.
>> Squat-run into Vestry and Toggle Lightswitch
>> Spring into Room and Quote Plot of Space Vicar Story
Whether you’ve gone too far or not, the only thing to do is go further. But not further into the unlocked drawer just yet. There are far more important leads to follow first.
Bracing yourself even lower into your squat, you fixate on the door and visualise what’s on the other side. From what you recall the light switch was on the right hand side, mounted on the wall at approximately shoulder height. You hold the image in your mind’s eye as you take a deep breath.
“Prepare for darkness, Drainpipe!” you shout, as you launch into a squat run. Even with the added force from your spring wellingtons, running which squatting is lamentably slow and awkward, putting immense strain on both of your hips. Waddling like a duck that’s had a serious trouser accident you lumber into the vestry and see the vicar’s frustrated gaze fixed on you. The torn armchair apparently hasn’t calmed him down. Turning away, you reach up and slap the lightswitch, turning on the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and shedding a weak yellow light over the vestry. Although it is early evening, the sunlight is still strong enough to easily dominate the room.
“Ah.” You say, realising that you’d asked Drainpipe to prepare for exactly the wrong kind of lighting change. It might have manually dilated its pupils in anticipation of twilight, only to find itself blinded, if only it had eyes with which to carry out any of those processes. Thankfully there’s no harm done.
“Why are you squatting like that?” the vicar asks impatiently. You know that he won’t understand, nobody ever does, so you don’t waste your time explaining to him. Instead, you back quietly out of the room.
“Where are you going now?!” the holy man continues to pry. Once again he arouses your suspicions, asking far too many questions for someone who wants their demonic thief caught. It’s almost like he’s trying to stand in your way and throw you off the case.
Your jaw drops when you realise that this might not be the real vicar after all. All he’s done is resist your investigative work and question your methods, just like the thrall of an evil volunteer secretary might. Far from trying to help, you realise that he might be an imposter created by Eldritch Ellen; a puppet trying to learn where the evidence lies such that it might be better hidden.
“There is one way to work out the truth.” You hear Drainpipe Von Staffen say. Its ability to know what you are thinking, even out of visual range, is impressive. It stands as a testament to how strong your enduring partnership really is.
“What’s that?” you ask out loud.
“What’s what?” the vicar fires back, with another probing query.
“The note.” Drainpipe replies.
You realise immediately what he means.
Bending both knees again, swing your arms backwards to build up momentum, and then spring-leap forwards into the vestry. As you fly through the air, you turn to face the vicar.
“Spacefaring preacher, Firebrand Lightning, faces down the Heathen fleet as they float above his homeworld of Greatest Washburnia IV.” You cry, hitting the ground with a shoulder, and rolling back up to your feet. The vicar’s face drops into pure horror. “‘Hey, Heathens!’ he shouts into the comms unit from his space-pulpit aboard His Holiness’ Ship: Piety. ‘I guess having six jawbones makes it pretty hard to turn the other cheek.’ He continues. The flock currently crewing the bridge of the HSS Piety break into whoops of admiration, high-fiving one another at the devastating one-liner.’”
“Wha- how-” the vicar stammers.
“‘Oh no!’ the Heathen Captain Sun-Dae’sur Viss’Misser wails. ‘If only we weren’t so foul and had allowed ourselves to be saved!’”
Drainpipe watches the vicar like a hawk made from polyethylene.
“The Heathen fleet breaks attack formation and flies straight into the sun to burn like the heretics they are.” You finish, looking the vicar dead in the eye and giving him the finger-guns.
“How dare you go through my things like that!” he shouts, blushing an unholy shade of red.
With a sigh of relief you relax; it really is the vicar and not an impostor.

A. Investigate Unlocked Drawer
B. Explain Yourself to the Vicar and Return Space Vicar Note
C. Show Vicar the Safe Robbery Plans
D. Ask for Directions to Ellen Gertie’s House

26.
>> Explain Yourself to the Vicar and Return Space Vicar Note
Your relief at knowing the vicar is not a summoned doppelganger is short-lived. Like a tomato ripening in the summer sun his face continues to grow steadily redder, but unlike a tomato he is also quite capable of dealing a left hook. You know that as a man of the cloth he’s not prone to pugilism, but you get the impression that your actions have, somehow, pushed him to some kind of emotional limit.
Looking back on your recent actions, you acknowledge that there’s a certain perspective which could potentially interpret some of your investigative techniques as irritating. And maybe some people would be able to argue that reading someone’s personal, rough notes out like that constitutes a breach of their privacy.
In a rare moment of internal reflection and self-awareness, you decide that perhaps you could be the bigger person here and try to make amends for the sake of your professional relationship.
“I’m sorry if I have annoyed you, your eminence.” You say softly. “I had to prove to myself that you were the real vicar and not an impostor hired by Ellen Gertie to keep track of my investigation. Reading out something personal like that and gauging your reaction felt like the most direct route to doing that.”
The vicar gives you one of his classic looks.
“Here,” you say, offering the note to him “this is yours.”
The vicar takes the note from your hand with pursed lips. Behind his eyes is the barely restrained rage of a thousand empty collection plates. He doesn’t speak.
“I must also offer my apologies. I was never baptised, although I have seen a vast quantity of water in my time, and I came strolling in here regardless.” Drainpipe adds, apparently wagering that when it comes to apologies it’s all about quantity rather than quality.
You stand and awkwardly stare at the vicar, unsure of what to do with yourself. It feels like you should wait for him to say something, but no words seem to be forthcoming. You assume that he must be choked up with grateful tears.

Baby’s First Apology: +1 Contrition

A. Search Unlocked Drawer
B. Check Inventory and Stats Whilst Vicar Collects his Thoughts
C. Show the Vicar the Safe Robbery Plans
D. Ask for Directions to Ellen Gertie’s House

27.
>> Show the Vicar the Safe Robbery Plans
Although the vicar hasn’t been enthusiastic in his response to your comparatively heartfelt contrition, you do recognise that the ‘returned note’ approach did prevent him from growing any angrier. If it went that well for something as worthless as his space vicar story, then surely it would be even better with actual details about the case.
“I have another note, your godliness.” You announce quietly. “And I think you’ll find it very interesting.”
You open up the safe robbery plans and hold them towards the vicar. He tucks the space vicar story into his pocket and then takes the paper from you.
“It seems to outline the method and plan for stealing a large sum of money from a church-based safe and smuggling it out during a Sunday service.” You explain while the vicar is reading. If anyone else had been perusing the note you would have considered quoting its content to them a redundant exercise, but given the vicar’s previously evident struggles with telling one word from another, you feel that it’s a humane thing to do.
“We suspect that this note came from the blood-stained claws of Ellen Gertie herself.” Drainpipe speculates from the armchair. It’s looking even more reclined than before, threatening to drop to the floor at any moment.
“Is that Ellen’s writing?” you ask directly, spelling it out for the man. You don’t trust him to pick up on Drainpipe Von Staffen’s subtle implications.
“It... it is.” The vicar manages. You knew he struggled with words as long as ‘chicken’ but now he’s fighting a battle for two letters! The stress must be getting to him, you decide.
“That’s fairly damning.” Drainpipe chimes in. “Your suspicions were well-founded, your piousness.”
The vicar stares at the note. You worry that he’s not made it past the first sentence.

A. Search Unlocked Drawer
B. Ask for Directions to Ellen Gertie’s House
C. Ask for Directions to the Police Station
D. Assume that you Probably Know the way to go and Start Walking

28.
>> Search Unlocked Drawer
>> Ask for Directions to Ellen Gertie’s House
Leaving the vicar to struggle on with his reading undisturbed, you cross to the writing desk and its now unlocked drawer. With one hand you tug hard and jerk the drawer free on its wooden runners, leaving it dangling precariously with its contents on display to the vestry.
A small brass key sits in the front corner, the handle shaped like a rabbit’s face. The degree of tarnishing tells you that the vicar is not a diligent man when it comes to caring for his metal goods. Next to the key is rectangular business card with four numbers written on the front: “4-50-12-83”. You assume the numbers to be the vicar’s date of birth, wisely kept under lock and key in case of attempted identity fraud. The fact that he’s recorded four numbers is an oversight on his part.
You take the key and the numbered card from the drawer, and hear the vicar move behind you.
“What are you taking from there?” he asks angrily. “That’s the key to my display cabinet and the code to the church safe, put them back!”
“Using your date of birth as a code is a bit predictable, don’t you think?” you ask. “And you can’t need it written down in order to remember it.”
“It’s not my date of… just put it back, please.”
Fearful that the vicar might use holy persuasion on you to return your latest loot, you decide to distract him.
“What’s the way to Ellen Gertie’s house? I think we have enough evidence against her to make a citizen’s arrest!”
“We might even be able to get away with some citizen’s brutality too!” Drainpipe adds excitedly. The prospect does not seem to appeal to the vicar.
“We will not be arresting or assaulting anybody! I can’t believe I even have to say that!” The vicar laments.
“Fine, we’ll go there and take back the money. Plus a little interest and maybe a doily or two.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. The whole point of hiring you was to keep myself separate from this investigation. Please take the note straight to the police station. I’ll give them a statement when they ask for one. But first, please give me back my key and code!”

A. Return the Key and the Safe Combination
B. Try to Convince the Vicar into Citizen’s Brutality
C. Make a Dash for the Exit
D. Ask to be Shown to the Safe and Display Cabinet

29.
>> Return the Key and Safe Combination
The vicar reaches out a hand towards you expectantly. You don’t know why but you feel compelled to acquiesce with his wishes and return the precious loot from his locked drawer. Your mind resists, telling you not to give in. You could run away. You could try winning him over to your way of thinking. Hell, you could even take him with you and loot the display cabinet and safe together. There are so many options open to you, if you could just withstand his judgemental gaze.
You think you can do it, but as you look down you see that your hand is already over the vicar’s, dropping the key and the business card into his open palm.
“Oh… thank you.” The vicar says, just as surprised by events as you are.
“You’re… welcome?” you try. It doesn’t taste right.
“Ain’t no thang homie.” Drainpipe suggests, its trademark fluctuating continental twang difficult to reconcile with the terminology in play.
For some reason, the vicar is scowling at you in disapproval of Drainpipe Von Staffen’s words.
You don’t know how to proceed. The approval of others, although always entirely deserved, isn’t something you’ve experienced all day. You’ve learned not to expect it, least of all from the vicar, and how that it’s here you’re in unfamiliar territory. Everything is confusing. Up is down, left is slightly further to the left than it used to be, and your crab-hands are clacking rapidly in nervous anxiety.

Not-theft: +1 Contrition

A. Panic-Squat
B. Look Around in Wide-eyed Bewilderment
C. Hide Behind Backpack and Gather Bearings
D. Run Away

30.
>> Panic-Squat
The weight of your apology and altruism refuses to lift, instead growing more oppressive. It threatens to tear the very bottom out of your soul, rewriting everything about you. Your senses start to play tricks on you, attempting to make you think that taking secateurs to the vicar’s armchair was impulsive and that throwing a writing desk drawer across the room was inconsiderate. You feel like you are standing atop a tower of sins and misdeeds, teetering with the impending vertigo of conscience and remorse. It’s too high. You need to get down.
Relaxing your thighs completely your body plummets to the floor. Your knees fold until they can fold no more. With chest against leg, you lean forwards and balance yourself low down, the springs of your unreasonably practical wellingtons scratching against the floor again.
With reduced altitude your head starts to return itself to order. The delusions of being anything other than a paragon of virtue and world-class investigative talents melt away, returning objective reality to you. You are still the greatest private investigator in the land, you are still going to catch Ellen Gertie, and Drainpipe Von Staffen is still the finest partner you could ask for.
Your breathing slows back to a comfortable pace. You close your eyes and assess your next move.

A. Ask for Directions to the Police Station
B. Head Towards Where you Think Ellen Gertie Might Live
C. Ask Drainpipe for Advice
D. Examine Unidentified Plastic Objects from First Drawer

31.
>> Examine Unidentified Plastic Objects from First Drawer
Squatting in your happy place, you resolve to take actions you can cope with for the moment. Your emotional bandwidth is still stretched and you wouldn’t like to panic again; there’s only so far you can squat before you’re just trying to burrow with your behind.
Immediately, you realise that the only thing you like more than making flawlessly considered decisions is being miserly and appreciating the treasure you’ve accumulated. Those plastic objects from the drawer aren’t going to examine themselves, or at least you won’t know if they’re going to examine themselves unless you also take a look.
“Are you alright?” the vicar asks, sounding concerned but also annoyed at himself for being concerned.
You place the backpack in front of yourself and ignore the vicar; he’s only a source of stress right now. Unzipping it and plunging a hand in, you feel around for the cluster of plastic pieces, eventually finding them nestled in the middle of a spring. You pull them free and place them in your open palm.
The pieces are all of a similar size, roughly that of a 2p piece, but are a variety of colours: blue, orange, red, and a colour that you understand to be called ‘Anguished Courgette’, according to the last paint chart you saw. You push the pieces around with your other crab claw, and determine that the blue piece is a small 3D model of a house. The orange piece is a mouse, the red piece is a steamboat, and the Anguished Courgette is in the shape of a smiling aubergine.
Looking more closely still, you see that each piece is engraved. The rear of the house has a diamond scratched into the back, the mouse’s back has been adorned with a chess bishop, the steamboat has a half-moon carved onto one side, and the smiling aubergine has two raindrops opposite its face.

A. Head Towards Where you Think Ellen Gertie Might Live
B. Ask for Directions to the Police Station
C. Stand Up
D. Combine Spring Crown with Shoelaces

32.
>> Ask for Directions to the Police Station
“I said is everything OK?” the vicar repeats. You look up and see him gazing back at you.
“Better than OK, I’ve got even more evidence here!” You tell him proudly.
“What is it?”
“I mean, like it’s probably something super incriminating.” Drainpipe answers for you. It seems to have picked up a strange dialect, probably from punk kids.
Before the vicar can resume his inane interrogation and further delay your progress, you leap in with a question of your own.
“How do I get to the police station to deliver this DAMNING evidence?” you ask, shouting for emphasis.
The vicar hesitates momentarily before replying.
“It’s in the town centre. Cavesham Road. Are you planning to go there now?” he tells you, still insisting on questioning every tiny move you make.
“There’s no time to waste. Ellen Gertie could be out there right now, embezzling funds from other churches or throwing shoes around in supermarkets.”
“I don’t think the station will be open now. It’s gone six.” The vicar tells you. “The station is a small one, and it won’t be open until tomorrow morning at nine. If you’re done here then please get back to your hotel or go for dinner or something, and go to the police tomorrow.”

A. Head to the Police Station Anyway
B. Ask to Stay with the Vicar
C. Pretend to go to a Hotel, and Attempt to Hide in the Toilets
D. Attempt to get a Train Home for the Night

33.
>> Pretend to go to a Hotel, and Attempt to Hide in the Toilets
You don’t know exactly why Ellen Gertie stole money. You have no idea of the relevance of the speaker box. You aren’t even really sure of your own name. But what you do know for sure, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is that if the vicar is asking something of you, then by gum you’re not going to do it. If he wants you gone, then it is imperative that you stay by any means necessary. Also you have nowhere to sleep, and that plays on your mind too.
“Right. Yes. My hotel.” You say, weaving a perfectly impenetrable cover story. “That’s where I’ll go.”
The vicar doesn’t bat an eyelid at your expertly constructed duplicity.
“Well, after you.” He says holding a hand towards the vestry door. “I have other matters I would like to attend to at home as well.”
“Please, Drainpipe, you lead the way.” You say. Drainpipe Von Staffen seems reluctant to go without you but says nothing. “Oh, alright, I’ll carry you.”
The vicar sighs heavily as you put your backpack back on and lift Drainpipe onto your shoulder.
“Thank you old friend.” It mutters into your ear. “The day has been rather a strain on me.”
You squat-walk out of the vestry and the vicar follows you, closing the door behind himself. He nearly walks into you when he tries to move away.
“Was there something else you needed?” he asks irritably, looking down at you as if you’re being peculiar.
“Um, yes. Where shall we meet tomorrow to go over the next steps for the case?” you ask.
“Just come back here when you’re done with the police.”
“Right-o. See you tomorrow then.” You say, leaning against a pew.
“After you.” The vicar says again.
“No, that’s OK. You can go ahead. I have some things to take care of here.” You tell him.
“Peace to make with the Lord.” Drainpipe adds.
“I need to lock up.” The vicar seethes through his teeth. “Please exit so that I may do that.”
You look around yourself, trying desperately to think of a way to keep yourself here.
“Uuhh, alright.” You say, fishing around in the backpack. “But could you please… er… put this in the vestry for me and tidy the rest of the room up?” You hold out a spring.
“Tidy up the mess you made?” he asks, words dripping with anger.
“If Ellen comes back tonight and realises that the room’s been ransacked she might catch our scent. We need to cover our tracks, but keep her interested. The spring will give her something to think about.” Drainpipe explains, and you feel that it would throw you a wink if it had eyes.
A groan of stupendous piety emanates from the vicar.
“Fine. Go back to your hotel, and I’ll tidy the vestry.” He says, leaning down to take the spring from you and walking back into the vestry.
You make a mental note to high five Drainpipe once the coast is clear. With the vicar’s back turned you walk noisily towards the door, allowing your springs to clack against the stone floor. From there, you turn around, adopt a stealthier squat and start to creep back through the church.
Sticking to the carpet you take gentle pace after gentle pace, naturally travelling slowly because of your squatted gait. Carefully you angle Drainpipe parallel to the central passageway, such that it doesn’t knock its head noisily against the pews.
The pews provide you with a measure of cover as you creep along, obscuring you from any prying eyes looking from the vestry. Thankfully the vicar seems fully preoccupied with his tidying, and you creep past him towards the pulpit.
The carpet stops before your journey does, presenting you with bare stone on which to walk. Knowing you’ll need to move as little as possible, you look around for the best place to hide. A door marked ‘Toilet’ sings to you like a siren.
Taking a slow, deep breath you creep onto the stone and move towards the toilet. Gentle clicks accompany every footstep, but they are a mere gnat’s breath in a hurricane. Almost silently you slip into the toilet and close the door behind you.
The toilet is small, with just enough space for a lavatory, a basin, and a bin. Drainpipe fits easily with its narrow frame, but your squat takes up a lot of floor space. You settle in with your back against a clear wall, squatting in the dark, and wait for the vicar to leave.

Item Lost: spring (1)

A. Attempt to Take a Nap
B. Listen Carefully for the Vicar
C. Check Inventory and Stats While you Wait
D. Combine Spring Crown with Shoelaces

34.
>> Check Inventory and Stats While you Wait
No light penetrates the edges of the door. It’s a testament to the workmanship of whoever installed it, really, but it does make your latrine haven a little uninspiring. With a need for silence you can’t even have a conversation with Drainpipe Von Staffen, leaving only quiet self-reflection as an open option for you.
You strain to hear the vicar and convince yourself that you can make out faint shuffling and grumbling from the direction of the vestry. Gently you swing your backpack in front of yourself. Reflecting on one’s possessions is easier than reflecting on one’s personal qualities, so you decide to take that baby-step first.
Reaching in you try to visualise everything your hands run over. Taking your time over it, you do an impressive job of categorising and counting the twisted, tangled shapes without any sight of them at all.

You have:
Lint (30)
Phone (Battery: 0)
1 Set of Keys
61p
1 pack of 13 AA batteries
1 receipt for 1 pack of 18 AA batteries & a curly wurly
1 curly wurly wrapper
1 set of dog-tags
1 packet of hollandaise sauce
Previously Soggy But Now Rather Dry Newspaper Half (2)
1 Dry Newspaper, With Eyeholes Cut Out
1 pair of broken headphones
Seat Spring (26)
Shoelaces (34)
Spring crown - equipped
Unreasonably Practical Wellingtons - equipped
Exhausted AA batteries (3)
Gaudy backpack
Folded Note (5)
Biro (3)
Coloured, Engraved Plastic Objects (4)
Paperclip (5)
Burned-out Plastic Speaker
The Lord’s Secateurs

You zip the backpack up again and push it to one side. What kind of person would have that selection of items, you ask yourself. Probably one who is a tremendous detective and all-round champion, you decide. But how would a champion of such grandeur describe themselves? You think for a moment, before reaching a conclusion.

Stats:
Charisma – 7
Self-confidence – 12
Sass – 12
Erudition – 15
Insolubility – 11
Contrition - 8
Serendipity – 11
Serenity – 8
Verisimilitude -11
Duplicity – 16

For better or worse, you feel like you know yourself with a little more certainty now.
A. Attempt to Take a Nap
B. Drink from Basin
C. Drink from Toilet
D. Combine Spring Crown with Shoelaces

35.
>> Attempt to Take a Nap
With self-understanding comes a deep calm. You imagine that this is how Buddha felt upon reaching enlightenment, even though he didn’t know the simple joy of an unreasonably practical wellington or of taking a pair of secateurs to a holy man’s furniture.
Knowing that the police station won’t be open until the morning, but feeling relatively sure that the vicar doesn’t use toilets and therefore won’t disturb you, you decide to kill time in the lavatory by taking a well-earned nap. It’s been a long day, between assaulting an elderly woman, getting left hanging, leading a supermarket coup, gaining pumpkin shoes, re-uniting with your old friend Drainpipe Von Staffen, stealing a train ride, eluding the elderly woman’s lackeys, springing your way to the vicar’s house and sleuthing the crimes of an eldritch abomination such as Ellen Gertie.
“Night, Drainpipe.” You say.
“Goodnight, old friend. I’ll take first watch.” Drainpipe Von Staffen replies.
You shuffle side-to-side to get comfortable, or as comfortable as you can on the floor of a small water closet, and close your eyes. It doesn’t take long for sleep to find you.
Your slumber is populated by images of the plastic speaker as it barks scripture at Drainpipe Von Staffen.  You try to defend Drainpipe, but the elderly woman and a mass of writhing, distended flesh that you know to be Ellen Gertie hold you back. Around them is a tangible blackness that pours over them like an obsidian rainstorm. You notice that it’s driving small waterwheels set into their backs, giving them power and purpose.
A pain starts to spread through your back and your legs. It feels as if you’re being pressed against a series of flat metal plates. Your eyes start to open, feeling dry and weary. You are still in the lavatory. It is still dark.
 
A.     Sneak into the Vestry to Liberate the Key and Code
B.      Sneak out of the Church and Head to Police Station
C.      Sneak out of the Lavatory and Explore the Church
D.     Try to go Back to Sleep
 
 36.
>> Sneak out of the Lavatory and Explore the Church
Darkness, it transpires, doesn’t tell you much. It was dark in the lavatory even when it was light outside, so you’re none the wiser regarding the passage of time. It might have been fifteen minutes, but equally it might have been twelve hours.
“Drainpipe, how long was I sleeping?” you ask.
The ever-flowing fountain of knowledge thinks for a moment.
“For some time between fifteen minutes and twelve hours, I speculate.” It says, clearing up that ambiguity nicely.
“Thanks.” You reply gratefully. “The vicar probably won’t have taken longer than fifteen minutes to twelve hours to clear the vestry and finally sod off, so I think we’re safe to get out of this bathroom.”
Drainpipe nods invisibly in the darkness, but somehow you know.
Snatching up the bag you stand and recognise that sleeping on a hard floor does not leave your body in the best condition for activity. Soldiering on regardless you limp numbly towards Drainpipe and collect it for the oncoming expedition
Without consideration for stealth, given how certain you are that the church will be empty, you push the door open and find dim light in the church. From the colour of the glow behind the stained glass windows, you decide that it’s probably around sunrise.
“I’ve had a brilliant idea, Drainpipe!” you declare, resting it against the wall. Before explaining yourself you return to the lavatory and make use of its primary selling point. Feeling much better, you exit again and lift your companion back onto your shoulder. “Shall we?”
Clattering against the floor with your springs, you walk towards the pulpit. As is typical you find a bible lying open on the wooden stand, but the light is too poor to read what it says. Assuming that your own mind is sufficiently divine, you move away and approach a broad stone altar covered in a crimson drape of some sort running along the back wall. A collection plate sits empty at one end.
“What’s through that door?” Drainpipe Von Staffen asks, its tone belying a giddy excitement. You look to where Drainpipe would be pointing if it could point and see that between the altar and the choir’s benches there is another wooden door.
“There’s only one way to find out, other than asking someone and avoiding the invasion of privacy.” You say, striding towards the mysterious portal. With your free hand you turn the handle and push the door open, revealing a private room of some kind running the length of the rear of the church.
Quite why the vicar requires a separate private room when the vestry already exists you don’t know, but you elect that you have a right to find out. A green leather chair sits in one corner, facing towards a display cabinet with a picture of a rabbit on the door and a dark, heavy safe. A standing lamp towers over the chair. The room is otherwise empty.
Turning away you take some time to walk around the rest of the church, finding no more new rooms. Among the pews and altars around the church you discover a lost sweater which would have been ripe for secateurs practice in a more energetic time of your life.
 
A.     Secateur Frenzy
B.      Loot Hard and Loot Fast
C.      Betray Vicar’s Wishes Regarding the Display Cabinet Key and Safe Code
D.     Flush Sweater Down the Toilet
 
 37.
>> Secateur Frenzy
Soft sweater and cushion flesh surrounds you. Hymn books lie scattered around the pews with thin, sliceable pages. A long rug extends from the door to the pulpit. Your crab claws itch to feel the visceral joy of rending something in twain, and mechanical augmentation is very much allowed. You can deny the feeling no longer. Quivering with anticipation, you lean Drainpipe Von Staffen against a pew and swing the backpack off your back.
“Have you a devious plan, old bean?” Drainpipe asks. “One that will plan just one more nail in Ellen Gertie’s guilt coffin?”
“There’s been an oversight here, Drainpipe. One that needs to be rectified.” You say breathily, attempting to cling to the last vestiges of your composure. Your claws search around inside the backpack for their prize. You just need to hold it together for a few more seconds.
“For justice?” Drainpipe asks.
“No, Drainpipe.” You say as your claws find the plastic and steel of The Lord’s Secateurs. “For me.”
In a single fluid motion you swing your secatuer-equipped hand out of the bag, drop the backpack to the ground, and spring leap forwards between the two pews facing you. In a blurred flash of steel you shred a cushion into foam and thread confetti, the air filling with detritus through which you lunge at an ill-fated hymn book. Clacking blades beat out the rhythm of its demise, adhering to a time signature more fundamental, more primal, than any espoused in the tattered pages.
Through the ruins of ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands’ you dive, rolling over the back of the pew in front of you to deliver merciless pruning to the victims ahead. Blades slice through foam and part paper like Moses parted the sea. The fallen sweater is thrown into the air, and you punish it with an open-bladed stab to the chest, puncturing the threads and snipping without recourse until only irregular polygons of fabric remain. Among the sweater rain you twirl right and stab another cushion, ripping the blades free in a spray of foam with a bestial roar.
The blade-lock goes on and you deliver a devastating downward stab into the seat of a pew. Wood splinters and cracks as you wrench your weapon free and you dash deeper into the church. The blade-lock comes back off and you drop to your knees, sliding forwards and running the blades along the rug as you go. A long, deep incision flaps up, and snip at it passionately until it becomes a jagged aperture of landscaped retribution.
The smell of thread-dust lingers in the air, and your ears still ring with the sounds of blade dancing. Taking a breath you look up towards the pulpit, and see that there is still pruning to be done.
In a full spring-sprint you cover the length of the church easily and vault over the lectern to reach the altar. Your blade flashes in the dim light of sun rise that penetrates through the windows. It is a judgemental reflection, declaring that velvet cloth is exactly the kind of decadence that deserves punishment. You work with an animal fury, hacking, chopping, carving and rending until the altar is turned into a shrine to violence.
In someone possessed of more serenity than you this might have been the end, but your veins course with a pruning-lust that can’t be quelled. You forward-roll towards the vicar’s private room and kick the door hard with both sprung boots, sending it bursting away and bouncing on its hinges. You scramble up to your feet and dive immediately at the chair, stripping its leather away and flaying it with a feral rage. Wearing scraps of its skin across your body, you turn to the vicar’s display cabinet. It’s far from a classical secateur target, but you’re far from a classical gardener. Flipping The Lord’s Secateurs in your hand to grasp them like a dagger you raise your fist up high and slam the blades downward into a glass panel. With a mighty crash the room is decorated with glittering white shards that reflect and disperse the weak light like an enchanted snowfall. With a tinkling sound they rattle across the floor and settle in a sparkling drift around the bottom of the cabinet and the safe.
Your heart pounds with a belief that you can do anything with the holy power of The Lord’s Secateurs. With barely a second’s thought you bring the blades to bear on the safe, slicing this way and that across its dark metal surface. Hideous screeching sounds fill the small room as you mercilessly hack away, but you fail to breach the protective shell. Panting, you look at the thick steel and acknowledge that this is beyond even your expert pruning abilities. Slowly now, with a careful precision, you carve the words “ELLEN GERTIE” into the side of the safe.
Panting from the exertion you walk slowly from the vicar’s room and back to the pulpit. Ahead of you is the perfect view of your destruction, the wages of your secateur frenzy strewn across the pews and the floor, with Drainpipe looking on approvingly from the back. You stand at the lectern with your secateurs open and rest one crab claw on either side. It has been a good morning, but there is still work to do.
You take one secateur handle in your right crab claw, turn the blade downwards, and stab it into the exposed spine of the open bible. Gertie will pay for this.
 
A.     Head Towards the Police Station
B.      Head Towards the Vicar’s House
C.      Go Back to Sleep in the Lavatory
D.     Loot from Broken Display Cabinet
 
38.
>> Loot from Broken Display Cabinet
The adrenaline of your divine inspiration subsides, draining from your body as if someone has opened a tap in your foot. For a brief moment you are empty of passion and desire, existing as a simple observer to events around you and knowing them to be good.
As with any empty void, something immediately attempts to fill it. For you, this is your natural state of looting. You suddenly recall that broken cabinets are functionally identical to open cabinets, and open cabinets are ripe for the looting.
Leaping excitedly down from the pulpit you sprint through the church to grab your backpack and Drainpipe Von Staffen.
“That was beautiful. A real work of art.” Drainpipe says as you head back towards the vicar’s room. “Just like the old days.”
“Thanks, Drainpipe.” You say, understanding full well how devastatingly beautiful your secateurs-kata was.
In the vicar’s small back room you approach the display cabinet slowly, carefully picking your way around the broken glass that some inconsiderate soul has left all over the place. You have half a mind to lecture the vicar on tidying up dangerous sharp objects like this, but decide that he’ll probably be upset enough by Ellen Gertie’s vandalism without your chastisement too.
The secateurs-strike did a decent job of clearing the glass out of the door, with barely a few jagged fragments remaining in the frame. Inside the cabinet you see a collection of gold and silver crucifixes, a number of small silver saucers, a black canvas pouch, and an ornate ceremonial dagger.
“Jackpot.” Drainpipe assesses, and you can’t help but agree. Doing your best not to slice yourself on the glass or stab yourself with the dagger, you empty the items one-by-one from the cabinet and into your backpack.
 
Item acquired: Gold & silver crucifixes (6)
Item acquired: Silver saucers (8)
Item acquired: Ceremonial dagger
Item acquired: Black Canvas Pouch
 
A.     Examine Black Canvas Pouch
B.      Retrieve The Lord’s Secateurs and Head Towards Police Station
C.      Leave The Lord’s Secateurs as a Sign, and Head Towards Police Station
D.     Retrieve Safe Code and Loot Safe
 
 39.
>> Examine Black Canvas Pouch
The display cabinet stands empty in front of you, just as empty as your bag is full. Having just crammed it to the brim with stolen iconography, your mind turns to the mysterious black canvas pouch. It stands in stark contrast to the other items, not least of all because it’s made of a fabric instead of a precious metal. Seeing as all the other fabrics in this church seem to have been shredded by some kind of rogue gardener, that must mean that the pouch is somehow special.
You plunge your hand into the pack, forcing it between the tightly stuffed crosses, saucers, and springs, until you find the pouch. After pulling it free you hold it close to your face and confirm that it is indeed black. The pouch is shaped something like a flattened cylinder, as if someone had made a burrito out of fabric and then stepped on it. Running around the middle is a Velcro strap, which is apparently holding it shut.
“Do you think Ellen Gertie might be hiding in there?” Drainpipe asks with a note of warning in its voice.
You hadn’t considered that. You know for a fact now that Ellen Gertie is a powerful demon and a vandal, as well as being a terrible dresser, a doily obsessive and a war criminal. It’s very possible that she could have used her eldritch powers to shrink herself and hide in a small pouch. Then again, it’s not likely that she would have hidden inside the cabinet, locked it and returned the key to the vestry; that’s more imp territory than demon. You feel confident enough to proceed.
With the customary tearing sound you peel away the strap. It unravels from the pouch, allowing the fabric to fold lazily open. Unveiled to you is a finely crafted and shiny set of lock picks, a file, a small dentist’s mirror, a set of narrow-bladed scissors and a pair of pliers. Each item is marked with a crucifix on the handle.
“That looks like a set of thieves’ tools!” Drainpipe gasps. “In the vicar’s display cabinet of all places!”
“There might be more to this vicar than meets the eye.” You say, acknowledging that the vicar is not just an optical illusion.
 
A.     Leave The Lord’s Secateurs as a Sign, and Head Towards Police Station
B.      Retrieve Safe Code and Loot Safe
C.      Leave The Lord’s Secateurs as a Sign, and Head Towards Vicar’s House
D.     Attempt to Block the Toilet with Cushion, Hymn Book, Sweater and Rug Debris
 
 40.
>> Retrieve Safe Code and Loot Safe
Knowing that the vicar has a set of thieves’ tools makes you wonder what he gets up to with them. They’re not overtly a symbol of worship in most circles, which leads you to believe that there was something extracurricular about his interest in them. If he is so prolific that he’s willing to store his tools in plain sight like that, then it makes you wonder what he would keep safely locked away. You and Drainpipe both look down to the safe and wonder what lies behind the carved words ‘Ellen Gertie’.
Eagerly you snatch up your backpack and companion and dash through to the vestry. The writing desk has been reassembled just as you instructed the vicar to do, and it stands before you holding the promise of access to great wealth.
You take a grip on the handle of the second drawer and pull, but hear the same dismaying clunk as before. The traitorous, paranoid vicar locked it! You feel livid that he didn’t trust you enough not to sneak back in here and try to steal from him, but the irony is completely lost on you.
 
A.     Use Thieves’ Tools to Attempt to Pick Lock
B.      Use Violence to Attempt to Access Drawer
C.      Attempt to Remember Code from your Brief Glimpse Earlier
D.     Attempt to Take Safe with you and Break in Later
 
 41.
>> Attempt to Take Safe with you and Break in Later
Without any idea of what the time is, despite the close proximity of a mantle clock, you don’t know how long you have before the vicar returns and discovers the disarray in which the church now finds itself. Whilst you are, as ever, perfectly innocent in this matter, you suspect that the vicar will contrive some reason to be annoyed at you. Now that you know he is an accomplished thief and drawer locker you worry about what his ire might entail.
You look back at the writing desk drawer and despite a couple of theories you can’t firmly settle on any method of getting it open and retrieving the code that wouldn’t put you at risk of being interrupted.
“There is another way.” Drainpipe whispers to you conspiratorially. “We would have all the time in the world if we took the safe somewhere else.”
You consider this for a moment and can’t think of any drawbacks to hauling tens of kilos of safe out of the church.
“You’re onto a winner there, Drainpipe.” You say, placing an awful lot of confidence in its judgement as well as the strength of your own back.
Following the now well-trodden path between the vestry and the vicar’s back room, complete with a series of pock-marks from the springs on your wellingtons, you make your way back to the safe. Sitting on the ground next to the display cabinet, the safe reaches around half-way up the calf of your high-heeled wellingtons and is approximately cube shaped; the most convenient shape for carrying a large weight over long distances.
You rest Drainpipe Von Staffen against the wall and squat down in front of the safe, preparing to lift with your legs rather than your back. With one arm reaching around either side of the steel box your crab-claws grip hard and you push with your thighs.
The safe makes it around one foot into the air before you begin to overbalance forwards. As you feel your weight shift you attempt to correct it by pushing off the ground harder. Unfortunately this only gives the safe more upward and forward momentum, and as it rotates away from your body you immediately lose your grip.
The safe topples away from you and slams hard into the ground. You hear the floor boards crack underneath.
 
A.     Make a Second Attempt to Lift the Safe
B.      Leave The Lord’s Secateurs as a Sign and Head Towards Police Station
C.      Push the Display Cabinet Over to Hide Safe
D.     Attempt to Retrieve Safe Code by Whatever Means Seem Sensible at the Time
 
 42.
>> Attempt to Retrieve Safe Code by Whatever Means Seem Sensible at the Time
This morning theft-and-vandalism-fest, although undoubtedly successful, has been punctuated by difficulty in making decisions. It feels as if you’ve entirely lost your ability to stick to your convictions and commit to a course of action, instead quite literally yo-yoing back and forth through the church trying to make your mind up as to how to tackle each new problem. Fitting neatly into that pattern of misbehaviour, you once again trudge back to the vestry for another attempt at getting the safe code.
You face the writing desk and go with your gut to decide how the drawer should be made to yield to your will. You close your eyes, take a deep breath, and consult the fates. The first image to come to your mind is one of extreme violence.
The frame supporting the underside of the drawer appears to be made of thin battens, a fine choice for general furniture manufacture but severely wanting when it comes to withstanding makeshift siege equipment. You look around yourself for an adequate tool for force application, lamenting the lack of construction tools kept in the vestry. The picture frames are wieldable but flimsy. The single spring the vicar left here on your orders is too light, and also mustn’t be disturbed. But the mantle clock might just have the correct combination of mass and shape.
You snatch it up greedily and give it a test swing, getting to grips with the heft and aerodynamics of your new tool. It feels good in the hand, and promises a sturdy swing.
You stand in front of the writing desk and line up a good swing, allowing your arm to pendulum back and forward slowly with the clock in your hand.
Your trajectory established, you wind back as far as your arm allows and unleash the mightiest clock-strike your body can muster. With a crunching of wood and an inadvertent chiming of its bell you slam the clock home, feeling it bend and vibrate at the impact. A significant dent has appeared in the frame of the writing desk. Feeling good about how that went you launch into a second strike and then a third, the flimsy wooden batten taking a concerted battering at the hands of time. Glass from the face of the clock shatters away over the floorboards and rug, as seems to be the vicar’s favoured condition for the church’s flooring. You keep bashing away with a series of increasingly sad sounding chimes from the punished mantle clock.
Finally you allow the ruins of the timepiece to fall to the floor, and grasp the broken fragments of batten from the desk. They pull away easily and the drawer falls to the ground. From it you take the rabbit-shaped key and the safe code: 4-50-12-83.
 
A.     Loot Broken Clock, Unlock Safe, and Blindly Loot Contents
B.      Flush the Key and Code Down the Toilet
C.      See how far you can Throw the Broken Clock Inside the Church
D.     Sweep Desk and Clock Fragments Under the Rug
 
 43.
>> Loot Broken Clock, Unlock Safe, and Blindly Loot Contents
Fully equipped to violate yet more of the vicar’s trust and privacy, you prepare to head to the safe when you eye catches the remnants of the mantle clock on the floor. It served you admirably in the cause of gaining rightful access to the vicar’s writing desk, and you’re struck by a pang of guilt at leaving it abandoned and broken at the scene of the crime. Surely it deserves as much of a chance to escape as you do. You scoop it up and try to force it into the backpack, but it does not fit well. After a minute or so of futile pushing and shaking, you settle with doing up the zips as far as they will go, leaving the top third of the clock poking out.
When you return to the vicar’s back room Drainpipe Von Staffen greets you with a welcoming impression that it would be nodding to acknowledge you if it had either a head or a neck with which to do so.
“I’ve got it, Drainpipe. We’re in.” you say proudly, dropping to your knees in front of the safe, which is now poking upwards from the floor with one corner embedded firmly in the floor boards.
Carefully you operate the dial lock, turning it clockwise and anti-clockwise to the numbers which are written on the scrap of paper. With a satisfying clunk the lock disengages and the door swings open.
Without looking into the secure cavity you thrust a hand forwards and grab blindly, assuming that whatever the vicar wants to keep safe must be looted at all costs. Your fingers wrap around a small pack of papers and something flat, square, and plastic. As you pull them free from the safe, you can see that you’re holding a series of bank statements and financial transaction records, and an unmarked CD.
“Now those are very interesting.” Drainpipe assesses from its position in the corner.
You tuck the papers and the CD into the backpack, crumpling the documents and sliding the disc along the one remaining flat surface of the clock.

Eventual Safecracker: +1 self-confidence
 
A.     Head Towards the Vicar’s House
B.      Head Towards the Police Station
C.      Head Home to Investigate CD
D.     Return Stolen Goods and Think About What You’ve Done
 
 44.
>> Head Home to Investigate CD
Way back before you got the train to Greater Washburn you were, to the observer, not a rich person. Whilst you had the intangible wealth of a friend like Drainpipe Von Staffen by your side, you were blessed with only a few pennies and very little of material worth to exchange for transportation. Without shoes, a wallet, a way of communicating, or any idea of who you were, you decided that it was for the best to sneak aboard a train in the tenuous hope that adventure might be in your future. But now, with a purpose in life, a strong set of leads in an important case, and several church artifacts to sell unscrupulously, you have decided that the best course of action is to head home and check the contents of a single compact disc.
Drainpipe knows this to be the case without even having to be told, but says nothing. As a dutiful friend and companion it will follow you wherever you may go.
“Drainpipe, it is imperative that we make haste to my home and investigate this CD. The whole fate of the world, or maybe the case, or maybe nothing at all, may rest on its shiny shoulders.” You say. The look in the place where you imagine Drainpipe’s eyes would be tells you that it agrees wholeheartedly. Despite its lack of a heart, or any circulatory system at all unless you count its whole body as one enormous, empty vein, the gesture still stands.
“It will be good to see Ashley again, it must be years now since we last spoke!” Drainpipe says, reminding you immediately that you have a wife. You try to remember if she’s the kind of wife who would be annoyed that you’d been missing for nearly a whole day with your phone completely unresponsive, but draw a blank. You’re sure it’ll come back to you later.
“Yes! Yes she’ll be very excited to see us come home, I’m sure.” You say, but your tone doesn’t convince even you.
You gather up the backpack and Drainpipe Von Staffen, cast one last gaze over the utter devastation that Ellen Gertie has wrought upon the church, and make your way towards the large double doors. With a heavy thump you slam into them, learning the hard way that they have been locked. Surprisingly, the vicar didn’t leave the church unlocked overnight, because something like vandalism and theft might happen otherwise.
 
A.     Look for a Window to Sneak Through
B.      Hide in the Toilet Again, Until the Church is Unlocked
C.      Attempt to Pick the Lock with Thieves’ Tools
D.     Attempt to Unlock the Door with your House Keys
 
 45.
>> Look for a Window to Sneak Through
The vicar probably thought he was being pretty clever when he locked the door. He probably suspected that no-one would be able to defeat his fiendish system of securing large pieces of wood using small pieces of metal. Well he didn’t reckon on the surprising talents of the toilet-sleeper, and your dedication to being inside a church unattended. Nor did he reckon on your capability to escape the prisons you’ve made for yourself over the years.
Writing it off as a non-starter, you and Drainpipe walk away from the door and scan the walls for a likely-looking window through which to escape. The walls of the church are adorned with several high stained-glass windows, each of them crossed with lead latticework which wouldn’t be problem if you were a liquid, but might present an issue for your predominantly solid form. They’re also a good twenty feet up, and not being an insect, as far as you know, you would find it difficult to climb that high.
Moving away from the stained-glass, you return to the vestry, the erstwhile hub of all that has happened in your time at the church. The window which overlooks the graveyard seems like it would be large enough to fit you, the backpack and Drainpipe; possibly not all together, but each one could be posted through.
You approach the window and turn the handle to open it. It swings outwards, opening like a door to one side. Carefully you pass Drainpipe Von Staffen through first, its scarf billowing slightly in the gentle morning breeze. Next you lower down your backpack, which lands with a metallic crunch next to Drainpipe. Finally you lean your own body out of the window, overbalancing and tumbling onto your arms.
After some undignified flailing atop a backpack, and rolling more than once across Drainpipe’s legs, you manage to find your feet and regain your composure. You push the window closed, pick up Drainpipe and your backpack, and walk back over to the street.
 
A.     Attempt to Hitchhike Home
B.      Attempt to Stow Away Aboard Another Train
C.      Head Towards Vicar’s House and Ask him for a Lift
D.     Attempt to Walk Home
 
 46.
>> Attempt to Stow Away Aboard Another Train
Having arrived here by train you decide that the only appropriate manner in which to leave is via the railway. Part way through lamenting the fact that you neglected to purchase yourself a return ticket you remember that for someone of your social standing, tickets of any kind are surplus to requirements.
“Come on Drainpipe. We’ve got a train to catch and a disc to explore.” You say, striding along the road in the direction of the Greater Washburn town centre.
This way round the journey seems to be more difficult. Although you’ve had more practice in locomotion with your unreasonably practical wellingtons, it feels like there is a weight on your shoulders this time around. Specifically, the weight of over a dozen stolen items, many of which are made from heavy precious metals. You’ve also only eaten a curly wurly, some deeply suspicious biscuits, and four crumpets in the last twenty-four hours. That’s not making the exercise any easier.
In what feels like half an hour longer than it took the previous day, because it was, you make it back to the railway station. Although much of the town centre is still quiet in this early hour, the station itself is still moderately busy with commuters preparing for their days at work. The majority of ticket booths are occupied, and there are attendants at either end of the turnstile.
 
A.     Attempt to Tailgate Someone Through the Turnstiles
B.      Search for a Back Entrance onto the Platform
C.      Attempt to Bribe an Attendant With a Silver Crucifix
D.     Attempt to Stage a Distraction and then Vault the Turnstiles
 
 47.
>> Search for a Back Entrance onto the Platform
The train station is crawling with potential agents of the elderly woman. Although you proved to be an expert fare-dodger yesterday, you fear that the environment here would be far more suspicious and hostile. If you know the elderly woman, and quite honestly you don’t, then she’ll definitely have her people on high alert for the world’s greatest private detective and drainage solution team, and they’ll recognise the patented ‘over-the-barrier’ technique from over four yards away.
“Looks like we’ll need to be cannier this time around, Drainpipe.” You say.
“You’re right again. The frontal assault is foolish when weighed down by a backpack full of precious metals and other important evidence. We should flank around the outside and stab our foe in the back. That’s the honourable way to conduct ourselves.” Drainpipe Von Staffen advises. As a huge fan of backstabbing, you are immediately enamoured with this plan.
Acting nonchalant you pace slowly out of the train station and walk along the edge of the station. The building itself is solid brick and extends upwards for several storeys. As you move you assess the springiness of your boots but determine that you probably couldn’t leap directly onto the roof.  Burrowing underneath would also prove difficult because you don’t have a torch with which to light the resulting tunnel.
When the building ends you find yourself following an eagle-wire fence. Some enterprising soul has used the free space to stick up their impressive collection of warning signs, covering all sorts of risks around unauthorised access to train lines.
 
A.     Attempt to Hop the Fence
B.      Attempt to cut Through the Fence Using the Ceremonial Dagger
C.      Attempt to Climb the Fence
D.     Attempt to Sneak Under the Fence
 
 48.
>> Attempt to cut Through the Fence Using the Ceremonial Dagger
Obstacles such as fences were made to be circumvented. After all, why would they have vulnerabilities such as finite height or be made from non-indestructible materials unless those glaring flaws were meant to be exploited. Such is your logic as you conclude that this critical safety feature of the railway must be circumvented, rather than exploring any other means of returning home.
Despite the finite nature of the fence’s height, you elect not to try to scale it. The climb would be difficult, your unreasonably practical wellingtons would make you stand out, and you’re not convinced that you can climb with a backpack full of heavy metals on your back and Drainpipe in tow. Instead, you decide to draw an offensive weapon in a public place and indulge in your second-favourite hobby after looting; vandalism.
You place the backpack on the ground in front of you and feel around for the ceremonial dagger. Its blade is relatively long and thick, but it fits easily between the gaps in the eagle-wire. Looking around yourself for any onlookers you see that the coast is clear. Stepping close to the fence to better obscure your actions from the public you rest the dagger blade on a wire.
“Keep a look out, Drainpipe.” You mutter.
“Roger that. I shall be a noble sentry.” Drainpipe replies.
Leaning your weight onto the dagger you feel the fence bend and lean away from you. By the time it’s taut your body is forming an extreme curve, not dissimilar to a bow, and the blade finally starts to bite into the plastic coating surrounding the wire.
With your body at such an unnatural angle it’s difficult to saw with the blade. Every motion makes either your back or the fence wiggle, and there’s not really enough traction to go around. Regardless you press on, and eventually hear the scraping sound of metal on metal.
You place your free crab-claw onto your dagger-wielding wrist and apply additional pressure, attempting to chop through the linkage. The wire is stronger than you expected, but finally as you push hard enough to lift yourself off the ground a sudden twang heralds the rending of the fence. You clumsily flop downwards, the blade catching on the next link and saving your knees from hitting the floor. Somehow, your antics have gone unnoticed.
Carefully you start to unwind the broken section of wire from the rest of the fence, until a hole just big enough to pass through is formed.
“Let’s go, Drainpipe.” You mutter, lifting it up and pushing it through the gap first. Its scarf disguise catches a few times but you are able to detangle it without issue.
Next to you pass Drainpipe your backpack of precious evidence and loot, before sneaking through the fence yourself.
Keeping a low profile, which is difficult in high-heeled, spring-augmented wellingtons whilst carrying eight feet of drainpipe, you sneak along the fence line and back up the edge of the platform. Again you pass your companion and loot up first, and then use the spring-powers of your boots to bounce yourself gracefully upwards. You are standing on homeward bound platform of Greater Washburn train station. You can hear a train approaching.
 
A.     Board Train and Look for a Seat
B.      Board Train and Remain Standing
C.      Check Timetable
D.     Subtly Check for Agents of the Elderly Woman
 
49.
>> Subtly Check for Agents of the Elderly Woman
The platform is moderately crowded with morning commuters, many of whom you’d be proud to call your friends on account of their impeccable taste in briefcases.
“Don’t be fooled.” Drainpipe warns in your ear. “The elderly woman is sufficiently conniving that she might have predicted your inherent trust of document storage cases.”
Once again, Drainpipe is right on the money; you famously love a good briefcase and that’s just the sort of information that the elderly woman would try to exploit.
“Good point, friend. I’ll check for threats.” You reply. Trying to appear as casual as possible you recline against a pillar and survey the platform for any threats.
Just like any good spy would, everyone is facing away from you as you try to make eye contact. The untrained observer might naively suspect that these people were simply going about their lives without any interest in betraying you to the well-made-up but almost Gertie-tier evil that is the elderly woman. The station tannoy announces the impending arrival of the 07:00 train to Shillworth, via your home city of Squatsgood as you look across the sea of faces, attempting to spot the tell-tale dead-eyed stare of someone who would work for the kind of old witch who’d leave someone hanging.
By the time the four-carriage train has arrived and come to a halt you have identified four potential candidates of despicable morals: a heavy-set man in an ill-fitting suit carrying a tasteful black briefcase in his left hand, a thin gentleman of greater age carrying a slimline grey briefcase in his right hand, a woman with curly blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun and wearing a pinstripe work dress carrying a brown briefcase in her right hand, and a female student of some sort wearing a backwards baseball cap and carrying a chunky retro briefcase in both hands. To your dismay you see that one potential spy enters each carriage.
 
A.     Enter Carriage with Heavy-set Man
B.      Enter Carriage with Thin Gentleman
C.      Enter Carriage with Blonde Woman
D.     Enter Carriage with Outdated 90’s Student
 
 50.
>> Enter Carriage with Heavy-set Man
There’s almost no time to make a decision; the train doors won’t stay open for very long and you have decided, for some reason, that it’s imperative that you get home immediately to look at the mystery CD found in the vicar’s safe.
You and Drainpipe can’t be seen to follow either the blonde woman or the student into a carriage lest any onlookers mistake you for some kind of pair of predatory deviants. The thin gentleman isn’t an option either, because his wire-thin frame might slice through your bones like cheesewire and leave you in tatters. That means the only course of action is to follow the heavy-set man. At the very least you console yourself with the fact that he has the most tasteful briefcase of the lot of them.
You hurry along the platform to the heavy-set man’s carriage, joining the press of people trying to board the train. Several attempts to jostle you are met with the newly created subtle-drainpipe technique, and your bag full of dense metal proves a formidable tool in the battle for precedence to enter the carriage. Among many grumbles and few shouts, you step inside.
There are no seats available in the carriage. Even the standing room is starting to fill up. You work your way to an edge, dragging Drainpipe Von Staffen’s head against the ceiling and forming a barrier with its body. The other commuters do not seem impressed at your choice of travelling companion, but you console yourself with the knowledge that it’s probably because they’re all dreadful racists, and they therefore deserve to be made to suffer.
Once positioned you look to your right and your heart seems to freeze in place. The heavy-set man is standing directly next to you. The tasteful briefcase is in his far hand.
 
A.     Make Polite Smalltalk with Heavy-set Man
B.      Express Concern to Drainpipe Von Staffen over your Frozen Heart
C.      Stand in Absolute Silence, Trying not to Panic over Heavy-set Man
D.     Take the Opportunity to Attempt to Juggle Springs
 
 51.
>> Take the Opportunity to Attempt to Juggle Springs
The train pulls away, jostling you and Drainpipe against the other commuters. You make a concerted effort not to jostle the elderly woman’s spy, so as not to give away to him that you have a corporeal form.
You know that there is a whole journey ahead of you, but you can’t discuss details of the case with Drainpipe because the elderly woman’s spy will overhear everything. He’ll possibly even write it down and store the note in his exquisite briefcase. That can’t be allowed, therefore you decide to fill the time another way.
All of your life, you’ve wondered what it would be like to be able to juggle, but this wondering has never manifested sufficiently strongly to make you take time to learn. Until now, that is.
Knocking it against several other commuters you swing your bag off your pack and place it at your feet. Reaching down you pull three springs from your impressive collection of metal objects and test their weight in your hands. Although you’ve not held juggling balls in many years, you still feel confident that these springs are significantly heavier and more difficult to hold. Far from putting you off, you decide that it’ll only be more impressive when you demonstrate a natural aptitude for juggling.
You make a strong opening gambit by throwing a single spring up into the air. Next comes an equally wise move of throwing a second spring. The first one hits the ceiling with a loud bang as you start throwing the third spring, putting you off and causing it to ping off to one side. The second spring hits the ceiling shortly afterwards, as the first one comes down and slaps you on the shoulder. Your third spring lands on the backpack of another commuter as your second clatters to the ground in front of you.
Several people are looking at you angrily.
 
A.     Behave Yourself
B.      Apologise for your Poor Juggling Judgement
C.      Make a Peace Offering of Springs
D.     Gauge Heavy-set Man’s Reaction
 
52.
>> Gauge Heavy-set Man’s Reaction
Your eyes flit between the faces of the other people in the cramped carriage. Throwing sharp metal objects around in the enclosed space seems to have elicited a negative response from many of them, but there is only one stranger here whose opinion you’re concerned by.
Slowly you remove the newspaper from your backpack and raise it in front of your face, once again channelling the spirit of public Ainsley peering through the eyeholes you cut earlier. From your paper-obscured vantage point you note that the heavy-set agent of the elderly woman is standing quietly, doing his best to pretend that you didn’t try to juggle springs and aren’t now staring at him from a mutilated tabloid.
Judging by the murmurs and grumbling from the other commuters you determine that your juggling should have been enough to distract anyone, rendering the heavy-set man’s polite apathy suspicious. Suspicious behaviour warrants further investigation.
For the next two stops you stare at the heavy-set man from your perfect concealment. You observe that he shuffled his weight slightly a few times and coughed once, but if it was an elaborate code to communicate with co-conspirators then you’ve been unable to crack it. Not even Drainpipe Von Staffen, famous code-breaker, has chimed in with a eureka moment.
At the third stop the heavy-set man takes a step towards you. You tense up and ready yourself for combat, but he continues past and exits the train among the crowd of changing travellers.
 
A.     Ask Other Commuters if Heavy-set Man Seemed Suspicious
B.      Gather Fallen Springs
C.      Offer Hollandaise Sauce to Nearby Commuter
D.     Maintain Newspaper Disguise and Stay Silent
 
 53.
>> Offer Hollandaise Sauce to Nearby Commuter
With the heavy-set man gone you feel more at ease in the train carriage. The embarrassment of your struggle to juggle rinses away in the flood of relief and you feel the need to share that joy with your fellow passengers.
Several worried faces turn towards you as you start to rummage around in your backpack again, presumably concerned that you’re going to attempt some more circus tricks with the metal objects at your disposal. That concern doesn’t seem to abate when you rise back up with a packet of hollandaise sauce clutched in your hand.
You lock eyes with the nearest concerned commuter. From initial assessments you believe that it’s a woman in her late thirties. With a broad smile you hold the sauce out towards her.
“Would you like some hollandaise sauce? I’ve not found much use for it.” You offer, attempting to sound as earnest as possible.
The woman looks at you quizzically, occasionally flitting her eyes down to the packet of sauce and then looking up at you again. Slowly she raises one hand and carefully takes the packet from you.
“Thanks…” she says gingerly. You assume that she’s suspicious of receiving such a wonderful gift for no clear reason.
“My pleasure. Enjoy it.” You tell her.
You watch as she turns the packet over in her hands and examines it. The whole process takes nearly an hour, and lasts for the remainder of the journey to your stop.
“How could she find it that interesting?” you ask Drainpipe quietly as you move to disembark.
“The same way you could find it interesting enough to watch her the whole time.” Drainpipe points out.
The woman moves to exit the train. Before stepping through the doors she opens the packet and spreads hollandaise sauce liberally over the ‘door open’ button before stepping down to the platform.
“It expired two years ago.” She says, before running away through the station.
A crowd of people from the train is exiting through the barriers. Several attendants are standing nearby, but few are paying attention to the exit.
 
A.     Attempt to Tailgate Commuters Through the Barriers
B.      Drainpipe-vault over the Barriers
C.      Tell an Attendant you Lost your Ticket
D.     Ask to Borrow Someone Else’s Ticket
 
 54.
>> Drainpipe-vault over the Barriers
“That was exactly what I’d hoped the blonde woman would do with the sauce.” Drainpipe tells you conversationally as you survey the station. “She must be a professional.”
“Yeah, it was pretty inspired. Calmly executed too.” You agree. It’s a little embarrassing that the sauce was two years past expiration, but the previous day has been full of enough proud moments to allow that small shameful one to pass unnoticed.
“So how are we going to get out of here?” Drainpipe asks. You suppose that it must be in need of some breakfast, hence the urgency to get moving.
“Well call me optimistic, but I think the attendants are looking the other way. How you fancy trying out the old ‘Drainpipe-vault’ technique?” you ask, doing the best to force a twinkle into your eye.
Drainpipe looks back at you as you hold your eye uncomfortably wide open.
“It’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.” Drainpipe tells you, with the impression of a wide grin across its PVC surface.
With a grin you sling the backpack securely onto your back and grip Drainpipe Von Staffen with both hands, one a couple of feet higher than the other. Both legs get their opportunity to rise up and be shaken as you limber up for the run, your springs rattling against one another in anticipation. Scanning across the barriers you see the crowds thinning and a gap starting to open; the spot for your grand exodus.
“For glory.” Drainpipe mumbles subtly into your ear as you start spring-running, your backpack full of stolen iconography clanking as it shakes from side to side. Each spring-enhanced step brings the barriers closer and you scan the floor for an appropriate vaulting-point. At a mere few feet away you plant Drainpipe’s feet down onto the concrete station floor, leap with both legs and push with both arms.
You are not a skilled vaulter, nor is a drainpipe the easiest diameter of object to use as a pole. Real people can’t pole-vault well, you realise, especially not with jury-rigged equipment and under non-ideal circumstances. Your boots provide more thrust than you were expecting, and your hands fail to grip and push as they should. Time seems to slow down as you feel yourself pivoting in the air, your legs clearing the barrier and travelling forwards over it while your head and back glide downwards. Drainpipe starts to topple forwards with you, twisting out of your grip as you land backpack first onto the top of the barriers.
Silver saucers and crucifixes do not make for a gentle landing, and you slide forwards with a brave but agonised expression on your face. As you slip off the far side, you hear the tell-tale sound of hollow PVC bouncing from the barriers and landing on concrete.
Another backpack impact signals your arrival on the ground. Sucking for air and in some agony you roll onto your front and push up to your feet. Given the choice in future, you make a mental note not to land hard on metal objects twice in close succession.
“Are you OK Drainpipe?” you ask. You hear no response.
You scrabble to your feet and look around you. Drainpipe is not there. With a sinking feeling you peer across to the opposite side of the barriers. Drainpipe is lying on the ground, out of your reach. Either by the grace of the gods or dumb luck, nobody noticed your vaulting escapades.
 
A.     Rescue Drainpipe Von Staffen
B.      Abandon Drainpipe Von Staffen
 
55.
>> Rescue Drainpipe Von Staffen - [Drainpipe will remember this]
The exit is within reach and your fare-dodging has been overlooked a second time. It would be the easiest move you’d ever made to simply walk out and get home, ready to investigate the CD which was hopefully not shattered in your vaulting fall. That is, it would be the easiest move if not for the inconsistent voice of your conscience. It reminds you that Drainpipe Von Staffen is your closest friend, your most loyal ally, and your reliable partner in private detection. Sure as you are that the bleating in your head would stop fairly shortly after betraying him, for the moment it is too strong to deny. You can’t leave it there to be thrown away or to roll onto the tracks.
“Drainpipe! Are you OK?” you call over to it.
“Ugh.” Drainpipe replies. “I took a bit of a bump there.”
“I’ll get you old friend. All I need to do is fashion a grappling hook from some springs, some shoelaces and a couple of crucifixes. I’ll throw it over, and you grab on.” You say, blueprints already forming in your mind for an entirely foolproof design.
“I am feeling weak.” Drainpipe says. “Could you ask someone for help first, and then build a grapple if that doesn’t work out?” it suggests. To relinquish the chance of seeing you craft a masterpiece of engineering Drainpipe Von Staffen must be feeling bad.
“Anything for you, Drainpipe.” You say. Looking across the station you see an attendant pulling a pained grimace in your direction. He tries to look away before making eye contact, but you’re too quick. “Excuse me! Trainsman!”
With a sigh visible from across the station, the high-visibility-vest-clad man wanders over slowly.
“Yes?” he says, not sounding emotionally invested in helping you.
“Could you please pass me my drainpipe? I dropped it when passing through the barrier.”
The attendant looks down at Drainpipe Von Staffen, crowned and disguised in a scarf still. You hope that the man won’t recognise it.
“Why did you have a drainpipe on the train? I’m surprised it even fit.” The attendant says judgementally, handing Drainpipe Von Staffen roughly over to you.
“We’re partners. We ride together, and we… erm…”
“and we rhyme together.” Drainpipe finishes for you, in a flurry of literary brilliance which you’re sure would have blown every other commuter away. The station attendant seems unimpressed. Without a word he turns and walks away.
“Only one kind of person would look down on a great bit of badinage like that.” Drainpipe says, warningly.
“That blasted woman has spies everywhere. Let’s get out of here.” You agree.
Clad in your unreasonably practical wellingtons, head starting to get sore from your spring crown, and backpack clanking on your back, you make your way through the familiar Squatsgood city streets until you reach your home.
At the front door you lean Drainpipe Von Staffen against the wall and rummage around the backpack for your house keys. Upon opening the door, you’re greeted with the sound of feet thundering down the stairs.
“Lucy?! Is that you?!” comes your wife’s voice. You think hard for a moment, and then look at Drainpipe for reassurance.
“Yes. That is you.” Drainpipe confirms. You nod sagely.
“Yes! I’m home.” You say, stating the obvious.
Rounding the corner from the hallway you see your wife appear, dressed in her casual house clothes.
“Where the hell have you been?! I was so worried when you didn’t co…” she starts, and then her mouth falls open at the sight of you. Your trousers are a stained mess of cake, doughnuts, pumpkin and grass clippings. You are crowned with a headpiece of springs, and wearing a gaudy backpack of unknown origin which is bulging at the seams and has a mantle clock poking out of the top. No-one even knows what your top is like. Next to you is a section of drainpipe which barely fits inside the porch, wearing a sister-crown of singed springs and clad in a tasteful scarf. You’re fairly sure that the springs on your unreasonably practical high-heeled wellingtons will damage the laminate flooring if you step any farther into the house.
You hold out your crab-clawed arms for a hug.
“I’ve missed you!” you assume.
Your wife wraps her arms around you in a hug, holding it for several seconds in silence, before finally letting go and stepping back. You can’t read her face, and don’t remember whether she’s the sort of person to get annoyed that you were missing for so long, or to accept that you might take a little longer than most to get home after shopping for batteries. You focus on the expression between the straggling locks of blonde hair which failed to make it into her ponytail and hope for the best.
A wry smirk pulls across her face.
“I see we’ve got a case. Where do we start?”
 
True Friend to Drainpipe: +2 contrition, +2 charisma, +1 serenity, -1 duplicity
Perfect Spouse: +1 verisimilitude, +1 serendipity
Stained-but-Dry Trousers: +1 insolubility
 
END OF SEASON 2