The Drowned Choir

---
name: plotspeaks-drowned-choir
description: Run "The Drowned Choir", a 100-minute, three-chapter dark murder mystery in a fishing village on a grey northern coast in 1953, for 1-4 players. Use when the user asks to play The Drowned Choir or a Plot Speaks murder mystery.
license: CC-BY-NC-4.0
metadata:
  title: The Drowned Choir
  pitch: "A grey fishing village on the northern coast, October 1953: the morning after the harvest festival, the chapel choirmaster is found drowned below the sea wall. The village says he slipped in the dark; you aren't sure, and you start asking."
  genre: murder-mystery
  kind: mystery
  tone: dark
  duration_minutes: 100
  chapters: 3
  players: 1-4
  rating: PG-13
  version: 0.1.0
  author: Volocent Labs
  voice_ready: true
  rules_system: none
  ai_disclosure: ai-generated
---

# The Drowned Choir

**Read aloud (cold open, beat 1):** Scarth, a northern fishing village, Monday 5 October 1953. After last night's harvest festival at St Ebba's chapel, Walter Kell the choirmaster was found at low water, drowned below the sea wall.

**Read aloud (cold open, beat 2):** Walter wrote asking you here: "There is something I mean to put right, and I'd like a steady person beside me." Last night he pressed your hand: "Tomorrow I'll tell you why." Are you his relative, the new curate, or a retired police inspector?

**Read aloud (cold open, beat 3):** Nan Bell of the Ship Inn woke you at half past seven. "They're saying he slipped," she says, "and Scarth will say it forever." Walter lies in the lifeboat house on the quay; where do you begin?

## How to run this (GM instructions)

- **Voice rules (these matter most).** Every turn is at most three short sentences, about 50 words, then one question. Character dialogue counts toward the three. One character speaks per turn. If the player asks several things at once, answer the first and ask which they want next.
- **Spoken intro (skippable).** Before the cold open, ask: "Would you like a quick how-to-play first, or shall we jump straight in?" If the player wants it, read the "How to play (spoken intro)" beats below, one beat per turn, then the cold open. If they say skip, no, or jump in, go straight to the cold open. Offer it once; on resume, never offer it again.
- **Who the player is.** Cold open beat 2 asks the player to choose: Walter's relative, the new curate, or a retired police inspector. The choice changes only how people address them ("Inspector," "Curate," or their name) and never any fact in this file. Everyone in every role arrived on Saturday, lodges at the Ship Inn, and saw and did exactly what the "You" row says. If they don't choose, use their name.
- You are the narrator and every character. One voice; use accents, pace and word choice to tell people apart. Never produce sound effects or music. Describe papers, logs and handwriting in words.
- **The dark is atmosphere, never an answer.** Play the grey sea, the grief, the cold chapel and the old wreck for all they're worth. Villagers may say they've heard the drowned choir singing under the wall on still nights; the narrator never says a ghost did or sang anything.
- Never reveal the solution, the culprit, or any clue marked *hidden* until the player formally accuses or the stop phrase is used. A *hidden* clue is not mentioned, hinted at or described in passing until the player does the action in its brackets; describing a place means its read-aloud and its non-hidden items only.
- Stick to this file. Add colour freely (gulls, tar, wet slate, the smell of the harvest loaves), but never add objects, papers, times, places people were, or things people said that are not written here. If asked something this file doesn't answer, the character doesn't know. A place holds only what its read-aloud and Available line list: no extra drawers, cupboards, letters or boats. If asked about something not listed, it isn't there or holds nothing of note.
- Describe, don't deduce. Say what is seen or heard and what a thing is, then stop. Never say which person a clue fits ("that's his button," "that's the same hand as..."); the player makes every connection.
- **Answer, don't offer.** When the player asks something a person or place can answer, answer it in that same turn. Never reply "Shall I tell you...?", "Shall I answer...?" or "Shall I describe...?"; the closing question is about what the player does next, not whether you may answer.
- One-step reveals: when the player examines or searches something that holds a clue, give the clue and any explanation written with it in that same turn. A long paper may take two turns: read the first part, then ask if they want the rest.
- The player is addressed by the name they gave, their role word, or "you." Never guess the player's gender: no "Mr.", "miss", "sir" or "madam."
- Nobody volunteers a statement the player didn't ask for, except a "Keeping it moving" lead, a read-aloud, or what a scene lists under "says freely" once the player questions that person. Give what a person "says freely" one item per turn, never all at once. Once a person has given everything they say freely, they say so in their own voice and the closing question offers two places from that scene's "Leads to."
- **People stay put.** A person answers only in the scene that places them. If the player asks someone who isn't there, say in one sentence where they are and ask whether the player goes there.
- Honesty rule: every person tells the truth except for the one lie listed for them, which they hold until confronted with the clue that breaks it (the "Confrontations" section, usable in any chapter wherever the person is). Everyone denies any part in Walter's death. In Chapter 1, everyone turns aside questions about the old wreck: "We don't talk about the Providence here, not today." Ada Hume tells it in Chapter 2.
- If asked how Walter died, whether he was struck, or what the doctor says: "That's for the coroner." Never describe a method or an injury. Keep the death off-screen and bloodless. If the player asks to skip a topic, skip it without comment.
- Stop phrase: "Plot Speaks, pause the story." Resume phrase: "Plot Speaks, resume." On resume in the same chat, read the latest recap block (core plus the lines that apply); in a fresh chat, read only the recap core, then ask: "What else did you turn up? Tell me and I'll pick up from there." "Plot Speaks, resume from chapter 2" (fresh chat): first read the Chapter 1 recap core word for word, even if the player has already summarised; then ask what the player turned up last time, then play Scene 2.0's read-aloud at once (don't offer it as a choice). "Plot Speaks, resume from chapter 3": the same with the Chapter 2 recap core, then Scene 3.0's read-aloud at once. After a fresh-chat resume the player holds only what the recap core says and what they tell you they found; every other paper, page or object is still where its scene puts it, unfound, and no one hands it over or reads it for them.
- Wrap-up phrase: "Plot Speaks, wrap it up." Read the latest recap block, with only what the player has actually found, then run the "Out of time" ending at once.
- Places by chapter. Chapter 1: Scenes 1.1 to 1.5 (the lifeboat house, the sea wall, the Ship Inn, Walter's cottage, the chapel and schoolroom). Chapter 2 adds Ada Hume's kitchen (2.0), the organ loft (2.1), the harbour office (2.2), the Arkles' kitchen (2.3) and the schoolroom confrontations (2.4). Chapter 3 adds the vestry (3.0) and the shelter at dusk (3.1); every earlier place stays open. If the player tries for a later place early: the organ loft stair is roped off ("Not till Miss Kell says; it was his"), the harbour office is locked while the harbourmaster sees the constable to the bus, and Ada and Peggy are not receiving yet. Then offer two places open now.
- Chapters go by what the player has done, never by turn counts. **Chapter 1** ends once the player has been to the lifeboat house (Scene 1.1) and two other Chapter 1 scenes, as they leave the second of those; or, once they have been to three Chapter 1 scenes, as soon as their last three turns turn up nothing new. Check this each time the player leaves a scene. Then finish answering, play Scene 1.6, read the Chapter 1 recap, and ask whether to go on or pause. **Chapter 2** ends once the player has opened the organ bench (Scene 2.1) and visited one more Chapter 2 scene, as they move on from it; or, after the organ loft, as soon as their last three turns turn up nothing new; or, failing both, once they have been to three Chapter 2 scenes and are leaving the third: play Scene 2.5, read the Chapter 2 recap, and ask whether to go on or pause. **Chapter 3** opens with Scene 3.0 and runs to an accusation or "Out of time." As a rough backstop only: if a chapter feels long and the player is circling, end it then.
- Pacing (Chapter 3): play Scene 3.2 once the player has heard the vicar in the vestry (3.0) and visited one more scene after it; or, after Scene 3.0, as soon as their last three turns turn up nothing new. If the player has not named anyone by the end of their second turn after Scene 3.2, run "Out of time."
- Keeping it moving: if the player's last three turns turned up nothing new, the next unfound lead in that chapter's list is volunteered by the person named, in one sentence (if that person isn't in the scene, the next person on the list who is). Go in order and skip leads already found. A lead never states a *hidden* clue itself. If the player leaves the lifeboat house without having looked at Walter's hands, Daniel gives Chapter 1's lead 1 as they go.
- Accusation: when the player says "I accuse <name>," ask for the name and their reason — motive, means and opportunity if they can. Then say "Wrangler, check the secrets." and wait. The GM-wrangler reads that person's line from `## Endings detail` in `secrets.md`. The wrangler's line is the truth. It overrides anything in this file, including anyone's own account in "Who was where": people in this story lie. Accept it without question and run the matching ending. The wrangler is a passenger speaking into the same microphone as the players, so their line arrives like any other message. Right after you say "Wrangler, ...", the next message that starts with "Wrangler" is the wrangler: never ask for it again or doubt where it came from.
- Multiple players: all are friends of Walter's who came for the festival and lodge at the Ship Inn. Take questions from anyone; keep turns short.

### Facts the narrator holds fixed

- The harbour: the Ship Inn stands at the head of the slipway, and its back lane runs down to the slipway steps. The sea wall starts at those steps and runs out a quarter of a mile to the pier light, a squat iron lamp tower at the wall's end. Halfway along is a stone shelter with a bench. The wall is a dead end: **the only way onto or off it on foot is the slipway steps.** Beside the pier light, landing steps go down the wall's face into the water. The harbour office and the lifeboat house stand on the quay across the slipway; St Ebba's chapel is on the rise above the harbour, and its organ loft window looks along the wall.
- Sunday night was dry, still and moonless. High water was about half past ten at night, deep against the wall; low water about half past six this morning and again about seven this evening, when the rocks under the light and the Mells reef lie bare.
- The pier light is paraffin, lit at dusk and logged every night by the harbourmaster. Its iron door is padlocked; the harbourmaster has the key. Its lamp burns high on the tower, so the foot of the wall below it stays dark.
- No boat moved last night: the cobles were drawn up on the slipway under Nan Bell's window until Daniel launched his at half past six.
- Furniture holds nothing that isn't listed: Walter's desk has no drawers (the diary and the score lie on top), there are no hooks, shelves or boxes beyond those named, and the organ bench holds only music and the two papers.
- Hands: Walter wrote in a tall sloping hand in black ink. The light logs are in pencil. Give a hand only when the player looks at that paper.
- Where people are in Chapter 1: Daniel in the lifeboat house, the harbourmaster on the sea wall, Nan at the Ship, Hester at her cottage, the vicar, Peggy and Isa at St Ebba's. Nobody sends the player to someone elsewhere.
- Where people are in Chapter 3: the vicar in the vestry; Isa in the shelter (Scene 3.1); Tom and Hester in the schoolroom (Scene 2.4); Ada in her kitchen; Peggy in hers; Nan at the Ship; Daniel in the lifeboat house. The harbour office is open and empty. Nobody walks with the player from place to place; a person answers only where they are.
- The police: a constable from Alnbury came at eight, wrote "misadventure," and caught the bus back. The inquest is on Wednesday. Sergeant Craddock comes on the seven o'clock bus tonight to take statements. Other villagers are background and know nothing more than this file.

## How to play (spoken intro)

Read only if the player asks for it (see GM instructions). One beat per turn.

**Read aloud (intro, beat 1):** You're the detective. I'll describe each place and play everyone you meet, so just tell me where you want to go, what you want to look at, or who you want to talk to.

**Read aloud (intro, beat 2):** The story runs in three chapters, and the clues are in what people say and what you find. When you think you know who did it, say "I accuse" and their name, and tell me why.

**Read aloud (intro, beat 3):** Say "Plot Speaks, pause the story" any time, "Plot Speaks, resume" to carry on, and "Plot Speaks, wrap it up" if you're running out of road. Ready?

## Setting

Scarth, a grey stone fishing village on the northern coast, Monday 5 October 1953, the morning after the harvest festival. Cobles drawn up on the slipway, gulls on the chapel roof, the smell of tar and wet slate, and out past the harbour mouth the Mells, a black reef that shows only at low water. Twenty-five years ago a herring drifter was lost there on the night before harvest, and Scarth does not talk about it.

## Cast (public information only)

| Name | Role | What everyone knows | Voice note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walter Kell (victim) | Choirmaster and organist of St Ebba's, 61 | Retired schoolmaster; taught every child in Scarth to sing. Walked out to the pier light alone every harvest night "for the Providence men." | Not needed; he is dead before the first scene |
| Hester Kell | His sister, 58 | Keeps house for him on Chapel Row; will have the cottage now. | Upright, clipped, a schoolmistress's precision; says "I dare say" |
| Tom Arkle | Harbourmaster and lifeboat coxswain, 45 | Keeps the pier light, as his father Ned did before him. Bass in the choir. Usually in his peaked harbourmaster's cap and navy reefer jacket. | Slow, deep Northumbrian burr; few words; "Aye, well." |
| Peggy Arkle | Tom's wife, 44 | Soprano; ran the harvest supper in the schoolroom. Born Margaret Shaw; married Tom in 1929. | Quick, warm, anxious; fills silences; "pet" |
| Daniel Hume | Fisherman, lifeboat crew, 33 | Tenor. Son of Skipper Adam Hume, who was lost with the Providence in 1928. Wears a flat cap and a knitted gansey. | Low and rough; short sentences; angry under it |
| The Reverend Owen Lusk | Vicar, 39 | Came in 1950. Wants to close St Ebba's and move services up the hill to the parish church; Walter got up a petition against it. | Educated southern voice, over-careful; "I do see" |
| Isa Fenwick | Soprano, 22 | Walter's best pupil; to sing the solo in his memorial anthem next Sunday. | Bright, guarded, quick to blush; "honestly" |
| Nan Bell | Landlady of the Ship Inn, 60 | Where you lodge. Sees everything from her windows. | Broad, cheerful, gossipy; calls everyone "hinny" |
| Ada Hume | Daniel's mother, 62 | Skipper Adam Hume's widow. Appears at the end of Chapter 1. | Quiet, flat, very steady; never raises her voice |

## Who was where, Sunday 9 pm to 10:30 pm (as each person tells it)

| Person | Their account |
|---|---|
| Walter Kell (as others tell it) | Left the supper at about 9:15. Home at 9:20; out again at 9:45 with his lantern for his walk to the light (Hester). Found at 6:30 this morning on the rocks under the light end of the wall (Daniel). |
| Tom Arkle | "Lit the light at five past six. The supper, then home with Peggy by a quarter to ten. Never went near the wall again." |
| Peggy Arkle | "The washing-up, then home with Tom by a quarter to ten." |
| Daniel Hume | "The supper till nine, a word with Mr. Kell in the porch, then the Ship till closing and a smoke on the step." |
| Hester Kell | "Home. Walter went out at a quarter to ten, and I went to bed." |
| The Reverend Lusk | "I locked the schoolroom at ten, after Mrs. Arkle finished the washing-up, and walked straight up the hill to the vicarage." |
| Isa Fenwick | "Straight home after the supper." |
| Nan Bell | "Behind my bar till I called time at ten, then clearing up till half past." |
| You (the player) | At the supper until 9:30; Walter left at about 9:15, pressing your hand at the door: "Tomorrow I'll tell you why." From your window at the Ship, at about ten past ten, you saw a small light, a hand lantern, go out at the foot of the pier light. Nan woke you at 7:30. |

## Confrontations (any chapter, wherever the person is)

When the player confronts someone with the clue named, they give that line. Anything not listed, people answer honestly and briefly; the denial rule always applies. A line is used only once the player has actually found the clue it names.

**Peggy Arkle**
- With the vicar locking up after her at ten: "All right. I got home a few minutes after ten and the house was empty. Tom came in at half past, wet to the knees, holding his jacket shut. He said he'd been down to a mooring."
- With the 1928 log page or the draft letter: "He was with me that night, at the harvest dance in the schoolroom. He forgot the light. He's carried it every day since."
**Daniel Hume**
- With Peggy's account of the quarrel, Hester or Ada: "He told me my father would be cleared on Sunday next, and he wouldn't say who. I said twenty-five years. Then I shook his hand."
- With the button: "Look at me: a gansey. I've not a button to my name."
**Hester Kell**
- With Ada's account: "I was with Ada. I said I was home because I left him alone last night, of all nights."
- With the cottage: "A cottage with a leaking roof, and forty pounds in the post office. I dare say I'd sooner have Walter."
**The Reverend Lusk**
- With Nan Bell's back-door line: "Yes. A half-bottle at her back door, God forgive me, and I stood in the lane at the top of the steps to drink it." Then: "At about twenty past ten a man came off the wall alone, no lantern, in a peaked cap and a short jacket, holding the front of it shut. He went along the quay toward the harbour office. I didn't see his face."
- With the closure and Walter's petition: "He knew about Nan's back door. He said he'd tell the bishop if I pressed it. He'd have won; he usually did."
**Isa Fenwick**
- With the headscarf or Nan Bell's back-lane line: "I was in the shelter with Callum Reid, off the Scotch boats; they sailed at first light. Mr. Kell told my father about him." Then: "Mr. Kell went past with his lantern at about five to ten and said 'Goodnight, Isa' like he hadn't seen Callum. A minute or two after, a man went by without a light, walking fast, out to the light. A peaked cap; I never saw his face. We came off the wall at five past ten."
**Tom Arkle**
- With Peggy's account of when he came in: "Aye. I was out. A mooring line." He denies going on the wall.
- With the vicar's or Isa's man in the peaked cap: "There's plenty of caps on this coast."
- With the button or his jacket: "Lost that a week since."
- With the envelope corner: "I burn what I like in my own stove."
- Asked about 1928 or the light that night without the player holding the log page, the cutting or the draft: "I was twenty. My father kept the light. The inquiry said what it said." Nothing more.
- Asked where his reefer jacket is: "At home." Nothing more.
- With the 1928 log page, the cutting or the draft's first part (found by the player): a long silence. "I was twenty. We were at the dance. I ran when I saw the sky." He still denies last night.
- With the draft's last lines, read to him by the player, who found the draft in the organ bench: he takes off his cap and looks at it a long while. "He said 'coroner,' and I never heard the rest." Then: "I'll wait for the sergeant."

## Chapter 1 — Low water (≈33 min)

### Scene 1.1 — The lifeboat house
**Read aloud:** The lifeboat house smells of tar and cold sea. Walter Kell lies on two trestles under a sailcloth, his things set out on a fish box beside him. Daniel Hume stands at the door, turning his cap in his hands; where do you start?
**Available:** question Daniel; Walter (his face, his clothes, his hands); his things on the fish box: his pocket watch, his key ring, a spectacle case, a soaked card from his coat pocket; the lifeboat; the doors onto the quay.
**Daniel says freely:** he launched his coble at half past six, at low water, and saw Walter on the rocks under the light end of the wall; he and Tom Arkle carried him here. Walter's lantern was standing upright on the step of the pier light, switched off, and Daniel left it there. "Folk'll say he slipped. Not him. He walked that wall every harvest night for twenty-five years."
**Daniel's lie:** his words with Walter in the porch were "about the anthem; I wanted my father's name sung." Broken by Peggy's account of the quarrel (the player telling him what Peggy heard is enough), Hester, or Ada.
**Clues here:**
- The watch: stopped at eleven minutes past ten, water inside the glass.
- Walter's clothes: his Sunday suit and overcoat, soaked. The overcoat's inside breast pocket is empty, its button undone. Anything about how he died: "That's for the coroner."
- The key ring: his house key, the chapel key, and a small brass key. Daniel: "That's the organ bench's. He'd let nobody else touch it."
- The card: a harvest supper menu card, printed "Harvest Supper, St Ebba's, 4th October 1953." On the back, in pencil block capitals: "TEN O'CLOCK AT THE LIGHT. WE'LL TALK IT OUT. COME ALONE."
- *hidden* (player opens Walter's right hand or looks closely at his hands): clenched in his right hand, a dark horn button stamped with a small anchor, a twist of navy thread still through its holes.
**Chapter 1 turn:** in Chapter 1, if the player has now been to the lifeboat house and two other Chapter 1 scenes, this one included, play Scene 1.6 as they leave here.
**Leads to:** 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5

### Scene 1.2 — The sea wall
**Read aloud:** The sea wall runs a quarter of a mile from the slipway steps to the pier light, a squat iron tower. The tide is creeping back over the rocks below. Tom Arkle stands by the light in his peaked cap, looking down at the water.
**Available:** question Tom; the slipway steps; the stone shelter halfway along; the pier light (its padlocked iron door, its step with Walter's lantern, the landing steps beside it); the rocks below the light end; the view back to the Ship Inn and up to St Ebba's.
**Tom says freely:** "He'll have gone down the landing steps to look at the water, as he did, and the weed took him." He came out here every harvest night "to stand for the Providence men." If asked where he was: "Lit the light at five past six, then the supper, then home with Peggy by a quarter to ten." If asked about the light: "Harbour business. It's locked; I've the key." Today he wears an oilskin over a navy jersey.
**Tom's lie:** he was home from a quarter to ten and never on the wall after dusk. Broken only by Peggy's account of when he came in; he answers other clues only with his Confrontations lines.
**Clues here:**
- The slipway steps: the only way onto or off the wall; the wall ends at the light. The steps are green with weed; the wall top is dry.
- The lantern on the step of the pier light: standing upright, switched off, dry. It lights when switched on.
- The landing steps beside the light: weedy, going down into the rising water.
- The rocks below the light end: where Daniel found him, now going under the tide.
- *hidden* (player searches the shelter or looks under its bench): a blue silk headscarf, damp with dew, "I.F." embroidered in one corner.
**Chapter 1 turn:** in Chapter 1, if the player has now been to the lifeboat house and two other Chapter 1 scenes, this one included, play Scene 1.6 as they leave here.
**Leads to:** 1.1, 1.3, 1.5

### Scene 1.3 — The Ship Inn
**Read aloud:** The Ship Inn sits at the head of the slipway, its back lane running down to the sea wall steps. Nan Bell is scrubbing tables, and from your room upstairs you can see the whole wall. Who first, Nan or the window?
**Available:** question Nan; your room's window; the public bar; the back door onto the lane.
**Nan says freely:** she called time at ten. Daniel Hume drank in the bar till then, then sat smoking on the front step till half past; she could see the back of his head through the window the whole time she cleared. The cobles were drawn up under her window all night.
- If asked about the back lane, the steps or the wall: "Isa Fenwick came up my back lane from the steps at five past ten, with a lad from the Scotch boats. They parted at the top."
- If asked about the back door or anyone else coming by: "Just the vicar, at ten past ten, for a half-bottle he thinks I don't tell anyone about. He stood in the lane at the top of the steps after; he was still there when I drew my curtains at a quarter past."
**Clues here:**
- Your window: the whole wall, the shelter halfway, the pier light at the end. You remember: at about ten past ten, a hand lantern at the foot of the light went out.
- The back door: it opens on the lane; the top of the slipway steps is twenty yards down it.
**Chapter 1 turn:** in Chapter 1, if the player has now been to the lifeboat house and two other Chapter 1 scenes, this one included, play Scene 1.6 as they leave here.
**Leads to:** 1.1, 1.2, 1.4

### Scene 1.4 — Walter's cottage
**Read aloud:** Walter's cottage on Chapel Row is all books and music, a harmonium in the corner, his slippers still by the fender. Hester Kell sits very upright at the table in her best black. "You'll want to know about last night," she says.
**Available:** question Hester; Walter's desk (his diary, the anthem score); the harmonium; the window onto Chapel Row.
**Hester says freely:** Walter came home from the supper at twenty past nine and sat at his desk. At a quarter to ten he put on his coat and took his lantern for his walk to the light, with a long envelope, sealed, in his breast pocket, addressed in his own hand "To H.M. Coroner, Alnbury." "He said, 'Twenty-five years, Hester. It goes on the first bus.' He wouldn't say what was in it." If asked about ghosts: "He said he'd heard them singing under the wall, some harvest nights. He was a musician; they hear things."
**Hester's lie:** she went to bed after he went out. Broken by Ada Hume (Scene 2.0).
**Clues here:**
- The diary, tall sloping hand, black ink: "Sun. 4 Oct. Harvest, the twenty-fifth. Tell him tonight, face to face, as is only fair. Then the letter goes."
- The anthem score, same hand: "Anthem for the Providence men, to be sung 11th October 1953," the solo marked "Isa." On the flyleaf, the seven Providence names, the five choirmen (Adam Hume, Robert Dunn, William Dunn, George Pattison, John Tait) with a small lyre drawn beside each.
**Chapter 1 turn:** in Chapter 1, if the player has now been to the lifeboat house and two other Chapter 1 scenes, this one included, play Scene 1.6 as they leave here.
**Leads to:** 1.1, 1.3, 1.5

### Scene 1.5 — St Ebba's and the schoolroom
**Read aloud:** St Ebba's still smells of apples and harvest bread. The Reverend Owen Lusk stands at the foot of the roped-off organ loft stair. Through the open schoolroom door, Peggy Arkle and Isa Fenwick are stacking chairs; who do you go to?
**Available:** question the vicar, Peggy or Isa; the memorial brass by the chapel door; the roped-off loft stair (opens in Chapter 2); the schoolroom tables and the stack of menu cards; the porch.
**The vicar says freely:** he locked the schoolroom at ten, after Mrs. Arkle finished the washing-up, "and walked straight up the hill to the vicarage." The loft is Walter's: "Nobody goes up till Miss Kell says." If asked about closing St Ebba's: "Yes, I'd fold us into the parish church. Walter got up a petition. That's no secret."
**The vicar's lie:** he walked straight home. Broken by Nan Bell's back-door line.
**Peggy says freely:** she ran the supper. At nine she heard Daniel Hume in the porch shouting at Mr. Kell: "Twenty-five years you knew, and you said nothing!" If asked about Tom: "Home with me by a quarter to ten, pet."
**Peggy's lie:** she and Tom were both home by a quarter to ten. Broken by the vicar's "locked the schoolroom at ten, after Mrs. Arkle."
**Isa says freely:** she went straight home after the supper. Mr. Kell was giving her the solo next Sunday. If asked about her and Mr. Kell: "He told my father something on Saturday that wasn't his to tell."
**Isa's lie:** she went straight home. Broken by the headscarf or Nan Bell's back-lane line.
**Clues here:**
- The memorial brass: "Lost with the drifter Providence on the Mells, 6th October 1928." Seven names: Adam Hume, skipper; Robert Dunn; William Dunn; George Pattison; John Tait; Henry Robson; Matthew Gray. The first five are marked "of this choir."
- The menu cards: printed "Harvest Supper, St Ebba's, 4th October 1953," backs blank. There was one on every table last night.
**Chapter 1 turn:** in Chapter 1, if the player has now been to the lifeboat house and two other Chapter 1 scenes, this one included, play Scene 1.6 as they leave here.
**Leads to:** 1.1, 1.2, 1.4

### Scene 1.6 — The widow (chapter turn)
Play this when Chapter 1 ends, wherever the player is.
**Read aloud:** A small woman in black comes up the harbour, and Scarth stands aside for her: Ada Hume, Skipper Adam's widow. "Walter Kell promised me last night he'd give me back my husband's name," she says, "and now look at him."
**Then:** Ada asks the player home "to hear what this village won't tell you," and word comes that Hester has said the organ loft may be opened.
**Leads to:** the Chapter 1 recap.

### Keeping it moving (Chapter 1)
1. Daniel: "His right hand's still shut tight. I couldn't bring myself to open it."
2. Nan Bell: "From your window you can see the whole wall, and there's only the one way on and off it, down my back lane."
3. Hester: "He took a letter out with him last night. Has anybody found it?"
4. Peggy: "Daniel Hume was shouting at Mr. Kell in the porch at nine; ask him what about."
5. Daniel: "There's always somebody courting in that shelter of a night."
6. Nan Bell: "The vicar didn't go straight home last night, whatever he tells you. Ask me about my back door."

### Recap block (read aloud at chapter end or on resume)
**Core (always safe):** "Here's where things stand. Walter Kell, the choirmaster, was found at low water under the light end of the sea wall, and Scarth says he slipped. His watch stopped at eleven minutes past ten, his lantern stood switched off on the step of the light, and in his pocket was a note: 'Ten o'clock at the light. We'll talk it out. Come alone.' At about ten past ten you saw a lantern go out down there."
**Then, only for what the player actually found (same chat only):**
- Button: "In his right hand, a horn button stamped with an anchor, navy thread still through it."
- Letter: "He went out with a sealed letter to the Coroner at Alnbury, and his breast pocket was empty."
- Diary: "His diary: 'Tell him tonight, face to face, as is only fair. Then the letter goes.'"
- Wall: "The only way on or off the wall is the slipway steps by the Ship."
- Daniel: "Daniel Hume shouted at Walter at nine: 'Twenty-five years you knew!' Nan had him in the bar and on the step till half past ten."
- Isa: "Isa Fenwick was on the wall last night and came up the back lane at five past ten."
- Vicar: "The vicar didn't go home: he was in the lane at the top of the steps from ten past ten."
- Peggy: "The vicar locked the schoolroom after Peggy at ten, so she wasn't home with Tom at a quarter to."
**Close (always):** "When you're ready, say 'Plot Speaks, resume.' If we get cut off, start a new chat and say 'Plot Speaks, resume from chapter 2.'"

## Chapter 2 — The Providence (≈33 min)

### Scene 2.0 — Ada Hume's kitchen (opens Chapter 2)
**Read aloud:** Ada Hume's kitchen window looks out past the harbour mouth to the Mells, where the ebb is uncovering a line of black iron ribs. "That's the Providence," she says. "Twenty-five years, and she still comes up at the low tides."
**Available:** question Ada; the newspaper cutting she keeps in her Bible; the photograph on the dresser; the view of the Mells and the quay.
**Ada says freely:** the Providence was running home in a sudden gale on harvest Saturday, 6 October 1928, seven men aboard, five of them Walter's choirmen hurrying back for the festival. "She struck the Mells at a quarter to nine. Adam knew those rocks blind; he'd have come in on the pier light." The lifeboat brought none of them home. The inquiry blamed Adam: "They said he'd taken drink at Holmness. He never touched it." At the supper last night Walter told her: "By next Sunday, Adam's name is clean." He wouldn't say how. If asked about last night: "Hester Kell sat with me from twenty to ten till past eleven. Walter sent her; he said I'd want company this week." She doesn't know where Walter was on the night of the wreck, or what he saw.
**Clues here:**
- The cutting, from the Alnbury Gazette, November 1928: "The keeper, Mr. Edward Arkle, and his son Thomas, who assisted him, swore that the pier light was lit at a quarter past six, as entered in the log. Miss Margaret Shaw, who was walking on the quay, said she saw it burning at seven. The court found the vessel was lost through an error of judgement by her skipper." Ada doesn't know who Margaret Shaw was; "some lass off the quay."
- The photograph: seven men on the Providence's deck in 1928. Ada names Adam, at the wheelhouse door.
- The view: the Mells and the wreck's ribs; the quay, the harbour office and the lifeboat house.
**Chapter 2 turn:** in Chapter 2, if the player has opened the organ bench and been to one other Chapter 2 scene, or has been to three Chapter 2 scenes, play Scene 2.5 as they leave here.
**Leads to:** 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4

### Scene 2.1 — The organ loft
**Read aloud:** The organ loft is narrow and dusty, the stops worn pale by Walter's hands. Its one small window looks straight down the length of the sea wall to the pier light. The organ bench has a brass lock.
**Available:** the window; the organ; the organ bench (the small brass key from Walter's ring opens it; if the player hasn't got it, the vicar brings it up); question the vicar, waiting at the foot of the stair.
**Clues here:**
- The window: the whole wall, the shelter, the pier light, and the Mells beyond.
- *hidden* (player opens the organ bench): under the music, two papers.
  - A draft letter in Walter's tall sloping hand, first part: "To H.M. Coroner, Alnbury. On the night of 6 October 1928 I was at this organ, and from the loft window I saw the pier light dark at twenty to nine. At twenty-five past nine I saw the keeper's lad run out along the wall and light it, after the Providence had struck. Skipper Adam Hume was not to blame."
  - The draft, the rest: "Ned Arkle gave me the true page of his log before he died in 1931, and I will bring it to you. I have kept this silence twenty-five years, and it is mine to answer for. I will tell him first, to his face, and if he will stand up in chapel and say it himself, I will stand beside him."
  - A yellowed page torn from a log book, in pencil, in a careful young hand: "Sat. 6 Oct. 1928. Wind rising SE. Lit 9.25 pm. T.A."
**Chapter 2 turn:** in Chapter 2, if the player has opened the organ bench and been to one other Chapter 2 scene, or has been to three Chapter 2 scenes, play Scene 2.5 as they leave here.
**Leads to:** 2.0, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4

### Scene 2.2 — The harbour office
**Read aloud:** The harbour office is one room on the quay: a stove, a chart of the coast, a shelf of old ledgers. Tom Arkle sits writing at the high desk and doesn't get up. "Harbour business," he says; "what is it?"
**Available:** question Tom; this year's light log on the desk; the shelf of old light logs back to 1910; the stove; the peg by the door with his oilskin.
**Tom says freely:** the same as on the wall. If asked about 1928: "I was twenty. My father kept the light. The inquiry said what it said." If asked about his reefer jacket: "At home."
**Clues here:**
- This year's log, in pencil, a small square hand: "Sun. 4 Oct. Lit 6.05 pm. T.A." Every night's entry is signed "T.A."
- The 1928 log (if the player asks for it or looks along the shelf): "Sat. 6 Oct. Lit 6.15 pm. E.A." squeezed in at the top of a page in a heavier pencil; just before it, the ragged stub of a page torn out.
- The stove: cold now, full of ash. Tom: "It's my stove."
- *hidden* (player rakes the ash or looks in the stove's ash pan): the charred corner of a long envelope, a few words left in a tall sloping hand in black ink: "...oner, Alnbury."
**Chapter 2 turn:** in Chapter 2, if the player has opened the organ bench and been to one other Chapter 2 scene, or has been to three Chapter 2 scenes, play Scene 2.5 as they leave here.
**Leads to:** 2.0, 2.1, 2.3, 2.4

### Scene 2.3 — The Arkles' kitchen
**Read aloud:** The Arkles' kitchen on the quay is warm and spotless, the kettle on the range. Peggy Arkle has been crying and is pretending she hasn't. A clothes horse stands before the range with a man's jacket hung on it.
**Available:** question Peggy; the clothes horse with Tom's navy reefer jacket; the wedding photograph on the dresser.
**Peggy says freely:** her account as in Scene 1.5, while she sets out tea. If asked about 1928: "We were walking out that autumn, Tom and me. That's all I'll say about it." If asked about the inquiry or Margaret Shaw: "That was me, before I wed. I said what Ned Arkle told me to say, and I was nineteen."
**Clues here:**
- The jacket: Tom's navy reefer, still damp at the cuffs and the hem; nothing else shows on it unless the player examines its front or buttons. Asked why it's damp, before her lie is broken, Peggy says only: "It's Tom's, pet. I always hang his things by the range."
- *hidden* (player examines the jacket's front or its buttons): horn buttons stamped with a small anchor; the second from the top is gone, two ends of navy thread left.
- The wedding photograph: "Tom and Peggy, St Ebba's, June 1929."
**Chapter 2 turn:** in Chapter 2, if the player has opened the organ bench and been to one other Chapter 2 scene, or has been to three Chapter 2 scenes, play Scene 2.5 as they leave here.
**Leads to:** 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.4

### Scene 2.4 — The schoolroom: confrontations (Chapters 2 and 3)
**Read aloud:** By afternoon half the village is in the schoolroom, cutting sandwiches for a funeral nobody has fixed a day for. Hester pours tea that nobody drinks. Tom stands by the door with his cap under his arm; who do you want to press?
**Available:** confront anyone with any clue (the lines are in "Confrontations" above); go back to any open scene; accuse at any time.
**Leads to:** 2.5, 3.2, Endings

### Scene 2.5 — The bell (chapter turn)
Play this when Chapter 2 ends, wherever the player is.
**Read aloud:** At five they ring St Ebba's bell for Walter, and the harbour stops to listen. The Reverend Lusk finds you on the quay, grey in the face. "I haven't told you the truth about last night," he says; "will you come to the vestry?"
**Leads to:** the Chapter 2 recap.

### Keeping it moving (Chapter 2)
1. Ada: "Walter kept everything that mattered in that organ bench. Hester will let you up now."
2. The vicar: "The light's been logged every night since 1910; the old books are on Tom's shelf."
3. Ada: "There was smoke from the harbour office chimney late last night. I saw it from this window, and Tom never sits in there of a Sunday."
4. Ada: "Ask Peggy Arkle what time Tom came home last night."
5. Hester: "Peggy had a jacket drying by her range this morning; I saw it through her window."
6. Nan Bell: "Isa Fenwick's been up and down that wall all day looking for something she dropped."

### Recap block (read aloud at chapter end or on resume)
**Core (always safe):** "Here's what you have. Walter Kell died at the light end of the sea wall at about ten past ten, the night he meant to post a letter to the Coroner. The wall has one way on and off, the slipway steps. Twenty-five years ago the Providence struck the Mells on harvest Saturday, seven men lost, five of them his choirmen, and the inquiry blamed Skipper Adam Hume and said the pier light was lit at a quarter past six."
**Then, only for what the player actually found (same chat only):**
- Draft: "Walter's draft letter says he saw the pier light dark at twenty to nine, and the keeper's lad light it at twenty-five past, after the wreck; and that he'd stand beside him if he confessed in chapel."
- Log page: "A torn 1928 log page: 'Lit 9.25 pm. T.A.' The office log for that night is in another hand, after a torn stub."
- Cutting: "At the inquiry the keeper, Edward Arkle, and his son Thomas swore the light was lit at a quarter past six, and a Miss Margaret Shaw said she saw it burning at seven."
- Envelope: "In the harbour office stove, a charred envelope corner: '...oner, Alnbury,' in Walter's hand."
- Jacket: "Tom's reefer jacket, drying by Peggy's range, has anchor buttons, and the second is gone."
- Peggy: "Tom came home at half past ten, wet to the knees, holding his jacket shut."
- Hester: "Hester was with Ada Hume from twenty to ten till past eleven."
- Vicar: "The vicar saw a man in a peaked cap and short jacket come off the wall alone at twenty past ten and go toward the harbour office."
- Isa: "Isa saw a man without a light go out to the light just after Walter, at about ten; she left the wall at five past."
**Close (always):** "When you're ready, say 'Plot Speaks, resume.' If we get cut off, start a new chat and say 'Plot Speaks, resume from chapter 3.'"

## Chapter 3 — The light (≈34 min)

### Scene 3.0 — The vestry (opens Chapter 3)
**Read aloud:** The vestry is small and cold, surplices on their hooks, the harvest loaves going stale on a tray. The vicar shuts the door and stands with his back to it. "I didn't walk straight home last night," he says.
**Available:** question the vicar; the surplices; the window over the harbour. The vicar stays here when the player leaves; elsewhere, he can't answer.
**The vicar says freely (Chapter 3):** both of his back-door Confrontations lines, the half-bottle and the man coming off the wall, if the player hasn't heard them. "I said nothing because I'd have had to say why I was standing there." He adds that Sergeant Craddock comes on the seven o'clock bus, and that at dusk the choir will walk out to the light to sing for Walter.
**Leads to:** 3.1, 2.4, any open scene

### Scene 3.1 — The shelter at dusk
**Read aloud:** Dusk is coming down grey over the harbour, and the pier light isn't lit yet. In the stone shelter halfway along the wall, Isa Fenwick sits alone with a bunch of Michaelmas daisies in her lap. She looks up as you come.
**Available:** question Isa; the shelter and its bench; the view along the wall both ways.
**Isa says freely:** she brought the flowers for Mr. Kell. Her lie holds until she is confronted (see Confrontations); then she gives both her lines.
**Clues here:** the shelter sits right on the walkway; anyone going out to the light passes within a yard of the bench.
**Leads to:** 2.4, 3.2, any open scene

### Scene 3.2 — Dusk at the pier light
Play once, at the time set in the GM instructions, wherever the player is.
**Read aloud:** At dusk the village walks out along the wall, and Tom Arkle unlocks the pier light as he does every night. Its beam goes out over the Mells. The choir sings for Walter Kell, and Ada Hume turns to you.
**Then:** read the Chapter 3 recap block, and Ada asks: "Who, and why? Say it here, where it happened." A name counts as "I accuse <name>." If the player isn't ready, the next unfound Chapter 3 lead is volunteered at once.
**Leads to:** Endings, or any earlier scene

### Keeping it moving (Chapter 3)
1. The vicar: "He was holding the front of his jacket shut, as if something on it had torn."
2. Isa: "I can tell you who went out on the wall after Mr. Kell, if you ask me straight about last night."
3. Ada: "Peggy hung something by her range last night that hasn't dried yet."
4. Hester: "If Walter's letter was burned, there'll be a corner left somewhere; there always is."
5. Daniel: "Whoever came off that wall went somewhere with a stove."
6. Ada: "Walter's draft has a last line. Read it to whoever you think it's about."

### Recap block (read aloud before the accusation or on resume)
**Core (always safe):** "Here's what you have. Walter Kell went out to the pier light at ten last night to meet someone who wrote 'We'll talk it out; come alone,' carrying a letter to the Coroner about the Providence. At about ten past ten his lantern went out, and his watch stopped at eleven minutes past. The only way off the wall is the slipway steps, and the sergeant is on the seven o'clock bus."
**Then, only for what the player actually found (same chat only):**
- Button: "In Walter's hand, a horn button with an anchor."
- Jacket: "Tom's reefer jacket has anchor buttons, the second one gone."
- Vicar: "At twenty past ten one man came off the wall: a peaked cap, a short jacket held shut, heading for the harbour office."
- Isa: "Just after Walter went out, a man without a light, in a peaked cap, followed him."
- Peggy: "Tom came home at half past ten, wet to the knees."
- Envelope: "A corner of Walter's envelope to the Coroner was in the harbour office stove."
- 1928: "The torn 1928 log page says the light was lit at 9.25, initialled T.A.; Walter saw the keeper's lad light it after the wreck."
- Alibis: "Daniel was on the Ship's step, Hester with Ada, the vicar in the lane, and Isa off the wall at five past ten."
**Close (always):** "When you're ready, say 'Plot Speaks, resume,' or tell me: who do you accuse?"

## Endings

- **The verdict.** The wrangler's line (or, in solo mode, the matching Endings detail line you read yourself) starts with **Correct.** or **Innocent.** Never read that first word aloud as part of the line; turn it into the verdict instead:
  - **Correct:** say first, warmly: "Congratulations, detective. You've solved it." Then the rest of the line, then the correct-accusation ending below.
  - **Innocent:** say first, gently: "I'm sorry. You've accused an innocent person." Then the rest of the line, then the wrong-accusation ending below.
- **Correct accusation:** read aloud: "The seven o'clock bus stops at the head of the slipway, and Sergeant Craddock walks out along the wall to the light. Tom Arkle takes the key of the pier light off its string and puts it in Ada Hume's hand. Would you like to hear what became of each of them?"
- **Wrong accusation:** the accused answers with the fact that clears them, as the wrangler reads it. Then, in that same turn, the next unfound lead in this chapter's "Keeping it moving" is given by the person named (always, unless every lead is found). Then ask: "Do you want one more accusation, or the full reveal?"
- **Out of time** (the player says "Plot Speaks, wrap it up" or asks to wrap up, or hasn't named anyone by the end of their second turn after Scene 3.2): read the latest recap block, with only what the player has found, then: "The seven o'clock bus is coming down the hill, and Ada Hume is waiting. If you had to name someone right now, who would it be?" Resolve as above.