Discusión

On Wednesday, August 5^th, 1932, you and eight other passengers boarded a three-day express train from Bombay, India to Lisbon, Portugal. Unfortunately, one did not survive the journey. It is now up to you and the seven passengers left to decide who killed the eighth.

This is your story. It details your background, your current position in life, and your actions on the fated three-day express liner. Read carefully, because you have many key pieces of evidence that must be used in combination with the knowledge of other passengers to unmask and convict the murderer.

You will also find a map of the train, which includes any structure that a visitor to the train would notice upon cursory inspection.

Ground Rules

 Do not show this script to anyone else at any time.

 Please refrain from reading directly from the script when presenting evidence to others, unless you find it absolutely necessary.

 Play your character to some modest degree. You need not go to great efforts to mimic the character's personality - although it would be much more fun if you did - but at least speak as though you were your character (i.e. “I saw such-and-such an event” instead of “my character saw...,” and so on).

 If someone asks you a basic question about your character that you should know (e.g. your age), but the information was not provided in your story, you may make something up - just as long as it's consistent with the rest of your story.

 This story contains historical falsities and devices of science fiction. Take them for granted (but not anything else).

Lying

 Lie with caution. Your story interweaves with the stories of many other people who may know things about you that you might not think they know.

 You may not lie about the following things:

• Something you heard someone else say.

• An action you saw someone else doing.

• Something that you saw someone else carrying.

• A piece of background information about someone else, unless you are involved in their background story.

 You may lie about the following things:

• Something that you said or did.

• A piece of background information about yourself, or about someone else if you were involved in their background story.

i

-Locomotive

Locations of chairs, mirrors, and various other items are not given. Fill in the blanks using your story.

Closet Closet

Desk

The setup is different in each person's room. The pricetags of each room are also different, but it's up

Map of Three-day Express Liner from Bombay to Toledo

Bathroom

The Magician

As you spin your magic coin atop your fingertips, a devious smile comes to your lips. A coin is a fine thing. Small and compact, you can easily make it disappear and reappear, creating the illusion that you're taking it out of ears, noses - and, when you are alone with your assistants - places that can't be mentioned in polite company. Yes, the coin was a handy item alright, but even the mighty coin pails in comparison to rope. You love to coil the rope around your assistants' supple legs, tightening it more and more until they gasped in pain. Then you would hang them above your bed of knives, bringing them to the precipice of death with that rough, beautiful rope. The crowd would squeal in awe, and you would flash your toothy Arabian smile at them before drawing a curtain around the assistant, bowing, and then in one swift motion snipping the cord with your razor sharp magician's blade. The crowd would fall silent as its frayed tips vanished behind the curtain, everyone awaiting the death scream of the young, innocent little girl. But no scream would come.

The silence would grow heavier and heavier; no one breathed until you would finally draw the curtain in a magnificent flourish, revealing not the innocent girl they expect but but a scantily clad little nymph, sitting on that bed of knives with her legs crossed, the cut rope clenched in between her shining pearly teeth. You always made them hold the rope in between their teeth for that trick – they looked so much more ravishing that way.

You pick your rope off its hook and run your hand along its strong fibers and its smooth rubber ends. When you bought it in Saudi Arabia they told you that it had been used by the previous owner as an instrument of murder. Maybe it had even been the weapon that took the life of your father when you were still so young. But all that is just as well. Death is a magician's ultimate inspiration. Your favorite part of every trick is fooling people into thinking you've killed one of your assistants – by drowning, by sawing, or by stabbing. It gives you a tingle of satisfaction to enact someones murder, and you are always reluctant to bring them back to life. If it weren't for the fact that your assistants were so good-looking, you might have just left them dead.

Assistants, assistants. You say the word to yourself a few times. It's a long, slender word, with two rounded and very luscious inflections in the middle. It rolls off the tongue ever so smoothly, leaving a sweet, feminine taste when it's gone. A more appropriate name could never be imagined.

You reach into the pocket of your perfectly pressed tuxedo to withdraw a cherished album embroidered with that very name. You begin flipping through, and land upon a faded gray photo of a Russian vixen, wearing a fine Russian pea coat – and nothing else. You gaze longingly at her thin, voluptuous figure; her fiery Slavic eyes. Her name was Natasha; she had been your first assistant, back in the days when you were young and poor, performing magic with mere garbage picked out of the Russian alleyways. But you do not wish to remember those days of sorrow.

Your mind wanders back to the Barman. Your magician's intuition tells you that something's amiss with that baby-faced Italian sweeny, his visage a little too formless, his eyes a little too beady, his stupid, slaphappy smile a little too smug. One thing's for certain, he's no professional bartender.

His schnapps tastes worse than camel's piss, and his service is no better. That is, for everyone except the Tennis Star. It's become painfully obvious to you that the Tennis Star is one of the Barman's preferred customers. No surprise there – that doll had a body like you'd never seen in all your travels. When you got on this train you would have bet your life that a skinny little slimeball like the Barman didn't have a chance with that goddess, but recent events have caused you hold your tongue.

1

-The Magician Yesterday you noticed that the Tennis Star let the Barman's hand wander in places they didn't belong while her husband, a British lord whose clueless expression tells you he's the product of one too many aristocratic intermarriages, was looking the other way. “Damn,” you mutter to yourself in a thick Arabian accent, “I wish to know how to do that kind of magic.”

You decide that you need a cigar. You walk over to the desk table, pick up your snow-white turban, and wrap it around your head carefully, making sure not to disturb the delicate locks of hair you keep hanging just above your eyelid for a mysterious effect. You wink at yourself in your crystal ball and exit your room, descending the staircase onto the first floor of the train. It's the Doctor's room. You find the good Doctor carefully funneling some suspicious pills into a small glass bottle.

The Doctor glares at you and hastens to put the medicine bottle into the drawer of his otherwise completely bare desk. You don't want to make trouble, and decide to move along. You saunter out of the door, snapping your pocketwatch out of your sleeve as you walk (you like the mysterious effect). It reads ten minutes till two. You pick up your step heading towards the Businessman's room, hoping to make it to the cigar car before the teatime rush.

When you walk into the Businessman's quarters, you find him sharpening his pen, mumbling to himself. You hold your breath, trying to catch some of his delirious ramblings.

“It was a damn good deal” he says gruffly as he grinds the tip of his pen against a whetting stone with a quick, deliberate hand. “It was a damn good deal...” In your studies of hypnosis you became well versed in the theories of Sigmund Freud and it's clear that the Businessman is thinking about much more than just sharpening pen as he rubs it against the stone faster and faster. But if that pen is supposed to be a phallus, the Businessman must be compensating for some serious deficiencies elsewhere. Its razor sharp tip is made of solid gold, its handle a dark, handsome shade of gray marble. Its knife-like nib gleams at you from within the Businessman's scaly palm, and a shudder runs down your spine. A pen with a tip like that could be used for far more than just signing a few bank checks.

Suddenly the Businessman catches you out of the corner of his eye, drops his pen, and twists his face into a nasty scowl. Freud might call it a physiognomic manifestation of the id, our yearning to be vile and primitive. You would just call it a very ugly face.

“How long have you been here?” he asks. Noticing the look of impunity you have not bothered to hide, he screws his face further into insufferable deformation, and repeats, “how long?”

You avert your eyes from the unseemly sight and try to change the subject, asking him if he would like to accompany you to the cigar car for a smoke. He nods and turns away from you – thank almighty Allah for that – to gather a few of his belongings. Then he gets up - slowly, because that is the only way a man with such an enormous waist can get up - and tells you he's ready to go. You are thankful to see that he leaves the pen on the desk - you don't trust him as long as he has got that monster in his possession.

In the cigar car you occupy yourself – and provide your eyes some much needed relief – by showing the Businessman pictures of your assistants, but he isn't watching. Instead he attacks you with pointed questions about the company that makes your Polaroid film and scoffs at the photo of Lenin on the cigars you purchased while in Russia. He begins to ramble about Pinkos and commies but is interrupted by the heavy trod - and the onerous aroma - of the Peasant. The Peasant glances at you from under his rough burlap hood but does not stop to say hello. You've heard these peasants are very superstitious folk, and you suspect that your magical demeanor frightens his simple mind,

The Magician so it doesn't surprise you that he's a little bit timid in your presence.

You put your bitter Russian cigar to your lips, slowly let its smoke fill your mouth, and blow a ring, watching it lazily disintegrate into nothing. From out of the smoky cloud emerges the slender silhouette of the Tennis star. You would like to inspect her barely-covered legs a little longer, but you don't want a dame like her to see you goggle-eyed, so you look down at your watch. It's 2:00PM already.

You turn back to the the Businessman, whose eyes are completely glazed over. That's what a gal like the Tennis Star can do to a lesser man. You're glad you're not a lesser man.

The Tennis Star is gone but the Businessman keeps staring. You pull out some more pictures to snap him out of it. The first is a photo from the time you tied Natasha up and threw her in a water tank. “Look at this trick,” you beseech him. It's a great trick, a beautiful trick; the crowd loved it every time and you see the Businessman is no different. He squints at the picture, and you get just the response you want: he calls you a murderer. You get a tingle of pleasure from that name but as much as you'd like to live the fantasy the Peasant has just come back from the bar car and you don't want the cops after you, so you tell the Businessman the truth - she lives in the end. The Peasant passes without a word, and you can tell the Businessman is disappointed by your confession. He's so disappointed he has to excuse himself to order a drink from the bar car.

You stay behind and get out a pack of cards, hoping the Tennis Star might come back so you can impress her with one of your tricks. You shuffle the cards and puff smoke, lots of it, to give yourself an aura. But it's not the Tennis Star's darling face which comes from the bar car, it's the Businessman's ugly mug. He inhales the smoke and chokes, cursing as he sits down but he doesn't seem fully aware of his actions. His eyes soon become glazed like sugar pills again and he's starts something that sounds like “After all those gifts I bought her, I can't believe she'd fall for him...”

It's the id at work again and you're beginning to put two and two together. Evidently the Businessman has engaged in some sour negotiations with a woman on this train. You inquire further into the matter, but he snorts and responds coyly: “Nothing you have to worry about, comrade.”

You're not so sure what the “comrade” is about, but you are more concerned with the possibility that the Businessman might be fucking the Tennis Star. You grimace at the thought of his swollen lips on the magnificent Tennis Star's cheek and realize that if you're ever going to get anywhere with the Tennis Star yourself, you're going to have to drop this bozo faster than Harry Houdini went over the Niagra Falls. The Tennis Star will be back any moment so time is short. First you try to bore him with some repetitive card tricks. But that doesn't work, so you resort to direct threats.

“You should see what I can do with a rope,” you growl at him in a low voice, reaching for the rope in your jacket. Bozo's eyes go wide at that, but you realize all too soon that you left your rope on the desk in your room. All you have is a handkerchief and you doubt that could be used to get him out of your way, even if he is an Englishman.

But the whole scheme becomes irrelevant when the Tennis Star walks in, the folds of her short black skirt just barely covering her tiny little tush. It's a nice sight, but you get more pleasure from watching the Businessman's eyes following the hem of that skirt - up and down, up and down, up, up, up - the poor sap has the eyes of a boy in a candy store - and down. You sigh to think that the Tennis Star had to see you sitting with this pubescent blockhead.

The Tennis Star makes her way through without so much as acknowledging either of you and she is replaced by the Conductor, who enters from the bar car to take orders for dinner. The

3

-The Magician Businessman's dinner, anyway. He eats a fat, juicy steak with eggs at four o'clock sharp every day. He orders the same thing today.

“Get a move on, Conductor,” he roars. “A capitalist travels on his stomach.”

“Well then I expect you to travel far” comes the defiant voice – and sexy French accent - of the Violinist, who has appeared seemingly from nowhere. You have to look twice at her. This is the first time you have seen her up close, and boy is she a stunner. She has firm strong shoulders, slender thighs, and a chest that would knock your socks off – the perfect set of features for a magician's assistant. You want her, and you want her bad. The gears in your mind of mystery immediately begin cranking, calculating the moves you would make to get this little nymph into your magic shows and into the palm of your hand.

Judging by the jest that goes back and fourth between them you guess that she and the Businessman are on familiar with each other – a bit too familiar. Was this the girl the Businessman was mumbling about? You are inclined to discount this possibility as you listen the Businessman make a series of bungling advances towards her. He never stands a chance. She's gone - headed towards the bar car - and he's left with nothing but a warmed-over grin left on his unseemly face.

That grin quickly fades to a frown, and you avert your eyes before his unhappy pucker comes into full bloom.

The familiarity between the Businessman and the Violinist still bothers you and you decide to make it your business whether the Businessman slept with your future assistant or not. You flip your pocketwatch out of your sleeve - it now reads 3:41 - and gently place it on the table. Its ticks reverberate through the cigar car. Tick, tick, tick. The rhythms are smooth, powerful, relaxing. Perfect for a little hypnosis. Before he even realizes you got the watch out he slips away into a deep trance.

“She was a damn good deal,” he whispers, his veins turning blue as he clasps his whiskey bottle with all his might.. “She was a damn good deal...” He describes her face, her breasts, her hair – it sounds like the Violinist alright. But what had happened? He takes a swig of his whiskey - even in a hypnotic trance he is an alcoholic - and whispers a little more, but he's talking economics and you can't understand a word. Suddenly his expression visibly changes – as if he'd had a revelation – and he slams his flask down, shouting “Damn it, I blew the deal and now she's blowing the Barman.” The trance has been broken.

He looks at you suspiciously, still not quite understanding what you have done to him, but knowing he's said too much. “Hey Magician, you keep everything you've heard to yourself, you hear?” he belts. “I’ve got some connections – some business connections on the other side of this journey – understand? It can be a long trip back to your little desert commune, if you catch my

He looks at you suspiciously, still not quite understanding what you have done to him, but knowing he's said too much. “Hey Magician, you keep everything you've heard to yourself, you hear?” he belts. “I’ve got some connections – some business connections on the other side of this journey – understand? It can be a long trip back to your little desert commune, if you catch my