Make It Good
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seat of your car, hands shaking on the steering wheel. An urgent call; but all
you were thinking of was the bottle in the liquor store and so that's where you
went first.
Now you're pulled up outside the house. The rear mirror's showing two steely
eyes. You adjust your hat, stiffen up your collar and grab your badge off the
dash. Here goes. You've one last chance so... make it good.
You are inside your black chevy in Broken Top Boulevard, outside no. 15. There's been a homicide, one Jack Draginam, and you've been called to solve the case.
Exit the car and don your gloves. Go north on the front porch and knock. Angela, the widow, opens the door; show her your badge and she'll welcome you in the house's hallway. Go upstairs and to the north, to the master bedroom where lies Jack's corpse. Open the window once Angela has left you alone in the room. Examine and search the corpse, and you'll find a dirty Yale key: examine it. Turn on the lamp and examine the dresser which shows marks in the varnish.
In the meanwhile Joe, the policeman, will join you. Wait (you can also examine things around to make time pass) until he has finished his tirade and he has told you about reaching to him if you want something analysing at the lab. Then analyse the Yale key: Joe will fetch it and leave. (You don't really need the key analysed, it's just a pretext to have Joe leave the room.) Once Joe is gone, search the pot which will reveal a short stake pushed deep into the soil of the plant. Pull the stake: it's a steel letter opener with blood on it — clearly the murder weapon. Go south, south, and west to the bathroom. Wash the letter opener to remove all traces of fingerprints and blood.
Go east and south to the study. Put the letter opener in the briefcase (away from prying eyes), close the briefcase and take it; all of this must be done before Joe returns and informs you of the lab's findings on the key. Take also the pencil that is on the mahogany desk in the study. If you want, you can open the desk, search the drawers, read the papers and examine the cheques.
Go north and west, back to the bathroom. Examine the cabinet, take the medicine tube and examine it.
Go east, north, and west to the guest bedroom — that is, Angela's bedroom. Take the frame on the nightstand. Examine the frame and the photo in it. Open the frame with your car key to reveal a flimsy key hidden behind the photo. Examine the chair and notice the four circular dents in the carpet next to it, which indicate the chair has been displaced. Move the chair and stand on it. Look on the wardrobe and you'll find an ugly pink suitcase on top of the wardrobe. Unlock the suitcase with the flimsy key, and open it. Search Angela's clothes and you'll find a black and white photograph. Take it and examine it: it's an incriminating photo of Jack and the maid, Emilia.
Go east, downstairs, south, and south again out of the front gate. Enter your car and open the glove compartment: it catches after only opening a small gap. Push the catch with the pencil and the glove compartment will open fully. Inside it you find a note. Read the note:
Dear "Colin",
Let's get straight to business, shall we? I know who you
are, I know your name, so I'm not going to mess around with
this stupid arrangement of yours any more. I've already paid
you far too much.
Let me dictate terms for once: if we can't finish this for
good then I'm going to tell her. I'm going to tell her that
you know, and that you've been blackmailing me. I may as
well; I don't have anything to lose. You do, as it's that - or
one final payment and I get photos and negatives and you
disappear from my life and Angela never knows.
It's time we spoke face to face and stopped all this silly
business with notes-under-doors. Meet me, here, tomorrow.
Tuesday. I will leave a key to the front door in the petunia
basket.
J. D.
Take the note and put it in the briefcase. Take also the bottle of whiskey from the passenger seat and put it in the briefcase. Close the briefcase and exit the car.
Return inside the house by going north, then north again. Go upstairs, south, east to the maid's bedroom. Take the silver key. Search the clothes that are on the sofa (these are Anthony's — the maid's boyfriend — clothes) and you'll find a scrap of pink paper. Open the briefcase and put the note, the whiskey bottle, and the black and white photograph in the clothes. Close the briefcase.
Go west, north, down to the hallway. Open the desk, and take the closet key and the sheet of paper.
Go northwest and north to the kitchen. The maid is there, sitting at the table. Give her the silver key. Wait until she has left, then open the briefcase and drop the letter opener.
Go south, southeast, upstairs, south, east back to the maid's bedroom. Emilia is there. Wait until she finds the black and white photo and the note. Take the note from her (to do so, you have to take the note twice). She'll also give back the black and white photo to you. Take also the silver key.
Go west to find yourself in the south end of the upstairs hallway. Wait there until Emilia enters from the study. She has collected the letter opener from the kitchen and placed it back on the desk in the study, putting her fingerprints over it. Go south in the study, take the steel opener, put it in the briefcase and close the briefcase. Analyse the black and white photo: Joe will come and collect it.
Go north thrice to the master bedroom. Ensure that you're alone (Joe left to bring the photo to the lab). Open the briefcase, put the steel opener in the corpse to smear blood on it, put it back in the briefcase and close the briefcase.
Go south, downstairs, northwest, and north to the kitchen. Take the whiskey bottle. Go south, southeast, upstairs, and north to the master bedroom. Examine the dresser again (you noticed marks on it earlier), open the bottle and clean the marks with the whiskey. Put the sheet on the marks and rub the pencil on the sheet, to make the remains of a note emerge. In the meanwhile, Joe will be back anytime with the lab's results for the black and white photo: have him analyse the medicine tube.
Go south and downstairs in the hallway. Wait until Joe is back with the results of the analysis of the medicine tube, which have revealed that the tablets are just sugar. Go northwest on the passage from the hallway. Open the cupboard (with the closet key you found earlier in the desk in the hallway). Examine the rack and take the maid's shoes. Put the maid's shoes in the briefcase, then close the briefcase. Go north in the kitchen. Tell the maid about the medicine's tube, and eat a tablet (repeat for three times) to convince her. Ask the maid about Anthony, about the note, and about Jack. Give her the silver key. Remove shoes and make sure the maid has left, then open the briefcase and don the maid's shoes. Close the briefcase. Go north to the back garden and walk in the flowerbed to leave plenty of footprints. Go south in the kitchen, remove the maid's shoes and don your shoes. Go south, open the cupboard and put the maid's shoes in it.
If it's not 4 PM yet, Joe will be in the master bedroom (southeast, upstairs, and north) attending the corpse. After 4 PM, the coroner will have come and brought the corpse to the morgue, and Joe will be in the living room (west). In any case, go where Joe is, and show him the sheet.
Go to the back garden (from the master bedroom is south, down, northwest, north, and north; from the living room is east, north, and north). Examine the flowerbed and analyse the footprints. Joe will come and make a plaster cast of the footprints, and then he'll leave to bring the cast to the lab. It will take a while, so go to the shed in the northwest of the garden and talk with Reverend Matheston if you feel like. Then go back to the study via southeast, south twice, southeast, upstairs, and south twice. There's a telephone on the mahogany desk. Examine the pink paper that you found on Anthony's clothes and dial the 4-digit number written on it. A woman called Jenny will answer. Tell Jenny about the police, and about Anthony. Anthony will grab the phone; tell him about the maid.
Whiteout.
You hear someone knocking at the door. The maid will open; it's her boyfriend Anthony. Wait until Anthony mentions your ID, then show your badge. (Joe will be back anytime with the footprint results; once he's back in the house, open the briefcase and analyse the letter opener.) Go northwest and west to the living room. Give the black and white photo to Angela, then ask her about the window. Wait until Joe returns with the lab's findings on the letter opener, then arrest the maid. When Joe asks you "Shall we go and put the pressure on her?", answer yes. She'll confess (to protect Anthony, as she believes he's the murderer) and the police will bring her away.
You go home and crash on the sofa. From there, you recall the past events.
You are on the front porch of the house, earlier the same day. Search the basket of petunias and you'll find the door key. Go north to enter the house, and wait until you hear someone coming down the stairs. Hide behind the hat stand, and when all is clear again go upstairs. Go north on the bedroom, where Jack is sitting on the bed. When he asks you "Is that it?", answer yes. Give the envelope to Jack, and when he asks "This the lot?", answer yes. He'll toss a wad of banknotes onto the bed. Take the money and count it. Jack will rip open the envelope and burn the filmstrip it contains. Shortly after you'll hear footsteps outside the door: hide under the bed and take the hat you left on the floor. From under the bed you'll see the argument between Angela and Jack, and her stabbing him with the letter opener. Then she'll leave. Examine the windows: they have been painted shut. Take the letter opener, and cut the window with it (slicing the paint off the frame). Open the window and go through it. You'll land in the flowerbed in the garden. Take your hat and go through the hedge.
You'll have a flashback. Go through the hedge again. Then you remember about the old man (Matheston) in the shed, watching you as you make your escape.
You wake up, drenched in sweat, and hear a knock at the door.