The Sapphire Below · Vienna Files

This radio drama uses AI-generated writing, voices, music, sound effects and artwork. All spoken performances in this edition use ElevenLabs V4.

A countess's note, written on the back of an American menu, slides under a Vienna detective's door before dawn: she buried her jewel box beneath her own house when the Russians came, and this week the Allies dug it up and opened it at the Hotel Imperial. It was empty. Who emptied it, and where is her mother's sapphire?

🎧 Full episode · full-cast radio drama, 28 min. Vienna Files: a post-war detective audio drama set in occupied Vienna, performed by a full cast.
Hörspiel · audiokniha · rozhlasová hra (English audio, English captions)

Listen as a podcast, with full transcripts: https://mono-noir.transistor.fm/

Stories, transcripts and the schedule: https://matezz.com

🎭 Directed Edition — every role cast for this story and every line performed with full voice direction.

Vienna, the winter of 1947. In the rooms off the Herrengasse, a mezzanine built for a taller age that no stove can warm, the narrator, Dr. Fuchs, opens the morning post while the detective August Brenner sits wrapped in a blanket. A note has come under the door before dawn, written in a fine old hand on the back of an American menu. Countess Thalheim buried her jewel box beneath her own house when the Russians came. This week the Allies dug it up, carried it to the Hotel Imperial and opened it there, and it was empty. She has gone to the Russians, the Americans, the British and the French, and to their International Patrol, and each army shrugged and pointed at the next. She names no reward, only the word "please," underlined twice. Brenner and Fuchs climb the servants' stair of her palace on the Ringstrasse, past three floors of American officers, to the attic where she now lives among her trunks, with chilblains on both hands and no heat to offer her guests. A Soviet major named Rudakov, she tells them, claims the stones for Moscow. Let the armies have the diamonds, she says, but bring back her mother's sapphire. Coming down by the back way, they walk into steam and frying beef, where Captain Holt, the American who runs the officers' club, stands over Frau Schimek, who baked the countess's wedding cake on that very range and came with the house, like the chandeliers and the damp. At the Hotel Imperial, Inspector Pokorny of the Vienna police and Major Rudakov wait with a ledger. Its record says the box came out of the floor wired shut, travelled under guard and was cut open on a table behind a closed door. Brenner has a note on the back of a menu, a countess in an attic and four armies that each point at the next. Who emptied the box?

From the series Vienna Files: a real event of the 1940s reimagined as a post-war noir radio mystery, performed by a full multi-voice AI cast with an original score and sound design.

Loosely inspired by a real event of the 1940s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including a noble family and the servants of its household, the officers, soldiers and administrators of the occupying armies, the staff of an officers' club, the military and civil investigators and the police, and anyone suspected or accused of a crime in this story — are invented for drama, and so is the solution of the mystery. Where a real city, hotel, army or public body is mentioned, its part in this story is invented; the palace, the club and the offices named in it are invented too. This is a work of fiction, not a factual account of any real person or institution. No real person is portrayed, and no real individual, company or organisation is accused of any act shown here.

Setting: Vienna — winter 1947.

Writer v2.7 — the studio's newest writing process: the plot is planned and checked by an AI story editor, then each act is drafted with the whole story in view and edited before a word is voiced — and then cast and performed with our new casting and voice direction.

Chapters:
0:00 A Note on the Back of a Menu
1:43 Up the Servants' Stair to the Attic
4:04 Down the Back Way Into Steam and Frying Beef
5:47 A Ledger at the Hotel Imperial
7:38 Two Flights Up Under a Green Lamp
9:15 Dusk Under the Countess's Rafters
10:26 Before the Lunch Rush at the Range
12:06 The Green Lamp Again, With the Inspector
14:02 Back Along the Ring Past the Patrol
14:53 Three Visitors and a Stove With No Fire
16:47 A Quiet Kitchen After Lunch
18:11 Down a Dozen Wet Steps
19:44 Back to the Attic and a Bare Table
21:42 A Landing Lit by a Single Match
22:47 The Old Library After Nine
25:32 The Ballroom Under One Chandelier

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