The Case of the Falling Ash · Sherlock Holmes Radio Drama — The New Cases

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

A comedian still in his studio make-up climbs the stairs at Baker Street to say he keeps losing at cards at his club in Beverly Hills. He accuses nobody, yet he says he knows his own bad luck, and this is not it. Why would a man who blames no one ask Sherlock Holmes to look into his losses before he flies home on Sunday?

🎧 Full episode of Sherlock Holmes — The New Cases: a new Sherlock Holmes radio drama, an audio mystery performed by a full cast.

Read the story and the full transcript: https://matezz.com/episodes/the-case-of-the-falling-ash-sherlock-holmes-radio-drama-the-new-cases/

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

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

London, August 1969. Thunder sulks over the rooftops, the sitting room holds the heat like a kiln, and Holmes reclines on the settee with the evening papers while Watson makes poor work of an old army friend's wedding invitation. Then Mrs Hudson's helpless laughter climbs the stair: she has brought company, and Ned Tolliver, a comedian in studio make-up straight from the set, has done the milkman at her all the way up. He has been losing at cards at the Harlequin Club in Beverly Hills, he says, and he would like to know why before he flies home on Sunday. He accuses no one, and Holmes tells him that a comedian who withholds the punchline is irritating. In Beverly Hills Tolliver meets their aeroplane himself and shows them round his club by noon, where his friend Bascombe says the bar gives Augie Pell the luck of the Irish and Ned the luck of the Titanic. In the club office the bookkeeper, Yolanda, has the ledgers open and reads out the markers, one winner's name page after page, until the total comes to exactly what Tolliver's house cost. By eight o'clock he sits at the green felt in the card room across from Pell, while Lorene, the waitress, laughs at his jokes night after night and says it only gets funnier. In the bar Inspector Voss of the Beverly Hills police is spending his third night on the stool nearest the card-room door, nursing club soda because he is on duty: four losing members, friends of the mayor, have complained, and some of them, he says, blame the waitress. On the drive back past midnight Tolliver sends Watson to the glove box for something wrapped in a handkerchief, and Holmes tells him to say nothing to anyone, not even the Inspector.

From the series Sherlock Holmes — The New Cases: a real crime of the 1960s reimagined as a classic Sherlock Holmes radio mystery, performed by a full multi-voice AI cast, with sound design and a light score that stays under the story.

Loosely inspired by a real event of the 1960s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including the comedian who loses, his fellow club members and the card players, the club's bookkeeper and waitress, the investigators and the police — are invented for drama, and so is the solution of the mystery. Where a real city, state, public body or newspaper is mentioned, its part in this story is invented; the club and the other businesses and venues 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: London and Beverly Hills, California — August 1969.

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 Thunder, Heat and a Wedding Invitation
2:44 Met at the Aeroplane and Shown Round the Club
4:15 Filing Cabinets, Carbon Paper and Open Ledgers
5:58 Eight O'Clock at the Green Felt
7:13 The Bar, Half in Darkness
8:44 A White Convertible Past Midnight
10:47 Early at the Green Table Before a Card Is Dealt
12:05 Signing for the Night Before
13:35 Two Men on Foot Along Wilshire Boulevard
14:45 Wet Paint in the Lobby Before the Next Game
16:05 A Steel Drawer Behind Two Shut Doors
17:04 From the Barstools, Through the Open Door
18:37 A Stucco Rooming House and a Bag of Doughnuts
20:43 That Afternoon With Yolanda's Keys
22:44 A Single Lamp Burning in the Guest House
23:49 The Empty Card Room an Hour Before the Deal
25:53 Some Weeks On, Rain Ticking at the Windows

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