The Case of the Parcels from the Sky · Sherlock Holmes — 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 café keeper from Calder Street climbs the stairs at Baker Street with real coffee and a plea to Sherlock Holmes: the police have told a woman that the dead man is her brother, yet would not let her look at him. Why would the police name a man before anyone who loved him had seen his face?

Read the story and the full transcript: https://matezz.com/episodes/the-case-of-the-parcels-from-the-sky-sherlock-holmes-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, November 1947. Rain ticks at the sash, the sausage is mostly bread, and Holmes is three days into an experiment that smells of bad eggs and struck matches; Watson eats his supper with a scarf tied over his nose, and Mrs Hudson will come no higher than the landing. Then a café keeper named Assunta climbs the stairs with real coffee, "so Signor Holmes will listen": the police have told Signor Varney's sister, Mrs Fenimore, that the dead man is her brother, and they would not let her see him. Holmes calls it routine, until Watson's questions bring him round: "Now that isn't routine at all." That night Mrs Fenimore lets them into the showroom, lit only by the lamp on her brother's desk: three cars stand under dust, a board holds spare keys to every room he let, and she will not sit in his chair. The street, she says, borrowed from him, and that was his living. Next morning, in Assunta's café among steam and fried bread, a neighbour named Pike, who trades three doors up the street, toasts a hard man, a fair man, "mostly fair". Assunta pours the dead man's usual coffee out of habit, and tips it into the sink. At the kerb, Inspector Lestrade waits in the back of a black Wolseley, rain on its roof and a file on his knee. He did not send for Holmes, and the pathologist's report has spoiled his breakfast.

From the series Sherlock Holmes — The New Cases: a real crime of the 1940s 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 1940s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including the dead man, his sister, his neighbours and tenants, the witnesses, the pathologist, 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 street, the showroom and the café 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 — November 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 An Experiment That Smelled of Bad Eggs
2:33 A Showroom Lit by One Desk Lamp
4:12 Steam and Fried Bread at Assunta's Café
5:43 Rain on the Roof of Lestrade's Car
7:18 A Letter Spread Across the Blotter
8:49 A Taxi Rank by the Pier, Gulls Crying
10:25 Assunta's Window Table in the Rain
12:19 A Gravel Bomb-Site Three Doors Up
14:23 Back at the Showroom at Noon
16:17 A Deal Table and a Cup of Tea Left Untouched
17:43 Near Midnight With One Torch Between Us
18:41 A Turning Lock and a Ticking Mantel Clock
19:48 Real Coffee, Hot, at a Café Table
21:51 A Dashboard Clock and an Engine Switched Off
23:10 The Corner Table and a Hissing Urn
25:23 One Last Page From the Journal

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