Episode Details

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

What sent the Marenna to the bottom in two minutes, and why has an insurance director flown through the night to put the question to Sherlock Holmes?

Read the story and the full transcript: https://matezz.com/episodes/the-case-of-the-clockmakers-ticket-sherlock-holmes-the-new-cases/

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

January 1977. In the sleet outside Baker Street, an insurance director named Frau Liebenau waits for Sherlock Holmes with an urgent request. A cargo ship, the Marenna, has gone down with six of her crew, and her board wants Holmes in Vienna on the morning flight. Holmes distrusts any insurer who is looking for a reason not to pay, but a director who flies through the night instead of sending an adjuster is plainly worried. In Vienna, Inspector Gruber of the police tells them the ship was gone in two minutes, that survivors heard a bang forward of the bridge, and that two ministers' offices have already telephoned the insurer on behalf of the owner, Herr Falk. Falk is a celebrated pastry cook whose salon draws ministers' wives. He receives Holmes and Watson graciously, describes a very costly cargo declared in full, and sends them to the harbour at Porto Vesca, where his crates waited a week before loading. There a nervous night watchman will speak only once the carabiniere is out of earshot. What does he know about those crates, and why is he so afraid of being named?

From the series Sherlock Holmes — The New Cases: a real crime of the 1970s 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 1970s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including an insurance director, a confectioner, a harbour watchman, a clockmaker, 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 insurance company, the confectioner's shop and the harbour town 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 Vienna — January 1977.

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 Sleet and Unpaid Debts on Baker Street
2:43 Inspector Gruber's Corner Office
4:36 A Salon of Gilt and Chestnut
6:22 The Fish Quay After Dark
8:29 A Telegraph Form Left Unsent
9:35 The Crane Office Ledger
10:41 Fourteen Keys Along the Quay
12:25 An Empty Berth and a Policy Clause
14:22 The Night Express North
15:17 Sekt After Closing Time
16:49 Up the Stair to the Workshop
18:31 The Insurer's Top Floor
19:54 A Cap Crushed in Both Hands
21:45 Past Midnight with the Notebook
23:05 Almost Six at the Salon
25:02 A Statement Sworn at the Desk
26:35 A Telegram by the Hearth