Episode Details

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

Who slipped Julian Crewe a warning before his Monday-at-ten interview, and why would a colonel hire a private detective rather than trust a single member of his own staff?

Read the story and the full transcript: https://matezz.com/episodes/the-midnight-steamer-vienna-files/

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

A new edition of “The Midnight Ferry”, rewritten from the ground up.

Vienna, spring 1953. An envelope with no sender lands on a private detective's mat: twenty pounds in notes, a pass made out to him as interpreter, and a plain-paper note from a colonel who says a man in his charge has vanished and that he trusts none of his staff. At the occupation headquarters, the colonel explains. Julian Crewe, a political-division officer long suspected by his superiors of working for the other side, was due to be questioned at his desk on Monday at ten. He never came, and neither did his closest friend and colleague, Larkin. Someone inside the building must have warned them. The detective and his friend Dr. Fuchs, who narrates, visit Crewe's apartment house, where the concierge insists she polished everything on Monday morning and that nobody passed her lodge. They also visit an inspector at the district police station, who lent a constable for the search of the flat. Back at headquarters, the signals ledger shows a telephone call placed from the cipher room on Friday evening, and the young clerk on duty swears he never made it. Who was on the other end of that line, and why will the clerk not say?

From the series Vienna Files: a real Austrian crime 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 Austrian case of the 1950s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including occupation officers, a cipher clerk, a concierge, 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 headquarters, the apartment house and the card room 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, Spring 1953 — with an occupation headquarters in a palace, a quiet apartment house, a police station and a river landing.

Writer v2.7.0.55 — our 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 Envelope Without a Sender
1:24 The Colonel's Gilded Room
3:28 A Concierge and Her Keys
5:35 Carbolic and Stale Coffee
7:22 The Evening's Signal Ledger
8:54 A Folder on the Desk
10:44 Two Pencilled Notes
11:42 The Charge Sheet Waits
13:19 Gin at the Officers' Mess
14:56 Coffee in the Lodge
16:48 A Corridor Gone Dark
18:10 The Cells Beneath the Wing
20:04 A Walk on the Gravel
21:34 Dusk, and a Summons
23:59 The Last Search
26:14 Weeks Later, Upstairs