Moonmist (blue version) - Infocom

I  knew  something  was  up the moment  I  got  Tamara's  letter!
Obviously  she  was scared for her life but - a ghost  trying  to
kill her? Impossible ... or so I thought.

I  arrived at Tresyllian Castle and was admitted by pressing  the
eye on the wyvern carving by the gate.  The butler asked my  name
and which was my favourite colour. Blue, of course, the colour of
my new sports car!

Inside  the gates, Tamara came flying out to meet me.  We chatted
for  a  while  and I  asked her  about the  ghost. She really was
convinced  the  so-called  White Lady was after her. When I asked
her about the  Lady, she said  that there was an old history book
in the library that might tell me more.

Soon,  she  introduced  me  to Jack, her fiance. When I asked him
about the ghost,  he said  that  he  saw  the ghost  briefly from
behind so couldn't be sure if it was a woman or a bloke in drag.

The  other house guests were Vivien Pentreath,  Montague Hyde  (a
shifty customer if ever I saw one), Iris Vane, Ian Fordyce and Dr
Wendish.  Evidently  they  were all there for  Lionel's  memorial
birthday dinner.  Lionel was Jack's uncle and Jack had  inherited
the castle from him.

I asked  them all about the ghost. Only some of them had seen it.
Vivien  said she had been in the basement thinking about Deirdre,
Jack's  previous fiancee, who  had  died tragically in the castle
well, when she  heard her  name being  called. She looked, and to
her horror, saw Deirdre standing by the stairs! The figure smiled
faintly, and ran  upstairs. Ian had seen a figure in white in the
Games  Room - it put  the light  out and ran. Iris had seen it on
the Tower Stairs.

The  butler,  Bolitho,  showed me to  my room.  Before he left, I
asked him about the ghost and he said  he had  seen it  searching
the floor in the New Great Hall  but it  fled when it saw him. He
gave  me an aerosol  that might  help me  and also said that if I
wanted  to  check my  appearance,  the mirrors  in the room would
adjust.   Too right, they did!  When he left, I tried moving them
and found  a switch  on the  wall mirror.  Behind it was a secret
passage.

After washing and changing, I wandered down for dinner. I noticed
Bolitho placed a note on Jack's napkin so I sneakily read it.  It
seemed  the  servants,  by arrangement  in  Lionel's  will,  were
leaving the castle once the gong had been rung for  dinner.  One,
Gladys, wouldn't be coming back. She had handed in her notice and
left an explanatory note on the desk in the sitting room. I vowed
to look for that later.

The meal was just getting pleasantly under way when a voice  came
from the bust of Lionel that was in the room! I examined the bust
and  found it was hollow with a tape recorder in  it.  Obviously,
Lionel had planned this evening well.  He said that there was one
valuable item he had brought back from his travels abroad  hidden
in  the  house.  The first clue to find it was hidden  under  the
punchbowl and Jack had the second.

I  read  them  both.  The  first  showed  a  skeleton  in Chinese
Mandarin costume. The second said:
   Two fellows argued about life!
1. Using this motto, no chap can go wrong,
   Leave the wench and the grape but go with a ____!
2. On the seas of my life that is laden
   Not with bottle or tunes, but with innocent ____s!
3. Women and singing are both very fine
   But for me there is nothing to equal great ____!

It  seemed to  me that  the ends  to these  verses would be song,
maidens and wine. The meal finished and with these three words on
my mind I set off to explore the castle.

In the library, I found a journal which was the diary of Lionel's
South  Pacific Expedition  and in the lumber room, a copy of  the
Readers Digest which had an article about the skull of Peking Man
vanishing  after the  attack on Pearl Harbour. I wondered if this
was the mysterious treasure we were all searching for.

In the sitting room was a piano and on it a  sheet of music which
I picked up and read. It was Beethoven's Suite  number 9. Someone
has drawn a star in red ink over the word SUIT.

Walking back towards the drawing room, I suddenly remembered what
Bolitho  had  told me about the ghost  searching in the New Great
Hall. I searched thoroughly myself and found a contact lens!

Inside  the drawing room, I had a close look at the tapestry that
was mentioned in the tourist guide. On it was a maiden and on the
maiden's arm was a star stitched in red thread.

I walked  through the kitchen, where I collected a lantern and on
to the basement.  In the basement, I found a wine rack. In it was
an  assortment of  wines. I  picked up a bottle from the rack and
saw  it had  a label  saying it  was wine  from  a Cornish vinery
called Our Own Vintage.  Someone had drawn a star in red ink over
the word OUR.

SUIT ..... arm .....OUR. Suit of armour! One was mentioned in the
guide  so I headed  back to the New Great Hall. Inside the armour
was the third clue. It read:
My al____ has no glamour,
Its ____e tones do clam____.
Can you find me?

Fitting  the  three  words  I had  found into the gaps, I came up
with:
My alARM has no glamour,
Its SUITe tones do clamOUR.
That suggested  a bell  to me so I  headed up to the roof where I
had seen a bell  on my wanderings. In it was a fossil skull - the
missing treasure mentioned in the Readers Digest!

I returned to the sitting room to read the maid's note. It seemed
she  had found something dreadful while cleaning  someone's  room
(no  name was mentioned) and also said that she refused  to  stay
under the same roof where "things" were going on.  At the end  of
the  note she said  that her dad had always reckoned that talking
to yourself was the first sign of a nutcase but that she believed
that doing the same on paper was also a sign of someone to watch.

I decided to search everyone's rooms and in Vivien's room I found
a  small plastic box  in her wooden box of artists' materials. It
was a contact lens box with a single  lens in it. Something  told
me  that  Vivien  was  connected  with  the  "ghost"  (I'm  not a
detective  for  nothing,  you  know!) and when I compared the two
lenses, they matched.

By  now it  was late and everyone drifted off to bed.  I used the
lantern to  explore the  secret passages.  While  I was wandering
along  them, who  should  turn up  but  the ghost!  She pointed a
blow gun at me! I remembered the aerosol Bolitho had  given me (I
had  examined  it closely  before  so knew  just  what to do) and
pressed the button on it.  The ghost's  face went  green  and she
collapsed!  I  grabbed the  blow  gun quickly  in  case  she came
round. The ghost had heavy make-up on so I  couldn't tell  who it
was (though I had a  fair idea)  so I  cleaned  her  face - I was

right - it  was Vivien!  When  I left  the passage, I went to her
room, which was empty, naturally, and waited....

After  a short  wait Vivien  turned  up and I asked her about the
blowgun. She said it was a fair cop  but that there was something
I didn't know that would put  matters  in a  different light. She
put her hand in the  wooden  box and  her jaw dropped as her hand
came  out  empty! Of course, I had the contact lens box. I looked
in the box  and found  a diary.  I read it.  It was tear-strained
and read 'Oh Deirdre, Jack will  pay dearly  for your cruel death
by losing his new sweetheart.'

I accused  her and  who should  appear to help me but Bolitho! It
appeared that Vivien had been  intensely attracted to Deirdre and
had  hated Jack  for coming between them.  She was convinced that
Deirdre's  death was  suicide, not an accident, because she  felt
abandoned by Jack. So  as revenge,  she had  started her reign of
terror against Tamara.