Host kit · 10–14 players · 3 hours

Death on the Night Train: the whole evening.

A free sample: the host guide, the invitation to send, the first prop, and the opening act of the player scripts. Everything else — the other acts, the words you say aloud and the sealed solution — unlocks with the paid kit below.

Back to the kit

The night train leaves Venice at nine and reaches Paris at seven. Past Innsbruck the snow closes the line, and Baron Felix Adler is found dead in his first-class compartment with the door bolted from the corridor. Everyone aboard is charming, none of them are innocent, and breakfast is served at dawn.

Before the night

Print the booklets and a ticket for each guest with their compartment number on it — the compartments become the tables for the evening.
Set the table as the dining car: white cloth, one small lamp, and a brass bell you can ring as the conductor.
Make the manifest and the compartment key in advance. The key that fits two doors is the clue guests will hand around all night.
Keep the room a little cold and serve something hot at the interval. It is a snowbound train, and the room should agree.

Running order

8:20 pmDinner in the dining car

Greet guests as the conductor, stamp their tickets, and seat them by compartment. Read the welcome and take the Act I pages.

9:05 pmThe stop at Innsbruck

Ring the bell, announce the halt, then the body and the bolted door. Hand out the evidence envelopes — one per compartment, not one per guest.

9:35 pmCoffee and the manifest

Serve something hot. This is the point where the table stops performing and starts working; give them fifteen minutes without interruption.

10:00 pmAct III — Arrival

Compare the conductor's register with the passenger manifest aloud, then take accusations in compartment order.

10:35 pmThe last platform

Read the solution, hand the guilty guest the confession card, and let the table re-argue it over the last of the coffee.

Seating

Seat guests in two facing pairs as compartments, with the conductor at the end where he can see every door. Put the widow opposite the diplomat and the nun between two people who will underestimate her. With more than ten guests, make a third compartment of 'second class' players who share a booklet.

If it goes wrong

If the table misses the manifest, have the conductor read the passenger list aloud and pause on the pencilled name.
If someone is being talked over, ring the bell and give them the floor for one full minute.
If the solution arrives early, point out that the dining car bill is for a meal nobody ordered — that is the detail nobody has explained yet.

After the night

The tickets make good bookmarks and guests will ask for them. The manifest goes back in the box; keep the pen stroke in pencil so it can be rubbed out.

Send this

The night train leaves Venice at nine. Baron Adler has a compartment to himself.

The Compagnie des Wagons-Lits requests the pleasure of your company aboard the overnight service to Paris, departing Venice Santa Lucia at nine o'clock on Friday, arriving Paris Est at seven.

Dinner will be served in the dining car at half past eight. First-class passengers are asked to keep to their compartments after eleven, and to keep their passports about them at all times.

You are invited as a passenger, a member of the crew, or a guest of the Baron. Please travel as the person named on your ticket — the conductor has a list and a very good memory.

Reply to the Continental booking office by Wednesday. Berths are held until twenty minutes before departure.

If you send it digitally

Send it as a ticket: the route in large type, the date, the compartment number, and the three paragraphs small beneath. Perforate the edge with a pin if you print it on card.

Three physical props carry this story. Each one is buildable in under half an hour with things you probably already have.

Prop 01 · 20 minutes

The pencilled manifest

Shows one passenger was added to the list after departure, which is the hinge of the solution.

What you need

Cream paper
A typewriter or neat capitals in black ink
A pencil
A clipboard

How to make it

Type nine passenger names in a numbered list, with compartments in the next column.
Add a tenth name in pencil at the bottom: 'F. ADLER — COMPT. 4'.
Rub the pencilled name lightly with your thumb so it looks written in a hurry and handled since.
Clip it to the board and leave it in the dining car where the conductor works.

Sealed in the paid kit

The other 2 props

The remaining build sheets: materials lists, cutting guides and the folds that make them convincing by candlelight.

Unlock the full kit — $34

Print one booklet per guest from these pages. Each act has a line to read aloud and a secret for that character alone — the lines are what the table hears, the secrets are why they lie.

Act I · 8:20 pm

Dinner in the Dining Car

Host: Stamp each ticket as conductor, welcome the table to the dining car, then take the Act I pages by compartment. Ring the bell once to close the act.

Herr Otto Brandt

The conductor

I have stamped every passport on this train twice and I trust none of them. The Baron is in compartment four and has asked not to be disturbed until Innsbruck, which is unusual, because the Baron is usually the one disturbing people.

Only you know You let a passenger aboard at Venice without a ticket because he paid you in francs and asked for compartment four's neighbour.

Lady Sylvie Ashcombe

The widow

I travel with nine trunks and one very small dog, and I have been a widow for six months, which is long enough to be interesting again. The Baron and I were at school together, in a manner of speaking.

Only you know The Baron was your husband's business partner and he has been sending you letters about a debt your husband left behind. You burned the last one in the corridor.

Milos Varga

The diplomat

I speak four languages and answer in a fifth, which is a professional necessity. I am travelling to Paris on business that does not concern this train, and I would prefer it stayed that way.

Only you know Your business is the Baron's: you were sent to buy the Adler shipping shares before the market opened, and he had refused to sell at any price.

Sister Clare

The nun

I carry medical supplies and a perfect memory for names, and I have been travelling since vespers. The Baron's name is one I remember from a hospital in Trieste, though I doubt he would remember me.

Only you know You are not a nun. You are the Baron's first wife, declared dead in the war, and you have been looking for him for eleven years.

Sealed in the paid kit

The other 2 acts

Every remaining character script, the line they read and the secret they are protecting, laid out to print and fold into booklets.

Unlock the full kit — $34

The welcome

“Good evening, and welcome to the dining car of the Paris express. Dinner is served at half past eight, the Baron is in compartment four and has asked not to be disturbed, and the train stops at Innsbruck for twelve minutes. Please keep your passports about you — the conductor has a list and a very good memory.”

Sealed in the paid kit

The dinner toast and the accusation

The two speeches that open the second half and close the night, with the cue for when to stand up and how to hand over the confession.

Unlock the full kit — $34

Host’s eyes only

The culprit, the method, and how the clues fit

The solution never appears on this page. It arrives with the paid kit, sealed, to be read aloud only after every guest has accused.

Unlock the full kit — $34

Unlock

Everything, printed.

What you have just read is the sample. One payment unlocks the whole kit on this page — every act, the props, the speeches and the solution — ready to print the moment the card clears.

3 acts of player scripts, one booklet per guest
3 prop build sheets
The dinner toast, the accusation and the cue list
The sealed solution, for the host only

One payment, one kit, yours to print again for the next party. Bought it already? Open the printable kit.