Host kit · 8–12 players · 2.5 hours

The Gilded Cage: 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 glasshouse at Fairholt is the pride of the estate and the obsession of a botanist who trusts plants more than people. The under-gardener is found among the orchids with the doors locked and the birds silent, and the household must decide which bloom was the murder weapon.

Before the night

Print the booklets and give the illustrator the one with the herbarium plates in it — she will want to draw during the evening, and that is exactly right.
Fill the room with greenery: a branch in a jug, a fern, anything that makes the table feel like a glasshouse at dusk. Scent matters more than decoration here.
Make the herbarium sheet and the seed tin in advance. The pressed orchid is the centrepiece, so press it under a heavy book for a few days if you have the time.
Keep one window or door open and let the room cool as the evening goes on. This kit is about a glasshouse at night.

Running order

6:50 pmThe catalogue

Hand each guest a booklet and a small card with a plant name on it — that is their 'specimen' for the evening. Let them find their places.

7:00 pmAct I — The Catalogue

Read the welcome as the housekeeper, then take the Act I pages. End on the discovery that a specimen has been cut, and the cut is fresh.

7:35 pmDinner

Serve the main course. This is a two-and-a-half-hour kit, so one course and a good pudding is plenty.

7:45 pmAct II — The Glasshouse

Announce the body, the locked door and the broken pane. Hand out evidence, then let the table argue for twenty minutes.

8:30 pmAct III — The Specimen

Pass the herbarium around and ask each guest to explain their own handwriting in the ledger before accusing.

9:00 pmThe last bloom

Read the solution, hand the guilty guest the confession card, and open a window. The room will need it.

Seating

Seat the botanist's wife at the head, the gardener nearest the door, and the illustrator beside the wife so she can draw her while she talks. With more than eight players, give the extra guests 'visiting society' cards and let them sit together.

If it goes wrong

If the table misses the poison, have the gardener notice the tin of seeds labelled as tea and pass it round without comment.
If someone is dominating, ask the illustrator to describe the room as she would draw it. It resets the attention beautifully.
If the evening runs fast, read the herbarium plates aloud and let the table match them to the guests.

After the night

The pressed orchid goes home with whoever solved it. Everything else is reusable — the seed tin should be emptied and washed before storage.

Send this

The glasshouse at Fairholt is open for one evening only.

Mrs. Beatrice Vale requests the pleasure of your company at a private viewing of Dr. Vale's orchid collection, at Fairholt, on Friday at seven. The glasshouse will be lit and the birds will be quiet.

Dr. Vale will speak about the new specimens and the herbarium, and asks that guests do not touch the plants, the labels, or the ledger.

You are invited as a member of the household or a guest of it. Please come in the character named on your card, and please come with an interest in botany you may not entirely feel.

Reply to the Fairholt estate office by Wednesday. The glasshouse holds twelve comfortably and fourteen badly.

If you send it digitally

Send it on a pale green ground with a fine botanical rule at the top. Keep the three paragraphs and add one line at the foot: 'THE DOORS ARE LOCKED AT SEVEN.'

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

Prop 01 · 30 minutes

The herbarium sheet

The missing label that proves a specimen was removed and recorded by someone else.

What you need

Heavy cream paper
A pressed leaf or flower
Thin strips of linen tape
A fine-liner and a label card

How to make it

Lay the pressed specimen in the centre of the sheet and fix it with three small strips of tape across the stem.
Write the species name in Latin-looking capitals at the bottom left, and leave the collector's name and date blank.
Add a faint pencil note in the corner: 'label removed — see ledger'.
Slip it inside a book or under the plates on the sideboard, and have the illustrator find it in Act II.

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 — $30

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 · 7:00 pm

The Catalogue

Host: Welcome the table as the housekeeper, hand round the specimen cards, then take each guest's Act I page in turn. End on the fresh cut and the locked glasshouse door.

Dr. Rowan Vale

The botanist

I have named a carnation after my wife and an orchid after my enemy, and I intend to be remembered for both. The collection is complete except for one specimen, and I would like to know who cut it.

Only you know You cut the specimen yourself, to send to a rival who has offered to buy the collection and the estate with it.

Mrs. Beatrice Vale

The wife

I have the keys to every lock in this house and the ear of every servant in it, and I have been Mrs. Vale for nineteen years without once being asked about the orchids.

Only you know You have been selling cuttings from the collection for two years to pay off your brother's debts, and Rowan found the ledger this week.

Silas Crumb

The head gardener

I know what grows at night when nobody is watching, and I know which of these plants would kill a man in a glass of water. I also know who has been asking me about them.

Only you know You told the illustrator which plants were dangerous, and you have regretted it since Tuesday.

Miss Lottie Dean

The visiting illustrator

I draw the specimens beautifully and the household accurately, and I am paid for the first and threatened for the second. The plates in my portfolio are worth more than the plants.

Only you know You have been drawing the household as well as the orchids, and Rowan found the drawings and told you he would have you removed from Fairholt.

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 — $30

The welcome

“Welcome to the glasshouse at Fairholt. The collection is at its best by lamplight, the birds have been covered for the evening, and Dr. Vale asks that you touch nothing — particularly the labels. The doors are locked at seven and opened again at nine, which is generally enough time for a botanical education.”

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 — $30

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 — $30

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.