Venice Under Glass Demo

Appearances notwithstanding, I was, in fact, in Venice for business reasons. While a trip down the Grand Canal could have been, on another occasion leisurely, perhaps even romantic, it was on this occasion serious business.

I was sent for by an old friend of the family who had long ago retired to Venice. "Uncle" Clive was an avid collector of antique Venetian glass - the old museum-quality pieces - and these were "disappearing" from his palazzo. He offered no other explanation, sounding rather astonished on the phone. The call came in just after Valentine's Day. It was my first case in the New Year and I accepted the assignment eagerly, although I didn't know a thing about Venetian glass - antique or otherwise. Uncle Clive insisted I come anyway.

So, looking forward to a new challenge, I drove up to San Francisco International taking the long route via the coast road from Carmel. I sometimes take the long way to go somewhere; this clears my head and helps prepare for detective work. On the overnight flight to Paris, I slept off and on and sat for a while with two stewardesses, who had earlier enlisted my aid in the airport lounge to find their lost day-planners (imagine!). But I was rewarded with a visit to the cockpit and for an hour, sat with the captain and crew and swapped horror stories. Pilots' humor can be disconcerting when you're in the air. I suppose they feel the same way about crime stories on the ground.

Landed in Paris at 7:45 a.m. local time, a little bleary-eyed. I taxied over to Le Gare de l'Est and boarded the train for Venice. Within ten minutes, my ticket had been punched, my bags stowed and your's truly, safely and snugly installed in my private compartment (the French are very efficient in these matters). I thought I might try to stay awake for the first part of the trip, so I rang the cabin steward for his strongest coffee and settled back with a copy of The Times. Half an hour outside Paris, we were in the country and heading towards the Swiss Alps. My eyes fell lazily from the paper and out the window, where the lush green zipped by in a Degas-abstraction streaked with intermittent patches of snow. The soft, steady klop-klp klop-klp klop-klp of the tracks was hypnotic, singing me into a daze. I leaned my face against the glass and it was sun-warmed and felt good on my cheek. I realized then that jet-lag was catching up with me, and by 10:00 a.m. I was soundly napping.

The steward woke me at 3:30 to announce tea, and twenty minutes later I left my cabin feeling fresh, well rested and in happy anticipation of a first-class meal. But in the dining car, I found a commotion utterly incongruous with this most civilized of daily rituals. A fellow traveler, whom I had briefly met upon arrival, had organized a lottery with what seemed to be the entire population of the car. They were all betting on how many cows they'd see on the next hill coming round. We were still over an hour out of Zurich and passing through a late afternoon of lovely rural green. Since there were so many hills coming round (and an obliging abundance of cows), the wagering grew increasingly animated. I was drawn in for a while myself, but the stakes got rather high and I tactfully retreated to my table. Didn't see the sense getting all caught up in a silly game whose odds depended on bovine grazing habits. When tea was served, the passenger who was the tall center of the game walked to where I was sitting.

This preview package contains a movie trailer and a very small playable demo.