Finished listening?

Exactly, Puzzler! Ernie stepped forward, turned to Ells and Kip and shouted, “Quickly, we need to save a sandwich!”

Kip stared open-mouthed in confusion, and Ells exclaimed, “I know you missed lunch, but why are you talking about food? There’s blood oozing under this door!” To which Ernie confidently replied, “Nope. I know my PB&Js, and this is jelly.” He wafted the air towards himself and added, “Strawberry, if I’m not mistaken.”

Another detective might have hesitated, but Ells had seen Ernie make far more impressive scent-based deductions. So she reached for the door knob and, when she found it locked, gave a knock and loudly asked if anyone in there needed help. Almost immediately, Muriel opened the door, broom in hand, and told them that she would appreciate help, but only if they brought a mop, because this strawberry jelly was sticky.

Kip watched, mouth still hanging open, as Ernie performed a jumping heel-click in celebration of his correct deduction. When Kip snapped out of his daze, he asked if Muriel had the violin ready for Della. Muriel nodded and invited the trio in, telling them to step carefully over the jelly as she whispered a singsong, “Step in the jam, and you’ll fall and go bam!” It sounded to me like it could be one of those superstitious sayings, but it also might just be a fact.

Anyway, Ells and Ernie were immediately amazed at what seemed to be a dragon’s hoard of objects that were piled around the room on bookcases and shelves. Despite their keen eyes, Ells and Ernie couldn’t discern a pattern to the chaos, but Muriel had no such problem. After glancing around the room for a second, she pointed to a violin case propped precariously in the corner.

As Kip went to collect the violin, Muriel turned to Ells and Ernie and apologized for her gruffness earlier in the day. She admitted that she was a little short on lunch and that had left her unfortunately hangry. Ernie was quick to sympathize with her.

Kip told Ells and Ernie that he needed to finish the errands for Della, so he’d leave them to find their way back to her dressing room on their own. With his arms full of the too-heavy coat, and the violin, and its case, Kip made his way precariously past the jellied floor, insisting that he didn’t need any help.

Ells and Ernie assisted Muriel with cleaning up the sticky mess and Ells asked Muriel if the jelly was used for a sound effect. Before Muriel could answer, Ernie made several SQUISH sounds to demonstrate. Muriel replied that no, the jelly wasn’t the result of a sound effect. She just hadn’t had time to clean it up yet, because she did all of the sound effects herself. She explained that she kept all sorts of things, just in case they came in handy for a sound effect one day. For example, Muriel’s usual lunch order came with two mini jelly jars. She always ate one and saved the other one in a bigger jar, which she called the jelly jar jar.

Muriel described how when she put a couple mini jelly jars into the jelly jar jar earlier that day, the shelf that the jelly jar jar was on came crashing down. It was especially chaotic because a bunch of wind-up chattering teeth were stored on the same shelf, and they started to swarm her after it collapsed.

Ells asked if that was the reason that Muriel had missed the thunder cue during the matinee showing. In a bit of a huff, Muriel asserted that she didn’t miss any cue. She told the detectives that how it was supposed to work is that she pulls a lever, which triggers bowling balls to fall. Then the balls crash down on a wobbly sheet of metal so the audience hears thunder. But today, she pulled the lever and nothing happened.

By the time she realized the rope that connected the lever to the bowling ball release mechanism was severed, the actors had already moved on and she had to hurry to the next sound effect. She grumbled to herself that she would now have to rush to fix it. She didn’t have any more rope since the director gave her almost no budget for supplies, so she would have to go track some down.

The detectives asked her if she suspected foul play. Muriel was quick to dismiss that suggestion, because she kept the door locked at all times, even when she was in the room. In fact, Muriel told them, she’s been extra sure to keep the door locked since a few weeks ago. On that day, she had walked into the room and found that someone had knocked over and broken a vase that was absolutely perfect for making echoes.

As Muriel looked misty-eyed into the distance, mourning her perfect echo vase, Ernie whispered to Ells, “If the door is always locked, does that make this a locked-room mystery?” to which Ells squealed a quiet “I think so!” They exchanged a discreet low-five. Muriel looked at the time and told the detectives that she didn’t even care what happened, she just needed to fix the mechanism. Their detective instincts activated and Ells and Ernie asked if they could look around the room just for one minute. Muriel started a timer and watched the detectives as they took in the space.

They saw everything from a jack-in-the-box, to a blowtorch, to a bass drum, to a bear trap, to a pile of bricks, but nothing that would connect to the rope having been cut. As their sixty seconds ticked away, the detectives noted that the ceiling was open for sound to escape, but they could tell that the walls were far too high for anyone to have climbed over. Ernie nudged Ells and pointed to a napkin from Chip’s Diner that had “Sorry, no biscuit today” scrawled next to today’s date. Ells registered that clue, then noticed a scrap of paper on the floor almost lost under a bookshelf. As she grabbed the paper, she glanced out the door and saw the back of someone in a lilac pinstripe suit walking down the hall. She called a “thank you” to Muriel, pulled Ernie out of the sound effects room, and exclaimed, “We have to go, it appears a costume–”

You know the drill. Tell me the end of that sentence and then we can talk about what happened next! Go ahead and press continue now.