A murder mystery game set in Paris in 1850 based on Edgar AllenPoe’s “Murder in the Rue Morgue.” The game features two friendswho, although partners in a business of personal property estateappraisals, often find themselves in the middle of a crime scene.

Auguste Lapin is a former chemist whose wife, Marie, was murdered.The police never arrested the perpetrator, and the case remainsunsolved. This murder was a crucial event in Lapin’s life. Hisinability to come to terms with his emotions surrounding Marie’smurder led him to transfer them onto two other murder victims,Madame L’Espagnol and her daughter Florinda. Throughout hiscondition of living, Lapin uses L’Espagnol as a surrogate for hisconflicting emotions and desires. This confusion leads to adepression, from which he has never fully recovered. He sometimesdrinks and uses snuff, so he expiates his guilt by solving themurders of poor lonely women that appear his way. Madame andher daughter are routinely contacted in seances to help determinethe identity of the murderer. However, they don’t always have ananswer. Like Edgar Alan Poe, Lapin uses leeches to control hisrecurrent headaches.

Lapin’s partner, known only as “Papillon,” dropped out of schooland joined the Foreign Legion, from which he escaped while on duty. Also into karmic phenomena and communing with spirits, Papillonwas engaged in minor crimes, such as housebreaking, and was oftenhomeless. After serving some time in jail and suffering a bout ofdysentery, during which he developed an ulcer in his stomach thesize of an orangutan fist, Papillon stopped drinking and beganworking as a courier. He and Lapin write mystery books that do notsell. Bu it is their secret love for the supernatural brings themtogether as they discover their shared love for communicating withthe dead and a an inclination toward inquisitiveness.

Forced to reassess their lives, the two men hope their newfoundfriendship will lead to story ideas and resolving unsolved murders.But while Lapin and Papillon don’t think of themselves as sleuths,they are just as interested in appraising a phony diamond as dealingwith a dead body. Mysteries have a habit of following them around.