text: [Themes: Mystery, steampunk]
  
  > describe your surroundings
  I'm standing in the cold, early evening shadow of the Mindflower ASYLUM for the Criminally Insane - a tall, crooked building with barred WINDOWS and a sunken DOOR.
  
  TOWNHOUSES are packed in tightly on all sides, but a deathly silence pervades. The only sign of life is an ORNITHOPTER sailing high overhead.
  
  My motor CAR sits to one side of the cobbled road.
  
  > Windows
  The asylum's windows are raised up out of reach, seem far too small to afford much of a view, and are covered over with thick bars besides.
  
  > Inventory
  I am carrying a BOWLER hat, a CANE, and a police BADGE, and I'm wearing a three-piece SUIT.
  
  > Suit
  There being no consistent dress code for murder scenes, I tend to dress as if for a funeral. My suit is black and carefully pressed.
  
  > Hat
  It's the nature of this line of work that my bowler spends more time in my hands than on my head.
  
  > CAR
  My own personal vehicle. A bit of an expense, but I have to spend my inheritance on something.
  
  > CANE
  A simple but sturdy walking stick, necessary since I was shot by an accomplice of the Bottle Street Strangler.
  
  > ASYLUM
  Mindflower used to be a medieval gaol where murderers and debtors rubbed shoulders. The centuries old, eroded stone may now be run through with the gleaming pipes of a modern heating system, but those confined here are no more likely to leave with their wits intact.
  
  > Townhouses
  And I thought the Old Warren could be a depressing place. The houses around the asylum are dilapidated and crooked - their roofs sagging and windows cracked.
  
  Clearly only those who can't afford better live in the shadow of the madhouse.
  
  > Door
  The asylum's main entrance is a featureless door of the thickest metal, fitting flush against the sides of a deep alcove. There's no handle or lock - just a small BUTTON on the wall.
  
  A small grating is set into the door at eye level.
  
  > Grating
  The grating is thick and sturdy. Beyond it, I can see only darkness.
  
  > Xyzzy
  Your tiresome magic can hardly withstand my relentless reasoning.
  
  > Button
  I push the button beside the door and a harsh electric buzzer sounds. Instantly, a narrow pair of EYES appear behind the grating, studying me carefully. A gruff voice asks uncertainly, "Are you... a patient here?"
  
  I suppose I could IDENTIFY myself, or come back with some SNARK.
  
  > Snark
  "Do I look like I'm a patient here?" I ask condescendingly.
  
  The voice remains tactfully silent, which is an answer in itself.
  
  I sigh and hold my badge up to the grating. "I'm a police detective. Let me in."
  
  The voice scoffs. "You could've fooled me, mate."
  
  But the door slowly rumbles open all the same.
  
  When you're ready, I can go IN.
  
  > Go inside
  As soon as I'm inside the asylum, I begin feeding the guard half-truths and exaggerations. He nods wordlessly and leads me through narrow, white-walled passages that echo with manic cackles and miserable sobs.
  
  "This is the one," my guide says, stopping suddenly. "Miss Ivy Blissheart. Strictly no visitors, it says. But I don't suppose they meant policemen."
  
  The guard slams shut the door and I hear several bolts and locks being closed. So this is where she ended up, thanks to me: a padded cell, lit harshly by a bare electric BULB. Only the small WINDOW set into the DOOR hints at a world beyond its claustrophobic confines.
  
  A bulky WINCH has been bolted incongruously to the wall.
  
  Silhouette - IVY, I mean, is hanging upside-down from the ceiling, tied up in a straitjacket.
  
  She cranes her neck awkwardly to try and look at me. "Is it MORNING already? Time flies when you're all TRUSSED up like this."
  
  > Ivy
  It's difficult to get a good look at her as she hangs upside-down like this, spinning slowly back and forth. But there is that impression of elfish mischief written into her features that I remember so well from her arrest. And her scandalously boyish hair is not so short that it can't trail below her in unruly curls.
  
  Ivy is wearing a STRAITJACKET.
  
  "Hey," she suddenly exclaims. "I know you, don't I? No hard feelings about the whole incarcerating me thing, Inspector. I'm just glad you came to visit."
  
  > Bulb
  Painful to look at. It casts sharply defined shadows against the featureless walls.
  
  > Trussed
  I look over the straitjacket. "Did they put you in this thing the right way up?"
  
  Ivy laughs dryly. "CRIME, the good doctor believes, is the result of insufficient blood flow to the brain. So, you know, gravity's not my friend - and sleeping like a bat's the best TREATMENT."
  
  "I can call you Ivy, can't I?" I suddenly think to ask.
  
  "Of course you can," she says. "As long as I can call you... Um..."
  
  "Nathaniel. Or 'Nate' if that's too much of a mouthful."
  
  > Straightjacket
  The long white sleeves of the straitjacket are wrapped tightly around Ivy - completely restraining her arms.
  
  "I could get out of this real quick," Ivy says, "if only I was the right way up."
  
  > Treatment
  I'm almost afraid to ask. "Is this the worst thing they do to you?"
  
  "Pretty much. I think they're still working out what to make of me.
  I get plenty of peace and quiet, of course, so my fragile feminine mind can keep its uncontrollable emotions this side of HYSTERIA."
  
  She attempts an upside-down shrug. "Hey, it's better than breaking rocks in PRISON, right?"
  
  "Assuming," I say carefully, "they don't go so far as a LOBOTOMY."
  
  Ivy says, "Um, what?"
  
  > Lobotomy
  "Do you feel like you're responding to the treatment?" I ask.
  
  Ivy snorts with laughter. "Well, I keep throwing up when they hang me upside-down. That's a response, right?"
  
  My hair's fallen over my eye. I brush it back. "Eventually, they'll intervene physically."
  
  "You mean beating me?"
  
  "I mean cutting into your brain. It's been shown to result in a more placid personality." Gauging her expression, I add, "Don't worry. That's why I'm here. To HELP."
  
  > Hysteria
  I study Ivy's carefree expression. "You don't seem hysterical to me."
  
  "All bold women get the diagnosis sooner or later," she says with a wink. "It's almost a compliment."
  
  > Winch
  The winch seems to be the main mechanism for raising and lowering whichever poor soul is assigned this bizarre treatment.
  
  I certainly intend to let Ivy down eventually... but I'd like to try and explain my proposition to her first.
  
  > Crime
  "You know," I say, "with the talent, cunning and ingenuity you put to work disrupting the city, you could have done some amazing things on the right side of the law."
  
  "Don't think I didn't try," she says. "But somehow, society took one look at me and figured I'd be best put to use working a loom for ten hours a day."
  
  I twist my cane in my hand. "Now that should be criminal."
  
  She laughs. "And yet I'm the one you ARREST."
  
  > Arrest
  "Ivy," I begin, "I feel rather rotten that I actually caught you. I got carried away with unravelling the mystery, and I didn't stop to think about what they'd do once they got you."
  
  She pulls a face. "Don't be. You're a policeman, and I broke laws, didn't I? And maybe I got carried away too. I don't think I'd actually thought it through as far as winding up in PRISON or wherever."
  
  > PRISON
  "It kind of makes me angry," I say.
  
  Ivy looks at me strangely. "You have a very sedate angry face, but what does?"
  
  "That you should have just been given a short prison sentence. And instead you wind up in here, indefinitely, at the mercy of unsupervised quacks."
  
  "It makes me angry too," she says. "But not at you. You weren't even at the TRIAL."
  
  > Trial
  I clear my throat. "I'm sorry I wasn't at the trial. It was my case. I should have been there, but..."
  
  She finishes for me. "But they thought you might say things in my favour, and they presented your evidence without you. It's okay, I figured it out."
  
  > Police
  "It's odd," I muse aloud. "You're happy to sabotage the discipline machine in a workhouse, but not to assist the one occupation where you have the legal power to stop abuse and suffering."
  
  Ivy snorts. "And yet it always seems to be people like me they use that power against instead."
  
  "Maybe 'they' do. But I don't. You've ruffled the feathers of some powerful people. But you're small fry compared to me. I've put powerful people away for life."
  
  "Well, I'll try anything once," Ivy says. "How does this PRESS thing work, anyway?"
  
  > Press
  "All you have to do is agree to provide..." I clear my throat, "invaluable and urgent assistance to my police work. And then I can walk you out of here. I have the paperwork on me."
  
  "Invaluable? Okay, okay," Ivy says, "anything, just as long as I'm the right way up."
  
  I rub my hands together. "Great! I'll see about getting you down."
  
  "Gently!" Ivy warns.