Original mysteryNo. 1581 hr 14 minHercule Poirot
Isle of Wight, 1940: the Belgian Detective and his loyal companion answer a desperate letter from a frightened woman at a quiet farm near Godshill, where a blunt farmer dismisses his sister as hysterical, a pale young housekeeper is hated by everyone in the house for reasons no one will say aloud, and a latch in the gun room was opened in the night; when the farm's one honest man is shot dead in the lower meadow with a scrap of blue dress in his hand, the housekeeper's apron in the barn, and a fired shotgun in the neighbour's pigsty, the evidence points one way too quickly and too neatly — because the gun that killed him was not fired by a hand but fixed in a hedge, tied with a cord, and triggered by a basket filled with mushrooms no one had gathered, placed to lure a man who had seen too much; inspired by the real death of Frank Cave at Godshill (1940) while remaining entirely fictional, The Shot at Godshill is an original Golden Age–style mystery about staged evidence, farm rivalries, and the discovery that the most dangerous person on a quiet English farm is not the stranger but the man who has always been in charge.
Free to listen, in full, with no account and no password. Your place is remembered in this browser, so you can stop and come back.
Every story on Nocturnal Tales is free, and stays free. Listeners who choose to give are the reason there is a new one tomorrow.
This is our work and what we live on: two of us, writing and producing a story every night. Giving here goes straight to us, rather than through a platform that can change its mind overnight. Why donations are important.
or
Give with PayPalPayPal opens in a new page. Monthly support is easiest to manage through the card option.
No story is ever locked. Payment is handled securely by Stripe — we never see your card details. You can change or cancel your support at any time, from this page, with no explanation needed.
Tell us what you made of this one. No account and no password — just a name.
Hercule Poirot
London in the fog, and a block of mansion flats in Battersea where a man has been found dead in his own bath. The dead man is an architect. He was seen alive the previous evening, the door was locked from within, and the water was long cold by the time anybody thought to look.
2 hr 18 minNo. 250
Lady Molly of Scotland Yard
The newspaper-reading public called it the Somersetshire Outrage, and to this day, as far as the public is concerned, it was never properly explained at all. A young shop assistant named Jane Turner is found in her lodgings at Weston, tied to a chair with a rope, a shawl over her head, half-slipping to the floor.
by Baroness Orczy
46 minNo. 249
Hercule Poirot
New Orleans, the spring of nineteen thirty-three. There are certain cities which, even before one has committed a crime in them, seem already to know the secret. Arthur and the Belgian Detective have come for a rest.
1 hr 14 minNo. 248
Max Carrados
It begins with Max Carrados greeting his friend Carlyle at the door and remarking that he has a mystery about him somewhere. He can hear it in the man's step. The mystery is a railway disaster.
by Ernest Bramah
1 hr 7 minNo. 247