Murder, Inc. Escape Room: The Back of Midnight Rose's

Five Families escape room guide · Saratoga & Livonia Avenues, Brownsville · February 1940

The candy store under the el where Brooklyn's killers-for-hire waited for the phone to ring. Somebody's talking. The Murder, Inc. is one of the Five Families escape rooms: a 3D recreation of a real scene from mob history that you walk around as your own mobster, searching for evidence and cracking a four-digit padlock before the clock runs out. This guide covers the real story behind the room, what you'll find inside, and how to get out.

The real story

Midnight Rose's candy store stood at the corner of Saratoga and Livonia Avenues in Brownsville, Brooklyn, beneath the elevated train. It stayed open around the clock, and the killers who worked for the syndicate used it as their waiting room.

The store was run by Rose Gold, whom the neighbourhood called 'Midnight Rose' because she never closed. Investigators later said the gang used the store as its base for years.

Candy stores were the social centre of 1930s Brooklyn street corners: soda fountains, newspapers, comics, cigarettes and a telephone.

Harry 'Pittsburgh Phil' Strauss was one of the crew's most feared killers, and the ice pick became notorious as one of the weapons associated with Murder, Inc.

Once Reles and other informers began talking in 1940, the crew's records mattered less than their memories. Reles gave prosecutors details of dozens of killings, and the Brooklyn combination fell apart within two years.

Informers were the crew's undoing. Reles' own death in 1941, a fall from a guarded hotel window, has been argued about ever since.

Setting the scene

Midnight Rose's never closes. Out front it's a candy store on the corner of Saratoga and Livonia: penny candy, egg creams, comic books. Out back, behind the stock shelves, is where the boys sit around a card table all night waiting for the phone to ring.

When it rings, somebody in Brooklyn doesn't wake up.

Tonight the word is out: the DA's men are picking up the crew, and one of them has started talking. Before they get here, the open contracts have to disappear: the slips, the numbers, anything with a name on it.

The el rattles overhead. Rose is serving a customer out front and pretending not to see you. Get through the shop to the back room, clean it out, then get out through the yard. The gate to the alley is padlocked.

Before you get inside, you make your own way there. Walk down Livonia Avenue under the elevated tracks on a freezing February night, past the delicatessen and the pawn shop, to Midnight Rose's. A green arrow shows you the door.

Three rooms in one

The Murder, Inc. isn't one room, it's three, and you only see the next one once you've earned it. Each has three things to search. Search everything in the room you're in and a door unlocks, a glowing arrow shows you the way through, and the next part of the scene opens up. The clock keeps running the whole time: 5 minutes for all three.

The padlock code is spread across all three, so you can't escape from Midnight Rose's. Move fast in the first room: the last room is where people run out of time.

What you'll find in each room

There are 9 things to search in the Murder, Inc., three in each room. 4 of them hide a digit of the padlock code, 2 are dead ends put there to waste your time, and the rest fill in the story. The ice chest, the cigar box on the card table and the telephone stay locked until you've found 3 clues. The el timetable, the coal bunker and the gate to the alley stay locked until you've found 6 clues.

First room: Midnight Rose's

Second room: The back room

Third room: The yard

Murder, Inc. escape room walkthrough

1. Take in the room. Drag to look around and walk with the stick or arrow keys. Question marks show everything you can search.
2. Clear each room. Search all three things in Midnight Rose's and the way through to the back room unlocks. Clear that and you're into the yard. Follow the glowing arrow to the next door.
3. Find the four digits. Each piece of evidence that matters gives you one digit, and tells you which position it goes in. Stuck? The hints below point you to the right room, not the answer.
4. Ignore the red herrings. Some items look important and aren't. Don't spend the clock on them.
5. Open the padlock with the four digits in order, before the 5 minutes run out.
6. Make the call. You'll choose how it ends: Burn the slips in the stove, then walk out through the shop like a customer; Keep the slips: insurance, in case you need something to trade later; Lock yourself in the back room and wait for them to leave. Each ending tells you what really happened.

Tips for escaping

• Read each piece of evidence to the end: the digit is usually in the last line.
• If the clock's getting away from you, a hint costs 25 Mob Coins and an extra minute costs 50.
• Holding a drink or a cigar from the Social Club gives you 20 extra seconds in every room.
• On a phone, turn it sideways for a wider view. Your evidence, digits and the padlock are in the pull-out case file.

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Questions

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