Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

The baron now asked his guests to adjourn to the music room for the parlor game he had promised. Ganelon was so shaken by the Nawab’s words, he hardly heard him. The Ararat Red, he knew, was the pride of Dr. Ludwig Fong’s fabled collection. Could Fong have used the ruby to hire an assassin to kill the Nawab? And wasn’t it said that the Gooseberry Fool had a weakness for precious stones?

Pondering this grim possibility, Ganelon followed the others into the music room. The curtains had been drawn shut and seven armchairs set around the walls at ten-foot intervals. The baroness had taken her place at the piano. Ganelon wondered if the parlor game was to be musical chairs. He had been bringing up the rear and found the only chair left was between the baron and Gruber, directly across the room from the Nawab.

The baron cleared his throat and said, “In a moment the servants will take away the lamps and leave us in darkness. Then my wife will begin to play. With the darkness and the music to protect his identity, I beg the one who stole the Nawab’s cufflink to return it. Place it in that bowl on the piano and the matter will be closed forever.”

Ganelon shook his head firmly and went over and protested in the baron’s ear, “I don’t like this. The Nawab’s life...”

“But it was the Nawab who suggested this little bit of entertainment,” replied the baron.

His words made Ganelon’s resolve stumble. The detective went back and sat down in confusion.

“My dear baron,” called the Nawab, who seemed to be enjoying himself, “I hope you’re not placing a valuable bowl in harm’s way. Major Sowerby knows silver. May he...?”

The baron agreed. Sowerby went and picked up the bowl, turned it over, and judged it a very fine piece.

“Which I am prepared to risk,” said the baron.

Suddenly the Nawab’s little manservant rushed into the room in considerable distress and whispered to his master. The Nawab smiled, patted his forearm reassuringly, and dismissed him. At the baron’s signal the lamps were removed and the baroness began a vigorous polka.

Ganelon sat in the darkness for several minutes contemplating how very close he had come to making a fool of himself. Then he thought of what Father Sylvanus had said. Fool or not, at least he could have the courage of his convictions. Suppose the whole business about the cufflink had been leading up to this dark moment. What if the Gooseberry Fool was in the room?

Ganelon sprang up, stumbled to a window, and threw open the curtains.

The piano stopped. Everyone sat, blinking at the afternoon light. Except for the Nawab. He was quite dead in his chair, his head thrown back, lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling, the mark of the strangler’s thumbs on his windpipe.

The baroness uttered a small cry.

Ganelon had failed the Nawab. But he resolved to do everything he could to find his murderer. “Send for the police,” he told the baron. He looked around at the guests and added, “No one must leave this room until they arrive.” Then he turned to Sowerby. “Can you clarify things, Major?”

Sowerby started to protest. Then the wind went out of him. “I didn’t kill him, I swear to that. The Nawab was very embarrassed by the baron’s fuss over the cufflink. So I proposed this little parlor game. He passed the suggestion on to our host. What his excellency didn’t tell the baron was that he was going to give me the remaining cufflink to slip into the bowl. When the lights came back on, there it would be. The baron’s honor would be satisfied. The Nawab would get the cufflink back and be no worse off than before.”

“So that’s what the Nawab’s manservant came to tell him, that now the second cufflink was missing?”

“Correct.”

Thorwald had gone to the piano. “But the bowl’s empty,” he said.

“Because you never put it there, did you, Major?” said Ganelon. “You palmed the second cufflink. Now you had the pair.”

Avoiding everyone’s eyes, Sowerby produced the two sapphire cufflinks and handed them to Ganelon, who passed them on to the baron. “Cipriani gave me the first cufflink the morning he left,” Sowerby told them. “Said he found it. Said I could return it to the Nawab. Or, he said, I could suggest this little game and end up with both. Somehow he knew I was being pressed hard to repay certain gambling debts. As he pointed out, a matching pair would go a long way to settling things.”

“But when the second cufflink went missing, wouldn’t the Nawab have suspected you?” asked Hardacre.

“Not if Sowerby killed the Nawab to shut him up,” said Gruber.

Sowerby shook his head. “Cipriani had the answer to that one, too. He knew how the Nawab liked his little ethical puzzles. He suggested I cloud the issue by wondering out loud what might happen if the thief actually tried to return the stolen cufflink in the darkness and discovered its mate in the bowl. Might he not consider the second cufflink a reward for his newfound honesty and keep both? This possibility intrigued the Nawab.”