Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003

Am I the only outsider here? I wondered resentfully. They’re all paid-up members of the Tilbrook St. George Self-Appreciation Society (Founded 1415)!

The Hall was only five minutes’ walk from the church. A gable end was visible above the surrounding trees and the five-shafted cluster of a chimney stack broke the skyline. Fifteenth-century was my first impression. A fine house. A gracious and welcoming house. I was shown into the library and a tray of coffee was placed at my elbow while Edward went off to break the news of the death to his son Rupert, “still abed” according to the housekeeper, and to his father, the current Lord Brancaster, an invalid who kept to his room. I passed the time taking from my briefcase the file on Tilbrook Church. Meticulously kept, the notes went back for thirty years. The building was in first-class condition, scrupulously kept up by the Hartest family. The damage to Alienore had been caused by an overzealous Victorian insertion of iron cramps and I had been called in to advise on the restoration. Intrigued to see the original appearance of the tomb, I spread out on the library table a set of black-and-white photographs we kept as a record in the file.

I looked and looked again at the pictures of the original Alienore, intrigued and mystified. I compared them with the startling scene I had just witnessed and, unbelieving, I began to arrive at a shocking conclusion. And then there was the Latin inscription running round the tomb. This reinforced my theory. The words were an easily translatable, common enough formula until I got to the last word.

What I saw written there was a motive for murder. And it had been there, unremarked, for nearly six hundred years.

I decided it would be a good idea to scramble out of my unglamorous overalls, though the jeans and yellow T-shirt this manoeuvre revealed were hardly more appropriate to the leather bindings, the gilded titles, and the polished oak of these gracious surroundings. Even so, I was more suitably dressed than the young man who now appeared in the doorway. Rupert Hartest looked every inch the bereaved fiancé. Stunned, inarticulate, dressed in a white bathrobe, his black hair flopping unbrushed and still damp from his shower, he stood and stared at me.

He was very good-looking in a brooding, dark way, and very young. I guessed that he was probably in his early twenties and a year or two younger than me. He joined me at the table and listened in silent horror to the story I had to tell him, dabbing his eyes with the trailing end of his bathrobe. When I fell silent, he sniffed, and whispered gruffly, “Oh, Taro! Consistent to the last! You silly little trollop!” He paused for a moment, smiled a crooked smile, and added, “But what an exit!”

Deeply puzzled, I pretended not to have heard, and said, “Your father thinks he knows who’s responsible...”

“Theo Tindall,” he said bitterly, “that’s who he’s got in his sights. The photographer. Taro’s manager, friend, ex-partner, and purveyor of strange substances to Taro and others — including myself.” He shook his head as though he could shake out memories. “Hateful man! He was staying with us, too, just for the week — at Taro’s invitation, of course. Perhaps I don’t need to say that he’s disappeared. Room’s empty, though his things are still lying around all over the floor. Mrs. Rose, our housekeeper, says he and Taro went out together in his car early this morning at about seven o’clock.”

I told him about the bloody fingerprint on the tomb.

His relief was obvious. “Well, they’ll nail him then, no sweat.” He paused for a moment, thoughtful, and then added, “Funny, though... what possible motive could there have been? He had every reason to keep Taro in good health. He made a lot of money out of her. He discovered her and flogged her talents to the media. Took a large cut of the proceeds. He didn’t seem to resent her getting engaged to me — he introduced us, in fact, and with all the publicity she could whip up over the society wedding, he, they, stood to make even more. Odd, that...”

He poured himself a cup of coffee and turned his attention to the photographs. His father had already described to him the scene of death but he made me go over again the details of the appearance of the corpse. “The dagger,” he said finally, pointing to the carving. “There’s a real one in a trophy of arms in the drawing room, the twin of this. I looked in before I came to the library. It’s missing. A misericorde, you’re right. And I bet if I looked in the chest on the landing I’d find that a long white nightgown and a pair of white satin ballet shoes have gone missing, too.”

“But do you think she changed into them willingly? Was Taro part of the impersonation, do you think?”