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

“Certain of it! Just the sort of offbeat humour she went in for. Bet it was all her idea. I can imagine what they were both up to! What a laugh! Dress up as the first Lady Brancaster and pose, probably with a lot of bosom showing, on the family tomb which somebody has conveniently cleared for them. Theo snaps away and flogs the result to... oh, any one of a hundred papers. You can imagine the headlines! Blast them!”

“But wouldn’t she have been a bit more circumspect... I mean... have held off from offending the ancient family she was about to marry into? Surely?”

Rupert snorted. “She had no respect for that sort of thing. She was one of those who cheered when the hereditary peers were kicked out of the House of Lords. I’ve always thought it was Taro and her sarcastic tongue that gave Grandfather his heart attack.”

“Is that possible?”

He grimaced at the memory. “It happened at her first dinner here. She said something deliberately calculated to get up Grandfather’s nose and then announced that she and I were engaged to be married and he’d better get used to hearing her opinions. She declared that she’d make every effort to talk me out of taking up the title when the time came. And even if I did take it up, she’d make sure any children we had were daughters so it would die out. Bluffing, of course, but the old chap’s heard of test-tube babies and DNA and all that, and I think he believed she could do it. Poor old bloke sent for his doctor and went to his room. He hasn’t come downstairs since. Doc says he’s got a heart condition and has to avoid stress. He’s over eighty now. Seems a bit strange in these days, perhaps,” Rupert looked at me assessingly, wondering whether he need explain, “but he really is obsessed by — lost in — family history. Heraldry, pedigrees... His family motto... our family motto... is ‘Who dies, if Hartest live!’ ”

I must have looked bewildered because with an apologetic smile he said, “ ‘To hell with everyone else — so long as Hartest survives.’ Nice!”

Rupert’s eye flicked to a photograph on the mantelpiece and I went over to look at it. Three generations of the Hartest men were lined up on the lawn, smiling, relaxed, at the camera.

“There, you see, until the last few weeks Grandpa was always fighting fit — literally fighting fit! He was a commando in the War and kept himself in shape. Tried to teach me and Dad all his skills. More successful with Dad — he was in the Coldstream.”

“Are you a soldier, too?”

“I was for about eighteen months. Tried it for Grandpa’s sake. Went through the motions. Got out. It wasn’t for me. I’m afraid I’m more the arty type, like my mother was. She died five years ago.”

“And in spite of all Taro had done, you were still prepared to go ahead with the marriage?” I couldn’t hide my incredulity and disapproval.

His face softened. “You never knew her, did you? It’s hard for those who didn’t know her to understand. She was magic... well, she magicked me, anyway. She was wild, ruthless even, and she could be a ferocious little bitch — I knew it. But the magic made all that of no concern. Made! Christ! It continues to work! She’s gone — but I can’t believe it.

“I loved her. And there was another reason. She was pregnant. Not very, but enough to make us name an earlyish date.” He sighed. “No illegitimate children acknowledged in the Hartest family for six hundred years. Not going to start now, though Taro wouldn’t have cared, I suppose.”

He was silent, deep in thought, and then he began to fidget. “Look, Dad’ll be down soon and he won’t be amused to see me still in my bathrobe. He thinks I’m pretty dissolute... I’ll just go upstairs and get kitted out. Stay here, I won’t be a minute.”

I was left alone but for the company of a Jacobean Hartest whose harsh white face under a black periwig stared down at me watchful, austere, and calculating from its gilded frame. I felt a sadness so oppressive that I put my head in my hands and tried to force back tears. Two innocent lives had been lost on that marble slab this morning. The girl and her unborn child were unknown to me, but I mourned them. And underlying the sorrow was a barely understood suspicion of the Hartest men and their motives, suspicion not unmixed with fear. I looked at my watch and wondered how much longer I would have to wait here. I found I really didn’t want to have any further dealings with this family. Three generations of trained killers were loose in this house and one of them was determined enough and ruthless enough to have got rid of an inconvenient little trollop. I looked again at the photograph of the table tomb, at the frozen features and flowing hair of the lovely Alienore, and I understood that an ancient tragedy had sent its echo on through the centuries to be replayed in front of my eyes this spring morning.

2