Нэнси Пикард - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 128, No. 6. Whole No. 784, December 2006

Ganelon watched as Massoudi and Timmons went their separate ways. Then he saw Waldteufel, ever the lurker, step from behind a nearby willow and glare in the direction the Englishman had gone.

As the detective finished dressing there was a knock. Timmons stood in the doorway with a bottle of scotch under one arm, a gazogene under the other, and carrying two glasses. “What’d you say to a drink before dinner?” he asked.

Ganelon invited the Wing Commander in.

As he made the drinks Timmons said, “You know, there’s much more involved here than jobs for redundant aviators or the sale of surplus aircraft or how a Persian strongman controls his trackless empire.” He passed Ganelon his drink and gestured at the wall as if it were a map of Asia. “They used to call it the Great Game. Persia lies athwart Britain’s road to India and it keeps the Russians away from their long-sought-after warm-water port.” He lit a cigarette. “The British have much history in the area. And the Russians. Before nineteen seventeen the Persian army was officered by Russians who trained the Shah himself.”

“Sounds like you know what you’re talking about,” said Ganelon.

“A friend in high places filled me in on things when he heard I might be heading to that neck of the woods.”

Ganelon nodded as if he accepted Timmons’s explanation. But all it did was convince him that the man was British Secret Service. “By the way,” he asked, “when did you see Shypoke for the last time?”

Timmons shrugged. “Last night I met with the Anglo-Persian Oil people. I hoped they might persuade General Massoudi to favor my people for the flying part. I thought I heard someone outside the window. When I looked I saw Shypoke listening at Father Boniface’s window. Why, I don’t know. It was none of my business.”

As soon as Timmons left, Ganelon hurried off to the dining room hoping to get the chair next to Khalila at the Cairo to Cathay Railroad table. The four of them made a jolly bunch. When different nationalities gather they often find common ground by telling humorous stories about the English. When Ganelon’s turn came he quoted Alphonse Allais’ remark, “Queer people, the English. Whereas we in France name our public places after famous victories — Rue de Rocroy, Place Iéna, Avenue de Wagram — the English insist on naming theirs after famous defeats — Trafalgar Square, Waterloo Station, and so on.” Khalila’s laughter rang silver in his ears.

Then he saw Jerome at a corner table throw down his napkin and leave the dining room and noticed for the first time that the pilot’s friend and table companion Timmons wasn’t there. Excusing himself, Ganelon rose and went after Jerome.

As he fell in step with him the pilot said, “I went by Timmons’s room on my way to dinner. No answer. I figured he’d gone down ahead. When he wasn’t at our table I decided he’d been sidetracked. But not for this long. There’s one man who really likes his rations.”

At Timmons’s room Ganelon turned the knob and the door swung open. The Englishman lay stretched out on the floor amid a wreckage of bottles and glasses, dead from a blow to the back of the head. The killer must have been waiting behind the door when Timmons returned from Ganelon’s room.

Noticing something odd about the dead man’s large aviator’s wrist watch, Ganelon checked it, hoping it might have stopped during the assault, giving a clue to the time of death. But the watch was still running. It had just lost its crystal.

Grim-faced, Jerome looked down at the dead body. “My friend deserved better than this,” he said.

Inspector Flanel arrived quickly, gaiters and all. He interrogated Ganelon and Jerome. Then they left him hunkered down viewing the crime scene from multiple angles and turning things over with his stick.

After compline, a procession of monks carrying fat candles set out for the hollow oak Father Boniface had decided was St. Magnus’s Tree. Those guests who wished to come along fell in behind, dressed for the cool night air. They included Khalila and her Cairo to Cathay people, the Baron, General Massoudi, and Ganelon and Jerome, who arrived at the last minute.

They entered the woods and proceeded to Father Sylvanus’s hermitage. After a bit, when no one appeared, the retreat master said, “I guess the good Father still doesn’t believe my tree is the kind our founder used. He may regret not joining us.” Then he ordered the procession to continue.

They started out on the same path they had taken that afternoon to the crash site. But for Ganelon the trees loomed larger now on either side and seemed to fall in behind them as they passed. He chalked this up to the darkness, the candlelight, and Father Sylvanus’s stories. But he didn’t remember so many tree roots in the path. The stumbling monks uttered gentle appeals to this saint or that as their candle flames sketched abrupt patterns on the darkness. More forceful expletives came from the guests in a Babel of languages to which an owl or two uttered replies. Just beyond the wreckage of the Russian airplane a breeze sprang up, guttering the candles. Protective hands cupped the flames, dimming the light even more.

At last the procession reached a place where the bracken had been scythed and raked away around an ancient oak standing alone some twenty feet off the path. It had a large waist-high hole in its trunk. The monks turned in and gathered in a semicircle about the tree.

Father Boniface produced a pocket watch. “The hour of our blessed founder’s prayer approaches,” he said. “Forgive us if we of his order listen first.” Then he directed the monks, in alphabetical turns, to put their heads in the hollow oak, tapping each on the shoulder when his time was up. So the minutes passed. None heard the expected voice. Pulling his own head out of the tree, Father Boniface shook it sadly and signaled the guests to take their turns. Ganelon went last. The hollow in the tree was silent as a tomb. Then the hour had passed.

The downcast procession returned, more strung-out and stumbling than before. As the lights of the retreat house came in view they discovered that Baron Waldteufel had gone missing somewhere along the way. Arming himself with a candle, Jerome volunteered to go back and try to find him.

When the others reached the millpond they found a monk with his head and shoulders inside a hollow willow near the one in whose roots Shypoke’s body had been entangled. When Father Boniface touched him and said Saint Magnus’s hour had passed, the body slid from the willow and onto the grass. It was Father Sylvanus. The dead priest’s face wore a smile of final contentment.

Ganelon asked, “Does the smile mean he learned Saint Magnus’s prayer?”

“Oh, the prayer is no secret,” said Father Boniface. “No, his joy must mean he heard it spoken in our founder’s very voice. You see, late in life Saint Magnus turned mystical in an attempt to discover the unknowable side of the Almighty, the deus abscondus, the hidden God. He rose from his deathbed and had a disciple help him to a hollow tree nearby, and in a ‘Hello, Central, Get Me Heaven’ kind of thing, he stuck his head inside and shouted: ‘God, Whoever You are, I love You.’”

The monks carried Father Sylvanus’s body into the chapel. The guests returned to the retreat house, except for Ganelon and Khalila. Ganelon followed the body out of respect for his teacher. Khalila came, too, saying, “The Cairo to Cathay people have accepted our terms. I leave for home in the morning. But I’d like a chance to see the famous window by candlelight.”

Half an hour later Ganelon and Khalila left the monks to their vigil over Father Sylvanus’s body. As they came outside they saw Inspector Flanel heading in their direction.