England, July 1926Several months ago, in the blackmail notes that Grimsby, the now-dead valet, compiled about everyone in the family, Philippa Darling learned about a young woman with a baby who showed up at Sutherland House in London, looking for the man who got her in the family way.Crispin Astley, Viscount St George, scion of the Sutherlands, had been using the London house as his base when he was in Town carousing with his set of Bright Young People, so everyon...

April 1926Wanneer Henry Astley, hertog van Sutherland, dood in bed wordt aangetroffen na een middag waarin hij zijn familie de mantel heeft uitgeveegd, gaat iedereen ervan uit dat de opwinding de oude baas fataal is geworden. Hij was behoorlijk oud en ook bijzonder luidruchtig in zijn meningen, dus het is geen onredelijke aanname.Pas de volgende ochtend, als de kamerdienaar en vertrouweling van de hertog doodgeschoten in het heggenlabyrint wordt gevonden, krijgt de hele zaa...

England, early May, 1926After the funerals of the late Duke of Sutherland and his daughter-in-law, Charlotte, (and of course Grimsby, the blackmailing valet), the younger members of the family—Philippa Darling, her cousins Christopher and Francis, and Crispin, Viscount St George—are invited to a weekend party at the Dower House in Dorset by Dowager Lady Peckham’s children, Constance and Gilbert.Once in Dorset, things go sideways very quickly. Lady Peckham’s ward, t...

England, September 1926An engagement party at venerable Marsden Manor serves up annoyances big and small for Bright Young Thing Philippa Darling and her cousins, Christopher and Francis Astley.There’s the scheming Lady Laetitia Marsden, now engaged to Christopher’s and Francis’s cousin (and Pippa’s personal nemesis) Crispin, Viscount St George.There’s Laetitia’s brother, the handsy Lord Geoffrey, and his proclivity for trying to seduce anything in a skirt—b...

Wiltshire, November 1926Six months ago, Grimsby the valet dug up dirt on everyone in the family at the behest of his employer, Henry, Duke of Sutherland. During a memorable weekend at Sutherland Hall, Grimsby was killed for it. So was Henry, while the new Duchess, Charlotte, wife of Harold, overdosed on Veronal after confessing to murdering both of them.That same weekend, at the Dower House in Dorset, Lady Charlotte’s former maid, Lydia Morrison—perhaps the mysteri...

London, early June 1926The last Friday of every month, Christopher Astley, in the guise of his alter ego Kitty Dupree, has attended a covert drag ball somewhere in London. In April, the ball was interrupted by a police raid that Christopher escaped by the skin of his teeth, only because he was yanked out of the nightclub before the raid started by someone who knew that it was going to happen.This month, the gathering has moved from the last Friday of the month to t...

It’s December 1926, and all of England is enthralled by the disappearance of mystery novelist Agatha Christie. Miss Pippa Darling, her cousin and best friend Christopher Astley, and Christopher’s cousin Crispin, the newly-minted Duke of Sutherland, get in on the action as they speculate, surmise, and go off to the wilds of Surrey to look for clues.But while they’re preoccupied, trouble hits closer to home. Crispin’s nuptials to Lady Laetitia Marsden are scheduled for the third week...

London, September 1926Someone is out to get Pippa Darling.Or perhaps not. The tumble down the stairs into the underground involved a lot of people, all of whom said someone pushed them, and all of whom, no doubt, had wronged someone, somehow, at some point.And the Hackney cab that jumped the pavement and tried to run Pippa and her flat-mate Christopher down on their way home… well, it might have been after Christopher, mightn’t it?It might e...

“Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.” Benjamin FranklinEngland, late April, 1926When Henry Astley, Duke of Sutherland, turns up dead in bed at the end of an afternoon spent calling his family on the carpet, everyone assumes that the excitement finished the old boy off. He was quite old and also quite vociferous in his opinions, so it isn’t an unreasonable assumption.It isn’t until the next morning, when the duke’s vale...

England, August, 1926For months now, Pippa’s and Christopher’s neighbor Florence Schlomsky, the manhunter with the teeth, has been roaming London society looking for an opportunity to trade her father’s American fortune for a British title. Both the Astley cousins, Christopher and Crispin, have landed in her marital sights, a fact which has not endeared her to Pippa.But when Mr. and Mrs. Schlomsky arrive from America and Flossie is nowhere to be found, Pippa is first in lin...

Oktober 1926Iemand heeft het gemunt op Pippa Darling.Of misschien toch niet. Bij de val van de trap naar de ondergrondse waren veel mensen betrokken, die allemaal beweerden dat iemand hen had geduwd, en die ongetwijfeld allemaal iemand, op de een of andere manier, op een bepaald moment onrecht hadden aangedaan.En de Hackney-koets die de stoep opreed en probeerde Pippa en haar huisgenoot Christopher aan te rijden op weg naar huis... nou, die had het misschien wel op ...

Juni 1926De laatste vrijdag van elke maand bezoekt Christopher Astley, in de gedaante van zijn alter ego Kitty Dupree, een geheim dragbal ergens in Londen. In april werd het bal onderbroken door een politie-inval waaraan Christopher ternauwernood ontsnapte, alleen omdat hij vóór de inval begon uit de nachtclub werd getrokken door iemand die wist dat het ging gebeuren.Deze maand is de bijeenkomst verplaatst van de laatste vrijdag van de maand naar de eerste zaterdag van de v...