Death at the Sign of the Rook: A Jackson Brodie Book

Lady Milton falls asleep in the Red Room during the performance. She wakes up to see a man with a head wound and a shotgun. Initially terrified, she composes herself and challenges the intruder to shoot her. She throws a large antique dish at the man’s head when the first shot misses. The dish hits its target, and Lady Milton is elated as the man flees, bleeding from a fresh head injury.

Jackson disappears, leaving Reggie to watch the performance. As the theatre group’s prop gun is missing, one of the actors improvises, pointing his fingers in a threatening manner. 

Meanwhile, Simon enters Burton Makepeace House, leaving the painting in the kitchen and the gun in the hall. Opening a door, Simon hears a member of the Red Herrings Theatre Company pleading with another actor not to shoot and assumes he has found Janet Teller’s killer. Grabbing a poker, he is surprised to find a group of onlookers. The audience mistakes Simon for the character Reverend Smallbones. When he writes a note explaining there has been a murder, they continue to believe it is part of the performance. A gun fires in another room, and Reggie takes the poker from Simon. The audience is unconvinced when she announces she is a police officer.

Disoriented in the vast house, Jackson wanders into the kitchen and finds the painting on the kitchen table. Tilda enters, pointing what appears to be a prop gun at Jackson and taking the picture from him. Jackson realizes that Tilda is Sophie Greenway, Melanie Hope, and the woman who placed a tracker in his pocket when she bumped into him at the café. She reveals that her real name is Beatrice and persuades Jackson to sit down.

Beatrice explains the painting is La Donna con Martora by Raphael. She came to retrieve the painting from St. Martin’s Church and decided to pose as staff at the murder mystery weekend. Beatrice claims Piers Milton hired her to steal and sell the Turner painting so that he could profit from both the sale and the insurance money. However, the Turner was unsaleable as it turned out to be a fake. Beatrice insists she was fond of Lady Milton and Dorothy, who left her La Donna con Martora in her will’s codicil.

Beatrice confirms that one of Dorothy’s short stories proved La Donna con Martora’s illegal provenance. Therefore, she honored Dorothy’s wishes and, posing as “Hannah,” left the story in her coffin. She tells Jackson that Dorothy was a naïve young woman when she married Harold Padgett. Harold gave Dorothy a sexually transmitted disease, and she consequently became infertile, the reason they adopted the twins. 

Dorothy stole La Donna con Martora during her honeymoon in 1945. She and Harold went for afternoon tea at Ottershall Hall, a stately home about to be sold by the Cadsby family. When Dorothy went to the restroom, she saw the portrait and was struck by its beauty. Harold was furious when he realized his wife had hidden the painting in his motorbike sidecar. That night, he went out on the motorbike, and the next day, Dorothy learned that Ottershall Hall had burned down.

Reggie comes face-to-face with a man wielding a Heckler & Koch gun. Her legs give way from fright before she realizes it is Ben. When Carl Carter appears with his shotgun, Ben steps in front of Reggie to protect her. Although Reggie urges him to shoot Carter, Ben tries to reason with the armed man. Carter shoots, but the bullet misses, and his gun jams.

Reggie and Ben pursue Carter to the roof. Carter attacks Ben, but Reggie intervenes, hitting Carter with a poker to stop him from throwing Ben off the roof. As Reggie chases Carter down the stairs, Ben sees a ghost, Burton Makepeace’s “Grey Lady,” whose presence allegedly signals imminent death. He hopes Simon will tell the bees about his death and feels the insects’ comforting presence surrounding him.

A gunshot interrupts Beatrice’s story. Jackson returns to the murder mystery, where an audience member is giving Simon CPR. Learning Reggie is on the roof with the gunman, Jackson rushes to her rescue. He encounters Carter, who has an axe, but Beatrice shoots him with the gun Jackson mistook for a prop. After making sure that Carter is dead, Jackson realizes that Beatrice is gone. Hearing a motorbike outside, he sees Alice and Beatrice riding away on a red Harley-Davidson.

Chief Superintendent Louise Monroe oversees the police officers who have surrounded Burton Makepeace House. Hazel and Ian Padgett, who were discovered stranded in their car close to hypothermia, sit in a nearby police car. A man emerges from the house, and Louise recognizes Jackson Brodie. Jackson reveals that Carter is dead, but Ben and Simon are in critical states. Louise orders Jackson into the car with Ian and Hazel.

Lady Milton reflects on her exciting evening. She decides that the next time they hold a murder mystery weekend, she will invite Derek Truitt.

Reggie is nominated for a bravery award and begins dating Ben, who is slowly recovering from his injuries. She meets Jackson at a café. 

Reggie is annoyed with Jackson for letting Beatrice escape, but Jackson explains that Beatrice didn’t profit from stealing the Turner, which was a fake. However, Reggie points out that in Nancy Styles’ novel, The Puzzle of the Painting, a thief passes off a genuine painting as a forgery after selling it. 

Jackson defends Beatrice, asserting that she saved his life. He also verified that Dorothy left her house and money to Alice and the painting to Melanie Hope. He tells Reggie that Beatrice did not initially intend to deceive Dorothy. While working at the Courtauld Institute, she came across the photograph of Dorothy’s painting. When Beatrice arrived at her door, Dorothy assumed that she was her new carer.

Jackson has traded in his Land Rover Defender for a hybrid car. He waived his fee from Hazel and Ian Padgett as he did not inform them that he found both Melanie Hope and the painting. He meets Bob at Betty’s Tea Rooms—he and Dorothy’s neighbor have become friends since Jackson shoveled Bob’s driveway. While shoveling, Jackson unearthed a toy fire engine he recognized as belonging to Alice’s son and noted that there was a red Harley-Davidson in Bob’s garage.

Simon survives his heart attack, and his voice returns. He and Ben are recovering in the same hospital and talk every day. Comparing experiences, they both confirm they saw no evidence of an afterlife when they briefly died. However, Ben reveals that the bees were present, and he felt at peace.

Simon is surprised by the number of visitors he receives. Many of his elderly parishioners visit, including Derek Truitt and Lady Milton. One day, Ben’s sister Fran brings in a kitten, and Simon agrees to adopt it. He is moved when Fran invites him to stay at the Dairy Cottage for a while.

Simon wakes to see Beatrice at his bedside. She is relieved that he survived and apologizes for failing to say goodbye. She gives him a gift, telling him to open it when she has left. Inside the package is La Donna con Martora. The card reads, “It’s a thing of beauty. From me to you” (316).

The Red Herrings Theatre Company gathers in the library, waiting for René Armand to reveal the murderer. Armand reveals that Addison the butler is really Brett Smith, an Australian sheep farmer and the Hardwicks’ only surviving heir. Titus tries to prolong his big moment as Armand, but the other actors urge him to get on with it. Finally, he declares, “The butler did it” (318).