Introduction Biography Addresses Portraits
Books Short stories Stage plays Film and TV Radio and audio
Quotations Fishing Poetry Food Settings Dedications Narrative style Canning in the OED Reading lists Articles on Canning
Centenary News Links Availability

Carnation Pattern

Short Story (4,400 words)

This was the fourth Department of Patterns story, the third featuring Papa Grand.

Belain, a junior employee of the Department of Patters, hears how the greenkeeper at Les Landes golf course always finds a bunch of carnations in a particular bunker every 13th June. Papa Grand is suspcious and has the ground under the bunker dug up, revealing a corpse. Will the corpse be identified? Will the person who brings the flowers come again?

First published in Argosy, June 1961.
Reprinted as "The Carnation Anniversary" in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine #230, January, 1963.