The Last Portrait

Mexico City, the summer of nineteen twenty-eight. A banquet is given for the man who is about to become President — a soldier who won a civil war, lost an arm doing it, and has spent the years since collecting enemies with the same efficiency he once collected territory. Arthur is a guest at that dinner, seated beside the Belgian Detective, who has spent the evening being politely bored. At ten minutes past ten a young artist appears at the door with a sketchbook. Nobody seems to know who invited him. He asks permission to draw the guest of honour, and permission is cheerfully given, because a caricature is a harmless thing. He is halfway through the sketch when a woman across the room drops her champagne glass. She has gone completely white. She is not looking at the drawing. She is looking at the artist. Four minutes later the guest of honour is dead, the artist has been beaten to death by the crowd, and there is a torn scrap of cream-coloured paper on the floor with four words on it in Spanish. What follows is not a hunt for an assassin. Fifty people watched him fire. It is a colder question altogether: who put the pistol in that young man's pocket, and how do you commit a murder using a stranger's hand? An abandoned hacienda called San Miguel. A wall scarred with bullet holes. Seventeen names on an execution order dated nineteen sixteen, sixteen of which were carried out. And a faded photograph of seven people standing before a fountain, in which one man is looking not at the camera but at another man's hand. The Last Portrait is an original Golden Age-style mystery about grievance, patience, and the difference between the man who fires and the man who aims. FOR LISTENERS This is an original mystery written by Nocturnal Tales, inspired by the spirit of the great Golden Age crime writers. The plot, characters and text are entirely our own creation, and all characters and events in the story are fictional. The setting draws on the real assassination of Mexican President-elect Álvaro Obregón at La Bombilla in July 1928 by José de León Toral, a case we discuss factually in the closing Epilogue. Our General Alejandro Serrano is an invention and is not intended to represent General Francisco R. Serrano, a real figure of the period who met a different fate. No affiliation, endorsement, or official connection is implied. The man who fired the shots was not the murderer, and the murderer never touched a weapon. Where does the guilt actually sit in a case like this? CHAPTERS 00:00 - Introduction 02:25 - Chapter One - The Portrait at Dinner 12:40 - Chapter Two - The Dead Man's Pencil 25:05 - Chapter Three - San Miguel 37:59 - Chapter Four - The Seventh Portrait 50:14 - Chapter Five - The Woman in Emeralds 1:01:41 - Chapter Six - The Last Portrait 1:11:49 - Epilogue 1:16:56 - Closing SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS CREDITS TAGS / KEYWORDS golden age mystery audiobook, 1920s mexico mystery, mexico city 1928 mystery, historical mystery audiobook, assassination mystery story, belgian detective audiobook, arthur mystery audiobook, original golden age whodunit, unsolved historical murder, full length mystery audiobook, classic detective story audiobook, vintage detective fiction HASHTAGS