Mystere Suite


by Frederick Highland

(This is part II. Experience Mystere Suite from the beginning.)


“One Minute Mysteries” have been around since the 1930s, illustrated stories that call upon the reader to solve a crime.




Under the Rose

Author’s Comment:

“But when we with caution a secret disclose,
We cry, “Be it spoken, sir, under the rose.”
Since ’tis known that the rose was an emblem of old,
Whose leaves by their closeness taught secrets to hold.”

The meaning of “sub rosa” is explained by this old rhyme, one that hints at a mysterious murder in which roses play an essential part. We see a victim, whose bloody corpse is draped across the table to the left. A murderer is present too but there are two personages- a woman on the staircase dressed in male evening clothes and carrying a bouquet of lilies and the older gent contemplating a bloodstained rose. Other text hints at a possible motive for homicide. A telegram in French at bottom right, reads, roughly translated: “Why has there been no answer to our offer of six thousand? Rose.” Is this crime about love or money? Or is something else afoot?








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