Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

Emtee Dempsey did not share Katherine’s indignation. It was not often that these old warriors were at odds, but this was one of those times. Katherine, in the same decade of her life as Emtee Dempsey, was the doyenne of Chicago journalism, and still active. She had been a trustee of the college and fought its closing at Emtee Dempsey’s side. Defeat had brought them even closer together and Katherine was a frequent visitor on Walton Street.

“I shall never understand you,” she said impatiently, after Emtee Dempsey’s account of the singer who joined a convent in the Bois de Boulogne with the result that half of Paris filled the chapel during Holy Week when the former diva sang.

“Let us forget generalities about the degree of disrespect now shown the religious life and speak of the case before us,” Emtee Dempsey said. Sylvia had been strangled. This had not been immediately apparent because the ugly results had been covered by her wimple.

“A fastidious murderer,” Katherine said.

“How do you mean?”

“Concealing what he did.”

“Indeed.” Emtee Dempsey looked at Kim. She might have been asking her not to reveal how she’d had to work every item out of Richard by wiles, by food and drink, and the promise that she would not, for once in her life, interfere in police business. “From what Richard tells us, she could not have been wearing the habit when she was strangled.”

“Good heavens!”

“I am not sure Richard and the police realize that.”

“Are you suggesting she was dressed up in the habit only after she was killed?”

“I am. And then left sitting in a chair in the hotel mezzanine.”

Katherine finished her sherry and held out the empty glass to Kim. “Sister, please. Every death is terrible, but to think that we are talking of Sylvia Corrigan.”

The premiere alumna of the college, that is, and a person of whom they had been so proud for so long. Before Kim left the room, Katherine asked Emtee Dempsey if she had met Raoul St.-Loup, the theatrical agent and publicist.

“My dear, that is why you were invited. I am expecting him tonight.”

Raoul St.-Loup did not pretend that he took worthless clay and molded it into a celebrity. All of his clients had already attained some claim on public attention before he represented them. He would not have taken them on otherwise. But it was his boast that every client of his received the full benefit of his own considerable abilities and that each had achieved as much celebrity as he or she was capable of, or, in some cases, wanted. Sylvia Corrigan had been a promising actress when he took her on; within a few years she was a star in the theatrical firmament. Let his enemies make of that what they would.

“I am devastated by what has happened,” he sighed, when they were settled in the living room, Emtee Dempsey in her high-back brocade chair, Katherine and St.-Loup on one of the couches flanking the fireplace, Kim across from them. St.-Loup brought the long fingers of one hand to his forehead as he spoke, revealing a thick gold chain on his right wrist. There was another at his neck, visible because of his open collar — actually, his shirt was unbuttoned to such an extent that the luxuriant hair on his chest was all too visible. What he wore could not be called a suit. The cut of the coat was odd, extremely full, the material had the look of corduroy but was black velvet. His trousers hugged his legs and his elegant feet were enclosed in a kind of boot. He moved his hand from his forehead through his tousled hair.

“I realize that no one here will admit to a belief in astrology, but I warned Sylvia not to come to Chicago. For a Libra at this time — well, you see what has happened.”

“Nonsense,” Emtee Dempsey said. “She was not strangled by a star.”

Raoul smiled sweetly at her, as if approving such loyalty to her benighted beliefs.

Katherine said, “I had the impression she was fleeing trouble on the coast.”

They had all learned a lot about Sylvia in the past twenty-four hours, and the colorful life she led was something of a surprise. They had known, of course, that she never married, but Kim was startled to learn that the actress had never been without a lover. Half a dozen shared the spotlight her death had created. Two of them were dead, one in a plane crash, another from an overdose of drugs. Of the four remaining, three gave unctuous accounts to the press of what a splendid person Sylvia had been. References to what it was like to live with her, while indiscreet, seemed meant in praise.

“Nick Faustino must be eating his heart out,” Raoul said, leaning toward Katherine and putting a hand on her arm. Perhaps it was the tenor of the conversation, but Katherine, in her seventies, reacted as if the publicist, not yet forty, were making an indecent approach. He patted her arm and withdrew his hand. “I warned him not to bring that suit.”