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

“Sylvia spoke of you often, of course,” Hoague said, as he settled into a chair. But he shook away the memory. “I acted immediately on your suggestion, Sister, and would have phoned you last night if it hadn’t gotten to be such an ungodly hour. As I said then, I share your fears for Maud. I looked everywhere for her, discreetly, of course. She did not return to the hotel. If she checked in elsewhere I was unable to discover it. Of course I asked first where Brian Casey had been staying.”

“Without luck?”

“None! My only comfort is that, if something dreadful had happened, we would have heard.”

“These have been confusing days for us,” Emtee Dempsey said, with uncharacteristic puzzlement.

“Not only for you. Do not think that we in the world are inured to such events as these. I still can’t believe it. Sylvia.” Her name was musical on his lips. His eyes closed. His eyes opened. “We must inform the police that Maud is missing.”

“Mr. Hoague, they have already made an arrest.”

“Faustino!”

“Even if he had learned that Maud knew far more than she told the police, he could do nothing about it while in custody. Faustino played Creon in your production of Antigone, did he not?”

“Yes.”

“Do you play a role?”

“Teresias.”

“The blind prophet.”

Hoague seemed to become a shriveled old man. “ ‘For the blind man goes where his leader tells him to.’ ”

“Teresias, as I remember, does not appear until very late in the play.”

He nodded in admiration. “That is correct.”

“The actor playing that part could be elsewhere for most of the performance, I suppose.”

“Not when that actor is also the director.”

“Then you were at the Blackstone throughout the performance?”

“What an odd question.”

“Of course you needn’t answer it.”

“My dear Sister, I was at the Blackstone before, during, and after the performance that night.”

“But you were seen at the Elysian Hotel, Mr. Hoague.”

“That’s impossible.”

“The man who saw you is the same man who saw Nick Faustino there that night. The police found him reliable. He saw you arrive but he did not see you leave.”

“Since I was not there, he could not have seen me leave.”

“You mean he would not have recognized you as a nun?”

In the silence that followed, the door from the kitchen opened and Joyce entered, followed by Maud Howe.

“Richard is on his way, Sister. They found the habit where I told them they would.”

Lawrence Hoague was on his feet and on his way out of the room in a single movement, but Maud barred his way.

“You wouldn’t kill another woman, would you, Larry?”

He lunged at her, trying for her throat, but Maud brought her arms up, turned her body, and caught her assailant in the chest with her pivoting elbow, upsetting his balance. In a moment, he was on the floor, face down, his arm behind his back, upward pressure on it being exerted by the straddling Maud. This was the condition of Larry Hoague a minute later when Richard arrived and took him into custody.

8

The following night Katherine, Maud Howe, and Father Estrella came to the house on Walton Street for dinner. The priest had been providing spiritual comfort to Larry Hoague, who had been arrested and charged with the murders of Sylvia Corrigan and Brian Casey. Nick Faustino had been released and left town calling down curses on all the friends who had abandoned him in his troubles. Raoul St.-Loup had told Maud that he intended to make her into a star of the first magnitude.

“In what?” the media priest asked.

“A musical version of Tom Sawyer.”

“Another?”

“There goes my career,” Maud said.

“I would feel more sympathy if you had been candid with me, young lady,” Sister Mary Teresa said.

“Will you play Becky Thatcher?” Father Estrella asked.

“Can Larry Hoague direct me from prison?”

“There are those who would call prison the natural home of directors.” The priest’s brows rose as he spoke.

“There was a falling out between Sylvia and Hoague wasn’t there?” Emtee Dempsey said.

Father Estrella was delighted to fill them in, clearly relishing his role as the purveyor of inside show-biz gossip to these innocent ears. Some of what he knew he had learned as Sylvia’s spiritual advisor.

“I no longer feel bound to secrecy,” he said. “Not in these circumstances. She phoned me on the coast just hours before the dreadful event.”

Few, he intoned, would have suspected Larry’s professional dependence on his former lover and protegee. The world had considered their talents equal, but Larry knew better. Sylvia’s agreement to act in Hoague’s production of Antigone had been wrung reluctantly from her. Hoague was convinced that with Sylvia his production would be a success. But after one performance, the actress had told Father Estrella, Sylvia called Larry and told him she would not be at the theater for the second. Her excuse was the mental preparation necessary to play a Carmelite nun.

“I can imagine the rest,” the priest murmured.

Hoague arrived at the Elysian Hotel to learn that Faustino had preceded him to the actress’s suite.