I said, "Good boy!" and handed him half of the arrowroot biscuit.

Sam's eyebrows dipped over his eyes. They reminded me of a couple of fuzzy caterpillars having a conference right above his nose.

"Spike," I went on. "What's three times two?"

Spike barked six times and stopped, looking up at me with eyes aglow.

"What a special, good boy you are!" I cried at my amazing pooch, and I knelt and not only gave him the other half of the arrowroot biscuit, but petted him thoroughly.

"How'd you teach him math?" Sam asked. He wasn't even growling any longer, but sounded honestly curious.

Ha. Spike and I had managed to astonish the great detective. I peered up at him and grinned. "Spike is brilliant."

"No, really. How'd you teach him that?"

"Maybe, if you're good, I'll tell you. Some day."

"Cripes." Sam slammed the door on his way outside.

"Good boy, Spike!"

After I'd changed from my spiritualist clothes into a comfy old day dress, Spike and I retired to the sofa in the living room, and he sat on my lap while I read The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy. I felt a little triumphant myself, for having flummoxed the great detective.

Chapter 9.

Rehearsal began promptly at seven p.m. that Thursday-choir practice had been rescheduled for six p.m. for the duration. I was pleased to see Dennis and Patsy Bissel holding hands. They were playing parts in the chorus. I guess Dennis hadn't succumbed to Gloria Lippincott's wiles. Yet, anyway. They were a sweet couple.

Lawrence and Sylvia Allen were there, too. They were a society couple, but they didn't seem as lovey-dovey as Dennis and Patsy. In fact, Sylvia appeared downright distressed. I cornered Harold, and he said that was because Lawrence and another woman were having a hot-and-heavy affair, and that Sylvia knew all about it, but that she loved Lawrence and didn't want to give him a divorce.

Hmm. People were sure wanting to divorce each other a lot in those loose days, weren't they? I'd never have divorced Billy. Never mind that our married life had been fraught with... well, it had been fraught, but that wasn't our fault. The fault lay with Kaiser Bill.

By the way, there were governmental talks underway about extracting some sort of retribution in monetary form from the land-grabbing, boy-killing Kaiser, but I doubted they'd do any good even if they could be enforced. Heck, Wilhelm II had abdicated, was in exile in Holland, and the damage was already done. Anyway, how much money were several thousand dead people worth? Or the Belgian, French and British regions that had been bombed all to heck by the Germans? Mind you, if some Dutch citizen took it upon himself to kill the man, I doubt many tears would be shed.

Oh, don't let me get started.

Gloria Lippincott turned up at rehearsal on Thursday night. I'm not sure why I was surprised. After all, she had been estranged from her husband. I guess that meant they hadn't liked each other and weren't living together, although I wasn't positive about that last part.

So I asked Harold, "Why's the cat-woman here tonight? Isn't she in distress over her husband's demise?"

Harold said something like, "Tsch." Then he added, "They hadn't been living together for a couple of years. Anyway, she wants to be near her new prey."

"By that, I presume you mean other men, like Lawrence Allen and Dennis Bissel."

"Bingo."

"Well... still. Wouldn't you think she'd at least put on a show of being heartbroken or something?"

"Look at her," Harold advised. "If that's not heartbroken, I don't know what is."

I took his advice, not having wanted to make a spectacle of myself and stare at her when I first walked into the sanctuary. "Oh. I see."

"Indeed." Harold's voice was quite dry.

But, really. Somehow or other, Gloria Lippincott had managed to smudge her makeup around her eyes so that she appeared woebegone. She also had her hankie out and dabbed at her eyes whenever anyone passed her by-she sat in the front row of pews. That's something you don't see often, by the way. People in the front row of Methodist churches, I mean. I understand the Baptists aren't so shy, but we Methodists generally fill up the sanctuary from about the third row back.

Then there was Sam. Sam had driven me to rehearsal, over my objections. But he said he had a murder to investigate, and one of his suspects-who evidently hadn't done the deed herself, having been playing bridge at the time-had a part in The Mikado, so there wasn't much I could do about it.

So there he was. Not for Sam the front row. Not he. He stood on the right side of the chancel, his arms crossed over his chest, looking official, even though he wasn't wearing a uniform. But from the way he scowled as his gaze scanned everyone there, you'd have thought he was going to pounce upon all of us and arrest the whole cast. I tried not to stare at him, but kept my gaze on Gloria Lippincott.

"Hmm," said I. "Maybe I should go offer my sympathy."

Harold gawked at me. "You mean to Gloria?"

I shrugged. "Why not. Is anyone else you know bereaved? Maybe I can wrangle some information out of her."

"About what?"

"About whom she hired to murder her husband."

"What?"

People turned to stare at Harold and me, so I frowned and said, "Shh. No need to yell."

"But... do you really think she...?"

"I have no idea. But I'm going to go offer her my sympathy, which, I'm sure, is at least as genuine as her grief."

"The role of Katisha is beginning to affect you in adverse ways, Daisy Majesty."

I only grinned and walked down the chancel steps and up to Gloria Lippincott, composing my face into a mask of sympathetic understanding as I did so. She glanced up at me uneasily, as if she were hoping a male cast member would offer her comfort and was disappointed to find a female instead.

But I was a mistress of my art. I put on my most compassionate expression, and sank down onto the pew next to her. "I was so awfully sorry to learn of your husband's passing, Mrs. Lippincott. I know what it's like to lose a husband." Instantly my heart squished. Maybe Katisha had turned me sour. I'd loved my Billy. In fact, I loved him still. Yet here I was, using him as a prop for my snooping. I'd have been ashamed of myself if I weren't already in my role as consoler.

"Thank you, Mrs. Majesty. Yes." She paused to sniffle a couple of times. "Michael and I hadn't been getting along, but it was still such a shock."

"And so ironic that it happened so shortly after you were nearly run down, too."

Her eyes opened fully for the first time since I'd met her at Mrs. Pinkerton's party. "You know about that?"

I nodded, slathering on a sad face to go with my benevolent tone. "Yes. Harold told me. I'm so sorry. Do you have any idea who's doing these awful things?"

Another sniffle. "No. I don't have any idea. I... I originally thought Michael was trying to kill me, because he wouldn't give me a divorce, even though he was having an affair with another woman." She sniffed again, only this one sounded more irritated than tragic. "But strange things kept happening to me. And then a car almost hit me in front of Nash's the other day. I was so upset."

"I can imagine."

Suddenly, Gloria turned to face me and put a hand on my arm, as if she'd just thought of something pertinent. "Oh, Mrs. Majesty! You're the medium, aren't you?"

"Ah... yes, I'm a spiritualist-medium." So what? I wanted to add, but didn't.

"Could I hire you to do a seance? Perhaps Michael himself can tell us who tried to kill me and who did kill him!"

Well, pooh. This wasn't turning out the way I'd expected it to. I'd expected her to have been the evildoer in this melodrama, not an almost-murdered widow. But if she were asking me to perform a seance in order to get in touch with her late estranged husband, maybe I was wronging her. On the other hand, maybe she was just a good actress.

Putting on my spiritualist's cloak of mystery, I said, "I could, of course, perform a seance and attempt to get in touch with your late husband, Mrs. Lippincott. However, I must tell you that it often takes a spirit some time to settle into peace on the Other Side. This is especially true if a person has had his or her life cut short violently." I hauled out this excuse a lot, and it saved me a good deal of time and effort.

"Oh." She removed her hand from my arm, folded her hands in her lap, and recommenced looking heartbroken. "I see." Then she turned and faced me again, abruptly. I darned near jumped, but I'm better at my job than to allow folks to rattle me. "But could you try? Whoever killed Michael may still want to kill me, and I'm... I'm... I'm frightened." She brought her hankie to her eyes and pressed it to them, smudging more of her mascara.

Fiddlesticks. This was confusing. I said, "Of course, I can attempt to reach your late husband, if you'd like me to." If she'd pay me to, is what I meant, but she understood that, having already mentioned hiring me. "Where do you live?"

"I live in our home on California Boulevard. Michael's and mine, I mean."

California Boulevard, eh? Another street full of mansions and grand estates. "I see. Well, perhaps you can talk to Harold Kincaid about my services. His mother uses me all the time, and he can give you particulars." Especially about the money part.

"Mrs. Majesty!" came a stentorian voice from the chancel. I knew that voice and instantly hopped to my feet.

"Yes, Mr. Hostetter!"

"You're needed for this next scene."

"Coming!" And I trotted back onstage. Or on-chancel. Harold stood there, too, holding his fake Lord High Executioner's axe and looking fierce, in a Gilbert and Sullivan-ish sort of way.

"Sorry," I said, panting slightly. "Which scene are we doing?"

Mr. Hostetter frowned at me. I wasn't accustomed to being frowned at by my choir director. Generally he approved of me. Oh, well.

"We're blocking out the end of act one, in which Katisha appears for the first time," said Max Van der Linden. I think he took pity on me after Mr. Hostetter hollered.

"Very well. Where do you want me?" I asked, all attention in my effort to redeem myself.

"Stand off-stage, stage left."

I moved to my left.

Mr. Van der Linden said, "Other side. That's house left. You want stage left."

I stopped and stared at him for a moment. "Um..."

"Perhaps this would be a good time for an introduction to staging terms," said Max in a bright and friendly voice, probably trying not to make me sound like an idiot because I didn't know stage directions.

So he spent a few minutes with the cast and crew gathered around him, showing us on a piece of paper precisely where stage left, stage right, up-stage and down-stage were. To my mind, his directions were directly opposed to logic, but I wasn't an actor. Then I stood on the chancel, looked out upon the vast number of pews, and it suddenly clicked. From that position, stage left actually was to my left. I felt better after that.

Harold joined me back-stage. "Figure it out?"

"Yes. Finally. I feel stupid."

"No need to. Nobody else knew stage left from an elephant's hind leg, so it's good that you precipitated some instructions. I doubt many of these folks have done any more stage work than you have."

"And I haven't done any."

"Right."

"Harold? Are you ready with the Mikado's letter?" called Max to Harold.

"Right here," called Harold, and he waved a scroll-type thing at Max.

"Very well," said Floy Hostetter. "We'll begin at your entrance."

By the way, Max Van der Linden was the stage director. Floy Hostetter just usurped his duties from time to time, I presume because he was accustomed to ruling over the singers at the First Methodist-Episcopal Church.

"We'll begin after you and Nanki-Poo decide you'll execute him after a month of his being married to Yum-Yum," said Max.

When I turned to look at the piano, darned if Mrs. Fleming wasn't there in her accustomed place. She gave me a big smile, and I gave her one back. Things felt normal again. For a second or two. Then I had to disrupt the joy and gaiety going on in the town of Titipu by barging in on a love scene. Fortunately, in between walking Spike and performing my other duties, I'd been studying my lines, so I managed a pretty dramatic entrance, considering I'm only a little over five feet tall.

Rehearsal went well after that. We'd blocked the entirety of act one by the end of the evening, all of us making notes on our librettos. Or is that libretti? Oh, who cares? Sam had roamed around backstage and, as we went through the end of act one for the last time, had cornered Gloria Lippincott in the front pew after her "Three Little Maids from School" song was over. I kept slipping peeks at them, because-darn it!-she was trying out her seductress routine on him! I could tell.

But I didn't have time to dwell on Gloria's shenanigans. I had a part to sing. So I sang.

At one point during the scene, Lawrence Allen, who played the role of Go-To, a noble lord of Titipu, stopped singing and glared into the pews. We all stopped and stared at him.

"Mr. Allen?" said Max tentatively, as if he weren't sure what was going on.

"Detective!" roared Lawrence. "If you need to speak with Mrs. Lippincott, perhaps you can wait until rehearsal is over. Your conversation is distracting the cast."

I saw Sam's eyebrows lift over his dark eyes like larks ascending. Or maybe caterpillars ascending. They were dark and fuzzy, Sam's eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?" said he in his official detective's voice.

"You're interrupting the rehearsal," said Lawrence, not roaring. In truth, he appeared a little embarrassed about having made a scene.

"It's all right, Lawrence," said Gloria in her sultry tone. "We'll be still." She gazed at Sam with what looked awfully like significant adoration. "Won't we, Detective Rotondo?"

Lawrence squeaked.

Sam stood and gave her the same look he might have given a fly that had landed on his apple pie. "Yes. We're through here, although I'll probably need to speak with you again, Mrs. Lippincott."

"Of course, Detective Rotondo," she purred.

Sam drew back and peered at her as if he were looking at a specimen at a zoological garden somewhere.

Take that, you villainess, thought I. I felt better for the remainder of the rehearsal, though. So did Lawrence Allen. I could tell. I aimed to find out why he objected so strenuously to Gloria flirting with Sam, however. Could he be the man she was supposedly involved with? I knew he was married to Sylvia, and that Sylvia didn't appear very happy. But evidently Gloria didn't bother with trivialities like that. Anyhow, Harold had already told me he was having an affair with somebody besides his wife.

Shoot. Maybe I really was taking on Katisha's nastier characteristics.

I sure hoped so. Being a good girl all the time was darned boring.