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thought that pretty soon Eleanor would find some entertainment in her role of worried and loyal mistress.
    “I’m awfully sorry about the party.”
    “Dear child, your mustn’t apologize. It’s not your fault, and not Victor’s either. Something has happened to him. If only Ronald were here,” she sighed, her voice petering out.
    “He’s not home yet?”
    “Not till tomorrow. I must get back to my guests. Thanks for calling, Cassie. Bye.”
    I hung up and sat frowning into the receiver. I had run out of ideas of how to find Victor. As I sat thinking, Sean came out of the studio. He was frowning, too.
    “Maybe it’s time to call the police, Cassie,” he suggested hesitantly.
    “And report a missing adult, gone for all of three or four hours? They’d think I was neurotic.”
    His look of hesitancy deepened to doubt. “Is there any chance he got loaded somewhere? Pre-concert jitters— something like that? I read the newspapers. If you think he’s tied one on, I could take a run around his favorite bars and get him home.”
    “He’d never get drunk in public. He’s too proud and too jealous of his reputation. He’d hole up in his own digs for a binge. Besides, he was looking forward to this concert. He wasn’t in a drinking mood.”
    “If you say so.” We looked dejectedly at each other for a minute, then Sean spoke. “I don’t know about Victor, but it’s time you and I had a little something. Where’s the liquor cabinet?”
    I hate the woody, poisonous taste of Scotch, but it’s part of my diplomatic training to take it without wincing, so I made two Scotch and sodas. No calories in the mix anyway. A diplomat can hardly order a pi Ô a colada. We took our drinks to the sofa to talk. I went over when I’d last seen my uncle, what his normal routine would be before a concert, and the reasons why I thought he hadn’t been in the apartment, though his car parked below suggested he’d been here. I told him about the tuxedo being gone from his room when I got home from work after five. Actually I hadn’t seen it since yesterday.
    “I imagine a guy like Victor has a housekeeper?” he said.
    “Yes, Rhoda Gardiner. She leaves at five. I’ll call her and ask when she last saw him.”
    I know Rhoda mostly through notes, as she comes after I go to work and is gone when I get home, but I’d met her a few times and knew she was no jewel of a woman. Her chocolate cake is about the best thing about her. She told me with an utter lack of concern that Mr. Mazzini had played his violin in the morning and left the apartment sometime during the afternoon, taking his tuxedo and violin with him. She couldn’t pinpoint “sometime” more closely.
    “Did he seem like himself?” I asked.
    “Who else would he seem like?”
    “He wasn’t nervous or anything?”
    “He ate some salami and bread. He wasn’t too nervous to eat anyway, but he was a bit jumpy. The concert, I figured. He was in the studio all morning. Did you get my note about dinner?”
    “Yes, thanks.”
    “That’s all I can tell you.” The TV was playing in the background. Rhoda had adopted the stars of the nighttime soaps for her own family. I knew she wanted to get back to them and hung up to tell Sean what she’d said.
    Sean rubbed his moustache. “What do we do now?” he asked.
    “We could have a look in his car and see if his tux is there,” I decided. “There’s a spare set of keys on a hook in the kitchen.”
    We got them and went down the service elevator to the parking garage. Victor drives a white Corvette. It’s not really all that comfortable, but he likes the looks of it. The tux was still there in its bag, hung over the passenger seat. There was no sign of his violin. We examined the rest of the car while we were there—glove compartment, floor—but didn’t discover any clues.
    “He’s disappeared. Just disappeared into thin air,” I said, defeated. “The only thing I can think of is that somebody murdered