A Midsummer Night's Scream

all the shoes were full of cash?'

'I didn't think I should look further without a warrant. Miss Turner isn't going to like that.'

'I think Miss Turner is telling us what Sven tells her,' Officer Jones said. 'And it's not the truth.'

'I agree. If I hadn't heard from his boss and Miss Turner how shy and antisocial he is, I'd be thinking about blackmail.'

'That was my first thought, too, when you told me about the shoe.'

Jane had left a message on Mel's cell phone. 'Give me a ring and tell me what you've learned about the janitor if you have a moment free.'

He called her back as soon as he'd applied for the warrant and asked for a police officer rotation to guard the hospital room Sven was in for twenty-four hours a day. If it was blackmail, one of his victims might drop in to make sure Sven didn't survive.

'I know more about the janitor than I want to know or understand yet.'

'What do you mean?'

'I'm not allowed to tell you. But his blood pressure is getting better, he's moving a bit and making sounds. He'll probably survive. Whether his thinking and memory are seriously impaired can't be known yet.'

'Not allowed to tell me?' Jane asked, a bit put out. He'd suddenly lost the urge to be forthcoming.

'That's right. You might know eventually, but not yet. I have a lot on my plate today. I'll try to catch up with you later.'

There was well over a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars hidden in Sven's room. In every shoe there was cash. Rolled bills were hidden in sock balls and even stashed in puzzle boxes.

Miss Turner was furious when Mel told her it would have to be at least temporarily confiscated for her own safety. 'It was counted out by several law officers. Sometimes this large an amount of cash is tempting. Not that I believe any of the officers are crooks. But not all of them are close acquaintances of mine. You might find yourself being robbed.'

'But where's the money going?'

'Into a safety-deposit box. I'll call for an armored car to take it. Now, you must count the bundles yourself to assure that it all comes back, if circumstances prove that it really belongs to you and your brother.'

'Of course it does. I'm just surprised at how it's added up.'

'I'll open each bundle and you flip through, counting the hundreds,' Mel offered.

'That would take me days. I'm going to have to trust your people to at least know how to count money.'

'I wish you wouldn't. But I can promise you this — I watched every single bill counted and bundled, and nobody took a single bill.'

'Then you can call your truck and give me a receipt.'

'Gladly,' Mel said.

Jane had called Shelley after her conversation with Mel. 'Our source of information has dried up. Mel called and said some weird things about knowing about something he didn't quite understand yet and couldn't talk about.'

'That sounds fascinating,' Shelley said. 'Why do you suppose he said he didn't quite understand it yet?'

Jane shrugged. 'I have no idea. He did add that someday he might be able to tell us about it.'

'I hope so. I hate teasers that are never revealed.'

'So do I. I'm so glad this whole play thing will soon be out of our lives. Who are your caterers this time?'

'The ones I had to cancel earlier. They agreed that with sufficient time to prepare, I wouldn't lose my deposit. Which is sensible. We only haveto go to the theater for four more days, including tonight. I was wrong about the opening night. The play doesn't start until seven on Friday, so the cast and crew have time to find their own dinners.'

Rehearsals resumed on Monday evening. Since the second crime had taken place outside the theater and involved someone none of them admitted they'd ever met, the practices didn't have to stop. Everyone had been questioned about whether they'd ever been in the building when the janitor was. Nobody, it appeared, was aware that there was a janitor.

Shelley was trying out yet another catering company, and was extremely unhappy with them. They were late to arrive. The food was bland and skimpy. They barely cleaned up after themselves. Jane suspected that the owner would receive a piece of Shelley's mind before the evening was over.

The background scenery was finished and done well. It truly looked like an elegant room. It had a sense of depth. The man who supplied the props had been in earlier and set up chairs, a sofa, rugs, lamps, and tables with ornaments, books, and flowers. The fireplace, which had a narrow mantel, was strewn artfully with what looked like genuine old family pictures in black-and-white and even sepia.

Seeing things coming together well had appar?

ently made Professor Imry slightly less offensive. His goal was in sight at last, Jane assumed. She settled in a chair in the front row of the theater to work on her needlepoint, but she soon realized there wasn't a good enough light to make color choices. So she put her supplies away and took her 'emergency' paperback out of her purse.

Jane didn't go anywhere without a book to read. Not even on short drives. She'd once been caught in a traffic snarl that clogged a whole lane because a truck was on its side. All she'd had to read in the car was a Horchow catalog, which she had practically memorized by the time she could creep far enough to take a side street.

There was enough light to read an old Ngaio Marsh paperback while Shelley was probably on the pay phone in the lobby, tearing a strip off the owner of the catering company.

She was also half watching the rehearsal. It was interesting to her that the book she was reading also took place in a theater. This rehearsal seemed to be going well. Everybody knew their lines. Nobody but the butler, who was still making side remarks, flubbed a single one. Ms. Bunting was wonderful. This pleasant woman in real life playing a nasty old woman was amazing to watch. Denny's replacement was barely okay. He, like Imry, didn't have an appealing personality.

But nobody else really sparkled. How could they with such a dreary, stupid, humorless, point-lessly plotted script? For a moment, Jane felt a tiny bit sorry for the director/scriptwriter Imry. She wondered if there would even be a second performance.

Mel was starting to have doubts. Both Sven' s boss and his sister, who knew him best, had claimed he was too shy to talk to strangers. There was no good reason to doubt either woman's judgment. Maybe the blackmail theory was, in fact, wrong. Could a timid person like Sven muster the courage to blackmail anyone? He didn't seem to have the nerve to even speak to strangers. He couldn't imagine Sven confronting anyone repeatedly for cash, much less arranging for where and when the cash would be exchanged.

On the other hand, Mel knew he'd clearly done the right thing by seizing the money for the time being. He'd put an extra officer on duty watching the Turners' house, just in case word leaked out that it was full of cash. Everybody involved in counting the money knew that it had been removed. That might not discourage a neighbor or one of the people who did the counting from thinking they might have missed some of it.

Could a man in his forties and his sister in her fifties have genuinely stashed away that much money? It was possible. Apparently Hilda had once had a well-paying job. She could have turned her earnings over to her brother. And the

story of Sven's gambling could be accurate. Hilda had also told Officer Jones that neither she nor her brother