Douglas, Nelson - Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

"No, but I have a hunch it might."

Electra nudged Kit's ribs. "Temple's hunches are A-one, especially in the murder department."

"Ooh, do you think we'll have a murder while I'm here?" Kit waxed instantly rhapsodic. "I was in

'Inspector Hound' once, but I've only seen stage corpses. Do you suppose a dueling pirate might do away with a fellow buccaneer?"

"Over hidden shoes?" Temple was indignant. "Hardly. Listen, I've had enough of murder as well as of men."

" Of Murder and Men ." Kit paused to envision a marquee. "That has a ring. You should write a play."

"I want to see a play right now."

Temple circled behind the pair to herd them toward a souvenir shop, wherein she purchased three tickets to the pirates, then spurred them into the line outside the attraction. The pointed masts of a sailing ship bristled above the entry roofline.

Kit, a true actress, plunged into character. "Brace the mizzen-mast, me lads, and we'll make home port by dawn," she urged in a disconcerting basso.

"Do they brace mizzenmasts?" Electra wondered.

"Well, they ought to."

Temple, meanwhile, shuffled forward in line, feeling a moth eating a hole of excitement in her stomach. Was she right? Were the glamorous black-cat shoes tucked amongst swags of pirate pearls and Spanish silver? Would she hit the jackpot on her first jaunt? For once she was out to solve an innocent mystery, and a personally rewarding one. No dead pirates, she promised herself.

Once inside, she quickly eyed the setup. A pool masqueraded as a lagoon, with a pirate ship anchored at the rear. The audience sat opposite the ship in a steeply raked amphitheater, open-aired except for a sun-shading roof.

"The higher we go the better we'll see," Kit suggested sotto voce, as if passing on the secrets of the ancients.

"Too high, and I won't get a good look at any treasure chest," Temple said.

"Which may or may not be here," Electra pointed out.

After much vacillating, aisle-blocking and whispered consultation, the party settled on seats four rows up. By then, quite a crowd had entered. They were forced to shuffle into the row, off center to the empty pier area facing the water.

"Don't you think the actors would make off with the shoes if they found them?" Kit asked

"No, they'd probably be in on the scheme." Temple pursed her lips and knotted her eyebrows to match. "Or they don't know. I doubt the shoes will be obvious, but they should be ... reachable."

"For who?" Electra jeered. "The Seven Dwarves? Or the Giant in the beanstalk?"

"Wrong play," Temple said just as a swashbuckling figure shot from the top of the seats to the waterfront below on a rope and a reel instead of a wing and a prayer.

Enter stage left a band of pirate scum, fair maiden in hand .

Actually the fair maiden rode in a chiffon-curtained sedan chair, with the pirate scum toting the poles thereof. When she left her shelter, the chiffon collapsed to reveal the real object the poles supported.

"Yes!" Temple barely restrained herself from leaping out of her seat.

The pirates set down their treasure chest, its suggestively agape lid spilling ropes of pearls and glitter into the bright sunshine.

The action below resolved into a comic opera musical interlude for the pirate scum, who were led by a villainous but impressively muscular first mate, bare of shirt, chest hair and tattoos. Had he heard about the Incredible Hunk contest at the Crystal Phoenix?

Our hero was the pirate captain who had shot from the sky in wide-sleeved shirt, sash and head bandana. In the course of rescuing the maiden, defending his ship and treasure chest and quelling a mutiny, the entire cast ran, skirmished, swung on ropes and cavorted from the platform before the audience to a tower to the ship and another tower. Tension ran high as the audience waited to see who would plummet into the lagoon and get wet first.

While all eyes ogled the athletic action at home and aboard, Temple stepped over the seatback before her and slid down into the next row.

Twin gasps from the rear indicated that Kit and Electra had noticed Temple's unconventional change of seats. Luckily, the lusty action below kept the rest of the audience unaware.

Temple settled into the vacant seat like a slowly sinking ship, then sat immobile until the pirate crew cavorted from pier to the ship's deck and masts.

She again rose, stepped down into an empty seat in the lower row and sat. Only two rows below reposed the treasure chest, set aside and forgotten at what amounted to stage right.

Meanwhile, the cast was engaging in frantic swordplay at stage left. Luckily, Temple was on the fringe of the seated audience. She had only to make her way down two more rows, and the treasure chest would be hers, all hers. At least for the few seconds a look required.

At closer view, the chest was unpromising, even disappointingly tawdry. The gilt paint streaking its exterior was thin and hastily applied. Like some eternally gape-jawed village idiot, it sat lolling its tongue of cheap pearl ropes at the audience. None of the contents thus revealed were worth more than fifteen cents. Temple glimpsed the foot of a gilded goblet. A string of plastic red beads. Swaths of red, green and gold glitter mired in glassy slicks of yellowing glue.

Stage props, like the actors themselves, were designed to appeal most from a flattering distance.

Would Temple entrust a delicate, expensive pair of Austrian crystal-studded shoes to such a lowly container? No, but the least likely the looks, the better the hiding place.

Shrieks from her right made Temple jump like a thief in a spotlight. She glanced to the playing area.

Some pirate crew horseplay had splashed the front-row occupants with a whiplash of water.

Under cover of squeals and claps, Temple darted down two rows and sank down right before the pirate treasure.

She clasped her hands like a princess bride, hardly believing she was now front-row center, staring at the object of her outing. The temptingly ajar lid looked permanently glued into place. She would have to get on her knees and peer into its shadowed mouth, perhaps even pry it open more, if possible. A good thing she wasn't wearing pantyhose, she thought, as she knee-walked into position and twisted to peer inside the lid. Something pale and glittering as a shark's tooth tickled her eye. She craned her head closer to the chest, hearing distant shouts and laughter.

Was it a crystal-encrusted toe? Or a ... a fork tine? And stainless steel at that? What kind of pirate treasure were these yahoos passing off here--?

A strong hand clasped her elbow and jerked her upright.

Temple gasped and turned. The frowning first mate was leering at her, his trusty rubber dagger clenched in his impeccably white, even teeth.

"Aha!" he said so broadly that Temple thought he could walk the plank on his villainous tone alone.

"Another meddling but comely lass. Booty for below."

Another pirate came swinging down like Tarzan to alight beside them. "We'll take her aboard," her captor decreed, pulling Temple nearer in his sweaty embrace to stage-whisper, "Just hang on and put your feet on the knot. You'll be fine."

Even as he spoke he grabbed a passing cable and stepped up on the heavy knot, holding Temple with only one arm.

Before she could blink, they were sailing over the lagoon like blind mice clinging to the pendulum of a grandfather clock. Temple's feet flailed for the advertised knot, but she was too short to reach it, so she clung to the sailor and the rope, watching the blurred world shoot past like running water colors.

Somewhere in that sea of smudged faces were Electra and Kit.

The first mate landed with a jolt on an upper deck, letting the rope swing back across the water.