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key!”
    â€œWith any luck, I’ll forget I’ve been here,” Renie muttered as the cousins trudged through the alley. “Damn, how could you do that to us, we’ve probably been poisoned! That place smelled like the old outhouse up at the cabin! Our English ancestors used to take tea with Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales! You get us stuck with a loony popcorn vendor and his dirty bird!”
    Judith was unperturbed. “I did it because we didn’t have any choice,” she asserted, stopping at the Empress Drive entrance to the Clovia. Admittedly, the red ivy on stout, twisting vines clawing its way up the walls was an impressive sight in the fading autumn sun. Judith pausedto admire the Clovia’s stolid exterior with its mellow old brick and evergreen shrubbery. Brushing a tiny crescent-shaped bit of glitter from her slacks and giving thanks that her person hadn’t collected something more disagreeable during their visit to Bob-o, she continued her self-defense: “And I’m glad. I don’t know why, but there’s something about him that upsets me. I guess I just feel sorry for the poor old guy.”
    â€œYou feel sorry for everybody. Except me.” Renie grumbled all the way up to the eighth floor. Only a session with toothbrush and mouthwash, a hot soak in the tub, and a stiff rye and water improved her disposition. It also revived her brain. “By the way,” she said, rubbing her hair dry with a thick towel, “did you notice the picture of Maria?”
    â€œMaria?” Judith looked up from the Port Royal visitors’ guide she’d been perusing. “Hunh. Well, she was a big star in England, as well as over here.”
    â€œWas Bob-o talking nonsense all the time?” Renie inquired, plopping down on the plush sofa and retrieving her drink.
    Judith was trying to track down a bicycle specialty shop for Mike. “What? Oh—probably.” She scribbled out an address, then glanced at her watch. “Hey, it’s almost six. Let’s get going. Didn’t you make the dinner reservations at the Prince Albert Cafe for seven-thirty?”
    â€œRight.” Renie was scrutinizing her travel wardrobe. “Shoot, what do we wear to something called the Sacred Eight?”
    â€œNot much choice, with one suitcase apiece,” said Judith, then jumped as a series of explosions rattled the windowpanes. “Damn! More crackers?”
    Renie nodded, less concerned with the revelers out along Empress Drive than her social dilemma. She finally wrapped herself in a reversible blue-green blouse and skirt that hadn’t traveled as well as the Donner & Blitzen sales clerk had promised. Judith settled on a tailored ivory silk shirt and black velvet trousers. Shortly after six p.m. thecousins approached the door of Suite 800 at the far end of the hall. Judith’s knock was answered by Maria, looking divine in a black suede jacket trimmed with gold over red jersey harem pants. Her gold and ruby earrings looked like spaceships. Judith and Renie were properly impressed.
    â€œMy dears!” Maria welcomed them, against a back-drop of art deco furnishings and Cole Porter on tape, “come in, meet three-fourths of the Sacred Eight. The Castles got held up in Hong Kong. Jonny’s new picture ran over schedule.”
    â€œJonathan Castle and Clea Rome?” echoed Judith, recalling Maria’s earlier reference to the missing couple. “The movies’ gorgeous hunk and the hot mama of hard rock?” She boggled at the thought of replacing two such mega-stars.
    â€œYes,” sighed Maria, steering Judith and Renie toward Max Rothside and the bearded man the cousins had seen coming out of the elevator upon their arrival, “it’s a shame. Max was so hoping the reunion would be complete. Weren’t you, darling?”
    Max Rothside bowed over his cocktail glass and flicked ash from his cigarette into a crystal