Beatrice watched through the window as Sigismund turned right onto the main road. A block later he turned right again and headed along the North side of Lake Serene Retirement Village on its way to the other side of the lake, where Marvella's studio was located. Once the car was out of sight, Beatrice turned the television back on. Princess Zassapoonia was singing a beautiful aria about how wonderful it was not to be a hedgehog any more -- apparently an evil witch had turned her into one earlier, and Prince Stromdoddle had broken the spell by reciting "Twas the night before Christmas" backwards. Now the Prince and Princess were singing a duet. Beatrice had trouble hearing the words, but that was no great loss. What mattered was the tune, which was charming and beautifully sung. What talent the two girls had!

Later in the show, Marvella answered the studio audience's questions. How do you prevent leaf rot in Sicilian begonias? What's a good recipe for Chateaubriande for a wedding party of 126? The camera panned over the audience. Sigismund and Renfrew sat in aisle seats in row 5. Further to the left were Tintinella, Tamboria, and a fortyish couple who were probably their parents. Beatrice wondered if it was accidental that Sigismund was so far away from his son. Well, the row was full of people, so the aisle seats were probably all that were available for latecomers. In front of Sigismund was a teenage boy of 13 or 14 with a Boston bambinos baseball cap. The boy was scowling. A large paper bag was in his lap.

Six commercials went by, followed by an interview with the man who had invented Curlew and some other state of the art androids. None of this was news to Beatrice, but she hoped the camera would show the audience when the closing credits rolled.

At last the studio audience came into view, and Beatrice witnessed a strange scene. Marvella was in the aisle talking to Renfrew, when the boy with the baseball cap stood up and accused her of judging the talent contest unfairly. Apparently he had been a semifinalist. He pulled a large baseball bat from the bag. The bat had a long crack along one edge. The camera did a closeup, revealing the words "Willy Wonderful Baseball gear" above the crack.

Willy Wonderful was the star player for the Boston Bambinos. Indeed, in his first year with the team he had hit the winning home run in the last game of the 2019 World Series. He had smacked the ball with such force that his bat had cracked. The ball, meanwhile, had soared out of Bambino Fens Park, over several medical center buildings, and through the window of a tenth-floor condo in Longwood Towers in Brookline several miles away. As luck would have it, there was no one in the condo at the time, because the person who lived there was Willy Wonderful himself. Willy had led the team to victory in the next three World Series. and had started a lucrative sports equipment company. He did, however, move out of Longwood Towers because it was obviously within range of the ballpark.

The boy brandished the bat and approached Marvella with a murderous glint in his eyes.

Uh oh! Renfrew wanted to solve a murder mystery, and it looked as if a real murder was about to take place.

Paulh