Free Murder on the QE2 by Jessica Fletcher Page A

love to cook. Do you?”
    “Yes. Sometimes. Marla Tralaine said during the interview that she didn’t like pineapple?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Interesting,” I said, not knowing why.
    Rip Nestor, dressed in white slacks and shirt, bounded out to the stage apron and announced, “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to an hour of murder and mayhem, mischief and manslaughter.”
    “She didn’t like pineapple?” I said absently.
    “No, she didn’t.” Mary put her index finger to her lips. “Sssssh,” she said, smiling. “I want to hear every word.”

Chapter Eleven
    The first act of the play went well, judging from the audience’s active and willing participation. They applauded wildly, booed the character Millard Wainscott, and shouted their approval when he was gunned down at the end of the act.
    My fellow lecturers also appeared to have enjoyed playing their small parts at the beginning of the scene. All of them, that is, except the plant lady, Elaine Ananthous. She was a nervous wreck on stage, wringing her hands and allowing an active tic in her left eye to run amuck. I suppose I couldn’t blame her. But I was afraid she’d fall apart up there and start screaming that Marla Tralaine had been murdered. Thank goodness she didn’t.
    Nestor announced to the audience that the second act would be performed tomorrow—same time, same place. He added, “But don’t go away. The famous mystery writer, and our playwright, Jessica Fletcher, will be giving her first of two talks right here in just a few minutes.”
    Mary Ward and I went backstage to congratulate the cast. My antenna was fully extended to pick up on any mention of Marla Tralaine. But only Elaine Ananthous demonstrated unusual behavior. She kept her eyes glued to me, her pinched face set in an expression asking: What do we do now?
    I managed to catch a few minutes alone with her.
    “I thought I’d fall apart out there,” she said in her small voice. “I’ll never be able to get through my lecture tomorrow.”
    “Elaine,” I said, “I assure you, there is nothing for you, or any of us, to be concerned about. I know how hard it is to carry the knowledge that Ms. Tralaine has been killed, and to have to keep it quiet. But I’m certain that by tonight the word will have gotten out anyway, lifting that burden from us.”
    “Who could have done such a thing?” she asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    Although I hadn’t been forthcoming with her when she asked earlier how I’d learned of the actress’s death, I didn’t let that deter me from asking her the same question.
    “I wouldn’t want to get the person in any trouble,” she replied.
    “I won’t tell anyone,” I said, meaning it.
    “It was... it was her hairdresser.”
    “Ms. Tralaine’s hairdresser—Ms. Malone, is it?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why did she tell you?”
    “I don’t think she meant to. I saw her standing alone down by the spa. I’m always looking to do something with this thin hair of mine, and I thought she wouldn’t be offended if I asked her advice. When I approached, I saw she’d been crying. I asked what was wrong, if I could help. And then she just blurted out that Ms. Tralaine was dead—murdered, found naked in a lifeboat.”
    “What time was this?” I asked.
    “I don’t know exactly. Maybe eight. A little after that.”
    I did a fast calculation. Mary Ward and I had discovered the body at approximately eight o’clock. If Tralaine’s hairdresser, Candy Malone, knew about it at eight, that raised serious questions about how she’d learned of it so fast. If it was, as Elaine Ananthous thought it might have been, sometime after eight that she approached the hairdresser, that would have given her time to hear about it.
    But from whom?
    Granted, shipboard scuttlebutt could be an incredibly efficient and rapid conveyer of information. But not that fast. From what I’d observed, the attempts to put a lid on the murder had been successful, at least