“Remember, Lieutenant: Professor Flecker said this was an allusion that might particularly appeal to me. Now I am hardly noted for my devotion to the anticlerical prejudices of Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris. What is the common meeting-ground of my interests and Professor Flecker’s?”

“Church liturgy?” Marshall ventured.

“And why was your Quasimodo so named? Because he was born—or found or christened, I forget which—on the Sunday after Easter. Many Sundays, as you may know, are often referred to by the first word of their introits, the beginning of the proper of the Mass. As the fourth Sunday in Lent is called Laetare Sunday, or the third in Advent Gaudete Sunday. So the Sunday after Easter is known as Quasimodo Sunday, from its introit Quasimodo geniti infantes . . . ‘As newborn babes.’”

“But I still don’t see—”

“The Sunday after Easter,” said Sister Ursula, “is more usually referred to as Low Sunday.”

“Oh,” said Marshall. After a moment he added reflectively, “The Happy Hypocrite . . .”

“You see that too? Beerbohm’s story is about a man who assumes a mask of virtue to conceal his depravity. A schizoid allegory. I wonder if Professor Lowe dreamed that he might find the same happy ending.”

Marshall drove on a bit in silence. Then he said, “He said a strange thing while you were out.”

“I feel as though he were already dead,” said Sister Ursula. “I want to say, ‘God rest his soul.’ We should have a special office for the souls of the mad.”

“That cues into my story. The boys were taking him away and I said to Rags, ‘Well, this is once the insanity plea justifies itself. He’ll never see the gas chamber.’ And he turned on me—he’d quieted down by then—and said, ‘Nonsense, sir! Do you think I would cast doubt on my sanity merely to save my life?’”

“Mercy,” said Sister Ursula. At first Marshall thought it was just an exclamation. Then he looked at her face and saw that she was not talking to him.

POSTICHE

Mignon G. Eberhart

Detective: Susan Dare

OFTEN DESCRIBED as the Mary Higgins Clark of her day, Mignon Good Eberhart (1899-1996) was once one of America’s most successful and beloved mystery writers. She enjoyed a career that spanned six decades and produced sixty books, beginning with The Patient in Room 18 (1929) and concluding with Three Days for Emeralds (1988).

Her first five books featured Sarah Keate, a middle-aged spinster, nurse, and amateur detective who works closely with Lance O’Leary, a promising young police detective in an unnamed Midwestern city. This unlikely duo functions effectively, despite Keate’s penchant for stumbling into dangerous situations from which she must be rescued. She is inquisitive and supplies O’Leary with valuable information.