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We all wondered the same thing. Was she gone? Had they decided to take her away?

"Try the door to the hall," Cinnamon told Ice. "Maybe it was left unlocked and she went down to her mother's residence.'"

Ice tried the door and found it locked.

"The window." Cinnamon thought aloud and went to it herself, but found that locked as well. She turned and shrugged. "She's gone."

Howard looked from her to the rest of us, skepticism writing lines along his forehead and pulling his lips in at the corners of his mouth.

"This was all a lot of bull, wasn't it?" he charged. "You thought you'd have some fun with me, is that it?"

"Don't be completely stupid. Howard," Cinnamon told him.

"You've got something else going on and you tried to pull this on me. I want you to know I never really fell for it," he said, folding his arms across his chest. "That's why I insisted on coming up here. If you really thought I had swallowed this fantastic story about a disturbed daughter practically kept a prisoner just so Madame Senetsky wouldn't be embarrassed, well, you've all got another think..."

Gerta was so quiet, stepping out from behind the closet door, we almost didn't see her. She wore a wig of long black hair that trailed over her shoulders. She was dressed in an ankle-length nightgown. She didn't seem to see us, but instead looked past us. Then she smiled.

" 'My mother had a maid called Barbary: She was in love, and he she loved proved mad, and did forsake her. She had a song of "Willow," an old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune, and she died singing it.' "

"What is she saying?" Ice asked with a grimace.

Howard shook his head in awe.

"Those are Desdemona's lines in Othello before she is murdered by him. Cinnamon, what is this? Have you been working with her, teaching it to her?"

"Of course not," Cinnamon replied.

"But..." He looked at us. "It's part of what Cinnamon and I are preparing for our next

Performance Night,"

I turned quickly to Cinnamon. Had Gerta somehow been listening in on their rehearsals? For a moment her eves twinkled with the same suspicion. Then she shook it out of her thoughts.

"Just coincidence," she muttered for my benefit. Gerta stepped forward.

" 'The song tonight will not go from my mind; I have much to do but to go hang my head all at one side and sing it like poor Barbary,' " she continued.

She paused and lowered her head.

"That's very good," Howard told her. He looked skeptically at Cinnamon. "Too good to be any sort of coincidence."

"I told you, Howard. I've had nothing to do with it. She just knows lines from plays."

Gerta lifted her head, her face back to the face we had seen before, that childlike smile of trust on her lips.

"Hello," Howard said to her.

She ignored him and turned to us.

"Are you all here for the show?" she asked excitedly. "What show is that. Gerta?" I asked.

"My mother's new show. We're supposed to be very quiet, you know. Not a peep. Sit and pay attention and smile at people who smile at you, but not a peep," she warned. "This way, please," she said and walked into the living room.

Howard turned to us astounded. "Is she for real?"

"Well, have you had enough, Howard?" Cinnamon asked him. "You see for yourself we were not lying to you. Are you satisfied? Do you want to apologize?"

"Yes, yes," he said, waving his hand at her. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You're all as honest as the day is long." He looked after Gerta. "She's like an idiot savant, rattling off those lines. You said you have heard her recite others?"