"Exactly so. I spent that weekend at my house in Vail."

"Maybe dead dancers don't talk, but cell phones can still tell tales, Mr. Alden. There's a message on Talya's phone," Mike said. I knew he was bluffing now because her phone had never been found. We were only going on Joe Berk's statement that he claimed to have listened to Hubert Alden's invitation to take the ballerina out for a late supper the night she went missing. "Your voice, offering to pick her up that same evening."

Alden raised his head, looking out the window over mine, face-to-face with a gargoyle who laughed back at him from the building cornice across the narrow street, its tongue extended from its wide stone mouth.

"Dinner, Mr. Alden? That ring a bell?"

"I never got an answer from Talya. I made that call from my office, late in the afternoon, I think. Naturally, I would have stayed in town if she'd responded that she wanted to see me. I keep the company plane at Teterboro, in New Jersey, right over the George Washington Bridge."

"You didn't happen to stop by the opera house on your way to the airport, did you?"

"Mr. Chapman, I was scheduled to fly out at around seven o'clock that evening. I didn't stop anywhere, because I was anxious to get into the Vail airport before they shut it down for the night."

"But it's your own wings, no? You tell the pilot it's ten or it's midnight, and that's when the flight goes."

"We were wheels up before Natalya went onstage, detective. The first act started at eight p.m., didn't it?" Alden was steaming now, unhappy about the implied accusation and perhaps also unhappy that we may have heard something more intimate in the phone conversation than he had revealed to us. "The flight records on both ends will confirm my departure and arrival times."

"Those records will tell me about the movements of the aircraft, Mr. Alden. Whether they account for where you were that night is another matter."

Alden leaned forward with his elbows on the arms of the wooden chair and shook his head while he looked down at the floor. "You brought me down here for this? You'll be embarrassed when you get the answers you're looking for."

Mike could shift gears as suddenly as moods. He backed off the subject of Galinova's murder, and sensed from our first conversation with Alden that he would be more comfortable talking about his theatrical ancestors.

"I'll be first in line to apologize if I'm wrong, Mr. Alden. I mean, there it was in your own voice, the night of the murder. I had to ask you, since you didn't tell us about your dinner invitation the first time we talked. And the main reason we asked to see you again is that we really wanted your help about something else, something that involves Joe Berk."

Alden seemed to perk up now, pleased to shift the attention back to Berk.

"I'm figuring you might know some of this because of your grand-mother, the opera singer, and 'cause your grandfather was such a patron of the arts. You know anything about the Shriners?"

Alden looked at me to check my expression, and I met his glance with a smile. "Why do you ask?"

"Obviously, I can't tell you exactly why, but let's just say Berk hasn't been too candid with us, and maybe you can help me understand why."

"Candor isn't part of Joe's vocabulary. What is it about the Shriners?"

"Who are they? What do they have to do with the theatrical community?" Mike asked the general question to start Alden talking, but I knew he would work his way up to the red tasseled fez.

"The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, detective. A nineteenth-century offshoot of the Masons-you know about them, don't you?"

I knew that Freemasons were opponents of divine right kingships, attracted by the freedom of early craftsmen, spiritual heirs of the men who built the world's great monuments-the pyramids, Solomon's Temple, the Roman aqueducts, and later the medieval cathedrals.

"Fraternal organizations," Mike said.

"Yes, but with a firm set of beliefs that are centered in the freedom of man. You had Voltaire and Ben Franklin, George Washington and Mozart, all espousing democratic ideals and benevolence. By the mid-nineteenth century, most towns in America had at least one Masonic Lodge, not just for fraternal purposes, but for philanthropic goals as well."

"And the Shriners?"

"They first of all had to be Masons, but their order evolved from a more exotic heritage-the seventh-century Order of the Mystic Shrine," Alden said, looking over at Mike. "You'd actually be amused by their original purpose."

"What was it?"

"To maintain law and order, to help local governments fight crime. They were a kind of primitive posse when they originated. It wasn't until the nineteenth century that their mission changed."

"I hate friggin' posses. Last thing I need is a bunch of amateurs trying to do my job. What did they change to?"

"In my grandparents' time, the Shriners really became the playground for the Masons, associated with most of the popular entertainers of the day. And all very taken with the exotic symbols of the original Middle Eastern or Near Eastern Shrine associations."

"Why so?"

"Because that's where the movement originated, centuries ago. When it was revived in America, there were two men who cofounded the order in the 1850s. One was a stage actor and the other a medical doctor-William Jermyn Florence and Dr. Walter Millary Fleming. They had this idea to use the organization to entertain people, while at the same time being charitable, raising money for medical research."

"But what did you say about the Middle East? What symbols are you talking about?" Mike asked.

"William Florence played in performances all over Europe and northern Africa -in many of the same theaters where my grand-mother, Giulietta Capretta, later sang. He went to Algeria and Cairo, bringing home with him some of the rituals from the shrines there, some of the trappings of the early orders that flourished in the Middle East."

"Like what?"

"Islamic motifs, in everything from the architecture of their meeting places to the details in the interior design. These American Shriners didn't construct theaters for their entertainment and lodging, Ms. Cooper. They actually built mosques. And they gave them Arabic names, all over the country. Bektash Shrine Temple in Concord, New Hampshire; Syria Temple in Pittsburgh; the Ararat Temple in Kansas City; the Aladdin Temple in Columbus, Ohio; the Sphinx Temple in Hartford; and the Rameses Temple in Toronto. More than half a million members nationwide."

"A hundred years ago? Mosques all over this country?"

"Indeed. And the leaders were all known as imperial potentates and grand masters, again in the Arabic traditions."

"You mentioned design elements, too," I said. "What was distinctive about them?"

"Colors for one thing. The mixtures of red and yellow and green are very evocative of the culture. Certain symbols are constants, like the crescent moon crossed with the scimitar, arabesque grillwork in many of the building features, and always mosaic tile work on the walls and ceiling-lots of glazed terra-cotta, usually with a foliate imagery-"

"Hold it, buddy, will you? You make a study of this stuff?" Mike was trying to take notes as Alden talked.

"I inherited the entire theatrical collection that had been in our family for decades. It's part of my genealogy, detective-it's in the blood. Nothing I had to study."

"What do you mean you inherited something? Like what?"

"Scores of photographs-George M. Cohan, Sophie Tucker, Lillian Russell-they all performed with the Shriners. I've got a unique assortment of signed Playbills from opening nights and events, and even costumes they wore at major events."

"What kind of costumes?" Mike asked.