Chapter 6

Yeah…About the timing…Sorry. I'm terrible with updating and I don't have the Net when I'm home from college. That means I can write as much as I want, but I can't put anything up until I get back to school. So in any event, on to the new chapter.

PS Holmes is public domain, Elizabeth is her own person and "Ten Little Indians/And then there were None" is the property of the Agatha Christie estate. The show must go on.

True to theatre geek form, the entire cast and production staff turned up at Sam's funeral. The church was packed and no one in attendance needed theatrics to produce tears. At one point during the mass, I started to shred the handkerchief that I habitually carried around (something my mother had insisted on from childhood and the one habit she instilled that I could never break) in my black clad lap. Holmes took my hands, stilling their trembling as best he could. The service ended with a minor key flourish on the organ and the assembled mourners followed the priest and the body into the cemetery. Holmes kept my hand in his throughout the entire ordeal, lending his unwavering support with very little thought to the bruises I was sure I was leaving on his thin fingers.

It was finally over and, with unspoken agreement, the cast all met up at the theatre on campus for the open auditions that Matt had really scheduled for two hours after we'd seen Sam off. I sat behind Matt and his girlfriend (and assistant director) Liz to watch Holmes audition. He was reading a scene from the beginning, between Lombard and Vera, played by Kate, who didn't look particularly shaken up about Sam's… Anyway, after he got down off the stage, Liz hopped over the seats that separated us and plopped down next to me, leaning over and whispering in my ear, "Where did you dig this one up? He's amazing! Is he an exchange student?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah he is. He's in my Chem class and his apartment fell through so I offered to let him stay with me, in exchange for helping me pass Chem." It was a weak story, with waaay to many holes in it, but I had momentarily forgotten that one had to be enrolled at the college to audition for the productions that the drama society put on. Liz bought it without thinking about it which was rare for her, but she probably let it go because she wasn't about to let Holmes get away from her cast.

He came and sat next to me after he'd listened to Matt thank him for auditioning blah blah blah. His telltale eyebrow twitched when Liz jumped back over the seats to plop next to her boyfriend, and I turned my attention to Holmes.

"You were great!" I whispered at him, and it was true. The man was a born actor, slipping into and out of character with the ease of changing a hat. He'd look convincing in the costumes and he already had the accent that the rest of the cast was trying to affect, and hopefully would be able to give them a hint or two to help them not sound like a bad SNL sketch. The detective shrugged off my compliment, merely asking,

"Will I be cast, do you think?" he kept his voice low, not wanting the director and his girlfriend (who he'd been introduced to at Sam's funeral, and therefore knew who we were sitting behind) to hear.

"If Liz has anything to say about it, and she does, you will have that part. Richard will be so pleased. In any event, you'll have about a month to learn these lines and while we're home, I'll refit the costumes for you. It'll be a good time." He wisely ignored my macabre humor and focused on Liz, of all people.

"Other than being…involved…with the director, how do you know Liz?" I looked up at the stage before I answered and was privileged witness the beginning of one of the worst auditions I've ever been forced to watch, before or since. I stood up, still without answering my companion, and motioned him to do the same. While he was making his way out of the aisle like a normal person, I leaned over to whisper to Liz,

"We're heading to the Loft, call my cell when you know who you're casting."

Liz looked at Holmes, who'd introduced himself as Scott here as well, and wiggled her eyebrows at me. "Oww oww. Are you sure he isn't tutoring you in French?" I rolled my eyes at her, suppressing a smile. "Can you possibly be more cliché?" I whispered, jumping the seats in front of her to make it to the pit.

"Probably, do you want me to try?" She called after me, only to receive a rude gesture from me and an elbow in the ribs from Matt. The guy on stage didn't even miss a beat. I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

I motioned for Holmes to follow me back stage. We crossed behind the curtain, as the auditions being held on the apron. I picked up a key off the props table as we passed and led him over to a rack of chairs. I proceeded to climb the chairs in order to reach a gray painted iron ladder that blended in well with the cement wall behind it. I had started climbing that, the heals of my shoes catching on the rungs, when Holmes finally spoke up.

"Is that entirely safe?" he didn't bother with keeping a sotto voice any longer.

"Not really, but it hasn't fallen down yet. Come on up." I got to the top (there were only twelve rungs) and unlocked the padlock that kept the trapdoor closed. I pulled myself through the small opening and stood, holding the door for Holmes. When he was standing next to me, I let the door fall and moved a bucked filled with sand over it, so we wouldn't have any interruptions.

The Loft was a wooden construction that hung about thirty feet over the stage left wing, and it was where the larger props, mostly furniture, were stored. The faded pink couch was to be avoided at all costs, as the key I had had been copied more times than anyone could count, and the Loft was used as a…place to go between classes when the dorms were too far to meet…certain needs. Holmes, predictably, went to sit on the couch, as it was closest. I grabbed his arm, steering him around the sofa to a pair of threadbare blue wingchairs that had been new when my mother was in high school. We sat and looked at him. "What do you want to know?" A slow smile spread across his thin face before he answered, "Everything." So I told him everything. I told him how I'd known Liz ever sense we were in the same English class freshman year of high school and the teacher never really figured out which one of us was which. I started going by Lizzy after that, to everyone but Liz herself, so no one would confuse us.

I went on to tell him everything I knew about the rest of the cast, which wasn't as much as he would have liked. I wasn't exactly the most social of people with the underclassmen that populated the cast of this particular show. I had just launched into an anecdote about how I'd seen the girl playing Emily Brent smoking something that wasn't a cigarette with the guy that played Marston, and what they'd done with a plastic chicken and fishing pole, when my cell went off. I flicked it open, knowing it was Liz. "Yes darling?"

"Cast list is posted on the doors to the auditorium," she told me, and hung up. I looked up at Holmes. "The game's afoot."

OK…I know it's been an unpardonably long time since the last update, and I'm sorry. But now that I'm back at college and my time is my own again, I should be able to get this thing finished in some sort of timely fashion. Review?

Anna