Miss Roman,
If you ever hope to see Joel Brown again you will follow these directions to the letter. Inform the desk at your hotel that you are expecting a call from Antonio Salieri, who is an Italian producer with whom you are anxious to speak; and that they must allow his calls to go through their switchboard. I will contact you in the future using that name in order to give you further instructions. If I hear, or even suspect, that you have called in any authorities on this matter, they will find Brown’s body floating face down in the Charles River.
A. Salieri

When Louisa, her face ashen, read the note, first to herself and then out loud to Amanda, the latter asked innocently, “Who is this Antonio Salieri?”
“I…I think it’s not Mr. Salieri, it’s someone else—a really horrible man—one whom we met on the Casta Diva cruise.” Louisa found she must sit down and that she could hardly catch her breath.
“Who? What man?” Amanda demanded.
“Oh, my,” Louisa answered cautiously, “I don’t know that I ought to tell you, Mandy dear. It involves a secret that Joel Brown and I, and no one else, are privy to.”
“Oh, but I think you’re going to have to tell me,” Amanda said firmly, “if I’m to be able to help you at all. So, what is all the secrecy about anyway?”
“Dear girl, I just can’t,” Louisa protested, “You’re already far too close to this situation for your own good. I simply cannot endanger you further.”
“Think a moment!” Amanda said sternly, “This guy, whoever he is, already knows that I’m close to you; otherwise he would not have sent the envelopes to me, would he? He knew I would sense the importance of the message in yours and that you would be forced by that knowledge to show me the contents. The fact of the matter is that I’m already involved up to my teeth in this and there’s no way you can keep me out. So, tell me; who is this clever clown pretending to be a seventeenth century Italian composer?”
“Oh, dear,” Louisa sighed, “Must I?”
“You must,” Amanda ordered, “So, let’s have it.”
Sighing again very deeply, Louisa began, “All right, I’ll tell you; but only as little as I possibly can in order to inform you of the necessities, and no more.” She arranged herself on a chromium and plastic chair before beginning, “The ‘clown’, as you call him, is anything but. His real name is Graham Solmes, and he is a dangerous, evil man. You and the rest of the world believe a story that the news media conjured up about our disaster in the Atlantic Ocean during what was supposed to be our honeymoon cruise aboard the yacht Casta Diva II.
“The news story has it that we were caught in a terrible storm and the yacht was capsized by heavy seas and, while Franco, his brother, his ah…fiancé, and two of the yacht’s crew were rescued by some Italian fishermen who were fishing nearby, the yacht’s captain, the kitchen steward, Joel Brown, and I were all lost in the sea and presumed drowned. That is not what actually happened. What happened was the following: Mr. Solmes came alongside the yacht in a speedboat early in the first morning out, boarded the yacht with armed gunmen, and kidnapped Franco and his brother. They killed the captain and locked Alberto’s girlfriend and me in our stateroom. They locked Joel and the steward in the other one and then Solmes and his men returned to their boat. After coming back to retrieve Alfredo’s girlfriend, Mr. Solmes left me in the stateroom alone. I waited a few minutes and then I left the stateroom through the unlocked door and headed for one of the lifeboats—the wrong one, it turns out. One of the crew on the speedboat saw me and began firing a rifle at me, but Joel showed up and tackled me, bringing me to the deck, out of the rifleman’s sights, and saving my life. Joel put me in the correct lifeboat, the one on the other side of the boat, and told me to get away from yacht as far as I could because Mr. Solmes was going to blow it up.
“After about ten minutes or so in the lifeboat, just before a heavy storm came up, I saw the yacht blow up in a huge explosion and I was sure Joel must be dead.” Pausing and taking in a deep breath, Louisa continued, “Now, here’s the part you’re going to have trouble with; but it is very significant: I’m sitting in this tiny dinghy, scared half out of my wits, wondering if anyone will ever find me out there in the middle of the ocean, and I hear someone calling my name. I looked all around me and finally I saw Joel Brown bobbing up and down in these giant waves, waving at me and calling my name. I could hardly believe my eyes and ears. He had survived that huge explosion, and in pretty good shape, given what he had been through! The rest of the story of that week in that lifeboat with Joel is our own secret. But, the important thing for you to remember is that Graham Solmes was the big boss on the speedboat; the mastermind of the whole operation to kidnap Franco and Alberto Sartori and blow up the Casta Diva II in order to destroy all evidence and witnesses to their crime. The fact that the yacht’s captain and the kitchen steward did not survive makes Solmes a murderer; and Joel and I are witnesses to that.”
Amanda stared at Louisa in wonder for a full five minutes before breathing, “Oh, my God, Louisa! This is just terrible! You know we’re going to have to call in the F.B.I., don’t you?”