Cy Lefkowitz stood at the front door of the tiny church rectory and convent which looked out onto the little-traveled highway, and, beyond that, onto the crashing waves of the Pacific. It was an absurdly scenic location for a down-at-the-heels Catholic church. But Cy was already used to coming upon unlikely oceanfront settings for schools, plantation cottages, and tiny farms on this side of Kauai.

The convent was part of a cheap, three-building complex built in the 1960s -- which also included a small, A-frame church and a single-story un-air-conditioned classroom building in which a few dedicated nuns posted by the Archdiocese of Honolulu to this remote out-island parish taught Grades 1 through 6. The fourth building was another simple, one-story structure -- set back from the others and separated from the school by a large, dusty courtyard of packed red clay. It was an orphanage. Here, the nuns -- supported in part by state funds -- cared for a number of parentless or abandoned children. Most were mixed-race kids of Asian and Polynesian ancestry.

The sister who opened the screen door to Cy was younger than his own daughter, Cy thought. She was dressed in a white cotton dress -- looking more a nurse than a nun -- and her only concession to a nun's habit was a starched white kerchief-like veil attached to her short-cropped blond hair with a bobby-pin.

"Mr. Lefkowitz?" she said pleasantly, extending her hand.

"Yes, ma'am. I mean Sister." Cy stuttered, nervously. He had no idea how to act around religious people in general, let alone nuns.

"Welcome to St. Agnes's," she said cheerfully. "I'm Sister Anne. Won't you come in?" The young woman escorted Cy into what turned out to be a modest lounge, or living room, furnished with old wicker pieces with muslin cushions. An oscillating fan in a far window brought the already stifling morning air into the room, and Cy began to sweat as much from the heat as from nervousness. "Can I get you a cold drink? Some iced tea?" the sister inquired, noticing Cy's discomfort. "Oh, no thanks," he said, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief he pulled out of his pants pocket. "I'll be fine." He took his place on the wicker sofa, and Sister Anne sat on a straight-backed cane chair facing him, her legs crossed at the ankles and her hands in her lap. She began to speak.

Sister act. She's not exactly Audrey Hepburn in "The Nun's Story," but Sister Anne is a hero in her own way. No, she's not fighting leprosy in the tropics, but she's caring for parentless, frequently homeless, kids who are alone in the world. Which is why she's so suspicious of Cy. But who wouldn't be?

"You can imagine our surprise when you phoned this morning about Ano," she said bluntly.

"Yes, I can," Cy responded truthfully.

"You know, he's run away at least three times before," Sister Anne said, smiling and shaking her head more in amusement than annoyance, "but he's always come back. And he's never been gone for a week. We've been frantic looking for him -- so have the police."

"I guess there's only so far you can go on an island before someone finds you," volunteered Cy lamely, struggling for conversation.

Cy explained to Sister Anne, who listened patiently, about how he'd encountered Ano on the beach more than a week earlier, but had only just yesterday deduced that the little boy was living on his own. Cy had noticed the orphanage several times riding his back into town for groceries, and, when he'd figured out that Ano was lying about having a mother and sister who lived down the beach, he'd put two and two together.

"Can I ask what brought you to Kauai?" Sister Anne asked him, pointedly. Cy detected a note of suspicion, and he went to great pains to explain that he'd left a job in New York, was taking a bit of a sabbatical, and had befriended Ano on the beach that first day -- or, rather, Ano had befriended him.

"It was very caring of you to call and tell us about him," Sister Anne said. "But where is the boy now?"

"I haven't seen him since yesterday afternoon," Cy answered. "He took off down the beach. But he'll be back."

"How can you be so sure, now that's he knows you're on to him," Sister Anne asked, logically.

"Just a hunch," said Cy.

"You know, of course, I'm going to have to call the police and tell them about you, and how you've located Ano," she said, half-apologetically.

"Of course," said Cy, dreading the questions he knew the local gendarmes would have for him. "But let me ask you a question."

"Certainly," said Sister Anne.

"Are the children here at the orphanage up for adoption?

"Are you asking what I think you're asking?" Sister Anne asked, sitting up even straighter in her straight-backed chair, and looking Cy in the eye.

"What do you think I'm asking?" said Cy, smiling weakly.

The London headquarters of Hillyer, Jones were located in a fashionable office building on New Bond Street. They were actually a mini-suite of offices sub-leased from a larger British ad agency, so entering the branch office you had the impression that it was much more impressive a company than it actually was.

Nevertheless, James Hillyer kept a small corner office here, for his increasingly frequent trips to the U.K. It was a good thing, too -- according to police orders, he wasn't to leave the country. He was on the phone with Sydney Chen in New York, who'd been holding down the fort in his place.

"Sydney, it's not to be believed. They won't let me leave England" Jim Hillyer said, looking out the window above his desk. The connection was on one of those annoying international lines where there's a disconcerting lapse of three seconds' time before the other person hears what you've said, and he and Sydney kept talking over each other. The time difference didn't help. It was 2:00 p.m. in London, and Sydney had come into the office in New York early, at 7:00 a.m., just to have this conversation with her boss.

"Mr. Hillyer, is that legal?" she asked. "I mean, have you been charged with a crime or anything?"

Multiple personality. Respected New York media executive. Jet-setting philanderer. International kidnapping and/or murder suspect. Will the real Jim Hillyer please stand up? He's gotta be thinking "Life can be so simple in New Canaan, Conneticut ..."

"Of course not! Scotland Yard knows as well as I do that Meg Townsend disappeared before I even got here. I'm the one who called them, for God's sake." "It's all over the papers, Mr. Hillyer," said Sydney, cautiously. "About Meg Townsend's disappearance, I mean. So far, none of the media coverage has mentioned you, though. Let's keep our fingers crossed." "Thanks, Sydney," Hillyer responded, sincerely. He was praying that word wouldn't leak out that he'd been having an affair with the would-be supermodel -- although he suspected it was only a matter of time.

There was a knock on the door.

"Mr. Hillyer? May I come in?" a polite, British-accented voice asked.

Jim recognized the voice immediately. It was Inspector Montague, the detective that had been assigned to the case.

"Sydney, I have to go," he said, and, without waiting for her to say goodbye, he hung up. He spun around in his chair and faced the door. "Come in," he said, warily.

Montague walked into the room and flung his overcoat on the sofa against the far wall.

"Mr. Hillyer, I think we may have something."

"What is it?" Hillyer demanded.

Montague opened the manila envelope he was holding in his hands, extracted a folded silk scarf in a plastic evidence-bag, and handed it to Hillyer. The shocked advertising executive sat up his swivel chair, and looked closely at the article of clothing that had been given him.

"Do you recognize it?" Montague asked simply.

Hillyer saw the label clearly, and knew the scarf was one of a limited-edition he'd bought for Meg Townsend on a trip to Paris.

"If you're asking if it's hers," Hillyer responded, looking up at his inquisitor, "the answer is, yes. I think so. Where did you find it?"

McGuffin. That's what Alfred Hitchcock called it. Whatever the label on Meg Townsend's scarf -- Hermes? Versace? Valentino? Sonia Rykiel? -- it's a McGuffin: the inevitable pieces of evidence from nowhere that focuses your attention, points a finger, or jump-starts an investigation. But where DID they find it?