The schumann proof, p.18
The Schumann Proof, page 18
He complied without a word and took the trouble to brush off the seat. After Elly was ensconced, he perched on the edge of the récamier, hunched forward, elbows planted on his knees.
“We don’t know much, yet,” he said, addressing us both. “Our scene-of-crime technicians and forensics have come up with next to nothing. It’s this dirt that’s the problem.” He scuffed some potting soil with his toe. “It acts like a sponge. There should be spatter patterns, signs of struggle, but this stuff just sucks up everything.
“What we’ve pieced together comes mostly from testimony. Vikkan’s already heard some of it. Mann left the studio around eight o’clock. We talked to the janitor here, Walter Kurek. He says he was loading cleaning equipment onto the elevator and saw Mann exchange a few words with one of the teachers, Mr. Bryce, just outside the washroom on this floor. We checked with Bryce. He confirms using the washroom around that time.”
“Has the men’s been out that long?” I asked Elly. March looked puzzled, so I explained. “The men’s washroom for this wing is actually on the third floor, same as Bryce’s studio. The women’s is down on this floor. They’re both singles, so when one’s on the fritz, the other turns coed.”
March nodded, as if the information made a huge difference to his case. Elly really had put the fear of God into him. “At eight-fifteen,” he went on, “your friends had a visitor. The teacher across the hall—”
“Mrs. Wigrell,” Elly interjected.
“—happened to be looking out of her studio, and saw someone at your door. Russell Spiers?” He glanced at Elly and me to make sure we knew who he was talking about. “She couldn’t see who he was talking to.”
“I wonder what he was doing here?” Elly said.
“Is that unusual?” March asked.
“Spiers is Head of Performance at the University,” I told him. “The Edward Johnson Building is more his domain. But if he wanted to see Laura, there’s no reason he wouldn’t come over.”
“I’ve spoken with him already,” March said. “He says he was confirming an appointment.”
“How did he know she’d be here?”
“They met earlier in the day. Apparently, she told him then. Anyway, Mrs. Wigrell says she watched Spiers leave, and then, at eight-thirty, she let in her last student of the day. She says she heard singing from over here, and someone playing the piano.
“Laura went out for coffee a little after that, as I already told Vikkan. Most likely, Mann made another trip to the washroom at the same time. Judging from the teas in his jacket and the number of bags we found in the garbage, it makes sense.
“The break-in had to have taken place during that time. When Mann came back, he saw the broken window and went to investigate. We found his prints on the latch and the lower part of the frame, and one of the things forensics turned up there were traces of dried vegetable matter—herbs, like his teas—on the ledge outside, meaning he leaned out. Lucky the rain didn’t wash them away.
“The intruder probably hid behind those plants—” he nodded at Elly’s philodendrons “—and waited till Mann stepped away from the window so there’d be room to take a good swing with whatever killed him.”
“What about Laura?” I asked.
“I’d say when she came back and saw Mann’s body, she tried to phone for help. The receiver was off the hook, with her prints on it. There were partial indexes on the nine and one as well. She never got through. Nine-one-one has no record. If the killer had hidden in that corner again—”
“But this is all conjecture,” Elly interrupted. “You really have no idea what happened.”
March sucked in a breath. “Yes and no, Miss Gardiner. We ran a computer model. Based on the data we have—placement and position of the bodies, prints, the layout of the room—the scenario works. But you’re right, it’s conjecture.
“One thing is certain, though. Mann and Laura were dead by nine o’clock. That’s when Mrs. Wigrell left her studio. She swears the lights were off over here.”
He looked from Elly to me, as if he hoped we could add something. I shook my head. His version of events sounded like Colonel-Mustard-in-the-library-with-a-candlestick. Surely the police could do better.
“But why all this?” Elly waved her hand around. “It feels so...personal. As if someone wanted to attack me, too.”
March shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s more likely an attempt at misdirection. Or to obscure the evidence. Frankly, I was hoping you’d spot something while you were cleaning up.”
“I have noticed something.” Elly said, twisting around. “My antimacassar. You know, the doily that goes on the back of my chair. It’s missing.”
March pursed his lips. “It could be what the killer used to wipe prints off the paperweight.” He mulled it over, then stood up, flexing his shoulders. “We should get back to work. You might still see something.”
We started by joining forces to roll up the rug. “I hope Janssen will pay to have this cleaned,” Elly grunted as we leaned it beside the door. Afterward, I went back to wiping up the fingerprint powder, making my way clockwise around the room. By the time I reached the glassed-in display of music’s greats and not-so-greats, March had finished by the desk and started ripping up the taped outline in front of the piano. I could see Elly’s reflection behind me, busying herself with the last of her music. Her serried ranks of bronze heads looked on. If only they could talk...
It was 9.45 PM when I checked my watch, fifteen minutes before I had to be at Evelyn. I made hasty apologies and prepared to leave.
“Vikkan,” March called out when I was at the door, “would you mind coming by Fifty-two Division tomorrow?”
“What for?”
“A few questions, that’s all.” Don’t ask, just do it.
“What time?”
“Morning would be best.”
I said I’d be there, but not until afternoon.
As if to apologize for Thursday night’s Bay Street buffoons, Evelyn’s Sunday clients were well-behaved—a little too well, for my taste.
I started off the night with a moody rendition of “Spring in Manhattan” that sounded like Bach cross-pollinated with Gene Puerling. A smattering of applause followed. Next, I moved into a gently lilting version of Johnny Mercer’s “Early Autumn”. Some chord changes in the song recall the theme from “A Man and a Woman”. I snuck in a reference to the movie soundtrack, and someone chuckled. Staying in a seasonal theme, I played some angular variations on “Summertime”. A woman hummed along quietly. I finished up with “Let It Snow”, and began again: “April in Paris”, “Les Feuilles Mortes” “Summer of ’42”, “Winter Wonderland”.
As the set progressed, the patrons grew noticeably quiet. Warm applause followed hard on each number. Appreciative murmurs rose from the banquettes. It was every lounge pianist’s dream, except that, perversely, I found myself wishing they’d stop paying so much attention. In a venue like Evelyn, music should be an adjunct, not the main attraction.
“Nice playing,” Toby Ryan, the bartender, commented afterward.
“Thanks.”
He cracked a bottle of Naya and pushed it across the bar. “There’s a guy asked for you,” he said, nodding in the direction of the piano. “He had someone else with him, but he’s gone now.”
I looked over, and immediately wished I hadn’t. Russell Spiers, alone with a martini, raised his arm and gestured for me to join him.
“Gee thanks, Toby.”
“Not a friend?”
“You could say.”
I could have ignored Spiers’ summons, but there were some things I wanted to ask him. At least, that’s what I told myself. The truth is, I have trouble being impolite. Churchill said a gentleman is never unintentionally rude, but I still hadn’t mastered the art of the calculated slight.
Spiers’ eyes drifted from my lapels to my shoes. “Apparently you haven’t lost your charms,” he said, sliding over and patting the seat.
“Meaning?”
“I was just talking to John Sanger. He seemed quite smitten with you.”
“John who?”
“Of course, I forget, you’re above such things.” He sipped at his drink. “John Sanger. An agent. An important one. You should be flattered. Then again, it could have been more than your playing that took his fancy. You do look ever-so-manly in a tux.”
He drained his martini. To judge from his breath, it wasn’t the first. I hoped he wasn’t going to make Evelyn his regular watering hole. Showing up twice in less than a week was already twice too often.
“Terrible about Laura,” he said, switching subjects the way people do when they’ve crossed the line from a few social drinks to the start of a bender. “She had such a career ahead of her. I got her started singing, you know. Without me, she’d have graduated with a so-so degree in piano and wound up teaching schoolkiddies out in Bumfucks, North Toronto. Do you know how many of those we crank out every year? It’s depressing.”
“I understand you saw Laura Thursday evening.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“From Inspector March. The detective in charge of the investigation.”
“Been getting palsy-walsy with the fuzz, have we? Funny, I never picked you as the type to go for butch.”
“What were you seeing her about?”
If the question sounded out of place, he didn’t seem to notice. “We’d had a meeting that afternoon. Howard Snelling called just after she left. His agency had decided to represent her. He wanted to discuss a contract. I passed on the message.”
“Was Mann in the studio when you saw her?”
“We only talked at the door. I couldn’t see in. Awful to think she was going to be murdered just after that.” He picked up his glass, discovered it was empty and raised it to a passing waiter.
Spending time with Spiers was bad enough without watching him get drunk, so I cut to the one thing in particular he might shed some light on. “You don’t happen to know what Professor Morris-Jones’ problem with Mann was, do you? I hear you two had an argument the day after his master class.”
“Is that something else you brown-nosed from your hunky police detective?”
“Forget I asked.” I got up to leave.
“Oh, no—don’t go rushing off.” He put a heavy hand on my arm. “You want to hear about dear little Bernice?” Her name came out Berneesh, wreathed in gin. “I’ll tell you. Her first quarrel with Mann was just that: he was a man. I used to think she was a dyke, but I’ve heard not. Must be sending roses to her vibrator, then, because no male’s getting in that box, let me tell you.” He snickered. “Her second problem,” he said, lowering his voice, “was she thought Mann was hiding something.” He tried for a significant look, but his eyes kept slewing off.
“Something to do with a certain song cycle?” I hazarded.
“You know about it?”
“I’ve played it.”
“For someone who supposedly turned his talented little backside on music, you do get around.”
I was beginning to think that if I wanted to find out what had brought on Morris-Jones’ outburst at Mann’s class, I could have spared myself some abuse and asked her directly. Then again, maybe not. “How do you know about the Liederkreis?” I asked.
“The Dean told us on Wednesday. Apparently, Mann was planning to donate it to the Faculty library. God, what a coup that would have been. Imagine the publicity. The Great Mann honouring us...” His eyes glistened.
“Morris-Jones?” I prompted.
“Oh, yes. You’re going to enjoy this. So-o-o like Bernice. From somewhere—don’t ask me where—she got this idea into her progesterone-addled brain that these unknown songs weren’t composed by Schumann at all, but by his devoted wife.” His martini arrived. He tested it with his tongue, pursed his lips, then downed half. “Did I say devoted? Aren’t there rumours about her and Brahms, after Schumann threw himself in the Rhine? Imagine, there he was, suicidal, locked in the nuthouse, and the two of them—”
“Why did she think the songs weren’t written by Schumann?” I had a hard time making the question sound offhand.
“Who knows? I told her what a rude bitch she was at Mann’s class, and she started in on how this Liederkreis wasn’t Schumann’s, how Mann was sitting on evidence that his wife had composed it, and on and on and on. I haven’t a clue where she came up with the idea. PMS, most likely.”
“Did she say what proof he was withholding?”
“I was too pissed to ask. Mann donating those proofs was just what we needed to lure Doug Rawlings away from the Con. You don’t kick a gift horse in the teeth.” He drained his martini. “Might not have been such a good thing, as it turns out, but still...”
“What do you mean?”
He sucked the olive from his skewer. “What I mean is, we aren’t getting it. That’s all. And anyway, what do you care?” He aimed the little plastic spear and threw it at his glass. It landed wide and skittered across the table.
I looked at my watch. “I’ve got to get going.”
“So soon? And here we were, just starting to get friendly. Well, if you must, be a sweetie and order me another.” He waved his hand in the direction of the bar. “Beefeater, extra dry. Oh, and Vikkan—that hunky detective? Don’t be fooled by all the muscles. You know what they say: Man of steel, heels of helium.”
He leered, what I think was supposed to be a knowing look—a hard one to get right when you’re three or four martinis on.
Back at the bar, I gave his order, then sat at the piano and started noodling, one of those aimless introductions that could lead into anything.
If what Spiers had said was true, not only was the Liederkreis less a of secret than I’d been led to believe, but the work’s real composer, which for some reason Mann hadn’t seen fit to tell me, was also, if not exactly general knowledge, at least a circulating rumour. And everyone, including Janssen at the Conservatory, had heard about his intention to donate the proofs to the Faculty.
What had Mann been up to, dissembling the authorship of the work? And how had Morris-Jones found out? I couldn’t imagine him telling her. And what had she planned to do? Confront him? Call him out?
Some morbid subconscious prompting led me from improvising freely into playing Ellington’s “Mood Indigo”. I didn’t realize what I’d done until I found myself humming: When I get that mood indigo / I could lay me down and die. I segued into something livelier, with no references to death or dying. “Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter”, I think.
Nine
Groß ist der Männer Trug und List.
(“Vast are the cunning lies men tell.”)
— Liederkreis, Opus 39, II
Do you recognize this?” March asked.
I was in his bare-bones office at Fifty-two Division and it was starting to feel as if someone had turned up the air-conditioning. On the desk between us lay Mann’s briefcase. The Liederkreis title page stared up at me: Als Geschenk seiner geliebten Braut zugeeignet...
“Yes.”
“So you’ve seen it before?”
I nodded.
“And would you care to tell me why it hasn’t come up in any of our previous discussions?”
“I didn’t think it was relevant. Not at first, anyway.”
“That decision was not yours to make.”
“I’m sorry. I may have been mistaken.”
“May have?”
“I was going to bring it up today.”
Oil-on-troubled-waters didn’t work. His eyes brewed up winter clouds. “Let’s get one thing straight. You tell me what you know, I decide what’s important. Is that clear?”
I raised my hand smartly two inches in front of my forehead. “Yes, sir!”
His look turned dangerous. Massing thunderheads, rumbling volcanoes, the sizzle of a fuse toward dynamite...
“Has Elly said anything?” I asked, pretending not to notice.
“No, Vikkan,” he landed hard on my name, “she hasn’t. What is it with you two? Did you think a cop wouldn’t understand the value of this?” He jerked his head toward the briefcase. “In a murder investigation? Jesus Christ, we’re not morons. Some of us did get past grade two.”
“Look, I said I was sorry, okay? And for whatever it’s worth, I did notice you pronounce German rather well.”
“What the hell has that got to do with anything?”
“Leads me to think you made it past grade two.”
As quickly as it came up, his anger blew over. “You’d make a lousy fucking detective, you know that? I grew up in Kitchener. Heard German every Saturday at the market. Gave me a taste for learning it. Now, tell me what you know about this. Assume for the time being I can follow you.”
I took him at his word. “What you’re looking at are pre-publication proofs for a previously unknown group of lieder which, according to the title page, were composed by Robert Schumann. Dieter Mann’s daughter discovered them last year, and, from what I’ve heard, he brought them to Toronto to discuss housing them in the Faculty of Music Library at U of T. Mann also wanted to establish whether Ulrike Vogel—a long-time acquaintance of his, you’ve already spoken to her—would be a suitable candidate to premiere the songs.
“Their value as such is more historical than monetary. Originally, I was under the impression their importance lay in the date at the bottom of the title page: 1839. Schumann is not supposed to have written lieder of any significance until 1840, making a find like this more or less equivalent to unearthing a dozen phthalo and aquamarine canvasses by Picasso all signed a year earlier than his Blue Period. However, I now have reason to believe that their real worth lies in the fact that the songs were not composed by Schumann at all, but by Clara Wieck—”
“—his wife, the famous nineteenth-century virtuoso.” A corner of his mouth twitched while he watched my reaction. “Like I said, Vikkan—past grade two. Now do me a favour. Check it over.”
“For...?”
I got another just-do-it look, like the one he’d given me the night before.
I pulled Mann’s briefcase over. March busied himself with papers, then swiveled to his computer. I leafed through the songs, humming occasional snippets of melody. After a few minutes, I said everything looked just as I remembered it.
