The schumann proof, p.19
The Schumann Proof, page 19
“All there?” he asked, eyes glued to the screen.
“Yes.”
“Nothing missing?”
“That’s what I said. You hardly need me to check page numbers.”
He two-finger typed a string of characters, punched Enter, and turned around. “I phoned Anna Mann on Friday, in Vienna. Miss Gardiner gave me her name. She was pretty broken up, but luckily, she’s some kind of lawyer. Dealing with her father’s death on foreign soil gave her something to hold on to.
“Saturday, she called back and asked about Mann’s effects. She knew he had this Liederkreis with him, and unlike you, she thought it might be important. She gave me the low-down, including the part about it being by Schumann’s wife.”
“Fiancée. They didn’t get married until 1840.”
He disregarded the correction. “She was worried the proofs might have been stolen. After she told me what to look for, I went hunting.”
“And found them, so why ask me to check them over?”
He searched my face. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, and his gaze was difficult to hold. “Something’s missing.”
“What?”
“The document proving the songs were composed by Clara Wieck.” He studied my expression a few seconds longer. “You didn’t know, then?” he asked.
That phrase again. “No, I didn’t.” I said irritably. “Up till now, I’ve only heard that Schumann didn’t write them. If there’s proof, I certainly haven’t seen it.”
He nodded, satisfied. “According to Anna, there’s a letter from the publishers, addressed to Schumann. It identifies the songs as Clara’s and asks Schumann to proofread them. The publication was going to be a surprise, a present of some sort, otherwise I guess she would have done it herself.”
“Are there copies of this letter?”
“Anna says no.”
“You think it was stolen?”
He shrugged. “It’s not in Mann’s briefcase. It’s not in Miss Gardiner’s studio. It’s not at Mann’s hotel.”
“He was close to Ulrike Vogel. Could he have left it with her?”
“I already checked. Negative.”
It came to me abruptly that if he’d spoken to Anna on Saturday and had already investigated the missing letter with Ulrike, he’d known about the Liederkreis when he dropped in at Elly’s studio on Sunday. His Do you recognize this? bit, and the anger that went with it, had been a sham.
“Do you enjoy playing games with people, Inspector March?” I asked.
He gave me a blank stare. “Do you enjoy non-sequiturs?”
“You knew about this when you came by Elly’s studio last night. Was it fun waiting to see if we’d say anything? Acting pissed off just now?”
“You want me to apologize?”
“You asked for my cooperation. You have a shitty way of eliciting it.”
“Nobody’s saying you have to like me.”
“You got that right.”
Something went on behind his eyes. For a split second, they looked like February ice on Lake Ontario. He looked down. “Can we just get on with this?”
I’d originally figured on having to tell him about the Liederkreis itself before explaining how it might connect with the murders, but since he was already up to speed, I jumped straight to Ulrike, her expectations of premiering it, Mann’s reservations.
He took notes, frowning when I finished. “Ulrike doesn’t have a strong alibi. She says she left the Conservatory at seven-thirty, right after you saw her, and drove straight home. A neighbour saw her car pull in at eight o’clock. She took a phone call shortly afterwards, which we’ve confirmed, but it doesn’t mean much. She could have gone out again.”
For some reason, I found myself wanting to defend Ulrike. “But you understand, she’s only a suspect if she knew that Mann was having second thoughts. That he’d been auditioning Laura. I asked her, and she said no.”
“You asked? When?”
“Yesterday.”
“You’re telling me that even then, you knew this music might be important?”
“I was only trying to help. ‘Cooperate.’ ”
He looked as if he wished he’d never used the word. “In future, let me handle the questions. What else can you tell me?”
I told him what I’d heard about Mann’s intention to donate the proofs to the Faculty, and Janssen’s ever-so-polite directive that I keep my mouth shut. March looked grim. Doug Rawlings’ money and the competition between the Faculty and the Conservatory were news to him. I guess I hadn’t been the only one who’d neglected to tell him things.
Finally, I brought up the subject of Morris-Jones.
“Already talked to her,” he said.
“About what?” I asked, surprised. He’d only found out about the Liederkreis on Saturday. He couldn’t possibly have investigated Mann’s peculiar silence about its real composer and Morris-Jones’ academic idée-fixe already.
“Her name came up when I spoke to Ulrike Vogel. The call Ulrike received on Thursday night? The one proving she was at home? It came from Morris-Jones. She was trying to locate Mann.”
It was one-thirty when I left Fifty-two Division. I didn’t stand a chance of getting a table at one of the crowded restaurants on Queen Street, so I purchased Japanese take-out from Village by the Grange and went across the road to AGO—the Art Gallery of Ontario. The Henry Moore in the courtyard looks like a mouth biting someone’s ass. I sat on the lower mandible and opened up my soba noodles and teriyaki. The weather had gone back into pseudo-summer mode.
The meeting with March had left me with some odd feelings. I’d observed a change in his behaviour the more we talked. While I’m-the-police-and-you’re-a-civilian never quite disappeared, a different side of him started to emerge. Familiar, almost. Buddy-buddy. Let’s work on this together. It was as if he were playing a solo variation on good-cop/bad-cop. And it worked. I enjoyed earning good-cop’s approval. Worse, a devil at my shoulder started whispering Spiers’ drunken comments in my ear.
March and I had discussed Morris-Jones. He’d already heard about her antics at Mann’s class, but wanted my version anyway. I told him what I’d learned from Spiers, that she knew the Liederkreis had been composed by Clara Wieck. He nodded: That’s the kind of thing I need from you. I couldn’t help wondering again how she’d found out. Surely not from Mann. Ulrike? I didn’t think so. If Mann wanted the composer of the Liederkreis kept secret, Ulrike would have played along. And I couldn’t see her deigning to confide in Morris-Jones.
March wanted my opinion: Her public baiting of Mann notwithstanding, was Morris-Jones a likely suspect? The one thing she could be expected not to do was steal and thus further obscure the fact that Clara Wieck had composed the Liederkreis.
Next, he asked for my thoughts on why Mann hadn’t told me—or the Dean of the school to which he was planning to donate the proofs—that the work was misattributed. “Could it be a fake? Publisher’s letter and all?”
I shook my head. “Mann’s teaching was unorthodox, he liked poking fun at the musical establishment, but I can’t see him perpetrating a hoax.”
“An eccentric, in other words.”
“More like unconventional.’ ”
“What about those teas he carried around with him?”
It seemed a particularly banal example from which to infer eccentricity. “He was concerned about his health, that’s all. The man was over eighty.”
March picked up a folder. “Betula, agropyron, veronica officianalis, cichorium.” From the halting way he read, I guessed no one at the Kitchener market spoke Latin. “The herbs forensics identified on the window ledge.”
“Birch, couch grass, speedwell, chicory,” I translated.
He whistled. “Impressive.”
“Past grade two, you know.”
“I have no doubt.”
He kept on with questions about Mann, asking almost nothing about Laura, a clear indication of where he intended to focus his investigative efforts. I told him if he wanted to know Mann better, he should pump Elly. He winced and said he’d tried that, last night at the studio. She must have rapped his knuckles a few more times after I’d left.
Toward the end of the interview, he leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. The posture looked stagey, like something Humphrey Bogart or Dana Andrews would do before dropping a bombshell. “There’s one more thing. Mann and Laura had a visitor inside the studio prior to the break-in.”
“How do you know?”
“Mrs. Wigrell, the teacher across the hall. She heard Laura singing at eight-thirty.”
“So you said yesterday.”
“She also heard someone at the piano.”
He prompted me with his eyes, as if he’d made a point I wasn’t getting. I shook my head. “Sorry, I’m not following you.”
“Mann’s left hand was crippled. So who was playing? And why haven’t they spoken up?”
Never ridicule ignorance, Uncle Charles used to say. Ignorance signifies lack of knowledge, not lack of intelligence. “He was missing two fingers,” I said, keeping a perfectly straight face, “not five. He was more than capable of sketching in a left-hand part. Sorry. No mysterious visitor.”
March sat forward, deflated. “Oh, well. Live and learn.”
We seemed to be finished. March stood up and offered his hand. The grip was firm, surprisingly warm, and caught me off guard. Was he saying thanks, or had his usual lack of manners merely slipped?
I fed the last of my soba noodles to a couple of pesky gulls, then drove over to the university to pay a visit to Professor Morris-Jones.
As a student, I’d never been inside her office. Given her garish taste in clothing, I imagined a room similarly bedizened. I was wrong. Neatly ordered white melamine bookshelves stretched the length of one wall. An uncluttered desk and Kawai upright occupied the one facing. A floor-to-ceiling window at the end gave onto Philosopher’s Walk. Even the poster over her desk came as a surprise. Instead of a labial lily by Georgia O’Keefe or one of Tamara de Lempicka’s monumental nudes, an ink sketch of Beethoven scowled forth majestically.
The woman herself, however, was comme d’habitude. Today’s poncho was fuchsia—a lovely match for her orange hair—and her fragrance smelled like patchouli cut with turpentine.
“Wot the ’ell do you want?” she asked, glowering out of the doorway.
“May I come in?”
“I’m busy.”
“This won’t take long.”
She marched into the room, but since she didn’t slam the door, I followed her in. She whirled around. “Well? Wot is it?”
“You’ve heard about Dieter Mann, I imagine,” I began lamely.
“ ’Course I ’ave. Don’t be daft.” Her North English vowels scraped the air like fingernails on slate. “I read the papers, don’t I? And I’ve already been ’arassed by the police. Get to the point.”
“I couldn’t help noticing you were out to get him last Wednesday.”
“So what? Fuckin’ bastard deserved it.”
“Did your...feelings...by any chance have anything to do with a certain piece of music that’s recently come to light? One you felt wasn’t quite what it’s being made out to be?”
She glared, not saying a word—all the confirmation I needed.
“I was wondering how you found out.”
“What are you, a bleedin’ detective all of a sudden?” She sat down heavily in front of the Kawai. “’E waltzes in ’ere, shows the Dean some music, says ’e wants to see it ’oused in our library. Dean tells us on Wednesday: an unknown work by Schumann, very important, significant acquisition, blah, blah, blah. First I’ve ’eard about it, isn’t it? So I asks ’is ’ighness, ‘When did Mann discover it?’ ‘Last year sometime,’ ’e says. Roight. Nobody sits on a thing like that for a year. So I did a little research, didn’t I? Called everybody I knew to find out if they’d ’eard anything. Nothing. Nobody’s seen it. Nobody’s ’eard about it. Finally, Dennis Bouchard in London says, ‘Why not call Mann’s daughter?’ So I did. Introduced myself. Asked her what the bloody ’ell was going on.”
“Not in those words, I hope.”
“Don’t be a prig. Daughter tells me she’s the one ’oo found it. Says no, she doesn’t think ’er father’s shown it to anyone. But ’e’s the Great Mann, isn’t ’e, so the thing must be legit if ’e says so, right? Then she tells me, like I already know, about some letter ’e ’as sent off for authentication. Definitely the goods, she says. Paper, watermark, ink...the whole kit and caboodle. I ask her, ‘What letter?’ ‘Why,’ she says, ‘the one that proves this Liederkreis is by Clara Wieck.’ ”
“So it was Anna who told you?”
“Wot’s it to you?”
“I got the impression Mann didn’t want the information to be general knowledge—”
“Too bloody roight ’e didn’t.”
“—but Russell Spiers said you knew somehow.”
She nearly spat. “Slimy ponce. Bleedin’ sod thought it was a big joke. First ’e asks what proof I ’ave, then ’e says: ‘What’s the difference? If Mann wants us to ’ave it, ’oo cares ’oo wrote it? The publicity’s great.’ ”
She stood up and stomped over to the window. “You’ve ’eard about that pig Rawlings, ’aven’t you?” she asked, addressing the view outside.
“Yes.”
She was oddly quiet a moment. “I’d like to see us to get ’is endowment,” she said finally, “same as everybody else. Wot do I care if the money comes from a muck-for-brains ’oo only wants ’is name in lights? An’ it’s true, if Dieter-fuckin’-Mann gave us those proofs, it’d be in all the papers. Sure to catch Rawlings’ eye. Spiers was right. I could see ’is point.” The admission didn’t come easily. She faced me again, her face hard. “But there’s no fuckin’ way I could just sit tight and let Mann make fast and loose with ’istory. Even if it served our interests.”
“You’re sure he intended to conceal the truth?”
Her expression could have curdled milk.
“But a lot of Clara’s music’s been published,” I pointed out, “with her name on it. Why would he do that?”
“You’re a fuckin’ expert all of a sudden?”
“I’ve been told he brought the letter to Toronto. That he kept it with the proofs. It’s missing now.”
“Sod probably flushed it down the loo.”
Her patchouli was starting to make me woozy, but I had one more question. March had no doubt already asked, but I wanted to hear her answer myself.
“Why were you trying to locate Dieter Mann on Thursday night?”
Right away, I knew I’d stepped over the information-fishing line. “None o’ your fuckin’ business, Lantry,” she growled, advancing on me, her perfume acting like a riot shield. “None o’ your goddamn fuckin’ business.”
I went home to work on scales. And clean out my ears. Hollywood’s version of a musician is one who never practises. He or she can play anything at the drop of a hat. A saxophonist jams soulfully on a tune he’s never heard. A violinist performs Mendelssohn after a week-long amorous interlude during which she hasn’t so much as resined her bow.
Conversely, in films about athletes, much is made of the training before the big match, the big fight, the big game. The tedium of finger exercises obviously doesn’t hold a candle to the sex appeal of grimacing faces and sweating bodies. Just the same, real musicians practise, for hours every day, to stay in shape. To some, it’s a grind, a necessary adjunct to the high of performing. For me, it’s an end in itself: part physical activity; part meditation; part, if one is predisposed to think that way, worship or prayer.
Musicians tend to store up stress in funny places. For me, its usually the thumbs. I didn’t realize how much strain I’d been under until I started practising contrary motion scales. Beginning at the middle of the piano, the right hand flies up the keyboard while the left plummets down. If the thumbs, which cross under the other fingers, aren’t perfectly supple, the hands go out of sync. That day, what should have resembled the furling and unfurling of eagles’ wings sounded more like two crabs scuttling in opposite directions. On crutches. It was going to take a lot of time to work out the kinks.
Time I wasn’t going to get. The phone rang. Elly, of course. “I’m not disturbing you, am I? I have a favour to ask.” What else is new? “I need you to do some coaching. Now, don’t say anything—I know you don’t like it, and normally I wouldn’t ask, but I have a load of students preparing for exams right now. Laura was helping out—”
“Can’t you find someone at the Con?”
I took her silence as mute esteem for my talents. Or my suckerdom. Voice teachers are gods. They perform the magic, unlocking the gold imprisoned in their students’ throats. Vocal coaches, on the other hand, are behind-the-scenes lackeys. With their usually underpaid help, singers practise entries, get used to accompaniments, and have hammered into them that Fräulein rhymes with “oil-line”, not “how fine”.
“How many students are we talking about?” I asked.
“Just one, really. She’s Grade Eight. I’ve arranged to accommodate all the others. Her name is Janice Cleary.”
“Soprano, painfully shy, frizzy brown hair?”
“You know her?”
“She was with Laura last week, at your studio. A friend of Siobhan Rawlings.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t want to burden you with that one. Not the way Janssen keeps tabs on anything that has Rawlings’ name attached.”
“A wise decision.” Faded-denim eyes inspecting me like a side of beef...
Janssen’s preoccupation with Rawlings reminded me of something I’d been meaning to ask. “Elly, you don’t happen to know why Mann wanted the Liederkreis proofs housed at the Faculty, do you? Janssen was the one who told me about it first, on Saturday. He was worried Rawlings would find out. He thought I already knew.”
“He spoke to you, too, did he?” Elly clucked. “I thought it was ghoulish, worrying about something like that so soon after what happened. I told him as much.”
