Murder to Music

by Margaret Newman

  ‘Is it possible that his disappearance is purely of a temporary nature—some young lady to whom he is attracted, perhaps—and that he is not aware that his absence has been missed?’

  ‘Or perhaps,’ Delia followed up her own thoughts, ‘perhaps the horrible crime was committed in England. Could he have shot Owen?’

  ‘He could, if he was crazy enough to think no one would notice,’ said Simon, answering the last question first. ‘But, even if he did, why should he disappear? He could have no reason for thinking that we suspected him, because we didn’t. And his agent couldn’t suggest any possible link with Owen, though perhaps he’ll be more informative now. The horrible crime in Italy is only a faint possibility; I shall have to check that with the Italian police. The idea of a temporary disappearance is even less likely, because he was due to fly back to Rome at 9.30 this morning. The fact that he’s missed that plane does rather suggest that his disappearance may not be entirely voluntary. In other words, we have to ask ourselves whether anyone has a reason for wanting to keep him out of the way.’

  ‘Do you think that Cassati could have seen the murderer—seen him actually fire the shot, I mean?’

  ‘He wouldn’t be likely to look behind. If he did see anyone using a pistol, it could only have been someone in the front row of the audience, or else the bass or the pianist.’

  ‘You have no reason, have you,’ suggested Mr Jones, ‘to connect this affair necessarily with Owen’s murder? They may be quite separate.’

  ‘Of course,’ Simon agreed. ‘But it is a coincidence. I don’t think I can completely ignore it. And anyway, he’ll have to be found. It’s possible that he may be a dangerous man and even more possible that he may be in some danger. I’m very much afraid that I shall have to go and help Bill look for him.’

  He took a last nostalgic pull on his cigar and discarded it.

  ‘Can I come too?’ asked Delia. ‘I think it’s miserable for you, having to trail around on Christmas Day.’

  ‘It certainly will be a trail, I warn you. It will be quite impossible to find out where anybody is and if we do catch up with someone at last, he’ll be so angry at being disturbed that he won’t tell us a thing. Also, it’s against the rules. But,’ he added hastily, ‘if you’d really like to come, I’d love company.’

  They went first to the hotel, which was anxious to be helpful but had little to say. Signor Cassati had asked to be awakened at seven-thirty that morning and to have breakfast and his bill brought to his room at eight. The desk had been unable to get an answer at seven-thirty and so had instead aroused the gentleman’s valet, who discovered that his master’s bed had not been slept in. At eight-twenty a Daimler had called to take the tenor to the airport; its driver, who waited for an hour, claimed to have been given explicit instructions to call. At nine-fifteen the manager had been in touch with BEA and had discovered that Cassati had not reported for his seat on the aircraft, nor made any alternative arrangements.

  Guido, the valet, appeared to speak every European language except English. Simon summoned all the French he could remember and managed to make his questions clear, if not gracefully expressed.

  ‘You speak no English?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Does Signor Cassati speak any?’

  ‘Perfectly. He had many English friends during the war, you understand.’

  Simon tightened his lips; he had heard that line before.

  ‘When did you last see your employer?’

  ‘A little before midnight last night at the Royal Opera House. You will understand that there were many friends who wished to congratulate him and to drink with him. It was not until late that he was able to change from his costume into his own clothes.’

  ‘What was he wearing then? Tails?’

  Guido had some difficulty in understanding the significance of the word which Simon had chosen to translate ‘tails’, but it was at last established that this was, in fact, his dress.

  ‘And where is that suit now? In his room?’

  ‘No. I have looked most carefully, and it is not there. In addition, there are no other clothes missing. I think he has not returned to the hotel since leaving the opera.’

  ‘Where was he intending to go when he left you last night?’

  ‘To the hotel, certainly. There was an invitation to a party, but I heard him tell the lady that he had to rise very early in the morning and that he could not come. I think it was true: Signor Cassati liked very much to sleep long in the night. Often, he did not rise until after lunch, and these early flights were not a pleasure to him.’

  ‘Do you know whether he left the Opera House alone last night?’

  ‘There was a lady with him as he left the room, but I think he was trying to get away from her. I do not think they would go anywhere together.’

  ‘Can you describe the lady, by any chance?’

  Guido clutched at the air with his hands in an effort to seize on some characteristic.

  ‘She was a quite old lady, not like the other visitors,’ he said at last. ‘She was not gay, and I do not think Signor Cassati knew her before. She tried all the time in the party to speak to him, but always someone would interrupt, or, if no one came, then he would walk away himself and say “Yes, yes” as if he wished her to go.’

  ‘But what did she look like?’

  ‘She was not chic, even for an old lady. She wore a grey dress and a necklace of pearls, I think they were expensive, but so dull. Her hair was grey also, but had been dark, and it was too much over her face so that she looked heavy. She was not a woman one would notice.’

  ‘Perhaps you could write down the names of some of the other people who visited the dressing-room—I suppose you announced them as they arrived. We may find someone who knows this lady.’

  A little doubtfully, Guido wrote five or six names in the notebook he was offered, shrugging his shoulders over each.

  ‘I do not know any more,’ he said at last. ‘But this one’—he pointed to a name—‘is someone important in the Opera House; no doubt he would know them all.’

  ‘How would Signor Cassati have intended to return to the hotel? By taxi?’

  ‘No, there was a car. We have been in England six days, and all the time there has been a Daimler, which he hired—the same one all the time, you understand. Each time when he had finished, he would tell the driver when to come again. Last night it was to be at a quarter-past eleven. The car came, I know, because the doorkeeper brought the message up to say that it waited.’

  ‘And it came again this morning, so he must have seen the driver to give him fresh instructions.’

  ‘It would seem so.’

  ‘Were you at last Saturday’s concert?’

  ‘No, there was no need for me; he dressed at the hotel.’

  ‘So you didn’t see the death of the conductor. Did Signor Cassati mention it to you?’

  ‘Yes, he was most distressed and agitated. He said many times the next day, “I did not think such assassinations were made in England.”’

  ‘Do you think that he knew anything about this death—that perhaps by chance he saw the murderer fire?’

  ‘I am sure he did not. He told me in great detail and more than once of the happening, and each time it was with horror and shock, but nothing more.’

  Simon consulted his notebook.

  ‘Don’t be afraid to answer my next question, Guido; it may be very important if we are to find your employer safely. Had he any reason that you know of for needing to disappear?’

  The little Italian was up in arms at once.

  ‘He was a great man,’ he shouted in his own language and then repeated it in French. ‘He had reasons only to be praised. I think he is held to ransom. You must find him quickly before he is harmed.’

  ‘I’m sure we shall,’ Simon soothed him. ‘And in England people are not often stolen for money.’ He shut his notebook, indicating that there were no further questions.

  ‘What
are you going to do now?’ he asked. ‘You’ll wait on in England, I hope.’

  ‘I think so, but not in this hotel. There is a question of expense. I must find a little place and then I will come here every day to make enquiries.’

  Simon nodded.

  ‘Leave your new address at the reception desk here then, so that we can get in touch with you as soon as we have some news. And here is my card. If by any chance you remember the name of the lady who left with Signor Cassati, please let me know at once.’

  The valet bowed and left the room silently.

  ‘Poor little man; he’s upset about it, isn’t he?’ said Delia, getting up from the corner in which she had been sitting unobtrusively.

  ‘Well, it’s an unpleasant thing to be mixed up in, especially in a strange country where you don’t speak the language. I’d better get on to the Daimler people—you can listen in on the extension if you like.’

  A shift of duty on Christmas Day had no effect on the courteous good temper with which the call was answered. Simon introduced himself and asked for the name and address of the driver who had picked Cassati up at Covent Garden on the previous evening. There was a rustling of papers before the polite voice replied.

  ‘It appears that our client was not called for at 11.15 after all.’

  ‘Why not? He’d ordered the car then, hadn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he did originally instruct the driver who took him to the Opera House to return at that time, but the instructions were cancelled later by telephone.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘I understand that he had been invited to join His Excellency’s party in honour of Her Royal Highness at the Embassy after the performance, and that one of the Embassy cars had been put at his disposal. It was not Signor Cassati himself who spoke, but his servant. We enquired whether he still required a car to take him to the airport this morning and were told to come as arranged.’

  ‘When had that arrangement been made, then?’

  ‘Oh, before Signor Cassati arrived in England. His agent gave us the times of his arrival and departure and instructed us to place a car at his disposal between those two times.’

  ‘I’m very anxious to find out who it was who phoned to cancel the car last night. Did he speak good English?’

  ‘Oh yes. He was an Englishman.’

  ‘And did he definitely say that he was Signor Cassati’s servant? It wasn’t someone from the hotel or theatre?’

  ‘I believe the word he used was valet.’

  ‘Right. Well look, will you check up on where all your cars were just before midnight last night. If there’s one you can’t account for, let me know. There’s no possibility, I suppose, that the driver made a mistake, or wasn’t told, and turned up after all?’

  ‘None at all. We’re always very busy on Christmas Eve. As soon as the cancellation was received, the car and driver were assigned to another job.’

  Simon thanked the polite young man and rang off.

  ‘Will you do something for me?’ he asked Delia. ‘Go and find Guido—he’ll probably be in Cassati’s room—and ask him a question—about anything you like—what sort of shoes Cassati was wearing, for instance. Ask it in English and completely casually, as if you hadn’t the faintest suspicion that he might not understand you.’

  While she was gone, Simon busied himself on the telephone tracking down the Covent Garden stage doorkeeper. Delia returned within a few minutes.

  ‘He just stared and then said, “I do not speak English; do you speak Italian, French, German?”’ she reported. ‘I’m sure it was genuine; he’d obviously learnt that much off by heart.’

  ‘I thought so. Now we’ve got to find the man who phoned the Daimler Hire people—it’s pretty clear that Cassati’s been kidnapped for some reason. Well, the car you ordered is outside, madam. Would you care to step in and see where it takes you?’

  ‘Where is it taking me?’ Delia asked as they drove unbelievably fast through the empty streets of central London.

  ‘To visit Mr. Perkins, who looks after the stage door at Covent Garden and who also, by the best of luck, is a retired policeman and willing to interrupt even his daughter’s Christmas party in such a good cause as that of crime.’

  He missed a road island by inches and decided belatedly that it was time he switched his lights on.

  It took a certain amount of search and enquiry to find Palladian Place in Islington. When at last they arrived outside the narrow terrace house they found to their surprise that it was completely dark and silent. Through a crack between two curtains they could see the flickering of a coal fire, but apart from that the house seemed deserted.

  ‘He promised he’d be in,’ Simon said in a worried voice, fishing in his notebook to check the address. Tentatively he rang the bell.

  There was a second’s silence; no more. Then Delia’s heart jumped at the sound of a piercing, prolonged scream. She clutched Simon’s arm nervously, but already his mouth was turning up into a smile. For all over the house lights were being switched on; there was an incredible noise of shouting and laughter and, as Mr. Perkins opened the door for them, the two visitors saw apparently hundreds of youngsters tumbling down the narrow stairs and into the room where the fire burned.

  ‘Come in, Superintendent,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I take you into the kitchen. It’s a mess, but it’s out of bounds. They’re playing Murder in all the rest of the house, so this is the only place where we can be safe from attack.’

  He closed the door and led the way. The kitchen certainly was not at its tidiest, piled high with the debris of a party tea. Mr. Perkins cleared a dish of trifle and a crumpled pile of paper hats off a rocking-chair for Delia and waved a hospitable hand over the table.

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve had your tea,’ he invited, ‘but we’d be glad if you could give us a hand with any of this. Otherwise, we shall be having jelly for breakfast for a week.’

  Delia shook her head smilingly, but Simon had already forgotten his enormous lunch and was admiring the ruins on the table, wondering in astonishment how much there must have been before the noisy gang of youngsters had helped themselves.

  ‘Well,’ he said frankly. ‘That cake looks very good.’

  He had hardly spoken before a thick wedge was in his hand, making the whole of the subsequent conversation a struggle between temptation and good manners.

  ‘I’ve come about last night,’ he said, realising just in time that the robin in his mouth was not intended to be swallowed. ‘We’ve lost Cassati—the Italian tenor—and I’m hoping you may be able to give us a lead. You know what he looks like, I suppose.’

  ‘He was pointed out to me in the afternoon; he came in for rehearsal. Not much impressed, I wasn’t, but Mother heard him on the wireless and said he sang a treat.’

  ‘We want to know what happened when he left. Do you remember the time, any companions, what sort of car he used?’

  ‘Yes, I can tell you all that. The car was a Daimler, same as he came in. It turned up about eleven and I sent a message up, but it was nearer twelve before they got away. Bit of a party going on upstairs, I dare say. There was quite a crowd waiting for them all to come out—they saw the Royals off at the front and then came round to my door. Freezing cold it was, too, but you’d be surprised how many of them were still there at half-past eleven. After that they got a bit browned off and started drifting away. As for companions, he came downstairs with a lady, an elderly lady. Don’t know who she was. But as soon as he saw his car, he jumped for it and left her on the pavement, quite rude like. Left her in the middle of a sentence, I wouldn’t be surprised. She looked a bit put out. She asked me for a taxi, but I told her to go round to the front, so I didn’t see what happened to her.’

  ‘And meanwhile the Daimler had moved off?’

  ‘That’s right. Only one way it could go in that street, of course. The driver seemed to know where to go; I didn’t see the gentleman say anything to him.
’

  ‘I suppose you didn’t notice anything particular about the Daimler—it wasn’t in fact the same one that came before the performance.’

  ‘Wasn’t it now? Well, I’m afraid one Daimler’s the same as another to me, except for the number, and I’d no reason to look at that. Wait a minute, though. I had my daughter in with me last night, being holidays. She likes to look at the dresses, you know. She collects car numbers, and I remember her squealing that she’d seen a 365. But, of course, that might have been any of the cars. Hold on a minute, will you.’

  He opened the kitchen door and shouted into the house in general.

  ‘Nellie! Come down into the kitchen a minute, will you. I won’t keep you a sec.’

  There was a sound of adolescent giggling.

  ‘I can’t, Dad. I’m dead.’

  ‘Well, come and be dead down here, then, and hurry.’

  Nellie hurried, giving a good imitation of the charge of the Heavy Brigade. The sight of the kitchen table, however, destroyed any feeling of sulkiness she might have felt, and she sucked at chocolate fingers while she stared at the two strangers.

  ‘Nellie,’ said Mr. Perkins. ‘You know that 365 you got last night. Happen to remember what sort of a car it was?’

  ‘Rolls,’ said Nellie briefly.

  ‘Are you quite sure?’ persisted her father. ‘Mind, it’s important now.’

  ‘’Course I’m sure,’ Nellie replied scornfully. ‘You can’t make mistakes with Rollses.’

  ‘I suppose you didn’t happen to notice the number of the Daimler that was parked outside between about eleven and twelve.’

  ‘Old Fatty’s? Yes, I did, because it was a 368. I kept wondering whether the other two in between might come along before it went so that I could count it.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ said Simon, digging for his notebook. ‘What about the letters? Do you remember them?’

  ‘’Fraid not. I only need the letters when I put them in the book. I don’t notice them otherwise.’

  ‘Never mind. That’s helped enormously,’ congratulated Simon. ‘Thank you very much. Have another chocolate biscuit.’