The Strings of Murder

by Oscar de Muriel

  ‘You’re very kind, Inspector, but I prefer to eat at the New Club. I can come back at any time you request.’

  McGray asked him to return that afternoon and Downs set off. I frantically jumped to my feet: ‘Pray, wait! Where did you say you prefer to eat?’

  The New Club proved to be a proper gentlemen’s establishment with edible food, fine whiskies and decent cigars. Its best asset, however, was its location at the very centre of Princes Street, within a relatively short walk from the City Chambers. Regarding food, it would be my salvation.

  Since it was a private club, Mr Downs signed me in as his personal guest (the gesture almost made me feel guilty for treating him so harshly but a few minutes earlier). Once inside I was told that I could join for a very reasonable fee – I was so hungry I would have happily paid three times the price.

  It was quite hard to keep my manners while eating that huge, juicy, well-seasoned piece of sirloin and a glass of French wine.

  Invigorated by the food, I thought I could use the time to find out some more about Fontaine’s character.

  ‘A very quiet man,’ Downs told me, munching on a steak even larger than mine, ‘very quiet indeed.’

  ‘How long had you represented him?’

  Downs looked up, counting in a mumble. ‘Thirteen, four– no, wait, fifteen years! Lord, time flies!’

  ‘Oh, so I presume you knew him well?’

  ‘Not at all, Inspector. As I said, he had a quiet life, which gave me very little work; some conveyancing, a couple of insurance policies, and now his –’

  There was a sudden commotion in the club. We heard the slightly high-pitched protests of the head waiter, and I had to cover my face when I saw him chasing the towering figure of McGray. His absurd clothes were like a beacon amidst the black suits and white tablecloths, and for some reason he was carrying a bull’s-eye lantern.

  To make matters worse, next to him was a short, slender boy, who could be nothing other than a chimneysweep. He appeared to be around twelve, but he could have been older; those ill-fated children rarely get enough food to grow properly. I thought he had dark hair, but as he drew closer I saw that he was actually blond, his head utterly blackened by soot. He was wiping his face with a handkerchief so stained that he only made himself blacker.

  ‘Sir, please, I must ask you to leave. Our dress code –’

  ‘Laddie,’ Nine-Nails grasped the waiter by the collar, ‘Ah told ye Ah’m CID, so shut that hole in yer face or I’ll break yer twiggy arms right here.’

  ‘I am afraid he is not joking,’ I said, and the poor man was wise enough to step back. ‘What is it, McGray?’

  He leaned down to whisper. ‘Change o’ plans. I ken how they broke into Fon-teen’s study.’

  11

  ‘The fireplace, McGray?’ I asked in the privacy of the coach, as it drove us back to Abbey Hill. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Can ye think of another way?’

  ‘Well, no, but you saw that narrow thing! Besides, Fontaine died at night. A November night, so the fire must have been lit. Had some wretch tried to sneak in through the chimney, they would have roasted their feet! Not to mention all the smoke coming up.’

  ‘Can ye think of another way?’ I tried hard to find another explanation but, to my dismay, McGray was right. The chimney was the only feasible explanation and it was our duty to investigate it further.

  ‘I also have my doubts,’ McGray said, ‘but if there’s anything up there we’ll find out with the boy.’

  Sooner than I expected we were by Holyrood Palace once more – fortunately, for the temperature had been dropping quickly. When we got out of the carriage, an icy breeze was blowing.

  The boy hopped off from the driver’s seat.

  ‘This is Larry,’ McGray told me. ‘He’s been cleanin’ my chimneys for the past two years, haven’t ye?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘But today I got a more exciting job for ye. Ye’ll help us solve a murder!’

  The boy smiled, but the poor creature was so skinny I thought a bowl of stew would have excited him much more. I thought I’d give him a handsome tip once we were done.

  Mr Downs, who had followed us in his own carriage, arrived a few minutes later.

  Goodwife Hill received us as attentively as before, yet she was a little surprised to see us again so soon. McGray, Larry and I were going upstairs with Mr Downs following us closely. McGray raised his hand to stop him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Downs, it’s police business.’

  Downs groaned in a most exasperating way. ‘But that is my client’s property and it’s my duty to –’

  ‘Can you please stay downstairs?’ I snapped. ‘For the love of God!’

  Downs cast me a filthy glare and spoke bitterly. ‘We’ll see who shows you where to eat next time!’

  Hill addressed him with an appeasing voice. ‘Would ye like a cup of tea, sir?’

  McGray winked at her as she took the man away.

  ‘You may not like what you will see,’ I told Larry in a concerned tone. ‘A man was murdered here.’

  Under normal circumstances I would never expose a child to such a ghastly sight. However, far from being frightened, Larry’s eyes widened in excitement, and McGray’s smile told me that he was expecting that very reaction. I realized that the boy had, probably on a regular basis, seen tragedies as bad as anything I’d seen on the job.

  We stepped inside and found the room exactly as we’d left it. The one difference was that the foul smell had diminished a bit.

  Larry walked in, his blue eyes flickering all around the room, but his sight finally fixed on the huge stain of blood on the carpet. ‘Woooooow!’

  I also looked around, but far from excitedly. I had been trying to pinpoint what had been out of place in that room, but being there again just puzzled me more. I had not missed any detail: there was the stain of blood, the black mark where the Devil’s symbol had been, the stained violin and the splattered stand. I shrugged, thinking that probably I was being paranoid, trying to find clues where there were none. After all, the case was very important for my career.

  McGray patted Larry’s bony shoulder. ‘Laddie, we need ye to look up into that chimney ’n’ tell us exactly what ye find there.’ He set the bull’s-eye on, a white beam lighting the dull afternoon, and handed it to the boy. ‘Up ye go.’

  The lantern had leather bands that Larry passed around his shoulders – he was so skinny that he had to turn the straps twice around his torso. As he went into the fireplace I thought that he looked filthier than the very chimneys he was supposed to clean.

  I expected McGray to kneel down and peer up into the flue, all excitement, but he simply stood still while stroking his stubble. ‘What ye see, Larry?’

  Larry’s voice reverberated across the hearth. ‘Erm … I see bricks, master … ’n’ a Hell of a lot of ashes!’

  ‘Really! ’ I whispered in my most barefaced sarcasm.

  Nine-Nails elbowed me in the ribs. ‘Looks like it’s not been cleaned in ages, ye think, laddie?’

  ‘Ermmm, aye and nae.’

  ‘What d’ye mean?’

  ‘Looks like someone scraped it, master.’

  ‘Aha! Ye recognize anythin’ like …’

  ‘I see finger marks, sir.’

  ‘Great. They clear, laddie?’

  ‘Aye, very clear!’

  ‘Splendid. Can ye climb to the top? Tell us if ye find something odd?’

  ‘Aye!’

  I peered inside the chimney and saw the shining of the bull’s-eye moving as Larry ascended. He was almost at the top when he yelled: ‘There’s somethin’ here, master! A piece o’ paper!’

  McGray gasped. ‘Can ye bring it doun?’

  ‘Aye! But it’s all wet ’n’ – yuk!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s got blood on it!’

  ‘Then we definitely need it, laddie.’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  After a l
ouder ‘yuk’, Larry began to descend. As I saw the lantern’s light coming closer I moved back.

  ‘Right, Ah’m comin’ out!’ As soon as he jumped down, Larry let out a sudden squeal of pain, so sudden that I started. McGray leaped forward and caught the skinny boy just before he fell onto the floor.

  ‘My foot! ’ he yelled, his eyes watering.

  McGray carried the boy and tenderly sat him on the desk. Then he gently lifted Larry’s foot. He spoke sounding deeply concerned, almost fatherly: ‘There, there, laddie. Ye landed on a shard o’ glass …’

  I drew closer and saw it: a piece of dark glass had pierced straight through Larry’s sole and plunged into his foot. No wonder; the boy was wearing the oldest, most worn-out shoes.

  I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket. ‘Larry, this is going to hurt, but it shall be quick. I want you to bite this.’

  The boy did so, his teary eyes trembling. McGray patted his head and then, with a swift movement, I pulled the glass out. Larry groaned in pain, fiercely biting the cloth, but then sighed with relief. I took the shoe off and then wrapped the foot tightly with the same handkerchief. ‘There, there. You will be all right.’

  ‘We’ll take ye to a doctor, laddie. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Ah’m fine, master,’ he retorted stubbornly. I saw that he was clenching his right fist. ‘I found this.’

  He opened his hand to show us a crumpled piece of wet paper: the corner of a page, most of it soaked in dark blood. I took it and carefully tried to smooth it. Immediately I recognized a page number, an unintelligible scribble stamped in blue ink, and the very corner of a group of quaver notes.

  ‘This is part of a music score,’ I gasped. ‘It must be the one Fontaine was playing.’

  Larry frowned. ‘The blood still feels fresh, master.’

  I shook my head. ‘The weather has been quite wet, that is why it has not dried. We had better keep this.’ I folded it carefully and wrapped it in another handkerchief.

  ‘Mighty chip ye stepped on!’ McGray said, examining the piece of glass. Pointy and sharp, it looked like a shark’s tooth to me. McGray narrowed his eyes. ‘This has dry blood on it.’

  I looked closer and noticed tiny yellow speckles along the dark green glass. It looked as though it was part of a very expensive, artfully crafted vase. There was a coagulated stain next to the boy’s fresh blood.

  ‘I think we have our murder weapon, Frey …’

  ‘Do you think they killed and disembowelled Fontaine using glass?’ I asked out loud.

  ‘Aye, but this looks like part of a bigger piece.’

  ‘Do you think they broke some ornament and used the shards?’ I asked, but even as I said it I realized it could not be.

  ‘Nay. There’s no other pieces o’ glass in the room, and ye wouldn’t stop to sweep up a broken vase after killing a man. Whoever did this must’ve brought the glass with him, then broken it while climbing up, and torn the score too.’

  McGray was reasoning well. He handed me the shard. ‘Ye keep this too, lass. I ken someone who can examine it.’

  ‘Oh, do you know a glass-blower in the city?’

  ‘Nae. A clairvoyant.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Hey, don’t pull that shite-sniffin’ face! Ye’ve not even met the wifie. Madame Katerina is the best gypsy in the business … at least in Auld Reekie.’

  ‘This is getting more and more ridiculous,’ I muttered, wrapping the piece of glass together with the paper.

  McGray made me call Mr Downs, who by then was utterly relaxed eating buttered teacakes in the kitchen. He had asked Goodwife Hill to fetch Fontaine’s violin cases and she had lined them next to the study’s door.

  Before letting Downs in, McGray asked Hill to bring a large bed sheet, which we used to cover the stains on the floor. The true circumstances of the death were still of the utmost secrecy. Downs passed inside, looking at the cloth with piercing eyes. He could not have been more curious had he seen the actual blood. Then he saw Larry seated on the desk.

  ‘What happened to the boy?’

  ‘Tripped on my feet,’ Larry replied immediately, the clever chap.

  Downs produced his stack of documents and carefully took each of the violins from the shelf. ‘Let’s see … we have the Guadagnini … the dark Galiano … Oh, the pride of Fontaine’s collection; the Stradivarius …’

  As he picked them up he ticked a list, made some notes and then put the instruments in their cases. The tiny man was taking his time.

  ‘Care to stir yoursel’?’ McGray finally snapped. ‘We need to take the boy to a doctor.’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, Inspector. It’s just that one violin is missing …’

  ‘That’s on the desk, behind the laddie,’ McGray said. Larry was about to hand the violin to Downs, but the attorney almost jumped on him.

  ‘I will handle this, boy.’ He lifted the violin as carefully as if carrying a newborn, and looked into the f-hole. (Thanks to Nine-Nails I shall never be able to even write that at ease …) ‘Oh, yes, the Amati Maledetto! Fontaine liked this little one very much.’

  That phrase made me frown and McGray noticed. ‘What?’

  I hesitated. I did not want to feed his delusions. ‘Maledetto … I recognize the Latin root … maledictio … It means …’

  ‘The Cursed Amati,’ Downs said, placing the instrument in the last velvet-lined case.

  McGray’s face went red with excitement: ‘Cursed!’

  ‘Aye, Inspector. They call this violin the Cursed Amati. You know, musicians like to have their legends.’

  ‘Do ye ken why they call it that?’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ I muttered, exasperated. ‘You said that we had to take Larry to the doctor, did you not?’

  ‘Hush! I wanna hear too!’ the boy cried, suddenly oblivious to any pain.

  ‘Aye, shut it, lassie!’

  Downs shook his head. ‘Unfortunately I do not know the story. But I am sure that someone at the Conservatoire will be able to tell you.’

  McGray grinned like a child. ‘Well, I was gonna take Larry to the doctor and let ye do the boring questioning in the music hall, but now I have a good reason to join ye …’

  12

  ‘Before you even utter a word, let me see if I can be a clairvoyant myself … I predict you are about to say that Fontaine was a victim of that violin’s morbid curse.’

  ‘Pish! Ye don’t even ken if it’s morbid or not.’

  ‘Well, those things always are! There is always the bloody bride hunting all the virgins who dare move into her ancient manor, or the murdered child that appears at midnight with a bloody dagger. In this case, I would expect at least an impaled Renaissance violinist who will drag to Hell all those who dare play his beloved instrument.’

  ‘Good. Yer startin’ to think like me.’

  The cold was bitter and the fog kept shrouding the city. I could see it being dragged down the Royal Mile as the carriage took us back to the City Chambers. McGray had decided to take Larry to Dr Reed, for the boy might not be accepted at the Royal Infirmary – he simply looked too filthy. Young Reed was all too happy to attend the boy, and I seized the opportunity to ask him about the photographs.

  ‘Oh, I’m afraid those aren’t ready yet, Mr Frey,’ he apologized as he cleaned Larry’s foot with a piece of cotton soaked in alcohol. The boy was groaning but held on bravely. ‘Some chemicals ran out,’ Reed said. ‘I did manage to pull things forward; the photographer assured me that the pictures will be on Inspector McGray’s desk by tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Great job, laddie,’ McGray said. ‘Larry, ye mind if we leave ye with Dr Reed? We still need to catch these folks in the school o’ music.’

  ‘That’s all right, master.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Here, have something good for dinner.’ I tossed a silver shilling to the boy, who caught it in the air with swift reflexes.

  ‘And come to the house and ask George to give ye some milk and flour,’ McGray added. ‘We got
tons o’ that stuff.’

  Larry could not have been more grateful. After that we set off.

  Downs had preferred to wait outside with the violins, and apparently the cold was getting to his bones, for he was embracing himself tightly.

  The carriage took us north. We passed right next to the white columns of Scotland’s National Gallery as we crossed the gardens of Princes Street, and then entered the New Town again.

  We went up along some elegant streets until we reached a curved avenue called Royal Crescent, where I saw a white, round building and I had to point at it. ‘Mr Downs, is that a gymnasium?’

  ‘Indeed, Inspector, and a grand one. Not that I frequent it, though.’

  ‘Do you know whether they practise fencing there?’

  ‘Yes, they do, Inspector. A few of my clients have told me about it.’

  ‘Good. I must join, then. I am glad I asked my maid to fetch my fencing equipment after all.’

  ‘Ye like doing that girly thing?’ McGray asked, his face wincing in disgust.

  ‘Girly? Fencing is a man’s sport, McGray.’

  ‘Oh, aye! A bunch o’ delicate laddies dressed up in white cotton nappies, pokin’ each other with long sticks! Sounds really rough!’

  As we reached the gymnasium we turned west and very soon we were in front of an old, baronial building behind a long lawn. Its walls were built with dark, smoked stones, and it had a couple of spiky turrets and many chimneys pointing up to the grey sky. The place had certainly been a grand tower house when it was built, centuries earlier.

  ‘The Conservatoire, gentlemen!’ the driver announced.

  ‘Will you give me a hand with these?’ Downs asked us, having trouble carrying all the violin cases. The man was very short indeed.

  As we walked inside, the gloomy building seemed forbidding, although the darkened sky might have had something to do with that.

  Downs inquired after one Alistair Ardglass and McGray jumped.

  ‘Ardglass!’