Capriccio

by Joan Smith

  “That's where I work out of. Parelli's the Mountie,” John explained. I remembered those shirts with English labels in his hotel room. “Gino Parelli. He's a special agent with the RCMP. I'm with Lloyd's. We both wanted the same thing and worked together."

  “Why did you call yourself Sean Bradley? Insurance agents don't have to change their names."

  “The famous ones do,” Victor told me. “According to Marven, John here is famous, in his own way. Sorry I didn't recognize you, John. All Marven told me was your name. And you're just the man I want to talk to. You can't reason with the police. They're just here to arrest people.” I didn't trust the gleam in his eyes.

  “If you're trying to arrange a deal about Strathroy, it's the cops you want, not me,” John cautioned. “Of course, I'm interested in anything you might have to suggest. Do you think Strathroy might be willing to hand over the rest of the Carpani take, arrange a deal for some clemency consideration?"

  “I don't give a damn about that milksop,” Victor said. “Lock him up and throw away the key for all I care. It's the violin I'm interested in."

  “Did you get your money back?” I asked.

  “Just like her mother,” Victor repined. “I got it back. Or will—as soon as they no longer need it for evidence. About the violin, Mr. Weiss—John. How do you plan to return it to the contessa?"

  “I'll take it personally."

  Victor's fingers were nervously massaging his chin. I had a little trouble leading him back to tell us his ordeal but not too much. He made a very good rant of it, like a ham actor in an afternoon soap, but there wasn't much new. I already knew about his having met Etherington at a party, about buying the violin, going to Bitwell, and so on.

  “Where did they take you? Where have you been all this time?” I asked.

  “Locked up in a damned little cramped bungalow Etherington lives in out in the boonies. Some place called Port Credit. It was only a stone's throw from that mall where they dumped me tonight. He kept me doped half the time but let me wake up long enough to go to the can and eat, occasionally. Beans and eggs. Not even a dish of pasta. And my cigars, the son-of-a-bitch smoked them in front of me and wouldn't let me have a puff. Imagine, being low and petty enough to steal a man's cigars. Imported!"

  “Easy on the sons-of-bitches, Victor. The language I mean, not Etherington."

  He glanced at me impatiently and went on talking. “Somebody—well it was Strathroy, I know that now, though I didn't at the time—Strathroy took my cigars while he was rifling my apartment for the violin and brought them to the hut. He meant them for me, but that goddamm'd—"

  “Easy on the goddams, too."

  “You want to think twice before marrying this one,” Victor advised John. Then his caution was awakened to the occasion, and he tried to rectify his error. “Of course, she's really not a bad sort of girl."

  “That's half the trouble right there,” John agreed.

  “Tell us about being locked up,” I ordered.

  “They didn't torture me unless you can call hours of Lawrence Welk torture. What upset their little applecart is that I didn't knuckle under and tell them where I hid the Stradivarius. Clever, eh?” he congratulated himself. “Those two are rank amateurs. They didn't know what to do with me once they kidnapped me. That wasn't a part of the plan. Etherington panicked when I went to the conservatory and found out the violin was stolen. He knew it would be all over the papers by morning. He was following me from the moment I left him. He grabbed me at gunpoint in my garage."

  “But you'd already escaped him and hidden the violin at the Casa Loma,” I said.

  “Yes, and put some sneakers in the case. If they managed to grab it, I didn't want it to feel empty. I carried the case down to Union Station to fool him, but the amateur lost me in traffic. He was waiting for me back at the apartment garage. The phone calls were flying thick and fast to Strathroy, asking what he should do. Of course, he didn't use Ron's name. They have some other—some sucker lined up to buy a necklace and were shaking in their boots in case the whole Carpani story came out and blew their scam into the headlines. I'd told Etherington I was keeping it a secret that I'd gotten hold of the old Italian violin till I had it in tune. We weren't calling it a Strad then though we both knew."

  “Just as you thought, Sean—John,” I congratulated. “There is one other thing, Victor. Why did you hide your Guarneri in the locker?"

  “You found that, did you? Where is it?"

  “In your studio. And you didn't answer the question."

  “I needed it for the performance at Roy Thomson that evening. But first I needed the case to protect the Stradivarius, so I had to leave my own fiddle at home. You don't leave a Guarneri sitting on display in a car for some crook to steal. I planned to dart back and pick it up before I went down to the hall. Rather than having to take the elevator up to the apartment to get it, I decided to stick it in the locker. It'd save time."

  “I see."

  “Now quit interrupting. Where was I? Oh, yes, I was telling you about Etherington. He's posing as a gentleman down on his luck,” he continued. “When they kidnapped a famous person like Mazzini, they knew they were in over their necks and didn't dare harm me. I told them, lay a finger on me, and you're a marked man. They think I have friends in the mob. And between the two of them, they couldn't find the violin,” he crowed.

  “I found it, though,” I said and received not a single nod of approval.

  “As I said, John,” Victor continued, “it's the violin I'm really interested in. Do you think the contessa would consider selling it?"

  “It's a family heirloom. She was very upset about losing it,” John told him doubtfully.

  “Good looking woman, is she?"

  “Not bad."

  “How old?"

  “The right side of forty. Red-haired, full-figured lady, very stylish."

  The more John talked, the wider Victor's smile grew. “A Balzacian figure. A real woman,” he beamed. “And a widow, I understand?"

  “For a few years now."

  “What's her phone number? What time is it in Italy? Is it too early to call? Cassie, is there any pasta in the house? Make me some spaghetti. This woman can't make gnocchi or fettuccini to save her soul,” he added aside to John.

  “I'll give it a try,” John offered.

  Victor was much too excited to go to bed. He kept popping his head into the kitchen, as often as not catching John and myself simmering, but not pasta. “CBC is sending over a reporter at eight tomorrow morning,” he announced on one trip.

  Later it was, “The Globe and the Star both want exclusives, Cassie. Which shall I give the honor? Exclusive be damned, I'll let them all come, including the Sun. I hope you saved all the papers. There should have been good coverage."

  I assured him they were all awaiting his perusal. The next time he came, he had dragged the manager of Roy Thomson Hall from his bed and had gotten a promise of a new concert series. “This one will be a sellout,” he crooned. “They'll be lined up for tickets as if I were a rock star. I'll make real music popular for the masses. More garlic,” he added without even tasting the spaghetti sauce.

  When the spaghetti was ready, Victor opened some of his best red wine, and we sat down to celebrate. We heard a great deal more self-congratulating from Victor about how he had handled his incarceration, and his plans to have the story ghost-written into a best seller. "The Vanishing Violinist I'll call it. No, that sounds like Perry Mason, and I'll want my name in there. Mazzini Is Missing—make that The Great Mazzini Is Missing. That has a nice ring to it. Speaking of ring, I can call the contessa now,” he said, glancing at his watch.

  I was a little suspicious when he went into his bedroom to make the call. Once he got the contessa on the line, however, he became so excited that his voice carried through the walls. He spoke in Italian, along the following lines:

  “My dear contessa, I hope I haven't gotten you out of bed? ... Oh, having lunch? Terribly sorry. I'm ca
lling from Canada and didn't realize, but I have good news for you. I've found your violin.... It's fine, I guarded it with my life—literally. I've been held captive and tortured for days. Oh, I'll live. Kind of you to ask.... A wonderful instrument, the finest violin I've ever played.... Do I play? Ha ha, I forgot to introduce myself. This is Victor Mazzini speaking. (a very gratified little laugh) Grazie. Yes, the one they call the Great Mazzini. I'm surprised you've heard of me all the way in Italy! I'm flattered. Yes, a native son.... Too kind. No, really! All my records? You're making me blush, Contessa. Oh, very soon, you'll have it very soon. I insist on taking it to you personally. We don't want some bourgeois insurance agent taking it, using it for a doorstop. (I smiled apologetically at John.) Not at all, a pleasure.... Well, there is one little thing. If you could put up with its absence for another month. Oh, the very best care! I'll hire a special guard to watch it. And a violin needs to be played, you know. But then I don't mean to tell you anything about violins.... A concert series. The world deserves to hear the great Carpani Stradivarius. I'll send you a copy of the record. Including a little surprise.... Don't like surprises? What an unusual lady. Well, if you insist, it's the little piece I wrote to honor the Carpani Strad.... I write a little, I'm not a serious composer. I call it unofficially Capriccio Carpani—a capricious little thing, just in fun, you know. Very modern and youthful.”

  “There goes my song,” I said to John.

  Victor continued his fawning conversation. “Stay at your villa? That sounds charming, Contessa. No, I'll be alone. I'm an old bachelor.... (Another delighted laugh) If you insist then, a young bachelor. Perhaps your husband and I ... Ah, forgive me, I didn't know.... (His tone vibrated with sympathy) Yes, I know all about loneliness, that's nothing new to me. But I have a much better idea! Why don't you come to Toronto and see the concert live? Let me make the arrangements. I insist."

  John and I exchanged a disbelieving stare.

  “Why don't we arrange it by letter then? And my dear Contessa ... Maria? Charming! Could a bachelor be very forward and ask you to enclose a picture of yourself? You have the advantage on me. I have no idea what you look like, but if your beauty matches your lovely voice, I shall be the envy of North America."

  There were a few more crooning murmurs, too subdued to make it through the door. “Where's Gino?” I asked John.

  “I imagine he's consummating a life insurance policy next door, right about now. No, seriously, he said someone should explain to Mrs. Friske what's been going on and volunteered to do it."

  “Beat you to it, huh?"

  In a minute Victor came out rubbing his hands in glee. “It's done. She's coming, and until she gets here, she'll send you a letter giving you permission for me to keep the Stradivarius till she arrives. Meanwhile, I'll be playing it at my next concert."

  I knew that look. “Meanwhile” would be as long as he lived. By hook or crook, he'd end up with the Carpani Strad if he had to marry the Contessa to get it. But for the present, he was content to phone Marven and demand its return.

  The next move was to look after his other girlfriend, Eleanor Strathroy. John, whose only interest was in saving his insurance company money, aided and abetted him every step of the way. It wasn't done in a morning, especially with so many interviews to be conducted. The affair couldn't be kept entirely silent, but with cooperation from Victor and the Contessa in not pressing charges, with the remainder of the haul from her villa returned, with Ronald's “resignation” from Graymar and Eleanor's selling her mansion to pay off his debts, it passed into history with hardly a ripple, and with no jail term for Ronald. Mr. Etherington was brought to nominal justice on a former crime—three months is what he actually got—but the big losers were the Strathroys even if it wasn't legal justice.

  They are consigned to the suburbs in an area east of Toronto called Scarborough but more familiarly known as Scarberia. A fate worse than death for them. I give it a year, maximum, before Eleanor finds either a rich husband for herself or a rich bride for Ronald. One should feel some outrage, I suppose, but it's hard to be outraged when you've just gotten engaged. I have more important things to do, like talk John into shaving off his moustache, take him to a decent tailor, and convince Mom he'll be a good husband even if he isn't Italian.

  My visions still occur. I see us walking by the Seine, hand-in-hand, smiling at the chestnut trees and water. I see us in John's flat in London, receiving frantic calls to dash off to Rome, New York, Paris, having to cancel the duchess's dinner invitation. I see myself in designer labels, solving baffling cases. I think John sees me in a frilly apron, waving him off from behind the white picket fence while he solves the crimes. Or perhaps he's come to know me better than that. We sybarites must have a little excitement, as well as our material pleasure, and his career offers considerable scope in that direction. It is, after all, the very wealthy who have their diamonds and things stolen. Perhaps my visions are slightly exaggerated, but I enjoy them for all that, as I have every intention of enjoying the reality of a two-by-four life with John. C'est la vie.

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