Dead, Mr Mozart

by Bernard Bastable

  ‘Uncertain, because my damned footman is getting too old for his duties. He says he thinks it was handed in by a young female. But of course that young female will not prove to be the writer of the note.’

  ‘Of course not. When was this?’

  ‘Five days ago.’

  ‘What did the handwriting look like?’ I asked.

  ‘To me unremarkable,’ said Mr de Fries. ‘As I say I took it only this morning to a woman specialising in the study of handwriting – someone highly recommended by Lady Hertford herself. We will await the fruits of her study. Her initial reactions were that the writer was educated, probably male or a very strong-willed female, one dominated by love of or desire for money, probably a Libra subject. Those were her first thoughts.’

  My eyes strayed to Lord Hertford. He was a man who seemed never to have been attracted by what I would call a truly womanly woman. I did have doubts about the advice of his particularly strong-willed female on this question. I wondered how far I could go in voicing them. Finally I coughed.

  ‘My Lord, I have no wish to cast doubt on Lady Hertford’s advice—’

  ‘I’m sure you haven’t, Mr Mozart.’

  ‘—but I wonder a little about the woman you are consulting about this note.’

  ‘Her discretion is guaranteed, Mr Mozart,’ said Lord Hertford, unbending a little. ‘She has been consulted by the King himself on a number of delicate matters.’

  ‘It was not her discretion I was questioning, My Lord. I was wondering whether hers was the kind of scientific analysis and report that would be useful to us. Is hers, for example, the sort of expert judgment that the authorities might solicit and bring forward at a criminal trial (which of course is what the matter could one day come to)?’

  ‘I hope not, Mr Mozart,’ said Lord Hertford emphatically.

  ‘Of course we will all hope not, My lord. But what I mean is that I suspect if I had seen the note I might have recognised the hand of an educated person rather than someone who had been a year or two at Dame School. I think I would have had a better than even chance of guessing whether it was the hand of a man or a woman. I think the content would have told me that the writer was interested in money, and as to the writer being a Libra subject – are we really in this day and age to give credence to the nonsense spouted by astrologers?’

  I had perhaps not put the matter as tactfully as I might, but Lord Hertford did not appear, at any rate, to take it amiss, at least not on the surface.

  ‘I’m surprised at you, Mr Mozart,’ he said genially, but not able to mask an underlying coldness in his reactions to me. ‘You and I belong to an organisation – a brotherhood, let us call it – which alerts us to the forces above and beyond the rationalities of this world. It astonishes me that an artist such as yourself should be so earth-bound as your words seem to imply.’

  ‘I merely mean that if we are to find out who is attempting to commit this crime of blackmail I should be sorry to have to resort to occult sources rather than the sources that might be of use on our side in a Court of Law.’

  Lord Hertford shook his head.

  ‘I have no intention of letting this matter come to a Court of Law, Mr Mozart. It would do you – and me – no good at all. But tell us what you would do, faced with this threat.’

  I felt unpleasantly exposed.

  ‘I would think, My Lord. What does this note tell us? That the writer is someone who knows that you – we – got rid of a body. He doesn’t know how or where, or he would not have used the word “buried”. Therefore we must posit a second person in the street, watching the theatre as Davy House was watching it, or someone in the buildings around the Queen’s Theatre, or – and this is the solution I would suggest is the most likely – someone in the theatre itself.’

  They all looked at me thoughtfully.

  ‘Go on,’ said Lord Hertford.

  ‘If we can imagine that someone in the theatre that night killed poor Jenny, we can also imagine that someone in the theatre came upon her body in Miss Ackroyd’s dressing-room. There may have been reasons why that person did not raise the alarm, or there may have been none beyond a desire not to be involved in all the fuss of a murder and the pursuit of its perpetrator. But the person could have waited concealed inside the theatre – or indeed watched from outside or from a building in the vicinity – and seen the body transported away clandestinely. And one of the people involved in this clandestine work was you, My Lord – one of the richest men in the kingdom. He – or she – may have found the opportunity this presented for blackmail irresistible.’

  There was another long silence. They gave the impression of being impressed.

  ‘By someone in the theatre,’ began Betty, ‘you mean—?’

  ‘Any of the artists or stage-hands, any of the orchestra, the dressers, and any of the audience.’

  ‘You think a member of the audience is really a possibility?’ asked Lord Hertford, thoughtfully.

  ‘I do. During a performance there is, regrettably from the performers’ point of view, a great deal of toing and froing in and out of the auditorium. People leave early, bladders and bowels have to be eased, some even, I fear, have assignations back stage with members of the cast.’

  ‘I can’t remember much toing and froing,’ said Lord Hertford. ‘People were enjoying it so much.’

  ‘Perhaps, My Lord, you were enjoying it so much – I hope so – that you failed to notice.’

  ‘Possibly, possibly … Capital little piece.’ That, I recognised, was a sop thrown in my direction. ‘The question is: what do we do?’

  We all looked at each other.

  ‘I’m not sure there is much we can do until His Lordship receives a second note,’ I said. ‘I presume the footmen will this time be on the alert?’

  ‘They will,’ said Lord Hertford grimly.

  ‘However, if I was a blackmailer I would use a different method of delivery and a different hand in the addressing, so the alertness may not be of much use. I wonder if Miss Ackroyd could be of some use – and Mr Popper too, of course – in finding out if anyone saw anything unusual, or more especially any unexpected person, backstage at the Queen’s on the first night of A Call to Arms. I have tried myself, but to little avail.’

  Betty Ackroyd looked dubious.

  ‘Everyone was buoyed up by the success of it,’ she said. ‘One wasn’t noticing much outside the piece itself. But I can try.’

  ‘We are interested particularly in the area around the dressing-rooms,’ I went on. ‘Particularly your own.’

  ‘Particularly mine,’ agreed Betty.

  ‘You might pretend to have lost something that night – that is the sort of simple reason for questioning that everyone understands. We want to know about anybody who was seen in that vicinity during the second act.’

  ‘If anyone can find out anything to the purpose I’m sure it will be Miss Ackroyd,’ said Lord Hertford. ‘Well, I think we’ve gone as far as we can go today…’

  He rose. It was a dismissal, but he was quite right: there was nothing to do but wait. I noted, however, that he had accepted my analysis of the situation, as well as my suggestion for future action. As we all collected ourselves together and made our ways out he came over to me with an access of that old geniality that I could no longer take at, its face value.

  ‘Ah, my dear Mozart, I hear you visited my wife’s old home while you were up in the North.’

  ‘I did, er, take that opportunity, My Lord. And I’m very glad that I did. It is indeed a most splendid property.’

  ‘We have a great deal of music when we are up there. You must come up and play for us some time. You were treated well, I trust?’

  ‘Oh indeed. I had a most interesting tour of the main rooms. Her Ladyship’s butler was most interesting on the various members of the Ingram family and their fortunes.’

  ‘Ha! Flaneur! Admit it, Mr Mozart: you were bored to death!’ He bared his teeth at me. ‘We lay him on to deter the tourists.�
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  We were out in the splendid corridor. He raised his hand to me and hobbled away.

  Once out in the dreary November sunlight I looked around me. Mr Popper had secured a cab and was speeding on his way, presumably to create chaos at the Queen’s. On the corner of Baker Street I spied Betty Ackroyd, and I saw that she had been waited for by Bradley Hartshead. The two of them were close together, heads down, in deep conversation. Then they turned and began the long walk in the direction of Soho.

  I strolled behind them, cursing the inveterate damp cold of these isles, letting them exhaust the topic of blackmail, if that was what they were talking about. Whatever it was seemed to interest them: their heads remained together and they were talking low. It was not until they were in the splendid curve of Regent Street – built, the wags said to mirror the curve of Prinny’s stomach – that I decided it was time for them and me to have a chat.

  ‘And have you reached any conclusions?’ I said, coming up beside them. They looked at me apparently unsurprised.

  ‘I’ve been trying to persuade Betty to have as little as possible to do with this business,’ said Bradley Hartshead without hesitation. ‘But she says she’s now in it so deep that it would be pointless to withdraw.’

  ‘I’m afraid that that’s true of many of us,’ I replied. ‘We both should have drawn back the moment we heard Jenny Bowles’s story, saying this was a matter for politicians, not artists. And you two should most certainly not have got yourselves involved in this impersonation scheme.’

  ‘Money,’ said Betty Ackroyd. ‘It’s the usual thing. The gift Lord Hertford offered seemed to give me everything I wanted: more travel, seeing continental opera houses, maybe singing there, learning my trade in Italy or Germany.’

  ‘It’s the downfall of all of us,’ I agreed. ‘I wanted to ensure Lord Hertford’s support for the opera season, and in particular for Le Comari di Windsor.’

  ‘Is that what it’s called now?’

  ‘At the moment. I feel there must be something still shorter and livelier.’

  ‘Anyway, in the event there was no impersonation, no great sum of money from Lord Hertford, and The Call to Arms seems to have done more for my career than His Lordship’s money could do.’

  I nodded sagely.

  ‘That’s right: rely on your artistry for your own artistic advancement.’ Seeing a satiric look on her face I added: ‘I wish I could claim to have done so in my own life.’

  ‘Perhaps you preferred not to starve,’ said Betty. We all laughed.

  ‘Mr Mozart is right, and he would never have starved,’ said Hartshead. ‘He would merely have lived less well.’

  ‘Is “well” how I have lived?’ I mused. ‘It doesn’t seem so to me. But without aristocratic help now and again I certainly would have had less time to write my real music.’ I turned to look Bradley Hartshead in the eye. ‘And have you enjoyed the patronage of Lord Hertford?’

  ‘No.’

  It was said stony-faced.

  ‘Then it was a pity you connived in the impersonation of poor Jenny.’

  ‘It was, even though Lord Hertford knows nothing of my small involvement. It was very foolish of me. But Betty was so set on it.’

  ‘Betty takes a very different view of your father to your own.’

  They both turned on me, then Betty looked down, took Bradley Hartshead’s arm, and we all walked along in silence for a minute or two.

  ‘I suppose it was my foolish mother who told you,’ said Betty bitterly.

  ‘Your excellent mother told me the story merely to illustrate the fate of a woman who was similarly involved with Lord Hertford but was less fortunate than herself. She knows, I would guess, nothing of Mr Hartshead here. If anyone was foolish it was surely you for not mentioning him.’

  Again we walked on in silence, eventually broken by Bradley Hartshead.

  ‘What I said was true, Mr Mozart: I have never accepted anything in the way of help or patronage from Lord Hertford.’

  ‘A good thing, in my view, since the rumour is that you hate him.’

  He gave a gesture of contempt with his free hand.

  ‘Local gossip. I was brought up to detest his name. That was my father’s view of him, and I respected it, and still do. But that was one of the childish things I put from me when I became a man. My mother behaved no worse than many women, and Lord Hertford behaved no worse than many aristocrats. Or many mill-owners, come to that.’

  ‘And you get on well with him?’

  ‘I have as little to do with him as possible. I cannot pretend to like him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He has no heart. Have you ever found one?’

  ‘Never. If he gives, it is for a reason. Happily it is sometimes an artistic reason, and I have benefited from that. What is his feeling for you?’

  ‘I have no idea. I have never in my life talked to him alone. I suspect he is amused in a lofty way that two of his bastards have become musicians. He prides himself on his taste.’

  ‘Justly. But this taste would be still better if he had a heart. And how did the brother and sister find each other?’

  A sort of shutter came over Hartshead’s face.

  ‘Oh, that’s easily told: I was accompanying on the organ at a performance of – if you’ll pardon my naming it – Messiah in Chiswick. A small parish church affair, a year or so ago. Betty was singing soprano.’

  We were nearing Betty’s lodging now. As we approached it, taking advantage of a part of the street that was deserted, Betty turned and put her hand on my hand.

  ‘That was how we met, Mr Mozart. When you meet you do not talk immediately of your parentage, and certainly not truthfully if you are in our position. That we only talked of months later. And by then we … things had taken place between us that made it impossible for us to be simply brother and sister.’

  ‘That is why we wish to go abroad,’ said Bradley, sadly. ‘We need to go somewhere where we are not known, and where our parentage is of no interest to anyone.’

  Then they walked off with dignity to Betty’s – to their – lodging.

  16. Così Fan Tutte

  I sometimes wonder whether it is a good thing for a composer to live to old age. I think of Mr Purcell, the closest thing to a musical genius ever produced by this fog-mantled kingdom. He died young, and everyone regrets the masterpieces he never lived to produce. Nobody will ever bemoan the masterpieces I never lived to produce. I’ve produced them all, and precious little have they been appreciated. If it were not for the good Mr Novello many of them would hardly be worth the music paper they are written on. Even if my new opera is produced and is a success, its fate will probably be to be plundered to furnish a ‘version’ by Mr Bishop which will have a few of my best arias together with many others plundered from Arne, Storace and Bishop himself, and probably ‘The Jolly Ploughboy’ and ‘Drink to Me Only’ to boot. Is it all worth it, I ask myself?

  This feeling was brought on when I arrived home to find a splendid invitation card awaiting me: it was to a party at Lord Egremere’s. At one time my heart would have beat faster: the chance to meet the great ones of this little world of England, the opportunity to cultivate their favour, perhaps to borrow off them. Now … Well, no doubt I would do all those things, but routinely, with a sense of ennui. My life was nearly over, I was seen by many as a musical hack, I had shot my bolt.

  Except for my new opera.

  Even as depression seemed to settle on me, my spirits rose at the thought of it. What a wonderful score it was, in spite of its libretto. And what a chance this was! I had heard whispers of Lord Egremere’s approaching party. The rumour-mongers had it that Prinny was going to be there, and that it was going to represent a tentative hand of friendship from him to the Whigs. Relations between them had been sulphurous since he had ditched his old friends and allies on becoming Regent a decade ago. For Prinny treachery was a way of life, to be practised (like everything else in his life) with consummate grace and sty
le. Now, with the Coronation approaching, the King had ambitions of being seen as the king of the whole nation, and imagined that being friends with politicians of both parties would foster this impression. Why anyone would imagine that politicians represent the nation I cannot think. They merely cling to it.

  Matters in my apartment were on the surface decorous. Ann was about her business of brushing and scrubbing, and Davy was doing little jobs of repair and renovation. What had gone on while I was at Lord Hertford’s I did not enquire into. I told Davy of the invitation, and we agreed I had to present my best front to the fashionable world. I showed him how to give my clothes their least threadbare aspect, and we discussed which of my jewels, walking-sticks and snuff boxes I should redeem from the pawnbrokers. The matter occupied me inordinately over the next few days, but Davy was eager to learn and I was pleased to teach, hoping it would keep his mind off his plight and off the opposite sex. I could see that my little maid was displeased with the amount of time I spent around the house, but of course there was nothing she could do about it.

  Five days later I was getting ready for the party, dressing with unusual care, getting the inspiration for last-minute touches, practising postures and reverential attitudes before the looking-glass (if one is going to genuflect one should do so with grace). Lord Egremere had invited me as a guest, and I intended my behaviour and my air to be the equal of any of the other guests – nay, of Prinny himself. We both of us could show something to the present degenerate age. When I set off for Egremere House I was seen off at the door by Davy, smiling delightedly and applauding in his artless way. The effect was spoiled by a street-urchin imitating my walk and tenue up and down the street in front of the expensively-hired carriage and horses. I could see the coachman was not impressed.

  I had been to Egremere House before, but not for several years. In his young days Lord Egremere had been an enthusiastic member of the Benefice Lodge. That was when our brotherhood was the preserve of fiery and radical spirits, eager for progress and change and the brotherhood of man. That was when there were still aristocrats willing to subscribe to such ideals. Over the years the Lodge has been taken over by more conservative figures such as Lord Hertford, people who are not a whit attracted by the notion of the brotherhood of man, but seem to be more concerned with the giving or receiving of favours of a political or financial kind. Lord Egremere, though still going through the motions of membership, has largely dropped out. I, who am very much preoccupied with the receiving if not the giving of favours, remain very active. If self-interest is to be the new motive-force of society, I can be as self-interested as anybody.