Clamour of Crows

by Ray Merritt

“Well, I may have some good news on that front.”

  I told her about Pervy and the coat. Her eyes seemed to double in size.

  “Please let me see the letter . . . please.”

  She devoured it. Smiles, frowns, and every other expression crossed her face. She was taking her time. In that prolonged silence, the only thing I sensed was a faint odor of French milled soap that emanated from her. I saw tears form in her eyes.

  She proclaimed, “Yes, yes, yes!” as she leaned over to embrace me.

  Her public display of emotion caught the attention of the surrounding diners, who responded with grins and thumbs-up.

  I whispered, “They all think we just got engaged!”

  She blushingly smiled and took my hand. Our coffee depleted, we awkwardly retreated from the restaurant to an anteroom across the hall. Dorothy immediately took leave and called Eloise to share the news.

  With nothing else to do but await her return, I sat there and soaked up the Ritz’s ambience—the gold-leafed settee with puffed pillows had a matching coffee table (not meant for decaf, I suspect). Classical music played softly, seemingly syncopated with the tinkle of the crystal chandeliers. Duc de Longueville, a seventeenth-century prince, looked benignly down on me, or at least his portrait did. He seemed like a friendly sort. Below the duke, a marble mantel surrounded a faux fireplace with matching bronze dogs at play on the hearth.

  Those I liked.

  The ghosts of this hotel were never far away—Hemingway downing Bloody Marys, Coco cuddling with the Krauts, Hepburn making love in the afternoon, and Barbara Hutton taking a razor to her wrist, while the staff saw it all without looking and heard it all without listening. It was César Ritz who coined the phrase, “The client is always right!”

  Dorothy returned and handed me the letter.

  My Dorothy,

  Look beyond the rainbow, for there where the Höckerschwanns hover, you can obtain what you seek. There, in that other Emerald City, you will find entrance in the signs of the Zodiac, the months of the year, the tribes of Israel, the stones on the pectoral, and the birds of Christmas.

  The aegis holds the key; the kiste holds the future.

  It is to you and my grandchild that I look for the future—one that will be bright. I am not blind to the problems ahead for they are largely of my doing. You are lucky to have a mate, one you can rely on. As blind as I have been to your extraordinary success, grace, and judgment, they have always been your strengths. New beginnings are here; perhaps it is time to go.

  Ever drifting down the stream. Living in the golden gleam. Life, is it but a dream?

  With all my love,

  42

  “Dorothy, I need help with this. I think this is the consent you were seeking! I generally get its drift, but I’m not sure what this letter is all about.”

  “Ah . . . well, Tuck, one thing troubles me for starters. Will this satisfy the sperm bank?”

  “No. I’m sure they will need a much more formal and notarized or witnessed permission document, but don’t despair. The maid also told my associate that she witnessed your father’s signature on another letter, along with Mr. Amaroso’s. She described him as your father’s ‘dandy Italian friend.’ Your father tipped her a goodly number of pounds so she wouldn’t forget the signing. I assume that was actually the consent letter and I expect that Andreas took that letter when he left. The one you just read I suspect was telling you where you would find the formal consent.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Dorothy said. “Like all my father’s personal letters, it’s a bit complicated. Not sure I fully understand it all, but maybe together we can parse it out. The first sentence, ‘Look beyond the rainbow, for there where the Höckerschwanns hover, you can obtain what you seek.’ That’s pretty obvious. It refers to Zurich and its lake, which is home to a large overfed swan population. Maybe that means the formal authorization letter is in Zurich at the Sparkasse der Stadt. That’s the bank where Dad told me the safe-deposit box is. Both Andreas and I are authorized to access the box.

  “The next sentence is a little more complicated. ‘There, in that other Emerald City, you will find entrance in the signs of the Zodiac, the months of the year, the tribes of Israel, the stones on the pectoral, and the birds of Christmas.’ I’m a bit lost. I know they all have the number twelve in them, except I don’t know about the last one. Dad loved duodecads—groupings of twelve. He felt that twelve was his lucky number—‘Benjamin Baum’ has twelve letters. He once told me that the number twelve in biblical numerology signifies that which will finish or complete a perfect harmony. I’m presuming that it refers to accessing the sperm deposits. Not sure about what the ‘birds of Christmas’ has to do with this.”

  I interjected, “Oh you must know them: one partridge; two turtle doves; three French hens; four calling birds; five golden rings—that’s a covey of ring-necked pheasants; six geese a-laying; seven swans a-swimming; eight maids a-milking—a tiding of magpies; nine ladies dancing—female lapwings gyrating during courtship; ten lords a-leaping—an asylum of cuckoo birds; eleven pipers piping—a watch of nightingales trilling at night; and twelve drummers drumming—a wisp of snipes, whose call sounds like drumming. Collectively a group of twelve birds. It’s a Christmas song.”

  “You’re a bird person.”

  “Yes, kind of. Alice and I used to sing that song to the kids every Christmas.”

  “Well, if this all works out, Eloise and I will too and we’ll invite you to lead the chorus.”

  “OK. Now we know that the number twelve has something to do with the riddle he embedded in the letter.”

  “I’ve got it! Twelve numbers! So obvious!” she screamed. Grabbing the letter back, she took out a pencil and began to mark it up.

  “Bingo,” she proclaimed, handing me the letter.

  “Dad was into what are called acrostic codes. They are like crossword puzzles. The word in Greek means ‘covered writing.’ It’s the art of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one apart from the sender and the intended recipient can easily decipher the message. Dad loved them. This particular puzzle he shared only with me. When a number reference was included in one of his letters, such as the number twelve was in this letter, all I had to do was convert the words that also connoted numbers in the letter but disregard the last one. That would give me the coded numbers. He always added an extra number. If a person stole this letter, he could without much difficulty figure out that the code had twelve numbers. And he might even discern that words like ‘to,’ ‘two’ and ‘for’ stand for numbers. He could steal the key from Andreas or Dad, but he still wouldn’t have the safe-deposit account number, since only I would know to delete the last number.

  “Let me show you how it works. The words ‘I’ and ‘one’ denote the number one, ‘to,’ ‘too,’ and ‘two’ all convert into the number two, and ‘for’ is the number four. It can get much more complicated. Here he’s made it quite simple. So the code we are looking for is 421411242112. Twelve numbers. The same as the total number of letters in his name—‘Benjamin Baum.’ That must be the numeric account number for the safe-deposit box!

  “When he told me about this account, he said someday he’d give me the number and the key, but if I ever needed immediate access I was to call Andreas. I’ve been trying for weeks. He’s not answering my calls. His office said he’s on holiday. The last time I saw him was at the funeral. He was very solicitous but now nothing. Strange. I hope nothing bad has happened to him. He was my father’s best friend.”

  “I agree. I’ve also tried. In fact, I asked your dad’s chauffeur to contact his relatives in Italy. Apparently they haven’t heard from him either.”

  “Returning to the code. What tipped me off was the last three sentences. Dad lifted them directly from Lewis Carroll’s acrostic poem at the end of Through the Looking-Glass. Carroll used the first letter of every line to spell out the name of his secret muse—Alice Pleasance Liddell. The last three sentences of Dad’s letter s
tart with the letter E, L, and L like at the end of Liddell. That’s how I got it. Liddell is my middle name.

  “The last sentence of the first paragraph of Dad’s letter is the one I don’t yet get. ‘The aegis holds the key; the kiste holds the future.’ ”

  “I can help you a little there,” I said. “I was a Latin and Greek major in college. It sometimes comes in handy. A ‘kiste’ is a box. The safe-deposit box perhaps? ‘Aegis,’ at least in classical Greek, meant the breastplate of Athena, with a gorgon embossed on it. Now it refers to a place of protection. I’m guessing that’s where your father’s key is . . .

  “Oh, my God, right under my nose,” I shouted. “It’s in the study in his downtown brownstone—our office for this investigation. There’s a replica of a Greek warrior’s breastplate hanging on the wall in the space between the bookcases . . .

  “Wait, I’m calling your father’s house,” I explained as I dialed.

  “Dixie? Hi! Go into the study. You’re there? Great, now take that breastplate off the wall. Is there anything taped on the inside?”

  The wait was excruciating.

  “Tuck, there are two keys taped . . .”

  Hoorahs drowned him out, as Dorothy and I embraced.

  “Are you there? Tuck?”

  “Oh, sorry. Guard them with your life and get on a flight tonight that will get you to Zurich tomorrow morning. Meet us . . . hold on—” I held the phone toward Dorothy.

  “The Baur au Lac Hotel,” Dorothy shouted out. “Every cabbie will know it. Wait for us in the courtyard off the reception area. If they ask what you’re doing, say you’re waiting for me. They all know me there. See you soon and thanks.”

  I took my phone back.

  “Dorothy, this is all very exciting, but we have to be more vigilant than ever. We can’t let our guard down. Too much is not adding up. Amaroso’s absence is very disturbing.”

  “I’m not going to exhale ’til we gain access to the box.”

  “Me neither,” I concurred. “I’m paranoid by nature. It’s an occupational hazard when you practice in a Wall Street firm.” “

  Truth is, so am I. It’s also a common malady among women executives.”

  “OK, then it’s agreed. Be careful. Just because we’re both charter members of Club Paranoia, doesn’t mean we’re not being followed.”

  “A few more things about the letter. Dad copied the masthead from a Tolkien drawing. The runes underneath it translate as ‘the road goes ever on.’ And that little scene at the bottom he also copied from a Tolkien drawing. Across to the right the rune means fare well, take care of yourself . . . not really good-bye.”

  “I noticed he signed the letter ‘Dad,’ not ‘Ben,’ ” I observed.

  She nodded and looked away, too proud, I suspect, to let me see her tears.

  43

  We both took breaks, each heading to our respective washroom. When we returned, we were no longer alone. An elegant elderly couple had staked out a place across from our encampment. We removed ourselves to another alcove—empty, at least for the moment.

  “Let’s go back to your father’s Precatory Letter and see if we can decipher some of it too. ‘People who have no shame’ . . . ‘who will go to their graves’ . . . ‘a murder most foul.’ That can’t be a reference to Fra Jero’s death because it postdates your father’s death. Perhaps it refers to his own death?”

  “Who is Fra Jero?”

  I told her about my visit to Montserrat. “Ben’s reference to the ‘Dark Lady’ must be La Moreneta, the Black Madonna of Montserrat, that he visited.

  “He also mentions others ‘too close, or too despicable, to mention.’ Any ideas?”

  There was silence. I sensed she was processing this new information and crafting her response. A lawyer always observes the silence that precedes a witness’s response. The shorter the silence, the more candid and less calculated and, in many cases, the more incriminating the answer. That is why a good litigator always tells his client to take time before responding.

  “Dad rarely used the word ‘despicable’ in my presence, and when he did he was usually referring to Peter Abelard. I was always puzzled by the depth of his disdain for him, even if he suspected that Peter’s closeness to Tremaine had become physical. Since he was no longer intimate with her, I couldn’t understand his anger. Well, maybe I could. Dad was possessive to a fault.”

  She paused to grab hold of her emotions. “This is so difficult to discuss. The real reason Eloise and I removed Leo from Dad’s presence was the fear that he would do him harm. Leo—as truly lovable as he can be—has developed real anger issues. He wants to be an adult. He wants to be free to live and love and make a family and get a job. All impossible dreams—at least for now. Yet not to Leo. So he viewed Dad as his jailer. As you know, on the day Dad died, Leo violently assaulted him. Dad wanted to spend some private time with Leo, so they went into Evan’s room. Kati was in Ben’s room. I have no idea what happened, but you know about Leo’s Merlin obsession. The truth is I’ve always feared Leo might lethally spike Dad’s drink. He prided himself on being Dad’s favorite bartender. Dad always said Leo made the best Hemingway Highballs. It’s too horrible to think about.”

  I changed the subject.

  “Those Tolkien runes, I believe, relate to Terry, thanking her for her support over the years.”

  “Tuck, I know all about Tereza’s relationship with my father and the fatal effect it may have had on my mother. I’m not blind and deaf. He thought it was a secret, known only to him and Terry. Dad willed himself to believe I was oblivious, and if he suffered because of that he deserved to. In some ways, he was truly a bastard.”

  “As to ‘Namárië,’ I believe it means good-bye. I wonder if that was Ben’s formal farewell?”

  “No, I don’t think so. That word is in Quenya, an Elvish language Tolkien created. Sometimes I say I’m fluent in six languages but speak only four. The other two aren’t really spoken—Cirth, the proper name for Runes, is a dwarf language, and Quenya is the Elves’ language. It appears only in The Lord of the Rings and the Song Cycle, Tolkien’s musical collaboration. The music is quite good. One could sing along with Frodo and Sam journeying to Mount Doom—and with Bilbo as ‘the road goes ever on.’ Namárië is not ‘good-bye’; it’s ‘take care’ or ‘be well.’ I think it’s Ben’s warning to those of us who remain.”

  “Tell me more about your life with your dad. It might help me understand.”

  “Most of my education came from my father—sort of like homeschooling—although he did not call it that. I also went to the local private school, like all the other children of the well-to-do. It was Dad’s obsession with children’s literature that gave me my role models, though. The White Knight, the White Queen—they were my elders. I found the males know-it-alls and the females immature and haughty. Not too much to emulate.

  “Terry remained my father’s paramour and my mother surrogate—mistress and mother. And I had a brother who couldn’t protect me. There it was a role reversal. I became the macho protector, Leo the needy dependent. Such was the chessboard of my life.

  “Dad introduced me to ‘his bible,’ as he called it—the gospels according to Frank, Lewis, and JRR. Dad disliked organized religion. It was in the children’s literature of Baum, Carroll, and Tolkien that he found his scriptures.

  “The role he played as a father was different from the man he was. It’s hard to articulate. You have to look at him as a hero in a fairy tale. It’s the only way to understand his actions. He was unaffected by the more violent forms of megalomania that you find in big business. Yet he viewed all of his problems from an epic standpoint. He merged his fantasy world with his real world and he believed his enemies were monsters.”

  “What about the diaries?”

  “He kept preaching his beliefs to me through them and his letters. I’ve always been puzzled about why he communicated in writing rather than engaging me in conversation, but I must admit for me to be the only r
ecipient of his diaries was thrilling. It was like growing up with a secret. I think that writing diaries was his way of creating his own fairy tale.

  “Unfortunately, overriding all of this was his obsession—his need for a male heir. He wanted his very own Bilbo. He was desperate. He was like Henry VIII. I was neuter as far as he was concerned—unwilling and hence unable to bear him his male heir. Ben wasn’t quite sure that a woman would be up to the task of captaining his kingdom. That, I suspect, is why he was so anxious to use Eloise to produce Ben II and so willing to let me be the regent. Like Baum’s Dorothy, I finally left home and moved to the magical land of Paris. It was there that I found my silver slipper.”

  “Quite a story!” I interjected, giving her a chance to exhale.

  “Now let me bring you up to date on our investigation,” I continued. “There are things you have to know. I became your fiduciary when I agreed to that role the first time we met here in Paris. A short while later, I undertook this investigation. I advised the firm of my relationship with you. They had no problem and you had no problem. Nevertheless, I’ve had to walk between a number of ethical raindrops.

  “I’ve decided in this case to err on the side of overdisclosure. I feel in my gut that it will be best for you—and best for this investigation. I think for once the interests of my clients—you and the Firm—are aligned.”

  Again we were forced to relocate. The hotel was getting crowded. We finally settled in the Bar Vendôme. It was lush and intimate, made even more so by dark mahogany and inviting velvet. It suited our purpose. It was empty. We ordered their famous club sandwiches. Dorothy ordered Bloody Marys to accompany them.

  She took pleasure in explaining the derivation of the name. Hemingway drank prodigiously. As the story goes, his doctors had forbidden him to drink and his wife Mary was holding him to it. A bartender at the Ritz conspired with him and created a vodka drink, filled with tomato juice and other ingredients to prevent the detection of alcohol. Having gotten the better of his bloody wife, he christened the drink after her.