Requiem for a Mezzo (6 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: Requiem for a Mezzo
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“He was taken ill, wasn't he? Do you know how he is?”
“Improving, the last I heard.”
“It looked like angina. I work as a volunteer in a clinic in the East End—I myself prefer to deal mostly with the children, poor little things, but on the adult side we deal with angina cases quite frequently. A tablet of trinitrin will usually ease the pain at once.”
“Oh yes, I remember. I worked in a hospital office for a while during the War, and I couldn't help learning a bit. Mr. Abernathy took a pill, but he's not well enough yet to speak to the police.”
“What a dreadful business this is! I suppose the police want to see Gilbert because … because of what Miss de la Costa said.”
“Chief Inspector Fletcher doesn't explain everything he does to me, Mrs. Gower, though we are friends.”
“I saw you talking together.” Flushing, her eyes on her twisting hands, she went on, “You must … you must wonder why I didn't make a fuss about Gilbert publicly embracing that … that Spanish hussy. One must make allowances for the artistic temperament.”
“I suppose so,” Daisy said doubtfully.
“The truth is, his infidelities are no secret and I'm resigned to them. There's something about foreign divas—the young,
beautiful ones—he seems unable to resist. But at the end of the opera season they go back to wherever they came from and Gilbert comes home to me and the children. He's a good father. It wouldn't be right to make the children suffer for the sins of the parents. There's no sense in making a great to-do.”
Patient Grizel in person. Daisy had no patience with such weak-kneed forbearance—she distinctly remembered being disgusted with the story at school. Though she rather thought Chaucer's Grizel had been separated from her children.
So Gower was a good father and always returned to his wife and children. It didn't excuse his hurting Roger Abernathy by his affair with Bettina. Mrs. Gower didn't seem to know about that. Did Abernathy know? Did Muriel know? What had Bettina wanted Gower to do, and was her persistence cause enough for him to murder her?
Or had the melodrama-loving Consuela de la Costa made up the story out of whole cloth?
“I make him comfortable and don't enact any tragedies,” said Mrs. Gower wearily, “and he comes back. I know you modern girls don't regard a husband as head of the household in quite the way I was brought up to. Whether it will make your lives any easier, I can't guess. One does one's best.”
“Yes, of course. I … . Oh, here's D.C. Piper again.”
“Mrs. Gower, if you wouldn't mind giving the Chief Inspector a few minutes of your time?”
“But I wasn't anywhere near her! I never so much as exchanged a word with her!”
“It'll be all right, Jennie,” said Mr. Gower uncertainly, starting towards her.
“It won't take long, ma'am.”
Daisy expected Gower to insist on accompanying his wife. She knew Alec would let him, but the thought apparently didn't cross his mind. As Mrs. Gower trailed out, looking panicky, the tenor joined Daisy.
“I say, it is all right, isn't it?” His slightly bloodshot eyes anxious, he sleeked down his hair with an agitated hand. “I mean, the bounder won't bully her or anything?”
“Mr. Fletcher is a perfect gentleman,” said Daisy coldly.
“Yes, yes, of course. Saw you chatting with the fellow in there, in the auditorium. Er … my wife say anything?”
“She said a good deal.”
“Ah. Yes. Mentioned Miss de la Costa, did she?”
“Mrs. Gower appears to be under no illusions about your … friendship with Miss de la Costa.” Dying of curiosity, Daisy decided to take the bull by the horns. “She doesn't know about Bettina, though.”
“Good, that's good. I say, you don't think I did Bettina in, do you? It was all over between us. If you ask me, it was that Russkie bass chappie, Marchenko.”
“Marchenko? Why should he kill Bettina?”
“No one told you yet? It's no secret. Marchenko fancied her and she played him up, led him on, you know. He gave her all sorts of jewellery, good stuff he'd smuggled out of Russia. Then one day at a rehearsal, right in front of everyone, he whispered something in her ear and she slapped his face, called him a disgusting Russian pig. There was something about face-fungus, too, I don't remember exactly.” He cast a sidelong glance at Marchenko, who glared back, his black beard bristling.
Daisy remembered the bass's sotto-voce reprise of
Confutatis maledictis
with Bettina lying dead at his feet. “He certainly had cause to dislike her,” she agreed.
“Dislike! He detested her, and these foreigners are very emotional, very excitable, often downright unstable. Believe me, I know.” He preened his hair again, this time with a self-satisfied smirk. The habitual gesture must be good for the cash register of the hairdresser responsible for preserving his Marcel
wave. “You'll tell the coppers about Marchenko, won't you?”
“Why don't you?”
“Oh. Well. After all, it's only speculation. I haven't got anything they'd consider evidence. Wouldn't want them to think I was just making trouble.”
Or trying to get himself off the hook. “I'll pass your speculation on to the Chief Inspector,” Daisy promised. Along with the news of his affair with Bettina and her pestering him to keep his promise.
“Exhausting, that's what they are, foreigners,” said Gower in a burst of candour. “In the end, give me good old English reticence every time.” He stared longingly at the door whereby his plain, dull wife had left.
As if in answer to his stare, it opened and Jennifer Gower came in. Their reunion was spoiled by Piper.
“Mr. Gower, your turn, sir.”
He gave her a peck on the cheek in passing. She looked much calmer, no doubt reassured by Alec's most soothing manner. She started towards Daisy but veered off to talk to the Cochrans when Dimitri Marchenko beat her to Daisy's side.
The massive Russian looked down at her grimly. “You police spy,” he growled.
“No I'm jolly well not!”
“
Tak,
not spy—informer,
nyet
?”
“I'm not an informer, either. I happen to have a friend who is a policeman. I make no secret of it, and if people choose to tell me things, that's their lookout.”
“
Shto
lookout?” He sat down heavily, the chair creaking beneath his weight. “Lookout is spy.”
“I mean,” said Daisy slowly and carefully, “if people who know the Chief Inspector is my friend give me information, they should not be surprised when I tell him.”
Marchenko ruminated on this for a moment, then nodded. “Informer. I tell you, you tell policeman.”
She gave up. “Yes.”
“I tell you, Yakov Levich kill Bettina.”
“Mr. Levich?” Daisy was dismayed. She rather liked what little she had seen of the violinist. “How do you know?”
“Is dirty Jew. Jews all murderers. Kill
Khristos,
kill
khristian-skiye dyeti
—childs. To Jews, kill
khristianin
is nothing. Also, Levich is
Russkiy
.”
“So are you.”
“
Nyet! Ya ukrainets.
Live in Russia, speak Russian, but
uk-rainskiy
blood. Russians spit on Ukraine, I spit on Russians.” He seemed about to act upon his words but fortunately recollected himself in time. “Also,” he said in a low sinister rumble, “Levich is Bolshevik spy!”
Daisy didn't believe a word of it. He had spies on the brain. Besides, Levich could not, presumably, rejoice in both Jewish and Russian blood. “He had no motive, no reason to kill Bettina,” she pointed out.
“Is reason! Good reason. Levich like Bettina's sister. Bettina call him money-gubbing Yid, say will tell parents sister like heretic, try to stop meeting.”
“She tried to stop Muriel seeing Mr. Levich?”
“
Da.
They talk, she come: ‘Do this, do that. Fetch this, fetch that.' Is reason,
nyet
?”
“A pretty feeble reason!” said Daisy uneasily. Better than that Yakov Levich was a Russian Jew and a Bolshevik spy, she acknowledged to herself. Had Bettina really tried to spoil her sister's romance?
“Pretty reason, yes! Pretty damn good. You tell big policeman. He believe you better. To policemans I do not talk.”
“Mr. Marchenko?” Piper was back. “If you wouldn't mind, sir.”
Marchenko looked at him blankly.
“PLEASE … COME … SIR.” Piper obviously subscribed to the opinion that if you speak to a foreigner loudly enough, he's bound to understand. In case his voice wasn't loud enough to penetrate, he beckoned, too.
Pretend as he might that he understood no English, Marchenko had to respond to the gesture. He heaved himself to his feet and went off muttering into his beard.
Alec was going to have a tough time getting anything out of him, or so Daisy hoped as her suspicions crystallized. The first two or three might have been coincidence, but Marchenko was the last straw. Every time Piper came in he summoned—presumably on Alec's orders—whoever was with her.
The rotter was trying to stop them talking to her!
W
hen Marchenko lumbered into the office behind Ernie, Alec was speaking on the 'phone. At last his Superintendent had rung him up to say all was squared with the local division and the case was his.
He wasn't at all sure he wanted it.
For a start, Daisy's involvement was cause enough for qualms, though at least he'd be on the spot to save her from herself.
As for his suspects, so far he might as well have interviewed a flock of sheep for all the information he had got out of them. The artistic temperament prophesied by Daisy had been absent—except in the flamboyant Spaniard—unless it was manifested in a certain Bohemian cast of mind which made them wary of the police.
He couldn't even say they were lying, since none of them told him anything.
No one was aware of any reason why anyone should have poisoned Bettina Abernathy. No one had ever had anything to do with cyanide. No one had seen anyone interfering with the decanter or glass. All but Mrs. Gower had been far too occupied preparing their thoughts and recruiting their energies for
the second half of the concert to concern themselves with anyone else's whereabouts.
And those who did not belong in the soloists' room all had acceptable reasons to go there, including Mrs. Gower. She had gone to congratulate her husband on his performance. Miss Blaise confirmed the usher's report that Muriel had promised to bring a sheet of music she'd left at the Abernathys'. Levich, not finding Cochran in the conductor's room, had gone in search of him to ask something technical about the second part of the
Requiem.
Alec was sure Cochran would have an equally musical explanation, and his wife, of course, had been looking for him, while Abernathy had wanted to see
his
wife.
All perfectly reasonable, and utterly unhelpful.
Nor did Marchenko look promising. His face impassive, as far as one could tell through the luxuriant black beard, he stood stolidly in front of the desk, his gaze fixed on the wall behind Alec. Alec almost turned to see what held his attention, but he knew there was only a plain office clock of no conceivable interest.
“Please sit down.” The only response was a blank stare. Alec waved at a chair. The Russian bear sat.
Alec looked at Ernie Piper, who shrugged. He'd been told to fetch whomever Daisy was talking to, so presumably Marchenko had managed to communicate with her.
“I must ask you a few questions, sir.”
“Nye ponimayu,”
growled the bear.
“Vous parlez français?”
He knew a lot of Russian exiles spoke French, as did any decently educated girl of Daisy's class.
“Govoryu tolko po-russki.”
The deep bass voice made his every word weighty.
“It seems we need an interpreter. Piper, see if Mr. Levich is still here, will you?”
“Nyet!”
Marchenko surged to his feet and leant with his fists on the desk, looming over Alec. Piper took a step forward but
Alec, unimpressed, waved him back. “Levich
nyet
!
Zhid nyet!
”
Zhid
—Yid? If the man had an irrational hatred of Jews, they'd never get anything out of him by using a Jew as an interpreter. Let him stew in his own juice overnight and face him with an official interpreter tomorrow. Who could tell, he might suddenly find he understood English after all.
A calendar hung on the wall to Alec's right. He beckoned Marchenko over to it, pointed at him, at himself, and at the next day's date. “Tomorrow, Monday, we talk with an interpreter,” he said slowly and clearly. “Now, you may go.”
He escorted the disconcerted Russian to the door and saw him out.
“I'd swear he was talking to Miss Dalrymple, Chief.”
“Very likely, but there was no sense sitting here all night waiting for him to decide to talk to us. I've others to see. The Cochrans, Finch, and if possible Abernathy. Off you go, Ernie.”
 
When Alec robbed Daisy of the interesting, if rather alarming Marchenko, the Gowers came over to her to say good-bye. Gilbert Gower had an air of bravado about him, but he hung onto his wife's arm as though it were a lifeline.
They went on to exchange a few words with the Cochrans, then left. Cochran went to speak to Finch, startling the little organist out of his reverie, while Mrs. Cochran approached Daisy.
“You don't mind if I introduce myself?” Her tone made it plain no objection of Daisy's was going to weigh with her. “I'm Ursula Cochran. And you're Miss Dalrymple?”
Daisy was frightfully tempted to say, “Yes, the
Honourable
Miss Dalrymple,” just to see if Mrs. Cochran's high-and-mighty attitude changed. But that might cut off the anticipated flow of confidences. “Yes,” she said, “I'm Daisy Dalrymple.”
“How do you do.” Mrs. Cochran sat down.
Her cosmetics really were exquisitely applied, even if they didn't quite conceal her age, and her fox-furs were too divine. The diamonds must be worth a fortune. Maybe she wore them to distract attention from her face, Daisy thought charitably. It must be difficult living up to a much younger and good-looking husband, whether or not she knew of his pursuit of Olivia.
“This is a dreadful business,” the conductor's wife continued.
“Dreadful. I'm afraid poor Muriel and Mr. Abernathy are absolutely shattered.”
“Oh. Yes, naturally, one must feel for their bereavement. But it can't have been poison, as the police seem to believe. It's unthinkable! If Miss Westlea merely suffered a seizure, the scandal won't be nearly as bad. At least it shouldn't get into the morning papers, so we'll have time to think what to say.”
“I'd be very surprised if the morning papers don't have the story,” said Daisy. “I suspect I saw the
Times
music critic racing for a telephone. Even so highbrow a gentleman must have recognized the news value of a soloist dropping dead on stage.”
“Disgraceful! It shouldn't be allowed. The Press have no sense of decency whatever. I dread to think what the effect will be on my husband's career.”
“Will it harm him? What about the other soloists?”
“The foreigners have nothing to worry about. They can always go back where they came from—the sooner the better as far as poor Jennifer Gower is concerned, I feel sure,” Mrs. Cochran added condescendingly. “What the unfortunate creature has to put up with! As for Gilbert Gower, he's fading fast anyway. His voice just isn't up to the mark any longer. Dissipation, I'm afraid. Whereas Eric is a rising star and it will be too bad if Miss Westlea's demise ruins his chance of a knighthood.”
“A knighthood!”
“Why not? Many conductors are knighted; Look at Halle, Wood, Cowen, Henschel, Costa. Sir Thomas Beecham was knighted, even though a year later he inherited his father's baronetcy. My father, Sir Denzil Vernon, was a baronet, you know.”
“How unfair that you couldn't inherit his title,” Daisy ventured. Though she didn't care much about titles, she sometimes pondered how different her life would be had she been able to inherit Fairacres.
“Exactly.” Mrs. Cochran nodded her appreciation of Daisy's understanding. “Eric's knighthood will be some compensation.”
“Unless this scandal puts paid to his hopes. I dare say you are right and Bettina had a seizure, but if not, who do you suppose might have killed her?”
“Oh, the sister, I expect. Bettina left everything to her and she hasn't a penny of her own.”
“How on earth do you know that?”
Mrs. Cochran waved a vague hand. “One hears these things. Besides, it's usually money, isn't it? Ah, here comes that little man again. The Inspector has sent for my husband, I expect, though I can't imagine why he insisted on Eric staying. He can't have anything useful to tell.”
“Mrs. Cochran, ma'am, Chief Inspector Fletcher would like a word with you, please.”
“With me!” She sounded outraged, but Daisy thought she saw a flicker of dismay in the hard eyes.
“If you please, ma'am.”
“Oh, very well! I must say, the police seem to grow more tyrannical every day.”
Cochran met her half-way to the door and murmured something, then turned back to Daisy, abandoning Mr. Finch to his internal music.
“Miss Dalrymple, I believe?” The handsome conductor
bowed slightly. He had obviously forgotten Muriel's introduction in the Abernathy's hall. “I'm afraid it would be the height of false modesty to introduce myself. May I join you?”
“Do, Mr. Cochran. Of course I know who you are. I was enjoying your concert until … .” Daisy let her voice die away.
“A most unfortunate occurrence. Poor Abernathy is very much distressed, of course.” He said all the right things, but too smoothly, somehow, as if he was only saying them because they were the right things. “Bettina was all the world to him. I expect he'll give up teaching and directing the ProMusica after this. A great loss to the profession.”
“I don't see why he should give up. He'll need his work to take his mind off his loss.”
“If it were only the loss of his wife! But he's losing his sight, he can scarcely see beyond the end of his nose, poor chap. He can't read music any more, so he has to stick with pieces he knows by heart. He'd have to give up the choir soon, in any case, since he can't teach them anything new.”
“How absolutely frightful for him!”
“It's very sad. I shall have to offer to conduct a benefit concert for him. No pensions in our business, alas. Since he's on his way down, too, one must hope Gower has enough salted away. I must admit I rather doubt it. He has an expensive taste in women.”
Unlike Cochran himself, Daisy thought. All Olivia had wanted from him was a hand up the ladder.
“But I ought not to mention such things to a well-bred young lady.”
“I'm not naive, Mr. Cochran!” Daisy said tartly, sure that he was keen to talk about Gilbert Gower. “I saw him with Miss de la Costa.”
“So you did. She's the sort he favours, the sultry southern beauty. We were all rather surprised when he took up with Bettina Westlea. Bettina Abernathy, that is. Not at all his type.”
“You know about that?”
“The world of classical music is small enough, and that of opera and vocal music smaller still. Within it, there are few secrets.” No doubt his bitterness was genuine, considering the use Bettina had made of her knowledge of his liaison with Olivia. “Gilbert ought to have known better. Mrs. Abernathy's reputation was warning enough.”
“I've heard she wasn't the easiest person in the world.”
“A splendid understatement!”
“Why, what did she do to Mr. Gower?”
“Oh, she … er … succumbed to his charms on the understanding that he'd get her the coveted entrée to Covent Garden. She can't have realized he was on the way out—no influence with the management whatsoever. He's been there forever, of course, and in his heyday he might have done something for her, though he never sang the important rôles.”
“So Bettina was angry when she found out he couldn't keep his promise?”
“I gather she never did quite find out. Even after their affair ended, he kept making more promises—the opera season hasn't started yet, of course—but he must have been afraid she'd land him in the soup by going direct to the powers that be. They wouldn't appreciate his having boasted of his influence with them and it would probably have put a speedy end to what's left of his career. It's a pity it should have led him to murder.”
“You think Mr. Gower murdered Bettina?” Daisy had seen it coming for some minutes. She disliked him more and more. “If so, at least he won't have to worry about the lack of a pension.”
“Always supposing the police find out.” He looked at her meaningfully.
“They will—if it's true.” For the first time that evening, Daisy was pleased to see Piper come in.
“Mr. Cochran?”
She breathed a sigh of relief. The conductor was almost as bad as Marchenko with his wild accusations, and not nearly as interesting.
Mrs. Cochran had returned from her interrogation looking pleased with herself. “I have an idea,” she said to Daisy. “I shall open my house for refreshments after Miss Westlea—Mrs. Abernathy's funeral. There's bound to be a large turn-out and I don't imagine that meek little sister is capable of doing it properly.”
The offer would have been more impressive had Daisy believed it to be motivated by charitable instincts. Mrs. Cochran's smug expression suggested she revelled in an opportunity to play Lady Bountiful while displaying her talents at entertaining a crowd in style.

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