The Strings of Murder (23 page)

‘You didn’t expect me to clean years and years of filth all by myself, did you? Oh, and I also spent some money on new pots. I wasn’t gonna cook my master’s dinner in one of those old spittoons you had here!’

‘Dinner!’ McGray cried, stepping into the breakfast room, where a steaming beef stew was waiting for us. My mouth watered as soon as I smelled it – after a whole day riding in the frosty streets, the hot, meaty stew was precisely what we needed.

McGray attacked the food with utter pleasure (I guessed he had not eaten a decent homemade meal for years). Minutes later he was smacking his lips and letting out a delighted belch.

‘Frey, I’m not gonna miss ye when the case is done; I’m gonna miss yer maid.’

George grunted and McGray patted his back with affection. ‘Come on, George, don’t be jealous! If anything, this woman’s givin’ ye more free time.’

Nine-Nails burped again, his belch half mixed into his following words: ‘Come on, lassie, we’ve got a good deal to discuss.’

We left Joan and George to clear the table. As they did so, the pair argued in angry hisses, among which I could made out ‘ye fat cow’ and ‘you ancient wreckage’.

I joined McGray by the big fireplace in his messy library. He was already leaning over his small table, where Caroli’s open score still lay. Tucker was sleeping peacefully next to him.

‘Gimme the piece o’ sheet.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘The piece o’ music sheet!’

‘Oh, I see!’

I gave him the now dry paper and he went through the score, holding the reddened piece over it as he turned the pages.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘I wanna make sure ’tis the tune we’re looking for. I didn’t want to show the bloody piece o’ paper in front o’ the pregnant lady. It’s a very auld copy, copied by hand, so this particular bit may not be on the same spot.’

McGray scanned over the pages for another minute, his three long fingers and stump running through the stave lines.

‘Och, there it is!’ he exclaimed.

He held the torn corner over the handwritten notes. It was a short passage, but it was clear that every single note matched.

McGray rubbed his face heavily, the golden glow of the fire casting shadows on his lined face. His frown was deeper than usual. ‘Looks like my suspicions were true …’

‘What suspicions?’

‘Ever since Campbell told me about this case I’ve had this theory in my head, but I didn’t want to tell ye until there was enough evidence. Now, lassie, I need ye to do what I brought ye for.’

‘And that would be …?’

‘To hear my theory and then judge it with an unclouded head.’

I lounged on the armchair in front of McGray and lit one of the Cuban cigars that Joan had brought me. ‘Tell me everything. This should be entertaining.’

‘I confess, Frey, that when ye said that I would only dance to folksy tunes, ye weren’t entirely wrong. I dunno anything about those almighty composers and players, except for Tartini and Paganini. And I ken about them only cos they’ve one thing in common: they are believed to have had dealings with the Devil.’

‘And the Devil appears to be your area of expertise.’

‘Thanks! Even if ye said it mockingly. Ye heard the tales o’ Tartini and his sonata composed by the Devil …’

‘
Allegedly
composed by the Devil,’ I remarked.

‘Whatever! Now ye also need to hear Paganini’s legends.’

‘I know that Paganini is believed to be the best violin player in history.’

‘Indeed. So darn good that some folks thought him … twisted.’

McGray stood up, plunged his hand in a pile of books and pulled one out swiftly. The ease with which he found his way was most impressive; he’d probably be able to find a specific sheet of paper in that room even with his eyes covered.

‘Hear what some people thought about him,’ he said, turning the pages of the thin volume and then reading aloud. ‘“The excitement that he caused was so unusual, the magic that he practised upon the fantasy of his hearers so powerful, that they could not satisfy themselves
with a natural explanation. Old tales of witches and ghosts came into their minds. They tried to explain the wonder of his playing, to fathom the magic of his genius by invoking the supernatural. They even suggested that he’d dedicated his soul to the Devil! There is in his appearance something so demonic that one looks for a glimpse of a cloven hoof.” ’

‘You said it yourself; that is nothing but ignorant people trying to explain something they did not understand.’

‘Aye, but even the wildest legends have their share o’ truth. Paganini, among other oddities, had abnormally long fingers.’

He showed me an engraved page which depicted a very bony, rather handsome violinist in the centre of an astounded crowd. His hands, casually holding the violin, looked terribly long and sturdy. I calculated that, if that portrait was accurate, those fingers would have easily spanned more than two-thirds of the violin’s fingerboard.

McGray pulled out a piece of paper that was inserted in the book. The sheet was crammed with handwriting. ‘Here are the notes I scribed when I met a very auld chap who’d seen Paganini playing. He told me that his fingers looked like long claws; his hand could go all the way to the highest notes with no trouble. And everybody agreed that when he played there was something unnatural, eerie about him.’

I let out a puff of fragrant smoke. ‘And that was enough for people to say that he had dealings with the Devil?’

‘That, and the stories about his dead mistresses, and that throughout his career he refused to play with metallic strings. He only used catgut.’

I raised my head slowly once I heard that. Things indeed were beginning to take shape. ‘Tell me.’

‘Ye ken that catgut is not made from cats …’

‘But from goats. Yes, I know.’

‘Well, there was word that Paganini didn’t use strings made from goat bowels … but from humans …’ My mind whirled with those words, and somehow the crackling of the fire appeared louder to my ears. ‘And he didn’t use guts from mere strangers,’ McGray added, ‘but from his mistresses.’

I felt a sudden chill, recalling the ghastly photographs showing Fontaine’s open carcass and also the report from Dr Reed: Fontaine’s body was missing several feet of intestines.

‘Paganini had many,
many
lassies, and several women around him died in mysterious circumstances through the years. The tale became famous; the tale o’ Paganini murdering his women, trapping their souls into his fiddle, and then using their guts to make strings.’

‘I see now,’ I muttered, ‘but you look desperate to tell me the whole thing, so go ahead.’

McGray sat again, his blue eyes glowing next to the fire. ‘The murderer is
not
trying to imitate Jack the Ripper, but Giuseppe Tartini; someone wants to use the same fiddle the Devil played – the one that Paganini used to encage the souls o’ his lovers – and to play it with human catgut. This bastard is a clever one too; he’s not using just any guts, but the guts of a virtuoso, and he’s used the symbol – the five eyes – to tell Auld Nick what he’s up to; to invite him to appear and play his violin once his set o’ strings is ready. Most likely he wants the Devil to compose another sonata.’

McGray then sat back, as if those words had drained all his energy. ‘So?’ he sighed. ‘Makes any sense to yer scientific mind?’

I savoured the tobacco for a little while as I thought. It was a great deal of information to digest.

‘In my opinion,’ I finally said, ‘those tales about Paganini are utter rubbish, and Tartini’s dream of the Devil sounds awfully like a frustrated man appealing to superstition in order to draw some attention to his work …’ I raised a hand as I saw that McGray was about to protest. ‘
Nevertheless
, stories do not need to be true to poison the minds of disturbed people. Now, Nine-Nails, do not,
do not
get used to hearing me say this, but …’ I had to gather strength to utter the next words. ‘What you say does make sense. Even more, I doubt that all these things – Tartini’s violin, the score, the symbol, the missing intestines – can be explained simultaneously by any other theory.’

McGray grinned. ‘Good, Frey. We finally are on the same ground!’

‘Indeed.’ I nodded. ‘And your theory narrows down the number of suspects quite a bit: We are definitely looking for a violinist; someone young and slender enough to climb and crawl through a chimney. And, according to Joe Fiddler, Fontaine was worried about someone seizing his violin.’

‘Yet the fiddle wasn’t taken after his murder.’

‘Exactly. That immediately makes me think of … inheritance.’

McGray’s eyes widened. ‘Do ye suspect that scrawny Theodore Wood?’

‘Indeed.’

He stroked his stubble for a moment, his blue eyes fixed on the fire. ‘Well, the laddie does look skinny enough to get himself through a chimney, and now that I think about it, we found those pieces o’ score and glass. Remember ye said the killer couldn’t be very skilled?’

‘Yes. I can definitely imagine Wood clenching things clumsily while climbing up the chimney. Besides, he got disgustingly thrilled when we gave him the violin; he almost made me shudder.’

McGray nodded slowly. ‘Indeedy. Now we need to bring the Devil’s mark and the missing guts into the picture.’

‘Do you think that Wood could be involved in satanic rituals?’

‘Ah’m not sure. He doesn’t look like someone into witchcraft to me. We can find out easily if we search his house, though. I ken exactly what we should be looking for.’

I savoured the last bit of my cigar while walking out of the library. ‘Excellent. I will get a search warrant signed tomorrow morning so that we can investigate immediately. Finally, it seems like we are getting somewhere.’

       
It is time … yes, it is time.

       
But one needs to be sure.

       
Just a quick trip to check on him. Just a little jaunt to see.

       
He is rotting …

20

The following morning I rose more than an hour before it was time to go. Knowing that I could not possibly sleep again, I got myself ready and took extra time to give myself a perfect shave. I missed going to a proper barber, though.

‘You’re up early, master,’ Joan said when she saw me coming down the stairs. ‘You want some breakfast already?’

‘Yes. Is McGray not up yet?’

‘No. I heard him snoring like a bear when I walked by his room.’

Joan served me a cup of strong coffee and I thought I’d use the spare time to sit back and relax with the newspaper. At least that was my intention, but I’d not had three sips when someone knocked on the door. Joan went to the entrance but George ran frantically to overtake her.

‘I’ll get that, ye stupid cow!’

Once more Joan burst into vulgar yelling, so loud this time that I utterly lost my temper. I tossed the paper onto the table and followed them, intending to scold the pair as never before. Nevertheless, I had no chance to say a word. George opened the door and I saw the very last person I could have ever expected:

My youngest brother, Elgie. Wrapped up in a thick overcoat that made him look terribly slender and childish,
he was smiling at me as if it were Christmas morning. He carried a trunk and his violin case – God, how sick I was of violins!

‘
What the heck are you doing here?
’

His smile would not give way. ‘Is that any means of talking to your favourite brother?’

‘
My favourite brother!
’ I squeaked. ‘After this, you have switched places with bloody Oliver!’

‘At least you did not say Laurence!’

‘
Oh, shush! I am not bloody joking!
Did you not receive my telegram?
Joan!
Did you not send the damn telegram? I told you that it was urgent!’

‘But I did, sir! I swear I did.’

‘Why, do not scold the poor woman,’ Elgie intervened. ‘It must have reached home when I was already on my way. I caught this marvellous train a couple of days ago. I would have arrived sooner, but I had to stop overnight at Beattock Summit. I did not know that the Scottish landscape was so inspiring: those mountains I saw on the rail … and that castle and the hills in this town! Brother, you and I are going to have a lot of fun.’

I covered my exasperated face with both hands. ‘
Fun!
Do you think that I am on a holiday? I am far too busy, and attending to your whims is the last thing I need! You will catch the next train back home, do you hear me?’

I did not realize how strident my shouting was until McGray came downstairs, his still sleepy face quite put out.

‘
Blast!
The
one
day I manage to sleep like a log! What’s going on here, Frey? Don’t ye think it’s enough with these folks’ clatter –’ he then saw my brother. ‘Who the heck’s that laddie?’

Before I had the chance to speak, Elgie walked forward, extended his hand and greeted McGray with a foolish grin. ‘Mr Elgie Frey, sir. Inspector Frey’s youngest brother.’