by Barbara Paul
A man Caruso didn’t know was talking to Pasquale Amato. The tenor heard Amato say, “Yes, he was here the entire afternoon.”
The man said something Caruso couldn’t make out.
“Well, of course not all the time,” Amato replied shortly. “I was rehearsing, I had other things to attend to. But he was there, in the back of the auditorium.”
The unknown man was from the police, then—checking on Puccini’s alibi. Suddenly there seemed to be several unknown men walking around the stage and the backstage area. They were talking to the chorus members, Emmy Destinn, the other soloists, even Emmy’s maid, Sigrid.
Caruso planted himself downstage center. “Lieutenant O’Halloran!” he sang out. “Where are you?”
“Back here, Mr. Caruso,” came the now familiar Irish voice from the back of the auditorium.
Caruso peered into the darkness at the back and could see nothing. Then O’Halloran stepped out into the light and started down the aisle; Caruso left the stage and hurried to meet him. “Well, Lieutenant, are you convinced Puccini is here all of Monday afternoon?”
“I’m convinced he could have slipped out at any time without anybody noticing,” O’Halloran growled. “Look at this place! It’s black as pitch back there under the overhang—even an owl couldn’t see him from the stage.”
“But every time the lobby door opens there is light. And his cigarette—yes, his cigarette! That is how I know when he is here—I can see the cigarette glowing in the dark!”
“That’s how you know when he is here?”
“That he is here, when he is here—English is such an unbending language! You know what I mean.”
O’Halloran shook his head. “Won’t do, Mr. Caruso. Your friend could have been here Monday the whole time. Or he could have been gone an hour without being missed. That’s all it would take to get to Davila’s rooms on Irving Place, kill him, and get back here. One hour.”
Caruso had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He’d once seen the outside of the prison they called the Tombs; it made him sick to think of Puccini shut up in that cold and forbidding place. “But he was here,” he said despairingly.
“He does not want to believe that, Caruso.” Puccini was coming up the aisle toward them. “He has made up his mind that I killed that man, and nothing is going to budge him. Isn’t that right, Lieutenant?”
“Now, I didn’t say I’d made up my mind, Mr. Puccini. My men are still questioning the people here. But so far we haven’t found anyone who was watching you the whole time. But we’re still investigating. The knife Davila was killed with was his own, by the way. He was using it to peel an apple—we found it on the floor.”
“The letters,” Puccini said tightly. “What does your handwriting expert say about the letters?”
“Inconclusive. Our man compared the letters written by your wife to the ones we found in Davila’s office—and he says he doesn’t think they were written by the same person. But he’s not willing to swear to it in court. Says there are too many questionable passages. But even if he did testify that those letters are forgeries, you still wouldn’t be in the clear, Mr. Puccini. Your wife could still be hurt by new suspicions—and so could you. Those letters spell trouble, authentic or not.”
Puccini asked quietly, “Are you going to arrest me?”
O’Halloran shrugged. “That depends on the district attorney. If he decides we have a case, he’s going to present all the evidence he has at the inquest and ask for a verdict of willful murder. And I mean all the evidence, Mr. Puccini.”
“The letters. They’ll be made public.”
“Afraid so. I can keep ’em quiet until then, but no longer than that.”
“I see.” Puccini was thoughtful. “When is this inquest, Lieutenant?”
“December twelfth. You’ll be notified of the time and place.”
“December twelfth,” Caruso repeated. “Two days after the Fanciulla première.”
“Well, that’s something, isn’t it?” O’Halloran said with false heartiness. “You’ll get to see your new opera once.”
“Once!” Caruso and Puccini both threw up their hands.
Just then one of O’Halloran’s men started up the aisle and the Lieutenant turned away to meet him. Caruso groped for some quick consolation to offer Puccini. “A nice lunch?”
“Oh, Mr. Puccini,” O’Halloran called. “You’ll keep yourself available for the next hour or so, won’t you?”
“If I must.” To Caruso: “I’d better stay. Go, enjoy your lunch. I do not feel like eating anyway.”
Caruso murmured a few comforting phrases and left to hunt up Pasquale Amato. He found him by the door of the greenroom, peeking inside. When Amato saw Caruso coming, he placed one finger over his lips, signaling silence. “He’s doing it again,” the baritone whispered.
Cautiously Caruso peered into the greenroom. There was Toscanini, huddled over something in his hand, a frown of intense concentration on his face. He moved his hand and his head, looking at whatever he held from different angles.
Then he became aware he was being watched, and both the hand and what it was holding disappeared into a pocket. “You spy on me!” the Maestro shouted. “All the time, you two spy on me!” He pushed past them, muttering under his breath.
The two singers lounged in the doorway, watching the conductor scuttle away. “Dirty pictures?” Amato suggested.
But Caruso couldn’t get interested in this lesser mystery. “Come, we go eat lunch,” he said to Amato. “I must tell you what is happening. Things do not look good for Puccini.”
They went to Pane’s Restaurant, and over a dish of linguini the tenor told his friend about the upcoming inquest. “I do not understand Lieutenant O’Halloran,” he admitted. “Sometimes he seems sympathetic to Puccini—but he goes right on trying to prove he is a murderer!”
“He probably has no choice,” Amato said. “We know Puccini did not kill that impresario because we know what kind of man he is. But the police do not know. All they see is a man with a strong reason for wanting Davila dead.”
“Pah!” Caruso said in disgust. “There must be hundreds of people who wanted Luigi Davila dead. Weaselly men like that have no friends. The police just do not know who those other people are.”
“That is a possibility, of course. Some other blackmail victim, perhaps? Someone who had been paying for years and years and finally had enough?”
Caruso remembered the bareness of Davila’s home/office and shook his head. “Alas, no. He was living too poorly. No man with money lives like that.”
“Well, then.” Amato thought a moment. “Davila had been trying to eke out a living from the music business for a long time—did you not say he had been after you for years?”
“Ever since the first time I come to America.”
“All right, say he finally reaches a low point in his life where he knows he will never get anywhere if he keeps on the same way he has been going. Say he is desperate. What does he do? He has gotten nowhere in the music world—so perhaps he should try something else.”
“Blackmail.”
“He looks around. He needs someone both well-to-do and susceptible to blackmail. Whom does he see? Puccini, of course—still vulnerable after the scandal of the servant girl’s death. But does he stop there? Might he not find someone else equally vulnerable? Or even a dozen others? Perhaps the reason Luigi Davila was living so poorly is that he was just getting started on his new ‘career.’”
Caruso paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Just getting started?” He put the fork down. “Pasquale,” he said slowly, “I think that’s it! That must be. He was just getting started—yes! Pasquale, do you know what that means? We could be surrounded by people Davila tried to blackmail!”
Amato laughed. “I doubt that he was that ambitious. But if he approached even one more person other than Puccini—such an indiscretion could well have led to his premature demise.”
“Lieutenan
t O’Halloran says the knife that killed Davila belonged to him. Perhaps the murder was not planned.”
“Perhaps not. One thing still puzzles me—how did Davila know what Elvira Puccini’s handwriting looked like? He had to have a sample in order to copy it. Where did he get it?”
“That is easy,” Caruso said smugly, happy to be able to contribute. “He got it from Puccini’s new valet—the one who ran away? Davila paid him to steal one of Elvira’s letters.”
Amato looked at him skeptically. “How do you know that?”
“I do not exactly know it,” Caruso admitted, “but I am sure that is what happened. He tried to bribe Martino once, you know. Some trifling sum. Davila would go to Puccini’s valet, that is what he would do. Besides, how else could he get a letter Elvira had written?”
“It does make sense,” the baritone conceded. “That valet obviously felt no loyalty to Puccini. It could be just as you say.”
At that moment they were interrupted by two women who came up to their table and asked for autographs. The women were young and pretty and full of life, and greatly impressed at finding two opera stars having lunch in the same restaurant where they ate. When Caruso and Amato had signed their menus, they chatted on, showing a willingness to linger. Amato looked a question at Caruso; Caruso shook his head no. The young women were disappointed at not being invited to sit down, but they said goodbye graciously and left.
Amato watched them go with obvious regret. “Rico, that is the first time I have ever known you to say no to a pretty woman.”
Caruso started; a first in his life, and he had almost let it pass unnoticed! He felt his forehead. “Perhaps I am ill?”
“Perhaps you are more involved in Puccini’s troubles than is good for you,” Amato said pointedly. “Rico, there is nothing you can do. Stand by Puccini in his time of need, certainly—we will all do that. But accept the fact that there is nothing you can do to change his fate.”
“You think he is doomed.”
“I think that what’s going to happen is going to happen, regardless of how much speculating you and I do over a plate of linguini. Come, now—stop brooding over the composer and start thinking of the composition. Think only of Fanciulla. The opera should occupy all our thoughts from now on.”
Caruso knew his friend was right, but it was difficult to concentrate on proper breathing and correct phrasing and good tonal quality when there was a murderer on the loose. Luigi Davila had spent his life trying to make some kind of living out of the music business. Therefore if he had had another blackmail victim in addition to Puccini, that victim was more than likely connected to music in some way.
And that meant the killer was someone they all knew.
Gatti-Casazza had spent the morning away from his general manager’s office, so it was a shock for him to come in and find the Metropolitan Opera House had been invaded by the police. They had questioned him as to Puccini’s whereabouts on Monday afternoon; without missing a beat Mr. Gatti lied glibly and said he himself had spent every minute of the day at Puccini’s side. The police detective had smiled sardonically and advised him to think twice before telling that story in court.
But eventually the intruders left, with one exception—a man Lieutenant O’Halloran left behind to keep an eye on Puccini. The opera house settled back into its routine. Toscanini had dismissed the chorus for the day; he wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon concentrating on the soloists’ parts in Act I.
Right away they were in trouble. The curtain opened on a darkened stage, with only the glow of a cigar visible. Gradually the light came up to reveal the interior of a saloon. It was Pasquale Amato who was smoking the cigar; he dropped it and burned a hole in his pants.
Then two of the secondary soloists got into a shouting match for no discernible reason. In the orchestra pit Toscanini turned his back to the stage, folded his arms, and stood in icy silence while Gatti-Casazza settled the dispute.
Emmy Destinn complained that her high C came too early in the act, that she did not have sufficient warm-up time. Puccini replied she had plenty of time to warm up and refused to change it.
The opera called for one of the men in the saloon to be caught cheating at cards; Amato pinned a card to the man’s chest to brand him a cheat. Unfortunately, the baritone was a mite careless in the way he wielded the pin and another shouting match broke out. Toscanini seethed while David Belasco handled that one.
Next in the story came a tussle between Amato and one of the other men, who pulls a gun on him. Emmy was to dash in and break up the fight by snatching away the gun. Belasco had rehearsed the three singers carefully, but something went wrong and Emmy took a left to the jaw.
Intermission.
“I can sing no more!” Emmy wailed. “I need a doctor! Will no one take me to a hospital?” Everyone crowded around her, sincerely commiserating but not really knowing what to do.
“Emmy, I am so sorry!” Amato groaned. “I don’t know what happened—I do not mean to hit you! I am disconsolate! Forgive me, Emmy—say you forgive me?”
“I do not forgive you! I will never sing again. Oh!” She clutched her jaw in what might really have been pain.
Caruso had rushed in from the wings where he’d been watching. “It is an accident, Emmy—he does not want to hurt you—you know that. Look at him. He is inconsolable! Poor Pasquale would never deliberately hurt you.”
“Will you please stop worrying about poor Pasquale and start thinking about poor Emmy? I am the one who got hit! Oh!”
Then Sigrid was there, elbowing her way none too gently through the crowd. She was carrying ice wrapped in a linen towel, which she held to Emmy’s jaw. (“Where did she get ice so fast?” Amato asked Caruso.) Sigrid was making soothing noises, murmuring encouraging phrases in Swedish, which Emmy didn’t understand.
“Better?” Amato asked hopefully after a minute.
“Keep away!” Sigrid snarled, shaking a fist at him.
Gatti-Casazza, Toscanini, and Belasco conferred. “Shall I send for a doctor, Emmy?” the general manager asked.
“It does not matter,” she answered grandly. “I can sing no more today.”
“I am clumsy,” Amato moaned. “I am an oaf. I do not deserve to be on the same stage with the great Emmy Destinn.”
“How true,” Emmy sighed.
“Hit me!” Amato demanded dramatically. “Hit me back, Emmy! It will make you feel better, and it is no more than I deserve.” He held his arms stiffly at his sides and bravely thrust out his chin.
Emmy got a gleam in her eye.
A moment later, she made an announcement. “I am ready to resume,” she told Toscanini, who was staring horrified at the flattened baritone.
Eventually they got Amato back on his feet, and no one suggested they rehearse the fight again. Toscanini started where they’d left off, and the rehearsal proceeded smoothly enough except for a slight tendency on Amato’s part to wander around the stage with a dazed look on his face. Then they came to a part of the act where Emmy was supposed to read from the Bible.
Someone had glued the pages together.
As one person, cast, conductor, orchestra, composer, and general manager turned to look toward where their lead tenor was waiting in the wings. “CARUSO!” they roared ensemble.
“What? What?” he cried, alarmed. “I do nothing!”
“You are always playing practical jokes,” Puccini said angrily. “A world première we are preparing, and still you play jokes!”
“But I do nothing! You—”
“What about the time you brought a chamber pot onstage during La Bohème?” Emmy demanded.
“Or the times you sewed up the sleeves of my costumes?” Amato muttered.
“Pranks, pranks, pranks!” Toscanini shouted. “Like a little boy, always playing pranks!”
“Really, Enrico,” Gatti-Casazza said reprovingly. “At a time like this? You should know better.”
“But I do not do it! Someone else!”
&
nbsp; Belasco took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead. The police detective assigned to watch Puccini had the expression of a man who’s just realized he’s been trapped inside a lunatic asylum.
Caruso’s feelings were hurt. They should know him better than to think he’d deliberately cause trouble for Puccini’s new opera. Certainly, he had played little tricks in the past—but not now, not during Fanciulla rehearsal. He’d promised there’d be no practical jokes—and Mr. Gatti should know he did not break his promises! Over and over he told them he did not glue the Bible pages together, but no one listened! How terrible it was, being accused of something one had not done!
They started again. Amato was to declare his love to Emmy, only to be rejected. The passage contained some tricky parts for the baritone; Amato managed them all right but sang his passion to an empty chair while Emmy stood behind him with her fists on her hips. Then Caruso made his entrance. Belasco had directed him to sing his opening phrases with his back to the audience; when he turned around, everyone saw he was carrying a bottle and atomizer in one hand. Caruso sprayed his throat every time one of the others was singing.
Toscanini put down his baton. “Mister Caruso! Do you plan on carrying a spray bottle with you during the performance?”
“A soreness in the throat,” Caruso said with a catch in his voice, hoping for a little sympathy from these hostile people. “It will not go away!”
“Too many cigarettes,” Gatti-Casazza growled. Belasco quietly stepped out onto the stage and took the tenor’s throat spray away from him.
Toscanini’s face was red and the veins in his temple were pulsing, but he managed to contain himself. Once again they resumed. Caruso ordered a drink at the bar, which the bartender served him. Then Amato joined Caruso and Emmy there and, in a gesture meant as a challenge, knocked the tenor’s glass off the bar. Alas, his aim was a little off and the colored water splashed all over Emmy’s dress.
Emmy leaned one elbow heavily on the bar and looked straight into the eyes of the trembling baritone. “Do not worry, Pasquale,” she said sweetly. “I am not going to hit you.”
