Ansel eyed the long letter curiously, took it up reluctantly, and, after checking the signature, began to read, slowly at first and then swiftly. Clara studied his every eye shift. He seemed unfamiliar with the contents—or was giving an awfully good impression of it. After the second page, he paused and glanced up. “It certainly sounds like me, doesn’t it?” But there was nothing whimsical in his tone.
“A bit,” Mitch allowed. “And that is your signature, isn’t it?”
“Or a reasonable facsimile.” Ansel read on, his features expressionless. After another two pages, he stopped again and asked, “Where did this come from, if I’m allowed to know?”
“Does it matter?”
“I should think so,” Ansel said. “It’s apparently addressed to Margot—did she send it on to you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m surprised she didn’t phone me about it—although that may give you a clue about the somewhat strained nature of our relationship.” By now he was no longer managing to mask his distress as he hurried through to the end of the letter. “Very ingenious,” was all he said at the end. “Well, do I get to know how you came by it?” Uncoyly he searched Mitch’s face, which remained glacial, and then turned imploringly to Clara.
She gave a deferential shrug and gestured toward Mitch, who looked toward the window and asked, “Why is it relevant?”
All wariness now, Ansel methodically lighted a cigarette. “Ah, so our meeting here was not by chance. You’ve come to confront me with this utterly absurd thing.”
“I’m afraid so,” Mitch said. “You can see why, I trust.”
“I suppose—especially if my dear cunt of a sister sent this to you—”
The word made Clara recoil. “We can do without the epithets if you don’t mind,” Mitch chided him. “And your sister’s covering note expressed great concern over your state of mind.”
“Yes, I’m sure—it’s one of the preoccupations of her life. Forgive me for seeming less than totally appreciative. We have a history, she and I.”
“Why shouldn’t she have alerted us to this—proposed—plan of yours?”
Ansel exhaled like a vengeful dragon. “For one thing, she and I are supposed to be on the same side in this battle. For another, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with our plumbing on Charles Street, so I’d never have alluded to it in such a letter. And for a third thing, nothing else in its entire contents is true.” He looked hard at Mitch. “And I surely didn’t write the symphony—as Margot must know—and as you and I have gone over before, so for me to threaten your company with such a claim, as this letter proposes, doesn’t even qualify as a bad joke. Which leaves open the question of why Margot sent this thing to you so unhesitantly without bothering to ask me about it first.”
“You didn’t write the symphony?” Clara asked softly.
Ansel’s eyes widened with disbelief. “But your own experts have confirmed that Beethoven himself almost surely composed it—not some hapless pretender. Yet someone plainly wants you to think I’m suffering from delusions of grandeur—or that I’d even dream of making such a monumentally pretentious claim. And whoever that someone is must be counting on your gullibility—that you’ll assume, because I’m under a doctor’s care, I’m capable of committing antisocial acts of the sort the letter speaks of.”
“And you definitely didn’t counterfeit the William Tell Symphony,” Clara pressed him again gently, “the way the letter says you’d confess to if my husband’s company doesn’t cancel its auction of the manuscript and return it to Switzerland?”
“Really now, my dear Mrs. Emery—how could anyone be as cracked as this letter suggests its writer is and still manage to create a work of the artistry that your experts have now attributed to the Tell Symphony?” He withdrew his cigarette and whirled it in the air, ember up, like a tiny torch. “I thought we had disposed of this nonsensical idea when we met in Zurich.” He was struggling to control his anger. “I may be a bit overwrought these days—things have not gone my way ever since I chose to make this Tell discovery my preoccupation in life for the time being—but I’m back on my medication and into intensive therapy—”
“Well, if you’re being victimized here,” Mitch asked, trying to retrieve him from the threshold of rage, “then you need to help all of us by being truthful. Who has it in for you to such an extent that they’d put together this elaborate letter to your sister to make you appear—”
Ansel shook his head and drained his wine glass. “I’ll admit, at risk of sounding like a raving paranoiac, that I’m not the most beloved of God’s creatures—so I can’t say who might be out there with a real or imagined grievance against me.”
“There can’t be that many people with a deep animus toward you,” Mitch challenged him, “as well as enough intimate knowledge of your life and all the particulars of the Tell Symphony to have written such a detailed letter. It seems beyond coincidence, for example, that the letter writer speaks of having enlisted your cousin Sofie as an accomplice to the forgery scheme—just as you hinted at when we lunched with you in Zurich.” Mitch sat back and adopted a sterner tone. “And why, by the way, did you urge us to contact your cousin Sofie Reis to ask whether the two of you had contrived a Beethoven fraud? You knew the dead don’t talk.”
Ansel put on an impish face. “It was a taunt—her name just happened to jump into my mind—and maybe I wanted you to go off on a wild goose chase for suspecting me of such an absurd scam. But I see your point about Sofie. All I can guess is that someone else who knows our family membership must have also figured out that in theory, Sofie had the skills to have participated in such an outrage.”
Mitch decided this was the moment to reel in his bait.
“Look, the bottom line is that you need to help us here, Ansel, or we can’t help you.”
He half-turned to the window and looked down on the shopping walkway below. After taking time to weigh answers that may have all seemed problematic to him, Ansel said, without turning back to face them, “If you’re looking for the writer of this letter, you might start, I regret to say, with my sister herself—possibly in collaboration with my former dear friend, Felix Utley.”
“Why those two?”
“You’ll have to ask them. Anything coming from me you’ll probably find suspect.”
“Try us,” Clara urged.
Ansel swung around to face them. “Well, to begin with, they’re lovers,” he said. “They have been for the past five years or so.”
“I see,” said Clara. “And how does their relationship have a bearing on your—I don’t—”
“Because nobody in the family but me knows about them. Not my dear, clueless parents who would sharply disapprove of such wanton conduct by their married daughter to whom they’ve entrusted running the family enterprise. Not my two dear nieces whom Margot has thoughtfully parked at boarding school so they won’t inconvenience her life or intrude on her frequent liaisons. And especially not my passionless brother-in-law, limp cock that he is—and miserable excuse for a medical healer.” He interrupted himself long enough to ask the server for an espresso, then remembered his manners and, with the Emerys’ assent, requested a round of them. “The thing is,” he then plunged ahead with his explosive revelation, “I don’t blame Margot one bit for needing the stimulation—she got herself saddled with a bloody bore of a spouse and a lousy lover in the bargain, but she’s stuck by him out of a misguided sense of propriety—and dread of further besmirching the family name—which is why my carryings-on have been such a trial for her.” His brow furrowed. “But I do resent her lording it over me as the black sheep in the family when she’s deep into her own sneaky antics and howling hypocrisy.”
“And let me guess,” Mitch said, feeding into Ansel’s pathology, “you’ve hinted to them on more than one occasion, because it’s the only weapon you can use against her, that you’ll blow the whistle on them—which is why
you and Felix are on the outs now—and he and Margot would like you out of the way, permanently institutionalized, perhaps, so they’re trying to frame you with this letter, making you look like a raving lunatic.”
Ansel gave a slow, confirming smile. “Very well put, Mitchell. Maybe you’re not altogether miscast for your profession, after all.”
Mitch brushed aside the backhanded compliment. “But isn’t it possible that you’ve got it wrong, and Margot is genuinely concerned about you, and when she got the letter, she believed you’d actually written it and—and she was afraid that you’d—you might—?”
“Then why didn’t she call me about the letter, expressing her genuine concern, instead of passing it directly along to you? You don’t have to be Conan Doyle to figure that one out.”
“Because she knew you’d deny it all if she and Felix created it as a way to have you—”
“Thou sayeth so—I didn’t,” Ansel answered and gathered up his newspapers.
.
zurich sparkled from a dusting of snow the night before, and out their hotel window, well beyond the wind-whipped lake, the saw-toothed mountains looked edibly frosted. Fifteen minutes late, Felix Utley arrived in a belted black raincoat that was too thin, Clara thought, to shield its wearer against the cold. He also needed a haircut and a shave. His hooded eyes gave him a slightly haunted look that perhaps was part of his appeal to Margot Lenz but left Clara indifferent. His allure, she guessed, probably resided between his legs, if Margot’s husband was as sadly dysfunctional in that region as Ansel had cruelly indicated.
Felix accepted the proffered brandy, skipped the cheese sticks, and said icily, “I’ll probably be pilloried for consorting with the enemy, but your message said it was important.”
Mitch nodded appreciatively. “I’m sorry that your arrangement with Herr Grieder seems to have fallen apart,” he said to let Felix know they were familiar with the local repercussions of the Tell situation. “We’ve tried our best to reconcile a lot of competing interests—”
“I don’t fault you people—business is business,” the visitor said. “Anyway, I didn’t particularly want to be concertmaster—the extra pay is hardly worth all the bother, and the honor of it is dubious. It was mostly for my uncle—the great university professor. He and Grieder studied together in Austria, so he keeps trying to pull strings for me, pushing for my advancement. Academicians get excited about petty honors like that. To me it’s a lot of crap.” Felix lifted his glass in silent toast to the Emerys and took more than a sip. “Well, enough of that—I presume you’re here about Ansel’s letter. Sad business.”
“You know about the letter, then?” Mitch asked.
“Of course—Margot shared it with me. She’s terribly worried.”
“What do you make of it?”
Felix turned up his palms helplessly. “It’s vintage Ansel, I’m afraid—or, rather, Ansel outdoing himself. I don’t think he appreciates the consequences of this sort of game-playing. He has, as you see, a rather glaring reality gap.”
“He told us he didn’t write the letter—and guesses that you and Margot may have written it over his signature.”
Felix gave his head a series of small shakes. “Do you begin to understand now why he’s undergoing intensive therapy? We’ve looked out for him for years when nobody else gave a damn what became of him. This whole Tell business has totally overwhelmed him—”
“Does that mean that you had nothing to do with the letter?” Mitch pressed.
If Felix’s astonishment at the question was feigned, Clara thought, the man belonged on the theatrical stage, not in a concert hall. “Why on earth would I do such a thing?” Felix asked.
“Ansel says you and Margot are secret longtime lovers who’d like him out of your way.”
Felix’s look of exasperation hardened. “I don’t see how that’s your business.”
“I’ll take that to mean yes, unless you’d care to—”
“We had a bit of a fling,” Felix conceded, “and somehow Ansel caught wind of it. We called it off when we realized how deeply destructive it could become—for her, actually. She has two daughters of an impressionable age. And tongues wag ferociously in this town. But we’ve stayed good friends—she leans on me to help with Ansel, since I knew him—too well.”
“And you stand by what you told me when we first met—that Ansel is incapable of attempting to write a counterfeit Beethoven symphony?”
“That again!” Felix cried. “Are you so entirely ignorant of the creative process as to suppose that being as screwed up as Ansel is heightens one’s artistic powers?”
“You have a way, Mr. Utley,” Mitch said coolly, “of answering questions with questions. It doesn’t inspire my total confidence in your answers, but thanks for your time just the same.”
“Seedy sort,” Clara remarked on their walk over to Margot Lenz’s place. “Looks a bit conspiratorial, too—which I guess is how you know he isn’t, since I suppose he’d be at pains to hide it better if he were.”
“I think he may be trying to protect Margot,” said Mitch.
The hike up the slope to her place was steeper than they’d bargained for, but their view of the lake improved with each step. The sprawling, low-slung apartment building had a dozen units, as indicated by the nest of mailboxes beside the Art Deco entryway. The Lenz flat, which wrapped around two corners of the top floor and boasted a long, railed balcony looking toward the lake, appeared to be the choicest of the lot.
Margot answered the door herself and led the Emerys through an entrance gallery hung with modern art, mostly abstracts in vivid hues and a few sedate landscapes. A spent fire simmered in the rusticated stone hearth that dominated the great room. Clara liked Margot’s looks. She had the bearing of a woman of position, braced with self-regard, as if she had paid her dues—without regrets—but still harbored a tenderness behind that formidable façade. Fissures of anxiety lent a solemn cast to her strong features, mirroring the cloudy day that dimmed the view of the lake far below the room-long expanse of picture windows.
“It hadn’t occurred to me you’d track him down like a hunted animal,” she said even before they were seated, “and confront him with the letter. He called me, crying and screaming that I’d betrayed him to you.”
Mitch was neither defensive nor confrontational. “Sorry, but what did you expect me to do about the letter? I’m not a physician—my employers engage me to protect their interests.”
“You said you’d speak to them and get back to me.”
“I am getting back to you—”
Margot glared at him briefly. “That’s beneath you, Mr. Emery—”
“You mean you expected our people to read the letter and respond with dread—and perhaps a handsome buyout of all concerned on your end?”
Looking irritated by his direct challenge, Margot declined to answer.
“Ansel tells us he didn’t write the letter,” Mitch continued.
“I know—Felix called right after he left you and told me the whole story. It’s rather devastating—his accusing me of such a thing when I’ve looked after him for more years than I care to say.” She suddenly buried her face in her hands, as if overcome by the realization that the problem had grown beyond her capacity to cope with it.
When her composure returned, Mitch said, “I’ve three questions—if you can bear them.”
“Have I a choice?”
“I’m afraid you’re the one who introduced this particular provocation.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s the case.”
“Why did you send me the letter instead of first registering your concerns over it with Ansel himself? Wouldn’t that have been the more loving, sisterly way to go about it?”
Margot’s tormented eyes narrowed.
“I told you—I called Ansel’s doctor in London as soon as I got the letter
—that seemed more to the point. I needed guidance on how to handle it. The doctor and I speak frequently—”
“Isn’t that rather a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality?”
“It’s a fine line sometimes, but Graham—Dr. Kohler—is extremely circumspect. And he knows I’m guided by only one purpose.” Margot looked up with a mirthless smile. “Besides, who do you think pays for Ansel’s treatment?”
The woman was a total sphinx, Mitch decided. “Are you telling me that Dr. Kohler suggested you send us the letter without first discussing it with Ansel? Wouldn’t that just guarantee setting him off as it did?”
“Not if you hadn’t gone straight to him with it. I’m the one who feels betrayed, frankly. I deluded myself into thinking we had a sort of entente cordiale, you and I—if not your superiors.” She fixed her gaze on the fireplace opposite her sofa. “And your second question?”
“There’s no delicate way of presenting it, I’m afraid. Ansel says you and Felix are lovers and you resent his knowing it when no one else in the family does, so you want him put away—”
“Yes, yes—I know what he told you.” She fought to keep herself from sounding like a scold. “This is a recent chapter in quite an old, sad story, I’m afraid. Ansel’s chief enduring delusion is that I want to put him away—as mentally incompetent—so that I alone will inherit our parents’ fortune, as if I’m not well enough off already. The fact is, my parents have long since given up on Ansel as a responsible, functioning adult. If it were up to them, I think, he’d have been locked away years ago. I’m the one who keeps hoping against hope that someday, somehow, he’ll be ‘cured’—which is why I was praying this Tell discovery might give him confidence and purpose. My parents, at any rate, adjusted their joint wills years ago, dividing their estate equally but placing Ansel’s half in trust for his lifetime—under my oversight. Their fear, of course, was that otherwise he would run through the money in no time and be left impoverished—and needing my charity.”
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