Beethoven's Tenth

by Richard Kluger

  “But if Dr. Reinsdorf was so fond of Felix, why didn’t he make some provision for him in his will? There are no other surviving relatives, I gather. Wouldn’t that have been a natural thing to do for a fond uncle—a parting gift to his only blood relative?”

  Hilde nodded. “Perhaps.” Then she thought further and added, “To be entirely truthful with you, Emil felt Felix was a terrible disappointment—and he was not inclined to rain money on him, even at those rare times when we had any substantial surplus. But money seemed to preoccupy Felix. He had social aspirations—the women he consorted with must have bled him financially. Emil thought Felix was grossly profligate and that the small ‘Reinsdorf fortune,’ as Emil comically called it, should be used after his death to provide a modest level of comfort for Scherzie and me—and after that, there would hardly be enough to matter.” She shrugged. “Felix asked me directly about Emil’s will after the funeral and looked unhappy when I told him.”

  “Revenge may well explain his willingness to betray Dr. Reinsdorf’s memory,” Mitch suggested, “by approaching us with threats if we don’t agree to fatten his bank account.”

  “Oh, my—he must be in a bad way, though he never let on to me.” Hilde offered them a second round of biscuits. “Will your firm bring criminal charges against him?” she asked.

  Mitch sensed that the prospect would not have displeased her.

  “We haven’t determined.”

  He broke off a piece of the flaky wafer he accepted and studied it a moment, as if searching for insight along its jagged edge. “Incidentally, did you ever, over the past several years, notice Dr. Reinsdorf lingering over a Beethoven score with special attention, I mean?”

  Hilde smiled primly.

  “Emil was always poring over Beethoven scores—I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Mitch withdrew the awkward probe with a dismissive wave of the hand. A sideways glance at Clara prompted them to rise, and a moment later they accompanied Hilde and Scherzie for a walk around the corner toward the Tiergarden before parting with warm expressions of mutual gratitude.

  “Not much help there, I suppose,” Clara said on the way to their hotel, “but I do like the woman. I suspect Emil was rather a handful for her to cope with all those years.”

  “And I suspect,” said Mitch, “that likable woman was toying with us just now. She’d have been much angrier at Felix if she wasn’t somehow mixed up in it all—with or against him.”

  Clara was astonished by his unrelenting distrust. “Sometimes you’re just horrid, Mitch.”

  {16}

  The urgent voice-mail message from Johnny Winks said that good news was awaiting. He was snowbound in the Tyrol, Johnny grumbled when Mitch reached his cell phone number and learned that his team’s search for the stonemason who carved the Nina-Marie inscription on the headstone in the Hassler cemetery plot had finally hit pay dirt. An old-timer whose workshop was beside a quarry close to the Lower River Inn recognized the stone rubbing as his own handiwork, completed fifteen months earlier for a gentleman who declined to give his name but paid in advance with Swiss francs. “The chap insisted the mason use an old stone,” Johnny reported, “and dirty the new lettering to look equally old.”

  “Exactly,” said Mitch. “What’d this guy look like?”

  “Nothing special—late-forties to mid-fifties—a bit shaggy, longish hair, had a mustache, needed a shave—dark glasses—he took them off for a moment to rub his eyes, but the stonecarver didn’t get all that good a look at him—not sure he could identify our guy.”

  “Clothing?”

  “He vaguely remembers a trenchcoat or raincoat—dark, loden green or black, maybe.”

  “Felix!” Clara cried as soon as Mitch relayed the description. “Don’t you remember his beat-up black raincoat? And he’s got all that tousled hair. The mustache and dark glasses—those must have been his attempt at a disguise.”

  “A lot of men own a dark raincoat,” Mitch noted.

  “Listen, it’s just got to be Felix,” Clara said, undaunted. “He’s in this up to his ears.”

  “Could be Utley,” Mitch told Winks. After a moment his bird-dog reflexes kicked in. He politely instructed his indefatigable undercover man to get the best description he could from the stonemason of Felix’s telltale mustache, then set up a stakeout at his apartment house in Zurich, put a telephoto lens on him the moment he arrived or left home, make five blow-up prints of his cropped mugshot, find a student artist at the university to draw in five different variations of the mustache—one per photo—and have them faxed back to Johnny. “Maybe then your stonecarver can ID our mystery man.”

  “Any other trying demands, Mitchell?” Johnny asked. “Perhaps my people can discover a new galaxy while they’re waiting for the pictures to be processed?”

  “Optional,” Mitch said with a warm laugh, too pleased to mind the needling. “We’re flying down to Zurich tonight. You can reach me at the Schweitzerhof. Swell work so far, buddy.”

  They made it in just before a nasty midwinter freeze blew down from the mountains and layered the lakeside city with a dry, drifting snowfall. Clara, in jeans, Shetland sweater, and down jacket with a fake-fur-lined hood, kept puffing out her cheeks like an overworked bellows to stay warm as they struggled around the corner from the hotel to a busy trattoria a few doors off the Bahnhofstrasse. Over a modest bottle of Chianti, they weighed the odds against a gnarled old stonecarver high in the Tyrol being able to finger Felix Utley from a touched-up photograph—and, even if he could, where exactly that would leave them.

  Midway into their second glasses of wine, with the carpaccio gone and the rigatoni puttanesca en route, Clara reached over, covered Mitch’s ring hand with hers, and without a segue told him, “I’m thinking more about adopting—if nothing’s cooking by the end of summer—”

  “Me, too,” he said, covering her hand with his free one and intertwining it with her long, graceful fingers. It was the third time she had brought up the subject, and he could no longer keep kissing off the idea as a last resort. “But to be honest, sweetie, it still gets me nervous. Who knows what gene pool we’d be diving into?”

  She withdrew her lovingly trapped hand and recovered her wine glass. “I mean, all life is a huge gamble, whatever your genes. Some perfectly brilliant people procreate disastrously, and some cretins spawn mutant wizards.”

  The wine was velvet against her throat. She was debating with herself, really, not him. Brushing back a strand of her fine hair that had worked its way down to just above her bleary eyes, she quipped, “Maybe we should just settle for a pet or two—a collie, maybe, I love collies—though I guess they wouldn’t do all that well on Riverside Drive. Possibly an aardvark—you don’t see many of them around—and they’re so sweet, wonderful companions, I hear…”

  Her manic riff ended and her spirits sagged, done in by all the travel, cold, fatigue, alcohol, and synapse overload.

  Next day, while Mitch distractedly skimmed The Magic Mountain, Clara immersed herself in a book on Swiss folklore she’d bought at a store up the avenue from their hotel and discovered that William Tell was no more a historically based figure than Robin Hood, Till Eulenspiegel, or Father Christmas. “Perhaps that’s the problem with the Swiss,” she mused. “Their stellar national hero is a myth.”

  That evening, they attended a concert by the Swiss Philharmonic at the Tonhalle, a short, blustery walk from the hotel. The program—Bartok, Delius, and Beethoven’s Seventh—was competently executed, they agreed, but the performance came off as more dutiful than scintillating. Maestro Grieder, well-fed and rosy-cheeked, bestirred himself for the Beethoven, making a sprightly enough run at it. Felix Utley, well groomed for a change, was on hand among the first violins and, like his conductor, displayed more gusto during the Beethoven, Clara’s favorite among his symphonies, than for the rest of the program. “Unless I’m just imagining it,” she
said to Mitch afterward.

  The following morning, he played street detective, joining Winks’s stakeout team outside of Felix’s apartment house. The cold snap had broken overnight, or the outdoor surveillance would have proven brutal work. The assignment had fallen to two of Johnny’s brawnier field men who, working out of a VW van, advised Mitch that Felix was at home and apparently cohabiting with a woman of indeterminate age but definitely not Margot Lenz.

  Into his second cup of tepid coffee and defying an urge from his brimming bladder, Mitch was rescued from the odious vigil by a phone call to the wheelman. It was Johnny with a short, sweet message: “Utley’s your man—probably,” he told Mitch. “The stonemason says he’s pretty sure from one of the photos of Felix with a mustache drawn on that he was the one who ordered the tombstone, but the old-timer wouldn’t swear to it. Almost, though.”

  “Bravo!” Mitch sang out. “Double bravo! Now let’s play this game in reverse. Can you take a headshot of the stonemason on your smartphone and send it back to me real quick? We’ve got Felix penned in down here, and I want to try bearding him in his den.”

  Mitch repaired to his hotel for warmer clothing while Winks was carrying out the assignment. By the time the picture of the stonecarver arrived, late-afternoon dusk was encroaching. Winks’s men in the van reported that Felix’s companion had gone out but that he himself had not been seen. Clara cautioned Mitch as he was leaving the comfort of their hotel that he was about to confront not just a womanizing violinist but a desperate blackmailer.

  On the short taxi ride over, Mitch weighed the odds of a violent reception upon ringing Felix’s doorbell. He considered phoning up from the street and, with armed guards at his side, inviting his antagonist to come downstairs for a little chat. But Felix was not likely to be coaxed outside in the dark.

  He answered Mitch’s ring on the intercom with a hesitant but polite enough greeting, apparently hopeful his visitor was acting as Cubbage & Wakeham’s courier and had come with a substantial wad of cash to buy off Felix’s silence. He asked if Mitch was alone and, assured of it, buzzed him inside.

  The walk-up apartment shared the second floor with one other unit in the small, well-maintained building. For a weapon, Mitch carried only his copy of The Magic Mountain, a heavy enough projectile but of limited range and deterrent force; inside its front cover he had slipped a printout of Johnny’s headshot of the old Tyrolean stonemason who had carved the Nina-Marie grave marker.

  Felix’s flat was everything its owner was not—expansive, immaculate, and stylish, done in ultramodern, with blond woods, Italian leather, polished steel, and travertine marble. Too posh for a journeyman violinist with a provincial orchestra and no other known income or resources. Three explanations raced through Mitch’s mind at first sight of the place: Felix was trafficking in illicit substances, loan sharks were nipping at his heels, or his women had been contributing handsomely to his upkeep. On second thought, all might apply.

  “I was just listening to Stravinsky when you rang—shall I turn it back on?”

  “Thanks, no. I’ve left some companions downstairs in a car—I said I’d be only a few minutes—though I can send them on their way if we need longer.”

  Felix scowled. “I thought you said you were alone.”

  “I am—as you can see.”

  The scowl was slow to abate. “I’m not sure what brings you by so unexpectedly. I just assumed we’d transact our business by long-distance phone, except for its conclusion. Is that why you’re here? You have something for me?”

  “I do,” Mitch said blandly, “but it may not be exactly what you have in mind.”

  Felix gestured him into a vintage Breuer chair. “I was hoping we could dispose of this matter without much sturm und drang—what I’ve asked for should hardly bankrupt your firm.”

  Mitch sat and ran his eyes around the room, its oversize proportions softened by indirect amber lighting. “The gift I’ve brought you is a photograph, actually—have a look.”

  Felix, perched on the arm of the adjacent sofa, took the picture of the stonemason and studied it quizzically for a moment.

  “Shows character,” he said. “Who is it?”

  “He cuts gravestones in the Tyrol. Not an easy fellow to find.”

  Poker-faced, Felix handed the picture back.

  “Am I missing something here?”

  “He says he did some business with you not too long ago.”

  “With me? I shouldn’t think so—”

  “You were in your phony mustache and dark glasses phase at the time.”

  Felix looked more amused than distressed. “There must be some mistake. At any rate, what is this all about? I thought we had other business to discuss.”

  “We think it’s all the same business.”

  Mitch leaned forward.

  “We know you’re a key player in this whole Tell thing,” he said, “and we’re prepared to go to the authorities unless you’re ready to tell us everything—in which case we may consider not pressing charges against you. You can have overnight to decide. Meanwhile, we’ve got people in the street who won’t let you go far. In fact, if you try to leave Zurich, we’ll alert the police subito.” He sat back and let his words sink in. “Do I make myself clear?”

  By now Felix’s eyebrows were undulating. “You must be insane. I don’t know what you’re talking about, honestly. My approach to you was a straightforward business proposition based on my uncle’s arrangement with your firm—”

  “There was no arrangement, I can assure you.”

  “Emil assured me there was and promised me that I’d—”

  “Well, at least one of you is or was a liar, and I won’t debate the question with you.”

  Felix rubbed his chin and quickly assessed his options.

  “Do you want to tell me what this gravestone business is all about?” he tried.

  “Save the con, friend—we’re onto the whole Nina-Marie scam,” Mitch said, savoring his advantage. “Call me at the Schweitzerhof by nine in the morning and let me know if you’re ready to spell it out for us—otherwise we go to your police.” He rose and headed for the door.

  “If you turn me in,” Felix said slowly, “I’ll have no choice but to perform the public service I promised you on the phone. And not only will I report that you bribed Emil Reinsdorf to vote for the authentication of the Tell manuscript, I’ll go one better—and you won’t like it in the least. I’ll tell them the truth about the Tell—my version of it, anyway—”

  He had caught Mitch’s attention and froze his departure in midstride.

  “Namely?”

  “To start with, I will testify that everything in Ansel’s letter from London to Margot—confessing that he himself composed the Tell Symphony and then masterminded the discovery of the manuscript—I’ll say every word of it is true. I’ll explain how he worked on the Tell composition for years and showed it to me from time to time for my reaction to its emerging shape—never telling me, of course, what his eventual objective was. I had seen his earlier compositions and given him my assessments, but this effort far surpassed anything he had ever tried before, and its clear evocation of the Beethoven style, worked out within the framework of a musical rendering of the Schiller drama about our national hero—well, I thought it brilliant and kept encouraging him. Only when he pretended to ‘discover’ his own manuscript in the attic of his next-door neighbors and claim it was echt Beethoven did I catch on to his lunatic game.”

  “And you didn’t think to mention any of this to Ansel’s sister—your lover?”

  “We were never really lovers—just friends, as I told you earlier. For all I knew, she was in on it with Ansel—and maybe the Hasslers’ American grandson was, too. But I wouldn’t go into that—only that Ansel’s letter to Margot was a true confession—and his subsequent suicide, I’ll tell the media, indirectly subst
antiated it.”

  The room swam in weird amber light. Mitch saw the difficulties presented by his adversary’s counterploy. Still, he had to play the hand he’d been dealt. Flattering Felix’s wiles might throw him off balance. “Is it true—about Ansel—composing the Tell?” he asked softly. “I’ve had my doubts about its authenticity all along, to tell you the truth.”

  Felix managed his first hint of a smile since Mitch had arrived.

  “Who the real composer is, Mr. Emery, is beside the point. It’s the uncertainty I would be introducing into the public’s mind about the symphony’s acclaimed authenticity that will destroy your firm’s effort to cash in on it.”

  “I get your drift,” Mitch said, moving toward the front door again. “You’ve still got until nine in the morning to come clean with us, including who really composed the symphony. After that, all bets are off.”

  “Not mine—I’ll still be expecting your gift by next Monday.” Felix reached for the remote that controlled his CD player and restarted the Stravinsky disk.

  .

  “he’s boxed us in,” Mitch moaned to Clara back at their hotel, “the smarmy bastard.”

  “Sticks and stones,” she said. “Doesn’t it come down to which of you blinks first?”

  “He can afford to be more daring—reckless, you might even say. We’re supposed to be protecting a respectable business establishment.”

  She saw the gloom enveloping him and tried to drive it away.

  “I don’t know about you, sweetie,” she said, “but I’m in the mood for a really filthy dirty video—it might clear your brain. I’ve never seen any porn, actually. There’s a charming-looking one featured in a shop window I passed while you were off to the wars—Yodel Lady Oh-oh-oh! or something like that—bestiality with Alpine goats, I think it said. Let’s send out for it.”

  Before he could fend off his seductive partner, the phone jangled. Johnny Winks had fresh news. “Your other chicken’s come home to roost, old boy.”