by Gerald Elias
“I don’t suppose your employers would ever think of bragging about the literary awards of its staff writers in order to charge their advertisers more?”
“Mr. Jacobus, are you or are you not interested in the stolen violin? That’s what your friend Mr. Williams said you wanted to see me about. Yet you’ve avoided the subject entirely.”
“I’m interested in the truth,” said Jacobus.
“Well, here’s a truth for you,” said Lilburn. “I happen to be a reporter as well as a critic, and I’ve had the opportunity to do a little investigating of my own. I have in front of me as we speak a photograph. It was taken in 1931. Friday, July 13, to be exact. You would have been, oh, about ten years old at the time, Mr. Jacobus.”
Jacobus was silent.
“Let me describe this photo to you, Mr. Jacobus. It is a group picture from the 1931 Grimsley Competition. On two back risers stand the taller boys, crammed together, austere in stiff black suits. In two front rows the photo shows the ranks of younger and smaller boys with pink dimpled knees, dressed in sailor suits with short pants to make them appear even younger. Seventy-eight out of the eighty contestants—all but one of them boys—form a semicircle around the three judges, world-famous pedagogues, who are in front. Two of the judges are Sir Owen Davis, beloved violinist of the United Kingdom and the London Conservatorium of Music and Art, and the flamboyant mustachioed Italian virtuoso Silvio Signorelli. In dead center of the photo sits a fat little man with a shiny liver-spotted head. That would be the infamous Feodor Malinkovsky of St. Petersburg, Russia—wouldn’t it, Mr. Jacobus—whose success inspired awe and whose methods inspired fear. The one girl in the photo sits stiffly on the prominent paunch of Professor Malinkovsky. In the proper musical tradition of obeisance, both Davis and Signorelli stand a half step behind Malinkovsky, each with a hand on one of the maestro’s portly shoulders. In the photo they make their best efforts to look down endearingly upon the greasy pate of the elder colleague who, away from the camera lens, they in reality despised.
“Mr. Jacobus,” said Lilburn, “what interests me about this photo is that it appears the only contestant absent from it is yourself.”
“Give me the photo,” Jacobus said.
Lilburn ignored him.
“By all accounts you were doing very well in the Grimsley, Mr. Jacobus. You passed the first round with flying colors—you played two movements of the Bach G-Minor Sonata, Paganini Caprices numbers two, nine, and twenty-one, the first movement of the Mozart G-Major Violin Concerto, and the last movement of the Mendelssohn Concerto, if my information is correct.”
“Give me the photo.”
“You even made it past the semifinal round. Very grueling, I’m sure! Debussy Sonata, Prokofiev D-Major Concerto, and—my! my!—both Wieniawski Polonaises. Bravo, Mr. Jacobus! And all from memory!
“But then, after the second round,” Lilburn continued, “you were ‘invited’ to meet privately with the renowned—or should I say notorious—Maestro Malinkovsky. I don’t know what happened between him and you behind closed doors, Mr. Jacobus, but I do know that the day after that meeting, you were dismissed from the Grimsley with no reason given, and right after the Competition Mr. Malinkovsky was deported under a cloud of accusations that he had been molesting little boys for years. It seems he was as much a pedophile as a pedagogue. Would you care to elaborate to this reporter what transpired in your private meeting with the maestro? Did he help you with your vibrato, perhaps? Or did he offer you a prize in the Grimsley in exchange for ‘favors’? Come, come, Mr. Jacobus. You must remember something about it? Or has time dulled your memory of what must have been a truly enlightening experience?”
Again there was silence, a long silence, but for the return of the heartrending melody of the Adagio of the Beethoven Concerto.
“Here, Mr. Jacobus, here is your photo, though as you can’t see it I don’t know what good it will do you. In any event, I have plenty of copies.”
Lilburn slid the photo across his desk. It went too far and fell on the floor.
“It’s all yours, Mr. Jacobus,” Lilburn said. “And if you agree to terminate your ill-considered investigation, I will refrain from sending a copy to the police, who no doubt would be highly interested in anyone who had attended the reception with a possible motive to harm the Grimsley Competition. And now I would suggest that this interview is over. I have a deadline to meet.”
Jacobus groped for the photo and picked it up. “I’ll make my way out.”
Lilburn opened the Plexiglas door. Jacobus left.
Lilburn pressed Stop on the recorder. He dialed Anthony Strella’s number to convey the message that even though he may have shaken Jacobus, this crazed but highly intelligent man might be on a rampage, that it was quite possible Jacobus had stolen the Piccolino Stradivarius, but only in order to achieve his ultimate goal to destroy MAP.
He heard the phone ring on Strella’s end with a strident out-of-tune G-sharp, jarring Lilburn’s ears as it conflicted with the last chord of Beethoven’s Adagio, a reaffirming E Major. Lilburn quickly hung up the phone until the resonance of the chord faded. Then he dialed again.
TEN
Jacobus arrived at the Carnegie Deli to claim his pound of fleisch. Williams and Yumi were there waiting for him, already in line to get a table amid the posttheater and concert crowd. They were eventually seated in one of the rear rooms, sharing a table with tourists from Salt Lake City who had come all the way from Utah to see the Broadway production of Les Miz. Because of the close quarters, Jacobus, Williams, and Yumi kept their conversation light, concentrating on eating, until the customers started to filter out.
Jacobus described his meeting with Lilburn, though he did not dwell on his attack on MAP. He did not want Williams to think he was usurping the theft investigation for his own purposes, though he knew that sooner or later the issue would come to a head between the two of them. He would do what he could to make it as later as possible. Jacobus gave the photo he had received from Lilburn to Williams, telling him it might or might not be helpful. He didn’t really know at that point, though something about Lilburn’s verbal attack was gnawing at him.
Yumi looked exhausted. She had gotten up that morning before dawn in order to catch the early bus to the Berkshires for her lesson with Jacobus. Now she was back in the city and it was after midnight. She reluctantly accepted an offer from Williams to stay overnight at his spacious apartment on East Ninety-sixth Street. Jacobus insisted on her accompanying him on his round of interviews the next day, which would begin early in the morning, so going out to Long Island was not a viable option. Jacobus promised Yumi that before twenty-four hours passed she would learn more about the music profession than most people would in a lifetime.
“Sylvia, where’s my Cel-Ray Tonic already?” shouted Jacobus. “Doesn’t anyone do any work around here?”
A sudden crash on the table in front of him caught Jacobus off guard. He jerked his arms protectively in front of his face.
“Here’s your Cel-Ray Tonic,” Sylvia, the waitress, said. “You think you’re my only customer?”
“It’s one in the morning. We are your only customers! The last ones left a half hour ago.”
“So what’s the matter? Who d’ya think you are, anyway? Prince Charles or someone?” To Yumi she said, “What’s the matter, dear, you didn’t like the pastrami or sometin’? You hardly touched it.”
“Excuse me?” asked Yumi.
“Don’t ya speaka da English, dear?”
“Oh! Yes, the pastrami. It was delicious,” said Yumi. “It’s just that the sandwich was so big. It could feed my entire family.”
“First time in New York and already a comedian!” Sylvia wailed.
Jesus, who’s she yelling at? thought Jacobus. The empty restaurant?
Sylvia had been annoying Jacobus for decades. Though he never admitted it, he loved it.
Nathaniel ordered coffee, cheese danishes, strudel, and babka for the three of them as S
ylvia removed their empty plates, and their talk turned to the Piccolino Strad.
“Miss Shinagawa, you’re lookin’ a little pale. Too much pastrami, honey?”
“Oh, thank you, Nathaniel,” said Yumi politely. “Excuse me, it is just so disturbing to hear about such a beautiful violin stolen like this. Kamryn Vander must be so upset. I was shocked when I heard about it.”
“Yes,” mused Jacobus, “things like this rarely happen in Japan. But if you remember,” he continued, “I asked in the car why someone would want to steal the Piccolino, anyway. Any takers?”
Yumi responded first. “Well, Mr. Jacobus, isn’t it worth so much money? It could make someone very rich.”
“No kidding,” Jacobus said.
“Only if it can be sold,” reasoned Nathaniel. “And this violin most likely can’t be sold. It’s one of a kind. Anyone who sold it would be nabbed right away.”
Nathaniel explained that other violins, even other Strads, can be stolen and get new forged pedigrees. “Under the best of circumstances, a violin’s provenance could be traced all the way back to the maker himself using bills of sale and certification by recognized dealers, but with stolen goods, sometimes the documents are counterfeits. Sometimes original labels signed by the maker inside the instrument are removed and replaced. Some violins even get cannibalized, disassembled with their parts reattached to lesser instruments. A scroll here, a back there. A good old Italian fiddle by an anonymous maker is worth tens of thousands of dollars, but with a Strad scroll, it’s worth hundreds of thousands. A smart thief could steal a single Strad, bastardize a bunch of other violins to increase his profit margin, and cover his tracks in the process.”
“It’s been done,” said Jacobus. “But probably not in this case.”
“Why not, Mr. Jacobus?” asked Yumi.
“For two reasons,” said Jacobus. “First, because this is the one and only three-quarter-size violin Stradivari ever made. Anyone in possession of any piece of it would incriminate himself, as at least an accomplice. Second, there aren’t any other valuable three-quarter-size violins you could you use to enhance profit margins. Three-quarter-size violins are played by kids for no more than two or three years until they get big enough for a full-size, so parents aren’t going to spend more than a few hundred bucks for them. Good makers simply don’t invest their time and energy into making them.”
Another point that Jacobus and Williams agreed upon was that it was hard to think of a reason one of the MAP “bastards” would risk such a long shot as to steal a one-of-a-kind Stradivarius for any reason whatsoever. All of them were already preeminent in their respective fields, with incomes to match. Why would one, or all, of them be involved in a scheme that could ruin them permanently?
As they mulled over this question, Sylvia returned with coffee and dessert.
“Well, if it ain’t the three monkeys!” said Sylvia.
“What are you talking about?” said Jacobus. Sometimes he found her incomprehensible. And annoying.
“See no evil—that’s you, Jake—speak no evil, hear no evil.”
“Ah, Nikko!” said Yumi brightly.
“Sorry, dear,” said Sylvia. “Aquí no se habla español.”
“Nikko is a beautiful place in Japan,” said Yumi. “A famous shrine in the mountains where those three monkeys are carved.”
“The mysteries of human nature,” Jacobus mumbled, almost to himself.
“Okay, okay,” said Sylvia, dropping their food onto the table. “Forget the three monkeys. Moe, Larry, and Curly, then.” She lumbered away.
Since a motive for the theft still eluded them, Jacobus suggested that analyzing the theft itself might help them. To this end he had a novel approach, likening the task of the investigator to a musician, the thief to a composer, and the actual theft to a piece of music.
He described a musician looking at a new piece that he had never heard, and the process of practicing it, living with it, growing with it, trying to understand the composer’s intent, the composer’s message. What was the composer trying to say about the world? Why did he write it the way he did? What makes it unique from all other compositions? If the musician can’t answer those questions, Jacobus reasoned, then he has failed to learn the music.
He went on to say that a crime, strangely enough, bears marked similarities to a symphony. An inspired thief develops an overarching structure for his composition, planning his moves with extreme care and carrying them out smoothly and efficiently. The theft of the Piccolino Strad, for example, had been laid out in front of them, in all its detail. Perhaps examining those details with the trained skill of a musician would give them some insight.
“F’rinstance?” asked Nathaniel.
Jacobus replied by noting the artistic simplicity of the plan. More Mozart than Mahler. The theft took place at Carnegie Hall, not in the street or at the Vanders’ place or at Dedubian’s shop. So the thief must know something about Carnegie Hall, or at least have an affinity for it. There was no thuggery or violence involved. No weapons, no intent to harm.
The theft occurred after the concert, not before. Why after? Maybe the thief had sympathy for the performer—let her play the concert first. Maybe the thief wanted to hear the music. Another consideration: If the apparent decoy of the rock through the window hadn’t worked, what would the thief have done? That question suggested that the thief, who planned this out so carefully, had the ability to pass for someone going to the reception in the event plans went awry. Someone who went to the performance, sat through it, appreciated it, then walked—well dressed or at least dressed inconspicuously—quickly but casually to Green Room A, milling with the crowd, maybe carrying a violin case that was empty but which, upon the success of the decoy, soon contained a very valuable violin.
“And what about the decoy?” asked Nathaniel.
Jacobus observed that the decoy must have been someone who not only could scramble quickly up and down from Patelson’s roof but also had a strong and accurate enough arm to throw rocks across Fifty-sixth Street and through a reinforced plate-glass window. The angle from the roof would have helped the force of the throw, but still, someone must have had a pretty good fastball. A younger person, probably; the thief himself, probably older. But with the timing so important, the accomplice also had to be dependable and trustworthy.
Jacobus concluded by saying that in reality, even though they didn’t know the identity of the composer of this crime, they did know quite a bit about his personality. All they had to do was continue to examine and explore the crime in the same way that he taught his students to learn a new concerto, and surely once they derived why the crime was committed, they would be able to figure out who did it.
“Then you can decide what you want to do about it,” said Jacobus.
“Then why bother with the rest of these interviews we’ve scheduled for tomorrow?” asked Nathaniel, looking at his watch and seeing that it was almost two in the morning. “I mean today.”
“Because, Nathaniel,” continued Jacobus, “each of these crooks who have been involved with the Piccolino Strad is like a performer, is like us. Each of them views this crime from a different perspective, with his own interpretation, maybe with his own involvement. What a boring world it would be for every great violinist to play the Brahms Concerto the same way.
“By getting to know different interpretations, which is what every good musician should do anyway—and, by the way, let me just say that this is one more reason this damn Competition is unfair to these children; for all intents and purposes it isolates the winners from all the wonderful ideas they should be absorbing—”
“Save the sermon for later, hon,” interrupted Sylvia, bringing the bill. “Or should we watch the sunrise together?”
Jacobus grumbled his usual profanities but noted to himself that all through this discussion Yumi’s silence had been deafening. He sniffed the air.
“Nathaniel,” he said, “not another damn book!”
&nbs
p; “How’d you know I brought a book with me? Yumi tell you?”
“Old books have a unique odor, didn’t I tell you in the car? What else would it be, unless they overcooked the brisket? Except this book has better leather than the Pallottelli. Cared for too. I can smell the polish. Not moldy.”
Jacobus heard the thud of a book dropped onto the table.
“Leather bound, ornately handwritten, good-quality paper, used often,” said Nathaniel. “The real thing.”
“What’s this you got?” asked Sylvia. “The Gospel according to Saint Nathaniel?”
“Sister,” said Nathaniel, “if it was, it wouldn’t help you anyway. This just happens to be the personal diary of Matthilda Barrington Grimsley, wife of Holbrooke Grimsley, the millionaire who bought the Piccolino Strad at the turn of the century and who founded the Competition in his name.”
Jacobus asked, “How the hell did you get your hands on that?”
“I have a friend who shall remain nameless,” Nathaniel said, “who works for one of the big auction houses in the city. Last year, when the Sneeden Piermont estate went to auction—Sneeden Piermont being the nephew of Harrison Grimsley—my friend gave me a call to let me know this little baby was in one of the lots and asked if I was interested. So I made my own personal bid on it, and since there weren’t any other bidders there at the time—”
“Well, now that you’ve stolen it, what good do you think this diary is going to do for us?” asked Jacobus.
“It’s not just any old diary. It’s the diary she wrote on her trip to Europe in the summer of 1904, the trip the Grimsleys went on with Henry Lee Higginson when Holbrooke Grimsley bought the Strad.”
