Troubles in the Brasses (7 page)

She obeyed without question. The red line was there, too.

“You say the garrote was already around your neck when you woke up?”

“Yes, it was. Don’t make me say it again!” Her voice was rising.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Shadd. I know this is unpleasant for you. I’m just trying to understand how the would-be strangler managed to get his line all the way around your neck without waking you. You would have been lying down with your head on the pillow, would you?”

“Yes, certainly. I don’t sleep standing up. I suppose the answer is that I was totally exhausted and it took something really drastic to wake me. You must remember, Mr. Rhys, that I’d been stuck for the past several days with the orchestra manager’s job as well as my own, which is taxing enough at the best of times. I’ve had a tremendous lot of responsibility and very little rest. And last night wasn’t exactly peaceful, with that awful business about Wilhelm and having to get the orchestra off. Not to mention just missing a plane crash. That was the closest brush I’d had with death until just now, and I have to say two in one night are a bit much.”

“We quite understand,” said Lady Rhys. “Now you’d better just lie there and try to get some more sleep. Don’t worry, Lucy, we’ll make sure nothing else happens to you. I have some tablets, if you’d like something to calm you down.”

“I haven’t got time to be calm. What about the bath-water?”

“It’s all taken care of,” Madoc told her. “You’d better take the tablet. You’ll be no good to anybody if you wear yourself out completely.”

“That’s easy for you to say. Who’s going to manage the breakfast?”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Lucy,” Frieda protested, “quit trying to be Superwoman. You can’t even boil an egg, you said so yourself.”

“I’ll get a tablet,” said Lady Rhys, and the matter was settled.

It was odd, Madoc thought, that still none of the others had come to see what the screaming was about. They must all be more used to Frieda Loye’s nightmares than he’d have thought possible. But as Lucy Shadd had just pointed out, the lot of them had been through a colleague’s sudden death and a near-crash after a hard evening’s work and half a night of travel. Maybe their disinclination to leave their hard-won beds wasn’t so strange, at that. While his mother went for the tablets, he took up the lamp and started nosing around for what he might discover. It didn’t take him two seconds to spot the length of thin wire thrown down beside the bed.

“That’s not just wire,” Frieda said when he held it up. “It’s a violin string. An A-string, I should say, but I’m no authority. Joe or Helen could tell you. Or Monsieur Houdon, I suppose, if you had nerve enough to ask him.”

“Oh, I’m a nervy sort of fellow,” Madoc assured her. “Are violin strings hard to get hold of?”

“Not particularly. Stores that sell musical instruments have them. Or you can send away for them, or borrow one in a pinch. String players always carry extras. One can break or go false on you and have to be replaced.”

“What happens to the broken ones? Can they be mended?”

“Oh no, that wouldn’t be worthwhile. They just get thrown away. Unless a person took a notion to twist them into flowerpot hangers or something. I must say I’ve never heard of anybody who did. Strings are no big deal, Mr. Rhys. I’ve bought them often enough myself, as a favor.”

Frieda Loye emitted an odd little snort of laughter. “I remember years and years ago, when I was still at the conservatory. I was waiting for a bus to go to the music store. I had a bunch of errands for some of the crowd and when the bus pulled in, this girl who’d stopped to talk with me yelled, ‘Don’t forget my G-string.’ Everybody looked at us as if we must be a couple of strippers or something. I was so embarrassed, I got off the bus before my stop. You do silly things when you’re young. And sometimes when you’re old enough to know better, too.”

She sounded awfully bitter. Madoc wondered what she’d done that was so foolish; however, it could hardly be germane to the matter at hand.

“You saw nothing of this intruder?”

“No, nothing at all. As Lucy says, we’d had an exhausting trip and I was glad to get to bed. I just wish I’d been able to sleep longer; I feel like a worn-out dishrag. Though naturally I’m glad I woke up in time to save Lucy’s life,” Frieda added in an almost laughably polite little-girl voice.

“It’s funny I didn’t see him go out, though,” she went on. “He must have been awfully quick. Maybe I did see him and just don’t remember. I could be in one of those fugue states Freud used to go on about. Do I mean Freud? I read something once he wrote about a boy who’d been scared by a rooster. Unless I’m thinking of somebody else. I’m not much of a reader, I have to admit. Except music, of course.”

“When you read music, do you wear glasses?”

“If you mean do I need glasses to see, why don’t you say so? I’m not particularly thin-skinned, you know. One can’t be, working with an orchestra. Yes, I need glasses and so does Lucy. We both wear contacts. What do you want to bet the reason everything looked blurry to her is that she just didn’t have her contacts in? Lucy’s eyes are much worse than mine,” Frieda added rather smugly.

“That’s right, Frieda.” Lucy spoke wearily, as if her throat was bothering her a good deal. “I’m so used to my contacts that I just didn’t remember having taken them out. I must be even more exhausted than I thought I was. First Wilhelm, then the plane, now this. I don’t know how much more I can take.”

“You don’t have to take anything, Lucy. Except this.” Lady Rhys was back with the tablets. “They’re quite mild, really. It’s just to help you get back to sleep. Madoc, pour her some more water. Frieda, don’t you think perhaps you ought to take one, too?”

“Here? In this room?”

“Now Frieda, you don’t honestly believe that chap would dare to come again in broad daylight? But I’ll sit right here with you if you’re nervous.”

The flautist appeared to find Lady Rhys’s offer more nervous-making than the prospect of a return visit from the strangler. “No, really, Lady Rhys, I couldn’t think of putting you to the trouble. I’ll be all right. I can always scream if anything happens. I’m good at that, you know.”

Frieda Loye managed a twitch of a smile. “But would you mind terribly explaining to Sir Emlyn that I wasn’t the one who screamed first this time? I know it’s silly, but—”

“Nonsense, dear. I know just how you feel, and I’ll certainly tell him. But you mustn’t worry, my son won’t let anything happen to either one of you.”

“Your son?” croaked Lucy. “What can he do?”

“Madoc can do whatever is necessary, I assure you.” Lady Rhys drew herself up to her most imposing stance, took a deep breath, and bit the bullet. “My son,” she announced in full, rich, pear-shaped tones, “is a policeman.”

A
FTER ONE INCREDULOUS SNICKER
apiece, Frieda and Lucy accepted Lady Rhys’s declaration. It was not possible that the conductor’s wife would have joked about a thing like this.

It had had to be done, of course, but Madoc rather wished his mother hadn’t chosen that particular moment to be noble. Now that his cover had been blown, there was no hope of sneaking back for another forty winks.

Madoc did, however, return to the room he’d been using, found Ed Naxton sound asleep, and decided to leave the poor chap to it. He thought it unlikely that either of the pilots could be involved in what was happening to the orchestra, though it was axiomatic that one never knew. He tucked in his shirttail, put on his waistcoat under his jacket, ran his pocket comb through his hair, cursed the lack of a toothbrush, and went on the prowl.

His parents were at the far end of the corridor, on the front of the building. Madoc didn’t bother going into their room. He could hear through the ill-fitting door his mother explaining in a portentous whisper what had happened, and his father replying calmly, “Don’t fret yourself, Sillie. Madoc will handle it.”

He smiled a little and touched his knuckles lightly to the door across from theirs.

He got no reply, only an agreeable rhythmic, rumbling noise. He pushed open the door—there were no such refinements as locks up here—and saw two beds, each with a rather handsome male head on a far from handsome striped pillow tick. One head was fair, one was dark. One was snoring tenor, the other bass; though Madoc could not be expected to know whether they were on pitch. It was a scene of perfect repose. Madoc surmised that men who sang opera and oratorio as often as Pitney and Kight did were accustomed to hearing loud soprano shrieks and could shut them out at will. He shut himself away from the two singers and moved on to the next room.

A light tap was answered by an “ungh.” Madoc opened it and stuck his head in. Joe Ragovsky was awake, though just barely. The man in the other bed either wasn’t or was pretending not to be. This must be David Gabriel, the oboist. No wonder Madoc hadn’t been able to remember what Gabriel looked like; he had the kind of face that was designed to be instantly forgotten, and was quite wasted on a woodwind. It would have made a pickpocket’s or a swindler’s fortune. He said, “Sorry, wrong room,” and closed the door again.

He tried the same tactic on the door across the hall, got no response, and opened it a crack, careful to lift up on the knob so the hinges wouldn’t squeak.

“Get out of here or I’ll yell the place down.”

The voice was Corliss Blair’s. The clarinetist was sitting bolt upright, clutching two handfuls of blanket around her. She had a headful of pink foam rollers; her pink flannel nightgown had a frill around the neck. It was a pity Lucy Shadd’s gown hadn’t one. Madoc stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

“Don’t bother, that’s already been tried and it hasn’t seemed to work. I’m sorry to barge in on you ladies, but my intentions are strictly honorable.”

“Shucks,” said Corliss, “I was afraid they might be. Sorry, Madoc, I thought you were one of the happiness boys. We’ve already had to throw Cedric Rintoul out of here once. What’s up besides you?”

“There’s been an unfortunate incident down the hall.”

“What sort of incident?”

“Somebody apparently tried to strangle Lucy Shadd with an A-string.”

“Should have used a G-string,” mumbled a voice from under the blankets in the other bed. Helene Dufresne emerged slowly from her cocoon. “Good God, is it daylight already? What time is breakfast?”

“Oh shush, Helene,” said Corliss. “Aren’t you the least bit curious about who tried to murder Lucy?”

“No, I’m curious about whose A-string they used. There was a D-string missing out of my cello case. I noticed it last night when I was packing my cello. You’re sure it’s not a D-string, Madoc? They’re rather hard to tell apart if you aren’t a string player yourself.”

“I’m not sure of anything. I thought at first it was just a piece of wire. Frieda Loye told me it was a violin A-string, but she didn’t have her contacts in. Maybe you wouldn’t mind giving me an expert opinion later on.”

“I’d be delighted. Is the string still around Lucy’s neck?”

“No, I found it on the floor under the bed. The assumption is that the assailant slipped the string around Lucy’s neck while she was still asleep, then crossed the ends over and pulled.”

“What a splendid idea. Cheap and easy. Only I gather it didn’t work. I’m surprised Lucy let the person get away instead of showing him how it ought to be done. She doesn’t usually stand for inefficiency. So that’s what all the howling was about just now? I thought it must be Frieda having another nightmare.”

“Frieda insists Lucy began screaming before she did, but Lucy claims it was Frieda’s screams that scared the intruder away. I suppose it’s possible Frieda did in fact have a nightmare at the opportune time and start yelling before she woke up. There’s a good deal of confusion as to the actual sequence of events. They both appear to have been sleeping very soundly when the room was entered.”

“You talk like a policeman,” said Corliss.

“That’s because I am a policeman.”

“You’re kidding. I thought you must be a folk singer.”

“No, I just need a haircut. In point of fact, I can’t tell one note from another.”

“That needn’t prevent you from being a folk singer.”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know. My tone-deafness is a greater affliction to my parents than it is to me, so perhaps you’d be kind enough for their sakes not to spread the word around. Anyway, my mother’s given me orders to find out who attacked Lucy Shadd and make him stop trying to kill people, so would you mind telling me whether you’ve been aware of any homicidal maniacs strolling around the hallway during the past half hour or so?”

“Not offhand, no,” said Helene. “But then we haven’t been watching. What do they look like?”

“Well, you see, that’s the problem. One can’t always tell. Quite seriously, ladies, have you heard any stealthy footsteps, anything of that sort?”

“Lord, yes, stealthy footsteps by the bucketful. People have been stealthing all over the place,” Corliss replied. “Mostly in Delicia Fawn’s direction, as usual.”

“Which is where?”

“Madoc, don’t try to tell us you haven’t dropped in on her yourself?”

“My mother wouldn’t let me. Come on, Corliss, left or right?”

“Right, then. You’re actually serious, aren’t you?”

“That’s the impression I’ve been endeavoring to convey.”

“You’re really and truly a policeman?”

Madoc fished in his pocket and found one of his cards for her.

“Detective Inspector, RCMP? My gosh, what are you here for?”

“To spend a little time with my parents; at least that was the idea when I came. I had to be in Wagstaffe on business, you see, and they thought it might be fun for me to join the company and snatch a free ride out to the festival. Now that we’ve run into a spot of trouble, my mother’s decided I may as well make myself useful. So I’ll welcome any cooperation you’re willing to give me.”

“You honestly believe somebody tried to murder Lucy Shadd just now?”

“There’s a nasty red mark around her throat that adds a certain credibility to the assumption. I shouldn’t advise your going to look at it just now, though. My mother’s given her something to quiet her down. Frieda Loye has also expressed hope of getting a little sleep, though I don’t know how well she’s going to succeed. She seems a nervy sort of lady.”