The Cin Fin-Lathen Mysteries 1-3 (25 page)

The men looked at each other and CSP Browning shrugged.

“Sure, go ahead.  I’m sorry we have put you through so
much,” Sergeant Moore said.

Mrs. Roberts walked over to the credenza behind the desk,
being very careful not to look at the stains on the wall.  She took out a key
and opened a cabinet.  Bending down she reached in and pulled out a very old
leather-covered box with brass appointments.  She walked over and gave me the
box.  I opened the box and inside was a beautiful rosewood clarinet.

“Thank you, Mrs. Roberts,” I said and held her eyes.

She smiled a sad little smile and bade the gentlemen a good
night and left.  She had performed her last requested duty and it was time to
go home.

I opened the case and was amazed by the quality of the
instrument.  On impulse I started to put the five pieces together.  I put the
two middle pieces together and added the bell, but when I turned it to put on
the barrel I spotted something inside the top section.  I took off both the
bell and the bottom section, and taking a pencil from the box on the desk I
pushed the pencil in and pushed out a rolled up piece of paper.

“Look,” I said in amazement as I unrolled the paper.  “It’s
a note from Maurice.  Handwritten this time.”  I reached into my purse and
found my reading glasses, vanity be damned, I put them on and read aloud:

Dear Ms. Fin-Lathen,

Please accept this token of my esteem.  I have
enjoyed this instrument for several years now.  Don’t let the greed and hatred
of us old men cast a pall on your love of music.  I know you will enjoy playing
this clarinet.  This gift comes with, how do you Americans put it?  Yes, a
catch.  This gift comes with a catch.  If I haven’t given this to you
personally please go to the file cabinet and extract the file “Tax Accountant
Referrals” and give it to the police.

Yours in music,

“Its signed, Maurice Sherborn.”  I put the clarinet back in
its case and got up.  “May I?”

They nodded and watched me as I went to the beautiful wood
four-drawer cabinet and pulled open the T thru Z drawer.  It was marked as he
said.  I pulled out a closed manila folder and shut the drawer.  I completed my
task by handing it to CSP Browning. I sat back down, picked up the clarinet
case, adjusted the sections, and closed it and put it on my lap.  I felt better
holding it.  My hands didn’t shake so much that way.

CSP Browning laid the contents of the file out on the small
conference table by the window.  He called out the contents and Detective Moore
wrote them down.

“Sealed letter to Angela Bathgate; sealed letter to Bentley
Hughes; sealed letter to the family of Donald G. Williams, US Airman; last will
and testament; and a journal with a letter attached.”  CSP Browning asked me to
read the letter as he had left his spectacles at home.  He gave the journal to
Sergeant Moore to leaf through.

To Officers of the Met and legal counsel,

I Maurice Sherborn have participated in crimes
against the musical world and against my friends.  In an interview this
evening, I gave false information.  I gave this information under duress, as my
brother Michael Sherborn was present.  I wish now to set the record straight.

I was the sole conspirator in the acquisition of
the manuscripts from the Bathgate files.  My hopes were to deliver them to the
composers or their families.  I sent a letter to each student in 1946.  Horace
Beaufort asked for his compositions, and I sent them to him.  Ivan
Bendonovich’s letter was returned as undeliverable.  Bentley Hughes was puzzled
as to why I had taken them from Bathgate.  He took the time to locate me and
council me on my action.  This brought about a good friendship that I value
today.

I never sent Donald William’s copy because he
had visited my brother and me in 1945.  He wanted to return his work to
Bathgate.  He felt it was Edward Bathgate’s, and he would request to have them
from him in person.  Michael offered to escort him there.  Michael returned,
Donald didn’t.  I did not suspect anything until I read about a body being
found in the bog behind the school.  I cannot tell you that my brother did kill
Donald, but I am comfortable casting suspicion on him.

My brother Michael Sherborn went missing during
the last months of the war.  My family hired an investigator to sift through
the mess of war records in order to locate his body and bring him home.  He was
found alive and living with a former student of Bathgate, Ivan Bendonovich.  In
those times homosexuality was thought of only as a bad behavior trait, a mental
condition.  Little was done to understand Michael's feelings.  He was an
embarrassment to the Sherborns.  My father journeyed there and forcefully
brought him home and put him under the care of a respectable psychiatric
hospital.

I had previously told Angela Bathgate of my
brother’s demise and felt that under the circumstances it would not be wise to
tell her otherwise.  I told my brother that she had been killed and went to the
pains of having a headstone erected.  I did this to protect the daughter of the
teacher I so loved.  Because of the misguided treatments at the hospital my
brother had become a cruelly perverse man.

To finance Michael's medical treatments, my
father instructed me to publish his work under my name.  Being of a weak nature
I did so.  Bentley Hughes had no knowledge that this was not my work.

I took Donald’s hymns and worked on them and
published them under my name.  I have invested the royalties and kept an
accounting of everything in the journal.  My intention was to notify his family
of the moneys after my death.  I leave it up to their discretion as to what
they want done with the small fortune that has amassed.

In 1960, Ivan Bendonovich escaped from the
Soviet Union and came here to London.  Since my parent’s death, Michael had
been released from the hospital and was earning a living as a gardener.  Ivan
and my brother lived together as lovers.  They needed money to pay for Ivan's
treatments and sex-change surgery.  I offered to buy his opera from him.  I
paid him a fair price, and with Bentley’s help I worked it into a fine piece of
music.

This last April I was visited by Horace
Beaufort.  He and I had worked together in the past to develop my jazz charts. 
He, Michael, Bentley and I had a small reunion to celebrate the announcement
that I was up for knighthood.  We ate, drank and shared our remembrances of
Bathgate.  Horace brought up the subject of Aaron Copland.  He talked about how
the centennial celebration of his life had filled the concert halls and
classical stations with his work.  The United States was quite proud of their
son.  There was an article that mentioned that there were a few of his early
works that were never published and were still unaccounted for.  Scholars
speculated at the high value of any of these manuscripts, if they still
existed.

Michael remembered seeing Aaron’s picture in the
first class of students at Bathgate.  He voiced the question, “What if we went
back and found an unpublished work of the master?”  Bentley laughed and
dismissed the idea.  I had a dreadful feeling that this talk could turn into
actual activity with Michael’s insistence.  I tried to squelch the conversation
by saying that if a manuscript was found, it belonged to Copland’s heirs and
the finder’s fee would be too small to bother with.

I had thought the idea dead and gone when Horace
returned to Montreal.  Early this year, Bentley had called me to relate a phone
conversation he had with Horace concerning the possibility of marketing a
Copland piece to private collectors.  Bentley was very upset at the very idea
of Horace blackening his doorstep with such a proposition. 

It was his integrity that forced me to think
long and hard about my life and the improprieties of my musical career.  If I
had not let myself be bullied and had left my vanity to my clothing and not my
professional life, I would have felt worthy of the Queen’s sword.  But I had
not.  It was at that very moment that I decided to turn down the knighthood
without an explanation to Bentley.

Michael seemed happy with his gardening
position, and I could support both of us so I relaxed until last evening.  My
brother is still involved with Ivan Bendonovich who is now known as Ivana
Penny.  I fear for the safety of Angela Bathgate and anyone that has any
knowledge of the contents of Bathgate.  I fear that Michael’s hatred of Bentley
for not going in on the Copland treasure hunt has twisted his mind.  I think
that he will stop at nothing to hurt Bentley and scandal will be his weapon. 
Horace was probably killed to reduce the shares in the profit of Copland’s
music, if it does exist.

As to Ms. Fin-Lathen’s question “Why now?” 
Horace was the catalyst.  I tried to buy Bathgate with all its contents so I
could control what happened to the music, to keep it away from my brother. 
Michael found out about it and joined forces with Ivana to clear the playing
field.  In my trying too late to have scruples, I have turned my brother
against me.  His hatred was plain.  I am writing this in fear that I will not
be able to express my thoughts in person to the authorities.

The journal has all the secret entries of money
and thoughts that I dared not share with anyone.  I leave you with a verse of
Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s “Ode.”

We are the music-makers,

  And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

  And sitting by desolate streams;

World-losers and world-forsakers,

  On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

  Of the world for ever, it seems.

May God have mercy on my soul,

Maurice Sherborn.

“It’s dated and signed.”  I got up and handed the letter to
Detective Moore.

“Where are they now?” he asked the room.

“They’re headed for Bathgate.  Michael thinks Angie knows
the location of the manuscript,” I offered.

“Does she?”

“Well, I do.  I just now figured it out.  And Angie is at
least as smart as I am.  After she finds out what Michael and Ivana want, she
will no doubt figure it out as I have.”  I looked at CSP Browning.

“You want to go there now, don’t you?”

I nodded my head.

“They have a head start.  If they have taken to the roads we
stand a chance going by air.  I will arrange the flights.  You’re putting
yourself in extreme danger.  Bruno isn’t a factor, but two incensed people can
be worse than any hit man.  Unpredictable, violent ... I see that I’m not going
to be able to convince you.  Come along.”

I picked up my phone and pushed number one.  Peter answered,
and I told him that I was going to Bathgate.  I had a date with Aaron Copland.

From car to plane to helicopter I crossed the morning sky
heading westward.  I caught myself reaching for the Kernow Daa forgetting that
I had given it to Noelle.  My old and new possessions were in the care of
others: my home, Alex had laid claim; my car I was sure was seeing most of
south Florida with him; and the rosewood clarinet I asked Detective Moore to
hold for me.

These were just things.  The loss of things was nothing
compared to the loss of friends and family.  I thought about Father Michael’s
aunt Diane.  She lost her brother so many years ago, and now she may have also
lost her nephew.  Blame.  I could place it on either the priest or myself.  We
were both so sure that we needed to know answers to questions that have kept
for over a half-century.  We rushed in, and one of us got hurt and then had
gone missing.  I spent some time crying inwardly for the waste of it all.

We left the helicopter and got into the police car that was
waiting for us.  I sat in the back looking at the landscape not quite seeing
it.

I tried to focus my thoughts to brighter things.  I thought
about music.  I love music.  I love performing it.  I love hearing it
performed.  Music was one of the first joys God gave us humans.  We used it for
his glory.  We marched into battle with it.  We cooed our children with it. 
But now it was the commodity that brought forth an old evil, greed.

The landscape started to look familiar, and I prayed
silently that we would be in time.  Not to save Copland’s music but to save the
innocent humans in the way of Michael and Ivana’s acquisition.

We approached Bathgate in silence.  Constable Cayne had been
kept out of the loop until now.  He followed us with four other officers. 
Their job was to secure Bathgate.  My job was to secure the Copland
manuscript.  If it were out of the picture than maybe, just maybe Michael would
see the impossibility of the quest and let Angie go.  Father Michael was
unaccounted for.  He may also be a captive, or dead.

We pulled into the driveway and my eyes took in the scene. 
“The barn door is open, but we left it closed.  They’re already here,” I said. 

He got on his radio and notified the others.  The three
officers from the Met left the car and began a search of the immediate area. 
One of them had seen activity at the music school and radioed back.  I was
instructed to stay put, so I waited until Browning had left before getting out
and cautiously approaching the house.  Before I reached the side door the
ginger cat blocked my way.  I’m one of those few that believe that the
intelligence of animals is underrated.  I stopped and followed the cat back around
the front of the house.

It went up the tree, and so did I.  I followed it out onto a
thick branch that worked its way alongside the northwest side of the house.  I
saw Angie had left a window open probably for the purpose of letting the cat in
and out.  I leaned over and looked through the window.  Angie lay still,
battered and bleeding on the floor of her room.  I reached over and carefully
eased the window open.  I didn’t look down at the two-foot gap between the
house and me. I just grabbed a hold of the window frame and moved.  I was in. 
The ginger cat waited until I moved from the sill and gracefully followed me.

I went immediately to Angie.  Her arms were tied to one of
the posts of her bed.  My knife made quick work of the ropes.  She opened her
eyes. 

“Cin,” she started.

I put my finger to her lips.  “Don’t.  The cavalry isn’t in
place yet,” I whispered.

“Michael and that woman are at the school tearing it apart.”

“Is there anyone in the house?”

“I don’t know.  Michael and Ivana brought three men with
them.”

“Is Father Michael with you?”

“No, why?”

“Never mind that.  I have to get you to safety and me up to
the attic before all hell breaks loose.”

“You figured it out.  I didn’t until the awful ride here in
the trunk.  Cin, I don’t have enough energy to walk.  Help me over to that
painted cupboard.  There’s a false back.  Put me in there and leave the window
wide open.  It will look like I went out the window if they return.”

I secured Angie and eased the door open and gently shut it
after me.  I made my way to the stairway.  I walked on the side edges of the
treads hoping to be as silent as possible.  I was in a full sweat by the time I
reached the dorm room.  It was a disaster.  All the mattresses were flipped
over.  The room looked as if it had been turned more in rage than in a careful
search.  I moved cautiously through the debris to the attic stairs.  Even in
early morning the stairs were pitch black.  I had my hand on the light switch
when I heard movement above.

A sane woman would have gotten the hell out of there.  I
didn’t; I crawled up the stairs.  I still didn’t know where Father Michael
was.  I needed to find him.  I owed him that.  I peered around the corner of
the landing.  Michael had his back to me.  He was pulling open box after box,
dumping the contents on the floor.  There was so much broken glass lying on the
attic floor that it had looked like it had snowed diamonds.  The sound of
gunfire outside took Michael from the boxes and over to the window.  I eased
back down the stairs and to my dismay heard a pounding of feet and a very
hoarse, accented woman’s voice in the dormitory.

“The police are here and shooting at Serge and the others.  That
cow Angie has escaped out the window.”

I was caught between the two on the stairs.  Before I could
make any move the light on the stairs went on, and I stared fully into the
surprised face of Ivana Penny.  For her age and male origins she was a very
beautiful woman, very tall and thin.

“What do we have here?  Michael, we have a visitor.”

The rough hands that pulled me up the stairs from behind by
my neck answered her in a grunt.  He pulled me up and pinned me against the
wall.

“Ms. Fin-Lathen.  My savior.  My pain in the arse.  Ivana,
there is a wicked knife in her left boot.  Grab that for me.”

Ivana removed my knife and started searching my pockets.

“Never mind that.  We have very little time.  Hold the knife
on her.”

Ivana opened the knife and admired it for a moment before
cutting my laces and stabbing it once through my shoe and into my foot. 
Reeling from the pain I bent over instinctively to stop the abuse.  I reached
for the knife but my hand was slapped away.  Michael pulled me upward with such
force that I saw stars.  Ivana then held the knife at my throat while Michael
tied my hands over my head and secured them to the bare iron curtain rod at the
attic window.

“Why have you come up here my little dove?”  She cocked her
head.  “You know where the Copland is, don’t you?  Did you come to take it for
yourself?  No.  You are too scrupulous.  Too bad, we may have made a deal,
instead you die.  But not now, now I cut you till you tell us where it is.” 
Ivana took my knife and sliced a thin line into my neck.  “This is where you
marked my nephew, yes?”

I blocked out the pain and angled my head backward.  In
doing so the fingers of my right hand could just touch the hilt of the
stiletto.  She raised my sweater and cut slowly into my fleshy stomach.  I
cried out, and as I did I moved until I had a firm grasp of the blade.

“It’s in the cedar closet.  I gasped as she started to slice
deeper.” 

Michael opened Angie’s closet and had started to rip out the
clothing.  Ivana turned and watched him in glee.  Meanwhile I sawed through my
ropes freeing my arms.  I was easing myself away when I caught my arm on a nail
on the wall.  The pain opened my hand and the knife clanged to the floor. 
Ivana stooped down to pick it up.  I balled both my fists, and as she bent over
I punched down on her back sending her towards the ground.  She didn’t scream. 
She just fell ladylike to the floor, the recovered stiletto she had in her hand
sliced through her Adam’s apple.  She started to twitch, but I didn’t stay
around to watch.  I ran out of the room.  Michael caught me at the stairs and
pushed hard.  I flew down the narrow flight without tumbling.  I hit the wall
hard and fell forward into the dorm room.

“You Bitch!  You bloody cow!”  He charged down the stairs
and grabbed my shoulders and began to beat my head into the floor.  Pain was
the only thing that kept me conscious.  I twisted my body, and he lost some
balance.  I managed to tip him off me, but he was too fast and soon was sitting
on my legs.

“You die now!”  He clenched both hands together and brought
them over his head.  I waited for him to bring them down and crush my skull,
but he didn’t have a chance.  Someone shouted and a body flew into his and
knocked him off of me. I rolled to my knees, and by using the wall I managed to
stand.

Father Michael and his namesake were struggling on the
floor.  They struggled for dominance.  The younger man had youth but the elder
had hate.  Hate made him strong enough to get the upper hand.  He was on top
looking down at the priest.  He then smiled and drove his fist into Father
Michael’s bad shoulder.  He screamed in pain.  Michael repeatedly hit him
there.  I couldn’t stand the sight or the sound of the priest screaming, and
Michael’s maniacal laughter was the last straw.  I reached in my bra and drew
out both little knives.  I staggered over and stabbed both into each of Michael’s
arm pits.  I picked him up like a bale of hay off of the Father and dropped him
to the floor.

Michael struggled to his knees glaring up at me.  Smiling he
reached to pull the knives out.

“I wouldn’t do that,” I warned him.

He didn’t listen.  Michael got to his feet and pulled them
out. I watched as his vital fluid poured down his ribcage hitting the floor
like a matinee curtain where it spread out like a red velvet cape.  He stared
down at it, not making the connection that it was his blood.  When he did it
was too late, his body fell lifeless to the floor.

Father Michael groaned, and I walked over to him.

“Where the hell did you come from?” I said as I knelt down
and tenderly inspected his shoulder.

“You really shouldn’t swear like that, especially in front
of a priest.”  He winced at my probing.

“Hold still, you’re bleeding again, and all that good
Catholic blood is running out.  They’ll have to pump more of that good old
Church of England fluid into you.  How will you ever get through Mass?”

I heard shouts and the pounding of feet.  Two officers slid
through the stairway door rifles first, rolled and got to their feet,
positioning themselves ready to blow our heads off.

“That was so cool,” I said to Michael.  “Did you see that?”

“Cin, quit acting like a tourist, you’re embarrassing me.”

~

“Five pairs of shoes,” I said as the emergency technician
eased off my shoe.  My shoes were soaked through with my and Michael’s blood. 
I was gauzed, taped and bound.  My nose was broken, my neck, right foot and stomach
cut.  My foot throbbed, and I had to go to the bathroom.  I hobbled to my feet,
hopped over to the small bathroom and took care of the calling.  After I was
finished I leaned against the wall and watched while they brought Ivana down
from the attic.  I guess I shouldn’t feel bad that she died instantly.  I
didn’t mean to kill her.  I just didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

No one was watching so I climbed the stairs, which I managed
by hopping and pulling myself up by the rail.  I skirted around the glass by
hugging the outer wall.  I made it to the cedar closet and pulled open the
doors.  I sat down before it and leaned in blocking the considerable pain from
my stomach and ribs.  I pulled out the canvas bag.  It was very difficult in my
present condition, and by the time I managed it I was quite woozy.

“Ms. Fin-Lathen!” I heard CSP Browning call my name.  “What
do you mean she just disappeared?  She has multiple stab wounds, a broken nose
and quite possibly broken ribs.  How could you lose her?”

“Up here!” I yelled.  I was feeling a bit foolish sitting
there holding the prize.  I hadn’t opened it yet.  I wouldn’t open it until
Angie was able to see.

“There you are.  I refuse to ask how you got back up here.”
He looked at me and smiled.  “That it?”

“Maybe.  I don’t want to open it.  It isn’t mine.  But I
don’t want it left here either.”

“I see your point.”  He pulled up a box and sat down beside
me.  He inspected my face, turning it side to side.  “You’re not going to be
looking yourself for a while.  Did you lose any teeth?”

I felt around with my tongue. “No.  How is Angie?

“Compound fracture of the shoulder.  Three broken fingers
and rope burns on her wrists.  She’s sedated and on her way to the Royal
Cornwall Hospital.”

“Father Michael?”

“His shoulder wound has been reopened.  Sherborn mashed it
pretty good.  He’s next in line for the airlift.”

“Did he tell you how he got here?  Or how he left the
hospital?”

“No, didn’t occur to me to ask.”

I opened my eyes real wide.  He smiled.