The Devil in Music (29 page)

"Hugo!"
a young male voice shouted. "Hugo, where are you?"

"Over
here, Beverley!" called Fletcher resignedly.

The
Honourable Beverley St. Carr erupted around a bend in the stream,
hat in hand, his light-brown hair in a tangle. He was in his early
twenties, all coltish legs and wide blue eyes. His coat was a parody
of the latest fashion, with sleeves absurdly padded at the shoulders
and half covering the hands. Coat, hat, and trousers were spattered
with water and mud.

"Good
Lord!" said Fletcher. "What have you done now?"

"I
haven't done anything! I was walking by the stream, and some girls
came along with baskets of linen to wash, and I went behind some
bushes so as not to be in their way, you understand but they saw me
and set up the deuce of a hue and cry."

"That's
odd," said Fletcher.

"Not
really," Julian murmured. "The women here do their washing
with their skirts kilted up above their knees."

"Oh,
Beverley." Fletcher shook his head reproachfully.

"Well,
I didn't ask them to show me their legs, did I?" St.
Canretorted in an injured tone. "If they go about like that in
public, they can't expect a fellow to close his eyes."

"They
didn't know they were in public," said Fletcher. "No
wonder they cut up rough when they found you skulking there."

"I
wasn't skulking! I was only well, it doesn't signify what I was
doing. Hugo, they threw stones at me! They ran after me and
splashed me with water and shouted at me, and I don't know what they
were saying, but it sounded like the most frightful abuse. And then
my hat fell off, and I trod on it, and they just stood there with
hands on hips and laughed at me." He glared at Fletcher. "This
would never have happened in England!"

"In
England, you'd have had better manners."

"No,
I wouldn't! I mean I don't think I did anything ill-mannered. I was
only taking a stroll." He kicked a pebble disconsolately.
"What else is there to do in this poky place? We might as well
be in Hampshire!"

Julian
glanced around at the stream threading its way through wooded cliffs
and dropping in a crystal cascade to the lake. "Hampshire must
have attractions I've missed."

"This
is all very well if you like scenery," said St. Carr. "When
I came to the Continent, I thought I was going to do things."

"You
have done things," said Fletcher. "That's just the
problem. Should you like to be introduced to this gentleman, or
should you rather go on talking at him as if he were a lackey?"

For
the first time, St. Carr looked a little ashamed of himself. "I
beg your pardon, sir," he said to Julian. "I didn't mean
to be rude. It's just that I was a little rattled, on account of
being set upon like that."

"Shall
we begin over?" Julian suggested. "Your servant, sir.
Julian Kestrel."

He
held out his hand, but St. Carr only gaped at him. "Oh, I say!
How how simply Hugo, why didn't you tell me who this gentleman was?"

"I
wanted to," said Fletcher, "but somebody would go on
talking."

St.
Carr looked in dismay at his ruined clothes. "I'm not usually
all of a muck like this, Mr. Kestrel. Those women "

"I
quite understand, Mr. St. Carr. Any gentleman may meet with a
mishap."

"That
is good of you!" St. Carr brightened. "You ought to see
me when I'm got up properly. I cut quite a figure."

"I
can imagine," said Julian, who could all too well.

St.
Carr cast a triumphant look at his tutor. Then he peered more
closely at Fletcher's trousers. "You're all of a muck yourself,
Hugo! What have you been about?"

"I
was trying to catch a lizard."

St.
Carr rolled his eyes. "You're not taking that up again? Hang
it, Hugo, you've been at Oxford! Thanks to my father, you're very
nearly a gentleman. I should think you could find something better
to do than cutting up lizards and collecting leaves." He
appealed to Julian. "You've no idea how ghoulish his dissection
is, Mr. Kestrel. At home after shoots, he used to take a bird or
rabbit to his room and cut it open and study it. I caught him at it
once bent over the corpse of his dismembered victim, and up to his
elbows in blood!"

"You've
been reading Monk Lewis again," sighed Fletcher. "Tonight
you'll be jumping out of your skin whenever a floorboard creaks, and
getting up every hour to renew the priming of your pistols."

Julian
thought these two had been spending far too much time together.
"Should you care for a little society? I should be delighted to
procure you an introduction to Marchesa Malvezzi."

St.
Carr's eyes lit up. He started to speak, but Fletcher cut him off.
"That's very good of you, Mr. Kestrel, but we don't want to
intrude on a private party."

"I
don't doubt the marchesa will be delighted to meet you." He
cocked an eyebrow at Fletcher. "Can you sing?"

Fletcher
looked blank for a moment. Then he laughed. "Not with out
creating a public nuisance. Why? Are you getting up a concert?"

"No,"
said Julian, "actually, I'm investigating a murder."

St.
Carr's jaw dropped. "A murder? Oh, but of course, you've
solved several murders, haven't you? I read all about it in Bell's
Life in London. Who's been killed? How was he killed? When did it
happen?"

"It's
Marchese Malvezzi's murder, I suppose," said Fletcher slowly.
"We heard a little about it in Milan. It was years ago, wasn't
it?"

"Four
and a half years," said Julian. "But it's only recently
come to light."

"Four
and a half years?" said St. Carr, disappointed. "Then
the killer will have made himself scarce long since."

"Not
necessarily, Mr. St. Carr. Sometimes the safest hiding place is in
plain sight."

"Do
you mean somewhere close by?" St. Carr shot a thrilled, uneasy
glance around him.

"Mr.
Fletcher has already searched the holly," Julian advised.

"A
murderer in the neighbourhood!" Fletcher shook his head in
comical dismay. "And to think I brought Beverley here to keep
him out of trouble!"

Julian
told the marchesa about Fletcher and St. Carr, and she promptly sent
them an invitation for coffee tomorrow evening. She remarked that,
at the rate things were progressing, the English would soon outnumber
the Italians at the villa. But, touching on the subject that
evening, she seemed pensive. She and Julian had the music room to
themselves, a balmy night having tempted the others to remain
outdoors.

"Don't
you think it curious that two young Englishmen should turn up almost
on our doorstep?" she asked.

"Not
necessarily. Don't a good many foreigners visit the Lake of Como?"

She
sighed. "I suppose it would be too much to expect Orfeo to walk
into our waiting arms."

"I
don't think anyone expects him to do that, except perhaps de la
Marque."

"That's
odd, isn't it?" she mused. "Why do you think he's so
confident Orfeo will be found?"

Julian
shrugged. "Monsieur de la Marque's conversation is three parts
mockery to one part mystification. One can't infer anything of what
he thinks from what he says."

"You
don't like him," she remarked.

"I
might like him more, Marchesa, if you liked him less."

She
smiled. "But I only invited him for your sake, because you said
you wanted to improve your acquaintance with him." She touched
his arm lightly. "Come, will you play something for me?"

She
went to the piano and took a sheaf of music from a rack underneath
it. "Here." She drew out Beethoven's Appassionato sonata.

"Lodovico
admired this piece, though as a rule he didn't like German music. If
you'd care to play it, I'll turn the pages for you."

He
sat down at the piano. She stood beside him, bending close from time
to time to turn a page. This disrupted his concentration but greatly
increased the ardour of his playing. When he finished, the marchesa
clapped her hands. "Bravissimo!"

Julian
bowed. She reached out to remove the sonata from the music stand
then bent to look at it more closely. "How strange. Look."

She
pointed to the bottom of the page, where the ruled lines of the staff
extended a little way beyond the final notes. The same pair of
eighth notes had been scribbled there three times with a blue pen: F
and B. "That's Lodovico's writing," she said.

"Are
you certain?"

"Yes.
I often saw him take down snatches of new pieces."

Julian
frowned at the notes. At length he asked, "Did Ernesto tell you
he thought Marchese Lodovico was composing a piece of music before he
died?"

"Yes.
I remember I was a little surprised that it was never found. But in
all the shock of Lodovico's death, I didn't give it much thought."

"He
also said Marchese Lodovico had taken to jotting down musical notes
on any paper that came to hand. These could be some of those
jottings." He glanced at the rack of music under the piano.
"Was all this Lodovico's?"

"Yes.
Do you mean that we might find more jottings?"

"We
ought to look," he said.

They
sat side by side on the piano bench, each leafing through a pile of
music. At last Julian said, "I've found something."

The
marchesa leaned toward him to look, her soft dark hair brushing his
cheek. "C F-sharp," she read. "The same two notes,
three no, four places on the page, wherever there's space left in the
staff. It's definitely Lodovico's writing. What is the piece?"

"In
vain I call for sweet forgetfulness of my sorrows, from Rossini's
Mohammed II." He turned to the title page. "First
performed in December 1820. So Marchese Lodovico must have jotted
down these notes between December of 1820 and his death in March of
1821."

"Exactly
the period when he knew Orfeo," the marchesa said quietly.

They
looked through the rest of the music, but found no more

jottings.
"Why should he have written the same two notes over and over on
one page?" the marchesa wondered.

"Perhaps
he was struggling with a difficult passage in his composition, and
those notes were part of it."

She
smiled reminiscently. "He did have a habit of absently writing
down things that were on his mind. I once found out the name of his
latest mistress, because he'd scribbled it on a bit of wrapping paper
from Ricordi's."

"Did
you have a row?"

"Heavens,
I never quarrelled with Lodovico about his mistresses. He was very
vigorous he would naturally have them. I twitted him about them
sometimes. He took it in good part."

She
unfurled her fan and waved it lightly back and forth. "Talking
of names, I like yours better in Italian: Giuliano. I should like to
call you that sometimes, when we're alone."

"I
beg you won't do it too often not more than once or twice of an
evening."

"Why
is that?"

"Because
of the effect it has on me. People will think I've broken into the
wine cellar."

She
laughed. "Tell me something, Signor Kestrel "

"Giuliano?"
he suggested.

"For
a man so wary of being intoxicated," she teased, "you seem
very eager to uncork the bottle. Very well, Giuliano solve me this
riddle. You flirt like a Frenchman, reason like a German, and
understand music like an Italian. How is it that in spite of all
that, you're so thoroughly English?"

"National
character is hard to eradicate. I lived on the Continent for some
years and acquired a veneer, as oak tables dress themselves up as
tulip-wood or tortoiseshell. But the underlying material remains the
same."

"You
remind me more of my mahogany night-table. It's exactly the same
colour as your hair. And it has beautiful legs."