A Chorus of Detectives Read online

  “Yes, I’m sure. Let me ask your opinion of something. Do you think this new tenor—ah, Gigli, that’s his name—do you think he’s been sufficiently aggravated by the chorus to want to hit back?”

  Both Emmy and Gatti-Casazza pooh-poohed the idea.

  “Or Rosa Ponselle? What about her?”

  “Of course not,” Gatti huffed. “That is ridiculous suggestion.”

  O’Halloran noticed that Emmy had said nothing. “Is Miss Ponselle here today? No? Well, I’ll talk to her some other time. Could you tell me—”

  He was interrupted by a man Gatti introduced as his assistant. “Mr. Gatti, I think we’re in for some trouble,” Edward Ziegler said as soon as the amenities were over. “A spokesman for the chorus asked me to meet him here after rehearsal.”

  “They want something,” Gatti said heavily.

  “Probably more money,” Ziegler nodded. “I had feared a mass resignation, but I thought we had that taken care of.”

  “They could still resign,” Emmy said.

  “They undoubtedly will, if this madman isn’t found and stopped.” He peered over his pince-nez at O’Halloran. “Any chance of that, Captain?”

  “Of course there’s a chance. We’ll get him, Mr. Ziegler, don’t you worry.”

  Ziegler said hm, excused himself, and hurried away. Gatti sighed and said, “Negotiating with the chorus—that is supposed to be only one of his duties. But now the chorus is taking up all his time.”

  A new uproar broke out on the stage. Geraldine Farrar came storming off with fire in her eye and headed for the stairs that led down to the auditorium. “I’ll kill him!” she screamed. “God help me, I’ll kill him!”

  Running after her were Pasquale Amato and Antonio Scotti, both of them looking anxious. “Gerry, carissima,” Scotti cried, “he does not mean what he says! He has big mouth, that one, but he does not mean it!”

  “Who does he think he is, talking to me that way? I’m going to take his head right off his shoulders, I swear!”

  “Wait, Gerry, do nothing rash,” Amato pleaded. “I remember you threaten to kill Toscanini on more than one occasion. Wait five minutes—take time to calm yourself.”

  “Toscanini always had a reason,” Gerry snapped, “every time he yelled at me or interrupted me or got sarcastic. I may not have agreed with his reason, but he always did have one. That idiot out there on the podium—he stops me just to show he can. To prove his authority.” She snorted. “That man is so insecure he’s pathetic.”

  “So be kind, gioia mia,” Scotti urged. “Leave his head upon his shoulders. He needs it.”

  She shot him a startled glance and laughed shortly. “He needs a new one.”

  Amato smiled; the crisis had passed. “Finish the rehearsal, Gerry, and I speak with Quaglia afterward.”

  “No, that is my job,” Gatti-Casazza said, walking over to join them. “Quaglia exceeds his authority, but I talk to him. You sing, I talk.”

  “I’m not going to put up with this kind of harassment, Gatti.”

  “I understand. But do not walk out. I talk to him as soon as rehearsal finishes.”

  “If it happens again, I’m going to demand Quaglia’s dismissal. I’m not joking.”

  Gatti blanched. “We do not talk of that now. Let me reason with him first.”

  The soprano reluctantly agreed, took a deep breath, charged back out on the stage, and yelled at Quaglia that she was ready.

  Captain O’Halloran had watched the scene with interest, thinking he’d have to catch the outraged soprano the minute she left the stage. Angry people often gave things away that they otherwise kept well hidden. “Is she right?” he asked Emmy Destinn. “Was he just testing his authority?”

  She gave him a sad little smile. “It is likely. Sometimes it seems to me that Quaglia is symptomatic of everything that is wrong in this house. I mean artistically. Quaglia’s problem is that he succeeded Arturo Toscanini. Quaglia is a good, competent conductor—but Toscanini is a genius. So when Quaglia imitates Toscanini’s behavior—the temper tantrums, the sarcasm—he simply calls attention to how far short of his predecessor he falls.”

  “And you say he’s symptomatic of the Met? How?”

  She made a vague gesture with her hands. “Take the chorus. It has degenerated from what it was before the war, but the choristers are acting as if they are stars. They demand more and more. And these attacks have certainly put them in the spotlight. They are receiving too much attention, both the good kind and the bad kind. But the malaise goes farther than that. Some of the principal singers—well, let us just say it’s getting harder for them to give the great performances they used to give as a matter of routine. Unfortunately, this house is living on the memory of greatness.”

  O’Halloran was shocked. He’d always had a mental picture of the Metropolitan Opera as something grand and solid and eternal, unchanged by the changing world around it. He didn’t like Emmy’s gloomy version of the way things were; he wanted her to be wrong.

  Gatti-Casazza rejoined them, pulling nervously at his beard. “Cielo m’aiuti! Gerry wants me to dismiss Quaglia, Quaglia wants me to dismiss Setti, Setti wants to dismiss the entire chorus! Sono perduto!”

  “Setti?” O’Halloran asked. “Who’s he?”

  “Our chorus master. He is with Metropolitan as long as I am. But he grows old …,” Gatti trailed off, shaking his head.

  “Don’t we all,” O’Halloran murmured and turned to Emmy. “Miss Destinn, when I got here you’d just been talking to some of the chorus singers. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go around asking questions.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “A series of murders has been committed—and you expect us not to talk about it?”

  “I can’t stop you from talking, I know that. But the less said the better—and I’ll tell you why. Every time a story is repeated, it changes a little. Some detail is altered, or a new one is added, or something is left out. I’ve still got to talk to the chorus singers myself, so I’d like you not to encourage them to gossip.”

  “Gossip! You call wondering how poison got into a pitcher of orange juice gossip?”

  “Now, Miss Destinn, try to see my side of it—”

  “Destinnova,” she said haughtily. “Ema Destinnova.” She turned on her heel and flounced away.

  O’Halloran blinked. “What did she say?”

  Gatti smiled. “Her new name. Emmy is very patriotic lady, Captain. When Czechoslovakia gains its independence, she changes her name to Ema Destinnova. We put the new name on the programs and sometimes the newspapers remember to use it—but to her friends she is still Emmy.”

  O’Halloran got the point; she didn’t consider him a friend. “Well, whatever her name is, she just now told me something a bit disheartening.” He repeated what Emmy had said about the Met’s living on the memory of greatness. “Is it true? Have some of your people lost … er, well, you know what I mean.”

  Gatti tugged at his beard so hard O’Halloran was afraid he’d pull it out. “Emmy exaggerates,” the general manager said reluctantly, “but there is some truth in what she says. Gerry sings beautifully today—she can still sing an exquisite Marguérite. But not at every performance, you understand? And Caruso’s voice, it darkens more every year. Some say now he sounds more like baritone than tenor.” Gatti bit his lip. “Baritone. Pasquale Amato at one time has the most beautiful baritone I hear in all my years in opera.”

  O’Halloran was surprised. “More beautiful than Scotti’s?”

  “Oh, yes. But the richness is gone from Amato’s voice now. Scotti will last longer.”

  “So what Emmy Destinn said was true.”

  “No completamente. We are in period of transition, Captain. We have the great older singers reaching end of careers at same time we have new singers coming in to replace them. Ponselle, Gigli, next year Maria Jeritza.” Gatti looked hopefully at O’Halloran, but the captain had never heard of her. “For me, it is time of both great excitement and great pain—
eh, I do not make myself clear. Transitions are hard.”

  “You make yourself very clear,” O’Halloran said. “I understand. Do you think—”

  He was cut off by the sound of a woman’s scream. “Gerry,” Gatti muttered and shambled away, in no great hurry to find out what disaster had interrupted rehearsal this time. O’Halloran followed him to the side of the stage where Scotti and Amato stood watching.

  Amato glanced at him, did a double take, and then said, “Lieutenant? Is that you? I do not recognize you without your derby hat! Come sta?”

  O’Halloran took off the Stetson he was still wearing. “My wife bought me this one,” he smiled, shaking hands. “And it’s Captain now, Mr. Amato, not Lieutenant.” Scotti didn’t remember him and had to have his memory refreshed.

  A war of words was being waged between center stage and the podium. “Pazienza, Gerry!” Scotti called softly.

  “What is it this time?” Gatti asked mournfully.

  “The same as before,” Scotti said. “Interruptions, insults, sarcasm. Gerry tries to be nice to Quaglia, she truly does try.” Amato nodded agreement. “But now,” Scotti went on, “now I think she runs out of niceness.”

  “American singers!” Quaglia was screaming at the stage. “You are all lazy! You do not work!”

  “Not work!” Gerry screamed back in outrage. “I’ve been working my … vocal cords off up here, and you call me lazy? Who do you think you are?”

  “You do not try! You stand there and squawk like chicken and call it singing! Do you forget how to sing?”

  A deathly silence fell.

  Gerry walked slowly to the edge of the stage, placed her hands on her hips, and glared down at the man on the podium. “If you insult me one more time,” she informed Quaglia evenly, “I’m going to come down there and ram that baton down your throat.” She paused. “Imitating Toscanini’s temper tantrums won’t give you his talent, you know. So watch out … Maestro.” She pronounced the last word with just enough sarcasm to make it clear that Quaglia was in no way master there.

  The conductor waited until she’d resumed her place upstage and then said to the violin section, in a voice just loud enough to be heard, “Eh, well—only a little longer. Next year Jeritza is here!”

  “That does it!” Gerry shouted. “That really does it! Quaglia—I warned you!”

  Quaglia stared at the baton she’d threatened to ram down his throat, tried to exchange looks with a few of the orchestra members (all of whom steadfastly refused to meet his eye)—and decided to run for his life. He sacrificed dignity to haste in his self-preserving flight up the auditorium aisle; the orchestra decided that meant rehearsal was over and started getting up to leave.

  Backstage, Amato was laughing and holding out his arms to block the enraged soprano’s rush toward the stairs. “You are too late, Gerry—he has made his escape!”

  “The coward!” she fumed. “Wait until I get my hands on him!” Scotti and Gatti-Casazza were both making soothing sounds that were having little noticeable effect. “Gatti, that man must go!”

  “We make no decisions now,” he said firmly, “not in heat of anger.”

  “Who’s angry?” she raged. “I have thought it over coolly and calmly and I have decided Quaglia must go!”

  All the sound and fury gradually began to wane, but Captain O’Halloran hesitated. Talking to Geraldine Farrar while she was just everyday angry was one thing, but when she was coming off a monumental rage like this one … maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. But he did need to ask her some questions. He went up behind her and cleared his throat, not even sure she would remember him.

  The soprano turned and looked him straight in the eye. “O’Halloran!” she exclaimed. “It’s about time you got here! Where have you been?”

  The captain’s mouth fell open. “Well, I—”

  “Never mind that now. I have some questions I want to ask you—we all want to ask you. But not here … I’ve got to get out of this place before I lose my mind! We’ll find some quiet place where we can talk—come along!”

  O’Halloran smiled, and with a show of meekness fell in with Scotti and Amato in following her off the stage. Gatti hesitated, wondering whether Edward Ziegler might not need his help in dealing with the chorus’s latest demand. Then he decided his assistant could do the job perfectly well without any interference from him and hurried after the others.

  As it turned out, Ziegler was just then wishing he had some help. The chorus and their various guards were crowded together on the Fortieth Street side of the stage, and their spokesman was presenting their new demand. He was a well-spoken American in his mid-thirties, chosen to speak because the chorus wanted no risk of misunderstanding.

  “We want the Metropolitan to take out life insurance policies on each of us in the amount of fifty thousand dollars,” the spokesman said. “And we want a double indemnity clause. That’s essential.”

  “Insurance … on all of you?” Ziegler gasped, visions of a collapsing budget throbbing in his head. “Do you have any conception of what you’re asking? Why, the cost of insuring all of you—”

  “Cost!” the spokesman snarled. “We risk our lives every time we set foot in this place, and you talk to us of cost?” The other choristers muttered angry agreement.

  Ziegler switched tactics. “I’m not at all certain we could find an insurer willing to underwrite such a policy. Frankly, you may be too big a risk. What with the police in on it now, outsiders are aware of what’s going on here. I’m not sure we—”

  “Well, then, you damn well better find an insurer, Mr. Ziegler,” the man overrode his objection. “Because if you don’t, this opera company isn’t going to have a chorus.” More mutters of agreement. “We’ll wait twenty-four hours. If you don’t have an insurer by this time tomorrow, we won’t be coming back.”

  “Twenty-four hours!” Ziegler almost laughed at the absurdity of it. “That’s impossible. No insurance decision is made that quickly—that’s not a reasonable expectation.”

  “Reasonable!” someone snorted.

  “It’s not up to you to say what’s reasonable! Not any more, it’s not!” The spokesman was shouting now. “We’ve listened to your false assurances long enough!” The mutter of agreement grew to a growl.

  “False assurances?” Ziegler echoed coldly. “We promised you individual bodyguards and we kept our word. You’re being a bit cavalier in your accusations, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, now it’s our fault, is it? Mr. Ziegler, you don’t seem to hear what I’m telling you. You either get that insurance for us or the Met’s going to have to shut down. Unless you want to try to put on operas without a chorus.” Smirk.

  “That might not be such a bad idea,” Ziegler said, directing a frosty gaze at all of them. “You people have been nothing but trouble this entire season! A gang of second-rate musicians who aren’t worth one-tenth of what you’re paid—”

  “Hey, wait a minute—”

  “No, I will not wait a minute. You’ve done nothing but squabble among yourselves and demand this and demand that—and you don’t even perform like professionals!”

  “That’s enough, Mr. Ziegler. Some of us have died here.”

  “Yes, but only some of you. Unfortunately.”

  There was a stunned silence. They were all shocked, even the guards. But none appeared more shocked than Ziegler himself. “My God, what have I said?” he muttered. He looked at all the stunned faces staring at him and abandoned any hope of conducting a civilized negotiation that day. Without another word he turned and hurried away.

  The choristers and their guards stood around looking at one another uncertainly for a while and then, because they didn’t know what else to do, started drifting slowly out through the Fortieth Street exit. There were a few hushed comments exchanged, but no one really knew what to say.

  When the last chorister had gone, Enrico Caruso stepped out from behind the teaser curtain where he had been hiding. “Per dio,” he excla
imed softly. “It is not Gigli at all—it is Edward Ziegler!”

  6

  There was only one member of the Metropolitan Opera Company who spoke the Lithuanian language, and on Friday Antonio Scotti found him. He was an American-born chorus tenor named Tucciarone whose maternal grandparents had emigrated from a farm near the Lithuania-Poland border. When Scotti told him his services as a translator were needed, Tucciarone had hesitated. “It’s been a long time, Mr. Scotti,” he said. “I’m not sure how much I remember.”

  Scotti waved a hand airily. “Is like riding bicycle. You remember when you need to remember, yes? You come with me.” He led the chorister into the Met’s foyer. “She may know some English, I am not sure.”

  “She? Who is it?”

  “Perhaps one of these ladies here.” He pointed to the two women on their knees scrubbing away at the floor with stiff brushes.

  “A scrubwoman?”

  “As you say. Scusi, signora,” he said to one of the women. He told her he was looking for Mrs. Bukaitis.

  Upstairs.

  Ever since the notion first entered Scotti’s head that he, too, could be a detective, he’d wondered why everyone had been so quick to dismiss as a possible suspect the very woman who’d reported finding the hanging man. He’d tried to convince Gerry that the woman might know more than she was saying, but the soprano hadn’t been interested. He and Tucciarone found Mrs. Bukaitis sweeping out one of the rehearsal rooms.

  The chorister spoke to her haltingly but evidently clearly enough to make himself understood. He introduced himself and Scotti, and told her the latter wanted to ask her a few questions.

  “Ask her to tell us about finding the body in the chorus dressing room,” Scotti said, giving Mrs. Bukaitis his most nonthreatening smile.

  Her answer was rattled off so fast that Tucciarone had to ask her to slow down. She had opened the door and saw him hanging there, she said. There was no one else in the dressing room; none of the other choristers had arrived yet. She’d gone for Gatti-Casazza and led him back to the dressing room. No, she hadn’t touched the man to see if he was still alive—she hadn’t even gone into the dressing room. She’d opened the door, spotted the dead man, and gone for Gatti. That was all.