A Chorus of Detectives Read online

  He must be insane, yes. Such an undertaking was indeed insane. So insane, in fact, that O’Halloran now was beginning to doubt that killing off the entire chorus was the murderer’s true goal. Hearing Amato put a number to it—one hundred forty people—well, that threw the whole enterprise into the realm of the absurd. But what, then? A slew of incidental murders to conceal the one significant one? Was that any saner?

  Either way, Amato was right. They were looking for a madman.

  Edward Ziegler sat at the desk in his office next door to Gatti-Casazza’s, his head buried in his trembling hands. The cool, self-possessed assistant manager had lost control of himself—and in front of the chorus! How in the world could he ever negotiate with them now, when they’d heard him wish out loud that more of them were dead! Whatever had posessed him?

  A throat-clearing sound made him look up. Enrico Caruso stood in front of his desk, having entered without knocking. The tenor looked ill at ease. “Mr. Caruso, I didn’t hear you come in,” Ziegler said, pulling himself back together.

  “I must say something to you.” He sat down without being invited. “I hear.” He nodded soberly at Ziegler.

  Ziegler waited but was rewarded only with more nodding. He asked, “What do you hear?”

  “I hear what you say to the chorus yesterday. That not enough of them … die.”

  Ziegler took a deep breath and held it as he tried to decide how to handle this unexpected development. Appeal to his sympathy, that was it. “I need a vacation, Mr. Caruso. I’ve been carrying the burden of dealing with the chorus alone for too long—the stress is beginning to wear on me. I’m not thinking clearly. I would never have said such an unpardonable thing if it weren’t for the killings that occupy my mind night and day—I wouldn’t even have thought of it! In a moment of anger I blurted out my worst fear, and managed to turn it into a sort of curse.”

  “Una maledizione,” Caruso breathed.

  “A slip of the tongue. Inexcusable, of course, but … these things do happen sometimes.”

  “You say you do not mean it?”

  “Of course I didn’t mean it!” Ziegler snapped. “Good God, even the chorus understands that!” He laughed bitterly. “Not that they’ll let me forget it. Oh no—they’ll never let me forget it!”

  Jus then Gatti-Casazza walked in. “Ziegler, something we must—eh, Enrico, I do not know you are here.”

  Caruso nodded complacently. “Sì I am here.”

  Gatti waited a moment but when Caruso didn’t take the hint, he said, “I have urgent business to discuss with Ziegler. You come back another time, Enrico, yes? You talk to him later.” Both he and his assistant stared at the tenor pointedly.

  Caruso was not used to being made feel unwelcome and took his dismissal in poor grace. “I talk to both of you later,” he said huffily as he left.

  “Cielo, I think I am in for a scolding,” Gatti smiled faintly. “Do you see today’s papers? No? An editorial in the Times, saying the Metropolitan should shut down as long as killer is, ah, ‘on the loose’.”

  Ziegler shook his head decisively. “Impossible. If we cancel the rest of the season, we’ll be so badly in arrears we’ll never get out. We’re already way over budget, what with hiring the bodyguards and all. And now the chorus is demanding that we take out life insurance policies on them for fifty thousand dollars each!”

  To Ziegler’s surprise, Gatti was not outraged by the demand. “Sì,” he mused, “is good idea. Insurance—it is the least we can do for them.”

  “If I can find a company willing to take the risk,” Ziegler muttered. “Mr. Gatti, do you have any idea of how high these premiums are going to run? They’ll bankrupt us! The only way I can see to pay for them is to extend the season a few weeks. Would the board of directors agree to that?”

  “I think so. One or two members of the board, they too are saying we should cancel until killer is found. But the majority, they are firmly against cancelling. They say we must not give in to anarchic acts.” Gatti pulled at his beard. “Anarchic. That is what they call these murders.”

  The telephone rang. Gatti’s assistant picked up the receiver and said, “Edward Ziegler speaking … yes, what can I do for you?” He listened a moment and frowned. “Yes, I was there … in the greenroom.” He listened again, and a look of astonishment appeared on his face. He glanced over at Gatti and made a vague gesture with the hand not holding the telephone. “As a matter of fact I do remember. It was Rosa Ponselle. May I ask why you—” He held the receiver away from his ear and looked at it accusingly. “She hung up.” He did the same and remarked, “How extraordinary.”

  “What is it?” Gatti asked.

  “That was Emmy Destinn. She was asking about the young man who was poisoned. She wanted to know if I remembered who it was who’d given him the orange juice to drink.”

  Good point, Gatti thought. He’d been there in the greenroom and Emmy had not, but she was the one who thought of it. Not that it made any difference—young Rosa couldn’t possibly be the murderer.

  “Mr. Gatti?” Ziegler said.

  “Eh, she is worried and curious, as we all are. Now about extending the season—”

  “Yes. Can I count on at least two weeks’ additional box office receipts?”

  Gatti nodded assent, already weary at the thought of the work involved in scheduling the extra performances. He was silent for a moment and then said, “Ziegler, this killer—do you think that is what he wants? To close the Metropolitan Opera?”

  Ziegler’s head jerked up. “Why, I don’t know … that hadn’t occurred to me. Why would anyone want to close us down?”

  “I can think of no reason.” Gatti stared at his assistant moodily. If the killer did want to close the Met, then Ziegler wasn’t the killer because he wanted to stay open. But what if the killer’s purpose was not to close the opera house, what if he wanted it to stay open so he could go on killing more choristers? Ziegler still wanted to stay open.

  Gatti got up and walked heavily back to his own office. He didn’t know the answer.

  “I hate these tatty little places,” Geraldine Farrar grumbled. “They don’t even have champagne. And the people! Look at that man over there, at the corner table. I’m sure he’s a gangster.”

  “He is proprietor,” Antonio Scotti smiled. “Gangsters, they look more respectable, no?”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t know. Toto, is this the best place you could find?”

  Scotti had chosen the speakeasy for two reasons. First, it served real Canadian whiskey instead of the ersatz Scotch that was beginning to appear in bottles wearing counterfeit labels. Second, the band didn’t start playing until midnight, which meant they could all talk without shouting. “Sfortunatamente, this is best place I find,” Scotti said to Gerry. “It is not so bad, cara mia.”

  “Stop complaining, Gerry,” Emmy Destinn said. “You should see the one he took me to last Saturday. It makes this place look like the Ritz.”

  “Last Saturday I am in Brooklyn,” Enrico Caruso mused. “It is not so good.”

  “‘Not so good,’” Pasquale Amato sighed. “He hemorrhages on stage and calls it ‘not so good’. Cielo.”

  “He comes back too soon,” Gatti-Casazza muttered into his beard.

  “I am here, talk to me,” Caruso demanded.

  “You come back too soon,” Gatti obliged.

  “You do not say so when I sing Forza,” the tenor snickered. Then he grew serious. “Why you interrupt me when I question Ziegler? How can I investigate when you tell me to come back later?”

  “We keep crossing each other’s paths,” Amato complained.

  A waiter appeared, looking as if their existence offended him. He slapped down their drinks, took their money, and left without a word.

  “They do still have un poco to learn about charm, do they not?” Scotti smiled.

  Gerry made a face. “I don’t really like whiskey.”

  Gatti leaned across the table conspiratorily and whisper
ed, “I am promised six cases of champagne before Christmas.”

  Five voices immediately demanded the name of his bootlegger.

  By the time the waiter came back with their second round of drinks (for all but Gerry), they were ready to talk business. “This is only second day we investigate,” Amato said, “and already we get in each other’s way.”

  “Setti was annoyed when I talked to him,” Emmy concurred. “He said he’d already answered the same questions twice by the time I got to him.”

  Amato nodded. “We duplicate each other’s efforts.”

  “Too many cooks,” Gerry agreed. “So what do we do?”

  “We do not quit!” Caruso said indignantly.

  “Of course we don’t quit, Rico,” Gerry said. “But we’ve got to get ourselves organized somehow. This way is no good.”

  “How?” Gatti asked. “We must all ask questions—we cannot take turns.”

  “I have a suggestion,” Amato said. “Why not each of us concentrate on one person who has cause to hate the chorus? We each take one, er, suspect—and limit investigation to that one. What do you think?”

  They all thought it over. Then Gerry said, “You know, Pasquale, that’s not a bad idea at all. At least we’d stop bumping into one another.”

  “Yes,” Gatti mused. “Is much more efficient that way. Not so much waste effort.”

  “I like, I like,” Caruso beamed. “Emmy? Toto? You agree?” They did.

  “Now we decide who investigates whom.” Amato took out a notebook and a pen; writing it down would make it official. “Con permesso, I take Quaglia. I think the Maestro is more capable of killing than others.” No one objected. “And Rico, you want Gigli.” He started to write down the name.

  “No, no—not Gigli,” Caruso stopped him, to everyone’s surprise. “Edward Ziegler.”

  “What is this?” Emmy asked. “I thought Gigli was your favorite suspect.”

  “I am wrong about Gigli,” Caruso explained. “I make mistake. Edward Ziegler is the killer.”

  Gerry said, “I thought the purpose of the investigation was to find out who the killer is. You’ve already made up your mind! Again.”

  “Non è vero,” Gatti objected. “You are wrong this time also, Enrico.”

  “But I know something you do not know,” Caruso told them, wide-eyed. He repeated the argument he’d overheard between Ziegler and the chorus as well as he could remember it, ending with the assistant manager’s expression of regret that more of the choristers had not died.

  The others were stunned momentarily, but then they were inclined to dismiss the statement as a lapse in taste as well as self-control. Scotti pointed out that everyone said things in the heat of anger that they immediately regretted. “You cannot accuse a man on so flimsy a basis,” he added.

  “Flimsy! He admits he wants them dead!”

  “It is not evidence, Rico.”

  “Then I find evidence.” He folded his arms across his chest and his face took on a stubborn set.

  “Eh, well, then Rico investigates Edward Ziegler,” Amato said, writing it down with a smile, “who is his new favorite suspect. That leaves Gigli uninvestigated.” He looked around the table.

  “I take him,” Gatti offered. “I do not have favorite suspect.”

  “And I want Setti,” Gerry said.

  Gatti groaned. “Not Setti! Why do you suspect him?”

  She lifted one shoulder. “He has the most to lose.”

  “Emmy?” Amato asked. “Who is your suspect?”

  “Rosa Ponselle,” she said without hesitation.

  The others gaped at her. “Emmy!” Caruso cried. “You do not think young Rosa is murderer?”

  “I think Rosa is a twenty-three-year-old woman who likes to play at being a little girl. That means she’s capable of large-scale deceit.”

  Gerry smiled. “That also describes quite a few other people I know. All it means is that Rosa is postponing growing up as long as she can—a lot of girls do that, unfortunately. You don’t really think Rosa’s a killer, Emmy.”

  The other woman sighed. “Perhaps not. But she has as good a reason for hating the chorus as Gigli, and we’re investigating him.”

  “This is true,” Amato nodded. “It is not fair to investigate one but not the other. So—Emmy investigates Rosa.” He wrote it down. “Eh, Toto, you are last one. Do we have any suspects left? Who is your choice?”

  Scotti was silent a moment, and then he said, “While you talk this over, I am thinking. And I conclude this individual investigation is not smart thing to do.”

  “Oh, Toto!” Gerry exclaimed. “Why ever not?”

  “Do you all forget why we decide in first place so many detectives are needed? So Gerry does not go looking for this dangerous man alone! No one of us must face a suspect alone—but that is what happens if we do it Pasquale’s way, no?”

  “Cielo! You are right!” Amato groaned. “I forget.”

  They all sat staring glumly at the table. They’d been so caught up in the planning that they’d overlooked the element of very real danger in their proposed undertaking. Every one of them was trying to think of a way to save the plan.

  Suddenly Gerry sat up straight. “Why don’t we work in pairs? That way when one of us needs to talk to a suspect, we just get our partner to come along! That would work!”

  “Sì, sì,” Caruso said with a reawakening of enthusiasm. “That way we are all protected!”

  “Not pairs,” Amato said, “but teams! Teams of three—in case one person cannot go when needed, there is another to call. Eh, this is better. We work to eliminate suspects, yes? But if one suspect cannot be eliminated—”

  “Then we contact the other team,” Emmy finished for him. “If each team can narrow it down to one person—”

  “Then the two teams get together and thrash it out,” Gerry finished for her. “Oh, yes—that’s the way to do it! What do you say, Toto? Will that satisfy you?”

  He gazed at her dourly. “Will you really do it? Will you call me when you go see Setti?”

  “Absolutely,” she answered in a voice not to be questioned. “I have no desire to put myself in peril. I will call.”

  Scotti smiled and nodded. “Then I agree.”

  Subdued cheering greeted his announcement. Amato said, “Bene, that is settled. Now all that is needed is for Toto to tell us whom he investigates.”

  Scotti cleared his throat. “Mrs. Bukaitis.”

  “The scrubwoman?” Emmy said in disbelief.

  “You are not serious!” Gatti half-laughed.

  “I am most serious,” Scotti protested. “I talk to her. She is not just simple, ignorant woman who cleans the floors—there is more inside her head than that!”

  “Toto, you waste your time,” Amato smiled. “Why would a scrubwoman want to kill choristers?”

  “Perhaps they catch her stealing,” Scotti suggested; “Perhaps another reason.”

  “But—”

  “No ‘but’. I take Mrs. Bukaitis.”

  Gerry laughed. “Give up, Pasquale. Toto is going to investigate his scrublady whether the rest of us like it or not. Put her on the list.”

  Amato grumbled but added the scrubwoman’s name, having to guess at the right way to spell ‘Bukaitis’. “Now we divide into teams,” he declared.

  They argued about it a little but came to agreement fairly fast. The team of Farrar, Scotti, and Gatti-Casazza would investigate Giulio Setti, Mrs. Bukaitis, and Beniamino Gigli. The team of Destinn, Caruso, and Amato would investigate Rosa Ponselle, Edward Ziegler, and Alessandro Quaglia. They were all satisfied with their choices.

  “Well, I feel as if we’ve accomplished something,” Gerry said. “I think now I might manage another glass of Canadian—if anyone feels up to summoning that surly waiter.”

  “He does not know who we are,” Caruso explained. “If he knows who we are, he does not treat us with disrespect.” He waved an arm in the air until the waiter saw him. “So I tell him.
”

  The waiter charged resentfully toward them and slammed an empty tin tray down on the table. He was gathering up their empty glasses when Caruso politely inquired as to his name. The waiter thought it over and decided it wouldn’t hurt to tell. “Joseph,” he admitted grudgingly.

  “Joseph, I am most pleased to make your acquaintance,” Caruso said in his best ingratiating manner. “Do you know that this lovely lady who sits to my left is the great Geraldine Farrar of the Metropolitan Opera?” He went around the table, introducing each in turn. “And I,” he finished expansively, “I am Enrico Caruso! All of us, we are all with the Metropolitan Opera!”

  Joseph picked up his laden tray and shouldered it. “I hate opera,” he snarled, and charged away without taking their order.

  7

  The Belgravia had seen better days, Captain O’Halloran mused. The age-darkened stone of the apartment building looked dingy in the weak morning light, and the ornamental corner balconies all had the look of disuse to them. But the address was still a prestigious one, the corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-ninth Street. Inside, the air of faded gentility was an even stronger reminder that the Belgravia had once been the ne plus ultra of luxurious apartment living. No po’ folks allowed. O’Halloran took the elevator up to the eighth floor where Alessandro Quaglia lived. The conductor was expecting him.

  Quaglia was dressed except for a brocade dressing gown that covered his boxer’s physique. “Does this take long, Captain? I have much to do today.”

  O’Halloran murmured something noncommittal and took the chair Quaglia offered him. The first thing he wanted to find out was whether the conductor had been present in the opera house each time one of the choristers had died. He hadn’t been there when the urn had fallen on the chorus soprano or when the tenor had been found hanging in the dressing room, Quaglia said; he did not conduct Samson or Mefistofele. But he’d been there the other three times.

  “Do you ever attend an opera you’re not conducting? Just to listen, I mean.”

  “No more. I go when I am younger and still learning, but not now.”

  “Why not?”