A Chorus of Detectives Read online

  Gatti made a sound halfway between a grunt and a groan. “Tonight much of audience demands the money back.”

  Pasquale Amato spotted them talking and hurried over; he was dressed and made up for the role of Tonio in the evening’s production and looked as if he had something on his mind. He nodded to O’Halloran and said to Gatti, “Do you ask him?”

  “I ask him now,” Gatti answered. He cleared his throat. “Captain O’Halloran, a few of us wish to speak to you privately—away from the opera house and all its distractions. In your office, perhaps?”

  Uh-huh, O’Halloran thought. “And just who, exactly, are ‘a few of us’?”

  “We two,” Amato said. “Scotti. Gerry and Emmy.”

  “What a surprise. Look, I’m kind of busy now—”

  “Please, Captain,” Amato said urgently. “We do not ask unless it is important.”

  “I suppose you’ve got it all figured out who the killer is.”

  Amato hesitated, and then said, “We know it is one of two.”

  “Oh, you do, do you? Well, well—isn’t that interesting! Are you going to tell me or do you want me to guess?”

  “We tell you tomorrow morning,” Gatti said firmly. “In your office. At ten-thirty.” Then he remembered his authority did not extend to giving orders to the New York Police Department and added, “If that is satisfactory with you.”

  “And if it isn’t you’ll keep pestering me until I do listen to you,” O’Halloran sighed. “All right, Mr. Gatti, Mr. Amato—tenthirty tomorrow morning. My office.”

  “Grazie, Captain,” Gatti said.

  “Bene!” Amato smiled. “That is big relief. Now I sing better tonight because of you! Are you not happy to make contribution to opera?”

  “I’m ecstatic,” O’Halloran growled.

  On Tuesday morning, December 28, heavy snow fell from a dark New York sky as if determined to bury the entire city before nightfall. All the overhead lights inside the police station had been turned on, but they weren’t strong enough to disperse all the shadows. Faces looked jaundiced.

  Captain O’Halloran had turned up the radiator in his office as far as it would go. Then he’d had to steal three extra chairs from other offices. Now five luminaries from the Metropolitan Opera sat in a semicircle facing his desk. There would have been six of them, O’Halloran was informed, but one of their number was still ill. Antonio Scotti was wearing an expensive-looking fur coat that he refused to take off in spite of the steam heat hissing behind him.

  Geraldine Farrar said, “We’ve decided that the only way to catch this madman is to set a trap for him. There is no other way. We must create a situation in which he’ll think he has a clear shot at one of the choristers and consequently reveal himself.”

  “Isn’t that a trifle dangerous for the chorister?” O’Halloran muttered dryly. “I’ll tell you right off, I’m not agreeing to any plan that uses a civilian as bait.”

  “We won’t have to, Captain. All we have to do is make it appear as if the chorister is alone. We’ll need the cooperation of one of the bodyguards—”

  “Hold it. You’ve thought up your plan with somebody specific in mind, haven’t you? What if you’re wrong?”

  “Then we’ll know, won’t we?” Emmy Destinn said complacently. “Besides, the plan isn’t all that specific.”

  O’Halloran stared at them a moment. “Mr. Amato, last night you told me you knew the killer was one of two people. What two?”

  “One of them is Edward Ziegler,” Amato said slowly.

  “And the other is Giulio Setti,” Gerry Farrar added quickly.

  O’Halloran felt a brief flash of amusement; the Great Detectives were not of one mind? “Why those two?”

  Gatti-Casazza spoke for the first time. “Perhaps is best if we tell you what we do. We divide into two teams, and each team narrows list of suspects down to one person. But then is trouble—neither team convinces the other to change their minds. All along we plan to come to you when we think we know who killer is, but now …” He spread his hands apologetically. “Now we come with two names. One is my assistant, whom I trust. Other is friend of twenty years,” he finished sadly.

  “Which one do you suspect, Mr. Gatti?”

  “Setti,” he said heavily. “My old friend Setti.”

  O’Halloran was curious. “Who’s Mr. Caruso’s choice?”

  “Ziegler,” Scotti said, “but he is wrong. It is Setti.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Emmy said waspishly.

  Eventually O’Halloran got it straightened out. Caruso, Destinn, and Amato suspected Edward Ziegler; Farrar, Scotti, and Gatti-Casazza suspected Giulio Setti. And neither of them would be my choice, the captain thought to himself. “Something puzzles me,” he said aloud. “Miss Farrar, perhaps you could explain to me how a man of Giulio Setti’s size and age could succeed in hanging a man who was bigger and younger and stronger than himself.”

  She took a deep breath. “I’ve given that a great deal of thought, and the only possible explanation is that Setti did not hang him.”

  “You mean we’ve got two murderers?”

  “No, just one. I mean that poor man really did hang himself. It was exactly what everybody first thought it was—a suicide. Setti couldn’t have done it, you’re right. But we’ve been assuming all along that five deaths meant five murders. Couldn’t only four of them be murders? And one a suicide?”

  Emmy smirked. “Don’t change your opinion, just explain away the fact.”

  “Emmy, stop that! Captain, it is possible, isn’t it?”

  “At this point I’m beginning to think anything is possible. As long as you’re here,” he added with a show of reluctance, “you might as well tell me about this trap you want to set up. How would it work?”

  In outline it was simple, but the details would require a great deal of working out. One of the bodyguards would be primed to rush around in a state of near-panic, claiming he’d ‘lost’ the chorister he was supposed to be guarding. Then one of the Great Detectives would casually mention to another one—within earshot of the suspects—that he/she saw the chorister in question going into the wardrobe room or the properties room or some other semi-isolated spot to be selected later. Concealed inside said semi-isolated spot would be several of Captain O’Halloran’s men, waiting to see who took the bait.

  “Suppose someone did show up,” O’Halloran objected. “He could just say he was helping to look for the missing chorister.”

  “Not if he carries gun or knife or bully club,” Scotti said.

  “Billy club,” Gerry corrected. “Although ‘bully’ might be more accurate, come to think of it.”

  “But what if he’s not carrying a weapon?” O’Halloran persisted.

  “Then we’ll have to think of something else,” Emmy said. “But as long as there’s a chance it might work, how will it hurt to try?”

  “Seems awfully vague to me,” the captain muttered. “He could even explain away the weapon—he could say he’d started carrying it back when the first murder was committed. Self-protection. It wouldn’t prove anything.”

  The others were silent a moment. Then Gerry said, “You mean we have to catch him in the act.”

  “Afraid so. And that means civilian bait, and that means no dice.”

  “No … dice?” Scotti repeated.

  “He means we can’t do it, Toto,” Emmy sighed. “Captain, would you be willing to use one of your policemen as bait?”

  “How?”

  “He could take the place of the chorister.”

  “That won’t work, Emmy,” Gerry objected. “Setti knows every one of the choristers and knows them well. Ziegler probably knows most of them too,” she added in belated acknowledgment of the other team’s candidate.

  “Can they identify them from the back?” Emmy asked. “When they’re in costume and make-up?”

  They all thought about that a while, and then the Metropolitan contingent was smiling broadly at the police captain. “We
ll, Captain?” Gatti asked. “What do you say?”

  “It will take one whale of a lot of planning,” he grumbled. “So many details to be taken care of!”

  “I help you,” Gatti offered. “Planning and details, that is my métier.”

  O’Halloran tried to make his voice casual as he asked when Quaglia was conducting next.

  “Well, he’s conducting Tosca on Thursday,” Gerry said. “I don’t know if he’s scheduled before then.”

  “No, he is not,” Gatti said. “Tristan and Bodanzky Wednesday, Tosca and Quaglia Thursday.”

  Then it hit Gerry. “Quaglia!” she cried excitedly, jumping out of her chair. “You suspect Quaglia!”

  O’Halloran was annoyed. “Now, Miss Farrar, I didn’t say that.”

  “Yes, you did! You wouldn’t want to know when Quaglia was conducting if you didn’t suspect him! You want him to be there when we spring the trap! Come on, Captain—admit it!”

  “I just don’t think he should be ruled out, that’s all.”

  That satisfied her. She sat back down and said to Scotti, “He suspects Quaglia.”

  Amato rose and took a couple of steps toward O’Halloran’s desk. “At one time I too suspect Quaglia,” he told the captain in a tone of confidence-sharing, “but then I change my mind. Let me tell you why.” He started on an involved explanation that the others were constantly interrupting and contradicting until O’Halloran finally yelled for quiet. “I want you to tell me exactly why you suspect these two men, but one at a time, please. Mr. Gatti, you start.”

  They all took turns telling him what they’d done and what they’d found out and why they had settled on the assistant manager and the chorus master. O’Halloran was surprised to learn that Ziegler had once sung in the chorus of another opera company; that was something his own investigation had not turned up. But on reflection he decided it meant little; Quaglia was still his candidate.

  “Eh, I think of something,” Scotti said. “If we try Thursday—Tosca, it is not big chorus opera.”

  “That’s right,” Gerry added, surprised she hadn’t thought of it herself. “Only a limited chorus, and most of them go home after the first act.”

  “Most of them?” O’Halloran asked.

  “A few appear in Act Two,” Scotti explained. “And four or five men are needed to play prison guards in last act.”

  “That’s good! The fewer people around, the better. But there’ll still be four or five choristers around at the end of the opera?”

  “Six, precisely,” Gatti said.

  O’Halloran leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, thinking. He’d long since come to the conclusion on his own that the only way to stop the killer was to catch him in the process of attacking a victim; normal investigatory techniques weren’t going to reveal the name of the killer in this case. But O’Halloran hadn’t been able to think of how to go about it without using a chorister as bait; he couldn’t endanger a civilian’s life, even though doing so might save other lives. But the Met people’s plan had possibilities. Spread the story that one of the choristers was separated from his bodyguard and then substitute one of his own men for the ostensibly missing singer—it just might work.

  Emmy got tired of waiting and said, “Well, Captain? Are you with us?”

  O’Halloran wished she hadn’t put it just that way. “If we can work out a feasible plan, yes.” He waited until the cheering had stopped and then went on, “I want the men who’ll be taking the risks in on the planning. I want to make sure that every one of you knows exactly what you’re doing. I want to see not only that the danger is minimal but also that the only ones exposed to it are police.”

  “You want a lot, Captain,” Emmy complained. “But I for one don’t mind letting someone else take all the risks.”

  “We understand the kind of man we hunt, Captain,” Gatti said a little more tactfully. “I know you sometimes think we are crazy people—but we are not foolish.”

  Crazy but not foolish. A man could do worse, O’Halloran thought. “All right. Wait here until I get my men—and then we’ll get to work on the plan. We’ve got a big job cut out for us.”

  “What is going on?” Beniamino Gigli demanded. “I know something is going on. I insist you tell me what is going on!”

  “Why, whatever do you mean?” Geraldine Farrar said uneasily.

  “You and Gatti-Casazza and Scotti, you whisper together and you exchange the looks that say you know something I do not know.”

  “Oh dear. We’ll have to put a stop to that.”

  “And Emmy Destinn and Pasquale Amato—why are they here? They do not sing tonight.”

  “They frequently listen from backstage.”

  “But not tonight,” Gigli growled. “They too whisper and say I-know-something with the eyes. You tell me now what happens.”

  Gerry went tsk-tsk. “It’s supposed to be a secret. If I tell you, will you promise not to repeat it to anyone?”

  “What is it?”

  “Do you give me your word?”

  “Sì, sì—I promise. Now tell me.”

  “Well, we’re planning a surprise party for Mr. Setti.”

  He blinked. “Oh, is that all.” He turned on his heel and marched away.

  Gerry let out a big breath. Gigli was singing the tenor role in Tosca, and he’d been in the opera house only fifteen minutes before he caught on to the fact that something was afoot. She’d have to warn the others.

  She found Gatti-Casazza and Pasquale Amato on the stage level; their heads were together and they were whispering up a storm. “Oh, there you are!” Gerry trilled and sailed up to them with what she hoped was an open and honest demeanor. Quickly she related her little interchange with Gigli and warned them they were giving the game away. Then she laughed gaily. “Laugh!” she commanded between clenched teeth. Amato managed a convincing laugh, but the best Gatti could come up with was a humph-humph sound. Gerry glanced around, but no one seemed to be paying more attention than usual.

  “Perhaps is best we do not talk at all,” Amato said. “Or at least no more than necessary.”

  “Pasquale, will you tell the others?” Gerry asked. “I’ve got to start getting ready.”

  They separated. Amato found Emmy and Scotti and filled them in, and thereafter the five conspirators avoided one another with a determination that was, if anything, more obvious than their earlier huddling together.

  A polite knock sounded on Gerry’s dressing-room door. It was Alessandro Quaglia, up to his old trick of imposing last-minute instructions on the soloists. His bodyguard peeked over his shoulder. “Tonight we take your entrance a little faster—only un poco,” Quaglia said. “The last Tosca, the entrance is too slow. It drags.”

  “There was nothing wrong with the entrance,” she said sharply. Why was he always meddling with tempi? She suspected it was simply the easiest way he could think of to bedevil the singers.

  “But you wish dynamic entrance, do you not? Last time is …” He waggled a hand to show lack of enchantment.

  “Maestro Quaglia, could I persuade you to go over to the men’s side and pester them instead of me? I’m really not up to this tonight.”

  Quaglia’s face darkened; he left without a word. Now that wasn’t very gracious of me, Gerry told herself. Quaglia might be O’Halloran’s suspect, but he certainly wasn’t hers. “Maestro!” she called after him. “Get him, please, will you?” she asked the bodyguard.

  Quaglia came back. “Yes?”

  “Very well, we’ll do it your way, if you’re convinced the entrance is draggy. Only not too fast—I want to be able to get the words out!”

  He smiled at her. “Do not worry, Miss Farrar. We find tempo that pleases both of us.”

  Quaglia then followed Gerry’s suggestion and went over to the men’s side; he informed Gigli of Tosca’s speeded-up entrance, since the tenor was on stage at the time. “Also, I feel we rush the first-act aria, do you not agree?”

  “No, I do not agree.
I sing it as I sing in rehearsal.”

  “Come now, Mr. Gigli, surely you have the breath to hold the notes a little longer?”

  Gigli turned red. “I have breath enough to blow you out of dressing room!” he shouted. “Always you meddle—you speed Gerry up, you slow me down! Why you make these changes now?”

  “Because first act is too much the same!” Quaglia shouted back. “We need to vary tempi! She agrees—why can you not be like her?”

  Gigli laughed. “That is not what you say last week!”

  Quaglia muttered something and left the tenor alone, both of them wondering exactly how fast or how slow the aria would be sung that evening. On the steps down to the stage level, the Maestro and his bodyguard ran into Edward Ziegler and his bodyguard. Ziegler took one look at Quaglia’s face and asked what the matter was. “Eh, Gigli,” Quaglia said. “He is worse prima donna than Farrar!”

  “Impossible,” Ziegler said, straight-faced.

  “Tonight she is angel. He is devil.”

  Ziegler didn’t offer to have a word with the tenor, knowing better than to get mixed up in musical disputes. “Is Mr. Scotti up here?”

  Quaglia didn’t know. He and his shadow continued on down while Ziegler made for Scotti’s dressing room. The baritone was warming up while he applied his make-up.

  “Mr. Scotti? Forgive me for interrupting,” Ziegler said, “but there’s been a change. The chorister you have some stage business with in the second act—it’ll be a different man tonight, and he’s never rehearsed the scene. He knows what to do, but you might have to do a little last-minute adjusting.”

  Scotti found this only mildly interesting. “What happens to regular chorister? Is he ill?”

  “He showed up drunk. I fired him.”

  The baritone paused in the act of lining his left eye. “That seems drastic. Perhaps he sings better when he is drunk.”

  “Not likely,” Ziegler said dryly.

  Scotti turned from his mirror to face Ziegler directly. “Why do you fire this drunken chorister? Is that not Mr. Setti’s job?”

  “Not this time. Well, now that you know about it, I’ll leave you to get on with your preparations.” He left. The bodyguard gave Scotti a stern look and followed his employer.