A Rather Curious Engagement (24 page)

“And how exactly does
that
work?” Jeremy inquired.

“Well, since the
mazzeri
operate in the dream world, they know that, at night, the souls of living people take the form of animals, and roam the woods,” I replied. “So the
mazzeri
must attack the first animal they come upon, even if it’s the soul of someone they know or love. They hunt with sticks and stones. If they wound that soul in their dreams, then, in real life, that person will fall ill. If they kill the animal, then the person will die—but not immediately—so, back in the real, daytime world, the
mazzeri
are able to foretell death or tragedy, see how it works? It’s because they know what happens to people’s souls at night when we’re all asleep, and they know which animal represents the soul of which neighbor.”

“Pretty spooky,” Jeremy commented. “I imagine nobody wants to get on the bad side of one of these shamans, day or night.”

“Yeah, and it’s supposed to be a very stressful job,” I explained. “The
mazzeri
often try to warn people and save them from their fate. This stuff dates back to Paleolithic times. You know, all those beautiful cave paintings of human figures with animal heads, like bison and boar?” I took a deep breath. “And that’s not all. The spirits of the dead come back periodically to visit, or have battles with each other. You don’t want to get caught in the middle of one of those ghost battles, they say.”

“So,” Jeremy said thoughtfully, “you think some local woman was trying to warn the Count that disaster awaited him?”

“Yes,” I said. “And it spooked him.”

“But,” Jeremy said slowly, “why should it spook him?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Jeremy said, “The Count is a man of science and art. Why should he care what a superstitious local woman said, unless he’d done something to feel guilty about?”

“Like?”

"Like dealing in stolen artifacts,” Jeremy said. “Like grave robbers. ”

“Wait a minute,” I said suspiciously. “What have
you
got?”

Jeremy said loftily, “It just so happens that I think I may have turned up the photograph that got the Count, and all those other crazy collectors, thinking that the Lion still existed somewhere. Look.”

He turned his computer screen so I could see it. The photo was very blurry, and it looked as if it had been part of a newspaper feature. “It’s from Corsica.”

“What is it?” I asked, squinting. “It looks like some sort of festival. ”

“You might say,” Jeremy said. “It’s a ritual for the second day of November.”

“All Souls’ Day,” I said, enthralled.

"Right-O. Every year, the Corsicans light torches and have processions, and they visit the family tombs and light candles and put out food and milk, to try to appease their dead relatives, who come back to inspect their graves and make sure you’re doing good upkeep,” Jeremy said. “Anyway, the next morning, the family checks the fireplace hearth to see if they spot any footprints of the dead.”

I shivered. The rain was still pelting against the windows and making sighing sounds as it whooshed around the villa. “But why did the photographer—?”

“Oh, he was just a travel photojournalist who was taking pictures of the procession because he liked the local costumes and color,” Jeremy said. “He had no real idea what he was dealing with. But look in the far left corner of the picture. See that metallic thing glowing in the candlelight?”

I peered closer. “Hey,” I said. “That
could
be a lion.”

Jeremy said, “Apparently, when this article was published, it set off a little firestorm among collectors. A museum director spotted the photo, and hurried down to Corsica to check it out—but by the time he got there, it was gone.”

“Gone!” I said. “As in stolen?”

“As in pilfered, pounced-on, pocketed,” Jeremy said emphatically. “Nobody knows who, in that stampede of collectors, took it.”

“Wow,” I said, impressed. “Do you think it was the Count?”

“Or that dealer. Jones.”

“But if this thing was in Corsica,” I said, “what’s it got to do with Beethoven?”

“Ah,” Jeremy said. “Beethoven. I’ve been checking him out, as well.”

“Me, too,” I said. “What have you got?”

“Nothing about the Lion whatsoever,” he said. He flipped over a page of his notepad and read off the things he’d jotted down. “Beethoven was a short fellow—under five foot four. He had a pretty wretched childhood—a terribly abusive teacher who beat him, and an alcoholic father who used to throw him in the cellar without food for punishment, and then wake him in the dead of night and make him practice the piano till dawn.”

“He was born in Germany but he lived most of his life in Vienna, didn’t he?” I asked, looking at my own notes.

“Yes, he
had
to live there—it was part of the deal he made with his Viennese patrons. Some of them paid up, but some didn’t,” Jeremy said. “So he had money problems.”

“Did he ever marry?” I asked, enthralled.

Jeremy shook his head. “He had affairs with high-society women, and proposed to a number of them, but they turned him down. Well, he had a violent temper and, sorry to say, he was a bit of a slob. Or, to put it more kindly, ‘preoccupied.’ He’d leave food lying around, stale beer and all, when he was composing. And he’d get so absorbed that he’d forget about his appearance in public,” Jeremy explained. “He had all these aristocratic students, including young ladies, like this princess who lived across the street from him. But he’d show up for her music lessons dressed in his pajamas, slippers and little pointy nightcap!”

“But one of his students said he was a very patient teacher,” I noted, “who would seldom scold you for hitting wrong notes or missing a passage, because Beethoven figured these were accidental errors; but he would be furious if a student failed to play with the right ‘expression’ because this showed a lack of attention, feeling and knowledge.”

“Right. Even when he was deaf, he could tell if they were doing it correctly by ‘sight-reading’ the notes and watching the way a pianist moved his hands as he played,” Jeremy marvelled. “Kept composing right to the end. They say he used to walk around town humming to himself and gesturing, figuring out the next symphony, dressed like a bag man. Rotten little kids used to taunt him.”

“Poor guy. He had awful stomach trouble,” I said. “Possibly from lead poisoning. He died when he was only fifty-six.” I sighed. “How
could
he write all that beautiful music in so short a time, and without hearing so much of it? Maybe
he
had special powers and could hunt men’s souls in his sleep, too—with music.”

I was still looking at the notes we’d made when the telephone rang. Jeremy went to answer it. I didn’t start paying attention until I heard his tone, and then the words, “Where is she now? Is she out of the hospital?”

I stopped what I was doing, and looked at him. He tried to signal but was too busy getting the details. Finally I heard him say, “I see. Tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He hung up, looking troubled. “Mum’s had a fall,” he said. “The cleaner found her, and took her to the hospital, but they say it’s not bad. They were afraid she might have broken her hip, but they’re telling me now that it’s a broken ankle.”

I realized that Aunt Sheila, although so chic and young-looking, was really old enough to be concerned about ordinary falls causing serious trouble.

“She’s home now. I really ought to go and look in on her,” Jeremy said. “She told the cleaner not to upset me, and to tell me she’s fine; but she’s on her own there, and I want to see her for myself.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t have to,” Jeremy said. “This is not such great weather for flying.”

I glanced out the window, and saw that the rain was letting up a bit, and there was even a small, promising patch of blue in the sky. “No, it’s looking better out there. I’ll go with you,” I offered.

“Well, actually, it might not be a bad idea for you to come,” Jeremy agreed, looking at his notes. “That photographer is English, and so is the museum director. We could look them up and see if they have any more info about the Lion.”

Then a horrible thought crossed my mind, and either Jeremy read my face or else he had the same thought.

“Oh, God,” I said. “This doesn’t mean we have to go see Lydia and Bertie, does it?”

“No,” Jeremy said. “We can stay at Mum’s and never set foot in my apartment. We’ll skulk in and out of town and nobody will know or care. Besides, aren’t your parents going back to the States soon? We promised we’d catch up with them before they leave.”

So. Like it or not, I realized, London was calling.

We found Aunt Sheila at home, sitting in bed, with a bandaged foot propped up on its own little pillow. She had a bruise on her cheek, too. She looked embarrassed when she saw us.

“I told you two you didn’t have to come!” she protested. Jeremy, carrying pretty flowers which he placed in her hands, bent over to kiss the other cheek.

“Penny, darling, really, I’m all right,” Aunt Sheila said. “Tell my son I’m all right.”

“I did,” I said, “but he loves you. Can’t help it.”

“What happened, Mum?” Jeremy asked, sitting on the end of the bed.

“The silliest thing! I was rushing about, and I missed that step-down in the bedroom, just missed it completely, and I went down rather hard,” Aunt Sheila replied.

"Did they do X-rays?” Jeremy asked.

“Of everything! The hip is all right, which is what they were worried about, and no concussion. I’m fine.”

“How long were you alone before the maid came?” I asked.

“About twenty minutes, I think. I may have blacked out briefly.

Don’t worry. Matilde is looking out for me,” Aunt Sheila said. “She stops in once a day to see if I need anything.”

“But how can you get around the apartment?” Jeremy asked, gesturing toward the bathroom. Aunt Sheila pointed to a pair of crutches.

“That’s not going to work,” Jeremy said briskly. “You need somebody here full-time.”

“What, to take my temperature and blood pressure and all that bother?” Aunt Sheila said, looking horrified. “I don’t want a stranger in the house.”

“We thought we’d stay a couple of days,” I said. “We’re going to visit my folks. They’re holed up in some hotel here. I wanted to see them before they head home.”

“Oh, dear, I’d hoped to take them out to dinner,” Aunt Sheila said.

“We’ll figure out something,” I said. “Meanwhile, Jeremy and I are going to cook you some supper. Jeremy’s getting really good at it, because we’ve been to these terrific local markets in France, and he’s charmed the people who sell the groceries into telling us all about how they like to cook it.”

“So, no arguments,” Jeremy said. “You’re stuck with us.”

“You might have let me know,” Aunt Sheila said reproachfully. “I’d have had the guest rooms specially made ready for you.”

“That’s exactly why we didn’t tell you,” Jeremy said, “but we let Matilde know.”

I followed Jeremy out to the kitchen. “She’s all right, I think,” he said. “But I’m glad we came, just to look after her for a few days. Meanwhile, we still have time to make some research calls. You phone the curator, and I’ll call the photographer. Let’s see if we can get appointments for tomorrow morning.”

Well, the next day, it was actually fun, skulking around London. Jeremy said he felt as if we ought to be dressed in disguise, each wearing a nose and glasses, so that nobody he knew would recognize us and find out that we were temporarily back in town. But the photographer’s studio was way out on a fairly seedy side of London, where there were lots of big warehouses that offered comparatively lower rent for audio recording, TV studios, and artists’ lofts. I didn’t think anybody from Jeremy’s posh crowd would be hanging around here.

We went up a creaky old freight elevator—the kind that has only an iron grate for a door so that you can actually see every floor you pass—to the third floor. The door to the photographer’s studio was ajar, but Jeremy knocked on it anyway.

“Come in,” called out a male voice. We entered, into a spacious one-huge-room that held a very large table, near floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the street; and, on the other end, a bed, a flat-screen TV and DVD center and a kitchen comprised of sink, stove, small refrigerator and oven. The door to an adjoining bathroom was open, and a young female assistant was hanging up wet pictures. The photographer himself, whom Jeremy recognized from his research, was seated at the big table, which was heaped with stacks of enlarged photographs and three giant computer monitors. There was a radio playing somewhere, broadcasting the news in a low, barely audible murmur.

As we moved closer, Jeremy introduced me to the photographer, whose name was Clive.

“Right,” Clive said, nodding, looking me up and down. He was a very tall, thin guy with a mop of ash-brown hair. He had lively grey eyes, and wore the kind of khaki shirt, pants and vest that have lots of pockets, which photographers often wear.

“What can I do for you?” he inquired, sitting back in his office chair.

When Jeremy reminded him why we were here, Clive said, “Oh, right, the Lion.”

Clive’s chair had wheels, so he just rolled himself over to a nearby file cabinet and rummaged through it. He pulled out a file and slapped it on the table. He smiled at me, but spoke to Jeremy.

“Unbelievable ruddy big deal about this thing,” he said. “Here I thought I was doing a nice little tourist piece, but I’ve had my old studio broken into three times before I pulled up stakes and moved here. Did Beethoven put this on his piano or something?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Jeremy admitted. “As I mentioned on the phone, we’re assisting an old duffer who’s a Beethoven buff, and he heard you got near it.”