A Chorus of Detectives (14 page)

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 exclaimed 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.

All the time she was talking Scotti studied her broad shoulders and her strong arms, thinking she would be quite capable of overcoming a healthy man in a struggle. “Now ask her what she is doing in chorus dressing room so close to performance time.”

A strange look came over Tucciarone's face, but he repeated the question in Lithuanian and listened carefully to the answer. “She says she went back for a bucket she'd left there.”

Scotti looked closely at the other man. “What is it? Something?”

“Mr. Scotti, I think she's lying. And I think I know why. We've had a problem with petty theft all year—small things taken out of the dressing room, sometimes cash. It's not a big problem, but every once in a while something just disappears. I think maybe she went to the dressing room to steal.”

Scotti frowned. “Before the choristers arrive? Nothing is there to take!”

“Sometimes a few of us come in early and get dressed and go to the greenroom to wait—to avoid the crush in the dressing room. It gets awfully crowded in there with all of us trying to get ready at the same time. In between the time of the early arrivals and the time when the rest get there—that'd be a very good time to do a little pilfering.”

Scotti noticed that while they were talking, Mrs. Bukaitis's eyes kept darting back and forth between them. They were alert and intelligent eyes, he thought, oddly out of place in one who held so menial a position. Mrs. Bukaitis almost looked as if she understood what they were saying. “Is something stolen from you?” he asked Tucciarone.

“I'm missing a pocket watch. It wasn't valuable, but it was mine and I hate being stolen from.”

“Ask her if she takes it.”

When the chorister asked her, a stream of loud, angry, unintelligible words erupted from the scrubwoman's mouth. Tucciarone looked at Scotti and shrugged helplessly; he couldn't keep up with her. But there was no doubt in either man's mind that the woman was telling them exactly what she thought of them, and none of it was flattering.

“Eh, thank her for her help,” Scotti shouted to make himself heard. “I think we go now.”

Tucciarone yelled something at the woman and the two men fled, pursued by the sound of Mrs. Bukaitis's voice giving vent to her outrage at their audacity in even suggesting that she might be a thief.

Beniamino Gigli played with the little dog in his lap the whole time Captain O'Halloran was interviewing him. They were in the tenor's hotel suite; Gigli on a sofa and the captain on a hard chair facing him. Gigli had said he was resting his voice and didn't want to talk, but O'Halloran had persuaded him to let him in.

Gigli had made no attempt to disguise his contempt for the Metropolitan Opera chorus. “Nowhere in Europe or South America do I suffer from such persecution by the
chorus
!” he declaimed. “Only in New York! Always there is soprano or another tenor who is jealous, one of the soloists, I mean. One expects that. But the
chorus? È imperdonabile!
”

“What's that?”

“I say their behavior is not to be forgiven! Gatti is too softhearted. Because someone is attacking them, he allows them to behave in ways he does not tolerate otherwise. Captain, you must find killer fast! We never have
normal
opera house until you do. Gatti is too lax.” He bent over the dog in his lap and sang to it softly, seeking comfort from the small friendly body.

O'Halloran flipped through his notebook. “The way I understand it, it's Mr. Setti who's in charge of the chorus.”

The tenor made a sound of annoyance. “That is another thing. Setti is too old for the job. But he is longtime friend of Gatti, so Gatti keeps him on the payroll. He is soft-headed as well as softhearted, our general manager.”

O'Halloran was beginning to wonder if Gigli liked anybody at the Metropolitan. “Were you in the opera house the night the woman was killed by an urn falling on her head? Between acts of
Samson and Delilah
, that was.”

“
Samson
is Caruso's opera. I stay home.”

“What about the night the man was found hanging in the chorus dressing room, ah, before a performance of
Mefistofele
? That was December sixth.”

“Of course I am there,” Gigli said. “
Mefistofele
is
my
opera.”

“Did you go to the chorus dressing room anytime that night?”

“I never go to chorus dressing room on
any
night. Why should I? I only hear about dead man, I do not see him.”

“Well, what about the night two of the choristers fell through the trap door? That was—”

Gigli cut him off with a slicing gesture that startled the dog. “
Pagliacci
. Caruso.”

“You weren't there?”

“No!”

“
Carmen
, on the ninth? When the woman was stabbed?”

“No.”

“
La Forza del Destino
, when the man was poisoned?”

“No, no, no! I am there
one
night, when I sing! Questions, questions! Caruso, he just calls me on the telephone and asks me all these same questions!
Basta!
”

O'Halloran moaned. “Caruso?”

“And he believes me when I say I am not there,” Gigli said pointedly, “and he promises not to bother me anymore. Ask the doorkeeper. He knows I am not there.”

“Now, Mr. Gigli, you must know how easy it is to slip around an opera house without being seen.”

The tenor dumped the lapdog on the sofa and stood up, stretching to make himself taller. “I am a star, Captain O'Halloran. I am
always
seen.”

And that, O'Halloran understood, marked the end of the interview. It was just as well; there wasn't much else he could ask until he'd gotten one of his men to check on Gigli's story that he wasn't in the opera house on four of the five lethal occasions.

In the meantime, he might have another problem; it looked as if Enrico Caruso was ignoring his warning not to meddle. And from the grilling Geraldine Farrar had given him the day before, one might suspect that the lady too was thinking of putting on her detective hat again. In fact, all of them had been bursting with questions—Gatti-Casazza, Amato, and Scotti as well as Miss Farrar. O'Halloran couldn't really blame them; with five deaths taking place within a two-week period, they had the right to demand answers.

But O'Halloran had finally made them understand he wanted to ask
them
questions. There was a lot of hypothesizing and contradicting one another and outright guessing; but by the time they were finished, O'Halloran had a list of five names, people who had reason to hate the chorus. The two singers, Rosa Ponselle and Beniamino Gigli, whose performances were being sabotaged by the chorus. Edward Ziegler, whose thankless task it was to keep the chorus on stage and functioning without bankrupting the Met. Giulio Setti, whose loss of control over the chorus could well put an end to his career. And Alessandro Quaglia, whose long-standing dislike of all choruses had been aggravated by the undisciplined behavior of the present one.

Scotti had wanted to add a sixth name to the list of possibilities, that of the scrubwoman who'd discovered the body of the chorister who'd been hanged. Everyone had looked at him as if he were crazy.

Thinking back to the vitriolic rehearsal he'd witnessed yesterday, O'Halloran had asked Geraldine Farrar if she thought Quaglia was the killer—and was surprised when she said no.