Troubles in the Brasses (20 page)

“Yes, I understand that. To the best of my knowledge, Madoc, Houdon does not know. That is, he’s been aware there was a husband somewhere. I suspect Norma may have spun him a romantic tale of a hopeless invalid in a mental hospital or something of the sort. The truth would hardly have appealed to Houdon’s aesthetic sensibilities, from what I saw of Ochs during our brief acquaintance. And of course it would have been extremely awkward for Houdon, being in the same orchestra with that buffoon.”

“What happened when Bellini showed up with my father and the rest? Did Ochs show any sign of recognizing her as his wife?”

“If he did, I wasn’t aware of it. But then, I wouldn’t be. Orchestra members look on visiting singers as mere temporary nuisances, you know. With a few obvious exceptions.”

Pitney smiled a trifle sadly. “Norma wasn’t acting particularly worried, if that’s what you’re getting at. Theirs had not been a bitter separation, she told me one night in Paris after we’d split a bottle of wine and were both feeling sad and sentimental. It had been more a realization after the initial euphoria dried up that Wilhelm was not the shining white knight of Norma’s dreams and that Norma was not the strudel-baking hausfrau whom Wilhelm hoped he’d married.”

“But didn’t Ochs understand that his wife had her own career in music?”

“I don’t believe the career amounted to much at that stage. Norma was only a youngster then, still singing ‘Oh Promise Me’ at church weddings. Naturally a voice like hers couldn’t be kept under wraps, though. She began getting invitations, and accepted the ones that took her farthest away from Wilhelm. He was doing well himself by then, on tour a great deal of the time and all that. Better marriages than theirs have fallen apart under that kind of strain. But it was a marriage in law and in church. Norma couldn’t bring herself to apply for a divorce and Wilhelm, I gather, didn’t want to be bothered. So there they were, up a gum tree and stuck there.”

It was an oddly childish expression for a man of Pitney’s presence to use. Madoc smiled a little. “Where does she live now?”

“In Montreal, when she gets the chance. She and Jacques-Marie keep an apartment there, though since he’s been with the Wagstaffe, I doubt whether he gets to spend much time in it. He’s bought himself a small house not far from Wagstaffe. I expect she visits him but they’re pretty cozy about their relationship, as you must have gathered.”

Thinking of those two black silk sleeping masks and the two pairs of fuzzy earplugs, Madoc refrained from comment except to ask, “Does Houdon have a garden at his house?”

“I expect so. He likes to think of himself as a
bon bourgeois.
Wait a minute, Madoc. You’re not trying to imply—”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m just fishing around. What else can you tell me?”

“Not much. You must remember that I don’t really know Houdon, except professionally and not much of that. He’s a tremendous musician, one of the best. From what Norma’s told me, he’s also a fine person. Please don’t get the impression that I’m any great confidant of hers; it’s just that we sing together a lot and a certain camaraderie is bound to develop, particularly on tour in unfamiliar places. Ainsworth’s a dear chap in his way but he’s not much company, and Delicia has other interests.” Pitney’s chuckle was low and mellow. “Norma and I tend to hang together when there’s nobody else around to chum with. She’s an interesting woman, and I enjoy her company. Within the bounds of decorum, needless to say.”

“Needless, indeed,” said Madoc. “I think I’ll pop up myself and get to know her better.”

“I thought you were hungry.”

“I am, but I don’t feel particularly tempted by anything I see here. I daresay Ranger Rick can find us some food if the situation turns desperate. That’s assuming we get a chance to let him know we need it,” Madoc added bitterly.

Yet another press conference was going on in the lobby, he noted as he went upstairs. Sir Emlyn was looking definitely fed up. Even Delicia Fawn appeared to be losing her zest for exposure. He’d like to find out what, if anything, was going on with Mr. Zlubert and the airplane, but first things first.

Madoc was a trifle nonplussed as to which room he ought to look for Madame Bellini in. He plumped for the one in which he’d seen her sleeping, and was right. She answered his discreet rap with alacrity, but recoiled when she saw whom she’d got.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Madame Bellini,” Madoc apologized, “but we have to talk.”

“So? Then come in and close the door. Is it still a zoo down there? And is the monkey still capering? What is all this planes buzzing around?”

“It’s still a zoo,” he affirmed. “The monkey’s getting tired of the game, as I’m sure we all are. Unfortunately, the news planes have been keeping others from landing. There isn’t much space out there, and our plane is right in the middle of it. Madame, I do not come here to talk about airplanes. You are a woman of discretion, may I confide in you?”

“Is this an affair of the heart?”

“My heart is safely with my wife in Fredericton. This is an affair of the police, whom I represent, in case you hadn’t heard.”

“Yes, you are Mad Carew. It is known. Seat yourself. Confiding is easier so.”

She herself perched on the edge of the bed and nodded toward the only chair in the room. Obediently, Madoc sat.

“You must have heard by now, Madame, that Wilhelm Ochs is assumed to have been deliberately poisoned.”

“And you know, is it not, that Wilhelm Ochs was my ’usband? I am not fool, Inspector Rhys, I expected this. Why came you not earlier?”

M
ADOC HADN’T EXPECTED TO
have to apologize again so soon. “I beg your pardon, Madame. It was not through lack of respect, just that something else always seemed to need doing first. You and Mr. Ochs had been separated for many years, is that not so?”

“That is so. We would never have married had he been less handsome then and I more fluent in English. When I thought he was talking love to me, he was talking instead love about food. Norma Bellini could not remain forever playing second fiddle to a double cheeseburger! If what you wish to confide is a warrant for my arrest, I tell you frankly you are wasting your time. I did not poison Wilhelm. I have not the temperament to murder him or anybody. Besides, there was still a small fondness, as for an old friend from whom one has grown away. Also, I would have not known this ricin. Of gardens I know only that red roses grow on different bushes from white roses and of even that I am not quite certain. Is it not so?”

“It is at any rate logical. I have no warrant for your arrest, Madame Bellini. What I wished to confide to you is that Cedric Rintoul has last night been murdered, also.”

Her fine dark eyes met his without blinking. “That is regrettable but not surprising. Why do you tell me?”

“Because I’ve been given to understand that Rintoul was a longtime friend of your late husband.”

“That is true. Cedric was one of the reasons I found life with Wilhelm insupportable. That first whoopee cushion he put in my chair opened my eyes, I can tell you. Wilhelm thought me insensitive and prudish not to laugh. I knew from that moment that I would have to live for my art alone. Was Cedric also poisoned with ricin?”

“No, he was stabbed late last night with an icepick.”

“Indeed? An unimaginative but efficient weapon, one assumes. I know little of such things. He would have preferred I think to be blown up by an exploding cigar. For Cedric always the big boom. Could this not have been suicide, in view of his having been dismissed from the orchestra in disgrace yesterday afternoon?”

Madoc shook his head. “I grant you it might be technically possible to stab oneself in the back of the neck, but it’s not a method generally favored by people committing suicide.”

“And it is not something one does for the laugh,” Madame agreed. “Unless by chance Cedric thought this was a collapsing icepick? He had once a trick dagger. He tried to stab me with it. I was not amused.”

This was an angle Madoc hadn’t thought of. Nor did he think much of it now. “I believe we can safely reject that theory, Madame Bellini. Rintoul appears to have been about to make himself a drink.”

“That is likely. He was drinking last night, one observed. And the icepick? He did not have that, I think?”

“No, it had been in the kitchen, where I found his body. I’d noticed it earlier, an old-fashioned one with a solid wood handle and a strong steel rod, pointed at the end.”

“Then a tool for serious business. You are quite right, Cedric would have not have done that to himself. Possibly to somebody else. I sensed always in those practical jokes an element of malice, of cruelty. To annoy, to frighten, to humiliate is not the act of a generous temperament, do you think? Even the ricin Cedric could have administered, thinking perhaps not to kill but only to make Wilhelm sick on stage. But the icepick, who?”

“I was hoping you might have some ideas. Obviously you knew Rintoul well enough while you were still living with your husband.”

“I knew him too well. They were big buddies. It was impossible to be with Wilhelm and not with Cedric. But not for long, you understand. When I got my first invitation to sing in Ottawa, I jumped for joy and never went back, at least not to stay. I do not say it was Cedric alone who broke up my marriage. It was perhaps more that Cedric made me realize Wilhelm was a lout. Already in one year after the wedding Wilhelm had begun to get fat and lose his looks. I am sensitive to a good appearance in a man.”

The opulent brunette could smile exactly like the Mona Lisa, Madoc noticed. “But Wilhelm was a superb French horn player and I regret his loss, not at all for myself but for the world of music, you understand. I am being open with you. Even Cedric I have to regret a little although he had begun to flat his upper register and it would not have been long anyway. He had not the temperament for a good teacher or even to be staff like the fussy-budget Shadd. Perhaps it was better the icepick. Who knows? It is for God to decide.”

She crossed herself. “But if you ask me who stabbed Cedric, I cannot say. It was a long time ago, you realize, and not at the Wagstaffe but in Quebec where I met Wilhelm and thus inevitably Cedric. I was a young girl out of convent school, singing in churches and taking lessons from the great and wonderful Adrienne Desjardins, to whom I owe my career and my happiness.”

“Madame Desjardins is perhaps an aunt of Monsieur Houdon?” Madoc asked with an air of sublime innocence.

That was when he learned Madame Bellini also had a dimple in her left cheek. “So? It seems reasonable to you that a handsome and distinguished artist like Houdon would be attracted to fat old Bellini instead of the ravishing young Fawn?”

“Any man of taste, intelligence, and high artistic standards could have little difficulty in deciding which of you is the more truly worthy of his affections.”

“Bah, you are courtier!” By George, she had dimples all over the place. “So you, too, noticed that La Fawn missed her high C at the last performance in Wagstaffe. Houdon was quite disgusted. So also your respected father. And you, no doubt.”

“I found it a source of considerable discomfort,” Madoc replied with at least a modicum of truth. “You knew Monsieur Houdon before you came to Wagstaffe, then?”

“Since you have taken me into your confidence, I too confide.” Madame Bellini leaned toward Madoc and lowered her voice to a throaty murmur. “Madame Desjardins is only a second cousin of Jacques-Marie.” She smoothed her hands over the lap of the royal-blue dress she was wearing; then in a flurry of dimples and blushes, she confessed. “Nonetheless, he has been for seven years my dearest friend.”

“Monsieur Houdon has been greatly honored. And has he found the arrangement a comfortable one?”

“Do you mean has he wished, as I also, to regularize the situation? Naturally, yes. If you mean were we so desperate to do so that either of us would commit the mortal sin of murder, the answer is no.”

“Did Monsieur Houdon in fact know that Wilhelm Ochs was the man to whom you were married?”

“I did not tell him that, no. He has known solely that I have a husband living from whom I have been for many years estranged. It would have made an awkwardness, you understand, had Jacques-Marie known that my husband was actually playing in the same orchestra with him. Also, Wilhelm had grown unattractively gross, and Jacques is a fastidious man. He would have been revolted to think that I could ever have—but you realize my situation. It was better for both of them not to know.”

“But Cedric Rintoul knew. Weren’t you afraid he’d tell?”

“Why should he? Jacques and I have been discreet, our friendship is not known. Until this week, I had not sung ever with the Wagstaffe. I have been much in other cities, sometimes in the States, sometimes in Europe. In Italy, I can tell you, it was not La Fawn who got the big ovations! There was no reason for Cedric to speak of me to Jacques, even if it were the done thing for a trombonist to play tattletale to the concertmaster, which I assure you Jacques-Marie Houdon would not permit. In any event, Jacques is no hot-blooded young fool, to fly into a jealous rage and—”

“So!” The distinguished concertmaster hurled himself through the bedroom door and slammed it behind him. “Then, Madame, it was not your sense of what was owed to the dignity of your position, but the desire to hold a little tête-à-tête with a younger man which has impelled you to leave me alone with that pack of ghouls!”

He was talking in French; rather he was hissing French words through his clenched teeth. There was only one thing to do, and Madoc did it.

“Monsieur!” His own French was fluent enough even though, for some reason, he spoke it with a strong Welsh accent. “How dare you impugn the honor of this chaste and distinguished lady, not to mention that of the son of your illustrious conductor and his lady, and further, of my own beloved and cherished wife who descends from a founding family of Pitcherville, New Brunswick, with ancestral acres, by blue! And her brother, Bert, who has ascended to high position in the Loyal Order of Owls,” Madoc appended to make it a little more impressive.