a trace of humor. She held herself well, almost as if she were about to play for an audience rather than test an old instrument for the first time.
“Yes,” said Faster, fussing with his expensive regimental tie. Smoothing his thinning, colorless hair with one blunt-fingered hand, he looked around for the warehouse manager among the vast collection of pianos. “It amazes me that it’s in such good condition, considering where it’s been for the last couple of centuries, or almost a couple of centuries. It’s a miracle they found it.”
Vanessa nodded. “In an attic in an Austrian Schloss—not Lowenhoff; Schaumbach, or something like that—according to the documents; you saw them,” she said, repeating what she had been told just four days ago. “Stored away in a sealed room on the top floor. You wouldn’t think the Graf would care to keep the thing, even locked away like that, if the stories about it are true, and considering his family’s role in what happened.”
“Perhaps he wanted to make sure it never got used again,” Faster suggested. “You know, take it out of circulation.”
“If that was his intention, he did a great job with it,” said Vanessa. “It makes the provenance a simple matter.”
“Well, yes; the documents look to be authentic,” said Faster in a resigned tone of voice. “They’ve been vetted legit. All the tests have come out supporting the claim. This is the Dziwny forte-piano.”
The two were silent as Vanessa pointed to an irregular stain on the bass end of the keyboard. “Brown. It could be blood.”
“It could,” said Faster uneasily. “Or something from being stored that way, or a natural discoloration of some sort. You can bet the Graf had it cleaned.”
“A man blowing his brains out all over a forte-piano must have been messy, much more than this stain’s-worth—there’d be blood and skull fragments, and brain matter, according to what I’ve researched; those old pistols did a lot of damage,” said Vanessa distantly. “I would have expected… I don’t know: something a lot worse than this.” She pulled the bench out and sat down at the instrument, trying an experimental chord.
A jangle of untuned strings shuddered out of the forte-piano.
“Ye gods!” Faster exclaimed. “They said it would be tuned.”
“Not yet,” said Vanessa, pulling her hands back as if scalded. “There are strings to be replaced, I’d have to say. They’ll need to give it a thorough going-over before it’ll be ready for the public.”
“No kidding,” said Faster. “I’ll call Shotwell right away. This is not the sound we want; I don’t care how authentic it is. He’s got to improve it.” He pulled his cell phone out of his breast pocket and tapped in a ten-digit number, then turned away to create the illusion of privacy.
Vanessa made a point of ignoring Faster’s end of the conversation, putting all her attention on the forte-piano. She played a few of the keys, her touch unusually hesitant, and winced at the sound the ancient, neglected strings made. At last she contented herself with playing one of Dziwny’s own compositions half an inch above the keys, hearing the correct notes in her mind. Only when Faster was through did she relent, swinging around on the bench and looking directly at him. “Well? What did he say?”
“He said he’d arrange everything, since he knows you want to perform with it,” said Faster, frowning as he spoke. “You wouldn’t believe what he had the nerve to tell me.”
“He said he couldn’t get his usual restoration crew to work on it,” she said promptly.
“You overheard,” Faster accused.
“No. It’s just a guess. But you’ve read the historical material about it, and you can bet Shotwell’s crew has, too, and know about the stories they’ve told about this instrument. It’s one of the most enduring fables in the classical music world, the forte-piano that compels those who play it to commit suicide.” She laughed. “Only one suicide has ever been proven in relation to this, and that was Dziwny’s own; the instrument’s been missing for close to two hundred years, so there’s no other accounts of it doing in anyone else. The Graffin died some months later in childbirth, not at the keyboard. And it turns out now that the forte-piano was put into the attic shortly afterward, so no one else had the chance to kill themselves while playing.”
“How do you account for the stories, then?” Faster asked, interested for promotional reasons.
“Because there was so much scandal around Dziwny’s love affair with the Graffin, assuming the rumors about the affair were true: there’s no proof that is was ever anything more than gossip. Still, it was quite a occurrence. His suicide was so dramatic. The public loved ghost stories back then, and the events were irresistible. And there was that awful book that came out in 1850, turning the whole story into a complicated Byronic romance. It’s become difficult to separate fact from fiction.” Vanessa laced her fingers together and looked directly at Faster. “How long is it going to take, getting this ready?”
“Shotwell said probably a month,” said Faster.
“That cuts into the Canadian tour,” Vanessa reminded him. “But that might be useful. We could use the tour to generate some interest in this instrument.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Faster, who was in favor of anything that could end up making Vanessa, his client, more money, for he would share in her good fortune.
“Then let’s plan on it,” she said, rising. “I want to find out everything he played that night, the night he shot himself.”
“Good God, why?” Faster asked.
“Because I think it would make for a very special first concert on this instrument,” she said, running her fingers lightly over the side of the forte-piano. “Think of the interest we could generate. And the myths we could put to rest.”
The promotional possibilities began to percolate in Faster’s agile brain. “Not a bad idea, Vanessa,” he approved. “Not a bad idea at all.”
* * * *
Nicola van der Beck looked up from the stacks of books on her cluttered desk and managed a vulpine smile, the lines in her face punctuating her look of eager predation. She held up an old journal as if offering a jewel to Vanessa. “It took some doing,” she said proudly, “but I finally found a full account in this. The Baron Gewaltheit. A dreadful name, isn’t it? There were so many of those petty nobles back then, full of their own inconsequence. The Baron and his Baroness were at the concert, and he recorded the program in detail. At least, that is what he purports to do. I can’t find any confirmation that he actually attended the concert. He may have been in the billiard room, and filled in the story later, from what the other guests told him. Still, he was at Lowenhoff—that much is certain.” She adjusted her bifocals so that she could read the text, and began to translate. “We, along with nearly all the Graf’s guests, entered the ballroom which was set for a concert with chairs set in rows under the chandeliers, the elevated musicians’ platform occupied by the forte-piano alone. There was much excitement, for everyone had heard the rumors about Dziwny and the Graffin, which might or might not be true. Both the composer and the Graffin behaved impeccably. You could also say sinlessly here. Still, there can be no doubt that Dziwny has dedicated a number of his recent works to the Graffin, and she has been moved by them. The Graf has been losing patience with this state of affairs—the pun only works in English, of course—and he’s announced that he intends to be rid of Dziwny after the
