“You know,” David said gloomily,” swirling his stir-stick in his coffee, “Mackinaw’s used to be just about my favorite place, but lately I’ve got as many bad memories here as good ones.”
Elizabeth smiled gently at him. “This is almost over now. Pretty soon everything will be sweetness and light again.”
“I doubt it. Jeremy’s going to be heart-broken.”
“Jeremy’s going to have more serious problems than that.”
“What do you mean? What could be more serious than having your girlfriend be the one who’s trying to steal your most precious possession? And commit murder while she’s at it?”
“It’s about the manuscript David. I don’t think it is what it’s cracked up to be.”
David cocked his head. “I’m not sure what you mean. Explain please.”
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “I’ve been suspicious about this almost from the beginning. Yes, the comments in the margins of Jeremy’s manuscript are written by Beethoven and the musical notes themselves are written by Hofhammer. But is Hofhammer really acting as Beethoven’s copyist? Professor Gray said he thought that some of Beethoven’s comments seemed strange if thought of as directions from a composer to a copyist.”
“Listen, the whole thing is strange. It’s a very unusual manuscript.”
“It’s more than unusual. You remember how earlier today Jeremy finally got around to showing us a photocopy of the part of the manuscript that he delivered to Morgenstern?”
“Sure,” David said. “I didn’t look at it though. Too many other things on my mind.”
“Well, I did. I was able to glance through the photocopy of the manuscript while you were talking to Jeremy in the kitchen. I didn’t have much time, but I came to the same conclusion that Professor Gray did. Some of the comments I read just didn’t make any sense if you think of Beethoven as the composer of the music and Hofhammer just the copyist.”
“But Jeremy said that the telltale comments come on the first two pages,” David said. “That’s where Beethoven makes it clear that it’s his composition.”
“But that doesn’t really make any sense,” Elizabeth replied. “Many of the comments that Beethoven makes throughout the rest of the manuscript seem to be criticizing the composition, not just the copying job.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that most of the comments really amount to a critique of the composition and Beethoven would hardly be criticizing his own symphony.”
“I’m sorry. I suppose I’m being dense but I’m not following you here.”
“I think the comments that Beethoven has written are about someone else’s composition, and that someone else is almost certainly Hofhammer.”
“You mean it’s really Hohammer’s symphony and Beethoven is just critiquing it?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“So you’re saying that Hofhammer is not one of Beethoven’s copyists, but actually the composer of the piece? But why would Beethoven do that? Why would he go out of his way to spend that amount of time critiquing a composition by a composer that no one’s ever heard of? That certainly doesn’t sound like something Beethoven would do, certainly not at that point in his life.”
“True, but he might do it as a favor to a very special friend.”
“What special friend?”
“That’s what I wanted to find out. So I contacted a good friend of mine, a musicologist who is doing archival work in Vienna right now. Her name is Victoria Stoneham.”
“Who is she? I’ve never heard of her.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “That’s because she never graduated from your precious Leonard Conservatory. And I realize she’s not a world famous scholar—not yet. But she’s a brilliant researcher and knows her way around early nineteenth century Viennese historical documents as well as anyone in the world.”
“So what does Victoria have to say about this?”
“I asked her to tell me anything she could about Hofhammer and any possible link there might be between him and Beethoven. She emailed me about an hour ago, and what she has to say is quite amazing. Everyone wondered why they had never heard of Hofhammer if he was indeed one of Beethoven’s copyists. The reason is simple; he was not one of Beethoven’s copyists. He was an amateur composer. A very eccentric one indeed, who was continually trying to bribe orchestras into playing his compositions. But his style was considered so erratic and quirky that no one would go anywhere near him.”
“But I still don’t understand the link between Hofhammer and Beethoven? If this guy were a well-known nut case, why would Beethoven waste his time evaluating his symphony and writing comments on it? Why was he such a ‘special friend’ to Beethoven?
“He was not the special friend. Hofhammer’s younger sister was.”
“His younger sister?”
“Yes, one of the many young ladies with whom Beethoven became enamored with over his lifetime. One might even say obsessed with in this case. This young lady convinced Beethoven, as a special favor to her, to examine and critique her big brother’s symphony. And Beethoven went along with her request, although he doesn’t seem to have done it with much enthusiasm. As Melissa pointed out, he eventually just gave up on the task about three-quarters the way through Hofhammer’s manuscript.”
“So Beethoven critiqued Hofhammer’s symphony—at least a large part of it—as a favor to a special lady friend?”
“Exactly.”
“But why is there no clear record of this? Why didn’t Professor Gray know about this?”
“Professor Gray is an expert on Beethoven’s musical style. I don’t think he is one of those who spends a lot of time studying Beethoven’s love life. And I’m not surprised that he’d never heard of Hofhammer as a composer. He apparently didn’t make much of a splash in the music world of early nineteenth-century Vienna. Still, I had a hunch he might be important enough to leave a trace of himself somewhere, so I communicated with Rebecca.”
“But still, wouldn’t somebody else know the name Hofhammer? Some people spend their lives looking to uncover Beethoven’s love affairs.”
“True, but it’s a bit trickier than usual in this case, because Hofhammer’s little sister had a different name. You see, she was married at the time.”
“And that explains why Beethoven was so secretive.”
“That, and his tendency to keep more to himself, certainly by that time in his life.”
“But as you said, Beethoven never finished the job. He gave up on the manuscript. And didn’t little sister get disturbed when she found out that Beethoven was critical of her big brother’s composition?”
“Maybe, but Beethoven had probably moved on by then. One reason that this lady has not gone down in history as one of Beethoven’s famous paramours is that their relationship was so brief.”
“But I keep coming back to the first two pages. Jeremy insists that Beethoven’s comments on the first two pages make it clear that he’s talking about his own composition.”
“Skillfully concocted forgeries…they have to be. Jeremy had only to forge Beethoven’s handwriting on those couple of comments and that might seal the deal, even if many of the other comments are, as Professor Gray has pointed out, somewhat ambiguous.”
“So Jeremy forged those couple of lines, the ones that would prove to the world that this was a new composition by Beethoven. But in reality the manuscript consisted mostly of Beethoven’s somewhat ill-tempered criticisms of a symphony by an unknown—and unquestionably quirky—composer. What incredible gall! How did Jeremy think he was going to get away with it?”
“He figured that the manuscript would pass the authenticity tests because most of it is in fact authentic. And it was very convenient for him that the first two pages were not available for Morgenstern to look at, or for the scientific tests to evaluate, because it was those two pages that had been ‘doctored’ by Jeremy. The irony is that even without Je
remy’s trying to pass it off as a new work by Beethoven, the document still would have been worth something as a curiosity with all of those authentic Beethoven comments on it.”
“So the manuscript would have some value even though it’s not really Beethoven’s composition?”
“Some. But not nearly as much as if it were thought of as a new work by Beethoven. The truth of the matter is that the manuscript does not represent what Jeremy claims it represents. Still, a private collector who lusted after a unique souvenir of Beethoven might be so anxious that he or she might not even notice that fact. That’s what Jeremy was counting on.”
“So this is fraud.”
“Moderately clever fraud, I’d say. And it could have worked out for Jeremy if things had broken just right.”
“But Elizabeth,” David said, shaking his head sadly, “we’ve got to get to Sean…to tell him before his interview with Jeremy.”
Elizabeth smiled. “We’re going to be there, remember? I’m pretty sure it will all work out.”