Chapter Twenty-Four
Sean rose from his desk and greeted Jeremy as he entered his office door. “Jeremy, I want you to know how terrible I feel for you in all this mess. I know you must be horribly shocked.”
“Shocked?” cried Jeremy. “I’m beyond shocked. I come home to my apartment last night and Melissa isn’t there. She promised me she wouldn’t leave the place, so naturally I’m alarmed. I wait and wait, and then I start thinking that something might have happened to her. So I finally call the police station, hoping to talk to you, and I find out that Melissa’s been arrested! Out of nowhere! And that she’s been charged with Morgenstern’s murder and the theft of the manuscript! This is all just incredible to me!”
“Of course it is, Jeremy, of course it is,” Sean said sympathetically. “And that’s why I’ve invited David and Elizabeth to be with you for a little moral support.”
Jeremy looked at Elizabeth and David, both sitting over to the side of the room, and frowned. “But I’m told you two had something to do with all this.”
“Their role was an unimportant one, Jeremy,” Sean said quickly. “The fact is that there’s plenty of evidence that Melissa is guilty of what she’s being charged with.”
Jeremy sank into the seat across from Sean’s. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m just having a real tough time actually believing that. I trusted her. She was my…”
“I know, Jeremy,” Sean said. “This must be extremely hard.”
After three or four seconds of silence, Elizabeth spoke. “Yes, Jeremy, David and I realize that this must be extraordinarily difficult for you.”
“I don’t know how she could do this to me,” Jeremy said, choking back tears. “Is she completely heartless?”
Elizabeth leaned forward in her chair. “But things like this happen sometimes, Jeremy, when people allow their greed to dominate all of their other emotions, like friendship, loyalty and trust.”
Jeremy looked over at Elizabeth. “What do you mean? I'm not sure what you're talking about.”
Elizabeth looked directly at Jeremy. “I think you do know what we're talking about, because you betrayed the trust of a lot of people when you hatched this entire scam.”
Jeremy glowered. “That’s crazy. There's no scam. That Beethoven manuscript is worth millions.”
“What’s going on here, Elizabeth?” Sean asked.
“I think it’ll be clear in a minute, Sean,” Elizabeth said, glancing quickly toward Sean.
“So you think it’s worth millions, Jeremy?” she said, turning back to face him. “It’s worth a lot less than that. The music represented in that manuscript wasn't composed by Beethoven. It was composed by Hofhammer. He wasn't the copyist; he was the composer. Beethoven was just doing a favor for a lady friend by commenting on the manuscript. Of course you already know that.”
“That’s crazy. How could I know something like that?”
“You may not know the whole story,” Elizabeth said, “but you do know that the manuscript isn’t legit. Oh, most of the comments on the manuscript are actually by Beethoven, and I suppose the manuscript is a curiosity because of that. But some of the comments on the first two pages—the ones that supposedly establish him as the composer—are not by Beethoven but had to have been faked by you.”
“Quite cleverly, I must say,” David said calmly. “I really didn't know you had it in you.”
“Of course Morgenstern came to the conclusion that the manuscript was the real thing because he never saw the two pages where you faked Beethoven’s handwriting. Those pages were never tested in the lab. So things were going your way. He probably could have found a private collector who’d pay big bucks for the manuscript. The only problem is that the composition isn't actually by Beethoven, barely has any connection with Beethoven, and is probably worth no more than a few hundred dollars. But that wasn't even close to what you needed in order to get out of debt, and so you thought you'd embellish the truth a little.”
“Quite a bit, I'd say, if all this is true,” Sean said, nodding his head vigorously.
“I admire your imagination, Jeremy,” Elizabeth said coolly. “I suggest that you use your prison time to write a novel. Probably even an historical novel, since you seem to have quite a flair for inventing nineteenth-century dialogue.”
Jeremy stood up. “This is absolutely absurd…complete nonsense,” he said angrily.
Sean stood up as well. “Maybe it is, but now that our handwriting experts know what to look for, specifically on the first two pages of the manuscript, I think we’ll be able to clear things up pretty quickly.”
Jeremy turned quickly to leave.
“And until then, Mr. West, I’m going to have to detain you on suspicion of fraud and forgery.”
Jeremy swung around and glared at Elizabeth. “You bitch!”
Elizabeth shrugged. David rose quickly to his feet and started toward Jeremy.
Sean put his hand out to stop David. “Forget it. He’s not worth it.” Sean gestured to a uniformed officer standing in the corner who immediately clasped Jeremy’s hands behind his back and handcuffed him. Within seconds, Jeremy had been escorted out the door.
“Amazing!” Sean said. “It makes perfect sense now, but I still have some trouble believing it. And Elizabeth, you have an incredible talent for this sort of work. Has it ever occurred to you that your first calling may be as a policewoman?”
Elizabeth smiled. “I don’t think so, Sean. I just got lucky on this one.”
Sean took a deep breath. “Well, I think we made a great team, and I for one am thrilled with our results. My superiors thought I was wasting everybody’s time and it turned out that we solved two cases—fraud and murder. And none of it would have been possible without you, Elizabeth. Of course we broke most of the rules in the detective procedural handbook, but that’ll be our little secret. At the very least I’m hoping that we’ll all stay in close touch.”
“I'll be delighted to,” David said.
“And how about you, Elizabeth?” Sean said. “Are we going to stay in touch?
Elizabeth smiled coyly. “How could I possibly allow myself to lose contact with someone who is both my favorite Irish tenor and my favorite Irish detective?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The elegantly dressed waiter gestured for Elizabeth and David to follow as he led them to a table in one of the darker recesses of the bistro.
“I must say, David,” Elizabeth said, smiling demurely, “that this is one of the nicest places you’ve ever taken me to.”
“Well, I thought we had a lot to celebrate,” David said, helping Elizabeth into her seat.
“Why thank you,” she said. “Yes, I guess we do. I mean, we survived a pretty traumatic experience.”
“Thanks to your brilliance in uncovering all of the deep, dark secrets,” David said, a smile crossing his face.
“I wasn’t alone, you know. I had plenty of help, including your rather daring risks of life and limb. I still can’t believe that you put yourself in jeopardy like that.”
“All in the line of duty,” David said. “Actually, I discovered that the secret to performing daredevil acts is to give them absolutely no thought whatsoever before you launch into them.”
“Advice for the ages, I guess,” Elizabeth replied, “although you’ll probably live longer if you consider other strategies once in a while.”
“But we got through it, anyway. We made it through together.” David paused. “Still, I can’t help thinking it’s kind of sad. I had always considered Jeremy a good friend. Still, I guess it’s pretty clear that I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.”
“I guess not.” Elizabeth said. “But I don’t feel sorry for either one of them.”
“I suppose we shouldn’t,” David said. “And I suppose you’re off again to Europe to enter another competition?”
“Oh, I don't know, David. I think I need more of a challenge than that.”
“More of a challe
nge than competing against the best pianists in the world?”
“Sure. That can get tedious you know. I'm thinking about another challenge a little closer to home.”
“And that would be?”
Elizabeth reached her hand across the table and clutched David’s. “Getting you back in shape and making a respectable pianist out of you.”
“Oh really?”
“Of course. So although all of this is very fancy, I don’t want us to dawdle over dinner tonight.”
“And why is that?” David asked, taking Elizabeth’s other hand in his.
“Because, David, we have a lot of duets to play and I can’t think of a better time to get started.”
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If you enjoyed The Beethoven Quandary, you might want to check out The Mephisto Mysteries by the same author. Elizabeth McDermitt and David Currant deal with mysterious and even deadly circumstances at an international piano competition. Available from most EBook sellers.
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