The Lost Chord: Chapters 53 & 54

The Lost Chord

(a classical music appreciation comedy thriller by Richard Alan Strawser: you can read it from the beginning, here.)

In the previous installment, Fictitia and her new friend Harper arrive at the old castle, pursued by Kunegunde, Heller and Scricci whom they quickly dispatch before they descend into the dungeon, led by Roth, to rescue Cameron and revive Dr. Kerr. Fictitia makes an unexpected discovery. And Dr. Kerr discovers that Roth has succeeded in figuring out the map from the bottom of the statue, almost. Meanwhile, Tr'iTone tries to solve the riddle to finding the Fountain of Inspiration inside the Festspielhaus as Leahy-Hu and the IMPs storm the old castle. A New York City detective receives a call for help from a friend in Germany that he feels needs looking into.

= = = = = = =
Chapter 53

It was convenient that someone had left the keys in the car when they parked out front at the castle, but Lionel Roth wasn't used to driving after years in New York, always taking the subway, bus or train everywhere he needed to go, on special occasions splurging for a cab. Not that he wanted to call this a vacation, the way it was turning out, but it was the first time he'd been away from the city in over a decade. Too bad he couldn't find a cab out here in the woods because this was a very special occasion, alerting Dhabbodhú to the miscalculation concerning the exact location of his goal. He thought his friend, Dr. Dhabbodhú, would take the news very philosophically but how would this Tr'iTone fellow react?

It took so long to start the car, he was afraid he'd flood the engine before it roared to life, a deafening riot of noises echoing all through the trees and rocks that must have startled every bat on the mountain top into action or wakened every monster in their caves. Careening down the hillside, Roth, convinced he was being chased by thousands of rats, stepped heavily on the gas. At one point, he nearly collided with the remains of some beast.

Fortunately, the broken beast turned out to be a badly mangled bike and the rats never left the woods. He arrived safely, if rattled, pulling in behind the Festspielhaus to park. Even if the lot was entirely empty, Roth was sure he'd get a ticket if he wasn't properly parked. But unfortunately Roth found all the doors across the back were locked, ready to set off the security alarms. The only way in was through this hole in the outer wall.

How he'd get inside was one thing; how he'd step over the body of a dead security guard, another. Judging from the angle of the neck, he wasn't lying there asleep.

Roth tip-toed around the body, aware whoever did this was probably inside.

And who was inside? Dhabbodhú or... Tr'iTone...?

Roth could tell it was a huge building, not some tiny provincial theater that was all charm and no practicality, with its tiny little stage and no space backstage to speak of. From the outside, this building looked vast, but from the inside he knew it would only be more intimidating.

And where inside would he find Tr'iTone, since Roth had no idea what it was he was looking for? He could be anywhere from the basement to the auditorium's massive chandelier.

Mentioning the chandelier reminded him of that time he'd gone backstage after a performance of Phantom of the Opera to meet a friend playing a minor role and he got lost, running into strangers wearing these strange costumes, staring at him and laughing as if he were the weird one.

It was like being in a fun house on Halloween, he remembered, turning these corners, each scarier than the last, until he began having a panic attack, unable to breathe or scream. He fainted into the arms of someone in diaphanous robes – a vampire? – but could recall nothing more beyond that.

He dreamed it took weeks before anyone managed to find his body, dangling from the chandelier, drained of blood. Ever since, seeing the show's iconic poster made him gasp for air.

Lionel knew he could not run away: he needed to warn Dhabbodhú. He couldn't just hide back at the castle. There was something important, even cathartic, he knew he needed to face. He owed it to Dr. Dhabbodhú, his mentor, to set him straight because he deserved at least that much. And besides, the very thought of him running back through those woods was more than he could possibly handle, facing the rats and bats, the wolves and who knew what else.

But how could he figure out where Dhabbodhú – or Tr'iTone – had gone, the one such a stranger to him? He held his breath, closed his eyes, listening for the slightest impulse. Suddenly he felt something suggest he should open this door, follow that hallway, take those steps, walk this way.

To say he was scared out of his wits was an understatement, in the darkness his eyes bulging with fear, so pale his body already looked like it was drained of blood. Somehow, he found himself standing around backstage among these dark and terrifying shapes with their deep and horrifying shadows.

From somewhere far above him, he heard a noise that startled him, like the clattering of feet on metal.

"Hello," Roth called out, "is that you," his voice barely a whisper.

The clattering on the steps stopped abruptly – then a moment of silence.

"Hello...?" Roth stammered, more timidly than before.

"Who's there..." The voice above sounded impatient. The steps resumed, spiraling upwards.

"It's me, Dr. Dhabbodhú," Roth continued hesitantly, "I mean, Mr. Tr'iTone... sir."

Once again, the clattering stopped and waited.

Roth looked up, craning his neck backwards until he felt himself on the verge of dizziness with the effort. He could see nothing in the darkness above him but more darkness.

"Mr. Roth?" The voice paused.

"Yessir..." Roth stepped deeper into the shadows.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I have something important to..."

"Can't hear you. Come up here – now!"

Roth stumbled between the dark threatening shapes and found the iron staircase.

Reaching out, he touched it – and froze.

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Immediately, Skripasha Scricci, former glam rocker, began screaming like a little girl when six black-clad agents barged through the door with AK-47s drawn and ready, their flashlights cutting brilliantly through the gloom.

"What an odd sight," Leahy-Hu thought, as she stepped into the room. "Could tonight get any stranger? Not possible..."

Scricci sat there completely naked, struggling in the lap of Schweinwald board member Barry Scarpia who failed to respond. When Scricci tried to escape, he and Scarpia collapsed in a heap.

They discovered Scricci was tied to Scarpia who was obviously quite dead, rigor mortis having already begun setting in. Apparently, Scarpia was killed first, Scricci added as an adornment more recently. Scricci looked like he'd been attacked by some manic face-painter with a pathological disposition, escaped from some street fair.

Judging from the detail, he must have been fully decorated while unconscious, the result of blunt force trauma from behind, the scalp and hair still bloody from the wound, Agent Manina noted. He had been painted by someone armed with a black indelible marker on the face, chest, abdomen and buttocks.

Aside from cat whiskers on his face, his scrawny chest and abdomen were covered with words like an inscription: "I'm a drug-dealing, talentless, skanky pervert and also an evil SHMRG ho."

Only a few feet inside the next room was another odd sight, like two struggling figures encased in cocoons, trussed up in a pair of rugs bound with fancy curtain cords. Another precaution, they'd been tied around the base of a heavy lamp: these two wouldn't be going anywhere fast.

Though not quite as visible as Scricci, they were no less recognizable.

"They're Schweinwald Security officers," Agent Leise said.

But Agent Manina swept her flashlight across their squirming faces and smiled.

"It would appear they also fell victim to the same pathological face-painter," Leahy-Hu noted, after taking a closer look.

On their foreheads someone had also scrawled, "I'm a SHMRG ho, too."

"I suspect there will be a much deeper story, here," Leahy-Hu added. "That ink will not wash off easily."

Without ceremony, agents hauled the rug-bound 'SHMRG hoes' out to the van, handcuffing the naked Scricci to both of them, while the others cased the rest of the castle, finding nobody else. They soon located the dungeon's broadcast studio with evidence of what someone calling himself Tr'iTone had been up to. The computer and its printer were warm, the contraption attached to the stone table was still operational, if ineffectual. Agent Leise turned down the volume on the CD player's broadcast feed.

Leahy-Hu pulled the microphone to her and, speaking carefully over the music (she'd always wanted to be a DJ): "We interrupt this broadcast of Mr. Tr'iTone's Symphony Whose Time Has Come. I apologize for the inconvenience: according to international laws regarding internet piracy, it seems its time has indeed come."

With that, Agent Leise ceremoniously yanked various cords out of their receptacles once Leahy-Hu stepped back and gave the signal. Finally, the music ended abruptly in the middle of another meandering phrase. Leahy-Hu looked with satisfaction from one agent to the other, her lips pursed in a rarely seen, tight smile.

"Thank God that one's over, but we still must locate the professor. Perhaps, he, too, is a 'SHMRG ho'?"

She also wondered if Kerr and Tr'iTone weren't one and the same.

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

"I can't believe you just happen to know someone in the New York City Police Department," Cameron said to Harper, once again thanking him for helping spread the word about Dylan's trouble.

"What can I say," Harper replied modestly. "But you mean you don't have a thing for guys in uniforms?"

I could imagine why Cameron chose not to respond to this directly, his mind focused on Dylan's immediate well-being. He kept his eye on the road while I tried to nap.

Fictitia, feeling more like her old self, also thanked Harper for having a viola case full of extra toys that included things like fishing line and a black indelible marker pen.

"I like to be prepared: hey, you never know what's going to come up, right?" the young man said.

We'd narrowly avoided Leahy-Hu and her IMP agents who were pulling into the castle's parking area before we could escape. Harper spotted their van's arrival as Fictitia finished up her impromptu art-work. Being able to do that had restored her spirits after rescuing Cameron, though glad they'd always remain good friends.

Besides, she would long treasure the photos snapped of the unconscious Scricci, sorry she'll miss one of his reviving. Now to pick the very best one and post it everywhere on-line.

We didn't need to be detained on useless suspicions by Leahy-Hu again which we knew she would never understand, so Harper led the way to the castle's kitchen and its backdoor, skirting the side of the castle through what was once a garden, waiting till the agents made their entrance.

Once the screaming began, they could never hear us start the car, oblivious to our making a hasty get-away. Soon, we were flying away from Schweinwald Castle, back to the Festspielhaus.

Unable to nap, I'd suggested Fictitia tweet something to draw the IMP.

"Do you want them to catch us?"

"Not us – Tr'iTone," I answered, as we pulled into the parking lot.

"That's Kunegunde the Bitch's car," Fictitia said. "I guess Roth must have stolen it. Lot of that happening tonight..."

It was Harper who first stumbled upon the body of Officer Ritter. "Oh, no, it's Helmut! Somebody's broken his neck!"

Cameron looked around, hoping we were alone. "Another policeman friend of yours?"

"Yeah, he was more than a chat-buddy. A great Doomcraft player, too."

"Can anybody explain what's next?" Fictitia asked.

I had an idea: if Harper alerted his friend Agitato, a known double-agent, with news of the officer's death, it might draw him into the game and help us capture Tr'iTone.

"It could also mean he and Tr'iTone team up and capture us," Cameron considered, not sure how it'd work.

"If the IMP's monitoring Fictitia's tweets, see – they want to catch SHMRG..."

"The trick is getting everybody here at the same time," Harper said. "Okay, Doc, that sounds like a plan!"

Harper stayed behind to contact his friend Agitato and report Kunegunde was headed into the Festspielhaus to confront Ritter's killer.

Meanwhile, we barged inside into the darkness, not sure where to turn.

"Look," Cameron pointed out, "someone's left these doors open, like a trail."

Following the path soon led us backstage.

Roth barely made it to the fourth step before we saw him.

"Lionel, wait," Cameron called out to him.

"Who else is there, Mr. Roth?" Tr'iTone's voice boomed through the darkness.

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Agitato hadn't heard back from Kunegunde or Rache and was getting concerned but if Agent Lott started getting any nosier, it would only put him more at risk whenever they did call. Did they apprehend Cameron and the professor and bring them back to the hotel as The Chief had ordered? Had they terminated the broadcast that had illegally commandeered so many frequencies? He should probably contact Officer Ritter, too, just to check on him, in case he's napping on the job.

Agent Lott was busy tracking the internet chatter about the pirate broadcaster, noticing the favorable comments outweighed the negative though most of those were about where their regular programs had gone. Given the popular taste for unmitigated dreck, she wasn't surprised this Tr'iTone fellow had a hit on his hands.

Agitato picked up his private phone as soon as it started vibrating, something Agent Lott did not fail to notice, especially after he swiveled his chair around, turning his back to her. But it wasn't Kunegunde, he noticed, it was that cute chat-friend of his in the orchestra, Harper the violist.

"My officers are out at the castle and everything's under control, Harper."

"Thanks, Preston, but..." Harper said, sounding worried.

"Is everything else okay, Harper? I'm not off duty till after 7:00."

"Well, I stopped by to see Helmut who's bored as hell and... I saw Kunegunde running off into the building. It looks like Helmut's dead. Hey, I gotta get outta here... bye!"

Agitato tried calling Ritter on his headset but there was no response. Calling Kunegunde's phone got no response, either.

Without looking at Agent Lott, he bolted out the door and ran over to the rear of the Festspielhaus. He found Ritter's body and realized Harper was right: Helmut was dead.

He called Kunegunde again but went straight to voice-mail. He sounded frantic.

"Where are you? Why aren't you answering?"

Then Agitato heard a noise.

Agent Lott suddenly appeared, her pistol raised.

Agitato took off, dashing for Kunegunde's car.

"IMP! Stop – or I'll shoot!"

He didn't stop, so she shot him.


Chapter 54

If he didn't have to explain more about his call from Germany, Noranik figured his secret might well remain safe. He needed to keep his 'Ryan Goodcop' identity undercover (so to speak). What a coincidence Harper should've texted him at this particular moment, though, just when all this was going down.

"He's an informant, okay?" Det. Noranik explained. "He helps me out with things happening in the local music scene. This summer, turns out he's working in Bavaria, some summer music festival."

Noranik had partnered up with Det. Larson as they drove their unmarked cars over to the 86th Street address. It felt good supplying info that could break the case – cases, actually. Larson was also working on a barely credible case involving some homeless woman recently coming out of a coma.

"I mean, why should the drug business be the only one with deep connections, right?" he had started telling her. "This kid hears someone needing help through his internet connections," he added. "All because someone knew someone who knew something and it comes home to roost here. It's a small world."

What Det. Larson found surprising was how it related to this woman who insisted she was Elizabeth du Hicquè but had been brought in as a Jane Doe suffering a stroke.

Det. Noir, asking his ex-colleagues for help in this murder case, was intrigued. "Yeah, it happened in my precinct but the guy lived in yours and these two suspects did, too." He's tracking down any connections he can find with Dhabbodhú and Roth before the FBI horns in, claiming jurisdiction.

Then here's this woman witnesses say is Elisabeth du Hicquè living in du Hicquè's house: doesn't everything seem legit? After all, who would believe a rambling old bag-lady in a hospital?

But surveillance of Dhabbodhú's phone indicated a text sent earlier this evening had originated from the du Hicquè house.

"Maybe the old woman in the hospital wasn't so crazy, ya know?"

Regardless, now they didn't need to wait till morning for a warrant: one du Hicquè was holding a hostage.

Noranik was impressed how quickly they tracked down this Dylan guy's phone, using their low-key, barely functional GPS monitoring software once they plugged in the various codes from his frequently forwarded text. It was like watching one of those fancy cop shows on TV, still a far cry from police reality. IT was able to pinpoint the origin of his distress call's 'cyberprint' to an exact address just off Broadway. The question now was figuring out how dangerous the situation might be.

If the Elisabeth du Hicquè living at that address was using an assumed identity, was she a bomb-making terrorist? Considering what she'd sent Dhabbodhú, what was the nature of her threat? Was she in some way Dhabbodhú's accomplice or maybe the criminal mastermind? Regardless, they considered her armed and dangerous.

Two unmarked cars pulled up in front of the brownstone, blocking traffic, as four detectives poured out into the street. Casing the neighborhood – a nice block on a quiet night – they nodded. Within seconds, they filed up the front steps and took their positions. A neighbor walking her dog hurried past.

"Ms. du Hicquè, I'm with the NYPD," Larson said, ringing the doorbell. "Like to ask you a few questions?"

No response. She tried again.

"Wait, shouldn't somebody be going around back?"

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Standing there, Roth remained silent, looked up, then looked back at us, not taking his hand off the railing, motionless. It was obvious he was afraid to move either up or down. We heard the noise of someone far above us continuing to climb – probably Tr'iTone – but where was he going?

"Well, Mr. Roth, are you coming or not?" the gruff voice demanded. After pausing momentarily, he then resumed climbing.

What was it he was searching for? Why look for it here?

"Lionel, please, think about it, what you'd said back at the castle," I mentioned as calmly as I could while I stepped closer to him at the bottom of the stairs.

"No, you don't understand, I have to do this," he said, whispering. "Old loyalties die hard," he added emphatically.

I lit the flashlight taken from Kunegunde, holding it under my chin and pointing it up to illuminate my face. I thought it might be more reassuring if Roth could see me.

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten how, when we'd do this in a darkened room, it looked like a disembodied, distorted image.

Instead of calming him down, Roth gasped and stumbled with a clatter, banging into the iron handrail behind him. Once he regained his balance, he then scrambled blindly up the stairs.

"Mr. Roth, you're not alone?" the reverberant voice boomed forth once more. "Come, you must hurry: there is no time." His voice echoed through the vast space, wave after wave of evil.

"Lionel, stop – don't do this," I said, "you really don't have to."

"Is that Dr. Kerr, the illustrious musicologist?"

"I'm not a musicologist," I said defensively. "I just write about music."

It annoyed me how everybody assumed, just because you're a scholarly musician, that automatically makes you a trained musicologist.

"What are you doing here, now, professor?" Tr'iTone sneered, even more annoyed. "I left you back at the castle. What, did you do a good deed and untie him, Mr. Roth?"

Roth by now had finally reached the first landing, his breathing labored.

That was when I heard more footsteps.

"Yes, but I hear voices over here," I heard a man say, one used to giving orders and being obeyed.

The footsteps came closer, suddenly aware they needed to be more stealthy.

I signaled Cameron and shut off my flashlight. He did the same. We stepped behind some large set piece.

Somebody hit something not far off, and I heard a woman's voice.

"Dammit, I can't see a bloody thing!"

LauraLynn! I recognized her voice.

The cast of characters had now expanded.

SHMRG was the first to arrive, no doubt coming from the hotel, but how many agents, I couldn't tell. If that was their CEO, he rarely ever traveled without an entourage.

The IMP had been out at the castle. How long would it take before they'd arrive on the scene?

It hadn't occurred to me before that SHMRG might be holding LauraLynn. I'd always assumed it was our villain, Dhabbodhú. Who had made that threat, before? How were her fingers holding up? It sounded like such a barbaric thing to be so heartlessly cold-blooded. We were up against someone very cruel.

I wasn't sure what SHMRG's role in this whole thing was, anyway. For obvious reasons, Leahy-Hu wasn't very forthcoming. If SHMRG was responsible for Rob's murder, who the hell was Tr'iTone?

"Mr. Roth, I think you've been followed," the voice from above snarled. "That was not very bright, you know..."

Tr'iTone, even more angrily, stomped his foot, sending shivers through the iron.

"You must lead them away, Mr. Roth: I have work to do and very little time to do it."

"But there's something important to tell you, Mr. Tr'iTone, sir," Roth squeaked.

That didn't seem to slow Tr'iTone down.

"I still can't hear you, Mr. Roth, you must come up here."

"Is that you... Tr'iTone?" It's an authoritative voice used to giving orders.

"There is no time," Tr'itone continued snarling.

"I'm the CEO of SHMRG, and I'm here to negotiate with you."

Steele explained how he'd trade Ms. Harty's journal for Dr. Richard Kerr.

"Well, you're in luck – he's here, somewhere!"

That sounded like our cue to escape, but how, in this darkness? I could barely see Cameron standing beside me. I knew there was a wall here; the stage was over there. If I turned on my flashlight, I knew they'd find us easily – or when I splatted against the wall.

There was no place to run and not many places to hide. They would find us sooner or later.

Then it occurred to me, what had happened to Fictitia and Harper?

"Terry, if you're here, don't show yourself," LauraLynn hollered from the wings.

Then Steele ordered someone to gag her.

"No," a new voice said, breathing heavily, "let me take this one."

A large silhouette of a man dragged LauraLynn out onto the stage, and tied her to the light stand.

"Dr. Kerr, meet Ms. Harty," the man said menacingly. "Come out – now!"

Here's another fine mess we found ourselves in.

"I do not want Ms. Harty," Tr'iTone snorted. "Just leave the journal."

"Or we could catch Kerr and keep the journal, too," Steele answered.

"That is not very gentlemanly of you..."

The man with LauraLynn – wasn't that Tr'iTone? But he's climbing the staircase...

Cameron tapped me on the shoulder. "Look!"

I noticed a crack in the wall.

"What's that up – a head?"


= = = = = = =
To be continued...

posted by Dick Strawser

The novel, The Lost Chord, is a classical music appreciation comedy thriller completed in 2013, and is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2014

The Lost Chord: Chapters 51 & 52

The Lost Chord

(a classical music appreciation comedy thriller by Richard Alan Strawser: you can read it from the beginning, here.)

In the previous installment, Tr'iTone arrives at the Festspielhaus looking for his fountain, Schweinwald Security tracks down the source of Tr'iTone's illegal broadcast, Scricci discovers Fictitia has posted a video of him on-line before she escaped, and Lionel decides his vacation has really been a disaster from the start...

= = = = = = =
Chapter 51

Since there were two cars already parked outside the old castle's courtyard, Harper decided it best to park his car facing out in case they would need to make a quick get-away. Fictitia was becoming increasingly impatient while he jockeyed his car into place, hiding it behind some weeds farther away. She thought about jumping out and running into the castle by herself but also figured that would be foolhardy. Who knew what awaited them? Did she want to face it alone?

On the other hand, it was only a matter of time before that maladroit Scricci would discover her escape and alert Kunegunde and the others who'd soon be on her tail. They had very little time and who knew how much to do, so there was no time to waste.

They both knew their friend Cameron was in trouble and needed rescuing, but what kind of trouble he was in or whether they were too late or not, she had no idea. Add to that the place would soon be crawling with SHMRG agents if they hadn't already gotten here first.

The bumpy ride down the winding country road was bad enough in a decent car driving at normal speeds, but in Harper's cool-looking old jalopy, it was a high-speed, bone-rattling nightmare.

Harper grabbed his viola case from the back seat of the car, catching up with her at the door.

"You brought your violin?" Fictitia was dumbfounded.

"It's my viola," he said.

"We're not here for a gig, dude: we need to rescue Cameron." She tried not to sound too ungrateful.

"Never mind," he said, "Lead the way." He pushed the door open.

"I have no idea where we're going..."

All she remembered was someone going inside, then she'd heard them scream.

"No time for doubts," Harper pointed out. Another car joined them in front of the castle, parking him in.

"Aww, crap," Fictitia said, hitting the wall with her foot. "Now, what...?"

She recognized the car: it was Kunegunde, the agent who supposedly rescued her after she'd wrecked the stolen bike.

Kunegunde and Heller had their guns drawn but Scricci, now fully dressed, ran screaming across the courtyard, his arms flailing.

With no time to spare, Harper and Fictitia disappeared inside the doorway.

From outside, Kunegunde heard a loud thunk as the screaming stopped instantly. The two SHMRG agents weren't far behind.

She turned to Rache and motioned with her pistol toward the entrance, approaching stealthily, their flashlights and guns ready.

Kunegunde went in high, Rache ducking low.

"Clear," they both shouted simultaneously.

There was Scricci, flat on his ugly face, sprawled across the floor, blood streaming down his long skanky hair.

In the room in front of them, Fictitia wasn't trying to hide.

At that moment, a wall panel opened up and Fictitia dove inside. She gave them the finger and disappeared.

Kunegunde and Rache both made a dash for her and went flying, a jumble of mid-air arms and legs. Before either of them could raise a gun, Harper tossed an old throw rug over them like a side-show magician, before finishing them off with a deftly placed konk with a candlestick.

Harper, having rigged up a trip wire from some handy fishing line, took some viola strings from his case.

"Well, then," Fictitia admitted, "good thing you brought your viola with you..."

She couldn't resist one more indignity for Scricci as they tied him to the chair, sitting on Barry Scarpia's lap (she promised Harper she'd post the picture only after they rescued Cameron). Aside from waking up with a headache, it will freak Scricci out, finding himself strapped to a dead body. She also took photos of Kundegunde and her partner as Harper gagged them, wrapped up tightly in individual rugs, tied together around the sturdy base of a large brass floor lamp.

From deep inside the wall, they heard a whimpering sound and thumping like someone walking with a wooden leg.

"Cameron!" Fictitia suddenly remembered why they're there. What more trouble lay ahead?

Armed with the agents' pistols and flashlights, Harper and Fictitia tip-toed down the secret passageway, following the plaintive sounds.

Another question on their minds was who else was in the castle? Who had trapped Cameron and also killed Scarpia? Would they be walking into a trap? And what was that music...?

Ahead of them, Harper saw the form of someone in a chair rocking back and forth, scared to death.

It wasn't Cameron but maybe this guy knew what was going on. Harper untied the gag and questioned him. Just to be safe, Fictitia kept the gun aimed at his head.

He explained his name was Lionel Roth, that his friend had only left minutes ago but might soon return.

"He's your friend and yet leaves you tied up inside a wall?"

"Yes – Dr. Dhabbodhú thinks I should force myself to face my fears."

"That's his name, Dhabbodhú? I mean, seriously?"

"Cameron – where is he keeping Cameron?" Fictitia thought they could chit-chat later. "We're here to rescue my friend, okay?"

"Untie me, then," Roth gestured, "and I can take you to him."

After a little while, Roth had successfully led them into the dungeon.

There on a stone slab was Cameron hooked up to a machine, writhing around like bacon in a fry-pan.

Fictitia screamed.

Roth hurried to the practice room and opened the door.

Inside was the body of Dr. Kerr.

Fictitia immediately ran up to Cameron and desperately began tugging at him, trying to pull him away from the table. Harper yelled at her to no avail, warning her about electrical current.

The music was too loud, she couldn't hear him – or didn't care. Cameron's bloodshot eyes were wide with fear.

Immediately, Harper started tearing at all the suction cups and the ear-buds. Almost immediately, Cameron's writhing began to stop.

Fictitia, smiling broadly, had to admit she felt very happy right now.

Harper momentarily excused himself, saying he needed to text Dylan right away and let him know Cameron was okay.

"Dylan?" Fictitia asked, massaging Cameron's aching temples.

"Yeah, Cameron's hot little boyfriend."

"Hot little... boyfriend?" Fictitia gulped, her entire world suddenly going very quiet. She must try desperately not to cry.

"Ah, good – okay, there it is," Roth announced. He shut down the audio in the dungeon without interrupting the broadcast.

"Great! Now we don't have to listen to that crap," Harper said.

Fictitia looked down at Cameron's mostly naked body and felt very awkward. This wasn't the first time this'd happened...

"What the hell kind of music was that anyway, Lionel?" Harper said, sending his text. "It was so lame!"

Fictitia heard her mum's voice saying the nicest guys usually were gay.

Roth didn't like the way Harper made fun of Dr. Dhabbodhú's music but instead he decided to remain silent. He didn't like it himself, actually, but who was he to judge? He returned his attention to Dr. Kerr who, in the silence, began to show signs of a slight pulse.

So the professor wasn't dead after all, though who knows how much longer he might have lasted in there.

Harper joked how this gave new meaning to the comment, 'killer piece!'

There was little to be done, now, but let them slowly revive after their equally harrowing experiences, Roth suggested.

Harper was helping Cameron with getting dressed. Fictitia stood by, rather subdued.

"Both of them sustained considerable aural fatigue," Roth said, "but they'll survive."

Fictitia suggested, "Perhaps a cup of tea...?"

"So, how did you guys find us," Cameron, coming to, asked Harper who'd taken up massaging his neck and shoulders. "I didn't think anybody would've known where we were to rescue us."

Roth showed Fictitia where to find the tea things and a microwave, then brought her a jug of water.

"Well, I saw you guys leave from the hotel," she began, "so I grabbed a bike and followed you," disappointed Dhabbodhú didn't have any trendy varieties of tea, only basic decaf.

Explaining how she'd posted about Cameron needing help after he disappeared into the castle and then hearing him scream, Harper continued how Dylan saw that and texted Dieter Pieterieter in Bavaria.

"So, Dieter contacted me and I contacted a chat-friend in Schweinwald Security but then I ran into Fictitia and..."

Dr. Kerr was coming out of it more slowly than Cameron had and seemed to have trouble following the connections. "Funny, that – you tweet for help, Dylan's on Facebook in New York. Then he calls a friend in Germany and here we all are, wherever the hell we are – which is...?"

Cameron mentioned we were in an old castle along with Lionel Roth where we'd been held captive by Dhabbodhú.

"Right... but what was that awful music? And who the hell's Tr'iTone?"

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

The tea – as well as the relative tranquility – proved very restorative for both Cameron and me following our long ordeal, after many thanks, questions and explanations among former prisoners and our deliverers. It all seemed so unbelievable, like something you'd read in a book and yet here we were, living it. As soon as we'd be able to walk on our own, though, it was time to resume the adventure: LauraLynn was still a hostage and who knew when Tr'iTone might return.

I had hoped my role in this might finally be over, now, after having solved the clue for Tr'iTone – Dhabbodhú or whatever his name might've been (Roth was little help, here) – knowing I should also follow Leahy-Hu's advice and leave the SHMRG case and solving Rob's murder to the IMP.

Tr'iTone didn't indicate LauraLynn was in his custody, hidden somewhere else in this huge castle, not that that wasn't possible, but Roth hadn't heard his friend mention there'd be any other guests. The raspy, wheezing voice threatening LauraLynn's fingers was not the voice (or one of them) I'd heard from Tr'iTone.

But neither Fictitia nor Harper Roytt had anything to illuminate the questions we had about everything else going on. And if Lionel Roth knew any more, he was keeping very quiet.

Tr'iTone also hadn't returned my phone – well, LauraLynn's phone which I hadn't returned to her – after intercepting that call. There was no way her captor, whoever he was, could reach me. Who was it Tr'iTone had talked to? If it wasn't him holding her hostage, then who else was there?

Cameron, meanwhile, with Harper's help, was looking for something in the stuff near the controls he'd been strapped to, upset he wasn't finding it but unwilling to explain anything to us.

Fictitia had been holding back, more introverted than I remembered from earlier when we met her at the Festspielhaus. But then, after taking a deep breath, she joined Cameron to help.

I thought Roth had left the room when suddenly he spoke up. He said he had something for me.

"Cameron," I said, "look at this, will you?" He came over, looking anxious but curious. "Roth figured out the map." I held up the extra copy Roth just printed from the computer.

"So that was what's on the base of the statue," he said, looking around, "but where is the statue?"

"Dr. Dhabbodhú must've taken it with him – or, I guess, Tr'iTone did," Roth explained, also looking around the room. Not comfortable with that name, he added, "he left in a hurry."

"Did he take anything else with him? Like, maybe, an old letter?" Cameron was trying to hide his anxiety.

"Old letter?" Roth said, suddenly acting uneasy. "He might have, it's possible..."

Roth clearly wanted to change the subject. When I looked back at his map, I noticed something was off.

"Cameron, hand me that map from the hotel. I'm curious," I asked Roth, "how did you realize the Tour's matrix?"

"On this computer," he said, "using iJig." He quickly explained the process.

"I wonder – could you try this again?" After comparing the two maps, there was something wrong with Roth's solution.

This time, he carefully plugged the various coordinates in as I suggested, starting the pattern on the opposite side.

We watched the squares float into place, but with considerably different results.

Checking the new map against the one Cameron found in the lobby, you could see they were almost exact duplicates. The obvious give-away had been how unevenly the roads sometimes matched up. It's possible Roth may have typed in the wrong chess codes initially, more likely human error than technological malfunction.

Cameron remembered he had jotted down several of the coded chess moves in the margin of his journal transcript before we'd decided to leave the hotel: they could hold the answer.

"But I showed Dr. Dhabbodhú your notebook – he said it was worthless, didn't have what he was looking for." Roth began stammering as he held the notebook up to the light.

"No," Cameron explained, "I haven't copied out that much of it to find what they were looking for, either."

"And I thought I'd finally done something right!" Roth fought back the tears and sighed, aware he had failed again. "Dr. Dhabbodhú is going to kill me when he finds this out."

"What, you mean because you've sent him off to the wrong place?" I could have worded that more elegantly.

"If the Festspielhaus – or the old farm that was there back then," Cameron said, "isn't the goal, what is?"

I took a closer look at the newly revised and corrected map.

Harper's phone began to ring, playing a distinctive and rather alarming ring-tone.

"Seriously," I said, "you use the Dies irae?"

"Hey, Cameron, it's a text from Dieter. It's for you – from Dylan."

"Oh my God," Cameron cried, "that's Dylan's safe-word! There must be trouble!"

"What kind of trouble?"

"Serious trouble, unfortunately..."

Cameron explained how, because of Dylan's fears, they have several different safe-words.

"This one's, like, Code Red," he said.

"Okay, then," Harper nodded, "I'll forward the text to my NYPD chat-buddy."

While Harper explained they'd been chatting earlier – "he's working night-shift: maybe he can help" – I noticed Roth was gone.

Fictitia said she thought he was sneaking back toward the secret passageway.

"And it looks like he's taken the map, too," Fictitia pointed out.

"I suspect he's headed to the Festspielhaus."


Chapter 52

"The clue tells me, 'Ascend the 4th Circle out of the Fountain,' but where was the fountain a century ago?" Tr'iTone continued chanting to himself impatiently while pacing around the Festspielhaus lobby. "There's a fountain out front, there was a fountain at the castle, maybe one at the old Falkenstein Farm. They put fountains everywhere in those days: was there more than one? Possibly, but where could they have been? In front of the house's main entrance, maybe over by the barn?"

He knew he needed to find the original plans for the farm as it existed during the late-19th Century but who had time to do research in some dusty old library? He knew instead he must rely on his innate sense of genius and solve the problem through pure intuition.

Tr'iTone turned to face in each possible direction, his head tilted back, his eyes closed, sniffing the air, arms extended, as if some answer would descend from on high, divine or otherwise. He let his thoughts wander, allowing his mind to go completely blank, a clean slate awaiting the slightest inspiration.

"What would be the most logical solution to find the fountain's site? Where was the Festspielhaus' center?" he wondered. "The lobby's focus is toward the plaza." But then he turned around.

Tr'iTone's roar echoed through the empty building as he posed in triumph with legs braced wide, his arms akimbo.

Logic may be one thing, but exposing it usually required the intuitive.

"If there were no levels above the fountain to ascend," he'd pondered, "how then did one ascend 'out of'...?"

Not climbing above the fountain – climbing the ascending path from the fountain: the grand staircase leading into the auditorium!

Pointing his own way forward, Tr'iTone strode grandly up the staircase.

"Huzzah!"

Unfortunately, this imperial procession of one was blocked by the simple fact every door along the promenade was locked. There was no way in. Crestfallen, he hurried back down the steps.

"There must be a door somewhere some idiot left open," he fussed, yanking at every door he could find.

There it was, a wheel-chair entrance to the lower level hadn't latched. One quick yank and Tr'iTone found himself inside. He stumbled up the steps to the main entrance, resuming his stance.

But something suddenly began to bother him: he could steal the prize or achieve the reward as the 'Right-Believer.'

Wasn't there significance in the ritual of being crowned as Beethoven's Heir, earning the honor by accomplishing the goal, as opposed to just seizing his objective, like Alberich and the Rhinegold?

This time, he worked his way backwards, propping doors open so he wouldn't get locked out in the process. In minutes he once again found himself standing knee-deep in the fountain.

His own music pulsing through his brain, Tr'iTone began, with regal pomp, a procession from fountain to goal.

"Huzzah!"

As dimly lit as the auditorium was, he saw only three rings – do you count the lobby as Level One? Then this would become the Second Level; the cheap seats, the Third. If there's no Fourth Level, where would the prize be kept safe, approachable only by the most worthy hero?

The Rhinegold was inaccessible, nearly hidden from view far above the stage.

That's it: Rhinegold – Dragon's Blood! His goal!

The secret is hidden on the fourth level of the backstage wall!

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

The IMP team left their Ottobeuren stake-out to return, disappointed and frustrated, to their fourth-floor suite in the Schweinwald Hotel, Yoda Leahy-Hu pondering set-backs one often experienced in difficult cases like this. The agents' van had been curiously quiet on the short return trip, nobody wishing to break the boss's concentration. She was annoyed to find herself stuck in this course of action because of Dr. Kerr's constant, incompetent meddling, even after telling him to keep his nose out of her investigation.

The professor, she thought, was like the classical music audience in general, highly opinionated, self-proclaimed experts and thoroughly self-centered, becoming older, more marginalized, a specialized niche increasingly less attractive to marketing. While concert-goers would gradually die out, hopefully replaced by the younger generations, they might, regarding crime prevention, simply disappear.

There were many things she must consider beyond the annoying Dr. Kerr like the unexpected arrival of SHMRG's chief executive, whatever brought mastermind N. Ron Steele to Schweinwald at this particular moment. The murders of Sullivan and Franz-Dieter Zeitgeist, attributed to a SHMRG vendetta, have apparently become only the opening salvo.

If Sullivan's cousin, LauraLynn Harty, was now in danger and the late Mr. Sullivan's new opera began rehearsals tomorrow, perhaps there was more at stake here than just solving some murders.

Just as they pulled into the hotel's driveway, Leahy-Hu received a text on her secure line from dispatcher Agent Lott. She explained discovering a suspicious internet broadcast which originated from Schweinwald Castle. Fictitia had already tweeted about Cameron, Kerr's assistant, being in trouble there. Perhaps, then, the professor was also involved?

Her suspicions were increased when Schweinwald's dispatcher, Officer Agitato, insisted on sending out two of his own security officers who were already headed there with Skripasha Scricci, a known SHMRG operative.

Again convinced Kerr's also a SHMRG operative, like some over-active red herring, Leahy-Hu reached the castle in record time, but not the first one to the party, judging from the cars.

Charging the castle door with guns drawn, agents barged into the vestibule only to find their way ingeniously blocked.

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Every time he stepped into an opera house, Tr'iTone was flooded with thoughts about the operas he dreamed of writing. Every play he saw or novel he read taunted him with possibilities. Here, strutting through a darkened house on his procession to ultimate glory, the dream was now stronger than ever.

Every time he banged his shins against the seats in the darkness, he dreamed he was kicking his teacher. How could it possibly be Robertson Sullivan was considered a great teacher?

It was unusually tense, he recalled, that lesson when he and Sullivan sat around near the spring semester's end and discussed ideas for some new projects to start over the summer. Tr'iTone mentioned he was toying with setting the Faust legend as a full-scale opera set in a corporate environment.

But instead of finding the concept appealing, Sullivan broke out in laughter.

"Whoa," he said in that patronizing tone of voice, "let's hold onto that for later – after you've gotten more experience."

Sullivan warned him he hadn't written anything theatrical, not even incidental music: an opera was currently an unrealistic challenge.

So he bitterly put it aside, feeling himself unworthy of the idea and yet Sullivan later used it himself!

"It makes me so angry, I could still kill him," Tr'iTone spat.

The stage was empty except for the single lightstand placed dead center, its dull bulb barely illuminating the space. The curtains pulled back revealed dark shapes, set pieces for tomorrow's rehearsal. It was eerie, even disconcerting, he thought, possibly scary to lesser minds, but to him there was also magic.

It angered him even more, freshly opening these old and bitter wounds, realizing this should be his opera, here!

"Faustus, Inc. is my opera, not his. It will be my success!"

But despite Sullivan's success, he was, after all, dead, his opera unfinished.

"The future will belong to my genius."

Tr'iTone could already taste the triumph marking the beginning of his greatness.

He found the iron circular staircase that lead up the back wall.

"I ascend to the fourth circle! Huzzah!"

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Three New York City police detectives sat around over their late-night coffee discussing details of the murder of Robertson Sullivan, joined by Detective Phil Noir from the Poconos where the murder occurred. They're tracking Iobbha Dhabbodhú who'd skipped town, and Lionel Roth, who's disappeared. Both acted suspiciously at the crime scene.

Detective Charles Noranik got some e-mail, something marked urgent: from his wife? No, it was his 'Ryan Goodcop' account. What a surprise: it's his hot young chat-friend in Germany, Harper Roytt.

Noranik excused himself and checked what Harper had forwarded: GPS coordinates of the phone originating the call for help. It shouldn't be too difficult to find, just to help a friend.

"Whoa, guys, check this out. I got this urgent message from Germany. Seems some kid nearby here needs help."

Noranik explained he's a friend of that guy who's Dr. Kerr's assistant.

"Yeah, so?" Detective Mack Heimer was not impressed.

"It says they're in Germany and held captive by our guy Dhabbodhú."

At this, the others perked up considerably, Noranik noticed, especially Det. Noir.

"Plus his call came from this address."

"That's the place that bag-lady who just came out of a coma said was hers," Detective Patty Larson mentioned.

"The one claiming she's a wealthy widow?"

Noir said, "Well, let's go!"

= = = = = = =
To be continued...

posted by Dick Strawser

The novel, The Lost Chord, is a classical music appreciation comedy thriller completed in 2013, and is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2014

The Lost Chord: Chapter 50

The Lost Chord

(a classical music appreciation comedy thriller by Richard Alan Strawser: you can read it from the beginning, here.)

The previous post was the third installment of Harrison Harty's Schweinwald Journal from 1880 in which the friends' excursion to Falkenstein Manor is interrupted as they're caught by evil forces from the academy. Harty and Rott manage to escape, but Mahler is unable to keep up and disappears. Ethel Smyth returns to the academy to tell them about meeting Brahms at the Falkenstein's dinner and about Professor Fabbro's strange composing machine. They then manage to find Mahler, seated on the fountain in the old castle's courtyard and he tells them of a strange vision he'd had. Telling Knussbaum and Böhm about their experience, they are given something that needs to be hidden in the Falkenstein crypt. Reluctantly, they return to the manor house but once again they are surprised. When Harty comes to, Ethel and the object they're to hide have disappeared.

= = = = = = =
Chapter 50

"There is no time," the hulk kept chanting as he ran up to the back of the Festspielhaus, "no time." He was looking for the knight's entrance but any entrance would do. Approaching the building cautiously, he paced impatiently, oblivious to the all-encompassing darkness, past the bushes that passed for landscaping. He was fully dressed, this time, head to toe all in black, from his wool-knit cap to his sneakers. Aside from his black cape, his only adornment was a silver neck-chain.

It seemed like only hours since Tr'iTone managed to escape from here, dazed and disappointed after that inexplicable explosion, nearly naked except for those harem pants ("truly, my worst disguise, ever"). He had left behind a smoldering building but also the all-important journal, something he knew he had to have.

"Perhaps the journal would still be here, somewhere, dropped in the confusion and undiscovered by anyone aware of its significance? Or perhaps it could be buried, inaccessible, lying under tons of rubble?" The potential death of LauraLynn Sullivan was nothing to him, he knew, but the loss of the journal: "priceless!"

More importantly, for now, in the waning hours of this long night, he had to find the knight's goal, the tortuous path's eventual conclusion that will realize his own inevitable destiny.

A lone guard leaned against the wall near the jagged rift that had been ripped open by the explosion, no doubt the worst detail anyone had pulled in security that night. It amazed him they hadn't sealed it up with anything more than a few saw-horses and yellow police tape.

Tr'iTone, looking around, saw only a single light in a trailer over by the edge of the parking lot and wondered how many other officers were still working the overnight shift.

The guard spoke into his phone, complaining about waiting another two hours till someone would come to relieve him. "That babe, Kunegunde," he mentioned, "she'd relieve me just fine," then laughed.

Then he snapped to attention, his laughter suddenly dying on a breath, his joke apparently being taken as 'inappropriate.'

After signing off, the guard peered into the darkness and listened intently. Tr'iTone stood his ground and held his breath. Unless he wore heat-sensitive goggles, the guard would assume Tr'iTone's another shrub. Then he muttered something about "needing relief," given how boring it was, and shuffled over to a near-by bush.

Tr'iTone heard the familiar sound of a fly unzipped and 'running water,' waiting for the moment to approach him. Simultaneously, Tr'iTone kneed the man's back, grabbed his helmet and twisted it.

The guard fell limply to the ground, his neck broken, kidneys bruised. He died pissing on an arbor vitae. Turning him over to take his gun, Tr'iTone saw the man's name-tag.

He stifled a hearty laugh: the name was Ritter – German for 'knight.'

"I believe I've found the Knight's Entrance!"

O you, who are my Fountain of Inspiration.
Lohengrin's Journey is my Quest:
Seek the Sign of the Knight's Entrance,
Ascend the 4th Circle out of the Fountain.
Approach, Right-Believers, my World!

Tr'iTone memorized the poem Kerr translated from the back of Beethoven's statue, unsure exactly what it might have meant.

But he'd followed the Tour – Lohengrin's journey – and found the Knight's Entrance as everything seemed to fall into place. Wasn't it just a matter of time till he'd find the fountain?

Without looking back at Officer Ritter's dead body, Tr'iTone took his flashlight and wandered into the basement of the Festspielhaus. Whatever he was looking for would be found here: he knew it. He thought, from what Sullivan had said about the Fountain of Inspiration, he'd be looking for a literal fountain. But what if the Great Robertson Sullivan, master composer, had been wrong? What if it were a symbolic fountain? Sullivan himself hadn't yet solved the riddle, or even discovered Beethoven's statue!

It's now his responsibility, the Great Tr'iTone, the man who soon would become the Master of the Musical Universe, who would finally uncover the great yet unsolved mystery of creative genius. He would ascend to the Fourth Circle, rising out of the fountain, a True Believer approaching Beethoven's rarefied world.

He touched the Beethoven Statue held securely in his handyman's tool belt, along with Lionel Roth's now useless computer-generated map: it had gotten him here but it could take him no closer. Too bad, Tr'iTone thought, he had to leave the loyal Roth behind, unceremoniously tied up in the castle's dungeon.

The sniveling ingrate complained, like Dr. Kerr, about having received unjust treatment, like assistance wasn't enough of a reward. Every genius had his minions, and one word described them all: expendable.

Tr'iTone walked past more damage with its crumbling walls and ceiling fissures, turning down halls vaguely remembered from before. Earlier, it was like being caught in a maze with no exit. Now, he could clamber over the rubble when he found another hole, gaining access to more of the building.

"So the explosion, whoever caused it, had served its purpose after all?" Tr'iTone knew everything happened for a reason.

"As many famous people say, 'there's no such thing as coincidence.' True."

There were footprints in the dust, heavy like boots, probably security officers, and he followed them down the hall. They had entered here, through this doorway. The sign read simply, "backstage."

He carefully opened the door and climbed the stairs, eager and impatient.

"I must hurry. There is no time..."

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

"Damned Ritter," Agitato thought, signing off after he'd phoned in his report, "making off-color jokes like that while on duty. If I told Kunegunde that, she'd snap his neck like a chicken!" He chuckled, because, knowing Ritter and the rumors he'd heard about him, he'd like that – the nastier, the better. "With any luck, maybe she was listening in on the squawk line and then it wouldn't be my fault." Maybe he should call Ritter back, warn him to be more alert.

He hadn't heard from Kunegunde in a while, either, thinking about her. Agitato wondered if she hadn't slipped away. Technically, it had been her night off and she never liked over-time. Agitato glanced down the row of computers, wishing Agent Lott would leave. The IMP was always cramping his style.

He yawned, stretched his arms and yawned again.

"Jeez," he complained, scratching under his nose.

She pretended not to notice.

"It sure is a deadly dull night. How much longer," he asked.

Preston Agitato swiveled around to face her, stretching out his long legs.

"As long as it takes," she replied.

Turning up the volume on her computer hoping to create a distraction, she said, "Hey, Agitato, listen to this."

"Sounds awful," he nodded after a bit. "Why're you listening to that?"

"That's weird," she continued, frowning at him. "I've tried several broadcasting websites and they're all playing the same thing." She clicked on a few other bookmarks. "Yeah, look – even the BBC."

"Come on, it can't be that popular!" He walked nonchalantly over to her workstation to check out her monitor.

Agent Lott quietly laid some blank paper over what were confidential documents and Agitato politely pretended not to notice.

"That can only mean one thing," he said, pointing toward her screen.

"Some pirate has hijacked all their frequencies?"

"And it sounds like a substantial operation, if he's seized the BBC."

The brazenness of it annoyed her enough but the music really sucked.

"It sounds like he used that 'MyGarageBand.com' website," he mumbled with disdain, "creating simple instrumental layers, then looping it."

But now this could become a distraction for the IMP, she worried. Time to report it to their Piracy Division.

"Wait a minute," she said, "see this playlist on the audio link?"

Agitato peered over her shoulder and noticed she used a coconut-scented shampoo.

"Symphony for One Whose Time Has Come...?"

She wondered if maybe it had something to do with musical terrorists, perhaps one of SHMRG's more audacious subsidiaries, who might unleash some crippling international cyber-attack before the piece was done.

All her Facebook friends were listening to it on Spotify or TuneFreak.

"That so needs to be shut down..."

Not only was the piece badly produced, the music itself was terrible.

Agitato, though a SHMRG double agent himself if only Schweinwald's lowly dispatcher, questioned whether this was a SHMRG-related project.

While Lott tapped in reams of code, breaking through the broadcaster's firewall, Agitato wondered how he could alert The Chief. He had a bad feeling about this: Operation Mephisto could be jeopardized.

"Hah," Lott shouted, "it's actually quite close! Despite all the precautions he's been taking, it's originating from Schweinwald Castle!"

Agitato did a double-take, standing bolt upright. Wasn't that where he'd heard the professor's little assistant was in trouble? If Kerr was there, too, maybe this was an attack on SHMRG?

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

"Not to say, 'What the hell were you thinking,' Scricci," she said as they raced down the stairway after Fictitia, "but seriously, what the hell were you thinking? My mind is boggled...!"

"You wouldn't understand," Scricci responded, trying to maintain whatever shred of dignity a former rock star could possibly have.

Kunegunde Nacht had radioed to her partner, Heller Rache, with the news: he would meet them in the lobby. But by the time Scricci got dressed, Fictitia was already long gone.

"She and I have a history, okay?" Scricci was having difficulty explaining, still trying to pull up his fly. "I have an old score to settle with her, going back years."

"I'll say that's an old score: how many years have you been playing that thing, anyway? Sounded like Bach..."

Kunegunde was clearly annoyed, convinced that she had every right to be. First of all, it was her night off. She and Heller were having a quiet drink in the hotel bar. It was a low-key celebration for their having knocked off Peter Moonbeam and then eliminating the program annotator, Schreiber.

She was also incensed that, after having captured Fictitia on her own and delivering her to the delighted Scricci, he had managed to bungle everything in minutes, allowing her to escape.

Skripasha Scricci, for his part, was incensed he was being treated like an idiot by a mere corporate agent, considering he was a rock star and also a SHMRG board member. It wasn't his job to chase down back stairwells after escaping misfits, but this was Fictitia LaMouche, after all.

"You did take her phone from her, didn't you?" Kunegunde asked him, "so she can't tweet anything about this?"

"Her phone...?" Scricci, looking even paler, almost came to a complete stop.

"I'll take that as a no, then." Kunegunde opened the lobby door. There was Rache, waiting impatiently for them.

That bitch probably took another photo of him, playing his heart out.

That it would undoubtedly be all over the internet in no time was something that enraged him even further.

Kunegunde's phone began ringing, sounding very insistent, and she answered with reluctance. She had hoped this long night was over. It turned out to be Agent Agitato who sounded very insistent himself.

"There's more dirty work afoot, I'm afraid," Agitato began explaining without ceremony. "Dr. Kerr is at the old castle."

"And what precisely does this have to do with me?" Kunegunde asked. She was unimpressed, letting her impatience show.

"Because it seems he has significant information crucial to Operation Mephisto's success."

Kunegunde felt that didn't really answer her question but knowing The Chief wanted Kerr apprehended and she and Rache were the only agents so far unassigned meant she had no choice.

"We're working on another matter for Scricci," holding up a finger to the anxious rocker, "can this not wait?"

"Oh, then, Agent Nacht, you might want to show Mr. Scricci this." He sent her a brief video of a skinny, aging rock star wildly playing the violin dressed only in boxers.

"It's already gone viral on the internet!" Agitato couldn't help but laugh. "She only just posted it, minutes ago."

And with that, Scricci let out an old-fashioned battle cry before leading the charge through the hotel's front entrance.

"After the bloody bitch," he screamed deliriously, "nothing will stop me, now!"

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

"This is a horrible place to be in," Roth kept telling himself. "In fact, this whole vacation is a disaster." But he knew dwelling on the situation wasn't making it any better. By repeatedly going over it, he could feel his blood pressure rising, but he could think of little else. The 'horrible place,' though, could mean a few different things, he knew, not just the old castle in general. It was creepy enough, here: he was even afraid to go outside.

"I'm sorry I accepted Dr. Dhabbodhú's invitation to stay with him here, as kind as he was about it. It was supposed to be a pleasant break from all the stress." His current 'situation' wasn't that much better, left bound and gagged in some secret passageway behind the dungeon's wall.

Rather than finding himself relaxed and more confident, he'd watched Dhabbodhú become transformed into an evil creature calling himself Tr'iTone who treated him, the loyal friend Roth, like a lowly lab assistant. Now, Lionel was torn apart by doubts, after watching what Tr'iTone did to Dr. Kerr and the young man.

But his thoughts would suddenly become plagued by every sound he heard in the dark passage behind the wall. What if these walls began closing in or became overrun with spiders?

And what had he, loyal friend, done to deserve punishment like this? Was there any possible excuse for such treatment? Why'd he strap him into a chair, leaving him here to die? He had helped him with that computer program which solved his puzzle: he'd been so overjoyed about the map.

Roth had to escape and rescue Cameron and the professor, but how? It was the right thing to do. But Tr'iTone had told him to wait and old loyalties died hard.

"What was that?" Roth held his breath. "Sounds like tiny little feet!" He turned his head back and forth. Had Dr. Dhabbodhú returned to rescue him? It had felt like hours.

"Oh no, Tr'iTone's released thousands of spiders into the passage – maybe millions... Or – OMG – could it instead be rats?"

= = = = = = =
To be continued...

posted by Dick Strawser

The novel, The Lost Chord, is a classical music appreciation comedy thriller completed in 2013, and is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2014

The Lost Chord: Act IV, Chapter 49

(you can read it from the beginning, here.)

In the previous installment, Dr. Kerr, left alone in his practice room/prison, listening to Tr'iTone's music, has heard a mysterious, distant hymn - Sir Arthur Sullivan's "The Lost Chord" - and imagines he is at his own funeral. 

(You can read the second installment of Harrison Harty's Journal beginning here and the first installment, beginning here)

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
ACT IV
*** ***** ******** ***** ***

Chapter 49

...being the 3rd installment of Master Harrison Harty's Journal, Summer of 1880
If you said we would all die then, I would not have been in the least surprised, considering our situation as Ethel tried desperately to regain control before poor Grimgerde threatened to take the remains of our carriage airborne. Slamming into a tree on our right, the back of the carriage fell off, nearly breaking a rear wheel. Careening around the next bend, we swung hard and hit a rock. We all hung on for dear life, something none of us thought we would have much longer to enjoy when without warning we emerged from under the dark canopy of trees that opened onto the gently sloping meadows leading toward the Falkenstein's home where the Director's coach entered the gate.

Also without warning, Grimgerde gave a snort and came to a halt, the carriage ready to fly over her head. Dusty and disheveled, we straightened ourselves up, just happy to be alive. We decided to hide her in the bushes beside the road, then sneak up to the house on foot. I would glance back toward the castle convinced I heard something approaching, but there was nothing to be seen. The others said I was imagining things: what could possibly be there?

"D'you think someone tampered with the horse?" Rott always looked for conspiracies.

"What, like Hannes fed her opium before he gave us the carriage?" Ethel, for her part, was always skeptical.

"I think something spooked her, something that was following us," I suggested. "There was definitely someone there. But who?"

Mahler laughed, scrambling through the undergrowth with this strange walk of his. "Perhaps it was our infamous professor of..."

"Yes," I said, interrupting him, "you know He-Whom-I-Do-Not-Wish-to-Name is on to us."

"Do you really think the killer is..." but Ethel paused more out of disbelief than any sense of fear. She couldn't bring herself to name him any more than I could.

"But it can't be him," Rott said, "he was ahead of us!"

"You mean Fabbro?" Ethel asked.

"No – Brahms!"

I was ready to correct their inaccurate assumptions when Mahler observed we were approaching the back of the sprawling house where it appeared the dinner would take place out on the terrace. Everybody was in evening dress, even Brahms, the Countess resplendent in a shimmering golden gown, her diamond jewelry sparkling. Servants bustled about with trays of drinks, while others lit the candelabra. The evening was sure to prove fine. Brahms tried to look his most attentive but couldn't hide his impatience.

"I look forward to seeing this latest invention of yours, Herr Count," Brahms said in his gruff, squeaky voice. "Professor Fabbro has spoken highly of it and it sounds most fascinating."

"Oh, I am but a mere tinkerer," Count von Falkenstein said obsequiously. "Without Fabbro's design, it would be nothing."

Fabbro, clicking his heels and bowing his head, explained he would take Brahms into the Count's basement laboratory after dinner and show him how "the machine" worked, putting it through its paces.

"Invention? Fabbro's design?" I whispered to Ethel, "is this what we'd overheard? They were talking about some mechanical contraption?"

"It will definitely revolutionize the whole concept of composing," the Count explained, "or so Professor Fabbro, here, constantly insists."

Just then, Rott unexpectedly sneezed, a mysterious hand grabbing him from behind.

We heard the hiss of a familiar voice as Rott disappeared struggling into the hedge, farther into the evening shadows.

"What are you doing here?" It was Carmilla Varné. "You'll ruin everything!"

Behind us was the unmistakable silhouette of HWIDNWTN, lurking in the camelias. He quickly made a lunge for us.

I grabbed Mahler's arm but by now Ethel was too far away, having gotten much closer to the terrace. Rott broke free from Carmilla and was soon running ahead of us.

Who else was there, I didn't know: I saw only these two. We had no choice – we'd been discovered! There was only one thing to do and that was to escape. So far, we crashed through the woods, managing to elude our pursuers continuing deeper into the dense mountain forest.

The terrain was steeper now, and full of rocks and fallen trees. The light of the moon was hardly helpful. Instead, if anything, it made things worse, turning bushes into lurid monsters. Maybe we survived the ride with Grimgerde but should they catch us, I am sure we four were doomed.

My lungs close to bursting, my heart pounding and ready to explode, I had no idea where we were. All I knew, to reach the castle, we must continue running up-hill.

Behind us I could sense the onward rush of our two pursuers. Mahler, falling even further behind, his body a mass of nervous ticks, suddenly tripped over a stone and screamed.

Was that the cry of a victorious beast I heard behind me or the blood coursing through my brain?

I was torn knowing I should go back to rescue my friend but my feet would not turn 'round. I should run for help, but wasn't it too late for that?

Rott, his chest heaving, waited for me once he reached the castle. I turned but nothing else was forthcoming once we'd left the forest and crossed the stream into the cemetery.

Mahler was lost, perhaps captured if not already killed by the evil-doers. And Ethel, poor child, was left behind.

We couldn't organize a search party to find Mahler in the darkness – considering we were forbidden to enter the forest when we were not allowed outside after dark in the first place – so we hurried back to Rott's room and sat immobilized with fear, dazed and afraid for our very lives.

Perhaps an hour went by. There was a knock at the door. Ethel flounced in, quite pleased with herself.

"What happened to you?" she asked airily. "You missed all the fun."

She proceeded to explain, before we could blurt out a word edgewise, after Rott's sneeze had given us away, how "Dr. Brahms recognized me when I stepped forward, and said, happily, 'Aren't you the young lady who writes sonatas but doesn't know counterpoint? Fabbro, here's a fine challenge for you!'

"The Count was somewhat mystified but the Countess was most delightfully intrigued: 'Imagine, a young lady who can compose music!' And with that, they invited me to join them on the terrace.

"I looked around for you, but you had fled in a panic, afraid what would happen if we're caught.

"At the table, they placed Brahms between me and Elisabetta von Hammerschlag – who'd been the concert pianist, Mlle. Muzio? – he called her 'My dearest Bessie-Mae Muzio' whenever her husband wasn't looking..."

Ethel regaled us with the witty conversation she had taken part in and I saw Rott was practically fuming after she'd said how Brahms remembered her songs "with fondness" from Leipzig.

When Brahms said "All composers are liars," Ethel responded, "that means, then, you are lying even now, Herr Doktor.

"Fabbro tried to explain that Brahms meant how all composers must learn not to be themselves when they composed, but Brahms laughed and said, 'No, dear Fabbro, she makes a joke!'

"After we finished our wine," she continued, "and Fabbro passed around these foul-smelling cigars to Brahms and the Count – oh, I so wanted one but didn't dare shock them any further – Brahms said 'And now, dear Fabbro, would you do me the honour of showing me this contraption of yours?'"

Rott and I sat up – at last! Now this was something interesting! Wasn't this what we had hoped to discover? Ethel continued, unaware our level of curiosity had suddenly increased.

"Yes – and...?"

She explained how Fabbro and the Count led the way into a dark, basement room, deep beneath the house.

Inside was this large machine, she said, as big as a room, consisting of thousands of tiny, intricate cylinders which combined together in incredibly intricate ways to weave certain musical patterns.

"'These punched heavy paper cards contain various algebraic patterns,' Fabbro carefully demonstrated, once he got the machine running smoothly, 'which, inserted here, with coded pitches, rhythms and various harmonies and textures, activated these larger cylinders here and converted them into arithmetical notation, there, then translated them into traditional musical notation.'

"You see," she said triumphantly, holding out Gutknaben's page of mathematical computations, "Fabbro's compositional contraption is like a mechanical loom, capable of weaving elaborate pieces of music with any degree of complexity. That's what Gutknaben had been working on – Fabbro had shown him how: it's a fugue written by a machine!"

We both stared at the mathematical configurations, looking like gibberish to me.

"And Brahms is interested in this, why...?"

"By the way," she interrupted, standing up and looking around, "where's Mahler?"

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

It's now the middle of the night and quite impossible to sleep with worrying about Mahler alone in the woods. A storm is brewing, I feel it, and it will be bad. The night has been a mild one with the moon nearly set. I write hoping he can return safely. I couldn't see what had happened, then – he'd fallen too far behind – and I hated just leaving him there. I know I should have gone back but I had no choice.

Father always said women have this instinctive power to perceive men's character and, to our detriment, find it wanting. Anything we'd done was open to discussion without ever changing their minds. Such was the case with Ethel tonight, and there was nothing we could do to make her think differently.

"You thought you'd heard a scream, some pathetic inhuman scream," shed argued, "and you just left him lying back there? What if he'd been caught by wolves or had broken a leg?"

I wouldn't tell her I was thinking more of vampires than wolves, much less of one vampire in particular.

"But Rott had seen who grabbed him and it was definitely Carmilla. And I definitely saw HWIDNWTN close by. What," I argued, "were they doing there? Why did they chase us?"

"So you're saying this triumphant, satanic howl was actually Carmilla's cat, Czerny? Is it possible to be so stupid?" In that tone of voice, it did, I was forced to admit. But it didn't help the current situation: Mahler was still out there. And how could we help him now?

Ethel, ever the most logical, considered the various options we could take, all of which Rott found contained flaws. Basically, there was nothing we could do, forbidden to leave the castle.

"Forbidden – really?" she scoffed, turning to leave. "That never stopped us before! What are rules but to be broken?" She stood waiting impatiently by the door till we pulled ourselves together. It was well after midnight, by now: who would even notice us? "We have to go rescue our friend!"

My resolve managed to overcome my fears until we reached the landing where not long since we'd discovered Gutknaben's body. If he were killed here, would someone try to kill us here? It didn't help, as we skirted the open area around Sechter's monument, that we heard footsteps not too distant. Holding our breath collectively, we waited nervously until the sound faded away, some professor returning late to his residence. Slipping down the stairs through the parlor, we found an unlocked door.

It creaked terribly, the castle being old, as we pushed it open, but at last we were standing outside, ready to cross the courtyard then, skirting the cemetery, enter the woods. The moon, about to set, would not help us in the forest – I could feel my resolve shrinking accordingly.

We hunkered down, hoping the smaller we appeared nobody could see us, and followed Ethel's lead across the open courtyard. The Beethoven fountain sparkled in the moonlight, its profile against growing clouds. He seemed to be looking where we needed to go, I thought. Perhaps he would protect and guide us.

That was when I noticed a figure sitting on the fountain's edge who also looked pensive and somewhat ominous.

"Dear God," I squeaked, "look! Over there, by the fountain – it's Mahler!"

He was dirty and disheveled, one shoe lost and his jacket torn, his beard and hair fairly encrusted with leaves. He looked a mess, sitting there dazed, eyes brooding over the ground. He glanced up when he saw us starting to run toward him but he shrank back as if afraid.

"Mahler, thank God," I said, "we thought... well, we don't know what..."

"I'm fine," he said, somewhat distantly, "fine..."

We led him back inside and made it safely to the room.

He told us how he had fallen, how he couldn't get up as if something sat upon his chest but yet couldn't see what it was, more a presence, cold – evil.

"I heard a scream – probably mine – answered by another one, not mine. It was then I must have fainted."

Or maybe not, he reconsidered, fainting as becoming mesmerized by it all, the sounds of the night and the darkness: owls rather than songbirds, numerous toads croaking, mice scurrying across the ground.

"I'd no idea how long I sat – sitting now on a stump. I felt calm until I looked around."

Then he saw himself appearing in the shadows just beyond the trees and immediately felt this inconsolable emotional pain, as though his double were trying to force its way into him.

After he ran past it, he found himself standing in the cemetery and there, by the stream, was a casket around which stood, as if guarding it, various rabbits, foxes and deer.

"A hunter being mourned by the hunted? How very odd, I thought. But the body lying inside – was mine!"

Mahler said he knocked the flowers over while trying to run away and stumbled against a beautifully well-kept tombstone.

"Then I looked up directly into the face of Ludwig van Beethoven!"

So relieved was he to recognize the statue on the courtyard's fountain, the castle's towers looming up behind it, he very nearly broke down and cried at the sight of it.

"I have no idea what this means, dream or reality," Mahler said, "but we must go talk to Knussbaum!"

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

But getting to Knussbaum's room was not going to be that easy, as we realized after reaching the Great Landing: for some reason – had we been seen? – the area was being patrolled. Yes, there was Carmilla Varné talking to one assistant near the steps as another assistant came down from upstairs. Was her evil cat Czerny somewhere about? (perhaps that cat wasn't named for the composer of innumerable piano exercises: wasn't chair-niy, Russian for 'black,' short for Chernobog the Black God – Satan?!)

While I peered through the darkness trying to locate the black cat, I overheard Carmilla talk to the assistants. "So, keep your eyes open – if you know what I mean, Werner."

What – or, more likely, who – was it they were out looking for? This, I thought, did not bode well.

"Wait," I blurted out, almost too loudly, "this is Director Böhm's portrait." We were standing directly in front of it. "Remember how the secret passageway led us here right from Knussbaum's studio?"

We immediately began pressing against every corner and block in our search to open it before we'd be discovered.

Suddenly, the frame began to slide out just enough to squeeze through and long enough for us to enter. It started gliding shut immediately, nearly catching Ethel's skirt as it closed.

Though not easy to follow with all its various twists and turns, we retraced our path to Knussbaum's fireplace. Across from us was an old man propped up on a day-bed. There lay Knussbaum beneath a pile of blankets, mumbling in his sleep, apologizing to Beethoven about losing his secret.

"Ach, it's you," he snorted, suddenly waking up, his eyes wide open but not surprised to see us there. "I thought you were my maker coming to fetch me," he sighed.

"Your maker?" Mahler asked him. "I thought you were talking to Beethoven."

"Well, yes, in a way, I was."

The old man leaned forward. "For many composers, Beethoven is our maker."

But then he spluttered a bit and leaned back with a chuckle. "Don't tell Professor Porlock I'd said that!"

With that, someone else entered the room, startling us with his appearance: wearing a tattered dressing gown was Director Böhm. "Ah, it's you, good," he said, nodding. "I'm glad that you've come. You see, dear Herr Knussbaum is ill, feeling very tired, he is, and possibly even dying, sad to say."

We gasped and gathered closer except for Rott who quickly stood back, not sure how to express our thoughts. Knussbaum gripped at his blankets and smiled weakly, his face deeply furrowed.

"I really ought to tell them," Knussbaum started, "don't you think, Dudley? Otherwise the secret might die with me!"

Director Böhm patted him on his forehead and smoothed back his hair.

"It won't die while I'm still alive, Rainer, you can rest assured. But perhaps we ought to tell them..."

Suddenly, our anxiety over what had happened tonight vanished with our concern for this man who has been our friend, whatever this talk of secrets and dying meant in the larger scheme.

Knussbaum nodded and smiled, his eyes closed, as he started humming something barely audible as the 'Ode to Joy.'

"You see," Böhm explained, "Rainer and I are the last at Schweinwald among those who actually knew The Master. And as Professor Sechter's pupil, I vowed to keep this legacy alive."

Naturally, even fifty-three years since Beethoven died, we could understand the power such a memory must still have for them, keeping alive the very idea of having been in The Master's presence. This is something many old people do, keeping themselves connected to the distant past, but then, this is Beethoven. The way their eyes had become misty, looking deep into their youth, would have been amusing under other circumstances, yet it made me feel I was in his presence even now.

"When I was still a young lad, I went with my teacher, Simon Sechter, to visit his friend Beethoven who at the time was already dying, a piteous sight to see. There was this mountain of a boy standing next to The Master: that was how I met Rainer Knussbaum."

At the mere mention of his name, Knussbaum smiled and nodded again as he rallied momentarily to continue the story. "He made us three promise to help look after a special friend..."

"The Immortal Belovèd," I blurted out, astounded. "You know who she is?" The story of that letter was legendary.

"Her name is not important," Knussbaum explained. "That needs to remain secret. It's her location we need to protect."

"You mean, she's still alive?"

"Ah, well, she is the Immortal Belovèd..."

As they continued their story, we learned that Sechter brought Beethoven's friend – Knussbaum referred to her as 'Rosa Kohl' – to live here at Schweinwald though they mentioned nothing beyond her death.

"We continue looking after her and fulfilling Beethoven's original request," Böhm explained, "but what happens after we are gone?"

"The secret must be kept a secret and the promise still maintained," Knussbaum said, wiping away a few tears.

Meanwhile, Director Böhm reached under Knussbaum's desk, retrieving a plain wooden case.

Lifting out a bronze model of Beethoven's statue on the courtyard fountain, Böhm said we must take this tonight and hide it in the crypt beneath the chapel at Falkenstein Manor.

"There are secrets here that need to be kept for the future, yet also kept from too-numerous prying eyes."

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Admittedly, I was not looking forward to another trip in Grimgerde's phaeton especially considering how the wind had picked up, entrusted with a secret mission or not – even to preserve Beethoven's legacy. Director Böhm had given us careful instructions and wished us all God-speed, but still I had misgivings about it. For one thing, why send all four: wouldn't one of us suffice, with fewer people knowing anything about it? – not that I'd want to go alone, but then that's just me. True, we had no idea of the significance behind this weighty statue, what secret it was meant to protect – nor what the urgency was that this couldn't have waited till daylight – but it seemed to gain in weight the longer I held it, as if I carried a terrible burden.

Flying along the dark and lonely road, I couldn't help but think how Böhm had given Gutknaben the silver locket and it wasn't long before we'd discovered poor Gutknaben had been killed. If he had been killed for a lock of Beethoven's precious hair, what danger lay in store for us? What was the significance of the statue, the markings inscribed on it or the secret it meant to protect? Having killed somebody once already, would it be worth killing for again?

Soon, we arrived without any calamitous incident and followed Böhm's explicit directions, locating the ancient chapel of the Falkensteins, all that remained of the old monastery built here seven centuries since. Why hide it here, I wondered while traversing the broad empty field, except there might be fewer prying eyes. Looking back toward the Falkensteins' spacious house across the road from us, I saw a single room lit up as if someone, suffering a sleepless night, might be watching for us.

Certainly there would be more secure locations within the massive castle itself, protected by a constant crowd of witnesses. No, some lonely place would be best, both isolated and practically inaccessible. As Böhm said, we found the altar near the chapel's far end with its carved relief of Risen Christ.

"Gently press your right hand against the up-raised left hand of Christ," Böhm had instructed us, "placing thumb to thumb. This," he said, "will open the doorway leading down into the crypt."

But Mahler, being a Jew, could not bring himself to do this, and Rott, a Catholic, thought it sacrilegious.

Impatiently, Ethel, cursing under her breath with something like "weak as water," pushed them aside and glanced quickly around before slapping her palm "thumb to thumb" against the hand of Christ.

Nothing happened, not at first. Rott thought she used too much force. Then we heard a soft, grating sigh, like stone rubbing against stone, like someone not used to being bothered. The whole front panel of the altar swung slowly back into darkness, an unwelcoming entrance leading us to – where?

"Well," Ethel postulated, "I opened the door. Mahler, you're holding the lantern. Perhaps that means you should lead the way." Reluctantly, he moved past her and so we disappeared into the passageway.

At the bottom of a steep ramp, we found the crypt's door which Mahler and Rott leaned heavily against.

It opened with another long, sad sigh. Then I smelled it: brimstone! What hit me, next, I'd no idea.

When I finally came to, both the statue and Ethel were gone.

= = = = = = =
To be continued...

posted by Dick Strawser

The novel, The Lost Chord, is a classical music appreciation comedy thriller completed in 2013, and is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2014

The Lost Chord: Chapter 48

The Lost Chord

(a classical music appreciation comedy thriller by Richard Alan Strawser: you can read it from the beginning, here.)

In the previous installment, Fictitia has managed to escape from her captors. Kerr is trying to figure out how the Knight's Tour applies to the quest for a solution. Dylan is abducted by a strange old woman outside Lincoln Center. Kerr has bad feelings about Tr'iTone once he explains the map. With Lionel's help, Tr'iTone discovers the apparent goal he's been looking for is at the Festspielhaus.

= = = = = = =

Chapter 48

"He's left me alone in here!" Kerr thought. "I'm going to die!!"

Wasn't this an affront to a gentlemanly agreement? Not that Dr. Kerr would ever have confused Tr'iTone with a gentleman...

Feeling triumphant after Kerr told him that the statue was a map, Tr'iTone strapped Kerr back into the chair.

"Wait, you're going to let me go, now, right?" Dr. Kerr asked as he resumed fussing against his restraints. "I gave you the solution. Maybe you might need some more help?"

"I'm sorry, I can't hear you, professor. The music's getting too loud. Let me go sort this out, first."

Tr'iTone smiled as he grabbed the statue.

"Thanks, dude – enjoy the concert!"

He shut down the air circulation fan, then flipped off the light, an evil grin dancing across his lips.

With a flash of superiority like a winner strutting at the Oscars, Tr'iTone glanced back before yanking the door tight. He tilted his head but his laughter died in the stagnant air. Once he replaced the cover over the practice room's lone small window, Kerr was again left in total darkness.

"No, you can't," he shouted, "you're not playing by the rules of..." but then he stopped. "What's the use...?"

Kerr felt anger, then disappointment, then realized he'd soon need to pee.

Despite long hours sitting through performances of Mahler symphonies or Wagner operas, Dr. Kerr found himself hard-pressed to withstand the onslaught of the music now filling the space of his prison.

"What tortures did they use four hundred years ago in this dungeon that could be any worse," he wondered.

How often had he told his students if they didn't like a piece to find something to listen to that would give them something to process, at least occupy their minds.

The problem Kerr faced, however, was how little there was to process, what little he deemed worth the effort. Rather than expectations expertly resolved, he was faced with amateurish missed opportunities. Ignoring the flow of music's underlying force, the composer earned few points by inadequately following his own inner logic.

He was reminded how old Brahms had told off young Hugo Wolf who'd come to him for some supportive advice only to be told what no struggling student ever wanted to hear.

"First you learn something, then" the master said, handing back his scores, "we'll see if you have any talent."

Was there nothing positive to point out, no well-turned phrase or motive, no instrumental color nor nicely voiced chord, something that couldn't be mentioned with at least a nod toward accomplishment?

Such frailties these egos are, creative souls always struggling in their isolation, relying on kind reactions and friendly support. Hadn't Brahms felt deep disappointment even at the peak of his career? He would destroy whole works that met with little enthusiasm from friends. Couldn't he understand how Wolf would feel?

By being unable to hear anything else after lengthy immersion in darkness, Kerr found all of his senses (including smell) eventually helped heighten the one sense that was most prodded into activity, leaving open the one he most desired to close: he could hear everything better, more clearly, more intensely.

"Crap..."

He felt like he was absorbing the music as a physical presence through every possible opening in his body before he realized, in fact, he was, whether as ear-worm or poison.

His eyes began to water until he could no longer focus, being unable to see anything in the darkness anyway.

"Am I crying? Is this stuff so awful it's causing physical pain?"

The music, like an infestation, crawled relentlessly under his skin, creeping stealthily through his ears, deeper toward his brain.

He could feel his muscles giving away, the tension flowing out of them as his brain refused to cooperate.

"I have to get out of here. I have to save Cameron..."

Above all, the heart beat and pulsing of the blood he'd earlier been able to feel in his wrists he now heard flooding through his inner ears, soon dissolving into blankness.

In the distance, he heard something different, oddly comforting, like someone singing, strangely audible through the continuing musical assault.

Seated one day at the organ,

"...I'm playing the organ...?" he thought.

I was weary and ill at ease

"...very..."

And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.

"...like white noise..."

I know not what I was playing,

"...it sounded only vaguely familiar..."

Or what I was dreaming then;

"...restful..."

But I struck one chord of music,

"...damn, was that an F7?..."

Like the sound of a great Amen.

It floated gently over him, enveloping his body, reaching for his soul.

It flooded the crimson twilight,
Like the close of an angel's psalm,

"My god, am I at my own funeral...?"

And it lay on my fevered spirit
...a touch of infinite calm.
It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;

"Who's singing this...?"

It seemed the harmonious echo

"...harmonious echo?..."

His mind echoed like an empty room, reverberating to sounds of Sir Arthur Sullivan's famous hymn, 'The Lost Chord.'

"So, it's come to this...?"

From our discordant life.

"Resolve the dissonance..."

Would any of his music survive him? Was this all there was? Sadly, he realized nothing mattered any more.

In the distance, he was sure he could hear someone screaming.

Himself?

The pain was so intense: this music had finally reached his brain.

With that, Dr. Kerr was no more.

= = = = = = =
To be continued...

posted by Dick Strawser

The novel, The Lost Chord, is a classical music appreciation comedy thriller completed in 2013, and is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2014