The Lost Chord: Chapter 40

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, Klavdia Klangfarben, absorbing her new identity, a woman who fancies herself a German countess, decides she might write her life-story (as a novel, of course) and goes in search of an agent. She contacts Iobba Dhabbodhú and discovers he knows Dr. T. Richard Kerr. The plot thickens. Dr. Kerr is being interrogated by Tr'iTone who explains Cameron is tied into a bio-feedback loop of Ravel's Bolero when a cell phone rings and Kerr has yet another unwanted epiphany.

= = = = = = =

Chapter 40

There wasn't much she could tell him, just because she's Rob's cousin. LauraLynn looked around at everyone intently watching her. She had no idea who they were or why she was there. The man in the suit asking the questions must be the boss, the other people there merely his minions.

"So, look," the boss was saying as he leisurely sipped his drink, "I can't imagine that you know nothing."

"He was very secretive about whatever he composed," she explained, "always was."

The man in the suit looked like an American used car salesman, someone she should trust about as much. The skinny guy with a shock of purple-green hair was clearly annoyed. There were bodyguards standing at the door, no doubt armed and dangerous. The dowdy woman must be a secretary.

"Okay," she said, "I know you guys are after my great-grandfather's journal, though I can't think of any reason why. Most of it's in code and it makes no sense to me."

Furrowed brows and confused glances were fleetingly exchanged between boss and secretary, even to the now more annoyed punk-rocker.

"You can have the journal if you'll just let me go free, but Dr. Kerr still has the statue." She hoped Terry would forgive her, whatever true value both objects had.

"What journal...? and what d'you mean, statue?" Steele was becoming increasingly annoyed. "Anybody mention a journal and statue before...?"

One of the guards yanked her purse away and produced the journal.

"You forget, Ms. Harty, that we have both you and your journal. Not much of a bargaining chip, then."

Steele impatiently flipped through the old journal the guard had handed him before tossing it onto the end table. Scricci picked it up but dropped it like it burned his fingers.

"What I want to know is if your cousin left any back-up copies of his completed opera lying around."

"I told you," she said, "I have no idea if he did."

After a knock at the door, a guard conferred with the boss before leaving the big guy back in.

Widor, breathing heavily as usual, looked around uneasily, hoping no one heard yet about his new bike having been stolen, and explained he'd just talked with their inside agent at Schweinwald Security. "It seems this Professor Kerr person who's a friend of Robertson Sullivan's was brought in to complete his opera."

"Okay, well, that's a game-changer," Steele said, kicking against the nearest chair. "If he knows about the reworked ending, this Kerr fellow must also be eliminated, if you get my drift."

Steele decided Widor should call Kerr again, this time offering to give him LauraLynn in exchange for that statue, luring him into their trap somewhere not too far from the Festspielhaus.

Once again, Widor tapped in the number, expecting to reach LauraLynn's phone but genuinely surprised somebody else had answered.

LauraLynn realized Terry was in even greater danger, whatever he'd been before, and not because he can't locate a fountain. Whether or not Rob finished the opera, Terry could technically re-complete it.

Plus this guy knows nothing about either the statue or the journal: so who, she wondered, was the killer?

Her mind began to swirl with possibilities, if that guy wasn't Dhabbodhú. And if he wasn't, who was he?

Whoever the real killer was, was Rob's murder maybe about something else?

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

Totally cool with vampires and werewolves in the movies and graphic novels forming the cultural core of her Goth experience, Fictitia found she was less comfortable with them in the real world, or at least the very real likelihood of running into them while she's hanging out around some haunted castle. Whatever was going on there tonight was different from the stories that entertained a bunch of terminally bored misfits. That old perv Scarpia had disappeared first, then she'd heard Cameron scream.

"Thank goddess they'd given back my phone," she puffed into the wind, racing through the woods back to safety. Maybe someone was still monitoring her Twitter account and could send help. She didn't relish the idea of dealing with those creepy police again but it beat battling monsters by herself.

She felt badly she hadn't said anything to the police about Scarpia, figuring he deserved whatever he might have gotten, but then she hadn't had a chance, kidnapped in that bomb-maker's van. Strange things had been happening so fast, she had trouble keeping up, even for someone used to instant reporting.

And the old guy with Cameron, was that his grandfather or something? But what were they doing out there? Scarpia had been stalking her, she knew, and she'd followed that beast...

The road was pitch dark so she couldn't see what she hit, taking that bend down the hill too fast – maybe a rock or some rodent that darted in front of her. She found herself airborne, not the normal way she liked flying high, landing with a thud on her back.

"Shit, piss and fucking corruption," she shouted at no one in particular. Everything around her was very still. "Spooky..."

She found her phone and used the light to find her bike.

"Aw, crap," she said, kicking the dirt before realizing she felt okay, no broken bones or big, gaping wounds. The tire, on the other hand, was flat and the wheel, mangled.

Now she'd have to walk, she thought.

Then she saw approaching headlights.

The car slowed to a stop.

"Fictitia...?"

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

"Who the hell's this?" the gruff voice on the other end of the line blurted out after a brief silence.

"I was expecting Professor Kerr," Widor said, his breath slow and heavy.

"Yeah?" But the gruff voice that answered the phone offered nothing else.

"Perhaps I've dialed a wrong..."

"Ya think?"

But rather than hang up, the gruff voice continued to wait quietly as Widor's patience began to grow thin.

"So who the hell's this, then? Dr. Kerr's personal assistant?" Widor laughed.

"You have reached the phone of Professor Kerr," the gruff voice said, "but he's tied up at the moment."

Whoever it was, Widor thought, did a poor impersonation of a secretary.

In the distance, Widor heard Kerr's voice. "Well, technically, it's not my..."

"Shut up," the gruff voice growled.

"Right..."

Widor quickly realized the situation: wherever Dr. Kerr was, was now immaterial. The circumstances required a sudden change of plans. If he's going to negotiate, he must first talk to Kerr's captor.

"So, I take it, then, you have Dr. Kerr... and the statue?"

There was silence on the other end.

Widor leaned into the phone. "We have LauraLynn Harty... and her journal."

He heard a sharp intake of breath.

"It seems we have something you want, and you likewise have something..."

"Yes," the voice interrupted quietly, still resonant but lacking its earlier gruffness.

Widor leaned back with a faint smile.

If anything, LauraLynn thought it made him look grotesque, even more evil.

"Then perhaps," Widor continued slowly, "we could arrange an exchange between us?"

"Don't do it, Terry," LauraLynn suddenly screamed.

Scricci slapped her violently, then gagged her. "Honestly, boss, I just couldn't take the bitch any more," he apologized.

Steele, nodding his approval, urged Widor to hurry up: "It's getting late."

"I understand you plan to blow up the Festspielhaus tomorrow," Widor added.

"Uhm, yeah... maybe." The voice became evasive.

"We might have different goals, but if we could combine our resources...?"

Widor suggested meeting to discuss the details and trade their respective items.

"We'll give you the journal – for Kerr...?"

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

Klavdia Klangfarben – or rather Countess Falkenstein (she'd long been considering dropping her other names) – sat in her elegant Manhattan brownstone, savoring thoughts of her revenge on her old enemy, Dr. Richard Kerr. She had succeeded in stealing Cameron's letter and even now Dr. Dhabbodhú was probably taunting him with its loss. This called for another glass of that wonderfully sparkling, vintage Riesling wine she'd found cases of in the basement. Smiling, she had to admit, "it doesn't get any better than this."

It had been a piece of cake, Roth hacking into Cameron's computer, locating the bank and his account number. Even better, they discovered that the Pierce family's designated lawyer was out-of-town. Dhabbodhú then arranged for a late-afternoon appointment so Cameron's own "lawyer" could retrieve a document from his safe-deposit box.

Too bad Dhabbodhú had to leave early for that conference in Germany, but then she got to play 'the lawyer.' Once she had the letter, she would pass it on to Roth. Taking the next flight out, then Roth would relay it to Dhabbodhú. All in all, what could go wrong?

The night before he left, she and Dhabbodhú celebrated their plan's success with an unexpected tumble onto her couch.

She couldn't remember when she'd last been possessed by such a man.

= = = = = = =
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 Classical Grammy Winners for 2015

It's "Music's Big Night," the night they announce the winners of this year's Grammy Awards. And while some people might be surprised to find there are classical music nominees and winners - they're usually allotted the same prestige as the technical awards for things like the Tonys and the Oscars, not-ready-for-prime-time - here are this year's winners in the Classical Division, announced earlier this afternoon:

72. Best Engineered Album, Classical 

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Dona Nobis Pacem; Symphony No. 4; The Lark Ascending – Michael Bishop, engineer; Michael Bishop, mastering engineer (Robert Spano, Norman Mackenzie, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus) Label: ASO Media

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

74. Best Orchestral Performance

John Adams: City Noir - David Robertson, conductor (St. Louis Symphony) Label: Nonesuch

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

75. Best Opera Recording

Marc-Antonie Charpentier: La Descente d'Orphée aux Enfers – Paul O'Dette & Stephen Stubbs, conductors; Aaron Sheehan; Renate Wolter-Seevers, producer (Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble; Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Ensemble) Label: CPO

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

76. Best Choral Performance

The Sacred Spirit of Russia – Craig Hella Johnson, conductor (Conspirare) Label: Harmonia Mundi

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

77. Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

In 27 Pieces - The Hilary Hahn Encores – Hilary Hahn & Cory Smythe; Label: Deutsche Grammophon

(3 of the 27 Encores: by Avner Dorfman, Tina Davidson, and Mason Bates)

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

78. Best Classical Instrumental Solo

Play – Jason Vieaux; Label: Azica Records

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

79. Best Classical Solo Vocal Album

Douce France – Anne Sofie Von Otter; Bengt Forsberg, accompanist (Carl Bagge, Margareta Bengston, Mats Bergström, Per Ekdahl, Bengan Janson, Olle Linder & Antoine Tamestit); Label: Naïve

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

80. Best Classical Compendium

Harry Partch: Plectra & Percussion Dances – Harry Partch; John Schneider, producer; Label: Bridge Records, Inc.

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

81. Best Contemporary Classical Composition

John Luther Adams: Become Ocean – John Luther Adams, composer (Ludovic Morlot & Seattle Symphony); Label: Cantaloupe Music


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Congratulations to the winners - and congratulations as well to all those nominated in their respective fields. You can read the complete list of nominations, here, in this earlier post.

Thanks to Grammy.com for making this list available.


- Dick Strawser

The Lost Chord: Chapter 39

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, Klavdia Klangfarben, feeling 26 years older than the age listed on her birth certificate, thanks to her botched experience with Time Travel, discovers a woman who could be her long-lost twin and hatches a plan. Kerr, captured by Tr'iTone in the castle's dungeon-turned-radio-studio, wakes up to find himself in a not quite sound-proofed room with some awful music playing in the background.

= = = = = = =

CHAPTER 39

It felt like more than thirty years since she last played on-line.

"I wonder how much I can still remember?"

Klavdia sat down at the Countess' computer and logged into her account.

What luck: the Countess du Hicquè was a rather absent-minded old bat, keeping her information taped to the keyboard.

"Elisabeth_CountessFalkenstein86" was her log-in ID, no doubt part of her fantasy identity, and her password was – how funny! – "Heinichen"! Though she'd spelled it wrong, Klavdia was beginning to like her already!

Unfortunately, Klavdia discovered there was very little evidence of an on-line life, nothing that seemed to amount to much: an e-mail account that was primarily spam, no on-line banking, no Facebook. There were only a handful of bookmarks, none that seemed particularly interesting, the internet apparently outside her 'comfort zone.'

Though it was already late the night she 'inherited' her new identity and dumped a comatose body in the alley, Klavdia wandered around the house in utter amazement at what she found. There were several closets full of clothes – granted, mostly old-fashioned, old-lady clothes – but warm, clean and very classy clothes. She'll wear a different pair of shoes every day of the week, picking a brooch from boxfuls of jewelry. There were three different bedrooms, each one more fantastic than the last.

There was one room, overlooking the back, which must've been Strether's office with its Victorian-style desk and matching chair and where Countess Elisabeth looked after her banking and paid the bills. There was one check ready to mail which, conveniently, she'd already signed, a signature requiring some practice to duplicate.

It was the file from her bank accounts that most astounded Klavdia, staring at it for maybe twenty minutes, more money than she had ever imagined – well over three million dollars!

Thinking about it still made her dizzy even almost eight months later, remembering how she'd twirled around the hallway before very nearly tumbling down the steps, barely catching herself in time. Instead, she did a very un-old-ladylike thing, despite being in her 60s, sliding with a whoop down the bannister.

More sobering – if not reassuring – was paging through her tattered address book, practically every name in it carefully crossed out, several obituaries inserted between its pages clipped from newspapers around the world. The old countess may well have had many friends in her time, but things looked very lonely these days. What would she do if an old friend came by to visit? How would she manage to fool anyone? And visits to the doctor? She could end up giving herself away.

Klavdia had one short conversation with her, knew nothing of her story, yet thought she might pull this off. Wouldn't it be better to go on a trip, somewhere far away?

"What was I thinking?" she wondered aloud. "God, I must be crazy! Oh, wait – what if I am crazy?"

It was a long shot, of course, not something taken too lightly, but it might help her with her situation. The countess was, naturally, an old woman and these things sometimes happen.

It was like creating a paper trail covering any of those slips of the tongue or lapses in memory. The trick would be only to have some kind of official record that she's started becoming 'a little eccentric', not like she's developing dementia, just enough to excuse some irrational behavior.

Over the next several days, aside from going out for her meals and the occasional opera she'd had tickets for, Klavdia spent hours sifting through the paperwork found in various desk drawers. She looked for receipts and reports from doctor's visits, copies of prescriptions, but nothing like that was turning up. There were no impending medical appointments listed on the calendar through Spring, with nothing indicating she'd had one recently. Taking no pills for anything, she must've been healthy as a horse.

The countess may have lacked family and friends, but several people Klavdia ran into treated her warmly if deferentially: the doorman, the guy at the newsstand, waiters at her usual restaurants. These were not the kind of people she needed to interact with more than a nod or generous tip.

Klavdia now began thinking maybe she should write down her life story, having finally both the computer and the opportunity – a novel, naturally, since who would believe everything that happened to her? One afternoon, she overheard someone talking about an agent named Iobba Dhabbodhú who lived nearby, so she called him.

Though reluctant at first, he gradually warmed to the idea, especially the time-travel, after a couple rather inauspicious meetings. Unfortunately, as a music lover, he had an overbearing interest in Beethoven.

She thought about canceling their next appointment, thinking she needed more time, when he announced he'd be out-of-town then, something about a dinner he'd be attending at Benninghurst, some composer's colony.

"I only know one composer," she mentioned. "Have you heard of some guy," she added cautiously, "named... Richard Kerr...?"

"Unfortunately, I haven't," he apologized, "but it's a dinner honoring Robertson Sullivan, so who knows, maybe he'll be there? I'll keep my ears open," he joked, "basically, normal for an agent."

Their next appointment wasn't for two weeks, but Dhabbodhú decided to call her immediately after he'd returned from Benninghurst.

"Not only was your friend Kerr there, he has something I want!"

He wondered if maybe she could prevail upon him as a favor?

"Of course! I'd be delighted to help!"

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

So, I looked around, hoping my eyes would adjust to the darkness, and tried to take stock of my predicament, bound hand and foot to a chair but neither blindfolded nor gagged. It was not entirely dark as I could see a small window covered to block a pale, glowing light. Nor was it entirely sound-proofed, acoustically dead, as I'd thought at first, since I could faintly hear nondescript music which quickly became annoying whether or not it was actually getting louder.

The room – "it was definitely a room" – wasn't very large, I felt, and made from some prefabricated acoustical material, nothing vast or vaulted like I'd expect in an old stone castle.

"My God," I shivered, "he's locked me in an old-fashioned practice room," something you'd find in college music departments!

There was an unexpected motion at what might be a narrow window like something being yanked away with sudden force, the orangey glow more pronounced behind the silhouette of an indeterminate face. Backing up so it could see better, the face became more defined, the space behind it gradually more visible. I'd spent many student hours cooped up in such prison-like practice rooms where passers-by would peer in like jailers or perhaps curious tourists at a zoo while I played my scales.

But this time, it's a little different, I thought, despite the recollection, since the face glaring in at me belonged to the man who'd killed Rob Sullivan and might kill me. And where were Cameron and LauraLynn, now? Had he already killed them? What the hell was going on, here?

He yanked the door open and the small room was suddenly filled with a wash of pale amber light that reminded me of the color of cheap beer – and the music...!

"What the hell is going on, here," I demanded to know, "and what the hell is this awful music?" I was hoping I might intimidate him with some unexpected macho bravado.

He fixed me with a baleful stare. "But I wrote this music!"

"Lovely, just lovely," I said, "very soothing..."

Standing in the doorway blocking any view, my hulk-like captor glowered unmercifully, quickly deflating what little bravado I had mustered, the glow behind him like an aura transforming emanating evil into light. It was hard to see details, what he was wearing (if anything), the expression on his face merely malevolent. But basically it was easy to assume this was not exactly going to be the most pleasant of experiences though I didn't necessarily need a list to help prove my hypothesis.

"What a surprise to find you here, Dr. Kerr, before I had even extended the invitation," the man said, towering in the doorway as he continued, "though not yet formally introduced."

His voice struck me as better modulated than his physique would imply, but then that wasn't really saying much.

"I saw you at Benninghurst that night," I began with some hesitation, "you and your dinner guest, Mr. Lionel Roth – though I seem to be seeing you every place I turn, lately..."

"I was Mr. Roth's guest, there to meet the great Robertson Sullivan. Alas, I left before it was... over."

Unfortunately, I'd arrived at an inopportune time, he told me, stepping aside. "But, well – as long as you're here..."

There, behind him, was Cameron connected to numerous wires, writhing in pain.

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

It was what her new friend wanted more, seemingly, than anything else, calling her after coming back from Sullivan's dinner, but Klavdia didn't really care since it gave her something to do. And better yet, it would be taking something valuable from Dr. Kerr, knowing he wouldn't part with it willingly. What amazed her even more was how, after all these long years of waiting and stewing in her anger, she'd found her new identity and plans for revenge all at once.

"What delicious twist of fate," she sang while dancing around the house, "that led me to find this neighbor who – cha-cha-cha – would unexpectedly meet my old archenemy a few weeks later?"

As some great writer – she'd forgotten who – said, "There just aren't enough people to go around in the world."

Over lunch the next day, Dhabbodhú explained the details were very sketchy, but he'd overheard Kerr and his young companion – adding that arched eyebrow of suggestiveness and disapproval, putting quotation-marks around it – talking about this letter from Ludwig van Beethoven he had been given which they kept in the boy's bank.

Judging from what they'd said, he'd gotten this letter from Beethoven himself, whatever he might have meant by that, but it sounded like he expected one day to find it'd vanished.

"I figured he meant that it was too good to be true, like pinching yourself after unexpected good fortune."

Klavdia nodded into her soup knowing she knew exactly what he meant.

Dhabbodhú continued recounting what fragments of information he had overheard that night in the banquet hall at Benninghurst Colony.

"I must have that letter – for my collection, you understand," he explained. "I'd pay whatever he wants for it."

Klavdia looked at him nonchalantly. "And they called me crazy," she thought.

Dhabbodhú suggested a friend named Lionel Roth – he'd been there at Benninghurst. "He could help with some on-line research that would help fill in the blanks," he insinuated with a smile.

"So if they're expecting it to disappear some day," Klavdia added lightly, "why not make it do just that?"

Roth, another of Dhabbodhú's clients, turned out to be the perfect hacker, an introvert by nature who spent too much time composing useless music, filling in crossword puzzles and constantly playing Sudoku. By googling Kerr's name, Roth found references to Kerr's assistant, Cameron Pierce, which from there led them to Facebook. Creating a fake account for Frederick Flynn-Stone allowed Roth only limited access since Cameron's security settings revealed little information. He did find, however, Cameron 'liked' Beethoven which gave him an idea.

'Fred' added himself to the list of one of those insidious fan-pages where people shared misguided enthusiasms about music and posted a few comments quickly earning him several dozen new friends. It was now a matter of time waiting for Cameron to surface and he'd gain access to his account.

It didn't take long for someone named Dylan to tag Cameron in a news post about a recently uncovered letter in which Beethoven complained to a friend about money and his health. 'Fred' immediately added a comment wondering how many more letters like this might still be floating around out there.

While others responded, Roth waited for Dylan to engage in the thread and then sent him a 'friend request.' Seeing a fellow student from the university, Dylan accepted – Roth was 'in.'

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

Seeing Cameron obviously in great pain not far from where I sat, I screamed, feeling totally incapable of helping him, but it was like my voice died in the air between us.

"What unspeakable things are you doing to him," I demanded to know. It was painful enough to watch him.

Strapped hand and foot to what looked like an ancient stone altar, his mouth gagged, lying there nearly naked, Cameron had numerous electrodes connected like suckers to his chest and abdomen.

"It's nothing serious if you tell me what I need to know," the hulk said, leaning closer to me. "It's not electrical, in case you're worried." He glanced over his shoulder.

He explained how Cameron was listening to music with his entire body, the body's response controlling what he heard.

"It's a biofeedback tape-loop of Ravel's Bolero, manipulated by his internal responses feeding the dynamics, the tempo, even the colors, increasingly overlapping the various repetitions to constantly heighten the listener's ultimate experience," he explained, partially turning toward the table where his poor victim bounced like a fish in a frying pan.

"The more positively he reacts, the more beautiful is the machine's response. Your friend appears not to like it, so it may not take long before his brain explodes."

"You monster!"

"Unfortunately," he told me, "the music you are listening to – my music – is not controlled by your blood-pressure and heartbeat, or you'd probably be dead long before you've outlived your limited usefulness."

Turning away, I was nearly overcome by the garlic on his breath. At least we were safe from vampires.

"I'm very disappointed you've been avoiding me, Dr. Kerr," grabbing my shoulder. "You're supposed to find me the fountain!"

"Let Cameron go," I pleaded, "he knows less about this than me!"

"Than 'I', Doctor," he retorted.

"Well, that makes two of us, then..."

That's when I heard a ringing cell-phone.

"What's that," the demon snarled. "I didn't write that, there!"

"It's mine..."

A call came in on LauraLynn's phone, probably from her abductor.

"Wait..."

The monster tore it from my pocket.

= = = = = = =
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 38

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, Yoda Leahy-Hu and her agents arrive for their stake-out waiting for Garth Widor to walk into their trap as they check their headsets (Hu's on first). Kerr and Cameron, figuring out more details found on the statue of Beethoven, head for the old castle hoping to find the missing CD containing the complete score of Rob's opera. Tr'iTone is annoyed to have to deal with more intruders and captures Cameron; then Lionel Roth leads Dr. Kerr to the dungeon to rescue him. Fictitia arrives at the Castle and, after hearing a scream from inside, tweets for help.


= = = = = = =

CHAPTER 38

Shortly after she'd arrived in New York – or more specifically, in 1985 – Klavdia Klangfarben had no idea what she'd do, beyond vociferously demonstrating for more scientific research into the field of time-travel. It could hardly make any serious impact since even among physicists it was little more than a science-fiction dream. Her goal, she knew, was to get back to the present somehow which had been that experience with SHMRG, before her well-meaning excursion going back to 1985 to rescue her mother.

No one took her seriously, least of all your basic mainstream physicists, just another crazy person carrying a sign: "What do we want? Time-Travel! When do we want it? That's immaterial!" How could she convince them she needed to return to the future by only a mere couple of decades?

It didn't help she couldn't remember how it was she'd gotten there except for the device she knew was responsible. The battery died and she ran out of time, so to speak. No store she could find had ever seen a battery like that and without it, she was irretrievably stuck.

It was one of the few items she could call her own, totally useless as the thing had proven, but through all those repeated years, she continued carrying it with her.

Finally, she'd found herself back in 2011 but only by traveling into the future the way normal people did, year by year, one day at a time, the standard time-space continuum. Scientists now may argue that quantum physics would imply something totally different, the way we perceive everything around us. There could be these ripples in time – she remembered experiencing that much – and there could be these parallel universes, but how all this had happened faded from her memory long ago.

She kept looking at this white device she held in her hand, hoping its comforting shape might activate memories or somehow unlock some incontrovertible proof of where it had came from. Her fellow street-people thought it was a stress-reliever like some futuristic sex-toy, but it really wasn't even worth that.

Only Klavdia Klangfarben was now twenty-six years older than she should be and everything in her life had completely changed. Because the Real Klavdia had changed her mind about going into music, she never pursued studies in Forensic Musicology. Finding herself a decent-paying job in business, she never collaborated with SHMRG. Klavdia had contacted her doctoral thesis adviser, the venerable Dr. Frikken Bøhr, hoping for some helpful shred of information – he'd once told her about parallel universes – but he didn't remember her.

Lacking any way of correcting her situation or making the present easier, she understood that she needed an identity, one that came with more than a made-up name or fake ID. Because she made a little money selling pilfered apples on the street, the others started calling her 'Mrs. Worthington.'

But how to find herself an identity beyond just papers evaded her until she met a woman quite by accident who, but for an accident of birth, could have been her sister. She saw her first near Lincoln Center, a well-dressed, cultured woman with silver hair who lived not far away. Klavdia's own hair had once been a massive plume of platinum blonde, though now closer to unruly steel wool. As age and circumstance made a difference, this was her best chance.

She had no idea who the woman was, but one night Klavdia accidentally stepped in front of her, startling her. Stopped in her tracks, the woman stared before gasping something in German. Then, as if an act of contrition, the well-dressed woman gave the tattered street person a crumpled five-dollar bill. "There but for the grace of God," the well-dressed woman had said, no doubt recognizing the fickleness of fate where only a fine line separated her from this poor homeless unfortunate.

One night after the opera, Klavdia followed her back to her house, an old brownstone building on 86th Street. It was then she started sizing up the situation, concocting her plan. She longed to trade places with her, not just having a place to live but a place like this.

Several times over the next few weeks, Klavdia 'accidentally' confronted the woman, each time smiling and nodding graciously to her. Initially, the woman seemed disconcerted by this apparition, perhaps some unwanted reminder. But eventually she found herself getting used to it and smiled back, occasionally slipping her a few dollar bills.

Then Klavdia decided it was now time to stay away several days, hoping the woman would notice her absence. The next time she saw her, then, the woman clearly looked relieved.

It was only a matter of time before she'd pass the woman enjoying lunch at a quiet sidewalk cafe and she'd invite Klavdia to join her on that crisp autumn afternoon. It was the first conversation they'd shared, inconsequential as it had been, but it seemed to broaden the boundaries.

The woman was older than Klavdia thought, perhaps by almost twenty years, but that didn't lessen their other similarities. Besides, who could ever imagine they would have much more in common?

A week later, Klavdia noticed her walking home, acting a bit 'tottery.' She followed her, sensing something was wrong.

After reaching the house and struggling with her keys, the woman fainted.

Klavdia helped her up the front steps, guiding her into the house.

She knew it was now or never.

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

"This is awkward," I'd felt, following Lionel Roth down the strange hallway. "Why would I suddenly trust him, now?" He'd said nothing about what happened or where he was taking me. Just because he's a vaguely familiar face didn't mean he'd help me find Cameron much less help us escape. He could be leading me away from danger, for all I knew, off to some safer, if undisclosed, location, but certainly he knew my friend was in trouble and needed help.

And I couldn't help but wonder what made Cameron scream like that since he hadn't wandered away, but simply disappeared. He hadn't gone looking for the bathroom or fallen down some hole. He had been abducted, I was sure, and dragged into the wall. I, on the other hand, entered willingly.

Plus, I knew nothing about Lionel Roth that was at all reassuring beyond his being a composer who'd attended Benninghurst. Like many artists, he had an agent but his agent was Dhabbodhú. And wasn't Dhabbodhú the man I was convinced had killed Robertson Sullivan and tonight had threatened to kill LauraLynn? True, Roth had warned me my friend needed help that awful night, prompting me – too late – to run upstairs. I never had the chance to ask what he'd meant by that.

Unfortunately, now did not seem the best time to bring this up as we turned corner after unending corner, burrowing deeper into the bowels of this God-forsaken ruin of a castle. How could he tell where we're going, surrounded by silence and darkness, this man seemingly full of endless insecurities?

Also, if this was the same castle where the old Academy once met, that must've been Simon Sechter's statue. And wasn't that where they'd found Gutknaben's body so many years ago?

After a while, looking over his shoulder, Roth said it wasn't necessary for me to waste my flashlight's batteries. "My night vision's pretty good," he asserted, continuing to lead the way.

I, on the other hand, felt blind as a bat without radar, so I gave him points for that.

He told me how he'd started working to overcome his various fears, feeling he'd do better taking them on one-at-a-time. Tonight, he'd decided on overcoming his fear of darkness along with claustrophobia.

"Beats sitting in my room," he said, "doing nothing but crossword puzzles," something he often did all day long.

Now it's time for me to confront one of my biggest fears since no amount of procrastination would help. Like it or not, once I'd shouted Dhabbodhú's name, I needed courage.

Unfortunately, it was too late by the time I'd reached the dungeon, Cameron, already strapped down, unable to escape. When the monster looked up, he sneered and lunged at me, roaring.

The wall had started closing behind me, cutting off my only escape as Roth shrank back toward Cameron's table.

I held out the Beethoven statue as if offering Dhabbodhú a gift, hoping it might distract him for a moment. Could I manage to bargain with him, these clues for our freedom?

Would I have the necessary strength to strike him with it? Unlikely.

And there was no place to hide.

Dhabbodhú ripped the statue from my hand, that green felt covering falling off as he swung it toward me.

Everything went black as I noticed an odd design on its base.

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

After helping the woman inside, Klavdia sat her down on the couch, checking her vital signs for any hope. Her speech was increasingly more slurred as she fumbled in her purse. Her last intelligible words were "blood-pressure pills," but Klavdia couldn't find them. "The woman's having a stroke," she thought.

By then, it was already too late. The woman's head fell back, her eyes, wide open, staring blankly ahead. In a matter of minutes, she'd no doubt be dead – or worse.

Klavdia Klangfarben exchanged clothes with the deadweight matron, transforming herself before turning the well-dressed woman into a homeless, nameless bag-lady, unmistakably assuring her new identity by leaving the time-device in her pocket.

Later, an elegantly dressed Klavdia hauled a bag-lady down the back alley to her old hang-out several blocks away.

The name on her new home's doorbell was Strether Lambertson du Hicquè, scion of the old New England du Hicquès who for generations manufactured odd little devices nobody knew what to call. When he died years ago, he'd left his widow a wealthy woman now styling herself the Countess du Hicquè.

"What imponderable luck, stumbling upon an old woman who looks like me who also lives in a great brownstone with lots of money and," Klavdia thought, "who called herself a countess!"

She also discovered the woman was a recluse living alone without children, her sole pleasure going to the opera. She had few if any close friends and supported even fewer causes.

Now, nattering on about time-travel, Klavdia wouldn't be crazy: she'd be eccentric. It was amazing what money could do!

Dining out the next day, Klavdia heard rumors how an old bag-lady – the one the others called 'Mrs. Worthington' – had been found in an alleyway, deep in a coma. "Stroke, apparently."

This gave her an idea, something she could now get away with. She'd long loathed this guy, Man Kaye, and ran into him in the park out on his lunch break. She made some fantastical proposition to him, a plot so riotously outlandish he swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

Manfred Kaye was a would-be composer and go-nowhere mid-level executive at SHMRG but when he proposed this to his supervisors – killing off great composers from the past – it made him a laughing-stock. Pushing him out the window was easy. The initial verdict was suicide, but police found one prominently placed fingerprint.

Curiously, it belonged to a branch manager from a Hartford insurance company, someone in her mid-30s named Klavdia Klangfarben who also happened to have an air-tight alibi for that same evening.

More curiously, the grainy image seen on the SHMRG office's security camera matched some crazy old unnamed homeless person, a Jane Doe lying comatose in a hospital ward several blocks away.

So now it was time to wreak revenge on her greatest adversary, one bearing responsibility for Klavdia's greatest dilemma.

She had taken only a single class with Dr. T. Richard Kerr when she did her doctorate at Klaxon University but her grade wasn't the real reason she'd harbored this deep-seated grudge. There was some distant memory, perhaps from some more distant parallel universe, that he'd somehow foiled her every challenge.

It was enough for her to know she'd failed because of him, that he was behind this last catastrophe which also could explain her longtime hatred for any music by Beethoven.

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

This was what it must be like, waking up to find yourself in a coma after you've had a stroke, your head throbbing with a splitting headache, unaware of anything around you. You can hear sounds but nothing you can recognize, everything muffled, muted, and you're completely immobilized, unable to respond. Since I'd never had a stroke before, it could also be, hypothetically – making up a list of assumed possibilities – coming to after being conked over the head with a blunt object.

It's not like I've dealt with blunt-force trauma to the head, either, but I'd watched enough TV shows to imagine what cops might say over my prone and possibly deceased body. Someone would be slinging around a bucketful of technical jargon, medical terminology, while the detective asked what that meant.

Nor did I have any recollection of a light coming toward me. My last memory, oddly enough, was seeing Beethoven. This led me to believe I'd not had any near-death, out-of-body experience. So I could assume at this point I was probably still alive and that, so far, was good news.

There's little else to recommend the circumstances, since they weren't very comfortable, nor was anything I imagined especially comforting, beyond the likelihood I wasn't dead yet – 'yet' being the operative word.

Determined to assess this unfamiliar situation logically, I took a deep breath, glad to discover I could still do that. If my eyes were open, I wondered, why couldn't I see anything? I could move my hands and feet, not my arms or legs; it felt like I was sitting up.

Though I couldn't feel or see it, the space must be small but not musty smelling like the passageway, someplace small, dark and silent – and I was strapped into a chair.

Not entirely silent, though: I could hear the distant sound of music, barely audible as if in the distance since it didn't sound like it was coming from inside my head.

Apparently I was in some kind of not quite sensory deprivation chamber: so, what was with this awful music?

= = = = = = =
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 37

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, N. Ron Steele is delighted that Widor has brought LauraLynn Harty right to his hotel room (even though he thought he'd kidnapped Fictitia LaMouche). Kerr and Cameron steal a car and head out to the old castle on a hunch followed by Fictitia on her newly stolen bike. And meanwhile, in New York City, a former time-traveler begins a new phase of her lives...
= = = = = = =

CHAPTER 37

At least that muddle with the professor had been cleared up, finally. Such an annoyance, she thought, sitting there in the helicopter's front seat, barely able to see over the controls. Yoda Leahy-Hu was short enough she was used to not seeing much, aware that many others often pitied her. It gave her an opportunity to focus on "inner things," she explained, if anybody bothered to interrupt her thoughts. Did it matter if at night there wasn't much to see outside?

The helicopter's seat, like most seats, had clearly been designed for people – "normal people," they were called – larger than she, considering normal for her was peering out through her car's steering wheel. The helicopter's hum and steady 'whump whump whump' of the rotor blades proved very soothing after a long day.

That whole thing with this professor-friend of Sullivan's continued to bother her, how she'd let it become such a distraction, how she'd let it get in the way of her main investigation. But the way he had been acting, with all the right people, she would've been remiss not to investigate.

Any normal person – again, that odious word – would have likewise been struck, considering the possibilities of his suspicious behavior, by the fact he could have been yet another dangerous SHMRG operative.

And yet he turned out to be only a self-induced red herring, thinking he was 'smarter' than the police, ignoring the fact that (unlike Miss Marple, a literary character) he wasn't. It was all the Miss-Marple-Wannabees that irritated the crap out of her, despite her enduring love for amateur musicians. It would look bad in her report if she had to admit not only had she fallen for it, but he's the one who'd arranged this trap in the first place.

Of course, they still had to catch Garth Widor in the trap, hoping he would show up to 'negotiate,' but the question remained, she still wondered, was Widor working by himself? This whole bit about lopping off a finger for every hour's delay made it naturally that much more urgent.

It was no stroke of blinding genius, Leahy-Hu would readily have admitted had anyone been there who'd hear her, to tell Kerr to cool his well-meaning heels back at the hotel. The suspect she's pursuing wanted to cancel the premiere of Sullivan's opera, so much that he'd kill for it. What possible interest would this man have in directions to some fountain, especially clues hidden on some old statue, and why would he be searching for it in the first place?

No, substituting D'Arcy for the professor was the logical decision, she realized, because Widor needed assurance of the festival's intent which would guarantee Ms. Harty the continued use of all her fingers. The official announcement the opera would in fact be canceled comes later, after which she would be released unharmed.

Dr. Kerr had created the situation putting the composer's cousin in danger with his misguided obsession tracking down Sullivan's killer, and if he hadn't stolen Widor's van, she would still be safe. If it hadn't been for Kerr's paranoia, SHMRG might have been foiled and the perpetrators already in IMP custody.

But an uneasy thought started forming in the back of her mind: what if the professor was, somehow, right? What if there were some connection with this Dhabbodhú he was chasing?

Her first call, once they were aloft, had been to Schuler Schwergeklopft, the director of the IMP Munich branch. It took a while before he answered, her call going into voice-mail. But when he heard who was leaving the message, he quickly snapped to attention and picked up his phone. It was, after all, the middle of the night, she understood that – he had good reason to sound groggy – but there was, alas, dirty work afoot that would need tending to.

She knew Schwergeklopft was a dedicated agent who'd worked his way up through the system despite numerous setbacks and issues, respected for his quick-thinking as well as his judgment, responding under fire. She also knew there was little he couldn't handle, considering what had been thrown his way over the years.

"We are, it would seem, in the midst of an international crisis, one that's rapidly becoming increasingly dangerous," she explained. "We have reason to believe something major is going to happen tonight. I am going to need you to listen very carefully, Herr Schwergeklopft, then set everything in motion very quickly."

There had been concern among her colleagues how long Schwergeklopft would be able to work – and by extension, her.

"Well," she thought, "none of us are getting any younger, are we?"

Her pilot landed in a field near the western edge of town, a few blocks behind Ottobeuren's famous abbey, where they were met by Agent Sue Watt in an unmarked car. Driving through the deserted town, she quickly brought Leahy-Hu up to speed, explaining the arrangements hurriedly put in place.

There were introductions to several additional IMP agents called in from Munich, some she'd worked with before; others, new. One was the recently transferred detective from New York City, Kenny Ketchum.

After calling Schuler at the Munich office, she'd let Dispatcher Aida Lott coordinate most of the immediate personnel details so by the time she arrived, everyone was already in their locations.

She looked up at D'Arcy and nodded, giving him a reassuring thumbs-up. Then she turned, taking up her position.

As Acting Director of the Schweinwald Festival, V.C. D'Arcy knew his responsibility but couldn't help shake the nagging thought that in the past two months, his two predecessors had mysteriously died. It didn't take much for his imagination to conjure up gruesome images of his own death in various ways. Whatever it was that caused their deaths didn't make him any more comfortable knowing he was facing the man who may have been responsible for them, even if only “allegedly” responsible.

Leahy-Hu had coached him carefully on the brief helicopter ride to Ottobeuren – or at least what seemed brief to him, considering everything that he had to memorize, leaving little room for improvisation. The important thing was to get Ms. Harty back alive, he realized, but he was still in considerable danger.

Of course, he knew he was surrounded by dozens of IMP agents but that only meant his killer wouldn't escape. Their protection was largely a reactive measure if the man shot him. D'Arcy knew he had to be careful negotiating with the suspected killer, not spooking him by looking nervously around.

Thinking of it as another press conference focusing on a specific script as he calmly took a deep breath, he moved casually into his agreed-upon location, standing beside the knight's statue.

"Okay, showtime," Leahy-Hu said into her mic, "everybody's in place. Now – we just wait for the Big Guy."

After she lit a cigarette, Leahy-Hu surveyed the scene with studied indifference.

Meanwhile, Detective Ketchum started checking over his list with IMP Dispatcher Lott, since he knew no one by name.

“Right, let's go over which agents have been assigned to which headsets.”

"Ready when you are," the dispatcher said.

Ketchum began. "Okay, so who's on first?"

Lott checked her board.

"Yes."

"No, I mean the agent's name."

"Hu."

"The one on first."

"Hu."

"What's the name on the first headset?"

"No, Agent Watt's on second."

"I'm not asking you who's on second!"

"I told you that: Hu's on first!"

"Tell me! I don't know..."

"Not exactly. You see, Eidonneau's on third!"

Ketchum lost patience. "Wait... what!?"

"I've already told you Watt's on second."

"Okay, you got a fourth headset?"

"Certainly."

"Tell me the name of the Agent assigned to the fourth headset."

"Tamara." She always had a soft spot for the delightful Tamara Baumdiér.

Detective Ketchum was about ready to collapse.

"No, I need to know it tonight! Who's on the fourth headset?"

"Surely I've told you – Hu's on first!"

"I dunno! And don't call me Shirley!"

"Okay, but Eidonneau's on third!"

Detective Ketchum sighed. "So, let's move on to the fifth headset, then..."

"I'm sorry, but Ahn's already on number seven."

Detective Ketchum took a slow, deep breath. "Of course. Who's in charge?"

"Right, the agent on the first headset's always the one in charge."

"Who's giving orders tonight?"

"Naturally."

"Who...?"

"Naturally!"

Yoda Leahy-Hu sat back, taking a long slow drag on her cigarette, confident everything was running smoothly, completely under control. There was little more satisfying than realizing the benefit of well-made plans.

From her vantage point, she had a commanding view of the square and the locations of the other agents.

She'd heard good things about these agents Baumdiér, Eidonneau and Patty Ahn. Plus Agent Voo should check in soon...

Now, there was nothing more they could do but wait for Widor.

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

"Either the guy had incredible eyesight or he used some jeweler's magnifying tool to engrave such tiny characters," I said, holding the statue of Beethoven as Cameron drove our freshly purloined car. He'd found a tourist brochure in the hotel's lobby about area attractions which mentioned Castle Schweinwald not far away. All we had to do was take the Old Fricken Road behind the Festspielhaus which turned into the woods. The castle stood on the right at the top of the hill.

The brochure said "the famous Schweinwald Academy, one of the first summertime conservatories in Europe for advanced young composers, closed its doors in the early-1880s after nearly forty years of classes."

"Around the time Harrison Harty was here, writing his journal," Cameron said. "Makes you wonder what made it close."

We needed to know what else was going on with that journal but unfortunately LauraLynn now had it with her. Which meant Dhabbodhú, assuming he's the same guy as Girdlestone, has it. Cameron hadn't translated nearly enough to answer all the questions it raised, requiring several more hours than we had.

The road kept curving back and forth as we climbed the hillside.

"Why did they call this the Schweinwald?"

"Maybe the woods were were full of wild boars?"

"Hmm, no doubt..."

"So, we have chess moves engraved on Beethoven's leg, here," I said, turning the statue around in my hands, "how does that tie in with Zenn offering his regards to Warnsdorff?"

"Well," Cameron wondered, "maybe a Knight's Tour doesn't necessarily imply Lohengrin's Journey, one knight looking for the Holy Grail."

"True, Reise could mean tour or journey... perhaps on a similar quest?"

"Considering all the solutions to Warnsdorff's Rule."

"Depends on the starting place – then with several options going from there."

"But how did Zenn know about Warnsdorff? Did he see something else? What was it we were still missing? If he did see something important like that, why not tell us?"

"I guess rather than telling us what we needed to know, he'd let us discover it on our own."

"That may be fine for a teacher, but it's not like we have a lot of time," Cameron complained.

"Still," I said, "we're a lot further along than we were before..."

"But let's face it," he continued, "if we hadn't gone to Garmisch, we wouldn't have discovered the Beethoven statue."

"If it hadn't been for Zenn," I added, "we would never have managed to crack open the Maltese Mozart. Actually, if it hadn't been for D'Arcy, we'd never have found Zenn."

"Well, to find this Fountain of Inspiration, presumably we'll be looking for a 'Knight's Tour' to lead us to it."

To me, that sounded like a rather round-about way of getting someplace.

The way this Old Fricken Road was winding around through the Schweinwald, it's possible we were already on it.

"But we also need to look for the Knight's Entrance," I continued, "presumably the point where Warnsdorff's algorithm can begin." This algorithm established the recurring patterns touching every square on the chessboard. The problem was finding how all this related to some undiscovered chessboard, how many paths a knight could take.

Just then, breaking through the woods, we rounded another bend which brought us to a rocky clearing up ahead.

And there stood without a doubt the creepiest castle I'd ever seen.

Castle Schweinwald, bathed in the light of the slowly sinking full moon, stood in a Gothic setting atop the hill, no doubt a favorite haunt for the local wolves and vampires. We pulled in beside an empty car, walking cautiously onto the courtyard, its large paving stones overgrown with weeds.

"Man," Cameron asked tentatively, "did that brochure say anything about Old Dr. Falkenstein being a mad scientist or something?"

"Imagine spending your summers here as a student at that music academy!"

It seemed strange to house a prestigious school of music like Sechter's academy in what looked like a haunted castle, but then, maybe the place was less haunted-looking a hundred-fifty years ago.

"This place is nothing but tritones and diminished seventh chords," Cameron shivered.

"Oooh," I joked, "the Devil's Interval!"

"Exactly!"

I kept looking back at the other car. "Somebody else is already here – somehow, I'm guessing that's not Dhabbodhú's car. It'd make more sense he'd park in a more discrete location, right?"

"Shouldn't he be in Ottobeuren with Leahy-Hu? That was the whole idea..."

"Hmm," I thought, stopping to look around.

It was possible someone else had stopped by with a similar plan. Regardless, it appeared we were not alone. We walked carefully across the expansive courtyard, struggling through the weedy overgrowth.

"So we're looking for a chessboard and a fountain within four circles," I suggested, "some pattern in the surrounding pavement. The plaza's design around the Festspielhaus fountain had only three concentric rings."

"Maybe we're not looking for a pattern of rings in the pavement but the levels on the fountain itself?"

"Hmmm, the original site of Beethoven's statue," I said, indicating the fountain, the stagnant smell around it almost overpowering. Barely visible through the weeds, it looked like it had three levels.

Cameron paced across the plaza, announcing it was not a giant chessboard. "In fact, it's actually a 6x6 square."

"Perhaps we're looking for something up there, where the statue once stood?"

Deciding we needed to look for a ladder, we entered the castle.

The door screeched, closing slowly behind us.

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

With his head bowed and eyes closed, hearing his own music being played other than inside his own head was still the same indescribable thrill it had been that first time, back when he was a young teenager and heard someone else play what he'd scribbled down on the page. The amazement had coursed through his brain, from his ears and his blood into every fiber of his body until, for him, the very sense of time had ceased to exist. To say he felt this tingling sensation was to trivialize the miracle, that he could proudly say, "I made this!" taking nothing that existed before to gather something new inside his brain. Like many students, he felt he had done this despite his teachers, by discovering his own the True Path.

Of course, this very sense of wonder itself may no doubt be responsible for the inflated self-worth any creator feels toward anything he or she has managed to create with such difficulty. It is the sense of accomplishment, creating something out of nothing, that blinds us to its true artistic worth. Without it, our self-esteem, our innate confidence would never rise to the occasion to create in the first place or let us sense that, compared to others, our achievement's "not bad."

There are some, of course – those easily daunted by the very presence of a genius like Beethoven (most incomparable master of us all, as we're told) – who'll never amount to anything, who are failures in their minds because they admit to having failed, easily dismissed as amateurs and talentless losers. There are only dozens of great composers, maybe hundreds of good ones and untold thousands who've already been forgotten. How many more – millions, you might think – never even reached the charts?

What thoughts went through his overactive mind as he stood there, listening? That this was "not bad, after all"? How could anyone evaluate his own endeavor unless endowed with supreme confidence?

"Who could not hear this and realize the genius behind this masterpiece, sensing full well his time has come?"

Tr'iTone – Dhabbodhú or whatever he called himself, a genius of constant disguise – never tired of hearing his own music, always surprised to be finding something new, constantly increasing his own amazement. Completing only minutes of music each day, working out the details piecemeal, guessing its total impact had remained inconceivable. Everything was planned to unfold so slowly, each phrase a subtle transformation, it created a soundscape of unbearable enlightenment. Few would be the listeners who could fail to comprehend his brilliance.

The wash of instrumental colors complemented the enjoyment of those with synesthesia, the ability to hear tonalities as specific colors, something otherwise lost on non-synesthetes listening only to this internet radio broadcast. The full impact – of this, at least – was augmented by the slowly rotating color-wheel in the castle's make-shift studio.

Thus it was only a synthetic approximation of what it could be, given even the slightest limitations of modern technology, but the software was by far cheaper than hiring a full orchestra, since, unfortunately, union regulations in America and plain common sense in Europe precluded a single, uninterrupted six-hour recording session.

It took months to put everything together, every note placed 'just so' to create the most perfect realization possible. Despite the distractions, it all came together, part of his greater plan.

The software package he'd uploaded from YouJam, helping internet broadcasters override terrestrial radio frequencies with their own self-produced programming, was probably not nearly as effective as the Tr'iTonic Worm he'd created which turned thousands of infected computers into relay stations circling the globe, transmitting everything uninvited into millions of ears. With a little help from something Lionel Roth showed him weeks ago – who knew he'd be such a technogeek? – he locked the host computer so it couldn't waver from his audiostream.

If YouJam would live up to its expectations, then every radio, every car within a hundred mile radius of Schweinwald was listening to his music, like it or not ("and who wouldn't?"). Of course, he knew it would've reached more listeners during the daytime, but there'd be less government interference overnight.

Besides, his Symphony was perfect nighttime music, an ambient flow of beauty but as always elegantly crafted and tightly controlled, the perfect mix of heart and mind, appealing both emotionally and intellectually. Melodies unfolding over twisting harmonies reminded him of the beauty of DNA, embedding its macro-structural complexity into the micro-level.

For some, no doubt, it would be the antidote to their insomnia, calming nerves and allowing tensions to evaporate; for others, it would activate the brain, keeping them alert and engaged.

Sudden motion on the castle security cameras flickered the monitor to life, catching his attention as he glanced up.

Two figures, indecipherable in the grainy darkness, were standing in the vestibule.

"What now, more intruders again, coming already to shut down my broadcast? They cannot be allowed to advance farther..."

Tr'iTone reached for his ceremonial black robe and thought about summoning Lionel to go do the necessary dirty work but reconsidered getting the poor man involved, given his state of mind.

So now he had to interrupt himself and see to another intrusion, as if there were time for this.

"It's been a very busy neck of the woods tonight," he grumbled.

He skewed a portrait to the left and the wall slid open.

Sighing, he disappeared into the dark passageway.

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

If we thought the old Schweinwald Castle looked spooky on the outside, that was nothing compared to the inside. An eery glow from the waning moonlight only made it seem spookier. The place was full of shadows, with heavy furniture and large statues, things we'd bump into in the night. A single small candle – electric, oddly enough – cast a pale yellowish glow through the cobwebs stretching across the vestibule. If someone were living here, certainly no one's been doing housework recently.

"Who's their interior decorator here, Havisham and Company?" The whispering quaver of my voice underscored my true sense of fear.

The next room was slightly less cluttered, everything crammed in without logic.

Over by a table piled high with books was an overstuffed chair.

"OMG," Cameron gasped, "someone's sitting in it!"

A large, rather disheveled man wearing a tuxedo, his neck at a precarious angle to the rest of his torso, leaned sideways across the armchair, placed there precariously like a broken doll. Leaning in to check for a pulse, I noticed Cameron stepped back, bumping into some heavy object behind him.

When he screamed, I said, "Come on, Cameron, is that really necessary?" But when I turned around, he'd disappeared.

A moment ago, he'd been standing in front of the fireplace.

"Crap!"

Grabbing the tiny flashlight on my keyring – why I was even carrying it, I had no idea, but hey – I couldn't see Cameron anywhere, not that it threw much light around. Opposite me was an archway leading into a vast room just beyond, an immense statue looming over a landing.

Beside it stood Lionel Roth, the inconsequential little man from the Bensonhurst banquet who'd been on the Munich train.

He slowly motioned for me to follow him, so naturally I did.

"Where's Cameron? What's happening here?" I whispered.

Roth said nothing, leading the way across the castle's cavernous Great Hall.

My little flashlight barely dented the darkness which dissolved into the distance.

"Walk this way," he said, stumbling forward, pressing against the statue's base.

A panel groaned then quietly swiveled open.

Of course, the castle would be riddled with secret passageways, wouldn't it? Cameron hadn't screamed because the man was dead, but because he'd been grabbed from behind and pulled into the wall.

Whether Lionel Roth was friend or foe, I sensed an insidious trap. How was I going to rescue Cameron?

Armed with a tote-bag carrying only Beethoven's statue and some assorted papers, I was unlikely to be very effective, rescuing both Cameron and LauraLynn, wherever he'd managed to squirrel her away.

There, at the end of the passageway was a rich amber light, a huge man wearing a black robe and a room full of numerous contraptions like a radio broadcast studio.

Cameron struggled as the hulk strapped him down to a large table, his mouth already covered with tape.

"Dhabbodhú!"

Meanwhile, outside the castle, Fictitia LeMouche pedaled furiously up to the courtyard just as two figures pulled open the door.

Seeing the cars, she said, "What the hell's Scarpia still doing here!"

It seemed like only a few hours ago she'd been here and seen Old Man Scarpia disappear inside, too.

And once again, she heard someone scream, but this time she knew: this time it was Cameron who'd screamed.

Quickly turning her bike around, she immediately tweeted a post for help.

= = = = = = =
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 36

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, Dr. Kerr and his team decode the odd message found inscribed on the back of the Beethoven statue, mentioning Lohengrin's Journey and a Fountain of Inspiration! Widor, annoyed that the death of so many agents will go badly for him at his performance review, confronts the woman he has abducted from Zenn's chalet, then calls Kerr and threatens her if the performance of Sullivan's opera isn't cancelled. Kerr arranges to trade the directions he's looking for for the life of his friend. As they leave, Zenn tells Kerr to "give my regards to Warnsdorff." Widor, looking at the woman, is reminded of someone from his distant past. Cameron discovers that Warnsdorff has something to do with chess - the Knight's Tour puzzle. Schreiber calls Moonbeam with his own discovery but a hail of machine-gun fire cuts his message short.

= = = = = = =

Chapter 36

Skripasha Scricci hadn't felt like skipping around a hotel room since his last world tour with the Siberian Transvestite Orchestra, before all that nastiness happened with the drug bust and prison term, back in the glory days of his career when he was a recovering child prodigy and world-famous cross-over rock-star. Things were finally going well for him after that horrendous rough patch, thanks to the kind folks at SHMRG, and for once he could say the future was actually looking bright.

His MP Project was falling into place after lining up his team – producer Holly Grayle and co-host Rhonna deMille – and negotiations with TV mogul Hugh Brissman were underway and going well. Thousands of prodigies were ready to be tested, the winner farmed out to orchestras and presenters around the world.

But most importantly was knowing something was working, despite all the problems SHMRG was having with its current project, tonight: Garth Widor had made some grievous fumbles but finally he had succeeded. The bombing of the Festspielhaus had failed and the car-bomb's victim survived, but Widor captured his archnemesis, Fictitia LaMouche!

She was the one responsible for those photographs exposing his true identity, revealing his drug lab and distribution ploy, which had briefly landed him in prison – and for that, she'd pay!

Scricci was supposedly overseeing the minute details prepping the Festspielhotel's Presidential Suite, getting it ready for Steele's imminent arrival when they just told him Widor's landed and was bringing a 'guest.' "Someone you'll be very glad to see," was all they would say, but that could be only one person.

Everything was ready – Holly Burton had called to say Steele would arrive in ten minutes – everything was going fine. Scricci continued to dance around, a renewed swivel obvious in his hips.

Widor would hand over the blogging bitch and she'd be all his, taking her downstairs to his own room where he'd teach her a lesson never to mess with Skripasha Scricci!

There was a commotion in the hallway as Basil Carsonoma, another member of the advance team, ushered Widor inside.

The old man stumbled in under the weight of the limp body draped carelessly over his shoulder, nearly dropping her, as he swung around to avoid hitting her head against the door.

A look of horror swept across Scricci's face before turning to anger.

"You bloody idiot, that's the wrong bitch!"

"Hello to you, too," Widor wheezed back as he dumped the woman into the far corner of the couch. "What do you mean, the wrong bitch? She was the only woman..."

"But you told me you had the woman who'd stolen your van," Scricci shouted, waving his arms wildly about.

Widor thought the skinny man in tight clothes resembled a flaming windmill.

"Well, yeah, it was kind of hectic, but if this isn't her," Widor muttered, "then who the hell is...!?"

Just then, Basil Carsonoma opened the door again, leaving in N. Ron Steele with a considerable entourage in his wake. Scricci and Widor immediately stopped their bickering, each bowing with a nod.

Steele waited as Holly Burton took his coat off with another flourish, his minions disbursing luggage around the room.

"OMG," Steele gasped, pointing at the couch. "What is she doing here!" He looked back and forth between them.

"I brought her back from the raid on Zenn's castle," Widor explained.

"Excellent work, Widor," Steele said, enthusiastically rubbing his hands, "most excellent work!"

"What...!?" Widor looked almost as dumbfounded as Scricci.

Looking down at her, Steele continued, "a most unexpected surprise! Well done!"

Holly Burton, already fixing Steele's favorite scotch, deferentially handed him his glass.

Raising the drink, Steele proposed a toast.

"To at least one thing that went right tonight," he said ominously, knocking the scotch back in one gulp. "No, really," he continued, "we have other issues to deal with, Widor."

Scricci, still annoyed that Widor had failed to bring him Fictitia LaMouche, stepped respectfully aside with a self-satisfied smirk, realizing whatever Widor had done wasn't enough to undo everything he hadn't.

Widor, meanwhile, still trying to catch his breath, hesitated before saying anything: seems he'd done something right, but what?

Steele slowly circumnavigated the couch, delightedly regarding his prey from every angle. Like a child, he wanted to poke her.

"Tell me, Widor, how did you capture her when everybody else failed?"

"Well, sir," he began cautiously, "when the shooting stopped, there she was..."

"Ah yes," Steele nodded, "with Zenn's bodyguards..."

"They caught us totally by surprise, sir," Widor explained, shuffling his feet.

"I'm sure they did, Widor," Steele said.

"From there, I grabbed her and ran..."

"...bringing her right to me..."

Steele bent over her, looking down carefully, before glancing up and smiling. He prodded her shoulder, fingering her hair.

"Like a regular Sleeping Beauty," he said, "after escaping the car bomb."

Steele looked around at everyone while nodding at Widor with renewed estimation.

Everyone was happy their boss was happy.

"Nobody else knew what happened to her, but Old Widor found her," Steele continued, smiling warmly, "brought her back..."

Widor stammered about his threat, amputating one finger for every hour's delay.

"Ah, excellent, good," Steele nodded, grinning broadly. Everyone realized he was pleased. "You've been hanging around Scarpia, haven't you?

"And speaking of whom," he glanced around, "anyone heard from him? Bühler?"

The agent named Bühler shrugged his shoulders.

"Enough of Robertson Sullivan's cousin. Now, about the van and those agents..."

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

Agent Voo even walked us to our room at the Hotel Schweinwald after Kimara dropped us off at the lobby. Was she going to tuck us in, locking the door behind us?

"Really, your hospitality is too kind," I protested, trying to sound grateful.

"Kindness has nothing to do with it."

She was adamant about our staying out of the IMP's on-going investigation, specific orders from Security Director Yoda Leahy-Hu.

"So, sleep tight and enjoy playing with your statue, but that's it!"

The lobby, still brightly lit, had been virtually empty except for a few stragglers returning from a night out, where Fictitia had been left on her own and given fair warning. She'd mumbled something about staying with friends in one of the cottages but I didn't believe any of it.

D'Arcy'd arranged one of the posher rooms in the hotel for us, just down the hall from the Presidential Suite, but I wasn't interested in the plush furnishings or the drinks cart. Whichever way jet lag would normally operate – it's mid-evening back home, right? – I was wide awake and completely wired.

"These markings on Beethoven's leg" – Cameron held the statue to the light – "look something like chess moves to me."

"Again, with the chess – wait a minute! Isn't this also in code?"

If Leahy-Hu was in Ottobeuren to catch the killer and rescue LauraLynn, we could check out the old castle, find what Dhabbodhú was looking for and maybe retrieve Rob's stolen CD.

In a flash we took the elevator down to the lobby where the bellhop was complaining to the concierge.

"What's taking Moonbeam so long? His car's been waiting for twenty minutes!"

There it was, parked out front – running!

Before anyone would even notice, we jumped in and quickly drove away.

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

They did not escape unnoticed: Fictitia, hiding outside, saw them take off.

"Wow," she thought, "that didn't take long."

Without even thinking about it, she knew she had to follow them.

"And like, wow," she noticed, "there's a bike waiting to be stolen!"

Hopping on, she was soon pedaling away!

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

So he'd thought it had been going well, having (even if accidentally) captured LauraLynn Harty, N. Ron Steele's current prize-of-the-moment, until Widor was told to locate and negotiate with that other terrorist, the one who had also threatened to blow up tomorrow morning's conference and would then steal all their thunder.

He had no idea who this guy was, where he'd find him or how much he could even offer to convince him to join forces with them, whatever his own cause.

Not only did he not have any more quality bomb-making material left, he couldn't even get a new van. Steele wouldn't trust him with a motorcycle, now, he'd said. How embarrassing.

"And why were they giving me a high-speed racing bike?" he sighed. "Do I even look like Lance Armstrong?"

Trying not to dwell on his increasing years and rapidly deteriorating body, Garth Widor picked up his shiny new wheels.

"It's a hot looking ride, if you were having a mid-life crisis..."

Conscious of his aging bladder, he decided this time, when nature called, not to go back into the lobby.

"What the hell," Widor croaked, hurriedly running out from behind the bushes, zipping up his fly, "where's my bike?"

There went some girl on his bike, pedaling furiously down the road.

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

The fog was slowly lifting, colors swirling at first in slow motion, then gradually forming into the vaguest of shapes. The sounds became more distinct: conversation, maybe, possibly music, but completely unintelligible. She felt she was someplace warm, comfortable, surrounded by people she knew – or that was the impression it gave. LauraLynn didn't remember drinking that much she'd wake up with a hangover, not like this one was turning into. So far, she couldn't look around much or even open her eyes.

Her body ached liked she'd been dragged and carried and bounced around, things she had no recollection of doing, reminding her she was getting too old for this kind of partying. But that only confused her even more: how many years had it been since she'd danced at a party?

Most of the parties she'd been to recently were fairly staid affairs, everyone standing around smiling with drinks in hand, waiting for someone to announce that dinner was ready to be served. Even the wedding last year – her mother's nephew Martin Lewes marrying Aunt Katie's charming granddaughter Geraldine Shaw-Manders – promised stability.

Rob, though busy working on his new opera, agreed to a holiday and even met LauraLynn at the airport for the long drive up to the Shaw house in the Catskills.

It had turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day that weekend, a mild summer-like afternoon in early autumn, so they'd decided to have the ceremony in the garden after all. The roses may have faded but the garden was ablaze with color, the asters and zinnias attracting numerous butterflies. Her cousin Bernie, Aunt Katie's older son and father of the bride, was delighted to oversee the garden set-up while LauraLynn had agreed to help her mother with the indoor reception.

Images were gradually filtering through the haze, a large room opulently decorated, bookshelves and knickknack tables hugging the walls, a long table loaded with flowers covered with dishes for the buffet. On the walls hung various objets d'art including a magnificent samurai sword from the original production of The Mikado.

But something had happened, something unexpectedly awful – it was painful to concentrate – a large man dressed in black burst in, threatening Rob with a pistol and yelling something about his new opera.

Rob shouted, "is this about that 'gizmo'?" after which the intruder fired off a warning shot and everyone ducked.

The bullet startled the cat who ran across the bookcase and knocked over a statue that hit the sword which fell and struck Aunt Katie across the back of her neck.

Pandemonium broke out as Rob and Bernie chased the man out across the patio and down through the garden as LauraLynn dove to protect Aunt Katie, only to find blood everywhere.

She remembered the big man in black glaring at her, thoroughly pissed.

She'd seen that face again – but where?

LauraLynn opened her eyes just in time to see a big man in black walk toward the door and leave. Was that Dhabbodhú or Girdlestone – or the man who'd killed Aunt Katie?

She screamed and tried to scramble deeper into the cushions of this very comfortable couch she was lying on.

"Ah, my dear Ms. Harty, you're awake." The voice sounded more insinuating than pleasant. "Welcome to my little party!"

Someone handed her a glass of scotch.

"But first, we must talk."

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

The room was so dark – with its thick carpets, rich mahogany furniture, plush chairs and velvet drapes wherever you looked – the old woman sitting by the fireplace felt it was already nighttime. With the curtains tightly drawn against any intrusion from the outside world, it almost always felt like nighttime there. The street noise outside was never bothersome – given her experience these past many years, she was used to it – and the constant sounds from Broadway a block away always sounded distant.

It was like a cocoon in here, compared to her world before, she often thought during these quiet times. She savored the comfort of it all, sitting there watching and waiting. The clock on the mantle had stopped but, not surprisingly, her sense of time had stopped long before it.

She'd had no proof who she was, no ID cards, no copy of her birth certificate, nothing that was viable. She had been, well... traveling then and hadn't brought them with her. Plus, if she had her birth certificate, assuming she could access it, it'd say she's only 36 years old. She had a credit card saying she'd been a member since 1997 but in 1985, that looked rather suspicious. Plus her driver's license was equally problematic, having been issued in 2009.

Hadn't she spent the last twenty-some years watching her childhood-self grow up, living through everything she'd already lived through herself, knowing everything that would happen, and yet could say nothing about it: who'd become President in 2000 long before the Supreme Court told us; how September 11th would change us all?

That nasty little child, her true identity, turned into such a disappointment, as she looked back on her life. Her mother whom she'd rescued had no idea she'd saved her life.

So, unable to return to the present, she became a homeless person, living on the streets of New York. People thought she was crazy and who could say that she wasn't?

"Time travel was a bitch..."

Her real name had been Klavdia Klangfarben.

But then, she smiled, suddenly everything changed.

= = = = = = =
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 35

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, following LauraLynn's abduction and the battle between SHMRG and IMP agents, Dr. Kerr & Cameron are reunited with IMP Special Forces Director Yoda Leahy-Hu, Fictitia LaMouche and V.C. D'Arcy, and they explain what they've discovered about the former Maltese Mozart which has now turned into a statue of Beethoven. LauraLynn comes to and realizes she's in a helicopter. Tr'iTone begins the internet broadcast of his Symphony for One Whose Time Has Come. Armin Schriebter is working on the program notes for the premiere of Sullivan's opera and is about to open the file of the Skype interview Peter Moonbeam had with the composer just before he died as Moonbeam meets Kunegunde Nacht for a late-night drink that turns out not quite as he had hoped.


= = = = = = =
CHAPTER 35

Standing around behind Howard Zenn, we watched as he slowly scanned the magnifying glass over what turned into five delicate lines of very strange text across Beethoven's back, etched into the bronze.

"He must have been a fine craftsman," D'Arcy straightened up, whispering appreciatively.

Zenn, eyebrows raised, glanced at his nephew.

"With a very tiny knife to carve something in bronze that small," Will, himself a sculptor, added in amazement. "Without today's newest technological skills, I couldn't even imagine doing that, myself."

Leahy-Hu held up her phone and took a photo of the inscription, before sending it off in an e-mail.

"I'm sending it to my chief cryptographer, Dr. Haydn Plainvue, in London."

"With any luck," I wondered, "Beethoven would be wearing a decoder ring."

It looked like gibberish, but familiar gibberish.

"Oh, no need for that," Zenn told Leahy-Hu. "I worked in cryptography during the war for American troops in Germany. It's just a simple substitution code, you see, if I'm not mistaken." Looking around at Cameron and me with a knowing wink, he added, "one we've already seen tonight – and backwards!"

EFP RKDQVFGJSQVXK KPTL TFPTG FKPGRKTQJM FTU
SDXGTQ 'MMTDH TPU FPTGNKTEGTPC LDY 'RPTEF
!KXGTQ EMTB TKPTL KX TRPWD:XMRFEQVTG EEPGE
FDX FRKXRKPTFGTEEPG FTU KTWXGR MXLNGTL FXU
EFPW YEPMWKTNKXUTR FTU KTKKDGW KPTL GTU DU J

"Hah," Cameron laughed, standing back. "So that's where I've seen this before!"

"In Harrison Harty's coded journal?" I laughed.

Will found some index cards while Cameron assigned us each one line.

As Zenn quickly spelled out individual words, I carefully wrote everything down, one line for each of our committee.

"Find the letter in the top line, then match it to the letter below for the solution," Cameron explained, writing out the code's solution on separate cards and passing them around.

While Leahy-Hu mumbled something sceptically, we managed to complete our assigned lines, hoping they'd make better sense in context.

Des Lohengrins Reise, mein' Nachforschung ist
Steig' zum viertenKreis die Quell' herauf
Tritt, Rechtsgläubige, an meine Welt heran!
Das Merkmal graben des Ritterseingangs aus
O Du, der mein Brunnen des Gedankenblitz bist

Of the five of us, my German was no doubt the rustiest, with Cameron fresh from his first-year course. We read out our lines, one after the other, while Zenn translated.

Of Lohengrin's Journey is my Quest
Ascend to the 4th Circle of the Fountain
Approach, Right-Believers, to my World!
Seek the Sign of the Knight's Entrance
You are my Fountain of Inspiration

"That's the fountain that Rob's killer is looking for," I shouted triumphantly. "He's looking for the Fountain of Inspiration!"

"Ah, the Fountain of Inspiration." Zenn sounded dubious. "You really think so? Like the Fountain of Youth, highly overrated..."

Zenn wasn't the only one who couldn't take such an idea seriously.

"Would composers devoid of intellect," D'Arcy added, "kill someone merely over inspiration?"

"That probably fits our killer's profile perfectly."

D'Arcy was sure the idea of such a fountain was purely metaphorical, but a very powerful one all the same. "Imagine how many artists have looked for such a thing for centuries!"

"The magic pill," Zenn chuckled, "when you've no talent to rely on!"

"While others tried booze, drugs, even coffee..."

"Ours is not to judge but to track down Rob Sullivan's killer, metaphor or not," I said, glancing around, "and if helping him locate this is enough to catch him, fine."

The problem was, naturally, this wasn't enough, making little sense by itself, only raising more questions that needed more solutions.

"In some way," I wondered, "maybe it's just another form of code?"

"Isn't this an unusual rhyme-scheme for 19th Century German poetry?" Cameron asked. "It's a kind of mirror form, right?"

"An arch-form: A – B – C – kind-of-B – A. What's also odd is there's only one line with any end punctuation."

"Doesn't it sound like a riddle, though – five lines searching for meaning?"

That reminded me of Robert Graves writing about Welsh riddles often needing rearrangement to make sense.

"Let's try this..."

Des Lohengrins Reise, mein' Nachforschung ist
O Du, der mein Brunnen des Gedankenblitz bist
Steig' zum viertenKreis die Quell' herauf
Das Merkmal graben des Ritterseingangs aus
Tritt, Rechtsgläubige, an meine Welt heran!

"Better yet," Zenn quietly suggested, "reverse the rhymed pairs like a mirror – this English translation might make more sense."

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!

"The Fountain is Lohengrin's quest," I offered, "so after finding his entrance, ascend the fountain to approach Beethoven's world."

"And the Fountain of Inspiration," D'Arcy pondered, "would be Lohengrin's Holy Grail?"

Picking it up and gazing into Beethoven's face, I noticed the green felt on the statue's base was coming loose, patting it back into place so it wouldn't scratch Zenn's antique table.

"A Lohengrin reference," I said, "a knight's entrance marked by a sign and climbing a fountain with four circles..."

"Didn't Beethoven die some twenty years before Wagner wrote Lohengrin," Cameron asked.

Zenn smiled, looking from one to another.

D'Arcy agreed but pointed out the legend of Lohengrin was quite ancient.

"But the fountain is not the goal of Lohengrin's Quest," I mentioned, thinking out loud, hoping for – ironically – inspiration. "It's the location of what he's searching for, the composer's Holy Grail."

"The fountain with a knight's statue – Lohengrin's statue – in Ottobeuren," D'Arcy exclaimed. "Perhaps it's there, in the statue's base?"

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

"Hell-fire and damnation," the old man croaked, "how will I explain this," dragging the woman's body along with him. "Five of my best agents shot dead and now, geez – my van!" Naturally, she'd gone and fainted on him, hauling her through the rubble, becoming just more dead weight to carry. Widor kept seeing the destruction around him, recalling the bodies left behind, how they'd dropped like flies, caught unaware. Who would've expected the old man to have that many security guards?

"So, that's how they blasted their way through the wall," he realized, "by going and blowing up my goddamn van!"

He could see nothing left but the smoldering shell of the van.

And after going all this way just to get his van back and capture that bitch Scricci desperately wanted.

"Steele is going to be so pissed, losing so many good men. You know, maybe it is time to retire."

He continued struggling with her limp form, next trying a fireman's carry.

"If I don't have a heart attack, he'll probably retire me himself – with a bullet right between the eyes..."

Did Steele know Zenn kept an elite force of bodyguards, he wondered, that it had all been thought out, a booby-trap that would take him out without bothering Steele's feeble conscience?

But Widor was conscious enough to understand this was not the time to engage in such useless philosophical paranoia: Zenn's bodyguards were already streaming toward him, yelling at him to stop. Knowing they wouldn't start shooting because they could possibly hit his hostage, Widor still understood his escape was limited.

Fortunately, they hadn't spotted SHMRG's stealth ATV hidden beyond those tall bushes, lighter now, going downhill, without his crew. Strapping the unconscious woman into the seat behind him, he took off.

Looking in the rear-view mirror, Widor noticed someone rapidly gaining on him, small black forms on small black ATVs. "Geez, this guy's really prepared for anything. Where had they been hidden?"

Perhaps Zenn was gearing up for some final confrontation with SHMRG for control of the world's classical music industry?

Fortunately, Igor still waited for him at the bottom of the mountain, SHMRG's chopper revved up, the cargo bay open, just where they'd artfully hidden it behind a barrier of tall pines. In a flash, they were airborne once Widor explained they'd been ambushed, all the men lost to enemy fire.

They'd no sooner cleared the trees when several black-clad forms surrounded the space where the helicopter stood moments ago: a close one, Widor thought, as bullets whizzed harmlessly past the windows.

He strapped the woman into one of the seats in the back, just before she came to and screamed. His face barely inches from her own, he screamed back at her.

"Where the hell's your phone," he shouted at her above the engines.

"You kidnap me to use my phone!?"

"I oughtta slap the living crap out of you, you lousy bitch." No wonder Skripasha Scricci wanted rid of her. He sure as hell didn't want her tweeting about anything, not now.

"Wait," she said, after Widor started rifling through her clothes and hand-bag. "Terry didn't gave it back to me..."

"Oh, yeah? So, what's your number, sweetheart? I'll give him a quick call, then – let him know you're okay."

Somehow he'd assumed she'd be much younger, considering what Scricci told him.

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

Recalling dinner three months ago with Rob and Franz-Dieter at Zeitgeist's favorite restaurant, Die Wolfsschlucht – The Wolf's Glen – in Ottobeuren, two blocks from the Marktplatz at the intersection of Bahnhofstrasse and Ludwigstrasse, D'Arcy described the view through the front window looking onto the square through a couple of picturesque, centuries-old trees.

"It's the Ritterplatz – or the Knight's Square – a fountain topped by an old statue of a knight," he said. "The locals have apparently been calling the statue 'Lohengrin' since the late-1700s."

Zenn perked up, looking over at him. "That's right, I remember, now! Right in the heart of the town!"

"A fountain complete with Lohengrin," Cameron said, "but what about an entrance?"

"If that fountain has four circles, we may have located our goal!"

Just then, a phone began to ring.

Everyone looked around to see whose phone it was before I realized it was mine – or rather, it was LauraLynn's. "Guess I forgot to give it back to her in the excitement."

Assuming it was the killer again, I answered, hearing deep, heavy breathing. The voice was darker than I remembered.

"I have the woman," he said slowly, "and I will start dismembering her if the opera's premiere isn't canceled. We'll start with the fingers, one every hour till your decision's announced."

This was new and drastic: before, it was just finding the fountain. Perhaps now he was getting more desperate. I agreed to convey the message to festival management, glancing at D'Arcy. After all, I thought, why had he murdered Rob and stolen the score if not to ruin the premiere?

"Good," he continued, "but you'd better hurry. If I cut off all her fingers, she will never blog again."

I didn't realize LauraLynn was a blogger but I let that pass.

"If tomorrow's rehearsal goes off as scheduled, what's left of her dies." He stopped talking, only his breathing audible.

The killer not only modified his voice, he was on “high cliché.”

I glanced at Cameron and D'Arcy and they both shrugged their shoulders. No better time to let him know.

"Look, we found the location of what you're looking for," I said. "Meet me in Ottobeuren at the Ritterplatz tonight, at the base of the knight's statue outside the Wolf's Glen restaurant."

There was a long pause. Perhaps he was stunned, an unexpected development.

Certainly, Director Leahy-Hu was, scowling at me.

"Then I can exchange the directions for my friend's life," I added. "That way, you'll have what you want – I'll throw in the journal as well – and you'll let her go."

I could hear only his heavy breathing which was becoming very annoying. Perhaps he was having an asthma attack.

"Do we have a deal?" I pressed. "Your directions for my friend?"

"Very well," he concluded, sounding vaguely disconcerted, "and of course, no police, no IMP. See you in an hour."

Leahy-Hu was furious but she had to admit I was practically delivering the alleged kidnapper and killer into her hands. She called and ordered a dozen agents to meet her in Ottobeuren.

"We'll see how well this works out, but for future reference, I prefer to make all the arrangements, professor."

Leahy-Hu told the agent assigned to us to take us to the hotel and keep an eye on us.

Zenn shook my hand before he concluded, "Give my regards to Warnsdorff."

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

Putting his phone away, Widor looked at this woman with mild contempt. At least, she wasn't lying to him. "That was good," he thought. "I hate it when they do that."

Who this idiot was he'd been talking to, he had no idea, trying to strike a deal with him.

What was this about directions, the Knight's Square, something he's looking for? It all sounded like a trap, anyway. None of that made any sense – well, no more so than usual.

"Let him hang around the square and wait for me," he chuckled, "I've got a lot more stuff to do." She started struggling harder against her bonds, so he slapped her face.

Widor wondered what it was about her that Scricci hated so much, what she could've possibly done to him.

"It's time you got quiet again, okay? We'll see if they're listening." He held up his hand, the fingers splayed. "I'll given them one hour," he said, "then it's bye-bye, index finger." He waved his index finger at her before reaching into his pocket and taking out a small hypodermic needle.

"She could use freshening up and her dress is a little wrinkled, but she really isn't a bad-looking woman." Widor saw her lying helplessly, her long blonde hair already turning gray.

As the woman lay struggling beneath him, once he'd grabbed her arm and jabbed the needle into a vein, she reminded him of another woman in his life from long ago.

"It must be the hair," he thought as she quickly went limp. "Does she look that much like Lisl?"

No, he remembered, looking down at her: Lisl was older than he – the only woman he had ever loved. They had separated them, taking him away – he never saw her again.

Why were these memories so constantly shrouded? What had become of her? If only he could remember what happened! All he heard was the constant sound of the helicopter – whump whump whump.

Had she really borne him a son after he'd been whisked away?

"The saddest helicopter ride of my life..."

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

Two helicopters bearing the IMP logo arrived and parked in the clearing in front of the castle's main entrance – we could hear the "whump whump whump" echoing rhythmically throughout the building – carefully navigating the tight spot between the rocks and tall pine trees and the burned-out ruins of the van. One whisked Leahy-Hu and several agents off to their stake-out in Ottobeuren, hoping to catch Widor in the trap, while the other was loaded with the dead SHMRG militia – and us.

IMP Agent Del Kimara, who'd completed a year of basic medical training before going into the international music security business, checked each of the SHMRG agents to verify they were indeed dead, even determining the cause of death was a flaw in their uniforms: underneath, they were all wearing red shirts.

Agents Milton Leise and Rhonda Voo stacked the bodies in the back like a cord of so much discarded firewood, amazed that, despite their superior weaponry, they'd been easily overpowered and killed. Leise placed dibs on one complex-looking machine-gun, a Todesküss-2000, the infamous "Kiss-of-Death" despite Kimara's mentioning it hadn't helped SHMRG.

Fictitia joined Cameron and me in the back seat while Leise and Voo sat up with the pilot, Kimara, a cozy gathering if you didn't consider the dead bodies behind us.

After flying back over the valleys we'd been driving through earlier tonight, I started shouting under the engine noise, hoping the agents up front couldn't hear what we were talking about.

"Cameron, what d'you think Zenn meant by 'Give my regards to Warnsdorf'? Who is Warnsdorf, somebody we'd meet here?"

Cameron just shrugged his shoulders. "Or maybe it's Ottobeuren's equivalent to Broadway?"

"You think it might be some village...?"

"Maybe he understood more to the clue and is letting us know...?"

Considering I thought she'd been pursuing us because of the Maltese Mozart, I was surprised Leahy-Hu seemed so unconcerned, letting me hang onto the Beethoven statue which she dismissed as inconsequential.

"If it keeps you busy and out of my hair," she'd said, "that will be quite satisfactory for me."

Fictitia had been looking out the window at the dark world below, uncomfortable knowing that somehow we'd kidnapped her, not that she didn't have enough trust issues in her life already.

I'd apologized, that it had been unintentional, but only made matters worse by then sitting between her and Cameron. Plus, the fact she didn't have her phone and was unable to tweet or post anything really bugged her. After all, without her phone, what could she possibly do with herself?

It barely registered with her when I pulled the Beethoven statue out and started turning it around in my hands. Was there something that Zenn had seen but which we hadn't, yet? Was his mention of Warnsdorf, I wondered, a clue to keep looking? What was it we were still missing?

Cameron took out LauraLynn's phone and started to 'google' the word Warnsdorf. A nearby village? There were tons of responses. Maybe the mayor of Ottobeuren or a street near the knight's statue...?

"Whoa," he gasped, "there's over 9,300 hits and many refer to something called 'the knight's tour' – a chess term."

"Chess? What does chess have to do with Beethoven?" I asked impatiently.

"Perhaps Zenn was just making a pun?"

"Or does it explain something? It could mean many things – knight's tour...?"

Agent Voo answered her phone, then kept up a steady lighthearted conversation with friend and fellow agent, Destinée Knox, occasionally yelling to be heard above the noise of the helicopter's engine.

"Hey, what's that," Cameron asked, pointing at something on the statue's side.

In the dim light, I couldn't tell.

Voo's chatter was proving to be more distracting as it went on, starting off business-like before turning more personal.

"Maybe just texture markings along the leg. Or is it more text?"

"I was thinking, after you're done with that stake-out," Voo asked her, "maybe we could go somewhere for a drink?"

Cameron traded the phone for the statue and took a closer look.

"At the Mobius," Voo repeated, "remember, that really cool club in Memmingen?"

Fictitia looked at the phone and sighed.

"Well, I know I'm going to be too wired after all this, once we're back to the hotel," Voo continued.

I was finding her chit-chat really annoying, trying to focus on reading.

"I have to drop these guys off, then I'm done," Voo shouted.

"Warnsdorff's Rule," I read, "the knight's tour..."

Cameron, having noticed the statue's green felt covering was coming loose again, pressed it firmly back against the base.

"It looks like a series of random letters and numbers," he explained.

Too tiny to figure out in the dim light of the helicopter, the possible clue would have to wait.

"We should be back at the hotel before much longer," Cameron noted.

That's when it occurred to me, if Dhabbodhú's gone out to Ottobeuren, we should check out the old castle.

"Maybe we can find the missing disc with Rob's score?" I suggested, "or check the location for addition clues?"

Fictitia tried to whisper over the roar, "I want to go along!"

Putting her phone away, Agent Voo turned around and brusquely reminded us we should stay out of this, now. "Just let us go and do our job, will you?" she implored.

Once we got closer to landing, Voo handed Fictitia her phone back.

"No more tweeting about the case!"

"Right..."

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

In the darkness of the Festspielhaus offices, well past the midnight hour, Schreiber, his cubicle the only one occupied, finished up some last-minute work in the building's quiet (ignoring the white-noise). He sat back, jaw hanging wide open, not believing what he'd heard before Moonbeam started wrapping up the interview. Robertson Sullivan had made no statements to anyone before his death about the changes made to his opera's conclusion, and yet here he'd laid out a modest outline, a tantalizing hint.

Running his hands through his disheveled hair, his eyes staring in disbelief, Schrieber wondered, "Did anyone else know about this? Apparently even Moonbeam missed this little tidbit," hardly something easy to overlook. Everybody had been saying they didn't know whether he'd finished the opera or not, much less how it ended.

Sullivan gave a quick preçis, only the barest glimpse of an outline, perhaps not enough for someone to reconstruct it, but enough Schreiber wanted to quote it verbatim in the plot synopsis.

"What an incredible discovery," he continued stammering, not believing his own luck. "I must listen to this once more..."

Too amazed to jot down any notes, he let the file play and heard some even more amazing news: aside from a few measures, Sullivan mentioned he'd just finished the opera.

"Well, basically it's finished," Sullivan corrected himself, "just a few things left, the usual proofreading and a little editing. There's a big English horn solo I want to revisit, but yeah..." It was clear he'd paused so Moonbeam could make some brief comment but there was nothing, not even acknowledgment.

"Now I just need to save the whole score to a file I can e-mail to my assistant there and let them extract all the orchestral parts and the vocal score."

Sullivan waited for a response before he added tentatively, "Peter, you there?" He figured that could be edited out.

Moonbeam sounded distant as he apologized for having run into the bathroom.

"He missed the most important bit of the entire interview," Schreiber laughed, "and has no idea what Sullivan said!"

Schreiber reached for his phone and hit redial, determined to gloat a little over what the great Peter Moonbeam overlooked but just as he did, he heard a click and some footsteps. He waited for Moonbeam to pick up, wondering who was interrupting him: the night watchman, maybe the vacuum guy?

It seemed to take forever – Moonbeam answering his phone, footsteps slowly approaching – like time, somehow, was suddenly standing still. When he was deep into his work, facing deadlines, it flew by!

Schreiber called out to the approaching footsteps to let them know he was there, that he was still working. He thought it odd there was no response, no confirmation – no nothing.

Usually the security guy would just say "okay, don't work too late." Nothing stopped the vacuum guy from cleaning...

Figuring the guy would rev up his vacuum cleaner without any warning – undoubtedly, the most annoying sound in the world – just as Moonbeam would answer his phone, he ended up in voice-mail.

During an ominously expectant silence that felt like it was lasting forever, Schreiber whispered, "Hello, Moonbeam? You'll never guess..."

He heard the sound of bullets, a deafening spray of machine-gun fire, as intense pain ripped through his body.

Shots echoed through the white-noise before everything went dark – like, really dark.

= = = = = = =
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