Shark and Octopus Page 19

  “Exactly,” Bobby agreed. “There was no need for his wardrobe change.”

  Bobby was now convinced about the suit coat. Annie and Saif were as well.

  “Without the suit coat,” Griffin plunged on, “even if someone in the castle spots him – say, a security guard walking around, as they do—he tells them, ‘I’m playing the private party in the gallery in a few minutes. Where’s the men’s room?’ Or whatever pretext he’s planned to explain away why he’s wandering around a part of the castle he has no business being in. He’s dressed like the other musicians. He can come up with something plausible and persuasive.

  “Then – this was his plan, at least – while carrying the violin he goes to the musicians in the gallery-”

  “Who won’t recognize him.” It was Kit’s turn to object. “This guy they’ve never seen before, carrying a violin. Wouldn’t they report that?”

  “They wouldn’t expect to know him,” Griffin answered. “I’ve looked into the various musicians who have performed at these private parties in Arazzo Castle. Grace sent me the information this morning before everyone arrived. Some weeks the performers are a group of musicians who regularly play together. But not usually. Most Saturday afternoons – and this was one – it’s just a collection of performers hired individually. Apparently, because of Italian tax law it is actually cheaper to hire four musicians separately than as a quartet.

  “So he goes to the gallery. He tells the musicians who don’t know him, ‘I left my bow in the car.’ Or whatever. Off he goes, out of the castle. With the violin he wants so desperately. Even assuming a guard notices the door left open in the dungeon, the man in white’s got enough of a head start to get away. He got from the Baltimore Museum of Art to Arazzo Castle in Italy in two days. He’s good at moving quickly.

  “Of course, none of that happens since the room in the back of the dungeon was empty. And thanks, Saif.”

  “Anytime,” he replied. “I’ve got time for this pastry. Then I really have to get back to Hopkins.”

  “Not just yet. That’s Something Number One. Here’s Something Number Two.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  June 22

  10:35 am

  “Saif, while researching and writing your dissertation, I assume you’ve spent time with foreign sources. Documents written in languages other than English?”

  “Frequently. I’ve used a number of European sources. Asian, too,” he went on. “The original language is no problem. Translation capability has improved to where I make a couple keystrokes and Shazzam! – the document I want is in English.“

  “Saif, here’s one question we haven’t been able to answer: Who at Future-Ride is working with the man in white, is it De-BOR-ah Miller or Alexandra Webb? You tracked down two scholarly articles by De-BOR-ah Miller. You and I read them. Not exactly beach reading, but I got enough to understand the woman is a corporate shark. But we don’t have anything by Alexandra Webb. We know she got her doctorate from the Sorbonne. For her doctorate she’d have to write a dissertation, wouldn’t she?”

  “Of course.”

  Saif raised the pastry to take a bite.

  “Aren’t dissertations available online, even foreign ones written in another language? Say, French?”

  “Sometimes.” The pastry continued its upward arc toward Saif’s mouth. “The more prestigious universities abroad almost always make their dissertations available online.”

  “Isn’t the Sorbonne in Paris prestigious?”

  “The Sorbonne? Prestigious? Of course it’s-”

  Saif was so surprised by the implication of his back and forth with Griffin that the pastry slipped from his fingers. It end over ended toward the table. Kit, displaying remarkable reflexes, snagged the pastry in mid-flight. In a single fluid motion, he popped the pastry into his mouth.

  With soft-spoken regret Saif said, “I should have seen it before this.”

  “Me too,” Griffin said.

  Those were the last words spoken until after Saif tapped keys with stunning speed, shook his head once, tapped some more keys, shook his head again, then finished his typing. The translation from French to English was nearly instantaneous.

  Saif was the one to break the silence. Pointing to the screen he stated, “That’s the title page of Alexandra Webb’s dissertation.”

  On the screen appeared:

  ESTABLISHING THE VALUE OF VIOLINS STOLEN BY THE SPECIAL TASK FORCE FOR MUSIC

  by

  ALEXANDRA WEBB

  Griffin became aware everyone was awaiting his reaction.

  He said, “Looks like we owe De-BOR-ah Miller an apology.”

  *

  An hour later the others had long since left the dining room: Saif, after grabbing another pastry for the road, to teach; Annie to the mall for bookcase nails and perhaps a chat with Miss P; Kit to his garage apartment; Bobby to wherever he went on his audition-free days. Griffin remained in the dining room, holding the copy of Alexandra Webb’s dissertation which Saif had run off for him.

  Griffin held but did not read the dissertation. He needed time to adjust to the news that it was Alexandra Webb, not the eminently dislikeable De-BOR-ah Miller, who had been the one to call Hans Baeder all those times from the alcove phone at Future-Ride. And it was Alexandra the man in white had called from Arazzo Castle when the dungeon proved to be empty, to his crushing disappointment.

  Alexandra Webb and the man in white were after the same musical instrument, a violin almost certainly. Which one? Alexandra Webb’s dissertation might tell him. Griffin settled in to read.

  *

  June 24

  4:25 pm

  From well down the hall Griffin could tell the man on the phone was in full verbal retreat. It was two days later and Griffin was walking the halls of the basement of the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. He was seeking the office of a violin professor who might be the son of a man described at some length in Alexandra Webb’s dissertation.

  “But, Mrs. Chen…” the man was saying into the phone, clearly backpedalling. “Of course I take my judging responsibility seriously...”

  The man stood behind his desk, back turned, so he could not see Griffin’s approach. Griffin watched as the man did something unexpected. He flicked off the lights in his office, plunging the basement office into twilighty gloom. The man sighed loudly.

  “I’ve been full professor here at the Peabody for…Yes, Mrs. Chen… Yes, I know which end of the violin to hold…”

  The violin professor began turning in Griffin’s direction. Griffin ducked out of the doorway and leaned against a bulletin board announcing work opportunities at symphonies and orchestras around the country. He felt like a cowboy in a western gunfight sheltering behind a rock for cover.

  The telephone onslaught continued a few seconds more, then stopped abruptly. Griffin felt certain Mrs. Chen had hung up. There was another loud sigh.

  “Is someone there in the hall?” the professor called.

  “Is it safe to come out?” replied Griffin.

  The professor flicked the office lights back on.

  “Mrs. Chen did not sound happy,” Griffin offered, entering the office.

  “She’s quite the tiger mom.” From behind his desk the professor told Griffin, “I’m sorry, but the decisions in this afternoon’s violin competition cannot be changed.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’re not a parent here to complain about the results of today’s violin competition?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Then don’t be afraid. And please, come into my office.”

  *

  Bearded and balding, the violin professor wore blue jeans and a blue button down shirt rolled up above the elbows. On the basis of little more than the man’s easy manner Griffin guessed he was popular with his students here at the Peabody Institute. “Now, how can I help you, Mr.-”

  “I’m Griffin Gilmore.” They shook hands across a paper-strewn desk. The professor pointed
at a chair. Before Griffin could sit he had to move stacks of music scores from the chair. Griffin glanced around the disheveled office. “Ah, professor, where should I put this?”

  Griffin pointed to a box of thick cardboard perhaps three feet long leaning against the chair leg.

  ”That’s a box to ship violins. For repair, typically. Why don’t you just hand me the box.”

  As he did, Griffin asked, “Do people really complain about decisions in violin competitions?”

  “Did you play Little League or rec league soccer growing up?”

  “Not well.”

  “Take the worst sports parent you can remember and multiply that exponentially. That’s what some music parents are like. But you didn’t come here to endure my complaints. How can I help you?”

  “Am I in the right place? I’m directionally challenged sometimes. Are you Dr. Mike MacGregor?”

  Smiling broadly, the man behind the desk replied, “I am. I’m Mike MacGregor.”

  “Are you Dr. Mike S. MacGregor?” Griffin asked, stressing the middle initial.

  Still smiling: “Yes.”

  “Is the ‘S’ is for Shurzdach?”

  “Why, yes, it is,” Professor MacGregor replied. His voice lost none of its friendliness, but his blue eyes, relaxed to that point, took on an unblinking wariness. “No one has ever come here and known that. How can I help you, Mr. Gilmore?”

  Griffin pushed a bit further. “Are you related to Captain Wilhelm Shurzdach, who served in the German Special Task Force for Music during the Second World War?”

  The smile was now wafer thin.

  “Why do you ask that?”

  The wariness in his eyes had darkened to distrust. Griffin got the very definite sense that if his answer was not to the professor’s liking, Griffin would be told to leave. He’d be told graciously, that was the man’s nature, but Griffin would be gone, without learning what he came here to learn.

  “Two days ago,” Griffin responded, “a friend of mine found online the dissertation of a woman who attended the Sorbonne. This woman’s research for her dissertation was very thorough. She listed nearly 300 men who served in the Special Task Force For Music during the Second World War. The name Captain Wilhelm Shurzdach appears among them.”

  Griffin paused; hesitated really. The hesitation was not for dramatic effect, but because so much hinged on what was to follow. He said, “I believe William Shurzdach was your father.”

  “He was my father,” Professor MacGregor acknowledged, his voice barely an exhale. Recovering, he continued, “Until this moment I could have counted on my fingers the number of people in all the world who knew William Shurzdach was my father and that he was part of the Special Task Force For Music. And – with the exception of my life partner – they were all relatives. How is it you know, Mr. Gilmore?”

  “As I was reading this woman’s dissertation on the Special Task Force For Music-”

  “Let me stop you there, Mr. Gilmore. Is this woman who wrote the dissertation –this woman you haven’t named – an historian?”

  “Her name is Alexandra Webb. And, no, she’s not an historian. She runs an investment firm in Manhattan.”

  The answer caused Professor MacGregor to raise a puzzled blond eyebrow, but he pressed on. “Whatever her profession, seems this woman has written with some thoroughness about the Special Task Force For Music. That was an ugly corner of an awful time in 20th Century history. Is that why you’re here? Are you a historian of some sort?”

  He studied Griffin for a while, before answering his own question.

  “I don’t think you’re a scholar,” he spoke kindly, almost smiling again. “You’re an articulate man, but I’ve spent a good bit of my life in academia. You don’t have the angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin air about you. This isn’t some scholarly dispute, is it? I can’t see you caring about publish or perish.”

  “I can’t see me caring about that either,” replied Griffin.

  Professor MacGregor said, “This dissertation is obviously crucial here. Tell me more about that, why don’t you.”

  “In the dissertation, each of the officers in the Special Task Force has a paragraph or so of biography. That’s how I know that before the war Wilhelm Shurzdach taught at the music conservatory in Dresden. One of his star students at the conservatory was a young man named Hans Baeder.

  “After the war he – your father – emigrated, from Germany to Baltimore, to teach violin at the Peabody Institute here. Hans Baeder settled in Baltimore as well. By all the accounts I came up with in my research yesterday, your father was a much-beloved teacher for many years.

  “I checked the Peabody website for violin teachers,” continued Griffin. “I saw the name Michael MacGregor, with middle initial S, as a violin professor. Might the son, who grew up in Baltimore, be teaching the same instrument at the same school in Baltimore as the father had? Could the S stand for Shurzdach? It seemed worth the drive downtown.”

  “You’re bright and persistent, Mr. Gilmore. But my father died in 1964,” Dr. MacGregor said. “More than fifty years ago. So I’ll ask again. If you’re not some historian-”

  “I’m not.”

  “What are you then, Griffin? What do you want – judging by your face, I’d say need is more accurate – to know about my Dad?”

  “I need to know whatever you can tell me about the unit your father served in, the Special Task Force For Music. And there’s one man your father commanded in the Special Task Force – Hans Baeder. I’d like to learn anything at all you can tell me about him. And there’s a question suggested by the dissertation I want ask you.”

  “Close the door,” Professor MacGregor told Griffin.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  June 24

  5:25 pm

  While Griffin was closing the door, Professor MacGregor went charging over to a closet. He began rummaging around in the closet. Papers tumbled off shelves and a book thumped to the floor.

  “Here it is,” he said.

  He placed a shoe box on the desk.

  “My mother gave me this for my eighteenth birthday. You need to understand. My father, Wilhelm Shurzdach, my birth father, died when I was two, in 1964. About the only memory I have of him is sitting on his lap while he guided my fingers over the strings of a violin. He couldn’t play anymore due to a wound he suffered in the war.

  “My mother remarried when I was seven. My partner is a psychologist who has got to be the last Freudian left in the world. He insists I must resent my stepfather for stealing my mother. But I don’t; not one bit. My stepfather was wonderful to me and Mom. Talking to you now I have to consciously say ‘stepfather’ since I consider him my Dad. His name was MacGregor. He died two years ago. My Mom died last year. I still miss them both. When I was growing up Mom suggested I keep Shurzdach as a middle name. Here let me show you. This is a picture of the Special Task Force For Music.”

  From the shoe box he withdrew a rolled up black and white photo. He and Griffin placed a pile of books on each end of the two foot long picture to keep it flat. In the picture about 200 men stood along railroad tracks. Twin plumes of black smoke rose from a burned out shed in the background.

  “The picture was taken somewhere outside Berlin, October 1944. That’s my father,” he said, pointing to the right side of the picture. “The tall man with his right hand on his hip. All the men around him were violinists also. He was in charge of their section of violinists. Their Sonderstabe it was called.”

  Griffin started looking where Dr. MacGregor pointed, but his eyes were quickly pulled away to someone else in the picture. This soldier was standing a few feet to the side of Captain Shurzdach. It was Hans Baeder. Griffin had no doubt whatsoever. It was Hans. Griffin was seeing a younger version of the Hans Baeder he had seen in the pictures Miriam Freitag and Mel Morton showed him.

  In this picture Hans was a tragically thin teenager, a fifteen year old with the face of a twelve year old boy. He wore a Wehrmacht uniform so oversized for h
is tiny frame it hung on him like a bed sheet. He looked like a stiff wind would have knocked him down. Hans made the men around him look incredibly healthy.

  “You recognized somebody, didn’t you, Griffin?” Dr. MacGregor said. “You have one of the most expressive faces I’ve ever seen. My students, for all their considerable talent, sometimes I’m not certain they’re hearing me. It’s like their lights are on but nobody’s home. You’re completely different. You recognize someone in the picture and it’s someone you think highly of. It’s so obvious from your face. Who do you recognize?”

  Griffin pointed to Hans. “This man. This is Hans Baeder.”

  “Is Hans Baeder in the dissertation that brings you here today?”

  “He is. As you say, he was part of the Sonderstabe of violinists serving with your father. Hans is described in the dissertation as being particularly perceptive in evaluating the violins the Special Task Force obtained. Can you tell me anything about Hans Baeder?”

  *

  “I have a list of the men in the Special Task Force. Hans Baeder is the one you need to know about?” Dr. MacGregor reached into the shoe box for some typewritten pages. In the process he dislodged something metallic, which flashed in the overhead light.

  “Professor?” Griffin asked, pointing inside the shoe box.

  “This?” Professor MacGregor said, placing the papers on his desk and pulling from the box an oval signet ring. “Is that what you’re pointing to?” Griffin nodded. “This was my father’s ring. It is the ring awarded to members of the Order of Maximilian the Younger.”

  “I’ve seen one before,” Griffin said, thinking of the signet ring worn by the man in white in the museum and again on the surveillance tape Grace had sent. “I’m fairly certain I’ve seen this ring before.”