Beethoven's Tenth Read online

  Otto Hassler was sinking fast by then, and at his death, Ansel was well aware, the house and virtually all its contents were to pass to the Erpfs in repayment for having kept the roof over the old man’s head for three decades. Ansel’s visit to the Zurich Registry established the certifiable name of Nina Hassler as a contemporary daughter of the house who could have attended the great composer and borne witness to the events attested to in the letter Ansel then crafted over her signature. The similarly invented Nägeli and Archduke Rudolph letters were of a piece with the Nina fabrication, but in their cases there were handwriting models in letters to Beethoven found in archival collections. And so the cedar box, with its entirely fabricated contents, was placed in the Hasslers’ attic trunk, its discovery waiting on Otto’s imminent demise. The fabulous find was then to be brought forth, hailed as a resurrected Beethoven masterpiece, and proclaimed a national treasure. In time, of course, he had intended to step forward and confess all, stressing—Ansel’s letter assured Margot—that “the rest of our family had known nothing of my role in inventing Tell and that, indeed, I had relished the prospect of our father’s and mother’s astonishment on learning that their black-sheep son, who had pissed his life away in dissipation, had created such a stupendously scandalous thing.”

  The fatal flaw in the plot, the letter wound up alleging, had been Ansel’s failure to anticipate the arrival of “that birdbrain American troublemaker, Jacob Hassler. I had not foreseen his greed and recklessness, causing the whole brilliant scheme to founder.” The letter ended:

  To be clear, my aim now is to so arouse the fears of the Cubbage people by threatening to tell the tale of my breathtaking subterfuge that they will scuttle to the bargaining table. You and the lawyers may view my scheme as harebrained, but nothing else has moved the Americans to a settlement that honors our family and our nation. If they think I am bluffing or that my revelation will not have disastrous effects on their auction, they will be disabused before long and eagerly strike a deal returning the manuscript to us. At that time, I will advise them they had been duped and that my threatened disclosures (as outlined above) were only a hoax designed to remove Tell from the hands of American vandals.

  Tell me what you think.

  Yr not so hateful brother, (signed) Ansel

  Mitch sat immobilized, struggling to organize his thoughts. They had known practically from the first that this moonfaced oddball, driven by a complex Swiss movement, might be a ticking time bomb lurking in the closet. But the rest of the C&W management team had lulled itself into believing the bomb was a dud and that, with the expert panel’s imprimatur affixed to it, the Tell had been insulated against such an incendiary. Plainly they had miscalculated the threat posed by this half-unhinged schemer. But was Ansel bluffing now, or might he really go before the news media with his hokey narrative, even if only as a spiteful gesture? The problem was the richness of detail in his threatened “confession”—it all did more or less hang together. How, though, Mitch asked himself unhappily, could Ansel possibly have concocted such a tale unless—unless—his ruse was the truth? No, that was just too preposterous to contemplate. This nutjob was deep into playing mind games with them. He’d done just enough homework to establish borderline plausibility for his fable. And there was a sizable hole at the core of his so-called confession: Who would believe that feckless Ansel Erpf, aging charlatan, could produce a symphony-length work of such virtuosity that it fooled some of the world’s foremost music scholars?

  There was a further twist to this unsightly new wrinkle that required even closer analysis. Why had Margot sent him Ansel’s letter? Could her cover note be trusted at face value? Why would she have done C&W the favor of a heads-up on her loose-cannon brother’s latest connivance? Was she leagued with him in a kind of good cop/bad cop sister-brother act? After all, in forwarding Ansel’s letter, she was serving his purpose even if she was not party to his nuttiness.

  Calming himself, Mitch phoned Margot for a better fix on her position. She seemed pleased to hear from him, remarking at the outset, “I normally would never have shared such a personal—and troubling—letter, but I’m afraid we both have a problem here.”

  “Possibly,” Mitch allowed, “but frankly, since my firm hasn’t been notably conciliatory toward your family and your government, I wonder why we rate your kind consideration?”

  The question seemed to surprise her. “I’m sorry, I thought it was obvious. I didn’t want your firm to think the rest of our family has anything to do with this nonsense of Ansel’s—or to be caught unawares if he goes ahead with his—these preposterous claims his letter threatens.”

  “Don’t you share his objective—trying to shut down our auction?”

  “Of course, but this childish sort of game he’s up to is hardly the way to do it.”

  Mitch persisted. “Why are you so sure it’s a game? It’s a pretty good yarn Ansel says he’ll tell the world—there are a lot of details and fine points in there that give me pause—that smack of plausibility—”

  “You can’t really believe for a moment,” Margot cut in, “that there’s anything to all that rot he’s dreamed up. I’m no detective, but it’s obvious that nothing in this so-called ‘confession’ of his is verifiable. Our cousin Sofie is conveniently in her grave, so Ansel shamelessly invokes her name, poor thing. And the rest of it sounds like a—a Grimm’s fairy tale. It’s all quite symptomatic of Ansel’s condition when he wanders from the straight and narrow—he fantasizes for a time until his medication brings him back to earth. I sent you the letter because there’s always the possibility that during an episode of extreme instability, he could actually decide to ring up the media and do what he threatens. That part of it needs to be taken seriously.”

  “I thought he was under psychiatric care in London.”

  “Yes, but he’s not institutionalized.” The way she said it—with an unspoken “yet” implied at the end—left Mitch thinking that the need for such a drastic measure may have long since become evident to her. Margot added that she had called Ansel’s attending London psychiatrist, a Dr. Graham Kohler, immediately after receiving the “confession” letter and, as both his sister and legal conservator, sought the latest assessment of his condition. “You may be reassured to learn that at his last session with Dr. Kohler, Ansel was fantasizing about how easily one might steal the Vermeer hanging in Kenwood House in Hampstead.” Margot let a grim little sigh escape her. “It’s Ansel’s overactive id running rampant, I’m afraid, but instead of sex it drives him to fantasies of fraud and larceny. He’ll be over it soon enough. But meanwhile, you and your colleagues need to address it.”

  “And which is it you think we should do?” Mitch asked. “Ignore Ansel’s letter as a symptom of dementia or withdraw the manuscript from auction because his so-called confession may be taken for the truth? If you believe this ‘plan’ of his reflects his mental agitation and that his acting it out in public will serve only to turn him—and, by extension, your family—into an object of ridicule, why should we fear his threat in the least? Sorry if that sounds cold-blooded, but if Ansel’s game is so transparent an attempt to frighten us, why should we offer you and your government more generous terms to stop obstructing our auction?”

  Margot weighed the question a moment.

  “I was hoping that by being entirely candid, I might appeal to your company’s collective better nature—in the wishful belief that you had one. We have a saying in German that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Maybe it doesn’t translate well into English.”

  “Perfectly,” Mitch said, “though I’ve honestly never understood why anyone would want to catch flies. I’ll speak with my senior associates and get back to you.”

  .

  the letter purportedly from ansel in London to his sister in Zurich did not amuse Harry. “This crazy fucker is out to ruin us,” he said. “After the German cocksuckers’ attempt to blitzk
rieg us, my aging heart can’t stand many more of these threats. Who’s next, the terrorists?”

  The co-owner’s recent, frequent descent into profanity symptomized the strain he was under, Mitch recognized; after all, the company’s reputation and financial health were both on the line, now that C&W had all but formally vouched for the authenticity of Beethoven’s alleged Tenth Symphony. That Mitch himself was still not entirely convinced could not even be whispered outside of C&W’s inner sanctum. But it was precisely against late-breaking complications like this toxic lightning bolt from Ansel—an allegation, however off the wall, intended to undermine the world’s faith in the auction house’s due diligence—that Mitch had chosen to stand vigil until his final measure of doubt vanished. “We just need to cope with situations as they arise,” he told Harry, “and not overreact one way or the other.”

  “Here’s the thing I don’t quite get,” Gordy said, looking up after his second reading of the letter carrying Ansel’s signature. “What’s the sister up to? Is she the real mastermind here, trying to blackmail us into bailing out? She may be into it every bit as much as her brother with this cockamamie letter of his.”

  Mitch was inclined to give Margot the benefit of the doubt. “My guess is she’s trying to act responsibly by flagging us on a situation she can’t control. She’s hoping we’ll be grateful and give ground on a fair settlement with her family and country—period.”

  “Mmmm,” said Harry. “Then why don’t we just ignore them? We’ve invested a bundle in the most demanding experts in the music world, and they certify we’ve probably got a legitimate golden oldie here to peddle. Is anyone going to care if this equally certified cuckoo comes down from his treehouse and claims he wrote Beethoven’s Tenth? Or that he’s the Messiah?”

  “The trouble is,” Mitch argued, “there may be just enough internal coherence to Ansel’s story to get him a hearing in the media. It’s not that we haven’t pretty well proven our case but that it may be hard to absolutely refute his version of it. The guy is musically gifted. He has composed works of at least some merit. He was there when the manuscript was found. And his cousin was an artist who just conceivably could have forged the—”

  “And the last thing we need right now is to let some cooked-up fairy tale germinate,” Gordy agreed. “Raising any doubts about Tell’s authenticity would likely wipe out our auction. Maybe we really need to strike a deal with this Swiss crowd—”

  “I say it’s a bluff,” Harry countered. “I say sister Margot is in on it— it’s a family con—and if we either fold or meet their price with an extorted payoff, we’d be chumps.” He straightened his shoulders. “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

  “Maybe,” Mitch said in his lowest key, “but part of me is wondering if there’s one chance in a thousand that Ansel’s ‘confession’ story is on the level—absurd as that may sound. Maybe the twisted bastard is actually gifted enough to have fooled our academic eminences—”

  Gordy nodded. “It’s true—history is full of freaky achievements by idiot savants. Maybe we should run this letter of his, no matter how nutty-sounding, past Mac Quarles.”

  Harry objected. “What the hell is Mac going to say to us—‘Sure, fellas, we could have blown it, and this cat could have produced a masterpiece of fakery, so you’ve wasted your money on us hot-shots’? No way. I say it’s time we go out and kick some ass, not kiss it.”

  “And I respectfully suggest,” Gordy counseled, “that we put everything on hold until we know more. I say Mitch heads for London pronto and unannounced and tries to get a read on Ansel. Maybe he didn’t even write the letter Margot sent us—maybe she wrote it and forged her brother’s almost illegible signature. I don’t think we take the sister’s word for any of it—there may be a lot of bad blood between them. Maybe he’s an eighteen-wheeler wrapped around her neck, and she fakes this letter as the chance to get rid of him. Or if it really came from him, she’s eager to let him make a fool of himself so he can be packed off to a loony bin for good.”

  “Then why tip us about the letter?” Harry asked.

  “Maybe she’s hoping that, out of gratitude to her for warning us about her brother’s imminent ‘confession’ gambit, we’ll fall for it and either buy off the Erpfs and the Swiss culture establishment or sell out cheap to them.”

  Harry’s forehead furrowed. “You friggin’ lawyers,” he grudgingly yielded. “Okay, okay—let’s put Johnny Winks on Ansel’s tail for a few days, and then Mitch, you go over there and, maybe more or less casually, you bump into him—take Clara with you, so you’re there visiting her parents—and once you’ve caught up with him, over lunch or drinks maybe, you can see what gives. If all Ansel’s after is our attention, we’ll give it to him—and official recognition for finding the manuscript. But nobody’s going to get away with blackmailing Cubbage & Wakeham.”

  .

  london in late november is rarely favored by picnic weather. But the short, dank, foggy days greatly facilitated Johnny Winks’s task of shadowing Ansel Erpf unobserved for a time before the Emerys arrived to confront him.

  The surveillance, though brief, was long enough to gauge the pattern of their prey’s conduct. Winks reported to Mitch on the phone that Ansel’s daily rounds were unremarkable on their face. Mornings around ten, he would leave the family’s flat on Charles Street in Mayfair, drop by Trumper’s famed tonsorial parlor on Curzon for a shave and trim, go next door to browse at the Heywood Hill rare and used book shop, pick up copies of the Guardian and the Telegraph on his walk over to Berkeley Square, visit the NatWest branch there, buy a shirt or something on New Bond Street, and wind up on Conduit in time for his appointment with Dr. Graham Kohler, whose nameplate was posted beside the ground-floor entry to his brick-front office/residence. Afterward, Ansel usually lunched at a busy bistro in Shepherd Market, opting for its quiet second-floor dining room, where he could linger and read his papers.

  “I don’t think sticking to a rigid routine while undergoing psychiatric care necessarily qualifies someone as mentally unstable,” Clara remarked after Mitch filled her in on Johnny’s rundown. “He’s troubled, for sure, but that’s not the same thing. I’m not even convinced that his letter qualifies as lunacy—it’s actually not such a daft ploy if it’s roused Cubbage & Wakeham enough to send us running over here.”

  To try to gauge just how erratic Ansel was, they positioned themselves the following midday at an upstairs table at Le Boudin Blanc, Ansel’s haunt in Shepherd Market. At half past one, while enjoying their puréed vegetable soup, they spotted him in a quilted down vest, designer jeans, and a tweed cap as he made his way up the stairs and headed for a table by a corner window. The light, even from the overcast day, was more than adequate for reading the papers he had brought along. He seemed oblivious to the rest of the humming room, except when he looked up to give the server his order from the chalkboard she showed him. After ten fruitless minutes of waiting to be noticed, Clara contrived to drop her emptied wine glass on the floor. The little crash caught Ansel’s ear, and he glanced toward them. It took a moment or so after their eyes connected for his face to brighten with recognition; Clara’s fingertip wave helped. In another moment he was upon them, looking as pleased as if they were long-lost friends. “Small world, indeed,” he said airily. “In town for business or pleasure, may I ask?”

  Clara explained about her parents. “And yourself?” she asked with perfect insouciance.

  “Oh, a little of both.” He gestured toward his table. “Why not come join me by the window—I’m afraid they’ve stuck you in the tourist section over here.”

  If Ansel really was trying to blackmail C&W with his confessional letter, Clara thought, there was no hint of it in his demeanor. He was full of small talk about the weather, theater, politics, and the nightmare in Iraq. Only after refilling their wine glasses did he bring up the Tell. “I trust you and your company confreres understand why I�
��ve played the agent provocateur in this thing. For you it’s only a business—for me it’s a passion, a form of personal rebirth, really.”

  “I don’t think we sensed your degree of patriotism at our earlier meeting,” Clara quipped. “If anything, you sounded rather down on your country—as too insular and—how did you put it—‘smothering,’ I think you said.” She smiled to engage him. “Why the radical change of heart? An attack of xenophobia—or an opportune dose of the rampant anti-Americanism around these days? As a European, I can sympathize a bit with the latter.” She gestured toward Mitch. “I’m afraid his Uncle Sam has turned into rather a swaggering lout.”

  Clara had all but invited him to lay his grievance on the table and perhaps even confess the kooky stratagem he had proposed by letter to his sister. But Ansel would not take her cue. Instead he shrugged and said that his presence at the discovery of the Tell manuscript had come to seem both providential and personally redemptive, “and so I’ve stirred a bit of a ruckus—though I don’t suppose it will make much difference in the long run. Our side’s been battered as of late, and your Yankee juggernaut rolls ahead—as it always does—despite our earnest protests.” His tone was more one of resignation than anger or sorrow. Perhaps his meds had kicked in.

  Mitch chose that moment to enter the fray. “By the way, this little item was sent to my office recently,” he said, producing the copy of the “confession” letter to Margot in the original German that she had forwarded with the translation. “My colleagues in New York have been wondering what to make of it.”