The Stratford Murder by Mike Hollow (best thriller novels of all time .TXT) 📗

as Miss Hess. The man, with moustache, glasses and thinning hair, looked a good dozen years or so older. He was wearing a dark grey lounge suit with a waistcoat and a plain tie. Jago didn’t recognise him, but the programme named him as Lionel Tertis and confirmed that the instrument he was carrying in his left hand, with a bow in his right, was a viola.

A hush descended as they began to play. Jago considered himself an ignoramus in matters of classical music and assumed it would go straight over his head, but from the start he was intrigued by the way the two instruments seemed to speak to each other. There was something stirring about it, but also a feeling of melancholy and a hesitancy that reflected his own mood exactly. He closed his eyes. Soon he was immersed in the music, borne along by it and unaware of his surroundings. Only the tumultuous applause at the end of the second sonata broke the spell.

It was Dorothy who spoke first.

‘So, did you like it?’

‘The music? Yes, I did – very much.’

‘I hoped you would. What did you like about it?’

‘I don’t know, really. I’m no judge of music, but it definitely affected me, as though it was taking me somewhere else, away from here, and I was looking at everything from higher up – looking at myself from the outside. Do you ever feel like that – suddenly seeing yourself and wondering what on earth you’re doing?’

‘I do, yes.’

‘Well, it made me think about how a man like Brahms could give his whole life to writing that kind of music, and how someone else could give their whole life to playing it, and then I was wondering what I give my own life to. Locking up villains, I suppose.’

He’d answered his own question and was about to continue, but realised his train of thought was leading straight to the question he didn’t want to discuss with anyone, not even Dorothy – the question of what he really wanted to fill his life.

‘So,’ he said, as lightly as he could, ‘where do we go for those sandwiches?’

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

‘Did you know a bomb went off here yesterday?’ said Dorothy, changing the subject as they made their way to the sandwich bar. She sensed that Jago had something on his mind and didn’t want anyone intruding. ‘Apparently it landed on the other end of the gallery last week without exploding, so the Royal Engineers were here for days trying to defuse it, but it went off during yesterday’s concert just as everyone was in here listening to Beethoven’s Razumovsky String Quartet.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Jago, grateful to her for sparing him further probing.

‘From what I heard, they were in the middle of the third movement, the minuet, when there was a huge explosion,’ she continued. ‘And the amazing thing was, the quartet just played on as if nothing had happened – didn’t miss a note. I hope one day I’ll be allowed to write about it.’

‘Were there casualties?’

‘Apparently not – but a lot of damage to the west end of the building.’

They reached the sandwich bar. Jago declined the recommended honey and raisin sandwiches which Dorothy chose for herself, and opted for ham and chutney instead, with a generous slab of fruit cake and a cup of coffee. They took their lunch away to the quietest corner they could find.

‘You’re right about the sandwiches,’ said Jago appreciatively as they began to eat. ‘They’re very good.’

‘I told you so. Sir Kenneth said the profits from the food and coffee all go to the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund, same as the takings at the door. The problem is, they can’t fit so many people in down in the basement, so now the concerts are in serious financial trouble.’

‘Does that mean they’ll have to stop?’

‘Fortunately not. It seems my own home town’s stepped in to help. He told me the Boston Symphony Orchestra held a special festival of British music just recently to raise money for your lunchtime concerts here and sent over enough to keep them going right through the winter.’

‘That should cheer the place up. Especially if they keep selling this fruit cake.’

‘I’m glad you like it. I wanted to give you a treat to celebrate the end of your case. You’ve got it all wrapped up now?’

‘Yes, but it was a peculiar business. We ended up arresting the victim’s mother-in-law and another woman last night at a seance.’

‘A seance?’

‘Yes. Who’d believe it? In 1940. You must think we’re still living in the Middle Ages here. Mind you, I suppose you have that kind of thing in America too.’

‘Oh, yes. I don’t know about now, but when I was in my first newspaper job in Boston I found out there were dozens of spiritualist churches in the city. And before that, when I was a kid, my parents took me to a talk by your Sherlock Holmes man, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was at Symphony Hall, in 1922, and I thought it would all be about his stories, but actually he was talking about spiritualism, which I’m sure they didn’t agree with. He was passionate about it. The place was packed, too. He talked a lot about the afterlife – he said people would have bodies just like we do, and clothes and houses, even furniture.’

‘And what would they do for all eternity? Apart from polishing the furniture.’

‘He said they’d work, but there’d be abundant leisure too.’

‘That sounds just like the Greenshirts.’

‘The what?’

‘Just some group I came across during the investigation. They started out calling themselves the Kibbo Kift and said they’d make a better world, then they turned into the Social Credit Party and reckoned we should save the economy by giving free money to everyone. Then we’d have a wonderful future of leisure without poverty. Two sides of the same coin, though, in a way, I suppose.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, the spiritualists and the social credit lot both got