Ashton-Kirk, Investigator Part 25

"Karlson is a Swede," with contempt. "The Swedes know the science of music; but they are hard; they are seldom artists; they cannot express. And when one of this nation--a man with the ice of his country in his soul--tried to instruct me how to play the warm music of my own Italy, I called him a fool!"

"I see," said the investigator.

"I am to blame," said Spatola, contritely. "But I could not help it.

He _was_ a fool, and fools seldom like to hear the truth."

"The Germans, now," said Ashton-Kirk, insinuatingly, "are somewhat different from the Swedes. Were you ever employed under a German conductor?"

"Twice," replied the violinist, with a shrug. "n.o.body can deny the art of the Germans. But they have their faults. They say they know the violin. And they do; but the Italian has taught them. The violin belongs to Italy. It was the glory of Cremona, was it not? The tender hands of the Amatis, of Josef Guarnerius, of old Antonio Stradivari, placed a soul within the wooden box; and that soul is the soul of Italy!"

"Haupt, a German, wrote a treatise on the violin," said Ashton-Kirk.

"If you would read that--"

"I have read it," cried Spatola. "I have read it! It is like that,"

and he snapped his fingers impatiently.

"But you've probably read a translation in the English or Italian,"

insisted the investigator, smoothly. "And all translations lose something of their vitality, you know."

"I have read it in the German," declared the Italian; "in his own language, just as he wrote it. It is nothing."

Pendleton looked at Ashton-Kirk admiringly; the manner in which his friend had established the fact that Spatola knew the German language seemed to him very clever. But Ashton-Kirk made no sign other than that of interest in the subject upon which they talked.

"A race that has given the world such musicians as Wagner, Beethoven and Mozart," said he, "must possess in a tremendous degree the musical sense. The German knowledge of tone and its combinations is extraordinary; and their music in turn is as complex as their psychology and as simple as the improvisation of a child."

Spatola seemed surprised at this apparent warmth; he looked at Ashton-Kirk questioningly.

"And, with all their scholars.h.i.+p, the Germans are so practical," went on the latter. "Only the other day I came upon a booklet published in Leipzig that dealt with the difficulty a composer sometimes encounters in getting the notes on paper when a melody sweeps through his brain.

The writer claimed that the world had lost thousands of inspirations because of this, and to prevent further loss, he proffered an invention--a system of--so to speak--musical shorthand."

A sullen look of suspicion came into Spatola's face; he regarded the speaker from under lowered brows.

"Perhaps you don't quite understand the value of such an invention,"

proceeded Ashton-Kirk. "But if you had a knowledge of stenography, and the short cuts it--"

But the Italian interrupted him brusquely.

"I know nothing of such things," said he, "and what is more I don't want to know anything of them." Then in a sharp, angry tone, he added: "What do you want of me? I am not acquainted with you. Why am I annoyed like this? Is it always to be so--first one and then another?"

At this sudden display of resentment, the turnkey approached.

"I will go back to my cell," Spatola told him, "and please do not bring me out again. My nerves are bad. I have been worried much of late and I can't stand it."

The turnkey looked at Ashton-Kirk, who nodded his head. And, as Spatola was led gesticulating away, Pendleton said in a low tone of conviction:

"I tell you, Kirk, there's your man. Besides the other things against him, he knows German."

"But what of the phonographic signs?"

"He knows them also. His manner proved it. As soon as you mentioned shorthand he became suspicious and showed uneasiness and anger. I tell you again," with an air, of finality, "he's your man."

CHAPTER XIII

A NEW LIGHT ON ALLAN MORRIS

From the City Hall the car headed for Christie Place once more; it halted some half dozen doors from Hume's and the occupants got out.

The first floor was used by a dealer in second-hand machinery, but at one side was a long, dingy entry with a rickety, twisting flight of stairs at the end. Ashton-Kirk rang the bell here, and while they waited a man who had been seated in the open door of the machine shop got up and approached them.

He wore blue overalls and a jumper liberally discolored by plumbago and other lubricants; a short wooden pipe was held between his teeth, and a cloth cap sat upon the back of his head.

"Looking up the Dago?" asked he with a grin. He jerked a dirty thumb toward the stairs.

Ashton-Kirk nodded; the man took the wooden pipe from his mouth, blew out a jet of strong-smelling smoke and said:

"I knowed he'd put a knife or something into somebody, some day. These people with bad tempers ought to be chained up short."

"Do you know him well?" inquired the investigator.

"Been acquainted with him ever since he's been living here--and that's going on three years."

"Did he have many visitors, do you know?"

The man in the cloth cap pulled at his pipe reflectively.

"I can't just say," he replied. "But I've been thinking--" he paused here and examined both young men questioningly. Then he asked: "You're detectives, ain't you?"

"Something of that sort," replied Ashton-Kirk.

The man grinned at this.

"Oh, all right," said he. "You don't have to come out flat with it if you don't want to. I ain't one of the kind that you've got to hit with a mallet to make them catch on to a thing." Here the wooden pipe seemed to clog; he took a straw from behind his ear and began clearing the stem carefully. At the same time he added: "As I was saying, I've been thinking."

"That," said Ashton-Kirk, giving another tug at the unanswered bell, "is very commendable."

"And queer enough, it's been about visitors--here," and the man pointed with the straw toward the doorway. "Funny kind of people too, for a house like this."

"Take a cigar," said Ashton-Kirk. "That pipe seems out of commission."

Then, as the man put the pipe away in the pocket of his jumper and lighted the proffered cigar, he added: "What do you mean by 'funny kind of people?'"

The cigar well lighted, the man in the overalls drew at it with gentle relish.

"There's a good many kinds of funny people," said he. "Some of them you laugh at, and others you don't. These that I mean are the kind you don't. Now, Mrs. Marx, the woman that keeps this place, is all right in her way, but it ain't no swell place at that. Her lodgers are mostly fellows that canva.s.s for different kinds of things; they wear s.h.i.+ny coats and their shoes are mostly run down at the heels. So when I see swell business looking guys coming here I got to wondering who they were. That's only natural, ain't it?"