I was going out the door on my way to a play, Eugene Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros,” his statement on the horrors of conformity and fascism. His work is often called “theater of the absurd.” I still haven’t seen the play but I have developed a great appreciation of the absurd.
I was living in New Orleans in the early ‘70s, and there were more cultural opportunities than where I rusticate now. In fact, I went out quite a lot. Of course in late middle age (I prefer to lie to myself that way) I have decelerated. I find myself in books, music, and memories today, my travels cerebral.
The Night of the Teaspoon, as I recall it in detail, might have made a good play for Ionesco to hatch and dress. It was costumed in absurd manners and maddening mannerisms. A play of a different nature could be made of later events.
My friend Richard Stile called as I had the knob of the front door in hand. He implored me to do him a “big favor.” Would I take out a visitor from France? For dinner? He would reimburse me the cost of the meal “and owe you big time.” More than a little put-out by the last-minute request, I was also disappointed the visitor was a man. I knew of the man, Gaspard D’eau, but not then by name. I knew Richard expected him at some time to negotiate the sale of a phantom antique violin Richard had been chasing for decades. It had become the last thing in life he craved. He had hoarded a house full of shiny objects (and occasionally shady people). The violin would be the crown of his collection—if it existed and if it was genuine.
D’eau, who identified himself as a Parisian, was a day early, his appearance a surprise. Richard was too busy being himself to attend to D’eau. He was too distracted to be angry at the untimely arrival.
As you may have guessed, Richard is himself a violinist. He played in the New Orleans Symphony, and the concert on the Night of the Teaspoon capped a weeklong celebration of French Renaissance music in New Orleans. He wouldn’t have missed it for anything short of a coma. Richard was the concertmaster, the violin soloist who shakes hands with the conductor, a star. Monsieur D’eau could wait along with Ionesco and his “Rhinoceros.”
D’eau was unknown to Richard except through a long-distance negotiation by mail involving the sale of the violin he had managed to capture. The instrument apparently had a value such that Richard wouldn’t even hint at it then. Richard was last of the long line of a very old and very wealthy New Orleans family. Thus, his money was old; generations old. Other than having a wealth of fine antiques and art, you would not know he was rich. He never talked about money. Not unusual, though, was that he didn’t live only on his inheritance. He had an income from some kinds of enterprises.
I told Richard early on in our friendship that I wanted to know nothing more about his business than when he began to introduce it to me. But from overheard conversations I suspected it had to do with selling either artworks or drugs, or both, to his wealthy friends. He was too kind to sell drugs to anyone except those who could afford them without having to engage in crime, but he would accommodate mature gentlemen or gentlewomen users of recreational drugs. We occasionally enjoyed a pipe of aromatic vegetable matter together. Most everyone we knew smoked. But odd-seeming to most people would be his idea that the selling of art stolen from private collectors he didn’t approve of to those he did was a way of distributing it to be enjoyed more widely. I expect he did more than talk about it. I am not certain I bought that myself but suspecting it didn’t make me complicit.
I have never involved myself in shady things and never trafficked in contraband beyond liberating an ashtray or towel from a hotel—but I am not above mixing with traffickers.They are interesting and I can’t judge as long as I don’t know about their traffic. One should always have interesting friends. And among the interesting I accord special credit to those who are also in possession of some accumulation of power.
My French is limited to barely acceptable pronunciation of French food and wine. Richard said Gaspard D’eau wrote English like an Oxford don so he surely was sophisticated and probably a good conversationalist, if not a raconteur. An Oxford don sounded kind of stuffy. I thought it might be more interesting to entertain a gypsy fiddler with do-rag, gold earring, and glass eye than a violin-monger.
Together, Richard and D’eau constituted a mystery. They had communicated through a commercial ghost mail depot; that is, by letters sent, received, and forwarded by a service for people who did not have an address with a degree of permanence, or preferred their whereabouts to remain a mystery. Richard had learned of the violin for sale in a small notice in the journal “Stringed Things” for wealthy collectors of stringed instruments such as himself. I wondered why other collectors hadn’t snapped up such a prize unless they doubted its authenticity.
Of course there was no way to know if other prospective buyers had engaged with D’eau but it became clear that the notice had not gone unnoticed by others. Not a week after Richard had begun a conversation with D’eau by mail he got a telephone call from one George Hart, Ph.D. Professor Hart was retired from Wayne State University in Detroit. Richard knew of him by reputation and was as excited when Dr. Hart called as I had seen him since he had learned of the violin. Hart was an acknowledged expert in all things stringed instruments. Richard had his 1945 book, “The Violin: Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators,” the standard in its field. Hart told Richard he had seen the advertisement in “Stringed Things” and would give most anything to get a look at the violin. Hart had learned about Richard from D’eau who he had contacted about the violin. He hoped to be able to see it. He said D’eau told him that was fine with him and he should make arrangements with Richard so both could visit at the same time if a negotiation developed—and if Richard approved. Richard approved. More about the professor in good time.
I didn’t learn until later that Richard had paid for D’eau’s plane fare from Paris to New York and from there to New Orleans as part of the negotiation involving the violin. D’eau was to reimburse Richard from his expected gain from the sale of the violin. When I learned that, I wondered who would pay what if the deal fell through but didn’t ask. It was none of my business. It was enough to know Richard was going to pay to feed and water Gaspard and me.
I must set the stage necessary to the tale of the Night of the Teaspoon and later events.
The reason for Richard’s immense interest--and Hart’s, for that matter—in the violin proffered by Monsieur D’eau is that it was possibly a unique ancestor of those made in Mirecourt, France. The traditional center of early French violin making has records that indicate as many as 50 luthiers were at work in Mirecourt in the 1600s. The first contracts for apprenticeships date as far back as 1629. In 1732, Mirecourt established an official guild of makers who formulated strict rules governing training and quality control.
Nicolas Lupot is recognized as the patriarch of Miracourt’s best luthiers. Lupot, himself born in Stuttgart, Germany emulated violin makers in Cremona, Italy, such as Antonio Stradivari, and became known as the “French Stradivari.” Lupot’s influence cannot be overstated. King Louis XVIII commanded him in 1810 to replace every stringed instrument in the royal orchestra with models created by him and decorated with the emblem of France. Lupot began the task but his death in 1824 ended it.
Following Lupot came Jean-Baptist Vuillaume. Vuillaume emerged as one of the most highly acclaimed violin makers of his time in the world and also important because he was responsible for maintaining Mirecourt’s reputation as the epicenter of France’s violin making. He used Lupot’s model as a jumping off point for the creation of his distinctive style.
When Vuillaume established his own workshop he got a boost by purchasing a collection of 144 instruments made by Italian masters which included the storied “Messiah Stradivarius.” Not only did Vuillaume famously copy that masterpiece, he also made a copy of Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù’s “Il Cannone” so perfect that Nicolo Paganini, who owned it, couldn’t tell the difference between them when examined side by side.
Vuillaume’s workshop turned out some 3,000 violins. Some of those 3,000 are extant. Of course individual Vuillaumes come in many degrees of excellence that can only be detected and judged by experts. And there are many fakes. Some violins can be traced to their owners. It is interesting that Vuillaume named many of his works after their owners.
The best of the Miracourt stringed instruments go for a lot of money. In 2012 in London, a violin named “Saint Paul,” which is the copy of the “Messiah Stradivarius” Vuillaume made around 1870 was actioned by Sotheby’s for $231,160. Prices climbed to a record $262,275 for a Vuillaume copy of a Lupot cello. Lupots are rarer and too few have been sold publicly in recent years to establish a market price range.
All this background is necessary to frame a context for Richard’s interest in the violin offered by D’eau. It was held out to be made not by the maestro Lupot but by his grandfather, Laurent—his grandfather!—in 1710. Imagine it, a violin made two generations before those made by the man known as the Stradivari of France. It was known that Laurent made violins, and it was reported that he was his grandson’s mentor, but little was known about his work, and there were only rumors that anything he designed or built was put into circulation. He was thought of as one of those rare artists who created solely for his own satisfaction. A violin built by him would the holy grail of the world of violins. One wonders about the work of Lupot’s father, François. He is barely a footnote in the glorification of his father and his son.
Richard shared all this history long before D’eau appeared on his radar. It was more than I wanted to know then, but one tends to indulge their friends in their interests. When D’eau materialized and claimed to have the rumored Laurent Lupot, I asked Richard how he could tell if what was surely one of a kind violin was genuine. He told me that he thought he would recognize a fake but didn’t tell me how. He said often there are a number of possible clues which together make a case for authenticity.
In addition to whatever clues Richard had, the possible presence of Prof. Hart at the negotiation would add a great deal of authority in deciding whether the violin made by the most senior Lupot was genuine. The professor told Richard he not only knew what there was to know about a possible such violin but he owned something as close as you could get to it without being it: a fake Laurent Lupot. What a story!
It seemed Hart was paid to examine the purported Laurent Lupot violin in 1961 in London. The man who bought the violin wanted to be sure it was genuine. The man he bought it from provided no provenance but letters he claimed were from earlier owners. Alas, Dr. Hart said, it could not be an original. It wasn’t even a good fake. The professor said he also had discovered the letters from previous owners were fraudulent. Among major faults, the fake violin had a hairline crack in the back. That alone would have lowered its value even if it had been made by Laurent Lupot.
The professor explained to Richard how he would know if the violin offered by Gaspard (by then Richard and I called him by his given name) was authentic but Richard didn’t pass along that information except that one clue involved a fire. Most interesting was that the man with the fake in London was so hurt and angry about being hornswoggled that he gave the violin to Hart. Remarkable!
During Richard and Prof. Hart’s several conversations by phone it was decided that the professor could indeed visit New Orleans at the time of Gaspard’s visit and a date was set. Together, Richard and Dr. Hart would pass judgment on the proffered instrument and Richard would buy it if genuine. Professor Hart was wistful when he told Richard that seeing the violin would be as close as he would get to owning it. Few retired college professors were ever in a position to make such purchases, Dr. Hart said, and although he had made a bit of money from his book and a few dollars here and there consulting and giving talks, in addition to his salary at Wayne State, he had nothing approaching the price of even a genuine Vuillaume, never mind a Lupot.
Having established that history I can return to the Night of the Teaspoon.
It was no secret that I knew next to nothing about classical music then; that is, not Offenbach from Adam’s Off Ox—but that wasn’t accepted as an excuse to get me out of entertaining Gaspard D’eau: “He won’t speak a word about violins or music. He is merely a businessman—a sophisticated one no doubt, but his interests seem confined to merchandise.”
I agreed to entertain the merchant of violins when I realized a cab couldn’t get me to the will-call counter for my ticket, then my seat, before dimmed lights signaled it was time for curtain-up. Ionesco and his Rhinoceros would have to do without me. I returned to my bedroom and pocketed my pepper mill and folding steak knife, about which more later.
So, where to direct my taxi to pick up Gaspard? I had asked.
Ah, said Richard, no problem, Gaspard would meet me at the restaurant he had picked out. Do tell. I thought at the time his choice was regrettable. He had picked it from the glitzy “Best of . . . fill-in the name of your city” magazine available in every city’s hotel rooms. The restaurant, whose location I remembered, renamed from what I remembered, was now Cirque du Mardi Gras. It revolved around the crown of the International Trade Mart building at the foot of Canal Street. When it was known as Top of the Mart the food was like what I would describe as overpriced, gussied-up cardboard and Styrofoam, much of it sauced with warm water. I remembered that the bar, though, was OK. It was well-stocked. And from the restaurant’s revolving perimeter one got a good view of the Mississippi with the French Quarter near on one side and Algiers on the other bank as it turned. I had once passed through the restaurant and stood on the deck outside the bar to take nighttime photos of Canal Street for the cover of an alternative New Orleans paper.
I had attended a “topping-out” ceremony in a meeting room part of the restaurant for a new high-rise Marriott down the street. If you aren’t familiar with it, such a ceremony involves throwing a switch to light the lights spotted on the topmost, last-laid beam in the construction of a building. It also involves installing a tree, usually a fir, there temporarily, something evolved from an old Swedish religious practice.
Maybe the custom has died. Living in a city in which 10 stories constitutes a high-rise has made me lose track of urban customs. And I never knew anything whatever about Swedish religious ceremonies. At the topping-out ceremony for the Marriott, the switch was thrown by the hand of Mayor Maurice (Moon) Landrieu as it was discreetly placed over the petite hand of a young maiden (who was probably related to the chain hotel or its builder). There was much drinking and revelry after Moon lit the Marriott’s skeleton. Moon caught me looking at the comely maiden and winked. I probably blushed.
Still, it is outrageous to pick a revolving tourist trap in the sky in a city with a worldwide reputation for fine food. In the Vieux Carre, Uptown, Marigny, the Garden District, the Lakefront, Esplanade Ridge—even Fat City, as Metairie is called, you cannot pull the trigger of a derringer without hitting a fine place to gourmandize and abandon sobriety—one revolving around an ugly example of American architecture should be a capital offense. But what did Richard care? He was off to his concert.
On my one previous visit to the restaurant for a meal I had taken the husband of a coworker who met us there. She had picked the restaurant because of the view. The husband was such a rube he was wearing a cowboy shirt with metal-rimmed, imitation pearl, snap buttons, and no jacket or tie. I had a momentary hope we would not be admitted because of that but the maitre d’ whipped out a sport coat and tie for him from the cloakroom. It was ridiculous: the tie was a rep stripe in two faded shades of gray and the jacket sleeves were so long that in it he resembled a cartoonish Mandarin. He looked as if he had gone into shock so I tried to revive his attention after we were seated by explaining rep stripe ties—why the stripes customarily point one way on English ties and the other on American ones. His eyes glazed over and he looked as if I had sicced Schrodinger’s cat on him. His wife saved us by arriving and giving her husband a gushing greeting.
On Night of the Teaspoon, Gaspard preceded me. When I arrived, the maitre d’ took me to where he was seated, sipping a cocktail. He struggled his impressive bulk to his feet and gripped my hand in his ham. Then he collapsed into his chair with a grunt not quite as loud as the one he made upon rising and confessed that he had started a tab—and did I mind? Well, of course not; we were happily on Richard’s tab in absentia. I ordered a glass of Tio Pepe. Gaspard volunteered he was drinking a Negroni. By the look of the emptied glassware in front of Gaspard he was gathering a tribe of Negronis. He looked around and wondered out loud where all the girls with big bazooms were. I told him the best ones were at Chris Owens’ club on Bourbon Street. I thought that would arrest his attention but he didn’t seem to hear me. His attention was fixed on the impressive cleavage of an ample woman at the next table. I was perfectly fine with what were then still called waiters, without bazooms—men about the age I am now—in black vests and black bowties.
After my drink arrived, I stumbled out of silence and immediately regretted it. If it were today I would have whipped out my cell phone and read it for an hour. As it was, Gaspard’s silence forced me into a near soliloquy, but rather than suffer silence, I blithered. Gaspard was a good listener.
It turned out, by his telling, Gaspard was not French at all. He was a native of Turkey but had grown up in Malta. Come to think of it, he did look like he could pass for one of Ali Baba’s forty thieves with olive skin, coal hair and handlebar mustache. I didn’t know much about Turkey that didn’t involve coffee, drugs, or spies so there was no venturing there in conversation.
About Malta, the Maltese Falcon came to mind but I guessed Gaspard wouldn’t have an interest in Humphrey Bogart films. By the look of him right then I think if he hadn’t needed to use the men’s room at that pause in my attempt at conversation he might have fallen asleep. His Negronis and bladder relieved me of any responsibility to comment on Malta.
After Gaspard re-tabled his elbows, he unrolled knives, forks, and spoons from his napkin with a clatter and clink and placed the napkin in his lap. The knives, forks, and spoons had made a metallic crescendo. Gaspard seemed entertained: he picked up a handful and dropped them clinking again. Then he looked around in what I hoped was an effort to catch the eye of a waiter so he could request menus. Alas, when a black vest and bowtie appeared, Gaspard ordered another Negroni. I asked him about his lack of a French accent. His English diction was very good, I said. He could have passed for a native English speaker, even an American, I told him.
Ah, he said, his father’s business, which he didn’t describe and I forgot to ask about, had required his family to live in America off and on for most of his childhood. His parents had attended college at Stanford; indeed they had met there. Their parents were thoughtful about the advantages of an American education and connections. Gaspard also was a Stanford graduate. Only English was spoken at home so the family did not lose their ability to speak it. What a great background, I thought. I wished I had been raised with such care and planning.
I hate it when silverware is rolled up in a napkin. At the Cirque du Mardi Gras the package should have been a sack or bag. Instead, the napkin had a pouch that contained the place setting until they spilled out. I had never before seen a complete, formal place setting rolled up in a napkin. It was tacky. It is almost as bad when a setting is in place before food is served. Utensils get moved around and dropped--sometimes in a lap and sometimes on the floor. Inevitably, someone from another table has dropped a fork of their own and replaced it from your table. You only notice when its immediate use becomes necessary. Then you have to signal a waiter who apologizes as if he must admit the fork was missing on his account.
If I had a restaurant I would have my servers put down the appropriate, say, fork or spoon at the same time as the dish for which it is needed. Here is your soup and here your soupspoon. Here is your salad and here is your salad fork. Here is your fish and here is your . . . and so on. Think of it: no clutter, nothing to dodge so you don’t snag a cuff on a fork and overturn water and wine and cocktail glasses.
Gaspard was a player with his utensils. As we talked—well, as he listened—he lined them up side by side, longest to shortest, largest to least. Then he made three lines, one each of forks, knives and spoons. Then he alternated the types—knife, fork, spoon, fork, knife, spoon, spoon, knife, fork—in many variations.
Finally, he put them all aside but the fish knife. He tapped with it. He flipped it over, and over and over, and over and back. Then he tinkled his water glass with it. Then his Negroni. I don’t think he noticed even though he was looking right at them. It was done as unconsciously as an involuntary tic of blinks and jerks. He didn’t blink when he stabbed the corner of his eye as the knife was on its way to scratch his temple. Scratched himself! The nearest waiter almost tilted a tray into the middle of a table as he took it in! Scratched himself! He put the knife back on the table and picked up his salad fork.
The fork he seized proved to be a better toy than the knife. After he asked me to tell him about New Orleans and Louisiana he turned the fork upside-down and rested his teaspoon and soupspoon on the raised hump between the handle and tines as if they were the hands of a clock. Then he moved them around, keeping the business end of the spoons resting on the fork. At one point he looked at his watch—expensive by the look of it—and I checked my Timex. It was 8:30. He pointed the teaspoon at the back of a gray-haired man behind him at 240 degrees and pointed the handle of the soup spoon at his own foulard tie.
He unhitched the spoons and replaced them with the dinner knife and the bread knife. It became 8:45, then 9. Had I a whistle in my pocket I would have blown it and cried, “Time out!” I was happy he hadn’t thought to load a sugar cube on the tip of a spoon and launch it as from a catapult.
I signaled the server and he brought two folded billboards that passed as menus. He said, “Mr. Martin, may I make a suggestion?”
“You know me?”
“Oh, yes, everyone here knows you. Jean-Claude brought the paper with your interview of Armand Hug in it. It had your little picture in the column and Armand’s picture at his piano. We enjoyed the interview and most of us follow your columns on the French Quarter.” I was somewhat embarrassed because diners at nearby tables who had overheard turned and murmured to each other and pointed. Armand Hug was a fine pianist not well known too far beyond New Orleans although he had recorded and his LPs sold pretty well in Louisiana and Mississippi. Jean-Claude turned out to be the maitre d’.
“What would you suggest, er, Edward,” I said, after I glimpsed his name tag.
“Chef has managed an exceptional treatment of whole flounder stuffed with shrimp. It is served with haricots verts and pommes en cocotte.”
“C’est bon,” Edward, “and some salad greens with a raspberry vinaigrette.”
My god, I thought, this restaurant must be under new management; no, even new ownership. Why has no one told me?
My new best friend Edward turned to Gaspard and asked, “And you, sir?”
Gaspard studied the menu with knitted brows during my exchange with Edward. He never looked away. The menu was in French and I didn’t know if his knitted brows were a reaction to my poor French or if he was concentrating on the prospects of my order, considering it for himself, or was undecided about other items on the extensive list of entrees. I hadn’t ordered an appetizer. Maybe he was thinking about that. Or maybe he was looking for what was most expensive.
I should have known a Turkish-born Maltese Jew (I had noticed his Star of David pinky ring) living in France would not want French food in the United States. “I will have beef Wellington. Will the beef be rare? Can I get it with fries? What are my choices of vegetables?” He asked another couple of questions before Edward practically snatched the menu, rolled his eyes at me, and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. I noticed that although the menu was in French, Gaspard had ordered in English. I guessed he thought, “When in America . . .”
By the time Edward was out of sight the wine steward had appeared. He opened the wine list and Gaspard reached for it.
“Do you mind? I am quite well up on wines.”
I gestured “help yourself” and he did.
Gaspard studied the wine list as it if was a treasure map. It was difficult to read his expression. I suspected he was judging the prices as well as the selections and I thought he might not have been well-schooled in current American wines. While I hadn’t seen the list I guessed there were wines that could be judged both by quality and price. People who know wine often pick out a modestly priced wine in restaurants, given the markup. If the wine was on someone else’s tab, or expense account, it might be otherwise. Connoisseurs sometimes order for quality and to hell with price. I suspected on this menu the prices were listed. I couldn’t guess since Gaspard wasn’t sharing it.
As I watched Gaspard visually dissect the menu, I thought about my friend David. He knew the wine list of every restaurant he liked in New Orleans. He was also a gastronome. Anytime he dined out, even with a group, he always picked the restaurant. When I was along I wondered if he picked the restaurant for its food or its wine. But I guessed the food: David most often sniffed and snorted at restaurant wine cellars—especially as compared to the wine he could provide from his own.
Dining with David was like accompanying him on a tour of food preparations. Each dish was discussed and graded. I knew him to take notes on a meal now and then as a restaurant critic might. He vexed many a waiter with questions about menu items, and some of them summoned a chef to handle the queries. David met a lot of chefs that way.
The thing David did to chefs was lead them to suggest to themselves that here was someone who appreciates my food so maybe I should do a little something special for him. Sometimes after David and a chef parlayed, little plates of tasting portions of all manner of things would arrive from the kitchen. In New Orleans, that kind of special is called lagniappe.
Sometimes even the owner of a restaurant would become involved. I had been present more than once when a waiter or chef brought the owner around to meet David. That would inevitably produce more gratis goodies.
Discussions of food and wine naturally dominated part of every mealtime. David and his friends could talk wine for hours. At his house, he would produce bottle after bottle for guests from some secret place. Each new offering was compared with the previous one. Some evenings became tastings. Some were formal to the point of filling out score cards and assigning grades.
Wine is a serious business to some. I thought David—who once saved enough money to eat and drink his way across France from one Gault Millau four-toque restaurant to the next, and did—could smell the cork from a bottle of French wine and tell you on which side of an acre-size hill the grapes were grown.
I enjoyed wine but knew no more about it then than I did about violins. I have been described unkindly as having a naugahyde palate. I can taste the difference between wines, and enjoy one more than another, but subtleties elude my jaded palate; too much pipe smoke, and too many bourbon and cognac assaults on my taste buds are to blame.
(How taste buds can become partially deadened is a mystery to me. Taste buds are multicellular chemoreceptors that predominate on the tongue and palate. They are regenerative and are replaced every eight to twelve days. With new ones every couple of weeks how can they ever be in a numb state?)
I was thinking I should remember to tell David about the Cirque du Mardi Gras, and that he would probably order a medium-priced wine here—unless he was being treated by someone as Richard was treating Gaspard and me.
Gaspard snapped me out of my reverie with: “Since you are having fish and I am having beef, should we have a red and a white?”
“I think you should order a red for yourself and I will be content with mineral water.”
Beginning to be concerned about inflating the bill to be covered by Richard, I thought to suggest that perhaps vin ordinaire would suffice but I didn’t want to insult Gaspard on Richard’s account so I kept quiet. I was happy when Gaspard ordered an American wine but I wished I had been treated to a glimpse of the wine list so I could relate it to David, if for no other reason.
When the wine steward took Gaspard’s order and dismissed himself, Gaspard turned his attention to me and, of course, his utensils. This time he examined the minute spoon in the salt cellar before tapping it on his thumbnail. It was delicate mother-of-pearl. He put it down and picked up his teaspoon. He turned it over and back, over and back, on the table cloth. He studied it.
“Look at this.”
“What is it?”
“It has a different pattern from the rest. It is a different weight. It is more finely crafted. It has a maker’s mark and a crest on the tip of the handle. These other utensils are clearly stainless steel. This one must be silver.”
He handed it to me. I hefted it, peered at it through the lenses of my reading glasses. He was right, it was more finely turned than the other spoons on the table. And there was indeed a maker’s mark.
“It is sterling silver,” I said, “and it is lost.”
Gaspard put down the spoon and asked me to tell him about Cajuns. He wanted to know why they were called “coonasses.” I explained that I didn’t know how it came into use but some Cajuns seem to take pride in it. I started to make a comparison using rednecks and hillbillies, but thought that was a few asses too far and changed the conversation to Jean Lafitte and the War of 1812.
Gaspard was toying with his knives and forks again when the food arrived. I was relieved. I think Gaspard was on the verge of combing his mustache with a fork.
When the food arrived I got out my pepper mill and knife. I put them on the table.
“May I see your knife?”
I handed it over and Gaspard opened and closed it. He handed it back without commenting. I was happy he didn’t play with it. He eyed my pepper mill. Since I was having fish I put the folding steak knife back in my pocket.
“About the pepper mill and knife,” I said, “I suppose I could be accused of being effete and affected but I hate to cut meat with a dull knife, especially one with a serrated edge. The meat is torn and shredded rather than cut into nice, neat bites. And I hate stale pepper. Salt in table cellars is changed often in restaurants but pepper in grinders becomes antique before levels are low enough to be topped off.”
Gaspard shrugged and said, “I never gave it a thought but I suppose you are right about both the pepper and knives. I like the looks of your mill. I must get a personal mill myself.”
I moved the knife to where he could reach it but he was busy cutting his Wellington with his stainless steak knife.
The food was a pleasant surprise. My fish was done perfectly. It was a degree or two underdone, as it should be, and only lightly seasoned. I had learned from David to tell the server I wanted my fish cooked a bit underdone if I didn’t think the restaurant would know to do it that way to preserve its texture. I had discovered most did not. The shrimp were no doubt fresh that day. The potatoes and haricots verts were, well, potatoes and ordinary green beans.
Gaspard’s beef Wellington looked only a mite beyond raw. My friend Claudia, who visited New Orleans from her homes in Manhattan and on Block Island, liked her beef prepared that way. On the rare occasions she ordered beef in a restaurant, after she told the server she wanted it rare, I often added, “Cook it with a flashlight.” Claudia was eccentric about her salads. She rarely ordered them but when she did she didn’t put dressing on them and sometimes she ate her salad with her fingers. She would have let Gaspard play with her salad fork. She always drank wine with her meal but liked beer as an aperitif and a digestif. In middle age, she became particular about her beer, tending toward low calorie, low carb, “diet beer.” I frequently forgot that, laid in a supply of the wrong kind, and had to give it to David. I was not a beer person.
I don’t know how beef Wellington can be cooked so it is rare but cooked long enough that the pastry crust is crisply brown. Between the pâté and duxelles and rare meat you would expect the pastry to be soggy. I have read that the fillet is sometimes wrapped in thin ham or a crepe to prevent that. I don’t eat red meat often and when I do I order it well done. That makes table-mates and servers cringe but I don’t digest animal juices well. I avoid prime rib and preparations such as Wellington altogether. I didn’t envy Gaspard his.
Involved with his food as he was, Gaspard almost never looked up; so involved that he didn’t acknowledge it when I offered him a hard roll. I resisted dropping it on his plate as an amusing distraction but I considered it. I was finding Gaspard tiresome. At least his close work with the Wellington gave me the opportunity to take leave of my narrative tour of Louisiana and enjoy my own meal.
I did notice that Gaspard used his knife and fork as they are often used in Europe; that is, the fork is held tines downward with the index finger of the non-dominant hand when cutting something into bites and using a knife to pile vegetables on top behind the bite of meat. I learned to cut with the fork tines down when I was in Europe more than a half-century ago but I was never able to pile up the vegetables behind the bite of meat on the upside-down fork. Using the fork with the left hand doesn’t require passing the fork aback and forth between bites. That saves time and bother. Gaspard was a master with knife and fork.
For dessert, Gaspard ordered flan. I learned to like the caramel-covered custard not in France but In Mexico. I passed on dessert as a concession to efforts to contain my girth. I asked him, “Chicory or cafe au lait?” The latter, he said. I thought it sounded like a question. Maybe chicory was no longer offered in France; it was rarely served in New Orleans anymore. I thought, too late, that I should have offered Cuban coffee which is strong espresso with thick, sweet, emulsified, sugar foam. What you have then is cafécito. The foam is called espumita. It is a deliciously stout drink. It was too late.
I figuratively shook my head when I noticed Gaspard sucked on his teaspoon after using it on the custard before the coffee arrived. Then he twirled it between a thumb and index finger after he had finished the coffee—then stuck it back in his mouth.
I wondered if Gaspard had some kind of silverware fetish, handling each piece so much and sticking the spoon in his mouth so often. I didn’t dwell on that creepy thought.
I thought we were finished at last. I had done my hostly duty. It was time for thanks and good night, a handshake, and home. But, no, Gaspard wondered if he could have a small dish of fruit. Edward produced some raspberries, slightly shriveled being out of season.
Again with the spoon-sucking.
“Edward, do you know why there is a single silver teaspoon among the stainless utensils on our table?” Gaspard, asked as he held it up for Edward to see.
“No, but I will see if Jean-Claude knows. It is peculiar.”
Jean-Claude whisked himself to Gaspard’s side.
“Yes, monsieur?”
“We have all stainless steel utensils except for this fine teaspoon which is obviously silver.” He held it up so Jean Claude could see but didn’t offer to hand it to him when Jean Claude reached for it. “How comes it to be here?”
Jean-Claude forgot his reserve and his French. “My God,” he gasped, “that is from Mrs. Van Fleet’s personal silverware set.” He looked shaken and again reached for the spoon.
Again Gaspard again declined to hand it over. “I’m not through with it. I am going to have another cup of coffee.”
“Oh, sir, please be careful with it. The week before we opened, Mrs.Van Fleet was host of a small dinner party in the private dining room for a few friends she hoped would become frequent customers, which they have. She brought her personal family silver service from home. You can see her family crest. It must have gone missing when it went to be washed. I am surprised it wasn’t stolen.”
“Interesting,” Gaspard said, but he didn’t sound all that interested. “It probably wasn’t stolen because no one realized it was silver. A sterling spoon will fetch a hundred bucks these days.”
With that, Gaspard popped the spoon back in his mouth and said around it, “I would like a savory and after that some sherbet of any flavor to cleanse my palate.”
Jean-Claude said, “Well, excuse me, Mr. Martin,” and, scowling at the back of Gaspard’s head, huffed off. Apparently he didn’t carry food to customers. Edward was perplexed about Gaspard’s request for a savory. Being mostly an English custom it wasn’t the fault of an American waiter in a French restaurant in the United States that a savory didn’t ring a bell or bang a gong.
“Bring him half toast points with an inch of crisp bacon on each.”
Gaspard put down the teaspoon and patted the tablecloth until he found his dessert spoon hiding behind the bread basket, and picked it up. Instead of using it he used his other hand to pop the toast points in his mouth. He chewed them as if he had been told he had only so many seconds to dispose of them. After that he attacked the small bowl of pineapple sherbet with the dessert spoon.
It was 11 o’clock and we were the only two diners left in the room. On the far side, tables were being given a final busing and tablecloths were being removed. Jean-Claude had disappeared but Edward was hovering.
Apparently, at last, Gaspard could think of nothing more to order
Gaspard asked me for my telephone number in case something unexpected happened and he was delayed and couldn’t contact Richard. He said he had Richard’s number. I wrote my number on a slip of paper and handed it to him. He stood and offered his hand. He said, “I have enjoyed this dinner very much. Now you must excuse me; I have a telephone call to the continent to make and it is growing very late there. Tell your Mr. Stile I will be at his door with Dr. Hart in my rental car promptly at 10. I am picking up the professor from a train at 7:30 and will get the violin from a locker while I am there.”
I was incredulous: “The violin is in a storage locker?” I asked. “Yes, absolutely safer than in the hotel or in my hand. And it won’t get overheated.” With that, he bowed slightly, turned heel, picked up his overcoat from the abandoned cloak room and disappeared in the direction of the elevators.
I turned to Edward. He was standing frozen in place with his mouth open. “Well, that was abrupt,” he said.
“He probably was afraid I would find some way to stick him with the bill,” I offered.
l sat back down and asked Edward for the check.
“Oh Mr. Martin, you needn’t rush out like your guest. If you will forgive me for saying so, I could tell by watching that the night was torture for you. I could also tell that the man was a stranger to you and you had to fill the air with conversation because he was quiet as a turnip. Oh, listen to me. I have been too forward and said too much. My apologies, sir.”
I would have told him an apology was not necessary but he stammered, “Why don’t you sit here and recover. I will bring you another cup of coffee while I finish totaling the bill. There is no one else in the restaurant and if I continue to serve a guest it will delay me having to help close the room.” By then vacuums could be heard in the hallway outside the dining room.
A rest was welcome. I was exhausted. It is a strain to entertain a stranger, especially one as trying as Gaspard. I used the men’s room while Edward was getting my coffee.
When he returned, Edward had the bill and a small balloon glass in one hand and the coffee and saucer in the other.
“The snifter is cognac,” Edward said, “on me; well, on Mrs. Van Fleet. I would join you if I could; my feet are killing me.”
“Will you get in trouble if you sit with me?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Martin, it will be a privilege and the kitchen staff will envy me.” He sat.
l sipped my cognac and coffee and we discussed Gaspard and his silverware fetish. And we talked about New Orleans. Edward had worked in many restaurants, most of which I had visited, and he had wonderful stories about them, their owners, their menus, and their staffs.
As I finished, Edward stood and finished busing the table.
“Oh Lord, where is that damned teaspoon.”
“What is it?”
“Mrs. Van Fleet’s teaspoon isn’t here,” he practically shouted.
Jean-Claude must have heard because he rushed out from the kitchen. Edward explained the spoon was nowhere present.
The three of us looked under napkins, foolishly patted the tablecloth, then dived under the table and looked there.
Several waiters joined us in the search before it became obvious the teaspoon wasn’t there.
“Where is my pepper mill?”
I emptied the pockets of my trousers onto the table, then turned out my jacket’s patch pockets. I explained about the pocketknife I had put on the table and about the missing pepper mill. Perhaps because they were waiters, or because we seemed to be in a crisis, no one said anything. They just stared at the table.
Jean-Claude was wringing his hands. Edward was holding his forehead. The other waiters, none of whom knew why a missing teaspoon was an emergency, drifted away.
With a jerk of my head, I blurted, “You don’t suppose Gaspard stole it?”
The idea that Gaspard was a thief elicited gasps.
Jean-Claude wanted to know if Gaspard was a friend. I said, no, and gave them a vague and brief outline of who Gaspard was and why he was visiting, and who Richard was.
“We’re toast,” Edward said.
“We sure as hell are,” Jean-Claude agreed. “Mrs. Van Fleet will have our heads.”
“Take me to a phone,” I said.
With both Jean-Claude and Edward standing by, I dialed the phone and asked a couple of questions.
I tried another number and reported that apparently Richard was not at home.
“Let’s do this,” I suggested. “We don’t say anything to anyone about Mrs. Van Fleet’s missing spoon. I will track Richard down and then Gaspard. I will jump him when he and Richard meet.”
“But wait a minute,” I said, “How long ago was Mrs. Van Fleet’s dinner party?”
“We opened four months ago and it was a week before then,” Jean-Claude said.
“Excellent. How about this: If Mrs. Van Fleet hasn’t missed her teaspoon for four months what is the chance she will miss it now—if at all?”
Jean-Claude’s and Edward’s relief was palpable.
“What say, we never mention it? If I can get the spoon back from Gaspard, well and good. We may find a way to return it to Mrs. Van Fleet and you two can be heroes. On the other hand, if I can’t, you play dumb. Mrs. Van Fleet will probably never miss her spoon. I will try to get it back but you will have to decide for yourselves how to proceed from there, if I do.”
It was clear that dishonesty was more palatable to Jean-Claude and Edward than the risk of losing their jobs.
They wouldn’t let me pay my bill. They said they appreciated my efforts on their behalf and my dinner was just another thing about which Mrs. Van Fleet wouldn’t learn.
We shook hands and I caught the elevator and got a taxi on Canal Street and headed for in the Garden District and bed. I was happy Gaspard was going to take care of Dr. Hart. I hoped Richard hadn’t forgotten about him. It was unlike Richard not to mention him to me. He had been on about nothing else but Gaspard and the violin for weeks.
That was the end of the Night of the Teaspoon but it was far from the end of the story.
I didn’t track down Richard. I was pooped. I turned in.
The next morning, I returned to bed after getting up at about 5 to do the necessary and considering getting breakfast, then turning up uninvited at Richard’s in time to get in on what I thought was sure to be an interesting time with Richard, Gaspard and Dr. Hart—if the professor made it. Richard and I had discussed that a trip all the way from Detroit and back by train would be hard on a man who we figured must be well past 80. And he was coming by Amtrak just for the fun of a train ride. Well, I wasn’t invited. Nothing for it but to go back to sleep wondering.
That evening after I took Lenore, whom I saw often but had no long-term plans with, home after dinner at my apartment and returned, Richard knocked on my front door as he opened it.
“Well, come in.”
Richard was wound up. Giddy. Sober, but acting intoxicated.
The negotiation had been a success. The deal made; the deed done. The professor and he had agreed that the violin was in fact unique, the work of the grandfather of the Stradivari of France, one of a kind. The funds to purchase it had been wired to Gaspard’s account in Switzerland.
“Switzerland?“
He explained, as I knew, that many Europeans, and some Americans, routinely do banking in Switzerland because enjoy the discretion of Swiss bankers and like to dodge tax collectors.
“Then we went for a celebratory breakfast at Brennan’s. After that, Gaspard took Dr. Hart to the train station and was going to the airport the long way. I am so excited I can’t sit down. I can’t be still. Fix me a drink.”
After he was supplied with a glass of cognac I asked him to tell me about the violin and how it passed inspection as the genuine artifact, as advertised.
It was an involved explanation. And a fire did indeed play a part in the determination. Here is how Richard told me Dr. Hart described what was known of the background of the Laurent Lupot violin. He had researched the history meticulously from newspaper accounts of the time, and other public documents.
In Paris, on May 4, 1897 the site of a charity bazaar became a conflagration that killed 126 people in 10 minutes. An unknown number died later. Almost all of the dead and injured were the cream of society in the City of Light. The event is known as the “Belle Époque Inferno.” In 1897, Paris was in its Golden Age. Belle Époque. Think American Roaring Twenties. Each year in an upscale triangle of commerce near the Champs-Élysées, the Bazar de la Charité was held by a consortium of charitable organizations to benefit the city’s poor. All manner of goods were gathered throughout the year by elite Parisians to sell at the bazaar’s booths. There were also booths in which you could, for a bounty of several francs, get a kiss from a comely society belle.
The bazaar in 1897 was special. It was organized by Baron de Mackau, described as a portly figure with a little Napoleon III goatee. Mackau had rented a vacant lot on rue Jean Goujon. A temporary building 197 feet by 62 feet was built of pine with a tarred roof and three steps leading to a platform floor under which the carpenters had chucked scraps of wood. Inside was what was described as a charming medieval street scene constructed using painted wood, cardboard, canvas flats, and papier-mache—painted by a fashionable set designer. The ceiling was made of fabric—like a tent—and an amusing gas-filled balloon was suspended from its center.
The big draw that year, besides the society ladies, was the demonstration of a recent invention, the cinema.The manager of the bazaar was the fetching Sophie Charlotte, the Duchess d’ Alencon, sister of Sissi, the Empress of Austria. She was quite an arresting figure. She was the granddaughter-in-law of King Louis Philippe of France. Her husband was Prince Ferdinand, Duke d’ Alencon.
On May 3rd, the bazaar had a dry run in which 4,500 francs were earned. The May 4th sales were reported brisk and the ladies were described as lovely in their filmy spring dresses. Duchess Sophie Charlotte d’ Alencon was reported as striking in her black satin with a long train, her hair dressed with a new, and it turned out, highly flammable lotion.
By 4 p.m. there were1,600 or 1,700 visitors at the 22 booths, according to accounts. It was time to start up the cinema projector which, since there was no electricity, was illuminated by an ether lamp. The projectionist, unable to see clearly, asked his assistant for more light. The assistant struck a match.
Boom. Instant inferno. Flames spread across the ceiling, hot tar dripped, and embers fell from the roof onto the floor of the cardboard village, on the lawn, and and on chiffon dresses. The entire structure burned so violently and so rapidly, witnesses reported, that within 10 minutes nothing was left but the dying and the dead. Among the charred dead were wedding rings annealed to fleshless fingers; melted combs were fused to scalps. Waiting coachmen futilely plunged into the flames to rescue their mistresses. One woman described how she stepped over bodies to escape the flames. Not all of them were dead.
The Duke d’ Alencon escaped. Due to a terrible error the duchess was initially reported safe. However, after no one could find her she was identified by her teeth. Sophie Charlotte was one of the first examples of identification by forensic dentistry. Other victims, almost all of whom were women, were identified by their jewelry or clothing. Or by a bit of hair. Grisly, it was, but as newspapers reported, human nature being what it is, money was raised for the survivors through the sale to the curious of 87,000 unidentified objects from the fire. Mackau was fined at a public inquiry and the two film technicians were sentenced to prison.
Here, Richard told me, Dr. Hart paused to say the next part of the story was a most important part as regarded the identity of the violin.
While most of the victims of the fire were society women, he said, there were a few men. The men were ostracized when it became known that most of them fled the fire rather than help rescue the burning ladies. In fact, they were reported to have struck the dying with their canes as they fled the scene. A New York Times headline in its May 16 edition read, “Cowardice of Paris Men Exhibited in Brutal Form During the Burning of the Charity Bazaar.”
“Guess who one of the cane-wielding men was, and guess what he had in his other hand?” Richard asked.
I sat up so straight in my chair so fast that my pipe fell out out my mouth spilling coals and ash in my lap. I jumped up, brushed them onto the floor and scuffed my shoe around to put them out.
“A violin! The hell, you say. The duke and a violin!”
Richard jumped up and danced around like he had just scored the winning basket as the buzzer sounded or scratched a winning lottery ticket.
I needed a drink so I poured him a generous measure of cognac and then one for myself.
Richard told me Dr. Hart said there had been a rumor, a story, passed among violin aficionados forever, that a Laurent Lupot violin had either survived or perished in such a fire. But it took the labors of Dr. Hart’s years of research to nail down the story, to connect the violin with the duke and the charity bazaar. That was as far as his research went and he had expected nothing would come of it.
Richard said the old professor rubbed his hands together and clapped in anticipation as Gaspard took the cover off the violin case and unlocked and opened it. Richard said he all but grabbed the violin out of Gaspard’s hands. Then he and the professor hand-wrestled and nearly dropped it. Finally, Dr. Hart turned it over and exclaimed, “There are the burn marks. Look, they are there. The violin is genuine. It is real.”
Sure enough, Richard said, there were two black spots on the back side, right in the middle. One was the size of a silver dollar and the other quarter-size. And the initials LL were carved in small letters near the chin rest. A date was scratched near them but it was faint. The professor had told him with the proper equipment there were ways to make them out, but given the burned spots and the initials he pronounced the violin genuine without further tests.
I blinked. “How did they get there? I mean just two spots burned?”
Well, said Richard, here is what Dr. Hart thinks, and Gaspard concurs: there was always a rumor that the violin was in the possession of someone eminent, perhaps even a noble, or at least someone wealthy. The Duke d’ Alencon was an aristocrat of the first order. There is no guessing why he took the violin to the bazaar or got it from someone else there. Whatever the case, it is obvious he fled the fire, as witnesses recounted, with violin case in hand. Something dropped on the case or the case was dropped on something burning, then retrieved. The professor thinks hot embers dropped from the top of the canvas ceiling of the scene set, or the tarred roof, and burned through the case. Oddly, Richard thought, the burned spots were still raw, worn smooth, but unvarnished. But the professor explained that there must have been concern that putting varnish on the burned spots, which would have required sanding first, might change the tone of the violin. He supposed it hadn’t changed merely by being scorched so it was left as it was. The case the violin was in now was a newer one, naturally.
That and other questions about its condition would probably remain a mystery, Dr. Hart had said, because the fire and the loss of his wife had killed the duke. He had been found wandering in the street next to the fire, confused, asking after his wife and dragging a violin case. He dropped dead while walking in his garden not a week after the fire. He didn’t recover his senses before he died.
All at once, while he was still fondling the violin, Richard said, Gaspard announced that if they needed to examine it further it should be outside. “Of course, Dr. Hart said, “why don’t we put it back in its case and put the case on the balcony until then?”
Before he could even ask why, Richard said, the violin was back in its case, the latches snapped closed and Gaspard deposited it under a chair on the floor of the balcony.
“I was about to object when Dr. Hart explained that the violin had been stored in a cold locker and it should be allowed to warm up slowly so the wood wouldn’t lose its temper. He asked me if I ever had wood flooring moved into a building, and did I have to wait a few days for the wood to become acclimated before it was put down? Of course he was right. Exactly so. He also said the violin would have to be left to warm slowly so the varnish wouldn’t craze from a sudden temperature change. Especially, the violin should rest for a few days before I played it. It was better left in its insulated case, he said. It occurred to me that Gaspard wasn’t going to let me handle the violin again until I agreed to buy it and paid for it.
“Naturally I was disappointed but understood. Before I could respond, Dr. Hart produced his own violin case and the fake Laurent Lupot violin. He turned it over and although the varnish was the came color as the original, there were no burned spots.The finish was mirror-like. He said the fake had more curve than the original and was a bit longer, and he showed us a hairline crack in the back body. He said the tuning pegs were slightly different in shape and were a different kind of bone There were no initials and there was no date”.
At first glance, the violin was pretty, Richard said.
Richard said Dr. Hart told them, “The fool in London who gave me me the fake didn’t know the first thing about violins. He had heard the story of the Laurent Lupot and the fire—from the same man who sold it to him for a great deal of money. Can you imagine? The seller created a market by telling his mark a plausible story about a prize for men who coveted fine things. He baited the trap with a fake violin, sprung it, and Voilá. Nothing to it. The proverbial sucker and his money.”
Richard said he then asked Gaspard where he found the original. It was his turn to pick up the story.
Gaspard said that after hearing the same rumors Dr. Hart had heard about the fire and the rumored connection of the violin with it, he visited Paris to see what he could find out. He searched the main Paris library, squinting at miles of microfilmed newspaper for accounts of the fire. He said he had gone a lot further in his research than Dr. Hart. After several days, Gaspard said, he found a detail, a mere paragraph, in the bottom of an account of the fire in the eminent Paris newspaper Le Figaro. He almost missed it but recognized its importance immediately. The paragraph noted that no one was able to explain how the duke came into possession of the violin or what became of it after his death.
Gaspard said more research led to the discovery that a church had been built on the site of the bazaar fire. It is still there, he said. Notre-Dame-de-Consolation is a chapel built in honor of the victims of the fire. Gaspard said he learned the building fund was build on proceeds from the sale of those pathetic relics from the charity bazaar sold to the morbidly curious. He visited the church and examined membership rolls and a published history of the church. He said he spoke English at the church to be consistent with a cover story if he needed one, and was glad he did.
A young priest was happy to help the American who said he was examining records in support of research concerning his wife’s family.
I told the priest my wife was an invalid as the result of an auto accident and I was trying desperately to help her out of the depression that had her in its grip for two years thus far. I had finally found a project to interest her. She had hired a research company to trace her lineage. The family tree had been searched as far as Paris. My wife learned to her great satisfaction she was related to a duke and duchess.
I explained that at that point, following advice from the ancestry research company, my wife had taken over the research herself. It captured her interest further and provided endless hours to pass her painful time as happily as she could. I said my wife’s doctors were astounded at the change in her. If was as if she had discovered a way out of her depression.
I said my wife spent many hours corresponding with a French company modeled on the one she had engaged at home. It didn’t do in-depth searches but would find and copy documents requested and described by a client. That was its main business—tracing document trails for law firms and banks and the like.
I told the priest the firm had provided facsimiles of clippings to my wife about the duke and duchess who were identified as Prince Ferdinand, Duke d’Alencon and Sophie Charlotte Augustine, Duchess d’Alencon. There was much information on the couple but what fascinated my wife, I said, was that they were victims of the great charity fire of 1897. And I told the priest that my wife had re-engaged the American research firm and she discovered through it that she must be a distant relation of the duke.
The young priest, whose attention had been rapt, was agog: “The fire. I know something about the fire. I studied it when I was first posted to the church. I am sorry to say I don’t think there are any descendants of the duke and duchess in our congregation, or living in France. As young people sometimes do these days, the duke’s grandchildren turned their backs on their parents and their heritage and left the country. I don’t suppose there was anything like a family fortune to inherit, or if there was it was sent to the children upon the death of their parents.”
My wife searched for them too, I told the priest. If there are any descendants of the duke and duchess they are not in the United States. My wife has decided it would not profit her to search beyond our home country, I said, but my wife would still be interested in the church. I explained that my own research among church documents and public records had satisfied me that I had collected enough information to satisfy my wife but there was one further thing that intrigued her: she read that the duke who died a few days after the fire had been seen at the scene of the fire with a violin. It was remarkable enough that the mystery of the violin was reported in an article at the time of the fire in Le Figaro.
I told him, “My wife wonders if there is a record anywhere of the fate of the violin.”
The priest’s eyes had come alive and he fidgeted. “My goodness, not only have I heard of it, we call it ‘the duke’s violin; in fact, it is here in the church.”
My heart palpitated. It was too much to hope for. It was a miracle. God had smiled on me.
“I have heard the monsignor complain about ‘the duke’s violin.’ It was given to the church many years ago,” said the priest. “It is kept in the closet of holies. It has been there for ages. Monsignor Julian moves it around from time to time in the closet because he can’t decide what to do with it. It is just clutter.”
I took a deep breath: “How does the violin come to be here? May I see it?”
The young priest introduced himself at that point as Father Andre and said he would see if Monsignor Julian would permit an American visitor to see the violin. He walked quickly away with his robes flapping in his wake.
I sat there, trembling slightly, for the better part of an hour watching people come and go, dipping their hand in a holy water font as they entered. I thought Father Andre had forgotten me.
But no, he reappeared following an older man who had a violin in hand. The violin. It was—the—violin, the duke’s violin! The Laurent Lupot.
I could hardly take my eyes off the violin as the older man introduced himself as Monsignor Julian. He handed it to me with no ceremony. He just held it by the neck and stuck the violin in my shaking hands.
“Father Andre tells me you want to know all about the violin, We have had it for many years. It has cluttered the holies closet. He has explained the sad story of your wife and her condition and I am happy to let you hold the violin.”
I was overwhelmed and didn’t know what to say but I finally mustered, of all things, “What in the world is the holies closet?”
Monsignor Julian chuckled. “The holies closet is our name for the little room in which we keep the relics that congregation members and other people in the city have given the church over the years. When I say ‘relics’ I mean objects people think are true relics—statues dug from holy sites, dishes purported to be from the last supper. We have enough ’splinters of the true cross’ to provide decades of toothpicks for a monastery. Oh, forgive me. I shouldn’t make fun of our good children of the church who are taken in by con artists, buying worthless fake relics; I am amazed we haven’t been gifted the ear of a saint.”
Given the gravity of he situation I cannot believe it but I laughed along with Father Andre, but nervously
“The violin was given to us by a woman who claims to be related to the duke and duchess d’ Alencon. I never asked how she acquired it. I suppose it was a gift from a relative—if it was really owned once by the duke and duchess. Megan, the woman, has always been, what? Rather dim. She donated the violin—several times—to be auctioned as an item at our annual charity event. I understand you know the history of the great fire that killed the duke and duchess. We have continued charitable work in honor of those killed in the fire and those who donated to build the church. Do you think the violin may really have been owned by the duke?”
I didn’t want to regard it too highly: “Perhaps. The violin is believed to have been burned in the fire. And look here, there are burns on the back. Although it is difficult to tell the condition of the finish underneath the dust it has gathered, it looks as if it might be old enough. It certainly is careworn but at least it is in one piece.”
The monsignor looked me in the eye and studied my face.
“We didn’t sell the violin at auction because it didn’t seem right to sell something donated by a woman who clearly was not in possession of her wits. She was never bright but she has deteriorated with age. She obviously treasured what she called, and we learned from her to call, ‘the duke’s violin’ when she donated it over and over. But she would hardly appreciate the violin in her condition and it surely would not bring very much at an auction in its condition.”
Monsignor Julian looked at the ceiling and then at his feet. “How would your wife like to have the violin?” he asked.
I almost fainted. Every cell in my body tingled. I wanted to kiss him.
“Oh, Monsignor Julian, there could be no greater gift to my wife. It will lift her high out of her depression. It may save her life.”
The monsignor said he would make me a deal. If I would contribute something toward the upkeep of the woman—Megan—for what little time she had left, he would give me the violin for my wife. Megan was a ward of her church, he said. Church volunteers took her food and looked after her health. She owned her home and had access to free medical care but a donation for her food and a few items for hygiene would be appreciated, the monsignor said.
I agreed immediately. I am sure I came across as a rude, uncultured, ugly American because I whipped out my wallet and counted out 10 one hundred dollar bills. It was probably an obscene amount. I had the sudden fear I had overdone it and Monsignor Julian might become suspicious and renege. But, no, Father Andre snatched the bills. Monsignor Julian winced but managed a smile. I told him I was certain my wife would send a generous offering to the church when she learned of its compassion.
The monsignor left us. Father Andre said he was sorry there was no case for the violin and no bow. I assured him that was of no moment. I wondered why neither man wondered what the instrument might be worth since I had jumped at the offered bargain so quickly. Perhaps the clergymen had the welfare of their ward uppermost in their minds to the exclusion of other thought. I didn’t dwell on the question; I left the church as fast as I could without looking as if I was about to sprint. I relaxed a bit. There was a taxi at the curb.
Richard leaned back and stretched: “And that was Gaspard’s story.”
“So what happened after Gaspard and the professor arrived here? Give me the juicy details about how the negotiation went.”
Richard said it was embarrassing but he had asked Dr. Hart to leave so he and Gaspard could reach an accommodation. As he suggested, Dr. Hart wandered downstairs, walked outside a bit, then went back into the entryway between the front and inside doors to wait. Richard said he and Gaspard settled on a total in U.S. dollars for him minus the cost of his airfare and hotel costs, and some money as an honorarium for the good professor for his time and expenses. Then, Richard said, he got on the phone and gave his bank representative a prearranged code and the amount involved and Gaspard got on the line and gave him directions for getting the money from Richard’s bank to Gaspard’s in Geneva with instructions that the bank there should acknowledge its receipt. Then they waited.
You must have fed Gaspard something highly spiced or spoiled last night, Richard said, because while we were waiting he said he needed to use my bathroom and might be quite a while. He looked at the floor when he asked me which way to go. He was acutely embarrassed.
When Gaspard went to the bathroom I went in search of Dr. Hart. He was downstairs looking at the clocks in the entryway between the sets of doors. “Are these originals?” I had to laugh as the professor answered his own question. “I assume they are since you have so many other nice things, but why are they in an anteroom?”
“For the same reason the original violin is locked in its insulated case on the balcony,” I told him. “I assume we can bring it in now that I have paid for it. The pendulum clock on the right is a Seth Thomas. The one on the left is a Riley Whiting. Both are from their own workshops if not their own hands. Both circa 1780. Very fragile. The one in the middle was made by my grandfather. Its works are wooden except for the spring and pins in the wheels. It is particularly sensitive to temperature changes. The slightest warp and it is finished, I said. “The air in this room is kept at a constant temperature and humidity. It has the same system you find in museums. It was a gift from a friend who has a connection with the city’s art museum.”
As he and Professor Hart went back upstairs, Richard said, he heard a toilet flush. In a minute, Gaspard rejoined them just as his banker called to tell him, then Gaspard, that he had heard from Gaspard’s banker in Geneva that his funds were successfully deposited. “Done and done.”
I told them I would treat them for a late breakfast at Brennan’s in the French Quarter. I fetched the violin case from the balcony. I longed to look at the violin, luxuriate in owning it. I thought that would look childish, so I put the case behind a loveseat and we walked out.
Gaspard said he and the professor should take his car so he could take Dr. Hart to the station to catch a northbound Amtrak train. He would still have time to drive up the River Road the long way to the airport. They would follow me to Brennan’s.
They had nice, ordinary American breakfasts, none of Brennan’s famous dishes, Richard said. Gaspard was quiet but odd—he played with his silverware. The professor was delightful. He told stories about all the places he had visited in the service of enlarging the body of knowledge about antique stringed instruments.
That’s pretty much the end of the story, Richard said.
And where is the violin now? I wanted to know. I was surprised Richard hadn’t brought it for show and tell. Richard looked sheepish. He said he was being sure it was warming up sufficiently. He wanted to play it. He had resisted taking it out but if I would come over to his apartment for brunch the next day we would have a grand opening. He would put fresh strings on the violin and tune it, then he would play Beethoven’s violin foundational concerto. I knew who Beethoven was, of course, but I didn’t know what foundational meant when applied to a concerto until thinking back about the conversation days later. I looked it up. It is said Beethoven’s concerto is considered the foundation on which other composers built their own.
Great idea, I told him. Could I bring some wine? He said, no, we would have brandy. New Orleans was chilly enough for a fireplace fire. Richard was alert enough to jerk visibly when he said “fire,” remembering what was probably the last time a fire accompanied a violin.
Richard fairly skipped out the door, and I spent the rest of the day and evening on my Sherlock Holmes project—rereading all of the adventures again for the first time since I was a child.
The next morning I was up with the birds, showered, shaved, and shat before 7. Richard was not an early riser so I piddled around until about 9:30, then an extraordinary thing happened: I got a phone call from Gaspard.
“I decided to take the train with the Harts instead of flying back to New York. I am enjoying their company,” he said. “We are breaking our trips into parts. We are in Memphis, where we spent the night. We will go on to Chicago and spend the night there. Then Dr. and Mrs. Hart will go on to Detroit and I will continue east. I may spend a few days there before flying back to Paris. Has Mr. Stile had any difficulties concerning the violin?”
I told him Richard was being so careful he hadn’t uncased the violin yet but we were going to have a kind of grand opening in an hour or so.
“Wonderful,” he said.
“Why didn’t you call him directly?”
“Well, I have a little surprise for him. He will need a number in order to set the surprise in motion. Conveniently, the number is the number of his street address. You won’t forget that.”
“What the hell . . . ?”
But he was gone.
I was puzzled, then alarmed. Something was wrong. I didn’t know whether to call Richard with the news or wait and tell him when I saw him. I decided to wait and tell Richard about the call in person. I put on a jacket and left the apartment.
When I got to Richard’s house by cab there stood a wizened man with snowy hair sticking out from under a flat driving cap. He was clutching a cane in one hand and a well-worn Gladstone bag in the other. He was staring at the front of Richard’s house.
“Can I help you? My friend lives here.”
“Is your friend Richard Stile?”
“He is. And who might you be?”
“I am not ‘might be’ young man. I am Dr. George Hart.”
I gasped. The skin on my face tingled. My heart began pounding. There was a rushing in my ear, then pressure like you feel under water that creates a silence. My stomach knotted itself and my bowels felt as if they might move. I was caught between throwing up and fainting. I had trouble getting a breath.
In a flash, I knew a catastrophe was about to envelope Richard and me, and Professor Hart.
I told this new Dr. Hart he should go inside with me.
When Richard answered the door, I indicated Dr. Hart and told Richard the old gentleman was here to see him. I told Richard he should sit down.
“This is Dr. George Hart. I suspect he is the genuine article.”
Richard apprehended the situation more slowly than I had. Then . . .
“Oh please! Please, please, please. Noooo!”
He bolted out of the room and returned with the violin case. He sat down, put the case on his knee, unzipped the cover, pulled it off, cast it aside.
He stared dumbly at the case, held it up. He tried to open it. Looked up at me.
“It’s locked! It’s locked! Both latches have combination locks!”
My face burned again.
“Try 892.”
“That’s my street address.”
“Yes, try it.”
I cannot begin to describe the next few minutes. Dr. Hart recoiled into a wing-back chair and his head and neck sank into his chest, Richard threw open the violin case, pulled the instrument from it, turned it over, and moaned. “No spots. No burns. This isn’t it. This is the fake. This is the fake!”
He raised the instrument over his head then smashed it against a marble coffee table. He grabbed the remains and slung them into a gilded mirror on a far wall.
The professor looked as if he was trying to decide whether to get under the chair or run for the door. “Would it be better if I left?” he whispered.
I whispered back: “No, it will be fine. Sit tight. It will be over in a few minutes.”
I held my breath. Richard hadn’t realized but the half of it. Then he realized the rest.
He collapsed to the pillowed love seat and put his face in his hands. “Gaspard has more than a million of my dollars and the imposter Dr. Hart has my violin.”
I gestured to the befuddled-looking professor and we went into Richard’s kitchen. I offered to make coffee. Dr. Hart shook his head. “Already had two cups.”
“A drink, then.” Another shake.
“Milk?”
“Thank you. My tummy, always nervous, is having a breakdown.”
While we were in the kitchen, I heard soft whimpers coming from the living room. I didn’t know what to do.
In a few minutes a red-eyed Richard came in the room and sat at the breakfast table. He was carrying a tumbler of what I suspected was bourbon,
“Tell me what you know,” he said.
I told him I suspected something was amiss all along but couldn’t figure out what. I told him about the phone call that morning from Gaspard.
Turning toward him, Richard said, “And you are Dr. Hart from Detroit, author of ‘The Violin: Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators?’”
“I am he and I am sorry if I had something to do with whatever awful thing has happened here.”
I assured the professor he did not. Then, as Richard nursed his bourbon, I told the professor the whole story. When he spoke, at last, the professor said he had contacted Gaspard D’eau after seeing the notice of the Laurent Lupot for sale. Yes, he was intrigued for reasons we would understand. D’Eau had called him a couple of times and instructed him to present himself at this very address at 10 a.m. this very day. No, Gaspard had never said anything about Paris, a fire, a duke, or a church. He had looked forward to hearing Gaspard’s account of tracking down the violin nearly as much as he longed to see the violin.
I thought out loud, “So, you were an unconscious actor, an unwitting confidence builder for Richard. What may have begun as something honest when you first talked to Gaspard became larcenous soon enough. After identifying Richard to you, Dr. Hart, Gaspard realized there was more to be made than the price of the Laurent Lupot and recruited a clever con man to be you, the distinguished violin expert. He then gave you instructions on where and when to appear at Richard’s home. You had no need to speak with Richard before than so there was no chance you would stumble onto his game. You minded your business until it was time to visit New Orleans. You are an innocent victim. And now we know why Gaspard was a day early.”
“Do you own a fake Laurent Lupot violin?” Richard asked.
“Of course not. What would I do with a fake violin?”
“We’ll, have you ever taken a violin in from the cold and have to let it warn up slowly before playing it?
“Whatever for?”
Richard squeezed his eyelids closed tightly, then opened them and asked himself and us, “How did Gaspard learn about the Laurent Lupot violin in the first place, know to look for it in Paris, know about the fire and the duke, and the church?”
That is a question pondered by everyone who has heard the story and a satisfactory answer has never been found.
Richard leaped to his feet and almost took the table with him. “We must do something. We might be able to catch them. They were in Memphis en route to Chicago. Surely the police can head them off.”
I took the professor by the arm and guided him to Richard’s library.
“Professor, pardon my asking but wasn’t it a hard trip . . . won’t it be a hard roundtrip from Detroit for someone I figure must be at least 80?”
“Oh, well, it would be were it not for my wife. Agnes takes good care of me. She is only 81. I am 88.”
I recovered from that enough to inquire where was the missus and where were they staying.
“Well, Agnes, is at the airport. I didn’t think she was invited to Mr. Stile’s home. Besides, she was exhausted. It was her first time on an airplane. She was excited and didn’t close her eyes the whole way here. She may be napping now.”
“What had you planned to do after finishing your consultation for Mr. Stiles?”
“I thought we might see a bit of New Orleans before starting for home,” he said.
“How about this? I have a friend, a lovely widow in her 60s, who has a large house near the French Quarter. She has a guest house and loves guests, particularly intelligent, cultured guests. I am going to call her. She will put you up for as long as you wish and show you the city.”
The professor tried to decline the offer but I ran right over him in the way I do that gets me called a bully.
I called Clara who had been married to a good friend who fell overboard their yacht in the middle of the night off the coast of St. Bart’s and disappeared. Her maid said it was Clara’s day to be a docent at the city art museum. I called there, got her, and explained the situation.
“Delighted,” she said, “get me a description of Agnes and I will pick her up at the airport and then collect Dr. Hart at Richard’s.”
Clara was a gem. Like Richard, she came from a wealthy family, and she married into another. Her late husband’s business was confined to keeping track of, and occasionally renegotiating, leases to oil companies that drilled and pumped on the many thousands of acres swamp the family had owned for generations.
I related the plans to the professor and left him in Richard’s library. It rivaled many a city library with books that could occupy people with wide-ranging interests for a long time. An hour would rush by Dr. Hart.
When I returned to the kitchen I found Richard on a conference call with the chief of the NOPD; the chief’s intelligence division commander, a woman named Regina LaFourcade; and the agent-in-charge of the New Orleans office of the FBI. Richard was most of the way into describing the larceny with enough detail to aid them in a search for Gaspard and the imposter Hart, including a description of each and a probable itinerary and timeline.
It may strain credulity to believe that Richard could summon such muscular help on so short notice but he did have those friends, the kind of longtime friends people accumulate by being wealthy and powerful themselves. Who knows what favors are owed and repaid among such people?
It is also true that sometimes criminals enter the orbit of powerful, law-abiding people. Members of the New Orleans mob stayed close to the other side of the line of what was legal but skated across it into the world of the legal when it profited them. And some of them were refined people.
When I lived in New Orleans and worked for a newspaper there the head of the mob was Carlos Marcello. You may have heard of him. Some lawmen, and then-District Attorney Jim Garrison, believed he was mixed up in the assassination of President Kennedy.
One of the times Marcello was on trial it was on charges of running a business whose activity was in illegal pinball machine gambling. If that sounds like a minor thing, it was not. It was immensely profitable and didn’t involve violence—something attractive to a mobster. The newspaper’s court reporter realized on a Friday night that he had missed some key piece of testimony in his trial coverage. He had testimony that depended on what came earlier, but had missed the earlier part part because he was calling in and dictating to a rewrite man what had already happened. That presented a problem because he didn’t want to call prosecutors with questions on a Friday night. He also didn’t want anyone in that office involved in the trial to know he had screwed up—and talk about it.
I suggested he call someone of the other side—perhaps Marcello’s attorneys. He tried three. None could be reached. Well then, I said, call Carlos.
“Call Carlos Marcello and ask him about something that occurred at his own trial? Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t call Carlos Marcello for anything.”
I never had any compunction about calling a news source under any conditions. I occasionally got the governor out of someone’s bed not his own and talked to a certain senator when she was clearly in her cups.
Carlos Marcello was known to hang out at a motel he owned on Airline Highway near the airport. I looked up the number and called it. Sometimes the unimaginable happens. Carlos himself answered. Several heads in the newsroom cranked toward me when I said,” Mr. Marcello, this is Frank Martin at the Times-Picayune. I am sorry to bother you on a Friday night but a reporter friend here missed some testimony today at your trial and we wonder if you will tell him what he missed so he can get the story right—I know you want to see that the account is accurate.” He said, of course. I thanked him and told him I was handing the phone to the other reporter, who I named, and did.
The reporter asked several questions, got answers and asked more. After a couple of minutes the reporter handed the phone back to me. “He wants to talk to you again.”
Carlos said he was happy to be of help. It was no problem that it was a Friday night. In fact, he was bored and the call relieved him. And it was a pleasure to talk to reporters when they weren’t hounding him. And would I like to have lunch sometime. I swallowed hard and said, “Of course. But with the demands of my job I have a difficult time making plans. However, if some day you find yourself without other plans an hour or so before your lunchtime please call me here and I will do my best to join you.” “Delighted,” he said. “Good night.”
The newsroom buzzed. It was obvious I had been invited to sup with the best known and most feared crime boss in the South. One wag said he hoped I liked spaghetti. Another said, “I can’t believe it. Frank just got a ‘Let’s do lunch’ from Carlos Marcello.” I was the talk of the newsroom. Both the editor and publisher made unusual visits to the newsroom to “attaboy” me. They said they had never talked to “the man.” The court reporter hated that circumstances had outed his poor reporting but got over it.
After Richard had phone-huddled with his posse for the better part of three hours, each rang off to begin his investigation. I had heard the front door open and close. The professor was on his way to Clara’s.
We poured ourselves drinks and moved to the living room.
I hate to admit this but I thought from the time I met him that Gaspard acted queerly for being a French violin peddler. Unfortunately, I never thought about it seriously enough to mention it, I confessed to Richard. I expected him to be more polished, more, well, French. He didn’t talk much about anything. He had the barest accent. He didn’t react when I mentioned the fire. So there were clues. I explained what Gaspard said about his and his parents’ connections to the United States and everyone speaking English. We agreed that probably every bit of it was made up. I told him Gaspard didn’t acknowledge that the server and I discussed my order partly in French and that he had ordered American food in English from the menu in French. Almost without doubt Gaspard was an American.
When I had the barest doubts about Gaspard’s authenticity I should have tested him. I could have asked him something like if he had ever eaten an ortolan, one of those little birds the French net and keep in dark cages, making them gorge on figs and grain until they are double in size, then self-marinate as they drown in Armagnac. Then they are plucked and roasted. Eating them involves holding them by the beak and stuffing them feet-first into the mouth whole, and chewing and swallowing them, bones-and-all but the beak. I would have asked Gaspard to describe the process. Then, if he had eaten ortolan, what, if anything, did he do with his handkerchief. Historically, diners on ortolans put their handkerchief, or a towel, over their head to hide their mouth. Some say it is to gather the pleasant aroma of the roasted bird, some say it is to hide the bones and offal the diner must spit into their hand, and some say it is to hide their face from God for doing such a ghastly thing to a poor little bunting. It may be illegal to make such meals in France. If so, I expect there is a black market trade in ortolans. I wouldn’t know. I don’t even eat octopus or squid since I learned cephalopods can think.
Over the next few weeks, Richard touched base with each of his investigators several times.They reported no progress. They were even calling on con men who owed them for favors done, for help. Maybe they could identify the men by the details of the scam and how they acted employing it. No luck. There were no strings attached to the violin thieves. Apparently the informants the police polled were taken by the idea of the violin caper. And they too wondered how the culprits came upon the violin and conceived the scam.
Agnes and the professor spent an entire week with Clara. They had offered to pay her something for their room, board, and entertainment but of course she turned them down. I got a phone call from them after they returned to Detroit and talked to each. They both thanked me “ever so much” for my hospitality and securing Clara’s for them. Clara had discovered Agnes sound asleep in an airport lounge. Clara said she couldn’t tell if Agnes had imbibed but she was snoring loudly. We and the Harts had become friends. George expressed sorrow over Richard’s loss and regret that he had been made a part of it even though he hadn’t suspected anything. I assured him again there was no way he could have learned about any of it until he arrived at Richard’s.
Clara called to report that she had received a large bottle of Michigan honey from the Harts. They had left a pair of Agnes’s shoes behind. She sent them the shoes along with a thank-you note for the honey. I knew better than to offer Clara something for her trouble. Friends just do things for each other with no expectation of reward.
Regina LaFourcade, the young head of the NYPD’s intelligence unit, was Richard’s best investigator. She was interested and aggressive enough to call Richard a couple of times with questions. She wanted to know if Richard had kept the broken pieces of the fake violin. No. She wanted to know if there was any chance the real Professor Hart had been involved in the scam. Surely not. Would Richard mind if she talked to the banker who had handled the part of the transaction that took place in the U.S.? Of course not. They were no help. She learned, as expected, that the Swiss bankers keep their secrets. The Swiss police said there was no point in even asking. Did Richard have any idea how the man calling himself Gaspard had gotten onto the violin story in the first place? After all, she thought, that was a pretty unusual thing for an American con man to learn about, research, and track down. How does even an intelligent man who is not in any way involved in violin culture find his way to conceiving such a scam? Or was he somehow involved in classical music, and history, and stringed instruments? Richard and I, and Dr. Hart, had discussed it and we had no idea. And why, Regina wondered, had “Gaspard” locked the violin case then called me the next day so I could help Richard open it? Why bother?
Richard told her it seemed obvious that the violin case had been locked so he wouldn’t open it and discover he had been fleeced before the two hucksters had a chance to get away. Why hadn’t they just left the locked violin case for Richard to force open and discover he had been taken? Well, Richard told her, the men were a couple of vicious, sadistic bastards who wanted to gloat over having made fools of everyone. The officer agreed, and agreed that they had made fools of everyone.
Every so often, for months, Richard would mutter, “Those fucking bastards,” under his breath without preamble. I don’t know that it helped.
A full three months after we had seen the backs of the con men, Richard’s agents asked to meet with him together. He arranged for hors d’oeuvres to be brought in and took stock of his bar. The group assembled at Richard’s in late afternoon on a Friday. They reported efforts that came to nothing. I had figured out for myself much of what they had to report.
There was no trace of either man by the names we knew them staying at any hotel in either New Orleans or New York during the time period involved. There was no record of either man on any airline flight or train anywhere on their logs in the United States or to and from France. No reservations. No tickets. Nothing. No one in management at “Stringed Things” could produce anything that would aid in tracking down who placed the small ad for the instrument,
It was as if they didn’t exist. The FBI had asked Interpol to look for a trace of Gaspard D’eau or anyone who might be a relative in France. No such names. No such family. It was all but certain both were Americans. They could be in New Orleans still, or just down the street. Likely, though, they were far away, spending Richard’s money and looking for a private collector who would pay them another king’s ransom for a unique violin.
The FBI had checked in the U.S., and Interpol had goaded the Sûreté in Paris to look for the ghost phone depot. Nothing. It seemed it may have been set up for use for the one scam, then abandoned. The church existed. Monsignor Julian and Father Andre existed and were horrified when they learned what had happened. They were also scandalized that they had let such a valuable item from their relic closet escape. The Sûreté had checked out the priests, and the woman who donated the violin to the church. Everything was in order. Gendarmes detectives thought those involved in France were nothing but more innocent victims.
Richard’s team was sorry. They had done their best. They enjoyed Richard’s hors d’oeuvres, drank a responsible amount of his booze, and left. It was a kind of summary judgment.
I had flirted with the idea of calling my new best friend Carlos Marcello to ask his help even though we had never connected for lunch. It took me a week to get up the courage. I was relieved when the woman who answered the phone told me Marcello was on vacation in, where else? Sicily.
Richard moped for months. He seemed to lose interest in life. He denied being depressed but it was clear he felt defeated and like a fool. I tried to console him. Then I tried to keep him busy. Concerts, gallery openings, plays—except none of Ionesco’s; Rhinoceros had moved on—day trips and a long visit to Japan to see the cherry blossoms with Lenore and me.
Sometime after that trip Richard got a package from the Harts. In it was a message that read, “We owe Mr. Martin a debt of gratitude we cannot repay because he would not allow it so we are repaying our debt to him to you instead. We hope this will take a bit of the sting from your unfortunate experience. Please consider it a gift from Mr. Martin.”
The repayment was a bow. Attached to it by a bit of gold-colored string was another note. “As you know, M. Vuillaume was an inventor as well as a maker of violins. Of his inventions, what I appreciate most is the triple bass he created that was 11 and a half feet tall. I was unable to secure one of those but I had in my modest collection one of the hollow metal bows he invented. This one is a so-called ‘self-rehairing’ bow. For it, hair in prepared hanks could be inserted by the player in the time it takes to change a string, and was tightened or loosened by a simple mechanism inside the frog. The frog itself was fixed to the stick, and the balance of the bow remained constant when the hair stretched with use. Vuillaume’s initials are near the bottom of the metal near the ivory handle.”
“Unfortunately, prepared hanks of hair also cannot be secured. Agnes and I can’t help. She won’t contribute her hair and I have almost none to give. The bow is something I have enjoyed for the many years I have owned it. May you enjoy it as many years. I have no children to leave it to and the Wayne State U. Museum can damn well buy its own. Be well and give Mr. Martin our best.” It was signed, “With love, the Harts.”
When Richard showed me the notes and the bow he had tears in his eyes. He cried again years later when I told him I had received a letter from Agnes with the news that George had died in his sleep at 93. She was managing. Richard wrote her and told me we should visit and do something for her. Of course we never did.
I think it was Richard’s ordeal that caused him to abandon buying and selling whatever contraband he had been involved in. Maybe first-hand victimization had that effect.
It took the better part of a year for Richard to recover. As more years passed he forgot—or pretended to forget—the trauma. He became his old self.
That is the end of the string of events that began with the Night of the Teaspoon—except for one more thing.
When I sat on my balcony in New Orleans, and sit now under the mulberry tree in my backyard, I savor memories with my coffee. I stir the coffee, sometimes Cuban-style, with a sterling silver teaspoon that bears the crest of the Van Fleet family carved in the handle.
Gaspard didn’t steal the spoon: I pocketed it when Gaspard was preparing to leave. After Edward noticed it was missing from the table, and he, Jean-Claude, and I crawled around on the floor after it, I pretended to call the Rivergate and Richard’s home in search of Gaspard. I had called dial-a-prayer twice. I had thrown the pepper grinder in a waste bin on the trip to the men’s room before I emptied my pockets on the table. The purloined spoon was in an inside jacket pocket.
I revisited the restaurant several times not long after the Night of the Teaspoon and saw Jean-Claude and Edward. I managed to drag David once. He grudgingly admitted the food was good but diagnosed the wine cellar as anemic. Jean Claude and Edward became Eddie and John. I became Frank. We talked sometimes when I was the only diner left in the restaurant. We laughed about Gaspard’s manners but I didn’t mention the violin. None of us mentioned Mrs. Van Fleet and her spoon. I guess it was assumed I didn’t get it back from Gaspard. Richard knows nothing about any of it to this day.
The spoon joined a collection of what I acquired by way of petty thefts from hotels, restaurants, and cruise ships; that is, it joined a shot glass from the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, a small brandy snifter from the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, a creamer from a steamer on Lake Lucerne, and similar booty from around the world. I still have my steak knife, and I replaced the brass pepper mill, which was slightly corroded, with a shiny new one. I lost most of the other items in the collection through several moves but I take good care of the spoon. It stirs my memories.
When I sip my coffee under the tree I think of the friends I used to see who made life so interesting when I was younger. Richard comes to mind first. He married Lenore. He once, out of her hearing, kidded me that I broke-in Lenore for him.
As far as I know, Clara never remarried. She continued to volunteer at the museum until they finally paid her. Then she took it over completely. It has prospered under her leadership.
David and Claudia and I still keep in touch. I had especially good times with them. On the year of our 40th birthdays David collected a case of various champagnes—very fine ones—bottled in our birth year. Claudia and other friends joined us to savor them. I tried to get him to lead us to a fine restaurant to celebrate with food as well. David wouldn’t hear of it. He cooked a meal that took several hours to consume and digest. Claudia’s meat was red and she ate her salad with her fingers. We retired to our own residences and reassembled at David’s the next day for a champagne brunch.
The Harts became the kind of friends with whom you trade Christmas cards. I never saw them again.
I include Edward and Jean-Claude among my New Orleans friends even though I didn’t spend much time with them. They moved on to new restaurants after Cirque du Mardi Gras closed. They are probably long dead.
Richard sent several bottles of wine to the chief of police, the FBI agent, and Regina LaFourcade for Christmas the year of the crime. Regina, the intelligence officer, dropped off some homemade gumbo on the first New Year’s Eve after the failed investigation. Richard and Clara became close friends with her and her husband. They are the LaFourcade children’s godparents.
I never made it to lunch with Carlos Marcello. I kept up with him for years in Times-Picayune headlines. I think he was tried several times for various crimes but never convicted. Perhaps he had friends in high places. He too is gone.
So many people gone. So many friends. Noting left of them except memories. When friends are gone memories of them become one’s friends.
Something besides the teaspoon I acquired in my time in New Orleans: Beginning with the Night of the Teaspoon, I collected the raw material for a hell of a story. There are touches of absurdity in it, as in an Ionesco play. There is drama. There is mystery. But very little humor. Accompanied by music, it would be Scriabin’s angry pianoforte rather than Scott Joplin’s ragtime.
The scheme was unusual and its execution elaborate. Perhaps if I wrote the story a reader could answer the questions that remain, would propose a better solution to the mystery, a more satisfactory end to the story—perhaps something such as the whole affair being a Byzantine plot created and run by Agnes Hart.
Preposterous as that would have seemed, it would be a satisfying end—even if made up. Well, I am at my end. I stirred the story as best I can.
Someone, somewhere, knows the parts of the story we don’t. Perhaps we will learn it yet.
—END—
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