Scott Mariani - The Mozart Conspiracy

Italy

Later that day

Professor Arno invited them into a large, sunlit study and offered them a glass of grappa. His English was heavily accented but fluent. He walked with a stick and the ancient tweed jacket was two sizes too large for him. His movements were slow and his frail hands shook slightly as he poured the drinks from a crystal decanter, then took off his jacket and hung it on a hat stand. He motioned them to a cluttered desk that sat in front of a pair of arched windows overlooking the villa’s pretty gardens.

The study was filled with a heavy, sickly vanilla-like smell from the three large scented church candles burning in an antique silver candle-holder. The elderly professor walked stiffly around the desk and lowered his wiry frame into a button-leather chair with his back to the windows.

Ben and Leigh sat facing him. Ben drank the burning spirit down and laid his empty glass in front of him on the desk. Leigh took a tiny sip and cradled her glass nervously on her knee, preparing in her mind what she wanted to say.

The professor leaned back in his chair, his wispy white hair silhouetted against the sunlight streaming in through the glass. He watched Leigh for a few moments with a glimmer in his eye. ‘I heard you sing Lucia di Lammermoor at the Rocca Brancaleone,’ he said to her. ‘I thought you were magnificent, the greatest Lucia since Maria Callas.’

Leigh smiled graciously. ‘Thank you, Professor. That’s a great compliment, and I’m sure I don’t deserve it.’ She paused. ‘But unfortunately we didn’t come here to talk about opera.’

‘I did not think you had,’ the old man said.

‘I believe my brother Oliver came here to see you last winter. What can you tell me about his visit?’

‘I found him a charming young man,’ Arno said sadly. ‘We got on very well. He only planned a short stay, but we talked for many hours. In the end he remained here for nearly two whole days. I was very impressed with his passion for music. He played for me, pieces from the Goldberg Variations and some Clementi sonatas. A gifted pianist. His Clementi interpretation was very nearly in the same league as Maria Tipo, in my opinion.’

‘He was here to discuss the research for his book,’ Leigh said.

‘Yes. Oliver asked me to clarify certain things that were unclear to him.’

‘Things about the letter?’ she asked.

The professor nodded. ‘The Mozart letter I obtained from your father long ago. Your brother had a photocopy that your father had made of it, but he could not understand its full and true meaning.’

‘Do you know what happened to Oliver shortly after you saw him?’

Arno sighed. ‘I know that he went to Vienna.’

‘Where he was killed. I believe he was murdered.’

Arno didn’t look surprised. He nodded. ‘I feared as much.’

‘Why did you think that?’

‘I received an email message from him. He told me he needed very urgently to talk to me, that he had made a discovery, and that there was danger.’

‘When was this?’

‘The night he died, I believe. I was very sorry to hear of his death.’ Arno shook his head sadly.

‘What kind of danger did he say he was in?’ Ben asked.

‘He did not say. The message seemed to have been written in a hurry.’

Ben glanced at the computer on the old man’s desk. ‘Do you still have that email?’

‘I deleted it immediately after reading it.’

‘You realize that information would have been very important at the inquest into the cause of Oliver’s death?’

‘Yes,’ Arno said softly.

‘But you decided to keep it to yourself that the circumstances might have been suspicious-that it might not have been an accident?’ Ben felt his face flush. Beside him, Leigh was staring at her hands on her lap, and he worried that he was pushing the old man too hard.

Arno sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his thin white hair. ‘I am not proud of what I did. I had my suspicions but no proof. There was a witness to the accident. Who would have believed a crazy old Italian with the reputation of a crank, a conspiracy theorist?’ He paused. ‘And I was afraid.’

‘Afraid of what?’ Leigh asked.

‘That I was also in danger,’ Arno replied. ‘Soon afterwards, intruders came in the night.’

‘Came here?’

‘Yes. I was in the hospital. My blood-it is not healthy. When I returned home, I found that the house had been ransacked. They were searching for something.’

‘What were they searching for?’ Ben asked.

‘For the letter, I believe.’

‘Did they steal it?’

‘No,’ Arno replied. ‘After your brother sent me the message, I put the letter somewhere very secret. Somewhere nobody could ever find it.’

‘May we know where it is?’ Ben asked.

Arno smiled. ‘It is safe,’ he said softly. ‘It has gone home.’

Ben wondered what he meant by that.

Arno went on. ‘But for a long time I myself did not feel safe,’ he said. ‘I felt I was being watched. It went on for months.’

‘I think the letter had something to do with Oliver’s death,’ Leigh said.

The professor looked grim. ‘You may be right.’

‘Can you explain?’

Arno hesitated as he gathered his thoughts. ‘I think I had better start at the beginning. As you know, the subject of your brother’s book was one that I have been studying for many years.’

‘Mozart’s death,’ Leigh said.

‘Not just Mozart’s death, but the events that led up to it, surrounded it and may have caused it…I believe did cause it. For this, we have to go back to the eighteenth century…’

‘With respect, Professor,’ Ben said. ‘We didn’t come here for a history lesson about someone who died over two hundred years ago. We want to know what happened to Oliver.’

‘If you hear me out,’ Arno replied, ‘I think what I tell you may help you understand.’

‘Oliver told me he was doing a lot of research into Mozart and the Freemasons,’ Leigh said.

Arno nodded. ‘It is no secret that Mozart was a Freemason himself. He joined his Lodge in 1784 and remained a Mason until his death seven years later, during which time it is said he rose to the level of Third Degree, Master Mason. Mozart was so dedicated to Freemasonry he even persuaded his father Leopold to join them. He supplied music for Masonic events, and had many friends who were Initiates.’

Ben shifted impatiently in his seat. ‘I don’t understand why this is so important.’

Leigh laid a hand on his arm. ‘Go on, Professor.’

‘Today we think of Freemasonry as something of a joke, or at best a social club like the Rotarians,’ Arno said. ‘But in eighteenth-century Europe it was an extremely important cultural and political force. In 1780s Austria, Freemasonry was a meeting point for the intellectual elite, an important centre for ideas of peace, freedom, and equality. The Masonic Lodges of Vienna comprised many of the most influential names of the time. Many aristocrats, senior politicians and diplomats, high-ranking military officers, bankers and merchants. There were also many intellectuals among them, writers, artists, musicians.’

‘I didn’t know they were so powerful,’ Leigh said.

Arno nodded. ‘They were, but their power was also their undoing. Other forces, even more powerful, were watching with a close eye. In fact, much of our modern knowledge of the Viennese Masons at this time comes from the intelligence material gathered by the Austrian secret police. Freemasonry was officially condemned in the Austrian Empire on the orders of the Pope, and only allowed to exist because of the tolerance of the Emperor, Josef II. But in 1785 Josef’s sympathy grew thin, and he decided that the Masons had become too powerful and influential. He ordered a drastic reduction of the Viennese Lodges, and demanded that the secret police provide him with lists of active Masons. These lists were kept in the files of the court archives.’