“I did a favor for him. Or at least he sees it that way. So he’s returning it. I don’t have any ties to his organization. I’m sure I probably wouldn’t want to.”
“Okay, good. I’m glad.”
“Ortoli might be willing to put up the money to save Jutting’s resort. He wants the details and he’ll make a proposal right away. I’ll act as his representative. Between us, this is Ortoli doing me a favor so I can meet with Jutting but there is a possibility of a deal if Ortoli likes what he sees.”
“Got it. I’m fine with being the conduit if that’s the case.”
“Thanks. I appreciate your help. I owe you one.” I gave Clelia Ortoli’s number and we hung up. The cat was meowing at me so I filled his bowl and sat thinking while he crunched away at his kibble. If the plan worked I would hopefully be able to get into Jutting’s house and take stock of the security. Of course, he could be keeping the notes elsewhere. What would I do if I were him? It was hard to project myself into his world since I knew so little about it but I could examine the probable facts and work from there. First, I had to assume he was not a cryptography expert. He was probably not trying to break the code himself. Instead, he would hire someone to do it for him. He probably had someone working on it already, interpreting Wolhardt’s notes. My intuition said Jutting would not want the notes in some cryptographer’s office safe. He would want them protected by his own security. So, they would be in his house in London or one of the other apartments and houses he owned around the world. The London house was his primary residence and he was currently in London as far as I knew so it was likely the notes would be there. In any case, getting into the house and meeting Jutting couldn’t hurt.
The cat finished eating and wandered off to lie on the couch some more. He didn’t seem to mind the prospect of an entire day spent doing nothing. I didn’t like it though. I sat and considered for a few minutes, trying to think of a way to kill half the day. I wasn’t in the mood for tourist stuff. In the end, I decided to pay a visit to the asylum where Elgar had supposedly met Cellini’s mad descendent. I had researched it a bit the night before after reading about Cellini and the Sicilian priest. It was a couple of hours away by car. I could go look at it, have lunch, and drive back. By then I would hopefully have an answer from Ortoli.
There was a car rental place a few blocks away so I walked over along Kensington Road, a busy, no-nonsense thoroughfare dirty from the never ending car exhaust. Low end retail shops lined the street together with ethnic restaurants, real estate offices, and mini-marts, each with its own colorful sign, competing like garish tropical birds to be the most recognizable. The visual language of design always fascinated me, especially in foreign places. Finally, the highly recognizable green and black of the rental company logo materialized and I stepped into the tightly controlled, utilitarian atmosphere of the shop—all gray tile, melamine counters, and carefully ordered racks of keys. The clerk got me into a Vauxhall Insignia with minimal fuss and I was soon sitting on the wrong side of the car, trying very hard not to swerve into the oncoming lane as I navigated my way to the M40.
I wasn’t really hoping to learn anything useful by going to the old asylum but immersing myself in a job sometimes meant following random seeming side branches. It was founded in 1847 and was originally known as the Worcester County Pauper and Lunatic Asylum. Around that time, the British parliament had passed a law known as the ‘lunacy act’ which required all districts and boroughs to make some kind of provision for residents suffering from mental illness and poverty. It held about two hundred patients to begin with but expanded rapidly and housed over a thousand patients by the time it closed for good. Elgar, who grew up nearby, started out playing violin in the orchestra at the asylum and took over the job of conductor and composer a few years later. He held the job for five years, spending one day per week at the asylum. Over five years it must have been possible for him to make friends and acquaintances among both the staff and the patients. The place was finally closed down in the eighties after a scandal involving mistreatment of patients and stood vacant for years until it was purchased by a developer. A housing estate was now under construction on the considerable acreage that had once been the grounds of the hospital. Only the historic original hospital building and a caretaker’s house still stood. One article I had found stated that the first superintendent of the asylum, Doctor I. R. Grahamsley, committed suicide by drinking prussic acid after only eighteen months on the job. Another mentioned that in the late fifties and early sixties some of the psychiatrists started an experimental program studying the use of LSD to treat patients with schizophrenia. The place had an interesting history. Maybe, I thought, I could soak up some kind of ambiance but going there. I could see and feel what Elgar had felt and immerse myself in his world. Maybe some kind of inspiration would strike.
Once I left the dense urban core of London and had passed through the outer suburbs, the countryside was a wearyingly regular patchwork of fields and farms and small wild areas. A couple of brief rain flurries spattered the windshield and made runnels in the accumulated dust until I located the right
