Between the Thames and the Tiber

“Monsieur Holmes, that is the difficult part. I do not know who he is, or where he is, except that he lives here in Rome, but not permanently. His home is in Foggia, nearer to Naples. He asked me to meet him tomorrow outside the Rome Opera house. And so, I shall.”

“Good, Monsieur Murger. One other question. Who indeed was the young woman who helped you?”

“De nouveau, I cannot say exactly. Yesterday, I left my hotel early hoping that I would find you—I have your address from Louis Frobin of the Surete de Paris—but the snow was so high that I barely managed to reach your quarters. I saw the young woman you mention selling paper flowers in the snow. It was the first time that I had seen her. When I fell in the snow she tried to lift me. I must have fainted. I still heard her say that she knew was my daughter, but my only daughter lives in Paris and so the young woman is at best confused.”

“And why were you searching for me, Monsieur Murger?”

“I am an old man, Monsieur Holmes, with many needs. I learned that you were in Rome and I thought that you could accompany me to the meeting with the composers of La Boheme. But perhaps the case does not amuse you, Monsieur Holmes?”

“Au contraire, Monsieur Murger, it does amuse me and I have already spoken to the two composers. Please continue to rest here. Watson and I have some work to do.” Murger nodded, closed his eyes, and was soon overtaken by the fatigue induced by the events of the previous night.

Holmes paced back and forth, almost silently, as he considered his next move. “The young woman, Watson, she is part of this story, though I am not sure as yet how she fits. Right now, she is merely part of the locale. Come, the sun is shining. Let us inform our Soliti Ignoti of what has transpired and enlist their aid in finding the woman. Our own Gabriele is said to be enamoured of her. Last night, she arrived at the Cafe Momus dressed in the most expensive attire and accompanied by a rich merchant from the north, possibly England or Germany. Era in carrozza vestita come una regina.”

We found our archangels in their den, a small flat on Via Muzio Clementi. We were in luck. They told us that they knew the young woman and that she had been surviving in the cellar of the Cafe Momus. Gabriele, in fact, said that he had just seen her as she ventured forth with her paper flowers that morning. She was starved and he gave her some coins with which she bought some bread. She thanked him and said that a great patron of hers had arrived in Italy and was going to take care of her as soon as he arrived in Rome. Then she would repay him. Holmes asked that Gabriele take us to the young woman, and we followed him as he walked quickly toward the Cafe Momus.

The cafe was closed, and Gabriele took us to a narrow alley that went to the back. There we saw a broken window through which Gabriele called to the young woman. There was no answer. “She is not here,” said Gabriel.

“I must enter,” said Holmes.

“Very well,” said Gabriele, “we shall stand guard as you break the law.”

Holmes climbed through the window. I watched as he searched the room. He later told me that the articles stored there were the pathetic possessions of someone close to abject poverty: a few tattered shawls, a bonnet, a soft muff, some worn-out shoes, and a thin blanket. There were no clothes that fit the description of those of the night before. As to the rest, there was no bed, only a dirt floor. There was only one piece of furniture, an old chair on top of which was a note, recently written, that read in its entirety:Amore, arrivo oggi a Roma. Sono solo, senza P. Incontriamoci al piu presto possibile. Saro all’incrocio di Via Margutta e Via Babuino verso le dodici domani. R.

“The note is dated yesterday, Watson, and it is now eleven thirty. If we hurry, we shall watch as our young lady meets her padrone.”

We walked quickly down Via Condotti to Piazza di Spagna. The sun was hot and the snow was transformed into sparkling-clear rivulets that met at the central fountain. The Roman air was as clear as it had ever been. We sat at the Cafe Margutta, each of us with a large granita di mandorle in front of us.

“No one so far,” said Holmes as he glanced down Via Margutta.

“Here she comes, Holmes, dressed in her rags. And there from Via Babuino, her padrone, no doubt.”

He was a tall, thin gentleman, dressed in a long, light blue coat with velvet trim. His hair was blond, and he wore a long moustache and a goatee which gave his face the form of an almost perfect triangle. A look of recognition passed over Holmes’s face, but he said nothing.

The couple embraced after running towards each other. The man wrapped her in a shawl and hailed a cab. Holmes and I followed them briefly at a safe distance. Their driver went down the Corso, through Piazza Venezia, to the gate of the Villa Orsini, where they left their cab and continued on foot into the villa.

“We won’t follow them for now,” said Holmes. “Come, Watson. The musical aspects of the case now thrust themselves on us. Let us return to Monsieur Murger and our quarters.”

Murger was still asleep on the couch when we arrived. Holmes moved quietly to his bookshelves where he kept his collection of musical scores.

“You will see now, Watson, the value of my collection of opera scores, at least for a first assault on the problem of the two Bohemes.” I helped him carry the most recently acquired scores from the bottom of an old almirah where he kept them in a large pile.

“Here we have, Watson, all of the major operas of the last decade or so, in both orchestral and piano scores. And here are the two delivered to Puccini and Leoncavallo. We remove as well their own operas from the pile, leaving us with the composers whose work is well known to the public and among whom we may find the culprit. The composers are Boito, Catalani, Cilea, Mascagni, Zandonai, and Giordano. We have twenty scores here, all of which I intend to read through rapidly to find the author of the two fraudulent ones.”

“Holmes, I flatter myself even if I say that I am musically illiterate, but I have no idea what you are looking for. What indeed are you looking for? These are only so many names, none of which is known outside Italy,” said I, with the full intention of annoying him.

“Very simple, my dear fellow. You are letting your concern over your admittedly tin ear detract from your reason, and reason always wins in the end. In the realm of art and music, it is reason that rules, and the rules that operate are those of observation and deduction, as they do everywhere Let us see if I can cast some light on the present problem. You agree, initially at least, that the culprit—what shall we call him, this ingenious rogue who can mimic, forge even, the art of Italy’s greatest composers? Let us call him Cagliostro, after the great charlatan—must be a composer in his own right, one of great talent at least, schooled in all the musical disciplines: harmony, counterpoint, and orchestration. In this case, he must also have the ability to compose his own libretti, or he must have one who is complicit in his misdeeds, shall we say.”

I decided to flaunt my knowledge, meager as it was, and use some of the oddments about music that I had collected by questioning him. “But only one composer has written his own libretti and that was the German Richard Wagner.”

“Indeed, old boy, but you noticed quickly that I have omitted all composers who are not Italian.”

“And why is that? Surely they would be competent.”

“Competent is an excellent term to describe what might be the work of someone foreign to Italy who attempted to forge an Italian opera. The attempt would fail miserably. The scaffolding would be there but not the individual creative impulse. It would be the equivalent of a Rembrandt trying to be a Michelangelo. It would be immediately discovered. Despite their abilities, composers such as Massenet, Bizet, Charpentier, even Wagner, could not pull it off. Their individual ‘sound’ would give any one of them away. Also, there would be little motive, whereas among the Italians one could predict without exaggeration a certain rivalry, shall we say?”

“But Holmes, what about the similarity of some of Dvorak’s Rusalka to Puccini’s La Rondine? Isn’t there an aria—Doretta’s, I believe—that comes close to being a copy by Puccini of Dvorak’s melody?”

“You astonish me, old boy, you have been listening and learning. You raise a valid point, however. The answer is simple: It is the use of the piano as an orchestral instrument that marks this similarity, nothing more.”

Holmes was silent for a moment, and I thought that he might wish to be alone when he said, “I thank you, old fellow, for your questions. Please note once more that I have excluded Verdi from the list, though musically he is as qualified as the others. But he is old and unconcerned with other people’s work. Leave me now, for I have