Chapter 2: Casualty and Enigmas
They rang at the door of a small apartment in a shabby house.
A thin, very old looking man opened. He seemed to be appalled at the sight of Clarissa and the two strangers.
"Ironside, San Francisco police. And this is officer Whitfield," the Chief introduced himself and Eve.
Mr. Janowski turned white, clutched his chest and leaned against the doorpost.
Slowly he slid down along it, stayed seated for a moment, then fell down to the floor.
Mr. Janowski was gasping for air, but nevertheless he was trying to utter something. He pointed towards the sofa in his living room: "Code, there, luggage locker!"
"Mr. Janowski, did you have something to do with the theft of the Stradivarius?" Ironside asked. In fact he wasn't being heartless – but he felt that it was probably already too late to help the man anyway.
"S-sorry," the old man said – not to the Chief, but to Clarissa. Then he lost consciousness.
"Eve!" Ironside shouted.
She felt for a pulse but didn't find one. The breathing had stopped, too.
Eve knew what she had to do. Instantly she started to resuscitate the old man: chest compressions and rescue breaths. The Chief explained to Clarissa how to give rescue breaths and she accepted to do that, so Eve could concentrate on the compressions.
Ironside managed to squeeze his way past them and get into Mr. Janowski's living room and to his phone. He called for an ambulance.
They didn't have to wait long. The paramedic could do nothing but declare the old man dead. "Heart-attack," he said laconically, used to seeing sudden deaths.
The body was taken away, and Ironside looked around carefully.
There were two violins and a viola hanging on a wall, but no Stradivarius. Otherwise it would have been too easy, he thought, feeling embittered.
The whole room exuded poverty. The furniture was cheap and looked used, the wallpapers were faded. A few old postcards would have been interesting for a historian or for a collector, but Ironside was sure they didn't have to reveal anything about their actual problem. There was one new photograph though: A picture of a pretty red-haired girl and a young man in jeans and a fancy shirt. Ironside turned it over. 'With love - Sandy and Simon' was neatly written on it.
Clarissa had tears in her eyes. "The shock of seeing us together must have been too much for him. He didn't earn that, no matter what he's done."
"Did you understand his last words?" Eve asked.
"He said that he was sorry," remembered Clarissa.
"No – I mean before that. It was something about a code."
Ironside corrected: "It was 'Code, there, luggage locker.' And he pointed towards the sofa." The Chief turned towards the indicated couch. It had seen its best days about thirty years ago, if it had ever had any. There were laying a few more or less decorative cushions and a blanket. On the table in front of the couch they found between newspapers and music sheets an audio cassette. Did Janowski want to tell them that there was a code to a luggage locker on that cassette? That seemed to be a good guess.
"Do you know the two people on the photo?" Ironside asked Clarissa.
"Yes, I do. Sandy Janowski is Mr. Janowski's granddaughter and quite a good violinist. She's playing in our orchestra too. Simon Rowland is her boyfriend."
"Do you happen to know their addresses?"
Clarissa wrote Sandy's address down for the Chief, but she didn't know Simon's.
Meanwhile Eve was searching the apartment for a cassette player. She found a surprisingly modern one in a closet – on top of a lot of disordered stuff, like if it had been put there very recently. She put the cassette into it and played it. There was music – Baroque music: Only two short pieces, and then nothing else. The music sounded familiar, but none of them knew exactly what it was.
"Let's take the photo and this cassette with us – and all scores in the apartment. He probably has the notes to that music. If we recognize it, we might find out the code."
That was easier said than done. There were several big piles of music sheets, collected in a long musician's life. Eve and Clarissa carried all of them out into the paddy-wagon.
On their way back to the apartment-office, the Chief radioed Headquarters.
He ordered to put the house where Sandy lived under surveillance. "I have a hunch that this might prove useful," he explained to Commissioner Randall. And since the topic was the Stradivarius of Clarissa Delongpre, there were no objections.
Ironside and the two young women browsed through the scores trying to find out what pieces of music might be on the cassette.
Mark came home soon afterwards. "What about lunch?" he asked. It was already after two o'clock, but nobody seemed to be interested in food, they only wanted to find out more about the music. Mark made them some ham sandwiches anyway. They ate mechanically, without noticing what it was and – even in Ironside's case – without complaining.
When Ed entered the office, the sandwiches were all gone, the empty plate as a silent reminder still on the table.
Ed's face lit up when he saw Clarissa.
"What about the drug dealer?" Ironside wanted to know.
"He's downstairs and being interrogated," Ed answered.
The Chief was surprised and – for his standards – delighted about the quick success.
"I found him in his apartment together with enough heroin to put him behind bars for ten years," Ed explained. "He tried to run, but he wasn't in particularly good shape."
Admiringly, Clarissa looked up to him. Ed noticed it and was flattered.
"A police officer's job must be very exciting sometimes, I suppose," she said kindly.
"Er – yes, sometimes it is." Why the heck was he so inhibited? Ed was angry at himself. This would have been his chance to show off a little... but it wasn't meant to be.
Ironside took pity with him: "Ed – you might take Clarissa home. I think she needs some rest. Don't you think so, Clarissa?"
She nodded, thankful for his sensitiveness.
But when she and Ed reached the garage, she said: "I have my car with me. I'll manage. It's more important that you help your people find my Stradivarius. I trust you are a very competent police officer, aren't you? This instrument is very important to me, not just because of its financial value. Thank you very much."
Eve replayed the cassette for Ed. "Do you know one of these two pieces?" she asked him.
The first one, played by an orchestra, lasted for only about 40 seconds.
"Oh yes, I know this one: It's the prelude to a choral of Bach, the title is something about Jesus and Jordan." Ed blushed. Nearly apologetically he added: "I recently dated a musician. We went to a concert, and there I heard this music. But when she learned about my job, I wasn't welcome any more."
Now that they knew what they had to look for, they found the right sheets within a few minutes.
It was BWV 7, the 1st movement: "Christ our Lord came to the Jordan".
Ironside voiced his thoughts: "Perhaps the code is 7 – 1. But to be sure we have to find out what numbers the other piece could stand for. And then we still don't know where to look for that luggage locker, not to mention that I don't know of any luggage lockers with codes. That's used with safe deposit boxes only, if I'm not mistaken."
Before they could resume their work, the telephone rang.