Inspector Colbeck's Casebook

SONGS FOR A SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE

‘Jenny Lind?’

‘Even you must have heard of her,’ said Colbeck.

‘No, sir, I haven’t.’

‘She’s one of the most famous sopranos in the world, Victor. Have you never heard mention of the Swedish Nightingale?’

‘I’m not very interested in birds,’ said Leeming.

‘It’s the nickname of Jenny Lind because she sings with the purity of a nightingale. People used to fight to get tickets to see her. Her operatic career made her a fortune. When she was in America, she’s reputed to have earned enormous amounts of money.’

Leeming was astounded. ‘She got all that just for imitating a bird?’

‘Even the most gifted nightingale couldn’t sing the great arias that she made her own. As for the money,’ said Colbeck, ‘she gave a large amount of it away to found and endow scholarships in Sweden. I once had the privilege of hearing her in La Sonnambula …’

He broke off as he saw the look of bewilderment on the sergeant’s face. It was not Leeming’s fault that he was ignorant of opera. Detectives at Scotland Yard were not well paid and someone like Leeming would need every penny of his wage to house, clothe and feed his young family. There’d no money left to indulge an interest in classical music and opera. Colbeck chided himself for boasting about the fact that he’d actually heard the Swedish soprano. It was unfair on a man to whom names of such operatic luminaries as Jenny Lind, Alboni, Mario and Grisi meant nothing whatsoever.

‘What has this lady got to do with us, Inspector?’

‘We are going to accompany her to Birmingham,’ replied Colbeck.

‘Why?’

‘Her husband, Mr Goldschmidt, has requested police protection for her.’

Leeming was dismayed. ‘That’s no job for us,’ he protested. ‘A pair of country constables could look after her, leaving us to solve serious crimes.’

‘In this case,’ explained Colbeck, ‘we’re there to prevent a crime rather than solve one. It seems that there have been threatening letters, some of them no doubt sent by jealous rivals and therefore written out of spite. Whether or not there’s any real danger, I don’t know, but we have been assigned to look after her.’

‘The superintendent will be very annoyed to lose us on such trivial grounds.’

‘It was his idea that you and I should be chosen.’

Leeming was flabbergasted. ‘His idea?’

‘Yes, Victor, and it was a surprise to me as well. Tallis is so hostile to the female sex in general that I couldn’t believe he actually admired a member of it. But he does, apparently, and her name is Jenny Lind.’

‘Then I’ll be very pleased to meet her. If she can arouse the superintendent’s interest, she must be a very special lady.’

‘She is,’ said Colbeck. ‘That’s why we must take great care of her.’

When she boarded the train at Euston station, Jenny Lind wore a hat with a veil in order to avoid recognition by any admirers. She was travelling with her husband, Otto Goldschmidt, a composer and conductor of international standing. The Swedish Nightingale was going to Birmingham to perform in a concert at the Town Hall. She was a short woman in her late thirties but motherhood had robbed her of her earlier daintiness. Her face was quite plain in repose but, when she smiled, it became radiant. With her veil lifted up and with her delightful broken English, she entranced Victor Leeming. He and Colbeck shared a first-class compartment with the pair. Goldschmidt was younger, taller and wore muttonchop whiskers but the detectives paid him scant attention. Their eyes were fixed on his wife.

‘It’s a pity that we’re not going to Brighton,’ suggested Colbeck.

‘Oh?’ said Jenny. ‘Why is that, Inspector?’

‘Because we might be taken there by a locomotive that bears your name. As you know, the original Jenny Lind was built just over a decade ago for the London Brighton and South Coast Railway. It was such a success that its design was adopted for use on other railways. In other words,’ he said, gallantly, ‘both on the track and on the stage, you have set the standard.’

‘There is only one Jenny Lind,’ said Goldschmidt, proudly.

‘I couldn’t agree more, sir. I had the good fortune to see your wife giving a recital in London. It was a memorable experience.’

‘Thank you.’

Conscious that Leeming was being excluded from the conversation, Colbeck sought to bring him into it by recalling an investigation they’d once made into a major crash on the Brighton line. What Leeming remembered most about the case was that it resulted in a rare treat for his family.

‘The railway company was so grateful when we’d arrested the man who’d caused the crash that it gave us first-class return tickets to Brighton. My children are still talking about our day by the seaside.’

Jenny Lind was prompted to talk about her own children and of the difficulty of leaving them — now that she and her husband had settled in England — when she had engagements in various parts of the country. One of the reasons she’d had no qualms about ending her operatic career was that she wished to spend time with her family. Colbeck suspected that she also found the concert platform more congenial and less exhausting. Once started on the subject of parenthood, Jenny and her husband talked at length and Leeming compared his own situation as a father with the problems they faced.

It was a paradox. In seeking to draw the sergeant into the conversation, Colbeck had effectively excluded himself because he and Madeleine had no children as yet and he could not therefore join in the discussion. He did not mind in the least. Even if she were not singing, it was a joy to hear Jenny Lind’s voice and he was pleased that Leeming was relishing a train journey for once instead of complaining about it. Ostensibly, the detectives were there to act as bodyguards but Colbeck couldn’t believe that anyone would wish to inflict harm on such a remarkable lady as the one sitting opposite him. Keeping an eye on her was the most rewarding assignment that he’d ever had.

As soon as they arrived at the station in Birmingham, it was clear that a veil would be unable to act as an effective disguise for the singer. Word of her arrival had spread and a large crowd of well-wishers had gathered for a glimpse of her. Reporters from local newspapers were there, autograph hunters were poised and someone had set up a camera on a tripod. Among those waiting to welcome her was Charles Rosen, the impresario who had persuaded Jenny Lind to perform in the city. He was a big, stout, flamboyantly dressed man in his fifties with a cigar in his mouth. When the train steamed into the station, he raised his top hat in triumph. She had arrived.

Jenny stepped onto the platform amid cheers and thunderous applause. Rosen had to bullock his way towards her, removing his cigar to greet her then pumping her husband’s hand. As they headed for the exit, Colbeck and Leeming stayed close to the singer to prevent her from being jostled. They came out into the street and moved towards a waiting carriage but they never reached it. A shot suddenly rang out and the crowd flew into a panic. Colbeck’s first instinct was to stand protectively in front of the singer. Leeming moved in the direction from which the shot had come. Rosen urged Jenny and her husband to get into the carriage so that they could be driven away. Reaching the vehicle, however, proved to be almost impossible in the swirling crowd. Colbeck was tripped up, Goldschmidt was thrust aside and Rosen was distracted by a second shot. Hysteria now gripped the throng and they began to run in all directions. Rosen stood beside the carriage, holding the door wide open but the only people who reached him were Colbeck and Goldschmidt. All three looked around in consternation.

‘Where’s my wife?’ demanded Goldschmidt.

Colbeck squirmed with guilt. He and Leeming had failed signally to protect Jenny Lind. Assessing the situation, he reached a grim conclusion.

‘I’m afraid that she’s been kidnapped, sir.’

It was mystifying. Hundreds of people had been milling around yet not one of them could say with certainty what had happened. Jenny had somehow been hustled away in one of the many cabs that flitted around but nobody knew in which direction it had gone. Convinced that someone had tried to kill his wife, Goldschmidt railed at the detectives for their incompetence. Rosen added his condemnation, fearing that he would lose all the money he’d spent promoting the concert and laying the blame squarely on the shoulders of Colbeck and Leeming. All four of them adjourned quickly to the police station in Digbeth to alert the local constabulary and to institute a hunt for the missing singer. When he’d calmed the two men down, Colbeck began with an apology.

‘The sergeant and I accept the blame unreservedly,’ he said. ‘We were given a task that we failed to fulfil. It’s futile to claim that we could not have foreseen such an eventuality but one thing is clear, Mr Goldschmidt,’ he went on, eager to reassure him. ‘Your wife is not the victim of an assassination attempt.’

‘You heard those shots, man!’ wailed Goldschmidt.

‘They were some distance away, sir.’

‘It’s true,’ confirmed Leeming. ‘In fact, the second shot was further away than the first. Someone was just trying to spread alarm.’

‘Well, he succeeded,’ said Rosen.

‘But that’s all he was there to do,’ argued Colbeck. ‘If an armed man really had designs on Miss Lind, he would have got within range of her and made one shot count. We’re not looking for an enemy here. We’re after a … well, I suppose you might call him a friend of sorts.’

‘A friend!’ howled Goldschmidt. ‘Firing a gun and abducting my wife is a strange way to show friendship.’

‘Let me explain. Jenny Lind is one of the greatest singers in the world.’

‘She is the greatest,’ asserted Rosen. ‘It says so in all my advertisements.’

‘I’m inclined to agree, sir, and so does the kidnapper. My feeling is that he’s an ardent admirer who has let his admiration grow into an obsession. Knowing that she was coming here, he devised a plan to whisk her away so that he could hear her sing in private.’

‘My wife won’t be able to sing a note,’ said Goldschmidt. ‘Jenny will be terrified — and it’s all the fault of you and your sergeant.’

‘We will do our best to rectify our mistake.’

‘And how do we do that, pray?’

‘By drawing up a list of suspects,’ said Colbeck.

‘What’s the point of that?’ asked Rosen with a wild laugh. ‘This is a city with a population of 200,000 or more. Every one of them is a suspect.’

‘No, they’re not,’ said Leeming. ‘We can eliminate women and children for a start. People in the lower classes might know the name of Jenny Lind but none of them could ever afford to hear her sing. They, too, can be forgotten. I think that the inspector is right. The abduction was carefully set up so that she was snatched under our noses without coming to any harm.’

‘A number of accomplices were involved,’ Colbeck reminded them. ‘Apart from the person who fired the pistol, there were the ones who shoved us aside and those who actually spirited her away. We are searching for a rich man, gentlemen. He can afford to hire a number of reliable assistants. The vast majority of people at the railway station were devoted followers of Jenny Lind,’ he said. ‘One of them, alas, was rather too devoted. That isolates him at once. Only someone who worships her would go to such extraordinary lengths.’ He distributed a smile among them. ‘I fancy that our list of suspects will be very small.’

‘But how can you possibly draw it up?’ asked Goldschmidt.

‘Oh, I’m not going to draw it up myself, sir. I will be calling on people who can do that much more accurately. A love of music has driven this individual to such extreme action. And a love of music,’ Colbeck declared, ‘will be his downfall.’

Jenny Lind had been tricked. When the crowd scattered after the second shot, she was bumped into from all sides. A woman then took her by the arm and led her to a waiting cab where the driver was trying to control a horse frightened by the noise of gunfire. A strong young man almost lifted her into the cab, promising that her husband would join her soon and that they’d both be driven to their hotel. It was a ruse. Instead of waiting for Goldschmidt, he leapt in beside her and the cab set off. Jenny’s cry for help was drowned out in the pandemonium. She was soon being driven through the streets of Birmingham as fast as the traffic would allow.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked, trembling with apprehension.

‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ he told her. ‘You’re among friends.’

‘Is this how friends behave?’

‘It was the only way he could persuade you to accede to his request.’

‘Whose request are you talking about?’

‘Wait and see, Miss Lind.’

‘I have to give a concert this evening.’

He smiled. ‘Oh, you’ll be giving a concert, have no fear.’

The cab rolled on until the road widened and the traffic began to thin out. Birmingham was a major industrial city with a permanent haze over its factories but there was no sign of its manufacturing aspect now. They were in an exclusive part of Edgbaston where houses grew bigger and the air became clearer. When they turned into the drive of a mansion, she saw that it was screened from the road by a high wall. It made her feel more like a captive than ever.

‘At least tell me what’s going on,’ she begged.

‘He will do that,’ said the young man.

The cab stopped and he got out first then helped her to alight. The front door of the house was suddenly flung open and a tall, stooping man of middle years came out. He had gleaming eyes set in a cadaverous face and grey hair trailing carelessly to his shoulders.

‘At last,’ he cried with joy. ‘Jenny has come to sing to me.’

Colbeck had sprung into action. Since no witnesses to the abduction could be found, he concentrated on trying to identify the man behind what had been a well-conceived plan. To do that, he believed, he needed the assistance of a special group of people. Even in a city as large as Birmingham, there would not be an excessive number of them. Policemen were dispatched to round them up as quickly as they could. Colbeck and Leeming had been given the use of a room at the police station. Goldschmidt and Rosen insisted on being present. Both were sceptical.

‘This is hopeless, Inspector,’ said Rosen. ‘You are chasing moonbeams.’

‘I am in search of a star,’ replied Colbeck, ‘and her name is Jenny Lind.’

‘Then why aren’t you out there looking for her?’

‘The inspector knows what he’s doing,’ said Leeming, loyally.

‘Patently,’ snarled Goldschmidt, ‘he does not.’

‘Your lack of confidence in me is understandable, sir,’ said Colbeck, ‘but I ask you to reserve judgement until this whole matter has been resolved.’

‘What will happen to my concert?’ moaned Rosen. ‘I’ll lose thousands.’

‘With respect, Mr Rosen, the safety of Miss Lind is far more important than any losses you may incur. Try to put self-interest aside for a moment.’

‘I may be ruined!’

‘Our sympathy is elsewhere at the moment, sir.’

‘Indeed, it is,’ said Goldschmidt. ‘My wife will be in an appalling state.’

‘I’m not so sure of that,’ said Colbeck, thoughtfully. ‘Once she realises that she’s not in danger, she will cope well with the situation into which she’s been thrust. After all, she has travelled the world in the course of her career and adapted to conditions in a whole variety of countries. I believe that Birmingham will hold no terrors for her.’

‘It’s easy for you to say that, man. Find her, damn you — find her!’

There was a knock on the door. ‘The search is about to begin.’

The door opened and an elderly man came in, tapping his way forward with the aid of a white stick. Goldschmidt and Rosen were horrified.

‘Heavens!’ exclaimed Rosen. ‘It’s a case of the blind leading the blind.’

Jenny Lind was conducted into a spacious room at the rear of the house. Pride of place went to the piano but there were other musical instruments as well. She saw a framed print of herself hanging on the wall. On the top of the piano was a pile of old programmes. The woman who’d shepherded her away from the crowd came in after her. She waved their guest to a chair.

‘We intend no harm to you, Miss Lind,’ she said, softly, ‘but it was an opportunity we could not afford to miss. My name is Eleanor Whittingham and this,’ she added, indicating the man who’d brought her into the house, ‘is my father, Caspar. He’s a composer and your most fervent admirer.’

Caspar Whittingham tried to offer a respectful bow but the effort taxed him and he staggered slightly. His daughter rushed to assist him, helping him across to the piano stool. He lowered himself onto it with a mixture of care and anticipatory pleasure. Feeling less threatened, Jenny was able to take stock of her surroundings and to look more closely at her hosts. Eleanor was a pleasant, fresh-faced woman in her late twenties who exuded a sense of good health. Caspar, by contrast, was clearly a sick man, wasted by some sort of disease and haunted by the prospect of death. In feeling sorry for him, Jenny lost any concern for her own safety. Neither the father nor the daughter posed any physical threat to her.

‘They’re all here,’ said Whittingham, pointing to the programmes. ‘I saw every opera in which you appeared in this country and attended every concert. You are inimitable, Miss Lind. When I last heard you sing, I was blessed with the chance to secure your autograph. Show it to her, Eleanor.’

Taking the programme from the piano, his daughter passed it to Jenny.

‘We’d have preferred to invite you here,’ continued Whittingham, ‘but there would have been no hope of your coming. Eleanor is a soprano and I am a composer but neither of us could ever ascend to the heights that you and your husband have reached. We are mere apprentices while you are masters of music.’

‘My father is being characteristically modest,’ said Eleanor with a fond smile. ‘He is no apprentice but a fine musician and a gifted composer. His greatest wish is that Jenny Lind would get to sing one of his songs.’

‘Then why not send it to me?’ asked Jenny. ‘I’d have considered it.’

‘You must get deluged with songs,’ said Whittingham, sadly. ‘Everyone who can compose a tune wants it sung by you. Preference is bound to go to operatic arias and favourite airs. Also, of course, you are married to a composer who can write songs for you.’

Jenny was beginning to understand why she was there. It was not a whim of an eccentric gentleman. It was a final opportunity for someone with only a short time to live. Whittingham was ravaged by illness. What had kept him alive, in part, was the overwhelming desire to hear her sing in private. Cost meant nothing to him. He was obviously a wealthy man. Nor did fear of consequences hold him back. He and his daughter were ready to brave the strictures of the law if they could achieve their objective. Whittingham would never live long enough to suffer imprisonment. Jenny was there to sing his requiem.

‘We can’t apologise enough for what happened,’ said Eleanor with a hand on her father’s shoulder. ‘We took great care that you were not hurt in any way. You must be very angry with us. Who would not be in your position? If you feel that we have abused you too much, you are free to leave at once. We can summon a cab.’

Wanting to accept the offer, Jenny somehow held back. She was confused. It had been very wrong of them to kidnap and frighten her in the way that they did. Part of her wanted them both punished along with their many accomplices. They had put her through a chilling ordeal. But another part of her urged clemency. She was there at the behest of a dying man with a last frail wish. Eleanor and Whittingham were musicians, dedicated to their art. They inhabited the same world as Jenny. Nothing mattered more to them than music. They were kindred spirits.

‘Play one of your songs,’ she told the composer. ‘Eleanor can sing it.’

Pursuit began with a series of false starts. Colbeck and Leeming raced around the city in a cab that called at four addresses in vain. They were turned away empty-handed each time. The fifth address took them to the leafy district of Edgbaston.

‘Look at the size of some of these places,’ said Leeming, marvelling at them. ‘They’re ten times bigger than our little house.’

‘I did sense that the kidnapper was not short of money.’

‘Does he know what the sentence is for abducting someone?’

‘I doubt it, Victor, but he’ll soon find out.’

‘I do hope we’re on the right track at last.’

‘I’m sure we are,’ said Colbeck as they turned into a wide road lined with trees. ‘I can almost feel that we’re getting closer.’

Halfway down the road, the cab rolled to a halt and the detectives got out. Colbeck asked the driver to wait then led the way up the drive. Its dimensions might be striking but the mansion had an air of neglect. Slates were missing on the roof, walls were overgrown with ivy and chunks of plaster had come off the pillars supporting the portico.

‘Go round the back,’ said Colbeck.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But don’t try to get into the house. We mustn’t frighten them into impulsive action. People can get hurt that way.’

‘We don’t even know if it’s the right place, sir.’

‘Oh, it’s the right place. I’m certain of it.’

Waiting until Leeming had gone, Colbeck went to the front door and rang the bell. There was a long delay before it was opened by a young man with an impassive face. Colbeck introduced himself and asked if he might see Caspar Whittingham.

‘The master is away at the moment,’ said the servant, crisply.

‘Is any other member of the family here?’

‘I’m afraid not, Inspector.’

‘When will Mr Whittingham return?’

‘I can’t answer that question. He told me that they might be away for a day or two. Would you like to leave a message?’

Colbeck knew that he was lying. The man’s voice was calm but his eyes gave him away. He kept blinking. Evidently, he was obeying his master’s orders and pretending that he was not there. Colbeck removed his hat and stepped forward.

‘In that case, I’ll wait until he returns.’

He servant was flustered. ‘You can’t come in,’ he protested.

‘I can acquire a search warrant, if you prefer.’

‘Look, Inspector, I give you my word that nobody from the family is here.’

Hand on his hat, Leeming came running around to the front of the house.

‘You’ll never guess what I just saw, sir,’ he said.

‘I fancy that you saw Mr Caspar Whittingham,’ suggested Colbeck.

‘Is that his name? He was playing the piano and someone was singing to him. I couldn’t believe my eyes,’ he said with a hollow laugh. ‘It was Jenny Lind.’

Colbeck swung round to confront the servant. ‘Are you still going to insist that nobody is at home?’

The man wilted visibly.

When his wife was returned unharmed to him, Goldschmidt showered the detectives with apologies for doubting them. He was sorry for his earlier harsh criticism of them and promised to write to the superintendent in praise of them. Rosen’s apology was delivered with reluctance until he realised that the concert would go ahead, after all. He was so excited that he thrust a grateful cigar at each of the detectives. After the initial horror of being kidnapped, Jenny had become reconciled to what was a heartfelt plea from Caspar Whittingham. His songs had definite merit though not enough to tempt her to include any of them in her programme that evening. Jenny declined to press charges against him or his daughter. She preferred to dismiss the whole thing as a rather bizarre adventure.

From the point of view of the detectives, their reputation had been vindicated. What pleased them most was that they were given free tickets to attend the concert at Town Hall, an imposing neoclassical structure at the heart of the city. Leeming was astonished when Colbeck told him that Joseph Hansom, the man who’d designed it, had also given his name to the cab that took them there. Resplendent in their finest attire, the concert-goers of Birmingham came in large numbers and there was a buzz of excitement. When Jenny Lind first appeared onstage, the ovation went on for minutes. The performance was a continuous source of pleasure for Colbeck but for Victor Leeming it was a revelation. Jenny Lind’s voice held him spellbound. He had never heard anything so melodious and yet so apparently effortless. When the first half of the concert ended, he clapped as enthusiastically as anyone.

‘I’m so glad that we were able to rescue her, sir,’ he said.

‘You were the one who spotted her through the window, Victor.’

‘Yes, but it was you who eventually got us to the right house.’

‘I was sure that we were looking for a wealthy man with a passion for music,’ explained Colbeck. ‘That meant he would certainly have a piano in the house and make sure that it was looked after properly. I simply had to make a list of gentlemen in the city who fitted that description. That’s why I called on expert advice.’

‘It was a stroke of genius, sir,’ said Leeming. ‘We may get the credit but this was the first case I know that was really solved by a blind piano tuner.’