Oh no, not in the least penniless. In addition to the funds in the bag, the late Tadeusz had left a lot of money behind him, tied up in a trust fund, which provided them with an ample income. There was also the matter of insurance. To Yerko and Madame Laoutaro, insurance was a form of wager; you bet with the insurance company that your house would not burn down, and if it did you were deemed the winner, and cleaned up handsomely. Unfortunately, however, when the Laoutaros converted the handsome mansion into a crowded lodging-house, they did not reinsure it as a commercial venture; they continued to pay the lower rate applicable to a dwelling. The insurance company, pernickety about such matters, threatened suit for fraud. Arthur was displeased, but Yerko managed to persuade him to allow the Gypsies to deal with the matter in their own way. Would a great financial company harass and oppress two poor Gypsies, ignorant of the complexities of business? Surely not! The Laoutaros were happily confident that they would get big money out of the insurance. But to the Gypsy mind all invisible money is fairy money and a fire is an immediate disaster. Where were these two homeless victims to go?
Madame’s proposal that they might stay for an indefinite time in the penthouse, which was, she pointed out, big enough for a whole tribe of Gypsies, was immediately ruled out of the question by Maria. Yerko had a plan, which was that they should rent an ancient stable behind a shop a Gypsy friend of his kept on Queen Street East. A little work would make it habitable, and the luthier business and his coppersmith’s forge would be handsomely accommodated.
This might have been acceptable if Madame had not had a bright idea which would, she said, repair their ruined fortunes. A lot of women, not nearly so gifted as herself, were advertising themselves as palm-readers, clairvoyants, and purveyors of personal counsel. A few of them openly promised restoration of lost sexual power, and reports were that business was brisk. As Madame said with scorn, these women were crooks, but if people appeared with money in their hands and positively demanded to be cheated, who was she to spit in the face of Providence?
Darcourt asked her if she would really prostitute her considerable gift as a psychic for money. Her response was positive.
“Never!” she said. “Never would I use my real gift in such trashy work! I would just give them the sort of thing they would get from some low sideshow mitt-camp. It would just be a hobby. I have my pride and my ethics, like anyone else.”
This notion put a sharp spur into Arthur. As the chairman of the board of an important trust company, he could not have it known that his mother-in-law was running a mitt-joint in a depressed part of the city. Arthur had not liked the coroner’s remarks in the inquest on Miss Gretser. The coroner had been rough about the lack of proper safety precautions in a house which he described, all outer appearances to the contrary, as a slum. Had Madame Laoutaro no advisers to keep her straight in such matters? Arthur had not been at the inquest, but he felt the gimlet eye of the coroner in his luxurious office in the Cornish Tower. Therefore Arthur declared that he would find a place for the refugees to repose themselves. To Maria’s horror he offered them accommodation in the basement of the very apartment house in which she and Arthur lived, where he could keep his eye on them.
Hollier tactlessly pointed out to her the almost mythical beauty of the scheme. She, at the very top of the splendid building, exposed to sun and air: her roots, the matrix of her being, ever present in the lowest depths of the same building. The root and the flower, beautifully exemplified. Maria could snarl, and she snarled at Hollier when he said that.
She became accustomed to it. The Laoutaros never came up to the penthouse, not because they were forbidden, but because they did not like it; the air was thin, the food was unwholesome, they would be expected to sit on chairs at all times, the conversation was boring, and Yerko’s pungent farting was reprehended. It was no place for people with any real zest for life.
When Darcourt next visited Maria he talked of Schnak but his mind was on Madame Laoutaro. He was a favourite with that lady, who respected him as a priest, though of a somewhat eccentric kind. She sensed the superstition in the heart of the holy man, and it established a kinship. The matter of a visit to the sibyl had to be approached with tact.
“I’ve been boning up on Hoffmann,” said Maria. “It’s time somebody on the Foundation knew what kind of world we are getting ourselves into.”
“Have you been reading the famous Tales?”
“A few. I didn’t read his music criticism because I don’t know anything about the technical side of music. I’ve found out a little about his life, and obviously this opera, Arthur of Britain, was what he was working on when he was dying. He had lucid fits when he would call for pen and paper and do something, though his wife, who seems to have been rather a simple woman, didn’t say what it was. He was only forty-six. Rotten life, knocking about from pillar to post because Napoleon was making things so difficult for people like him; not as a musician or an author, of course, but as a lawyer, which is what he was when he had the chance. He drank, not habitually but on toots. He had two miserable love affairs, of which the marriage was not one. And he never made it as a composer, which was what he wanted more than anything.”
“Sounds like the complete Romantic.”
“Not quite. Don’t forget his being a lawyer. He was much respected as a judge, when Napoleon allowed it. I think that’s what gives his writing its wonderful quality; it’s so matter-of-fact and then—bang! You’re right out of this world. I’m trying to get a wild autobiographical novel he wrote in which half is the work of a nasty Philistine tom-cat, who jeers at everything Hoffmann held dear.”
“A real tom-cat, or a human tom-cat?”
“A real one. Name of Kater Murr.”
“Ah well—you read German. I don’t. But what about the music?”
“It doesn’t get very good marks, because musicians don’t like dabblers, and literary men don’t like people who cross boundaries—especially musical boundaries. If you’re a writer, you’re a writer, and if you’re a composer, you’re a composer—and no scabbing.”
“But lots of composers have been splendid writers.”
“Yes—but in their letters.”
“Let’s hope the music was better than its reputation, or Schnak is in the soup, and so are we.”
“My hunch is that the poor man was just hitting his stride when he died. Maybe it’ll be wonderful.”
“Maria, you’re taking sides. Already you’re an advocate for Hoffmann.”
“Why not? I don’t think of him as Hoffmann any more. His name was Ernst Theodor Amadeus (he took the name of Amadeus because he worshipped Mozart) Hoffmann. E. T. A. H. I think of him as ETAH. Makes a good pet-name.”
“ETAH. Yes, not bad.”
“So. Have you found out anything about Crottel?”
“Not yet. But my spies are everywhere.”
“Hurry them up. He gives me funny looks when I come in at night.”
“A security man has to give funny looks. What kind of look does he give Yerko?”
“Yerko has his own entrance, through the professional part of the building. He and Mamusia have a special key.”
This seemed the moment to propose a visit to the Laoutaros. Maria hummed and hawed.
“I know I sound like a miserable daughter, but I don’t want to encourage too much coming and going.”
“Has there been any coming? No? Then just for this once, Maria, might we do a little going? I terribly want to get your mother’s slant on this business.”
So, after a little more demur, they sank down as far into the building as the elevator would carry them, into the basement where the owners of the condominiums had their garage space.