Quinn put a hand to Elgar’s elbow and gently steered him back out of the room. Although he had little expectation of anything worthwhile arising from Elgar’s outburst, he thought it wise to exercise a degree of caution. Whatever the special constable thought he had discovered, it was probably best not divulged in front of Miss Greene.
Macadam joined them in the hallway, closing the door to the drawing room behind him. Quinn looked warily up the stairs. Lady Fonthill had said she was going to see the children in the nursery, but he had no proof that she had in fact done so. She could easily be lurking on the upstairs landing. As far as he was concerned, her ladyship was by no means in the clear over her husband’s death. And so, he put a finger to his lips and escorted the special constable back to Sir Aidan’s studio.
When the door to that was closed behind them, he gave a nod of encouragement. ‘Now then, Constable Elgar. What was it you wanted to say to me?’
Elgar once again held out the slip of paper for Quinn to take.
Quinn looked down at the lines of staves. On the first of them was written a sequence of musical notes. He was unable to make any sense of it. Music had never been his thing. Besides, it was typical of amateur detectives to be always looking for secret codes everywhere. He waved the paper dismissively. ‘What is this?’
‘It is a code. Of sorts. Don’t you see?’ Elgar hummed the snatch of discordant melody that the music box had produced, as if that was enough to persuade the policemen of his point. He then leant over the piano and picked out the same notes.
‘May I?’ asked Macadam.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Quinn, relinquishing the paper. ‘I forgot, you used to play the piccolo.’
‘Is this the treble clef?’ asked Macadam.
Elgar looked up sharply. ‘Of course.’
‘You didn’t mark it.’
‘Well, I didn’t need to. I knew.’
‘No key? No time signature? No bars?’
Even Quinn thought Macadam was pushing his luck. After all, it was a bit rich for a former piccolo player in the Boys’ Brigade to be criticizing the great Elgar on his standard of musical notation.
Elgar, however, seemed to take it in his stride. His tone was a little abrupt perhaps, and forcefully insistent. But it was clearly excitement, not irritation, that stirred him. ‘Not necessary. This isn’t music. As I said, this is a code. Although perhaps it would be more accurate to say cryptogram.’ He came back over to stand next to Macadam as he studied the fragment of notation.
To Quinn’s annoyance, Macadam seemed to be enjoying himself. ‘Well, let me see. What you have is A, E flat, E flat. A, E flat, E flat. C, B. C, B.’
‘Correct.’
‘What does it mean?’ Despite his scepticism, Quinn was intrigued. There was undoubtedly a pattern there.
‘At first, I could make head nor tail of it. And then I remembered Bach.’
Quinn closed his eyes in exasperation. ‘What about Bach?’
‘Well, he would write his name musically. How could he do that, you may ask, given that there are only seven notes in the Western musical tradition? Those, as you will know,’ here Constable Elgar addressed Macadam, ‘are represented by the letters A to G. In short, there is no H. And so while he could write B-A-C easily enough, he could not add the final H. Except that in the German system of notation’ – Elgar broke off for effect and was no doubt gratified by the interrogative bounce in Quinn’s eyebrows – ‘the letter B is used for B flat, whereas B natural is represented by the letter H. And vice versa. Letter representing note. Note representing letter. And so, Bach can be written by the notes B flat, A natural, C natural, B natural. You will see here, at the end of this phrase of ours, we have C natural and B natural repeated. Which, if I am not mistaken, spells C-H-C-H.’
‘C-H-C-H? Where does that get us?’
Elgar held up a restraining hand, which only succeeded in infuriating Quinn further. ‘What you have to remember is that even using German notation, the communicative possibilities are somewhat limited. It’s not an effective code as such. It’s more like a playful way of concealing hidden messages.’
‘Playful? You think this is some kind of game? I’ll remind you, one of my officers was murdered.’
A glint of steel shone in Elgar’s eye. ‘And what if this is the very thing that leads you to his murderer?’
‘Hear him out, sir. You never know,’ urged Macadam.
‘Very well. Go on.’
Elgar nodded to acknowledge Quinn’s concession. ‘Such messages do not remain hidden to those who know what to look for.’ Elgar gave a nonchalant wave of his hand, to signify that he was one such person. ‘Now, to go back to the first part of our message … Using the same German system, A natural is simply A. However, E flat – well, if you think of how the Germans write the letter S in the Gothic script, it looks a little like the flat symbol, does it not? So E flat is Es, that is to say, the letter S. A natural, E flat, E flat spells Ass.’
Quinn’s bafflement was profound. He gave voice to only one of many questions that perplexed him.
‘Ass?’
‘Yes. And if you repeat it, A natural, E flat, E flat twice spells Ass, Ass. Or rather, assass.’
‘Assass?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which means?’
‘Well, to put together the complete phrase, we have A-S-S, A-S-S, C-H, C-H. Or you might say, assass ch-ch. Remember, we cannot represent every letter in the alphabet. So we have to fill in the gaps ourselves. Assass could be short for assassin, perhaps. Or maybe assassinate. It could be a command. Assassinate ch-ch.’
Quinn felt his heart pound out a rhythm that seemed to match the broken tune of the musical code. ‘Churchill.’
Macadam’s eyes widened. ‘Cor blimey, sir. You don’t think …’
Quinn snatched the scrap of paper back from his sergeant. ‘Churchill was due to attend the concert. He knew Sir Aidan. What we may have here is evidence of a plot to assassinate the First Lord of the Admiralty.’