Murder at the Opera - Margaret Truman [102]
Once he’d made the decision to avoid entanglement with the police, Mackensie Smith came to mind. Perfect! They’d been introduced by someone with impeccable credentials, a member of the House of Lords and a respected businessman. Yes! Lawyer-cum-professor Mackensie Smith was the right choice. As a lawyer, he would know how to negotiate with Pawkins. He would be discreet because of that attorney-client privilege Josephson had heard so much about. He’d offer Smith a decent fee for his services. What attorney, American or British, didn’t respond to the lure of easy money?
There were times, although not many, when he wondered whether his decision to go after the money and ignore the fact that Pawkins had killed Aaron Musinski was immoral. Marc Josephson liked to think of himself as a moral man, although he tended to define it in a highly personal way, as most people do. The letters of Leon Blum that Josephson had once purchased and resold from his shop provided one of many rationalizations: “I have often thought morality may perhaps consist solely in the courage of making a choice
And I’ve made a choice, Josephson thought, his conscience salved.
Too, there was his relationship with Aaron Musinski to consider. He didn’t wish a premature death for any human being, especially at the hands of a brutal assailant. But he had to admit—to himself only of course—that Aaron Musinski had been a thoroughly despicable man. God, how he disliked him on a personal level, his arrogance and pomposity, his crudeness and insensitivity. There were times when Josephson had secretly wished the famed musicologist dead. He’d suffered Musinski’s insults and bad temper because the man was a genius. Besides, he was someone who had accepted him, Marc Anthony Josephson, into his professional sphere and was willing to share in whatever spoils might come from their explorations into artifacts from years gone by. He had no illusions about the willingness of Musinski to include him. It wasn’t that Aaron had been a generous man. Far from it. But Musinski had been well aware that Josephson had access to many people in the British Isles who might lead them to treasures, particularly the Mozart-Haydn string quartets for which Musinski had been searching for years. How ironic that it took none of his British contacts to ultimately find the scores. There they were on a table with old newspapers and magazines, damp from the morning dew, yellowed, edges curled, on the verge of starting someone’s fireplace to ward off the chill.
He barely slept that night, so consumed was he with the need to right a wrong and to be given what was, after all, his due. He and Musinski had been partners. Without him—he had led them to that London suburb on that fateful weekend and was the first to have spotted the papers on the table—the scores would never have been found. Close friends—he didn’t have many—told him he’d become obsessed with recouping the money. Who were they to analyze his needs? Engaging Poindexter and his agency had cost him his life savings. The shop no longer supported him; his greedy landlord had tripled the rent in recent years. Yes, his dedication—his obsession—to find the scores and the money had diverted much of his attention from the shop and its business. But what was fair was, after all, only fair. That money was rightfully his.
At five the next morning, he again sat at the window, looking out over Washington. He’d made another decision while lying in bed. He had to be more aggressive. Was Smith going to act on his behalf? He needed an answer now.
Waiting until the Smiths might be awake and out of bed seemed an eternity. At seven, he called.
“Hello?” Smith said.
“It’s Marc Josephson, Mac. I trust I didn’t awaken you and your wife
“Not at all. We’ve been up for an hour. Sleep well?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I did not
“Strange beds. I always have trouble my first night in a hotel
“It wasn’t that,” said Josephson. “Have you decided?”
“Decided what?”
“To confront Pawkins about the money
“I’ve given it a lot