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By Root 635 0

and I had come to this suburb of London that weekend to spend a few days with an old, dear friend, and we did what we often did, stopped in at private house sales with the whimsical notion that we might find something of great value among the junk being offered. I’d chatted with the daughter upon arriving and learned that her father had been an inveterate collector of memorabilia on his many travels, which included frequent trips to Vienna. I was strolling through the front yard, where tables had been set up, and spotted a stack of scores, yellowed with age and curled at the corners, sitting on a table with piles of old magazines and newspapers. I called Aaron over and we perused them.

“I could literally feel Aaron begin to tremble as he picked up each score and examined it. ‘I don’t believe what I’m seeing,’ he said to me. There were no names on the music, but the dates of composition were there, along with a numbering system that was unmistakably Mozart

“Numbering system?” the interviewer said. “Please explain

“Mozart’s compositions are often identified by the letter ‘K,’ followed by a number. The ‘K’ stands for ‘Ludwig von Köchel.’ He created a catalog of Mozart’s works in 1862, listing them in the order he thought they had been written. Remarkably, the scores Aaron and I found that day in the front yard of the home contained the ‘K,’ but had handwritten next to it the letter ‘H.’”

“For Haydn

“Yes. Of course, the date was significant, too. Mozart met Haydn in 1781 in Vienna. Haydn was somewhat older than the young maestro and was Mozart’s idol. The string quartets were written during that period

“And you and Professor Musinski knew what you had come upon?”

“Oh, yes. I was convinced of it because of my lifelong immersion in rare manuscripts, including musical scores. Aaron was the acknowledged expert on Mozart and his compositions. Between us, we were sure we had the string quartets

“You must have been ecstatic

“An understatement

“What happened next?”

“We quietly debated whether to inform the daughter that the scores were worth considerably more than what she was asking for them

“Which was?”

“Thirty pounds

“And you judged their worth to be?”

“A million pounds, perhaps more

“What did you pay her?”

“We decided to not reveal what we were convinced we’d found, but to be more generous than her asking price. We bought some other items to mask our intentions and paid her two hundred pounds, explaining that the scores, as ragged as they were, were perfect for framing and decorating my study. She seemed quite pleased

“But you weren’t being honest with her. Did you feel any guilt?”

“Oh, yes, and I still do on occasion

“The Mozart-Haydn scores have disappeared, as you’ve announced. Professor Musinski took them back to the States?”

“Yes. He’d developed a highly sophisticated computer program into which most of Mozart’s compositions had been inputted. His intention was to compare these compositions with the vast array of other Mozart works in style and technique, using the powerful program he’d developed. He never had the opportunity to do that, I’m afraid. He was killed shortly after arriving back in the United States. The scores haven’t been seen since

“Stolen by whomever killed him

“I would say that is a logical conclusion.”

• • •

Smith read other articles in which Josephson was quoted. In one, he was asked about what he thought of the job the Washington, D.C., police were doing searching for Musinski’s murderer and recovering the Mozart-Haydn scores.

“I suppose they are doing what they can, but with so many murders in that city, it would be unreasonable to expect them to devote all their energies to this. I’m afraid that neither the murderer nor the scores will ever be found

A hell of a reputation to have, Mac thought as he exited Google and read the printouts he’d made of the articles. He called Annabel on her cell.

“I’m still at the Brazilian Embassy,” she said, “and I’ll probably be here quite a while longer. Why don’t we meet up at the Kennedy Center

“Okay

“Are we still on for dinner with Mr.