Casebook 4: A Score Settled - 4.16[index]
He replaced the Stradivarius in her case for the last time, sat at the desk and began to write. Hallgató was hammering on the door, shouting at the top of his voice. But to Meklàr Hegedus he was invisible. He had already passed over into another world. He wrote his suicide note:
He placed it in the violin case and shut the lid, like the closing of a coffin.
Then, he leapt out of the window.
How did the note disappear? No-one noticed – probably a man, probably dressed as a hotel attendant – a master of disguise. No-one noticed as he unlocked the door with the master key he had stolen, replace the violin – case and all – with a copy, and, unwittingly taking the note with him, disappear forever. No-one noticed as they were all too busy contemplating the body that lay bleeding on the patio.
Why leave such a cryptic message? Why leave a message at all? They wanted him to know that they had come for him. They wanted it to be the last thing he ever heard.
At first, I thought the crime was murder. But I was wrong. It was theft. They had crept into that hotel room and stolen a man's soul.