Free Crime is Murder by Helen Nielsen Page B

preceded it into a bird’s nest of bushy brown hair, and both of them clattered to the floor in a manner that annoyed poor Miss Oberon until the pitch pipe hanging about her neck swung crazily against her flat chest.
    And what did the choral group think? Lisa wondered. Aloud she said, “I’ve always heard that a bad rehearsal is a good omen. And I’m sorry to trouble you on such a hectic day, but I did feel the need of your advice.”
    “Advice?”
    Miss Oberon was at once both intrigued and bewildered. Perhaps she’d never been asked for advice before.
    “On procedure and such on the committee. I’m sure you’ve had a great deal of experience on the festival committee.”
    Miss Oberon beamed. It was a weak beam, to be sure, but the spark was still there.
    “As a matter of fact,” she admitted, “I’ve served on the committee since the first award was given.”
    “Nine years ago,” Lisa mused.
    “Why yes, that is, this will be the ninth. Of course, we planned it for several years prior to the actual event.”
    “We?”
    “Mr. Graham and Mrs. Cornish. But I was in on it almost from the beginning. We were delayed because of the war. Culture suffers so in wartime.”
    “Among other things,” Lisa observed.
    “But then we got started, finally, and it’s been such a satisfaction to assist those fine young talents. To watch them rise—”
    Miss Oberon’s expression was almost beatific. Her thin fingers played idly with the pitch pipe, and her eyes glowed happily—and then darkened. Lisa caught the cue.
    “Except for Howard Gleason,” she suggested.
    “Criminal!” Miss Oberon exclaimed. “Criminal, that waste of talent!”
    “And tragic,” Lisa added. “I wonder why a young man with such a promising career ahead of him chose to refuse the scholarship and stay on in Bellville to teach. He had no family, no obligations—”
    “He had eyes,” Miss Oberon snapped, “and he was a man!”
    Lisa had eyes, too. She saw the swift fury in Miss Oberon’s face, and the way her fingers suddenly froze on the pitch pipe. Not a reliable witness, perhaps, but better than none.
    “Then it’s true that he was in love with Marta Cornish?” she asked.
    “Of course it’s true,” the music teacher said. “Howard was deeply in love with that girl. He met her as soon as he came to the festival. That’s why he stayed on.”
    “Then what happened?”
    “What happened? What always happens where Marta Cornish is concerned? What is it, Miss Bancroft, that makes a beautiful girl so careless with love? Why do they throw it away?”
    Aging Miss Oberon, unlovely and unloved, asked the question. She didn’t wait for an answer.
    “She never cared for Howard, and he was a fine young man. It was the same with that other one—Pierre Duval. She never cared for him, either.”
    Now Lisa was intrigued. She’d come asking of one suitor and stumbled across two.
    “Pierre Duval?” she repeated. “I don’t believe I know the name.”
    “Her music teacher, Miss Bancroft. Another fine young man. Mrs. Cornish brought him over from Paris, I think, about six years ago. He lived at Bell Mansion for the next three years and taught Marta all she really knows about music—if she knows anything.”
    If
she knows anything? The inference was too plain to be ignored. “I thought Marta had the reputation of being quite talented.”
    It could be jealousy. The thin smile on those tight lips wasn’t beyond such emotion. Lisa watched and Lisa listened.
    “A reputation Mrs. Cornish never misses an opportunity to embellish,” the woman said bitterly. “Frankly, Miss Bancroft, I think it’s very much overrated. I think that’s the reason Marta never gets a composition into the judges. It’s just talk, that’s all. Nothing but talk!”
    And then Miss Oberon’s slightly crossed eyes wandered over the wall until they came to rest on a framed reproduction of the painting in the Cornish museum. Martin Cornish hung just above a bust of