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screened by curtains to hide his face, at the Metropolitan he seemed to lose interest. Now he has invested millions in a rival opera house.’
    ‘So far he has always recouped his investments and more.’
    ‘True, but this venture is a certain loss-maker, even though such losses must be under one per cent of his total wealth. And there is more. His mood has changed.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I do not know, Master. Save that it began after the arrival of a mysterious letter from Paris where he once lived.’
    ‘Tell me.’
    ‘Two men came. One a shoddy little reporter from a New York newspaper, but he was only the guide. The other was a lawyer from France. He had a letter. I would have opened it but he was watching me. When they had gone he came down and took the letter. He sat and read it at the boardroom table. I pretended to leave but watched through a chink in the door. When he rose he seemed changed.’
    ‘And since then?’
    ‘Before that he was simply the sleeping partner behind a man called Hammerstein, builder and moving spirit behind the new opera house. Hammerstein is wealthy but not to compare. It was Muhlheim who pledged enough to bring the opera house to completion.
    ‘But since the letter he has become involved to a greater degree. He had already despatched Hammerstein to Paris with a torrent of money to persuade a singer called Nellie Melba to come to New York and star in the New Year. Now he has sent a frantic message to Paris ordering Hammerstein to secure yet another prima donna, the great rival of Melba, a French singer called Christine de Chagny.
    ‘He has involved himself in the artistic choices, changing the inaugural opera from one by Bellini to another, insisting on a different cast. But most of all, he spends every night furiously writing …’
    ‘Writing what?’
    ‘Music, Master. I hear him in the penthouse above. Each morning there are fresh sheaves of music. In the small hours I hear the tones of that organ he has installed in his drawing-room. I am tone-deaf; it means nothing to me, a meaningless noise. But he is composing something up there and I believe it is his own opera. Just yesterday he commissioned the fastest packet on the East Coast to take the so-far completed part of the work and rush it over to Paris. What am I to do?’
    ‘It is all madness, my servant, but relatively harmless. Has he invested more money in this wretched opera house?’
    ‘No, Master, but I worry for my inheritance. Long ago he pledged to me that should anything ever happen to him I should inherit his entire empire, his hundreds of millions of dollars, and thus continue to dedicate them to your service. Now I fear he may be changing his mind. He could leave everything he has to some kind of foundation dedicated to his wretched obsession with opera.’
    ‘Foolish servant. You are his adoptive son, his inheritor, his successor, the one destined to take over his empire of gold and power. Has he not promised you? More to the point, have I not promised you? And can I be defeated?’
    ‘No, Master, you are supreme, the only god.’
    ‘Then calm yourself. But on reflection let me tell you this. Not advice, but a flat order. If ever you should perceive a real threat to your inheritance of everything he has: his money, his gold, his power, his kingdom, then you will destroy that threat without mercy or delay. Do I make myself plain?’
    ‘Perfectly, my master. And thank you. I have your orders.’

6
    THE COLUMN OF GAYLORD SPRIGGS
    OPERA CRITIC, NEW YORK TIMES , NOVEMBER 1906
    TO OPERA-LOVERS OF NEW YORK CITY AND EVEN those within range of our great metropolis I come bearing tidings of good news. War has broken out.
    No, not a resumption of that Spanish-American war in which our President, Teddy Roosevelt, so distinguished himself some years ago at San Juan Hill, but a war within the world of opera in our city. And why should such a war be of good news? Because the troops will be the finest voices on the planet