“He’s dead. No competition. And you’re back just in time. Can you help me reset this mechanism? I can lift it, but it is just too awkward to get set properly on the pins. And guess what? I found something odd. There is an extra vacuum line running from the G4 actuator. I can’t tell where it goes exactly, but it seems to disappear into the left front leg of the instrument.”
“G4? Which one is that?”
“G above Middle C. The fourth octave, silly. And that’s the note that was so badly out of temper.”
“At risk of making a bad pun, would that make it a piano with distemper?” Gerald asked, and ducked, as Alice laughed and threw a rubber wedge at him.
“Hey! Don’t throw things at me! I’m the best friend you have,” he laughed back at her.
“What’s the dusty box?” Alice asked, after they had reset the player mechanism into the piano.
“Oh, some rolls I found in the attic. I wonder if the player mechanism works. If it does, we could put one on.”
“Well, all the vacuum lines seemed to be ok,” Alice replied. “I was surprised. I expected the rubber to be hardened and brittle.”
“Well, maybe Aunt Sarah kept it serviced and operable. Knowing my family, I’d find it surprising if she did not. Where’s the motor? I found a notebook where someone wrote about having it electrified.”
“I don’t know,” Alice replied. “I didn’t see a motor, or a set of bellows for it. I assume that must be what the extra vacuum line is all about. There must be a motor and bellows under the floor or something. I found a push button switch on the wall, behind the curtain over there,” she went on, as she indicated the window curtain to the left of the piano.
Gerald went over to the curtain, and drew the heavy drape back with his hand. Sure enough, there was a switch plate, with a double push button switch mounted in it. He pressed the upper button, and there was a slight mechanical noise, and the take-up spindle began spinning rapidly.
Alice opened a drop panel along the front of the keys, and moved a lever to the left. The spindle stopped rotating, but the mechanical noise continued. She bent down on her hands and knees beneath the piano, and announced, “It is coming from beneath the floor. Whoever rigged this to run on electricity must have mounted the motor beneath the floor, and run a vacuum line up inside that one leg. Let’s see what rolls we have, and if they are in decent shape.”
Well, Gerald thought to himself. So much for my idea of putting the piano in the round section of the parlor.
She crawled over to the box Gerald had set on the floor, and began taking the boxed rolls out. As she did, she read the titles printed on the boxes. “Prelude In E Minor, Chopin; Scarlatti, Sonata In G Major; Hayden, Capriccio in G Major; Sonata In G Major, Schubert; Original Rags, Joplin. How odd,” she remarked. “Every one of these is in either G or its relative minor. No wonder G4 was out of temper; it must have gotten quite a workout.”
“Well, let’s put one on, and see if everything works,” Gerald suggested.
Alice opened the Scott Joplin box, and took out the roll inside. “The paper seems to be in good condition,” she observed, unrolling a few feet. “Here,” she said, handing the roll to Gerald. “Tie the ribbon to the take-up spool, and let’s see if it works. That left lever is the on-off switch, and the center one should control speed. The lever on the right should shift the keyboard slightly, just as operating the soft pedal does, so the hammers strike fewer strings on each note.”
Gerald experimentally moved the right-hand lever from right to left, and the keyboard obediently shifted slightly. “Well, the volume control, such as it is, seems to work,” he said. With that, he flipped the left lever to “PLAY” and the paper roll began to slowly slide across the copper face of the manifold. HE started slightly as the first notes of a vaguely familiar Joplin rag began to fill the room. “It is similar to Maple Leaf, but not quite the same, “he said.
“I think I remember reading somewhere that his Original Rags was published a few years prior to Maple Leaf,” Alice replied. “I imagine he, like many composers, re-used snippets of melodies.” She turned her attention back to the box on the floor in front of her. “What’s this, a notebook?” she asked.
“Why don’t you see for yourself,” Gerald said, cryptically, and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, aren’t WE the mysterious one?” Alice asked, laughing. Her chuckling was stilled when, opening the book at random, she read, aloud, ‘… and they were clearly enjoying themselves. Her moans of pleasure filled the entire house. I was at first alarmed the neighbors might hear, but that quickly changed to chagrin, when I realized they must have been carrying on thus for some time, while Adoule and I were engaged at the office.’
“Wha…why… um…wasn’t Adoule your father? Is this about your mother?” she asked, putting her finger in the page, closing the book on it, and looking Gerald in the eye.
“I don’t know. I hadn’t read that far ahead. What I read was about my Aunt Sarah,”
“So maybe this is about your Aunt Sarah and someone else!” Alice said, excitedly.