Their prisoner was a man of medium height, who looked to be in his early twenties, with dark, curly hair and blue eyes. He struggled, snarling imprecations and threats in strongly accented English, but Frank and Joe were both taller than he, and considerably stronger. They held him securely.

"Just settle down!" Frank snapped, tightening his grip on the man’s wrist. He glanced over his shoulder at Phil, who had gingerly straightened up. Both Vanessa and Megan moved to hover solicitously over their friend. "You okay, Phil?"

"Y-yeah." Phil adjusted his tie, and smoothed his shirtfront, grimacing as he touched his stomach. He rubbed it a moment, then pulled in a deep breath. "I’m fine." He approached the intruder, a scornful expression crossing his face. "Robert…." He pronounced it ‘Ro-bair.’ "What are you up to now? Why are you here?"

The man addressed as Robert glared fiercely at Phil. "I came to warn you once again, Cohen – stay away from Allison Lewis! She is my girlfriend, and she always will be!" he spat.

Phil surveyed him calmly. "That’s funny – because Allison’s been my girlfriend for four months now. She doesn’t want anything more to do with you, Robert. Why can’t you just get that through your head, and move on?" To Frank and Joe, Phil added: "It’s okay, guys, you can let go of him. He’s not any threat." Reluctantly, the Hardys eased their grips on Robert, and stepped back a few paces, but they remained tense and on guard.

Released, Robert rubbed his wrists and stared defiantly at Phil and his friends. "Allison is just confused," he stated vehemently. "You’ve confused her. She loves me! She is mine!"

"Robert, you’re sounding suspiciously possessive," Phil said mildly. "If you don’t watch out, I’ll have to report you again."

Clear blue eyes flashed angrily. "She is mine!" Robert repeated stubbornly. "She is not yours, Cohen!"

"Get out," Phil gestured towards the door with his chin. "We have an important concert to attend, and you’re delaying us."

Robert snarled in wordless frustration, but he was obviously no match for Phil and the Hardys. He staggered out the door, slamming it violently behind him.

"Wow!" Joe stared at their friend. "You have interesting guests dropping in, Phil!"

Phil smiled wryly, and rubbed his stomach again. "Yeah…" Now that Robert had departed, he allowed himself to relax, and winced a little.

"Phil, are you sure you’re all right?" Megan put a hand on his arm. "Maybe you should sit down for a minute."

"Thanks, but I’m fine." Phil smiled down at her. "Robert can’t hit – I’ve had run-ins with him before. It probably hurt his hand more than it hurt me." He gestured towards the door. "Let’s get going, huh?"

As they walked back to the parking garage, Phil launched into an explanation of Robert’s bizarre behavior.

"Allison met Robert DuChais at a symposium in Paris a couple of years ago. He can be very gallant and persuasive, and she was pretty impressionable. He turned her head with that Gallic charm, I guess, and of course she was flattered to be sought after by this older guy. After she returned to the U.S., Robert arrived in New York a month later. They dated during her last year in high school, but then Alli found out what kind of guy Robert really is – possessive and manipulative. She didn’t want to have anything more to do with him, and called it off about the time she started at Julliard. But Robert doesn’t seem to want to take ‘no’ for an answer, and he keeps hanging around. As I said, I’ve had run-ins with him before"

Squashed into Phil’s car once again, the Hardys, Vanessa and Megan endured his haphazard driving to their destination. Megan simply closed her eyes, gripped Frank’s arm, and prayed; Vanessa reached across her friend’s lap and clutched Frank’s hand, tightening her fingers convulsively a few times when they narrowly escaped vehicular disaster, but remaining silent. In the front, Joe kept up a rapid-fire conversation with Phil, trying to distract himself from what felt like impending doom. But they arrived safely back at the parking garage, and Phil found a space close to Frank’s Saturn.

The teens transferred their casual clothes back to Frank’s car, and then set out for the short walk to the concert hall. As they walked, Frank took in their surroundings. The area was solidly built up, with tall structures blocking out any view but ‘up.’ As they neared the concert hall, he could see a block-long crush of curb-to-curb taxis, all dropping people off at the concert.

"I didn’t realize this was such a big deal," he commented to Phil, indicating the throng of concertgoers.

Phil nodded, and grinned. "It’s their final concert of the year, and this one in the spring is always the best. At least, that’s what Alli says."

Once inside the hall, the group from Bayport were handed programs, then found their seats and edged into them. Frank sat furthest in, with Megan on his right; next came Joe, then Vanessa, and Phil took the aisle seat. They could see the orchestra onstage, already doing their warm-ups. Musicians ran through finger exercises and did breathing routines. Ripples of sound and snatches of various melodies filled the hall, all mingling in what seemed to be complete cacophony.

"How can they concentrate on what they’re doing, in all that noise?" Vanessa marveled, whispering in Joe’s ear.

"Used to it, I guess," he muttered softly in reply.

The orchestra members were dressed formally; the girls in the black dresses Allison had described; the men in black tuxedos, with white shirts and red cummerbunds. There was an enormous flower arrangement on the floor in front of the stage, and this, and the red accents of the men’s formal attire, were the only colors onstage – everything else was stark black and white.

"There’s Alli – see?" Phil leaned across Vanessa to point towards the stage. The group could see Allison, in the front row of the violin section, conversing with the tall, skinny youth seated next to her. They seemed to be working on something together, playing bits of music over and over, and discussing it avidly. "That’s Angel Coussard, the guy Alli was talking about at the restaurant. The first-chair violin; he’s really a phenomenal musician."

Angel and Allison stopped playing, and smiled at each other in evident satisfaction. Angel held out his violin, apparently showing Allison a set of fingerings, and she nodded, and tried it on her own instrument. Her smile widened appreciatively.

"He’s good," Phil admitted, a trifle unwillingly. "He’s cocky and sure of himself, but I suppose it’s warranted. He is very, very accomplished."

"It’s just that you wish he wasn’t quite so aware of it!" Joe quipped.

Eventually, the lights dimmed in the hall, and the orchestra members and audience quieted. Watching the musicians intently, Megan noticed that there was no shuffling of music on the stands; it was evidently already in order.

"Look," she murmured. "All their music is clipped into those black binders. No loose pages."

Phil heard her comment, and leaned to respond. "It’s done that way so that the musicians can turn the pages easily – and nothing gets out of place," he whispered.

The conductor, a somewhat portly individual resplendent in white tie and tails, strode up to his podium, to the applause of the audience. He glanced at his musicians, then tapped the podium with his baton – and then raised both hands.

Suddenly, the thunderous, repetitive notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony filled the concert hall. Smiling in pleased recognition, Frank leaned back in his seat and squeezed Megan’s fingers. Glancing to the side, he noticed Joe pick up Vanessa’s hand and bring it to his lips for a swift kiss, before he settled down to listen.

This orchestra is good – very, very good! Joe couldn’t help smiling as he listened appreciatively to the strains of music. They’re about a thousand times better than any of the orchestras or bands I’ve heard back in Bayport! He watched Allison as she played, and saw that she smiled nearly all the time, evidently enjoying what she was doing. But there was fixed attention, too. She didn’t lose herself in the music, she was concentrating fully – but it was clear that she loved it.

The program was varied and pleasant, mixing various sorts of music, just as Megan and Allison had described. Joe didn’t have to pretend to be interested, he liked all of it – some more than others, but all of it was enjoyable. Megan, Vanessa and Frank all appeared to like it too, and as for Phil…Phil was mesmerized, his gaze fixed on Allison the whole time.

After four pieces, there came a short intermission. The lights came up, and people stood and stretched, or walked out to the corridors to get drinks of water, or visit the restrooms. Joe and Frank both stood, glad to stretch their long legs, but none of the group left the area of their seats. Vanessa and Megan leaned to compare notes, happily discussing what they had seen and heard.

"Told you you’d like it," Phil said, with satisfaction.

"It’s better than I’d anticipated," Joe admitted, grinning. "If I could hear these guys play all the time, I might even learn to enjoy classical music!"

"Now there’s something you should get recorded and notarized," Megan teased. "It’s not likely we’ll ever hear Joe say anything like that again." Frank and Phil snorted with laughter, and Vanessa giggled, then hugged her boyfriend comfortingly.

"Never mind, Joe, I love you even if you are a barbarian," she whispered. "In fact, there are some barbaric aspects of you that I’m quite fond of…." She winked, and Joe blushed crimson.

After the intermission, the orchestra played a couple of blues numbers, and then an arrangement of Rock This Town featuring the brass sections, which had the listeners swaying in their seats and snapping their fingers, even though the eventual addition of the strings did sound just a little odd. Delighted smiles lighted faces throughout the concert hall.

Then came the finale – a quiet, tender piece spotlighting the two main violinists, Angel and Allison. There was no need to consult the program to know what this music was meant to convey – the parting of lovers. Listening intently, Frank felt Megan’s fingers tighten on his, and he glanced over to see tears sliding down her cheeks.

"Don’t cry, Baby; I’m not going anywhere," he breathed, and squeezed her hand. Leaning forward just a little, he saw that Vanessa’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and he heard her sniffle audibly. Joe looked like he was swallowing a lump in his throat.

Onstage, Allison and Angel were caught up in their performance. The mournful melody Allison played at the end of the piece indicated her versatility with her instrument – and her expression, eyes closed in rapt concentration, showed how well she knew the music she played. The conductor might as well have not even been there, for all the attention she or Angel paid to him. They were somewhere else, in a world dominated by their instruments and the interwoven melodies they made.

When the last notes died away into silence, the members of the audience stood as one, clapping and cheering the performance. Joe, applauding vociferously, let loose a few strident whistles, but he wasn’t the only one. Megan and Vanessa, both with cheeks tear-streaked, clapped until their hands ached. Frank exchanged glances with Phil as they stood and cheered; he’d never seen Phil Cohen look so proud as he did at moment. When the performers took their bows, the loudest applause came for Angel and Allison, who smiled in happy triumph.

Finally the applause petered out, the lights came up, and the audience began to move from their seats. The orchestra members picked up their instruments and moved offstage, into the wings. Phil gathered his friends close, so that they could hear him in the midst of the chatter and noise.

"We’re going to meet Alli up front," he told them. "It will probably take about half an hour before she’s ready to go; they usually have a quick discussion of the performance with the conductor. So we may as well just sit down again and wait for the crowd to clear."

They settled back into their seats, eagerly discussing the concert. Megan and Vanessa agreed that the final piece was their favorite of the evening; Joe, predictably, liked Rock This Town the best, and Frank voted for St. Louis Blues. Phil said he couldn’t decide between Rock This Town and Copeland’s Rodeo.

A few minutes later, however, Phil jerked to his feet, glaring across the hall. "Rodney!" he muttered. "That guy is persistent – and more trouble than he’s worth! He’d better not try to get Alli’s violin again – not now, when we know he’s here." He indicated Allison’s cousin to the others.

Frank looked – and then stared in surprise. He had expected Rodney to be the man he had chased through the streets in pursuit of the violin, although he realized, after a second’s thought, that Allison would have recognized him in the restaurant, or when the instrument had been taken, had that been the case. So who was that other guy? he wondered. He could see that Rodney, who looked to be somewhere in his mid-twenties, was dressed just as he and Joe and Phil were – in a regular suit and tie, with his hair – a nondescript shade that Aunt Gertrude termed ‘hair-colored’ – brushed back smoothly. Frank couldn’t make out an eye color at this distance. Rodney looks pretty much like all the other concert patrons here! Frank thought. He tried to keep an eye on him, but after a few minutes, Rodney moved into the crowd, and Frank lost track of him.

Joe, too, had been watching him. "Lost him!" the younger Hardy murmured, sitting down in disgust.

Time passed. Forty-five minutes later, they were nearly the only ones left in the auditorium, and Allison still had not shown up.

"What could be keeping her, Phil?" Vanessa asked, with some concern. "She isn’t usually this late, is she?"

Phil shook his head. "No, but perhaps the conductor is keeping them for some reason. He usually lets them go quickly, because they have things to do in the morning, but he could be going over something or other that he felt couldn’t wait until tomorrow, I suppose."

"I can’t imagine what he could find to criticize in that concert!" Megan said.

Phil grinned. "You’d be surprised what he hears that the rest of us don’t notice!" he replied. Then he sobered. "Maybe I’ll go backstage and see if I can find Allison," he said, but at that moment they noticed Angel Coussard come onstage, look around, and then hurry down the side steps towards them.

As he approached, the group could see that he was still attired in his tuxedo, although he had pulled off the cummerbund, and his tie was askew. "Phil," Angel said, in a marked French accent, "Allison sent me to find you. We have had a tragedy backstage. Someone has taken her violin, and she is most distraught. Will you come?"