Sherlock Holmes

Oh, no.

Watson, stay here and listen to Maribel confess how he murdered Dranko.

You're alive?

No, thanks to you.

I took the trouble to dissect the violin you gave me and then played one of the others here to lure you in.

He killed Dranko?

But the suicide note... Elementary, my dear Watson.

I would hazard a guess that it was torn from the end of a letter to Marivaux referring to an unsatisfactory instrument, which was intolerable and which he couldn't endure any longer.

Holmes, Marivaux was nowhere near Drenko when he died.

Marivaux had left a very oddly constructed violin with Drenko, presumably last night, knowing that it was Drenko's habit to practice each morning from eight till ten.

Inside the violin, in place of a sound bar, Marivaux had put a thin glass vial containing cyanogen, the lethal gas which is identical in odor and effects with the cyanide.

Good heavens!

When Drenko reached the proper high note, the extremely thin glass vial cracked under the impact of the sympathetic vibration, releasing the deadly fumes through the F-holes in the violin.

And the violin that Marivaux was delivering to Drenko when he discovered the corpse was... Precisely, Watson.

He merely left that one by the body, planted the note...

and carried off the fatal weapon and all proof of the crime in his now empty case.

He made only one error.

He neglected to tune the violin he left.

Amazing, Holmes.

I'd prefer to spare Lady Ashley the ordeal, Marigold.