“It’s like the letter M scratched with a pin.”
“It is just that, and was scratched with a pin in this very room. He
did it one night before me, saying, ‘If ever any one runs away with
my fiddle I’ll know it by that whether they change the ticket or
not.’ You need not take the fiddle away with you, for I claim it as
mine.”
Here was a poser, but I was not to be so easily deprived of what was
mine only on trust. I quietly took the instrument into my hands,
saying—
“At present, Mrs M———, the fiddle is in the hands of the police, and
as soon as you make good your claim to it I have no doubt it will
be surrendered to you, but it seems to me that you will require to
advance better evidence than that of a mere scratched letter.”
“I for one can swear to the instrument,” observed my companion.
“And half a dozen more, when they see it,” added the widow warmly. “I
will raise an action for its recovery to-morrow.”
“Tuts! do not be so hasty—save your money in the meantime,” I
advised. “I may get the evidence for you quite easily, if I can
get the thief to confess. But that will necessitate a journey to
Newcastle, so it can hardly be done in a day.”
I said this pretty confident that the swindling Mackintosh who had
sold the fiddle to Cleffton would turn out to be the original thief,
and took away the instrument and made preparations to secure him. I
had before this made an arrangement whereby any one calling for the
box at Linlithgow station should be detained and arrested; and the
whole case now presented the curious spectacle of two robberies,
two claimants, and two thieves. A telegram to England, according to
arrangement, brought Mr Cleffton down in joy and ecstacy to claim
his beloved fiddle, but only to be all but heart-broken with the
intelligence that it was believed to be stolen property, and could
not be given up till all claims had been fully investigated. The day
after, I managed to run down to Newcastle. I easily found the little
shop of Mackintosh, and considerably startled him by saying—
“My name is M^cGovan, and I have come from Edinburgh about that
affair of the Cremona. I want you to come with me.”
The name appeared to be known to him, for he became ashy white before
I had done speaking, and then with chattering teeth managed to say—
“I can’t leave my business; but I’m willing to lose the money. I’ll
pay Cleffton back the £40 out of my own pocket, if he gives me back
the fiddle.”
“Out of your own pocket?” I growled. “Man, don’t try that on me. The
whole thing was a regular plant. But, as it happens, it’s not that
part of the business that has brought me here. It’s the way you got
the fiddle—it was stolen.”
“Stolen? Then it wasn’t by me,” he cried, with fearful earnestness.
“I can swear that with my hand on the Bible. I bought it from a
broker in the Cowgate, in Edinburgh.”
“That’s a common story—you’ll have a receipt, I suppose?” I answered,
with a grin.
“I have, and I’ll show it you,” and much to my surprise he very
quickly produced a badly written and spelled receipt for £3, bearing
a stamp, and signed “Patrick Finnigan.”
“Now, be cautious what you say,” I returned, after a long look at
the paper. “I happen to know Finnigan, and know him to be an honest
man. You declare that you bought the fiddle from him—the fiddle which
Cleffton bought from you for £40?”
“I declare that solemnly.”
“Then how did he get it?”
“I don’t know; but it runs in my head that he said he bought it at a
country auction sale. It was in two pieces when I got it—the neck was
away from the body.”
All this seemed probable enough, but I thought proper to take
Mackintosh with me to the Newcastle Central, and have him locked up,
while I returned to investigate his statements. Taking the fiddle and
receipt with me, I called on Finnigan and asked him to try and recall
the circumstances of the sale. That he managed to do when prompted
by several statements of Mackintosh to me—particularly one as to the
fiddle being in a broken state, and having hung in the back shop in a
green bag, when Mackintosh asked to see it. Questioned then as to how
it came into his possession, he said—
“I was out in the country at an auction sale—it was at a farm about
six miles from here—and there were two or three fiddles put up. This
was the last, and as it was broke—though the auctioneer declared
that it only needed a little glue and new strings to make it play
beautiful—nobody would bid for it, and I got it for five shillings.
I always meant to sort it up, but was afraid I mightn’t do it right.
One day the man who bought it came in and looked at a fiddle I had in
the window, and then asked if I had any more. I showed him that, and
saw him look pleased and eager like, so when he asked the price of it
I thought I’d drop on him, and said £5. He prigged me down to £3 and
then took it away, saying he didn’t think it dear.”
“You can’t remember the name of the farm, I suppose?” I wearily
remarked, beginning to despair of getting to the bottom of the
strange complication.
“I don’t know the name of the farm, but I think the name of the
farmer who had died, and who had owned the fiddle, was Gow, or
something like that. I could take you to the place though, and maybe
that would do as well.”
I thought the proposal a good one, and got a cab the same afternoon,
and drove out towards Penicuick, then by some cross roads, through
which the cabman was unerringly directed by Finnigan, we reached the
farm in question. Here I was not surprised to learn that nothing was
known of the Gows who had formerly occupied the farm. Gow himself
was dead, and his surviving relations gone, none knew whither; but,
in the course of my inquiries, I came across an old man—a ploughman
or farm worker, who had served with Gow for many years, and to him I
turned as a kind of forlorn hope, though, as it happened, I could
not have hit upon a better if I had hunted for years.
“It’s about an old fiddle that was sold at the roup when the old
man died,” I explained, in rather a loud key, for the old man was
a little deaf. “It was broken at the time, and was sold for five
shillings.”
“I mind o’d perfectly,” said the old man. “It was the fiddle that
we fund on the road gaun to market. The maister was on ae cairt and
me on the tither; and it was quite dark at the time, but there was
a heavy rime on the grund, and the fiddle was in a black case, and
I noticed it as we drave by, and stoppit my cairt to pick it up.
The maister stoppit his too, and then when he had lookit at the
fiddle, and tried hoo the strings soonded, he said, ‘Them ’at finds
keeps, Sandy. I’ll gi’e ye five shillings to yoursel’, an we’ll say
naething aboot this to naebody.’ So we shoved it in alow the strae,
and there it lay till we got back frae Em’bro’. The maister played
on it, and likit it better nor his ain; but on the Saturday after he
cam’ to my hoose late at nicht, wi’ the case and fiddle in his hand,
and said, kind o’ excited like, ‘Sandy, in case onybody should ask
after this fiddle I think we’d better pit it ooten sicht for a wee.
Get your shuill, and dig a hole ony place where it’s no likely to be
disturbed.’”
“And you did it?”
“Deed did I. I dug a hole, and the fiddle and case lay there for
mair nor a year. But it was never claimed, and we got it oot, and he
played on it for a while, but the damp ground had spoiled it in some
way, and he never likit it sae weel as at first. Then it gaed in twa
ae day in his hands, and was put awa in a bag till the day o’ the
sale.”
“And what became of the case?” I asked, with great eagerness.
“Ou, the maister used it for a long time to haud ane o’ his ain
fiddles, and it went wi’ it at the sale to Thompson o’ the Mains.”
“Was there not a brass plate on it bearing a name?”
“A brass plate? I raither think there was a brass plate on it when
we fund it, but I never saw it after. Maybe the maister had ta’en it
aff.”
“Not unlikely,” I dryly observed. “Did you never hear of the fiddle
being advertised for?”
“No me; I didna fash muckle wi’ papers at that time.”
“You must have known that you were as good as stealing the
fiddle?—that it must have had an owner?” I sternly pursued.
“I said that at the time, and advised the maister to adverteese it in
the papers, but he only laughed, and said he would tak’ a’ the risk.”
“Can this Mr Thompson who bought the case be found now?”
“Naething easier, sir,” the man readily returned. “The farm’s no a
mile off.”
I began to see the end of my task now, and, with the old ploughman
to lead the way, at once drove to the Mains and was introduced to Mr
Thompson. The fiddle case was at once produced, and then I smiled as
I discovered on the top of the lid a square indentation and two rivet
holes, which had evidently at one time contained a brass name-plate.
With little difficulty I got the fiddle case away with me, and drove
back to Edinburgh, where it was identified by the widow at a glance
as that of her husband’s lost instrument.
I now had the whole case traced out to its core, and lying clear as
a written history before me, but as there was only one fiddle to
give away among the claimants, it will be seen that the task before
us was not only difficult, but almost certain to bring upon us the
dissatisfaction of some of the so-called owners.
While I had been investigating, Mackintosh, thoroughly frightened,
had sent a draft for £40 to Cleffton, asking him to return the
fiddle at his leisure and say no more about it; but when he was set
at liberty he had the doubtful satisfaction of finding that he had
lost both the money and the fiddle. I waited patiently to see if the
box at Linlithgow would be called for, but evidently the senders had
become alarmed, for they never turned up. I then tried to ascertain
from Mr Turner’s servants if a man like the sham coachman had been
seen about that gentleman’s house, but they were too wary for me,
and denied it point blank. I then turned to Mr Turner himself, and,
hinting in no measured terms that he was the prime mover in the
robbery, _commanded_ him to pay over to the Infirmary the sum of £20,
which the grasping villain very reluctantly but abjectly consented to
do.
There now remained but the two rival owners to deal with, and I am
certain the case would have gone to the Court of Session but for a
thought which struck me when Cleffton was one day arguing his view of
the case to me.
“You gave £40 for the fiddle, and thought it well worth the money,”
I said. “How much do you really think the fiddle is worth?—I mean
privately, between ourselves.”
“It would be cheap at £400,” he said with a sigh. “I should never
have sold it for that.”
“Then I’ll tell you what to do,” was my prompt rejoinder. “The widow
to whom the fiddle undoubtedly belongs never speaks of it as worth
more than £50, she has no use for the fiddle herself, and would
doubtless be glad of the money. Go to her and offer her £50 for it,
and that, according to your own confession, will be £350 below its
value.”
“Hang it! I never thought of that! I’ll try it,” he exclaimed,
“though I’m afraid even fifty pounds will not buy it, and I don’t
know how on earth I’m to raise more.”
“Perhaps you’ll get it for less,” I hopefully suggested, but I
was mistaken. The value of the fiddle had risen in the widow’s
estimation, but in a day or two Cleffton came back with a
carefully-worded receipt, penned by his own lawyer, and empowering
us to hand him the Cremona, which he had bought from the widow for
£65. When the fiddle was placed in his hands he fairly hugged it,
and kissed it as fervently as I have seen mothers embrace their lost
children. I smiled pityingly at the spectacle, but perhaps he would
have done the same had he seen the mothers getting back their idols.
We are good at pitying each other.