Part 9

A tardily stammered-out word from one of the servants had given them a slight clue to the strange disappearance. During the interval occupied by supper, some of the strange servants being entertained below—that is, the coachmen and footmen of those who had come a distance, and merely put up the horses to wait till the party was over—had proposed that they should take a peep at the glories of the empty ball-room, and, this being readily agreed to, they slipped quietly upstairs under the guidance of one of the servants, and gratified their curiosity.

“But they had been only a moment in the room,” the quaking servant added, “and hardly inside the door.”

The butler made no reply, but to Mr Cleffton he hopefully remarked—

“I suspect some of the coachmen will have your fiddle down in the kitchen,” and to the kitchen they went to find there more than one coachman, but no fiddle, or trace of one. Every one there seated swore that they had not as much as noticed the fiddle, and then they voluntarily underwent a process of searching. Greatcoats were produced and inspected, pockets turned out, and every means tried without success. Then some suggested that they should see if all in waiting were there; they counted off at once, and found that, by comparing the number with that of the plates set for supper in the servants’ hall, they were exactly one short. Who was the missing one! No one could tell, till one jolly-faced coachman said—

“Where’s the surly chap that sat next to me, and never took off his driving coat all the time?”

“Ay, where was he?” every one echoed, and soon to this was added the question, for the first time asked, “Who was he?”

There was no answer to either question. Nobody had noticed the man particularly, though to the jolly-faced coachman he had gruffly said that his name was “Smith, or Jones, or something,” and that he had been “driving some of the folks up stairs.”

Every one in this case, down to the servants of the house themselves, had imagined that every body else knew all about the strange man, and so had paid little attention to him and his odd manner.

Smith had done little but smoke and stare, though he had shown great alacrity in going up to see the ball-room; some, indeed, insisted that it had been he who proposed the treat. More, he had gone up with his heavy driving coat on, and some of the servants had a faint recollection of him loitering near the music stands while the rest of the servants walked round the room looking at the decorations.

“That’s the man that has stolen my violin,” cried Mr Cleffton at this stage of the inquiry. “He would have a big pocket inside his coat,—probably made for the occasion,—and has slipped my Cremona into it when no one was looking or thinking of him. Who does he serve with?”

“Who, indeed?” All echoed the question; but when guest after guest had been enumerated or appealed to by the butler, there came the still more surprising discovery that Smith served no one—came with no one—and was known to no one—had gained admittance, indeed, entirely by the dress he wore, his own cool audacity, and the general flurry in which every one was plunged by the party being held up stairs.

“Get out your horses, and let the villain be pursued,” cried Mr Cleffton, more and more distracted, “the whole robbery has been systematically planned and carried out; but the wretch can’t be far off, and we may overtake him yet. I will give ten pounds to any of you who help to put it into my hands again.”

The incentive was little needed, for a good deal of Cleffton’s excitement had communicated itself to those about him. In a few minutes several vehicles were horsed and ready in the stable yard behind, and on one of these Mr Cleffton took his place beside the driver and with a grand lashing of whips and excited whooping they were off down the avenue, at the foot of which they separated to take the different roads running from the spot. Mr Cleffton, from some idea of his own, had chosen that leading to Edinburgh; but, though the night was clear, and the moon and stars out in the sky, not a trace of the fugitive did they come upon between the mansion and the city. Several tramps they did overtake and rouse up and search without ceremony, but as none of these answered the description of the surly Mr Smith, they were allowed to resume their tramping or snoring, while the agonised fiddler entered the city. Of course his first visit was to the Central Police Office, where he made known his loss to the lieutenant on night duty, and then excitedly demanded to see a detective. It was explained to him that detectives require sleep as well as ordinary mortals, and are not usually kept at the office during the night waiting for such exceptional cases, but this produced little impression upon the musician.

“Everything depends on this matter being seen to with promptitude,” he said. “Give me the man’s address, and I’ll go to him myself.”

They ought to have given him M^cSweeny’s address, considering the hour and the work I had done the day before, but they didn’t; they gave him mine; and out to Charles Street he came at half-past four in the morning, and roused me out of bed, sleepy, stupid, and dazed with having got only three hours rest instead of eight, and, without waiting to see if I understood him, at once began to bemoan his loss.

“My lovely Cremona! my beautiful _Strad!_ spirited away—stolen from under my very eyes! Good heavens, what am I to do? What is to become of me if you don’t trace out the thief?”

“Strad! Strad! Who is she?” I vacantly asked, thinking from the man’s tears that he must mean some young and beautiful maiden, violently abducted from her home and friends.

“The best fiddle in the world—at least, the best that I ever tried, and I’ve tried a few,” he moaned, wringing his hands. “I’d rather have had a leg broken, or lost my head, than that Cremona.”

I stared at him, only half understanding the speech, and inclined to think that he had lost his head.

“You don’t mean to say that it’s a—a fiddle you’ve come to make all this fuss about?” I at last found voice to say.

“A beauty—and the tone of it, three fiddles in one, and as sweet and soft as a flute,” he cried, not noticing my rising anger.

“Good heavens, man!” I shouted at last, “you don’t mean to tell me that you’ve come here and roused me out of bed at four in the morning about a miserable fiddle that you’ve lost? I thought it was something serious.”

“And do you not call that serious?” he returned, after favouring me with a pitying look which was meant to kill me, but did not. “It is serious for me. I’ll never sleep till I get it.”

“I’m sorry for you, but you might at least have let me sleep—till morning.”

“Worth £400—refused £200 for it the other day,” he continued, quite undisturbed.

“£400!” I echoed. “Is it possible you gave that sum for a fiddle?”

“No, not quite so much, but that’s its value,” he slowly admitted.

“How much did it cost you?”

“£40,” he rather reluctantly answered.

“There’s a slight difference between 40 and 400,” I ventured to remark.

“A mere nothing,” he said, with the greatest gravity stumbling on a joke; “that’s common in fiddle buying. You don’t always give for an instrument exactly what it’s worth.”

“Then its value is just the price which you choose to put on it?”

“That’s about it;” and then he hastily changed the subject by narrating all the circumstances of the strange robbery much as I have put them down, only taking much longer to go through.

When he had finished I quietly returned to the point at which he had broken off, pretty sure that he had a reason for avoiding it.

“If the fiddle is worth £400, and you got it at a tenth of that price, you must have got a great bargain?” I observed.

“I am coming to that,” he answered, with a groan. “A great bargain? Yes, I thought so too at the time, but I’ve never had peace since I bought it. It has a history, and as that, I am sure, has something to do with the robbery, you may as well hear it now.”

“Then there is more to listen to?” I ruefully returned, with something like an echo of his groan, and a wistful thought of the cosy blankets I had left. “Will it take long to tell?”

“Not very long—it must not, for I must have you and some of your comrades out to watch the departure of the Newcastle trains.”

I groaned in reality then, and resignedly began to dress.

“Well, go on—I’m listening,” I said, with a very bad grace, which, however, he was too grief-stricken to notice.

“Well, I was swindled in buying the violin—regularly diddled,” he said, with some exasperation.

“_You_ were swindled? I thought it was the other way?” I said, stopping in surprise.

“So did I, but I was mistaken,” he answered, with a writhe. “This was how it happened. I was playing at Newcastle last year, when a man named John Mackintosh, who said he had a real Cremona violin, or one that was said to be real, called upon me, and said he wanted my opinion of it. I had nothing to do during the day, so I went to his shop,—a little den down near the New Quay, in which he sold ginger beer, sweets, and newspapers,—and saw at a glance that it was a splendid instrument. It was of no use to him, for he is only a wretched scraper, who would be as happy with a twelve-and-sixpenny German fiddle, so I determined if possible to get him to sell it. He asked what I thought of it, and I said indifferently that it might be a real Cremona and it might not, but it was worth about £10.”

“That would be a lie, of course?” I quietly observed.

“Well, in a sense, yes,” he stammered, flushing a little. “You know I was speaking professionally.”

“Oh, indeed? Professionals always lie, then?”

“No, no—you mistake. I mean that professionals can never afford to give so much as ordinary buyers with lots of money. But the man was deeper than I had expected—he’s a Scotchman, you know, and they’re always cursed long-headed. He said, ‘Ah, but I wadna gie that fiddle for twice £10.’ I laughed at him, but at length I said I would buy it from him, and give him the £20. Blast him, then I found he wouldn’t sell it at all!”

“And you came away without it?”

“I tried him every way—pointed out how much more useful the money would be than the fiddle to him, but he only said dryly that ‘he would think aboot it,’ and thus I left him. The next time I was in Newcastle I called upon him again, and saw the violin, but this time Mackintosh was not in the shop, but an uncle of his, who said he could not sell the fiddle without the owner’s consent, but hinted that if I made a reasonable offer for it he had no doubt I might make a bargain the next time I came. Well, I did call on my next visit, and saw the uncle, who said that Mackintosh had decided to sell it if I would make the price £40, and I snapped at the offer at once. I asked when I could see Mackintosh, but the uncle only said, ‘You can get the fiddle frae me as weel as frae him—if ye hae the money wi’ ye?’ I had the money, and counted it out at once, while he wrote out a receipt, put a stamp on it, and signed it ‘John Mackintosh.’ Then I got the fiddle, and thought as I bore it off that I was happy for life.”

“But you weren’t?”

“I wasn’t. I had not been home many days when I got a note, vilely written and spelled, from Mackintosh, demanding back his fiddle, and saying hotly that his uncle, the drunken beast, had no right to _lend_ the fiddle to me, or even let it out of the shop. I replied sharply that I had bought it, paid £40 for it, and held the receipt; to which he replied that his uncle had left him, and gone no one knew where, but the fiddle was never his uncle’s, nor had he power to sell it, and that Mackintosh himself had never fingered a penny of the price, and did not mean to, but insisted on getting back his Cremona. Here was a nice swindle; yet what could I do? I offered him other £20 to let me keep it, but he laughed at the offer, and then brought an action-at-law against me for the return of the fiddle.”

“And what was the result?”

“The result as yet is only that I’ve had to pay away nearly £20 in lawyer’s fees; but, as I stick to the fiddle, and would burn it sooner than give it up to him, I suspect that in desperation he has planned this robbery, and now is making his escape to Newcastle with the fiddle in his possession.”

“Oho! and that’s the end of it,” I exclaimed, now seeing the awkwardness of the case he was putting into my hands. “Was it this man Mackintosh who offered you £200 for the fiddle the other day?”

“No, no! That was another person altogether. But what has that got to do with the case in hand?”

“Nothing, perhaps, but we’ll see. Who was he?”

“Oh, a curious, half-daft customer, who has a craze for buying fiddles. He lives a mile or two out from this city, but heard me play on mine at one of the concerts, and invited me out to try his and compare them with mine.”

“Did he seem very anxious to buy yours?”

“Oh, fairly daft about it—offered me my pick of his selection of fiddles and £200 down for it, but I only laughed at him. He doesn’t play at all, so of what earthly use would it be to him? He has been in an asylum, I understand, at one time, and I could believe it, for none but a daft man would give the prices he has given for the fiddles he has. One wretched thing, with no more tone in it than a child’s sixpenny toy, cost him £180. He’s been beautifully swindled.”

“Swindling seems to be rather a prominent feature in fiddle-buying,” was my comment; but while I made it I was thinking of something else.

It is a pity that he told me of the Newcastle affair, for from the first I had caught the idea that the offerer of the £200 would be found to have some connection with the theft. The bringing in of another clue completely upset my first instincts, and made me give them less prominence than I should otherwise have done. The description of the surly, sham coachman, too, did not tally in any particular with that of either Mackintosh or his uncle, though, as Cleffton remarked, that did not go for much, as they might have employed another to do the job for them.

There was little time for either thinking or further inquiries, for on consulting the railway time tables I found that trains started by both lines for Newcastle at a few minutes past seven, and as I could not divide myself into two, I would have to rouse M^cSweeny—rather a joyful task—and prime him with details and descriptions, and set him on to watch one station, while I and Mr Cleffton took the other.

As the early train from the Waverley Station did not run farther than Berwick without a break, I thought the Caledonian more likely to be tried, and decided to take that one, while M^cSweeny took the Waverley. There was no boat for Newcastle from Leith till next day, so we were pretty safe in trying only the railway stations.

We got down to the Pleasance, roused M^cSweeny without compunction, and then hurried off to our different posts of observation. I took up my stand close to the booking-office, with Cleffton watching close by, and there we stood till every passenger had been served with tickets, and the train moved out of the station. Not one carried a fiddle, or suspicious bundle, or had any appearance of having one concealed about them, and not one answered the descriptions either of Mackintosh, his uncle, or the sham coachman. Cleffton was manifestly disappointed, and eager to know what I thought.

“Wait till we hear what M^cSweeny has to say,” was my reply, and we drove along to the other station to find that my chum had actually made a capture, and lugged him off to the Office, fiddle and all. Cleffton was in high spirits, but swore horribly when he found that the prisoner was only a harmless blind fiddler, with an instrument having more patches and splices than his coat, and worth only half-a-crown. Then I gave my opinion freely—

“I’m afraid we’re on the wrong scent.”

Cleffton, however, had formed his own theory, and insisted on all the trains for Newcastle being watched that day; and this was done, but without success. Even then he would have held out, but in the course of the day I sent a telegram to a skilful man on the Newcastle staff, asking him to find out if Mackintosh had been out of town, and at night I had an answer giving a decided negative. Not only was he at home, and serving his customers as usual, but he had even spoken confidently of recovering his valuable Cremona, in a month or two at the most, by the ordinary processes of law.

“Recover it, the cheating scoundrel!” cried Cleffton, when I read him the message, “after me paying him forty pounds for it!”

“Not him—you did not pay him,” I quietly corrected.

“A regularly planned swindle!—all made up between them,” he hoarsely iterated.

“I have little doubt it was,” I thoughtfully replied; “but did it never strike you as curious that a man in his position should possess such a valuable instrument. Did he never tell you how it came into his possession? It is just possible that it was not really his to sell.”

“Do you think so?” eagerly cried the excited victim. “By heavens, I would give a ten pound note this minute if you could fasten a crime of any kind on him. That would be revenge! He always declared to me that he bought it in a disjointed state from a broker in Edinburgh here for £3. Perhaps it was stolen.”

I said nothing, for either way Cleffton would lose his fiddle, and probably the money he had paid for it. I had no doubt that the false sale had been planned and arranged by Mackintosh; and was quite sure that the man who could do so would not stick at trifles, but it did not therefore follow that he had stolen the fiddle. I gave the whole matter a night’s thought, and in the morning wished heartily that the fiddle had been burned to ashes a year before I was born, for I seemed to get deeper into troubles and difficulties the more I studied and investigated.

I now put Cleffton and his theories aside, and began to work the case in my own way. After getting from him the address of the gentleman who had offered him £200 for the Cremona, I made my way out to the mansion which had been the scene of the robbery. I then worked my way in towards the city, and, after two days’ hard work, at length discovered two persons who had seen a man answering the description of the sham coachman at an early hour on the morning of the robbery. One had seen him on the road, another had seen him in the city; but neither seemed to have any suspicion that under the big coachman’s coat there was concealed a bulky thing like a fiddle.

From some of the servants I had learned that the man was red-haired and big boned—that he had a slight cast in the eye, and that he undoubtedly knew something about horses and driving. I therefore decided that if I should have the good fortune to discover him I would find him to be some dodging groom or stableman of doubtful reputation rather than one of my own family of recognised “bairns.”

My next step was naturally a visit to the eccentric connoisseur, whom I shall call Mr Turner. It happened, however, that before I had advanced to this stage Mr Cleffton had to leave the city for England to fulfil several important engagements, and I was for a little rather puzzled as to how I should be able to identify his violin, if I were lucky enough to get my eyes on it. Fiddles, of course, are all alike to me, and unless by some marked difference in the colour I could not tell one from another. Mr Cleffton tried to prime me a little by speaking of certain marks and printed tickets which I would find about the fiddle, but when he admitted that some of the fiddles already in Mr Turner’s possession had these very tickets and marks I was more helpless than ever. At last a happy thought struck him just as he was leaving town, and he dropped me a note directing me to an old Edinburgh musician who had been playing second fiddle with him on the night of the ball. This gentleman had seen and closely examined the Cremona more than once, and, having a perfect knowledge of all the peculiarities of such valuable instruments, would know the missing one, I was assured, among dozens. To this gentleman, therefore, I went, and we arranged that he should take me out to Mr Turner’s as a friend wishing to see the rare collection of old violins. We then set out for the nearest cab-stand, as the place was three miles out of town, and on the way I chanced to say—

“But are you perfectly sure that you would know this fiddle so as to be able to swear to it? It would be very awkward for us all if we made a false accusation.”

“I’ll know it when I see it,” was the confident reply, “and I’ll tell you why. I have a strong suspicion that I’ve seen the fiddle before—ay, and played on it, too. If it’s not the £50 Cremona that my old chum, M——, of the Theatre Royal, lost about ten years ago, it must be its twin brother.”

“Lost? How could a fiddle be lost?” I faintly returned, as with a sinking heart I anticipated fresh complications.

“Well, or stolen—it was never rightly known how it happened,” promptly returned my companion. “I was there at the time myself, and I’ll tell you all about it as we go out.”

I groaned, and resigned myself to listen.

We got to the cab-stand, and were soon rattling out from Edinburgh, and when out on the smooth country road my new assistant very eagerly threw off the following information:—

“We were playing at a ball out by Penicuick—six or seven of us altogether—and as it was a jolly affair at a gentleman’s seat, we were driven out and in in an open trap. My chum, M——, of the Theatre Royal,—he’s dead now, as you know,—was leader, and had his best fiddle with him—a splendid _Stradivarius_ Cremona, which cost him £50. I had a great liking for the instrument, and used often to try it, and have got the loan of it often when I had a solo to play. We were through with our business about three in the morning, and I remember perfectly that it was a clear, cold night, with plenty of moonlight. We had had some refreshments during the night, but every one of us knew perfectly well what he was about. M—— was the last to step into the vehicle that was to bring us in, and he came out with his fiddle and case in his hand, and said, ‘Mind yer feet or I pit in my fiddle—better that you sud be crampit for room than that my fiddle sud come to ony herm.’ We made room—the fiddle case was shoved in on the floor of the vehicle among others there lying, the door at the back was shut, and we drove off, singing, laughing, and joking, and as jovial and happy as kings. There was a toll-bar some distance in, and I remember some of us getting out to knock up the toll-keeper and get him to open the gate; and it is possible that the door of the trap may not have been shut immediately on the journey being resumed, but, at all events, the door was found open when we came to the next toll, which was near Edinburgh. When we got to the Theatre Royal—the most central place for us all—we got out, and M——, who was joking and laughing till we had all got out our instruments, began groping about under the seats, and then said, ‘Some o’ ye hae taen my fiddle.’ We counted over, and searched everywhere, but the Cremona and case were gone.”

“Lost on the road, I suppose?”

“Yes, or stolen—it was never found out which. The loss was not thought serious at first, for there was a brass plate on the case bearing the owner’s name, and it was expected that the fiddle would be picked up by some of the early carters coming in to the market, and that a mere advertisement and small reward would ensure its restoration. But though the advertising was tried, and every inquiry was made, the fiddle has never been heard of since.”

“And did you not tell Cleffton all this when you saw the fiddle in his possession?”

“No; I was not sure that it _was_ the fiddle. But I thought of it, and was very near saying it.”