"At first Bertram was pleased to have the great instrument respond to his little fingers, but he found the stops and pedals were troublesome and confusing to manage, and he did not make the progress we had hoped for. His one longing was to learn the violin. He used to implore our dancing-master to allow him to try the small instrument by which we were taught to regulate the steps of our quadrilles and polkas, and he would even bribe the blind old street musician who played before our house on Saturday mornings to lend him his fiddle and bow. There was no one in the town, however, whom my father considered worthy to teach him, so he was obliged to content himself with trying to pick out tunes on a guitar which had belonged to my mother, and which he had found stowed away in the lumber-room. One day my brother and I were walking down the narrow paved street on our way home from the cathedral, when, passing by the mysterious 'Hidden House', we heard the wailing strains of a violin. Bertram at once stopped to listen, and seeing that the door in the high wall, which was generally fast locked, to-day stood open, he crept inside the garden, so that he might hear the better. I followed, to try and persuade him to return, but I, too, was so attracted by the enchanting music which flowed through the open window that together we stood concealed behind a syringa bush, almost holding our breath for pleasure.
"I know now that it was a composition of Rubenstein's that Monsieur le Comte was playing, but we had never heard it before. It was a style of foreign music quite new to us, and the wild romance, the weird beauty and pathos, the bewitching, haunting ring of the melody, rendered by a master hand, together with the strangeness of the unusual rhythm, roused my brother to a degree of excitement I had never seen him show before. As the last soft notes sank quivering away, he rushed from his hiding-place, and running up the steps to the French window, dashed impulsively into the room where Monsieur Strelezki stood with his violin.
"'Oh, thank you! Thank you!' he cried. 'I've never heard anything so wonderful in all my life. Will you please tell me what it's called? And oh! if you would play it over again!'
"To say that the Comte was astonished will very poorly describe the scene that followed, but finding that the boy was in earnest, he bade us be seated, and gave us such a bewildering and utterly charming selection of quaint Polish and Hungarian airs that Bertram was wild with delight. He sealed a friendship then and there with Monsieur Strelezki, and whenever he had a half-hour to spare he would hurry away to the 'Hidden House' to listen to more of the fascinating music.
"It was perhaps only natural that the Comte, seeing my brother's enthusiasm, should offer to teach him the violin; and though my father was somewhat doubtful about allowing him to accept so great a favour from our eccentric neighbour, he could not, in the end, resist Bertram's pleadings, so the lessons began. I think teacher and pupil enjoyed them equally, and the boy's progress was simply marvellous. He not only learned with a rapidity which astonished even his master, but about this time he began to compose pieces himself, and could hardly contain his joy in this newly-discovered talent. I would often beg him to write them down, as he was apt to forget them; but he did not like the trouble of transcribing music, and would declare with a laugh that it did not matter, as he always had a new one in his head. His school work suffered very much. He would spend over his violin hours which ought to have been given to preparing Greek and Latin, and my father was often angry over his bad reports. It seemed little use, however, to scold him; he was full of promises of amendment, but he never kept any of them.
"This had gone on for perhaps three years, when one day my brother went round early to the 'Hidden House'. He found everything in a state of confusion and upset. Monsieur Strelezki had died suddenly of heart failure during the night. The old housekeeper had discovered him, when she entered the dining-room in the morning, sitting, as she supposed, writing, with his violin on the table by his side; but the eyes bent over the paper were sightless, and the fingers that still held the pen were stiff and cold. On a half-sheet of note-paper he had written in a shaky hand:
"'To Bertram Lancaster.
"'Farewell, dear pupil and friend! The King of the Musicians has called me. We shall meet no more in this world. I bequeath you my Stradivarius. May it prove for you the key to fame. Remember always that there is only one secret of true success, and that is....'
"But here the messenger had come for Monsieur le Comte, and he had obeyed the summons, leaving the secret he had tried to tell for ever untold.
"As my brother grew older his passion for music seemed only to increase. My father wished him to study law, so that he might in time give him a partnership in the steadygoing old-fashioned solicitor's practice which had been in our family for several generations, but Bertram utterly refused. He had set his heart on a musical career, and after a bitter quarrel with his father, he left home altogether, taking with him the small fortune he had inherited from our mother, and went away with the avowed intention of devoting himself to his violin.
"'I feel I have a future before me, Alice,' he said, as he bade me good-bye. 'I shall solve the Comte's secret yet. If it was talent he referred to' (and he flushed a little) 'I think I've my fair share of that, so perhaps the Stradivarius may really prove the key to fame, in spite of everything!'