“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 McGovan, 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.”