“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.”