Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/127

Rh the fiddling most distinct as I was coming up the stairs; when I reached the landing it stopped. I made sure that whoever it was had heard me, and I should find him in the room; but when I opened the door there wasn't no one there. You see, sir, although it didn't sound as though it was, it must have been in the street."

"In the street, you idiot! Do you think I'm deaf?"

I mildly interposed—

"But, my dear fellow, there is the violin in its case upon the table. It doesn't look to me as if the case had even been opened."

Ernest made a dash at it. He opened the lid. He took out the fiddle. As he did so he gave a start which was quite dramatic. He stared at it as though he had never seen such a thing as a fiddle before.

"It's Coursault's violin!"

His exclamation startled me. Coursault's violin! It reminded me of Mr. Box's remark to Mr. Cox, "Have you a strawberry mark on your left arm?" "No." "Then you are—you are my long-lost brother." The recognition was too opportune.

"Come, Ernest! Ernest! don't strain the thing too far. You recognise it, I presume, by the catgut and the bridge."

Ernest paid no heed to my admittedly feeble attempt at chaff. I am no great hand at badinage. He continued to hold the fiddle in front of him with both his hands, glaring at it as if it were a ghost

"It's Coursault's violin. I thought I knew it when I saw it first I know it now. It's Philip's!"

"How do you know it's Philip's?"