Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/130

106 The lady stared at us with a watery, a gin-and-watery, eye.

"Could you tell me from whom you got it?"

The lady's response was oracular.

"Perhaps I could, and perhaps I couldn't."

"The fact is that I have reason to believe that it belonged to a friend of mine, whose whereabouts I am very anxious to discover."

"That don't make no odds to me."

"But it makes considerable odds to me. Such odds that I am willing to give half a sovereign if you will tell me from whom you got it. If, for instance, he was a stranger to you, could you describe his appearance?"

"Well, I could, and that's sacred truth. Good reason I have to remember him."

"Indeed?"

Ernest's tone was sympathetic

"’Cause I gave more for that there fiddle than what I sold it for."

"I should think that you are hardly in the habit of doing that, are you?"

Perhaps this time there was the suspicion of a sarcastic intonation.

"I ain't. I shouldn't make much of a living if I was, should I? I don't mind saying it now I've sold the thing, but that there fiddle ain't all there."

"Do you mean that part of it is missing?"

"No, I don't I don't believe in ghostesses, nor none of them there rubbishes, but if there ain't a ghost about that there fiddle, I never heard of one."

I glanced at Ernest; Ernest glanced at me. The lady continued.