Page:The Black Cat November 1916.djvu/18

14 while he wondered if the man wanted the violin, or was only trying to cover his exit neatly.

"Would you really like the fiddle?" he asked. "Do you see something of value in it?"

The man turned guiltily from his amorous gaze at the combination of wood, glue and strings, and put on what seemed to the pawnbroker an obvious assumption of nonchalance.

"Oh, I don't know," he remarked, "as it's really worth anything. It's only curious, I guess. Still, I'd be willing to venture a bid on it, just to reward you for your time and because my collection lacks a violin."

Uncle Myer remembered the hungry look of the old-young man, and convinced himself he could do everyone a good turn.

"What'll you give," he whispered, "if I can induce the owner to sell? He prized it very highly, I remember, so he'll be hard to handle. I must be able to make him a good offer."

"I don't know what your idea is of a good offer," said the collector. "I'd scarcely care to go five hundred. If that would tempt you, and you can get it for a trifle less from him, let me know. Here's my card. I'm at the Copley Hotel for a week."

He went out, leaving Uncle Myer mentally stunned. He had actually expected the customer to stop at "five"—and he had gone on to "hundred" as calmly as if ordering weinersnitzel in a delicatessen shop.

Myer took up the violin and tried to look into its inner economy. At the same time he gave himself explanatory information.

"An old master he said you were," he observed, "and didn't like the dark. So I should hang you where you'd get the air. And an old master you must be if a man wants you for five hundred. How'd he put it? 'I'd scarcely care to go above five hundred.'"

The shop had grown quiet again, despite Myer's self communings and suddenly his heart gave the familiar pound, just as it had done a half hour before when a mysterious word floated on the air.

What was that word—Stradivarius! And what association had it in the mind of Myer?

An encyclopedia had come into the shop in flotsam from a library. Myer hauled down the volume "Pue to Strad" and solved the puzzle. A "Strad" was a violin, "an old master," probably of fabulous worth. The stranger suspected this of being one. The word had been pumped into the air inadvertently. Instead of cheating himself by paying five hundred, he would be trying to cheat Uncle Myer. Well, the first thing to do was to get that fiddle into one's hands. Then "business" could be talked to that "collector," and perhaps when the violin changed hands more than a paltry five hundred would do likewise.

While trying to decide on what pretence the owner could be invited to the pawnshop without arousing suspicion, that down-and-outer crossed the threshold of his own volition. And he wore what Uncle Myer diagnosed as a lean and hungry air.

"Say," he pleaded, "I'm whipped clean again, and I've got to have an extra two dollars. My ship is still