IV.
THE VIOLIN
I.
I AM unable to say exactly why I bought it. I suspect that the purchase had a certain connection with the price. Three-and-sixpence for a "Full-sized violin, splendid instrument; rich tone; in perfect condition; best bow" did not strike me as extravagant. In fact, it tickled me. The shop looked liked a marine-store dealer's. There were old books, old boots, old bottles and jampots, cheek by jowl with that "fine violin." Had it—that "splendid instrument"!—been the last resource of a street musician, I wondered.
The proprietor of the shop appeared to be a lady. She was very dirty and very fat. I asked to see the fiddle. Taking it from the window, without a word she placed it in my hands. I am not a judge of violins. I should not know an Amati if I saw one. As to Straduarius, Ernest told me the other day that violins—posthumous violins—of his manufacture are being turned out by the dozen, cheap, at a little town in Germany. I know very little more about Straduarius than that. But Ernest does; he is a musician. And I thought it would amuse him if I made him a present of a "fine violin" and "best bow," which together cost me three-and-sixpence.
"How much for the case?"
The fiddle had been reclining on the lid of an ordinary baize-lined wooden case.
"Shilling," said the lady.
It did not occur to me that this was dear. The lady, however, seemed to suppose that my temporary silence conveyed a hint that it was. Because, presently, she observed—
"I won't charge you anything for the case."
"You will let me have the violin, the bow, and the case for three-and-sixpence?"
"Yes," said the lady.
I struck the bargain. As I bore away the prize it crossed my mind that there was something perhaps a little remarkable about that violin. A suspicion, say, of a receiver and a thief. One must purchase violins, bows, and cases at a very low price to be enabled to sell them at a profit for three-and-sixpence. My morality may have been lax, but I told myself that that was the lady's affair, not mine.
Ernest came to dinner that night.
"I have been buying you a present," I remarked as he came in.
He looked at me and laughed. I don't know if he imagined that my words contained a joke.
"A present? What sort of present?"
"A violin."
He glanced at the case upon the table.
"A violin! I say, uncle, I hope you haven't"
"Been making a fool of yourself," he was on the point of saying, but he wisely stopped in time.
"Just look at that violin, and tell me what you think of it."
He opened the case. He glanced at the violin as it lay within; then he took it out. He handled it reverently. I have noticed that a genuine musician always does handle a fiddle—even a common fiddle—with a sort of reverence. He turned it over and over; he rapped its back softly with his knuckles; he peeped into its belly; he smelt it; he tucked it under his chin; then, putting it down, he fixed his eyes on me, with a light in them as of a smile.
"It's odd, but, do you know, I seem to have seen this violin somewhere before."
"Where have you seen it?"
"I fancy you know better than I. You have a little secret, uncle; come, what is it?"
"Is it a good violin?"
He drew the bow across it, tightening the strings. Then he played a little exercise and a snatch of some quaint melody. Then he lowered it and looked at it with glistening eyes.
"It is a good violin."
"How much is it worth?"
"It depends upon the man who buys it, and upon the length of his purse. I hope you did not give a fancy price."
"Is it dear at three-and-sixpence?"
"Three-and-sixpence? You are joking."
"That is what I gave for it—fiddle, bow, case, and all."
He was turning it over and over.
"Where did you get it?"
"In a dirty shop, in a dirty street, off Lisson Grove."
"I feel sure I have seen it before."
"Do you recognise it by any mark?"
"I recognise it by every mark, and"—he touched it with the bow—"I recognise it by its voice."
The idea struck me as fanciful. In an orchestra of violins, all playing the same music, if one among them could be recognised by its voice, it seems to me that that violin would not be popular. But he is fanciful, is Ernest.
We went down to dinner. During the meal he told me about a young man in whom he was much interested. The name of this young man was Philip Coursault, and he, too, was a musician. According to Ernest, he was a strange and wild young man. Poor and proud. Impracticable, too. He relied upon his art for bread. And his art had failed him. Nor was it strange, from all that Ernest said. He had composed oratorios, and grand operas, and elaborate symphonies—all the heavy artillery of music. Ernest declared that genius had inspired them all—that unmistakable genius which rings clear and true. But an unknown young man cannot go into the market with a grand opera in his hand, and have it produced and paid for on the spot, especially when that young man is a crotchety young man, who has ideas of his own as to the way in which he wishes his work produced.
So Mr. Coursault found. Pupils he scorned. Ernest, for instance, had found him one or two. But his treatment of them was so extraordinary, that, as a matter of course, he lost them. He was never punctual. He kept them waiting hours. Sometimes he never came at all. And when he did appear he spent his breath, and exhausted a considerable vocabulary in reviling them for their musical incompetence and crass-headed ignorance. Young lady pupils, too, and in the presence of their mothers! Mrs. Jones told him that he need not call again, which was not strange of Mrs. Jones, who did not pay to have the pleasure of hearing her daughter rated as being lower than the beasts that grovel.
As I have said, my nephew was telling me about that friend of his as we were eating our dinner. My dining-room is under the drawing-room, and in the drawing-room we had left that three-and-sixpenny fiddle. While the fish was being removed we distinctly heard, above our heads, the sound of a violia. It was Ernest who heard it first.
"You have a musician in the house."
"A musician? What do you mean?"
For the change of themes was sudden. He was in the very middle of the story of his friend.
"Someone in the drawing-room is favouring us with a solo on the violin."
I listened It was as he said. The sound was unmistakable. Someone was fiddling while we dined.
"Which of your maids is a mistress of harmony?"
"I was not aware that I had such a paragon. It is the first I have heard of it." Just then Rouse came in with the entrée. "Rouse, who is in the drawing-room?"
The question appeared to surprise him.
"I am not aware, sir, that anyone is."
"There is someone. Go up, and see who it is."
Rouse went. Almost immediately the sound of playing ceased.
"Rouse has stopped the concert."
The man returned.
"Well, who was it?"
"No one, sir, is in the drawing-room."
"No one is, or no one was?"
"No one was, sir."
He smiled. I glanced at Ernest, and Ernest glanced at me. He seemed to be a trifle incredulous.
"Then who was that playing the violin?"
"I fancy, sir, that it must have been someone in the street."
If it was someone in the street then my ears had played me a curious trick. I thought it possible that Rouse was screening one of the maids. I chose to let it pass. I recurred to the subject of our conversation.
"Well, and about your friend?"
"He has disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"Into thin air, like that performer on the violin." There was a suggestive twitching about the corners of Ernest's lips. I am afraid he thought that Rouse had been guilty of what may be politely termed a subterfuge. "More than a week ago he left his lodgings, with his violin-case in his hand, and he has not been heard of since. Ha! there is the performer back again."
There was. This time it sounded as though someone upstairs was tuning the violin.
"Rouse, who is upstairs?"
The man stood listening.
"I will go and see, sir. There was certainly no one there just now."
As before, the sound ceased almost directly he had left the room.
"Rouse has stopped the concert for the second time. Just as the fair musician was tuning up too!"
Ernest seemed to take it for granted that it was a maid. When Rouse reappeared in the room his bearing was a trifle disturbed.
"There was no one upstairs, sir. It must have been in the street."
I kicked at this.
"Come, Rouse, that won't do. Did it sound to you as though it were in the street?"
"It didn't, sir. But it must have been. There's no one upstairs, and the maids are all below. Besides, sir, there's no one in the house as plays the fiddle."
Ernest interposed. A smile was twinkling in his eyes.
"Where was the violin?"
"There's a violin-case upon the table, sir. I don't know if a violin is in it. The case is closed."
"I left it closed."
Ernest's tone was dry. I could see he had his doubts as to the man's veracity. Rouse has been in my service nearly thirty years, and I do not remember having once detected him in a lie. If he was screening anyone, I would have it out with him when my visitor had gone. I did not intend to humiliate a tried and faithful servant in the presence of my young gentleman. I returned to the erratic Mr. Coursault.
"I suppose when your friend disappeared he left a little bill behind."
"You little know Coursault! He had the most astonishing notions about money matters. Some time ago, when I knew he was in a tight place, I ventured to offer him a loan. I never ventured to repeat the offer."
"That sort of thing sounds very well, my boy, among boys! But did he leave a little bill?"
"Not a ghost of one. He paid up his week's lodging the very day he left. His landlady says that she believes he expended his last penny in doing so. She says, too, that she believes that he has been starving himself for weeks. I myself have noticed that he has become worn almost to a shadow. But, with such a man as that, what could you do? The more he needed help the farther he would shrink from it. In his uttermost extremity he would owe nothing, even to his dearest friend."
"Do you know his haunts?"
"I ought to—none better! But he has been seen nowhere, and by no one. As is the case with our friend upstairs, he has vanished into air."
I did not like the allusion myself. As for Rouse I saw he winced.
"Did this remarkable friend of yours burden himself with any portion of his baggage?"
"He took nothing but his violin."
"Was that his instrument?"
"All instruments were his. But it was his first love, and his last! He used to say of his violin that to him it was mother, father, wife, and friend."
As I was hesitating whether to smile at the folly of these young men Ernest half rose from his seat. He pointed upwards with his hand.
"Back again!"
As he put it the sound of the violin was back again.
"Listen! Don't trouble yourself, Rouse, to go upstairs and stop the concert, but stand a bit and listen. Let us hear of what metal the performer's made."
We listened the while Ernest held up his hand, as if commanding silence.
"Is that in the street?"
It did not sound as though it were. Ernest moved a little from the table.
"Come! let us go upstairs and surprise this fair musician. Possibly this is the case of a light which hitherto has shone unseen."
He went to the door. He opened it softly, so as to make no noise. With the handle in his hand he stood and listened.
"Hark! Let us hear what it is she, or he, is playing."
We all were silent, listening to the music, which came floating through the open door.
"Uncle!" Ernest turned to me. A startled look was on his face. "Surely—surely I know that air!"
It was strange to me. Quaint and sweet and mournful, like the refrain of an old-world song. I would I were a musician. I would write it here.
"It is a thing of Coursault's!"
Suddenly Ernest threw the door wide open. He went into the hall.
I went with him, amused at his eagerness. We stood at the foot of the stairs and listened.
"Do you mean that it is a composition of the friend of whom you have been telling me?"
"I do. I'll swear to it! I've heard him playing it!"
"Then, possibly, he has attained to greater fame than he imagines."
"But it's unpublished. Uncle, Coursault is upstairs!"
He grasped my arm with a degree of force which was a little disconcerting.
"Nonsense! Your friend would scarcely carry his eccentricity so far as to enter, uninvited and unannounced, the house of a perfect stranger—that is, unless he is burglariously inclined."
"I know his touch. Do you think that anyone but a master could play like that?"
It was fine playing. Very soft and delicate, but instinct with a strength, and a force, and a passion, which was perceptible even at our post of disadvantage at the foot of the stairs. A street musician would scarcely play like that—and a parlour-maid!
"It is one of his freaks. He has heard that I was here, and thought he would surprise me. The presence of the violin upon the table was a temptation beyond his strength—it is the man all over! Uncle, let's turn the tables—we'll surprise him!"
He, began gingerly to ascend the stairs. I followed a step or two behind. About half-way up he stopped.
"I call that playing!"
So did I. As we mounted higher the sound was clearer. The voice of the violin was sweeter than any human voice I ever heard. Unwilling as I was to be disturbed at dinner — the food spoiling on the table! — I could not but acknowledge that, as Ernest said, it was the hand of a master which held that bow. A moment, listening, we paused; then again ascended. Sweeter and sweeter grew the music, until, just as we reached the uppermost stair, all at once it ceased.
"He has heard us! But, never mind, he can't escape us."
Ernest rushed forward. He threw the door wide open. He entered the room.
"Coursault! Philip! Hallo! Why — there's no one there!"
There did not seem to be. I followed pretty close upon my enthusiastic nephew's heels. The room was empty.
"He's in hiding. Come, you rogue, where are you? We know you're here, Philip. Do you think I don't know your touch, and that queer song of yours? Come out, you beggar! Why, wherever can he be?"
Yes, where? My drawing-room contains no screen, no cupboard. Not an article of furniture behind which even a child could hide. Ernest, in his impetuous way, scoured round the room. It was empty. I confess that I was puzzled. We both of us stared round and round the room as though staring would resolve the mystery. Rouse was standing in the doorway. He, apparently, had taken French leave, and followed us upstairs. He spoke.
"There wasn't no one in the room when I came up just now. It was the same with me. I heard 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?"
He did not directly answer me. Placing the fiddle very carefully upon the table, he stood for a moment in apparent agitation.
"Uncle, there is some mystery. Don't laugh at me!" I daresay I was smiling. "Something has happened to Coursault."
"From the character you have given the man the thing is very possible, and still there may be no mystery."
"Some time ago Coursault wrote the words of a little song, which he set to music The thing was in commemoration of certain pleasant days which he and I had spent together. I am nearly certain that no one ever heard of its existence except we two. He called it 'Where the Willows cast their Shade.' It is that which we have just heard played."
"‘Where the Willows cast their Shade'—rather a curious title for a song; but, even in titles, curiosities seem to be the mode. Are you sure it was the same?"
"Am I sure! It was the quaintest thing—like all he wrote, even the merest trifles, peculiarly characteristic. Is it not strange that I should hear Coursault's song, whose very existence was known only to him and to me, played on Coursault's violin?"
I stared.
"Do you mean to say that the man has been in this room, and at our approach, to use your own phrase, vanished into air?"
Ernest became preternaturally grave; he is the funniest lad.
"Uncle, strange things have happened."
"They have. As witness my being disturbed in the middle of my dinner. How on earth do you know that that three-and-sixpenny affair is Coursault's violin?"
"That is easily solved. We will go to the shop at which you bought it, and ascertain from whom they got it."
We went, there and then, with the dinner not half-eaten. Rouse must have had doubts about my sanity. I have declared, not once, but a hundred times, that not for the Queen of England would I be disturbed at dinner. Yet, before we had even eaten the entrée, that young man—whom I had invited to dinner—dragged me from my own house on a dirty night, and put me into a hansom, and drove me through the slums of London in search of a rag-shop. As the vehicle rattled over the stones I reflected upon what could be brought about by the expenditure of such a sum as three-and-sixpence—the rule of a lifetime shattered at a blow! The cabman could not find the street. I did not know its name; how I originally chanced on it is more than I can say. I am not in the habit of wandering in the purlieus of Lisson Grove. We went poking out of one hole and into another. I should think we must have penetrated at least half a dozen when, just as I really believe the cabman was on the point of insulting us, we lighted, not only on the street, but on the shop as well.
The lady was in—the same lady. A little dirtier, perhaps, but still the same. My nephew conducted the negotiations.
"We have called about a violin which this gentleman purchased here this afternoon."
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.
"It's got a trick of playing tunes all by itself, when there ain't no one there to play 'em."
"No one there to play them! Of course, you're joking."
"I ain't joking. I ain't a joking sort." (To do her justice, I am bound to own that she didn't look as though she were.) "The very first night it played a tune, and it's played the same tune every blessed night since it's been in the shop."
"The same tune—always the same? Would you know it if you heard it?"
"I ought to. I've heard it often enough, Lord knows; and I ain't over and above anxious to hear it again."
"Is this it?"
Ernest whistled a little air. It was the same which we had heard being played as we were ascending the stairs. Quite an uncomfortable change took place in the lady's bearing. Hardly had Ernest whistled a couple of notes than, with a sort of groan, she shrank back against the wall.
"That's it! Stop it! It gives me creeps and crawlers!"
"Now, tell me, from what sort of person did you purchase the violin?"
"A little chap, about up to your shoulder—the queerest-looking little chap ever I see. He had long black hair, and big eyes—ah, as big as bull's-eye lanterns!—and that there wild, they made him look stark mad. He was that there thin—anybody could see he hadn't had a square meal for a month of Sundays. He says, 'What'll you give me for my fiddle?' I wondered if it was a swap that he was after. 'Do you mean how much money?' I says. 'Yes,' he says; 'how much money?' 'I'll give you five bob,' I says. 'Five bob!—for my fiddle!' He gives a kind of laugh, though it wasn't the sort of laugh what did you good to hear, not by no manner of means. 'I'll take it,' he says. So, after all, she hadn't given so much more for the thing than she had sold it for. "I was took back. Course I see it was worth more than five bob. But it wasn't my business to tell him so—'ardly! I hands him the pieces. 'Let me play a last tune upon my fiddle,' he says. He picks it up, and he plays that same tune which you've just now whistled. He could play, he could! Then he kisses the fiddle and he goes away."
The lady paused; we stood silent.
"I puts the fiddle on that shelf just where you're standing. That night I woke up sudden. I couldn't make out what it was had woke me. Then I heard a noise. First I thought it was cats. But it wasn't no cats; it was someone fiddling, right in the shop! 'Well,' I says, 'blame their impudence, if someone ain't busted in.' So I comes downstairs without my shoes and stockings on, and I stands outside the door what leads into the shop, and I listens. If it wasn't the same tune the little chap had played! 'If this ain't good,' I says to myself. 'Blow me if he ain't come back after his fiddle! I'll fiddle him!' I has the lamp in my hand, and I opens the door sudden, and I goes in."
The lady paused.
"You may believe me or you mayn't, but there wasn't no one there—ne'er a one. I couldn't make it out, I tell you that. As I was going forward I all but steps upon the fiddle and the bow what's a lying on the floor. 'Now then,' I says; 'where's the party as put you there?' Believe me, or believe me not, there wasn't a creature in the place. It ain't a large shop, you see, and I routs in every corner. I looks at the window and the door. The shutters was up, and the door was locked and bolted just as I left it I thought it queer; but I thought it queerer when the same thing comes the next night, and the next, and the next. It preys upon my mind so, not being used to nor yet partial to ghostesses and such-like rubbishes, that I says to myself, I'll get rid of the thing, even if I does it at a loss."
As we were going away I said to Ernest—
"Rather a curious story that of the lady's."
Ernest was sitting back in the cab. He seemed to be lost in reflecting.
"Very." There was a momentary silence. "I told you it was Coursault's violin. That was Philip, the queer little man with the long black hair and the great big eyes. I used to half fear sometimes that in those big eyes genius was struggling with insanity; he was at times so strange. 'Starved for a month of Sundays'—Philip! What a wrench to have parted with his violin—how bitterly he must have been amused by her offer of five shillings. He played his last tune and kissed it—Philip!"
We dismissed the cabman at the corner of the square. The night had become fine. We walked together towards my house. We were distant from it, perhaps, twenty yards, when Ernest, pausing, laid his hand upon my arm.
"Listen!" There is little traffic in the square at night All was still. "He is playing!"
For a second or two I did not grasp my nephew's meaning. But, as I strained my ears to catch the slightest sound, I understood it better, for I caught the sound of a fiddle. It was very faint, so faint as to be scarcely audible. But it was unmistakable.
"Come," said Ernest; "let us go nearer."
We approached the house. In front of it we paused. Beyond doubt the music came from within, and from an upper room; the same quaint melody which we had heard before, played by a master's hand.
"I wonder why he always plays that tune?"
I was unable to supply the information. Frankly, I was becoming a little bewildered. With the lady at the rag-shop, I had no faith in "ghostesses and such-like rubbishes," but the thing was getting curious.
I opened the front door with my latchkey. An unusual spectacle greeted us as we entered the hall. All the maids were grouped together in a little crowd, guarded, as it were, by the stalwart Rouse. There was no necessity to ask the cause—it was the music in the drawing-room. Rouse, however, seemed to think that an explanation was required.
"It's not my fault, sir; I couldn't get them to stop in the kitchen. They seem to think that there's a spirit, sir, upstairs. The playing has been going on for half an hour and more."
"Don't let me have any nonsense. I'm ashamed of you. Are you afraid of a fiddle?"
The cook ventured on a meek remonstrance.
"It isn't the fiddle, sir; it's the fiddler."
I drove them down; Rouse, in his sheepishness, almost treading on the women's petticoats. Then I turned to Ernest.
"I, like the lady we have just been interviewing, am not partial to ghosts. With your permission, this time I will lead the way upstairs."
I led the way, Ernest following closely after. The music continued—always the same quaint air. It was pretty; but the player must have found that the absence of variety became a trifle monotonous. On this occasion, even when we reached the landing, there was no cessation. The fiddler still fiddled.
"Apparently we have managed to remain unheard. Now for your eccentric friend."
With a quick movement I opened the drawing-room door. Ernest and I entered almost side by side. For an instant, after our entrance, the playing continued. I saw that the violin was raised, I saw that the bow was being drawn across the strings. But who held the violin, and who handled the bow, there was no evidence—visual evidence—to prove. If we could trust our eyes, the room was empty. All at once, before we could say a word, or offer any sort of interposition, the playing ceased. The violin and the bow were placed upon the table—not dropped, but laid carefully down. And all was still.
II.
The next day there was a small party on the river. The party consisted of three: an old gentleman—a complacent old gentleman, who carried his complacence so far as to allow himself to be cast for the rôle of "gooseberry"; a young gentleman, his nephew; and, not to put too fine a point on it, a young lady. This young lady's name was Minnie—Minnie West. There is reason to suspect that she was the cause of the party.
We started—it is probably unnecessary to observe that I was the complacent old gentleman—from Hurley, and we paddled up the stream—that is to say, Ernest paddled, the young lady steered, and I looked on. We kept it up some time, this paddling; but at last Ernest drew the boat into the shore. We landed—a hamper and ourselves. We lunched under the shade of the trees.
While we lunched Ernest persisted—persisted is the word—in conversing on a subject which was scarcely appropriate either to the occasion or the scene—the subject of his lost friend and his phantom violin. One does not wish to dwell on morbid subjects when one is lunching by the crystal waters; but Ernest, apparently, did not see it; and, oddly enough, what he did not see, it seemed that Miss West could not see either. When we had finished, and done justice to the fare, the young gentleman asked a question.
"Do you know why I have brought you here?"
Really the question did not need an answer. The reply was evident. The spot was charming. Sufficient shade above, mossy verdure underneath, and all around us, except upon the river side, tall bracken, which completely obscured us from the vulgar gaze. Ernest supplied an answer of his own.
"Do you remember that air which we heard played upon the violin? Do you remember that I told you it was a song of Coursault's, which he called, 'Where the Willows cast their Shade'? I told you, too, that it was written to commemorate some pleasant days which we had spent together. Those pleasant days were spent upon the river, and the pleasantest of all those pleasant days were spent where we are now."
"Ernest!"
As she called upon the young man's name the lady gave a little shudder. It must be allowed that his manner was distinctly sombre.
"It was a favourite place with him. He used to rave about it in that raving way of his. He used to say that here he would like to die and be buried. He came here often when he was alone, and it was here he wrote that song. You see it is here that the willows cast their shade."
He raised his hand with a gesture which was distinctly gruesome. Looking up I noticed, for the first time, that the trees above us were willow trees.
"I wonder why it is that the violin always plays that song?"
And there came an echo from the young lady—
"I wonder!"
As she echoed the young gentleman's interrogation she leaned back against the tree—a willow tree—and put her hand behind her to pluck the bracken. She had to stretch out some distance to do this. Suddenly she withdrew her hand with a half-stifled exclamation.
"What's the matter?" inquired the younger gentleman.
He wore quite an appearance of concern, being still in that stage in which a tight shoe upon the lady's foot would give him corns. Most transitory stage—too sweet to last!
"I—I thought I touched something."
She looked startled. She put her hand behind her rather more gingerly than she had done before. Instantly she sprang to her feet in a state of most unmistakable dismay.
"Ernest, there is someone there! I touched his hand."
She stood, trembling all over, a pretty picture of distress—in tan shoes and a white piqué gown.
"What do you mean?" cried Ernest
"You are dreaming," murmured I.
We rose together. But he was the quicker. Going behind the willow tree, he parted the bracken with his hands.
"There is, by George! What are you doing there, sir? Are you drunk? Why" He stooped down. "Good God! He's dead!"
Suddenly, with a loud cry, he fell upon his knees.
"It's Coursault!" …
It was. Lying dead among the bracken—"Where the Willows cast their Shade."
We thought at first that he had been the victim of foul play. But subsequent medical examination showed that he had died of aneurism of the heart, brought on by want of nourishment—in other words, starvation—and physical exhaustion. He was nothing else but skin and bone, and it appeared that he had walked from London—it almost seemed without taking rest or food upon his way, for the identical five shillings were found in his pockets for which he had sold his violin.
The supposition was that when he had sold his violin, and played on it his last tune, he had started, possibly in some spirit of half-madness, for the identical spot which that tune commemorated, and had reached it but to die.
On the previous evening, after that final solo with which we had been favoured by the unseen musician I had placed the violin and the bow in the case, and the case upon the topmost bookshelf in my library. When I came home from that river party an accident had happened. The case had fallen from the book-shelf to the floor. In falling, the lid had opened—the violin had tumbled out. The result was that the instrument, which must have struck with surprising force against some piece of furniture, had been shivered into splinters. These we collected, and with the bow, which was also broken, we placed in Philip Coursault's coffin. The dead man and his fiddle were lowered together into the gave.