The fiddler briefly ran over the incidents of the theft, but when he came to explain that all the suspicion rested on the sham coachman, Mr Turner dissented warmly. “They’ll find that that has been a cock and bull story of the servants to screen themselves,” he said decidedly. “The whole thing is absurd; and my opinion is that the fiddle is safely hidden somewhere about the house in which it was missed.” “The police don’t seem to think so,” I quietly observed. “The police!” he scornfully echoed, “a parcel of blockheads—they’ll never lay hands on it, I’ll swear. When anything is stolen, of course, they have to make a show of activity, but it’s all humbug. They never recover the stolen thing.” “I think you’re mistaken,” said I, with some truth, as the reader probably is aware. “They’ll never see it,” he hotly and positively persisted. “I’ll stake twenty pounds on it.” “Perhaps you’ll lose,” I laughingly returned. “Now, Mr ——, you bear witness that Mr Turner has promised to pay £20 to the—say the Royal Infirmary—if the police get back Mr Cleffton’s fiddle.” Mr Turner appeared to think this a very good joke, and laughingly repeated his offer. We had by this time looked over every fiddle in his possession, as he averred, and as I had no search warrant, and no grounds for trying to get one, we had to take leave without any further discovery. But while we were being shown to the door by the shabby and ragged proprietor, I busied myself with inquiries as to the number of servants he employed. The house was a big one, and there was at least half an acre of garden ground attached to it, and I was in hope that he might keep a man, or hire one to help him to keep it in order. In this I was disappointed. He kept but two servants, and never hired a man for his garden, unless when actually forced to it by bad health. He kept neither horse nor machine, and always walked in to Edinburgh when business called him thither, so my sniffing after a horsey manservant went for nothing. I knew, however, that Mr Turner had been perfectly aware of Cleffton’s engagement to play at the Earl of ——’s, and was loath to believe that I was on the wrong scent. I therefore bade the eccentric man rather an absent-minded good-bye, and had moodily settled myself in the cab for a good think, when a sudden thought came to me as we were leaving the hamlet behind. A little further down the road from the house we had visited was a wayside cottage with a few jars of sweets and biscuits and a couple of tobacco pipes stuck prominently in one of the windows, thus intimating that the place was meant for a shop. If any gossip—any news or information was to be collected regarding any one in the place, it was surely to be got in such a house as this, and my hand was on the check string in a moment.