“I thought you said he was dead?” “So he is; but his widow is alive, and may know the fiddle. We will not prompt her in any way, but just show it her and see if she has any suspicion of the truth.” I was so pleased at the identification of the fiddle as that stolen from Cleffton—which was all I had been employed to find—that I offered no objection, and we walked through a street or two to a semi-genteel place, where I was introduced to the widow of the musician, and found her a shrewd and superior woman—one picked out of a hundred, I should say, for quick intelligence. My companion opened the conversation by asking to see one of her late husband’s instruments to compare it with that we had with us, and in the course of the testing he managed that our fiddle should find its way into the widow’s hands. In a moment or two I saw her start and look at it more closely, then take it nearer the light and examine it closely at the scroll work close to the screwing pegs, and then she turned to my companion perfectly amazed, and said— “Do you know what I’ve discovered?” “What?” “This is my fiddle—the one that was stolen from M———the £50 Cremona lost on the Penicuick road.” “Impossible!—that one was bought in Newcastle.” “That’s nothing. I don’t care though it had been bought in Australia—it’s his fiddle. Look here”—and she pointed to some scratching on the varnish in among the scroll carving—“what do you call that?” We both looked very closely, and I said at last— “It’s like the letter M scratched with a pin.” “It is just that, and was scratched with a pin in this very room. He did it one night before me, saying, ‘If ever any one runs away with my fiddle I’ll know it by that whether they change the ticket or not.’ You need not take the fiddle away with you, for I claim it as mine.” Here was a poser, but I was not to be so easily deprived of what was mine only on trust. I quietly took the instrument into my hands, saying— “At present, Mrs M———, the fiddle is in the hands of the police, and as soon as you make good your claim to it I have no doubt it will be surrendered to you, but it seems to me that you will require to advance better evidence than that of a mere scratched letter.” “I for one can swear to the instrument,” observed my companion. “And half a dozen more, when they see it,” added the widow warmly. “I will raise an action for its recovery to-morrow.” “Tuts! do not be so hasty—save your money in the meantime,” I advised. “I may get the evidence for you quite easily, if I can get the thief to confess. But that will necessitate a journey to Newcastle, so it can hardly be done in a day.”