Ellery Queen’s Anthology. Volume 38, Fall/Winter 1979

Lloyd Biggie, Jr. Have You a Fortune in Your Attic?

Grandfather and the Great Fiddle Mystery... Was the old violin, stored in the Peterson attic lo these many years, a genuine Stradivarius? The trouble was, Grandfather knew nothing at all about violins...

It was a sight Borgville had never seen before and most likely would never see again, and I almost missed it.

It had been raining hard all morning, and for want of anything else to do I was down in the cellar getting in some target practice with my air rifle. I had a couple of windows open, and when I heard something that sounded like a herd of cows stampeding along the sidewalk, naturally I went to look.

It was Doc Beyers’ wife, and she was running!

Mrs. Beyers prides herself on being the most sedate woman in Borgville — though as Grandfather says, she really hasn’t much choice. There’s so much of her to move around that it’s only a question of doing it sedately or staying put. She even holds her laughs down to chuckles because of what she’d have to move if she cut loose with anything more violent than that. If I’d known she was going to be running in front of our house, I’d have set up some chairs and charged admission.

I watched her until she started up our walk, and then I headed for the stairs. I got to the front hall just as she came stumbling across the porch. My Grandfather Rastin had seen her coming, and he was waiting at the front door. He helped her out of her raincoat, and she gasped, “Elizabeth...” and collapsed onto the sofa.

“Take it easy,” Grandfather said.

“Elizabeth...”

“Elizabeth will keep for a couple of minutes. She’s standing outon her porch now, looking over this way, so she can’t be in very bad shape. Wait till you get your breath back.”

For the next ten minutes Mrs. Beyers panted on the sofa, and was hushed up by Grandfather every time she opened her mouth. I came close to dying of curiosity, but Grandfather sat down and rocked as if it was an ordinary social call. He always says the first lesson a man has to learn from life is patience, and in eighty years he’d learned it pretty well.

Finally Mrs. Beyers got a grip on her breathing, and Grandfather let her talk.

“Elizabeth found a violin in her attic!” she said.

Grandfather nodded. “You don’t say. That’d be...”

“It’s a Strad... Strad—”

“Stradivarius? You don’t say. That’d be...”

“It’s worth a fortune.”

“You don’t say. That’d be Old Eric’s fiddle. I heard him play it many times, when I was a boy. I often wondered what happened to it.”

“It’s a godsend, what with Elizabeth needing money for Ellie’s wedding. She wants you to come and see it.”

“I’ve seen it,” Grandfather said. “Many times. Old Eric was quite a fiddler in his day.”

“He lived to be a hundred and two,” Mrs. Beyers said.

“A hundred and three. And he loved to tell about the time...”

“Will you come and see it?”

“I suppose.”

We got our raincoats and went back to Elizabeth Peterson’s house with Mrs. Beyers, all three of us walking very sedately.

Elizabeth Peterson has been a widow for more years than I am old, and in a friendly sort of way half the women in Borgville hate her. She’s the example everyone holds up to them. She has no regular income at all, and has to work at anything offered to her at Borgville wages, which aren’t much; but somehow she manages wonderfully well.

Lately, though, she’d been worried. Her daughter Ellie, the prettiest girl in Borgville, was graduating from high school and getting married. Her fiancé was Mark Hanson, whose father is our Village President, and President of the Borgville Bank, and the richest man in town. Naturally, Mrs. Peterson wanted her daughter to have the prettiest wedding and the biggest and best reception in the history of Borgville, if not the whole state of Michigan; but she didn’t have any money.

So I wasn’t surprised to find her hardly touching the floor as she paced up and down her porch waiting for us. Even I had a vague notion that a genuine Stradivarius might be worth a lot of money.

“Do you think it really is?” she asked Grandfather, all out of breath, as if she, rather than Mrs. Beyers, had been doing the running.

“Of all the things I’m not an expert in,” Grandfather said, “it’s violins. But I’ll take a look. How’d you happen to find it?”

“It was more a matter of remembering it than finding it. It’s been up there in the corner of the attic for years, and I guess I just forgot it was there. The funny thing is, I knew all the time it was valuable. It’s a tradition in the Peterson family. My husband told me once that when he was a little boy playing in the attic, his mother would tell him not to go near Grandpa Eric’s fiddle, because it was a valuable instrument. It never occurred to me that the value could be measured in money.”

“It’s the usual way of doing it,” Grandfather said.

“Anyway, yesterday at the church social Miss Borg gave a talk about people finding fortunes in their attics — in old stamps and books and things; so afterwards I asked her — just as a joke — about old violins, and she came by today, and — come in and see it.”

Miss Borg was still there, standing by the big round dining-room table. She’s a little old lady with white hair, and she looks nothing like the terror she is teaching history at Borgville High School. The violin was on the table, and she was gazing at it as if it were the Holy Grail in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, which is one of the numerous epics the students at Borgville High have stuffed into them.

The violin looked like something that might possibly raise nine cents at a rummage sale. The case was a battered old thing of wood. The hinges were missing, and it had been held together with a couple pieces of rope. The one string left on it had snapped, and the whole contraption was falling apart. There were loose pieces in the bottom of the case, and on the violin there was a big crack along one side, which meant that whatever else it might do, it would never hold water. There was loose hair all over the place, except on the bow where it belonged.

Miss Borg said when she was a little girl she heard the Peterson family legend about Old Eric’s valuable violin, but she doubted that anyone, including Old Eric, ever realized just how valuable it was. She shined a flashlight down into the violin, and said, “Look!”

Grandfather looked, and then I looked. Pasted inside the violin was a piece of paper, brown with age, and on the paper were some letters. The ink had faded, and some of it was illegible, but with Miss Borg’s help I was able to make out: ...adivarius Cremon...

“That’s the label,” Miss Borg whispered. “See — it says so right here.” She had a thick book called Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, and under “Stradivari, Antonio,” it said, “His label reads: ‘Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis. Fecit Anno...’ ”

Grandfather scratched away at his head. “I guess it might say that. The only way to tell whether or not it’s genuine is to take it to an expert. I suppose if it’s a valuable instrument it could be fixed up.”

“A violin maker could take it all apart and put it together again,” Miss Borg said. “It would be as good as new. Better. An old instrument is always better than a new one.”

“Maybe,” Grandfather said. “My advice would be not to get excited about it until you hear what an expert has to say.”

Mrs. Peterson wasn’t listening. “What do you think it’s worth?”

“I’ve heard that Stradivarius violins bring as much as fifty thousand dollars,” Miss Borg said. “Or more. Of course some are worth more than others. Even if it isn’t one of the best ones it should bring quite a lot. Five or ten thousand dollars, at least.”

“Five or ten thousand!” Mrs. Peterson said.

“Since it’s Saturday, you won’t be able to do anything with it before the first of the week,” Grandfather said. “First thing Monday morning.”

“Five or ten thousand!” Mrs. Peterson said again. Most likely she’d just moved the wedding reception from the church basement to the big room above the Star Restaurant.

“Maybe there’s someone in Jackson who’d know about it,” Grandfather said. “On Monday...”

Mrs. Peterson still wasn’t listening. She looked again at the violin — looked at it as if she was seeing it for the first time — and then she sat down and started to cry. Grandfather dragged me out of there, and on the front porch we met Hazel Morgan, Dorothy Ashley, and Ruth Wood, all coming to see the violin. Half a dozen others were on their way, from various directions. It was then I noticed that Mrs. Beyers hadn’t come in with us. She was out spreading the Good Word...

Grandfather hadn’t anything to say on the way home, or even after we got there.

As soon as it stopped raining he went over to Main Street to borrow the Detroit paper from Mr. Snubbs, who runs the Snubbs Hardware Store; and the rest of the day, whenever I mentioned the violin, he hushed me up.

“Whether or not a violin was made by Stradivarius is just not the kind of question I can settle,” he said. “I refuse to waste any energy even thinking about it.”

“Miss Borg shouldn’t have spouted off about all those dollars before they find out for sure,” I said.

“Miss Borg should be shot.”

On Saturday night all the stores in Borgville stay open late so the farmers can spend the money they were too busy to spend all week, and almost everyone comes to town. That night the talk up and down Main Street was about Elizabeth Peterson’s violin. Suddenly everyone in town remembered hearing a grandfather, or an uncle, or some elderly person down the street tell about what a remarkable fiddler Old Eric Peterson was, and what a valuable violin he had.

The queer thing was that my Grandfather Rastin, who usually remembers such things better than anyone else, was acting skeptical about the whole business.

He and some other old-timers were sitting on the benches in front of Jake Palmer’s Barber Shop, and when Grandfather suggested that it might be better to get an expert’s opinion before sticking a price tag on the violin, Nat Barlow got pretty hot about it.

“Everyone knows it’s valuable,” he said. “My father heard Old Eric say so himself. Anyway, Old Eric played dances all over this part of the state, even some in Detroit, and everyone said he was the best fiddler they’d ever heard. Why wouldn’t he have a valuable violin?”

“Is Sam Cowell in town tonight?” Grandfather asked.

“Haven’t seen him,” Nat said.

“How much would you say his car is worth?”

Everyone laughed.

“That pile of junk?” Nat said.

“There isn’t a better driver in Borg County than Sam Cowell,” Grandfather said. “Seeing as he’s such a good driver, why wouldn’t he have a valuable car?”

That shut Nat up for the next hour or so.

“I’ve been trying to remember a few things about Old Eric,” Grandfather said. “He loved to talk about the time he played for Ole Bull, and Ole Bull...”

“Who — or what — is Ole Bull?” someone asked.

“He was a famous Norwegian violinist. One of the greatest.” Grandfather said. “He was touring the country giving concerts, and Old Eric went way off to Cincinnati, or Chicago, or somewhere to hear him. He took his fiddle along, on the chance of picking up some money along the way, and after the concert he got to meet Ole Bull. He introduced himself as another Norwegian fiddler, and Ole Bull asked him to play. Old Eric...”

The crowd wasn’t much interested in Ole Bull.

“They tell me a Wiston reporter was over to see Elizabeth this evening,” Bob Ashley said. “There’ll be a piece about the violin in the Wiston newspaper.”

“Got your oats in yet, Bob?” Grandfather asked.

“I don’t suppose a Stradivarius violin turns up every day,” Bob said.

That was when Grandfather headed for home, looking mighty disgusted. I caught up with him and asked for his version of the Peterson family legend.

“I never heard of any legend,” he said. “Old Eric may have told his family something about that violin, and whatever he told them was so, because Old Eric was no fool. If it was a Stradivarius violin he’d have known it, and so would everyone else in Borgville, which makes it seem odd that I never heard anything about it. On the other hand, I do remember something about Old Eric’s fiddle, but I haven’t been able to recollect what it is.”

After Sunday dinner the next day, we sat on our front porch and watched the procession to Elizabeth Peterson’s house. Those who hadn’t seen the violin yet wanted to see it, and a lot of those who’d seen it wanted to see it again, and traffic on our street was heavy.

Then Mark Hanson came by. He was home from the University for the week-end, and on his way to an afternoon date with Ellie. Mrs. Beyers met him in front of our house, and made some crack about him marrying an heiress, and he shrugged and came up on the porch to talk to Grandfather.

“Family tradition to the contrary,” he said, “I don’t think that violin is worth a button. And it can’t possibly be a Stradivarius. It has a very odd shape — too short and too wide. Did you notice?”

“One violin looks just about like another one to me,” Grandfather said.

“I talked to Mr. Gardner — he’s the orchestra director at Wiston High School. He says thousands of violins have a Stradivarius label, but all it means is that the violin maker copied a Stradivarius violin, or tried to. This one isn’t even a good copy.”

“What does Ellie think about all this?” Grandfather asked.

“Oh, she agrees with me, but we’re both worried about her mother. The truth will be a terrible blow to her, and there doesn’t seem to be a thing we can do about it. Mr. Gardner is coming over this evening to see the violin. Most likely one look is all he’ll need.”

“If it’s the wrong shape, as you say, then anyone who knows violins would see that right away. When is he coming?”

“He wasn’t sure — sometime after eight.”

“I’ll be over,” Grandfather said. “I’d like to hear what he has to say.”

“Glad to have you,” Mark said. “But please don’t tell anyone else he’s coming. What he has to say may not be good news, and I don’t want a big audience there.”

Mark went after Ellie, and the two of them walked back up the street hand in hand, Ellie looking pretty in a new spring dress and Mark admiring her as a fiancé should. By that time I’d gotten tired watching the procession, so I went off to play baseball; but I made a point of being on hand when Grandfather went over to Peterson’s that evening.

News has a way of getting around in Borgville, and there was a good crowd there — enough to fill the parlor, anyway. Mrs. Peterson bustled about, happy and excited, trying to feed everyone. The Peterson family legend got another kicking around, and every now and then someone would go into the dining room for another look at the violin.

It was nearly nine o’clock when Mr. Gardner came up the street, driving slowly and looking for house numbers, which very few houses in Borgville have. He had to be introduced to everyone, and he went through the motions of this in a very abrupt way, as if he wanted to get on with the business at hand. I noticed when I shook hands with him that his hands were white and soft, and sometimes he would bow to a lady and show the bald spot at the top of his head.

“It’s in here,” Mark said finally, and led him into the dining room. Miss Borg and Mrs. Peterson and Ellie went along. The rest of us crowded up to the big arch that separates the dining room from the parlor, and watched.

Miss Borg tried to give Mr. Gardner the flashlight, so he could see the label, but he waved it away. “I don’t care what’s written inside,” he said. He picked up the violin, and it came out of the case trailing loose parts. He looked at it, turned it over for a glance at the bottom, and put it back.

There wasn’t a sound in the house. In the parlor everyone had stopped breathing.

I will say this for him — he didn’t prolong the suspense.

Mrs. Peterson’s face went suddenly white. “You mean — it isn’t worth anything?”

“Worth anything?” Mr. Gardner snorted. Grandfather snorts sometimes, when he’s real disgusted, but this was a different kind of snort. A nasty kind. “It’s worth something, I suppose. If you had it fixed up, which would cost — oh, maybe fifty dollars, if you include a new case — then you might be able to sell it for twenty-five. My recommendation is that you burn it — there are enough bad violins around. One less would make the world a better place — a better place for violin teachers, anyway.”

He left without waiting to be thanked — though Mrs. Peterson was in no condition to thank him anyway. Everyone else left right after him, except Miss Borg, who was indignant, and Grandfather, who seemed very thoughtful.

“The idea!” Miss Borg said. “Why, he didn’t even look at the label!”

“If you don’t mind...” Mrs. Peterson said. Then she started to cry, and it wasn’t at all like the crying she’d done when she thought the violin was worth a lot of money.

“Don’t burn it just yet,” Grandfather said to Ellie. “I want another look at it myself.”

Ellie nodded, and Mark showed us to the front door.

“Well,” I said to Grandfather as we crossed the street, “I guess the wedding reception is back in the church basement.”

He didn’t seem to hear me. “I finally remembered something,” he said.

“Something about the violin?”

“It was such a long time ago. I was only a boy, you know, when Old Eric died. But it seems...”

He went straight up to the rocking chair in his bedroom, where he usually takes his problems, and he was still rocking when I went to bed. I couldn’t see how rocking would turn Mrs. Peterson’s piece of junk into a valuable violin, but I didn’t ask him about it. There are times when it is better not to bother Grandfather with questions, and one of them is when he’s in his rocking chair.

In the morning it seemed as if all his rocking was wasted, because Sheriff Pilkins dropped in while we were still at breakfast, to ask Grandfather if he’d heard anything about a burglary the night before.

“Not yet, I haven’t,” Grandfather said. “Where was it?”

“Elizabeth Peterson’s house,” the Sheriff said. “Someone stole a violin.”

Grandfather and I yelped together. “Violin!”

“Yep. She had this violin on her dining-room table, and when she came down this morning it was gone. Naturally she can’t remember the last time she bothered to lock her doors. Funny thing, though — the burglar wasn’t really stealing it. He was buying it. He left her an envelope full of money.”

“How much money?” Grandfather asked.

“A thousand dollars.”

Grandfather whistled, and I dropped the toast into my cereal. “Last night Mr. Gardner said that violin might be worth twenty-five dollars if she spent fifty dollars fixing it up,” I said.

“So I heard,” the Sheriff said. “There are some funny angles to this case. How many people knew she had what might be a valuable violin?”

“Half of Borg County,” Grandfather said.

“Right. And how many of them knew this Mr. Gardner said the violin was practically worthless?”

“Those that were there last night, and whoever they managed to tell before they went to bed. Maybe about a fourth of Borg County.”

“That leaves a lot of people who didn’t know.”

“You won’t have any trouble narrowing down your list of suspects,” Grandfather said. “There aren’t very many people around here who’d have a ready thousand dollars for a speculative flutter on a violin.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“How is Elizabeth taking it?”

“Not very well. She’s pretty blamed mad about the whole thing. She’s sure now that the violin is worth a fortune, and someone is trying to do her out of it.”

“It’s just possible that taking a thousand dollars for that violin is more of a crime than stealing it.”

“That’s what I think myself. But Elizabeth is certain the thief wouldn’t have left the thousand if he hadn’t known it was worth a lot more. She wants her violin back, and hang the money. Which is why I’m here. You didn’t chance to notice any suspicious-looking characters hanging around last night, did you?”

“Borgville doesn’t have any suspicious-looking characters,” Grandfather said.

“They’re all suspicious-looking to me. Look — I know you can come up with information I can’t touch. Let me know if you find out anything.”

Grandfather nodded. “I’ll go have a talk with Elizabeth, and look around.”

So Grandfather went to Peterson’s, and I went to school. Miss Borg intercepted me in the hallway, and asked me if I’d heard the news. She seemed excited about it — in fact, until I could get to a dictionary I thought she was excited to the point of being sick, because she said she felt vindicated.

I didn’t go home for lunch, so I don’t know how Grandfather spent the day. Sheriff Pilkins passed the time working, which is something he has no natural aptitude for, and when he came to see Grandfather that evening he was looking glum.

“I have a list of suspects,” he announced.

“Good,” Grandfather said. “Then you’re further along than I am.”

Normally it would cheer the Sheriff up to find he’s ahead of Grandfather in anything, but this time it seemed to make him mad. “Lucy Borg,” he said, “was pretty irked at what Gardner said about the violin. She could have taken it with the idea of getting another expert opinion on it.”

“Somehow I can’t see Lucy burgling a house. And where would she get a thousand dollars?”

“Then there’s this Gardner — he could have lied about the violin, and then stolen it so he could sell it himself. Elizabeth favors this theory.”

“Why?”

“Who knows why a woman thinks anything? Gardner supports a big family on a schoolteacher’s salary, and he wouldn’t have been able to lay his hands on a thousand dollars on a Sunday night. Then there’s Pete Wilks, who lives on Maple Street right behind Peterson’s. He took an unusual interest in that violin.”

“He had an old violin of his own,” Grandfather said. “He was interested in finding out if his might be valuable. There is also the question of where he would get a thousand dollars. The money complicates things.”

“It sure does. My favorite would be Mark Hanson. It’s common knowledge that the Hansons tried to give Elizabeth money for the wedding, and she wouldn’t take it. Mark could have used this as a back-handed way of making her take the money, and the Hansons are one family that could come up with a thousand dollars in a hurry. The only trouble is, they didn’t do it. Mark was with Ellie until nearly midnight, and then his folks drove him back to Ann Arbor and stayed there overnight.”

“So where does that leave you?” Grandfather asked.

“Nowhere!”

“I have an idea or two. Let’s go see Elizabeth.”

Mrs. Peterson met us at the door, and she didn’t waste any time showing what was on her mind. “Did you get it back?” she asked the Sheriff.

Sheriff Pilkins sputtered all over the place. I guess law officers don’t like blunt demands for quick results. They’d rather talk about all the progress they’re making, which they can do without getting any results at all.

“Did you think over what we talked about this morning?” Grandfather asked.

“I certainly did,” Mrs. Peterson said. “I want the violin.”

“Give me the money, then, and I’ll try and get it back for you.”

The Sheriff stared at Grandfather. “Where are you going to get it?”

“The law isn’t involved in this,” Grandfather said. “Party unknown bought Elizabeth’s violin for a thousand dollars. The transaction isn’t satisfactory to her, so she’s going to take the violin back and return the money — if I can arrange it, that is.”

“Baloney!” the Sheriff shouted.

“I don’t see that there’s much you can do about it.”

The Sheriff didn’t seem to, either, and he stood there glaring at Grandfather. I’m not one who cares much for art, but I never get tired of watching the way his face changes color when he and Grandfather meet head-on.

Finally he stomped down off the porch, muttering something about accessories, and withholding information, and interfering with legal processes. Mrs. Peterson came back with an envelope and handed it to Grandfather.

“You understand,” Grandfather said, “that if Gardner turns out to be right about the violin you’ve made a bad deal for yourself.”

“We went through all that this morning,” she said. “I want the violin.”

“I’ll get it for you if I can.”

Grandfather stuffed the envelope into his shirt pocket, and the two of us went home.

I’d like to tell you all about Grandfather’s system for tracking down a thief, but I can’t. I expected him to make a mysterious telephone call as soon as it got dark, and then head for a meeting in some alleyway. Instead, he sat down and read all evening, and he was still reading when I went to bed.

In the morning, when I went down to breakfast, the violin was lying on our dining-room table.

“Where’d you get it?” I asked.

“You’re most as bad as Pilkins. What difference does it make? Elizabeth will be satisfied, the person who took it is satisfied, and beyond that what happened is nobody’s business.”

After breakfast he took the violin over to Elizabeth Peterson, who was very happy to have it back — that is, she was happy until later that day, when Mr. Hanson drove her to Jackson to see a violin repair man there. This man told her even more emphatically than Mr. Gardner that the violin was nothing but junk, and he didn’t think it would be worth twenty-five dollars even if it was fixed up.

The violin went back to the Peterson attic, and Mrs. Peterson started all over again to try to figure out how to pay for a big wedding and reception without any money, and Sheriff Pilkins stopped by three times a day the rest of the week in the hope of prying the name of the violin thief out of Grandfather.

Other than that, nothing happened. That is, I thought nothing happened, but on Friday, Jimmy Edwards, whose mother works in the telephone office at Wiston, asked me how come Grandfather was getting all those long distance telephone calls.

“What long distance telephone calls?” I asked.

“How would I know if you don’t?” Jimmy said. “All I know is, Mom said your Grandfather has been getting calls from all over — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago...”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but I’m sure going to find out.”

But I didn’t. All Grandfather did when I asked him was grunt and shrug. All Friday evening he grunted and he shrugged, and all Saturday morning, until about ten o’clock. Then a big limousine such as had never before been seen in Borgville drove up in front of our house. A chauffeur in a fancy uniform popped out and opened the rear door, and a tall, gray-headed man got out and walked up to our house.

Grandfather met him on the porch.

“You’re Mr. Rastin?” the man asked.

Grandfather nodded, and shook hands with him.

“Where is it?” the man asked.

“Across the street,” Grandfather said.

They headed for the Peterson house, with me tagging along, and Grandfather introduced the man to Mrs. Peterson — his name was Edmund Van Something-or-other — and sent Ellie chasing up to the attic after the violin.

We sat down in the parlor and waited.

“Has it been in your family for a very long time?” Mr. Van asked.

“It belonged to my husband’s great-great-grandfather,” Mrs. Peterson said.

“You don’t say. Treasures are often preserved in this way. My first Stradivarius violin...”

Ellie bounced in, all out of breath, and carefully placed the violin on a coffee table beside Mr. Van. She untied the knots and took off the top of the case, and then she scooted back out of the way, as if she expected Mr. Van would be throwing the violin at someone as soon as he saw it.

He did look at the violin. He looked at it once, with an expression of disgust such as I never hope to see again. Then he picked up the loose lid of the case, and held it on his lap looking at the violin bow that was hooked onto it.

“François Tourte!” he said.

“The label is under that little doohicky that screws in and out,” Grandfather said.

“Under the frog. Yes. It really has a label?”

He unscrewed something of other, fished a magnifying glass out of his pocket, and said, speaking very softly, “This bow was made by François Tourte in 1822, aged seventy-five years. Splendid! Tourte never branded his bows, and rarely labeled them.”

“Is it genuine?” Grandfather asked.

“Unquestionably genuine.”

“I had no way of knowing. A label, of course, can be stuck onto anything.”

“Unfortunately true. Even a violin such as that one—” he made a face, “—could have a Stradivarius label. But craftsmanship cannot, as you say, be stuck on. One look at the shape of the head — Tourte. It still has the original frog — Tourte. The thickness of the shaft, the narrow ferrule — all unmistakably Tourte. And it’s in remarkably fine condition. The grip is a little worn. The slide, too, but not badly. The man who owned this bow knew its value. I stand by my offer. I’ll pay four thousand dollars for it.”

He looked at Mrs. Peterson, and for a long moment she couldn’t find her voice.

“You want to buy the violin?” she stammered.

Mr. Van winced. “Not the violin. The bow. This bow, Ma’am, was made by François Tourte, who was to the violin bow what Stradivarius was to the violin. And more. There were great violin makers before Stradivarius, but Tourte created the modem bow — its design, its materials, to some extent its mechanics. Without the Tourte bow, string instrument technique as we know it would be impossible, and the work of the great instrument makers would to a considerable extent be wasted. Will you sell the bow for four thousand dollars, Ma’am?”

“It’s a very good offer,” Grandfather said.

Mrs. Peterson still didn’t seem to understand. “You mean — the violin...”

Mr. Van clapped his hand to his forehead. “The violin I do not want, but I’ll buy it if I must. What is it worth? Five dollars? Ten? I’ll give you four thousand and ten dollars for the violin and the bow.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Peterson said. “You just want the bow. I’ll sell that, and keep the violin as a... a memento.”

“Splendid!” Mr. Van whipped out a check book and began to scribble. He presented the check, shook hands with everyone present, and walked back to his car carrying the lid of the case with the bow still hooked onto it. He carried it the way I’ve seen couples carry their first baby when they bring it home from the hospital.

Mrs. Peterson sat down and gazed at the check for a long time. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said. Then she started to cry, and Ellie looked as if she wanted to cry, too, and it was as good a time as any for Grandfather and me to get out of there, which we did.

“Sheriff Pilkins will have a fit,” I said, when we got back to our porch.

“It’ll do him good,” Grandfather said.

“He’ll say anyone who stole something worth four thousand dollars belongs behind bars, and he’ll threaten to put you there if you don’t tell him who it was.”

“Let him threaten,” Grandfather said. “That was one crime that will stay unsolved permanently.”

“How’d you know the thing was valuable?”

“Something I remembered Old Eric saying. He played for Ole Bull, and he had a bow that was better than anything Ole Bull had. Ole Bull tried to buy it from him. I figured if the bow was good enough back in the eighteen sixties, or whenever it was, for a great violinist to want it, it might still be worth something. But none of these local experts thought to look at the bow. The violin was unbelievably bad, and it distracted their attention. So when I got the chance I looked at the bow, and I found that label. I told Professor Mueller, at Wiston College, and he said a Tourte bow might be worth a fair amount of money, and the person who’d pay the most for it would be a collector of old instruments.”

“Why not a violinist?” I asked.

“A bow can be made today that plays just as well as that one. Maybe a little better, for all I know. It’s the same as with postage stamps. An old stamp may be worth hundreds of dollars, but you can buy one at the post office for four cents that will do just as good a job of getting a letter through the mails. Professor Mueller got the word around to some collectors, and this man made the best offer, so I told him to come and see the bow.”

“Then Old Eric knew the bow was valuable, rather than the violin, but after he died the family legend got things twisted.”

“I suppose.”

“That still doesn’t explain who stole the violin.”

“Like I said, that’s one crime that won’t ever be solved,” Grandfather said.

“I’m not so sure,” I said. “I think I can figure it out myself. Someone thought the violin just might be worth something in spite of what Mr. Gardner said. So he went to Mr. Hanson, and said, ‘Look, we should get this violin to a genuine expert, but of course there’s a good chance that it really isn’t worth anything, so why not do it this way. You put up a thousand dollars, and I’ll steal the violin and leave the money. If it turns out to be worth more, we can give Mrs. Peterson the difference. If it turns out to be worthless, she’ll still have the thousand dollars for the wedding. She wouldn’t accept the money as a gift, and now that Mr. Gardner has said the violin is junk she wouldn’t sell it to us for a thousand dollars, because she’d figure that would be the same as a gift. But if we steal it, and leave the money, she’ll think the thief didn’t know it was junk and she’s made a good deal for herself.’ The only trouble was, Mrs. Peterson thought otherwise, and called in the Sheriff and messed everything up.”

“Not bad,” Grandfather said. “It only goes to show that you can’t figure out in advance how a woman will react to anything.”

“And of course there was only one person who had any reason to think the violin — or the bow — might be valuable even after Mr. Gardner said it was nothing but junk.”

Grandfather grinned. “Right again. I stole it myself.”