meant. Grandfather mad! With growing horror, as bit by bit I recalled what I had heretofore only subconsciously noted (his abstracted gaze, his listening attitude), I came to a full realization of the fact. I was relieved, therefore, when a day or two later I was called home.
"Grandfather insisted that I carry the violin with me, and for fear of hurting him I complied. As I turned to look back upon the 'House of the Lions' I then swore that if ever I had the means I should hunt down Uncle Joel's murderer and exact payment to the full for the life he had taken and for the reason he had overthrown. I little dreamed I was so soon to be successful.
"The days went by uneventfully enough for my youth. A month passed, and with it passed my poor grandfather. He had taken the trail up the mountain and, in his weakened state, fell from a high rock. When they found him he was quite dead. I renewed my oath of vengeance, and, taking out the violin for the first time since I had acquired it, I examined the seeming source of Grandfather's tragic fate. I could play a little by ear even then, and an overmastering desire came to me to play Uncle Joel's violin.
"I strung it and tuned it and picked up the bow to play. But I never played it. A low sweet melody began to throb from the heart of the violin. Surprised and charmed, I stood for several minutes before I realized what was happening. When I did, in horror I almost flung the violin from me into its case. The melody died away in a wail of despair. Was I, too, going mad?
"Looking down in terror upon the instrument as this idea came to me, I beheld sticking through one of the f holes a yellow piece of paper which my hasty action had dislodged. Without touching the violin, I fished out a discolored piece of envelope that had evidently been secreted within it years before. Unfolding it, I discovered that it contained writing that was fairly legible.
"'To the owner of this violin' [it ran] 'I, Joel Dalziel, dying of slow starvation, do give and bequeath all my estate, lately converted into stocks and bonds, to the amount of ($150,000) One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars, on condition that half of said amount be used in musical education, the other half to be used in finding and prosecuting my incarcerators, who are now my murderers, described below.'
"The envelope was pretty well covered, both inside and out, with a small closely written hand which was easily proved beyond doubt to be my uncle's. Furthermore, details as to where certain bonds were placed, facts known only to my uncle, proved conclusively. enough that the paper was genuine and I had no difficulty in establishing my claim. For the past ten years I have been carrying out the conditions of my uncle's strange will.
"Strange that after all these years of search in my travels I should succeed in so odd a manner in running to earth the murderer. I had not used that violin for years, and only because my regular violin failed to come with my other things was I compelled to use my uncle's."
"ONE thing more," I said, after the completion of this marvelous tale. "How do you explain the awkward pause just before your last number!"
"Do you know," he laughed, "I clear forgot what I was going to play? Yes, sir. I couldn't recall a note or how to finger it. I could only hear the haunting melody of my uncle's, and my old fear that I was going mad came back. I was conscious of nothing but the haunting melody till that terrible cry from the audience."
"The man, in his confession, stated that the melody was the same that had drawn him repeatedly to the scene of his crime," I ventured.
"Doubtless at the same times my grandfather heard it," he said.
"Then there is your remarkable likeness to your uncle," I added.
The violinist smiled.
"But, while he may have taken me for a ghost," he said, "there is The Phantom Violinist. It is all very strange. Can you explain it?"
I could not, and today I am no nearer its solution.
Girl, Gypsy All Her Life, Turns from Wilds
Fresh from the gypsy world, slim yet sinewy, brown as a berry, with oval face and slender shapely nose, with firm lips and luminous brown eyes, and with hair glistening in two braids that hung to the waist, Rosalia Bimbo strode into a Chicago court and announced that she wished to see Assistant State's Attorney William J. Grace. She had fled from wild gypsy life because she was weary of lying, stealing and telling fortunes. As far back as she could remember, the gypsies with whom she had been forced to travel had craftily schooled her in the devious ways of petty crime.
Drilled in the profession of picking pockets and telling persons things that were not true, she finally summoned courage to flee from the endless round of dusty, dirty travel in the old Packard motor car in which a thirteen-numbered band ranged over the United States and even into foreign countries insidiously filching sustenance in any available field. Rosalia had been told she was born in Africa, and other things she was afraid were not true, and now appealed to William Grace to give her a chance to realize a dream to enter better ways.
The wish was granted; before night her cherished dream had been realized, she was able to sit before a white-clothed table, eat with silverware, sleep in a clean-linened, snowy bed and thus begin a life sought for in her eighteen years of yoked youth.
Gas Bombs to Check Forest Fires
The devastation wrought by the Riviera forest fires has inspired French scientists to take a hand in checking this menace to its beautiful wooded districts.
Eugene Turpin, inventor of turpenite, the deadliest gas used in the world war, has submitted a list of chemicals to the ministry of war and agriculture, for fighting forest fires from aeroplanes.
The type of bomb which will probably be the most effective will contain tubes of sulphuric acid and liquefied ammonia. Bombs of this kind will be dropped by 'planes flying over the burning areas. When they explode the resulting fumes will spread over large spaces, extinguishing the flames.
It is expected that this invention will act as a potent check on any future forest fires which may occur in France.
