The Detections of Dr. Sam Johnson

by Lillian de la Torre

  “Pray, Sir, walk along with us, and let us take counsel together.”

  I fell back a pace, the better to have the suspected young man under my eye, the while my ear was alert to every word my astute friend might let drop.

  “Well, Sir,” began Dr. Johnson, “where, then, do you lodge?”

  “At Joseph Hill’s, Sir, at the sign of the Harp and Flute, in the Haymarket.”

  “Oho, the violin maker! Here’s a man who knows a good fiddle when he sees it! Pray, sir, how know you that ’twas your own fiddle you brought away from thence last night?”

  “I played upon it, sir, and it was never sweeter. I played for a space of ten minutes together, and then I wrapped it in silk, and laid it in the case, and so brought it away to Dr. Burney’s. No, Sir, the exchange was made under my nose as it lay in the inner room, and the priceless instrument somehow spirited away from thence.”

  “No such thing, Sir,” replied Dr. Johnson. “Did one of those who were searched to the skin by the Prince’s Cossacks succeed in smuggling thence so large a thing as your Stradivari? Disguised, perhaps, as a walking-stick?”

  “I give you back your question,” replied Viotti doggedly. “My Stradivari cannot still remain at Dr. Burney’s. Those rooms were stringently searched for a stone no larger than a nutmeg. Did we pass unseeing so large a thing as a fiddle? Disguised, perhaps, as a hearth-brush?”

  I jerked my head at this impudence, and muttered “Tschah” between my teeth. Dr. Johnson cast me a lowering look, and as we approached St. Martin’s Lane he continued.

  “Let us approach the matter by logic. Who will steal a violin? He who can play upon it. Who will substitute a forged fiddle? He who can make one. ’Tis plain: if the thief be not your landlord Hill—”

  “Sir, sir,” I ejaculated, “the most honoured violin-maker in London—”

  “Then it can only be …”

  “Hark!” cried Viotti, oblivious, and stood quite transfixed. “Hark!”

  Dr. Johnson frowned, and seemed to strain his dull hearing. I heard it plainly—the tones of a violin, of particular sweetness, and played with a practised hand. Viotti’s eyes seemed to start from his head.’

  “’Tis no other,” he cried in a strangled voice, “I cannot be mistaken, ’tis my own Stradivari, and played by the hand of a master!”

  I looked at the house whence the strains floated. The narrow door was ajar. Above it hung a gilded fiddle, and the brass plate bore the legend:

  “JOHN BETTS, Violin-maker.”

  Viotti rushed through the door instanter, and we were constrained to follow. Like the lute of Orpheus, the mellifluous voice of the, fiddle pulled us irresistibly into the violin-maker’s workroom.

  ’Twas Arthur Betts who played. He held the shining fiddle like a lover, and the silver notes cascaded under his bow. Seated at his work-table in a litter of pegs and patterns, his father beamed upon him and kept time with his famous articulated instrument. Our tumultuous entry but redoubled his smile. He met the rush of the choleric violinist with a rush as swift, and enveloped him in an embrace.

  “Signor Viotti,” exclaimed he, “I give you joy! Your Stradivari is restored to you good as new. You have been made the victim of an infamous trick, Sir, but by my skill I have made all right.”

  Arthur Betts, his fiddling broken off, extended the violin.

  “Do you set bow to it, Sir,” he exclaimed, “and your heart will be at rest. Oh, Sir, ’tis the sweetest, the most responsive …”

  Viotti, in an agony of impatience, yet forebore to snatch the precious instrument. Gently he accepted it from the boy’s hand, gently he set bow to it and drew it across the strings, and it answered him like honey from the comb. He began to play. If Arthur Betts had drawn sweetness from the famous instrument, now it was brought alive. It wept, it danced, it laughed, it sang. Never have I heard such fiddling. Even Dr. Sam: Johnson uncreased his brow. He looked at my rapt countenance.

  “Is this Viotti?” he murmured in my ear.

  “None other,” I replied; and even as the great violinist dropped his bow and caressed the violin in the cup of his hand, I realized that all my conjecture was vain, and the answer to both our riddles was still to seek.

  “Pray, Sir,” demanded Dr. Johnson of Betts, “how have you wrought this miracle?”

  “You must know, Sir,” replied the violin-maker, “that I was no more satisfied than yourself that a substitution had been effected. I desired to examine into the matter more closely, and to that end, as you know, Sir, I carried the instrument away with me. This morning I set it on my work-bench and opened it—and lo, the thing was made clear. Some enemy—jealous, as it might be, or desiring to damage the master’s reputation, had with great subtlety introduced against the sound-post—a quantity of beeswax!”

  He handed the substance in question to Dr. Johnson, a hardening wad of the stuff of about the bigness of a nut of Brazil. I peered over Dr. Johnson’s shoulder as he turned it in his big shapely fingers. One side bore the grain mark of the sound-post; on the other, clearly impressed, was the mark of a finger.

  “Beeswax!” cried Viotti. “Small wonder the sound was deadened!”

  “How so?” enquired I. A new realm was opening to me.

  “I will shew you, Sir,” said Betts. From his work-bench he took the two halves of another instrument, “The sound, d’ye see, Sir, is made by drawing the bow over the string. But the sound is thin, and of no account, till it be resounded within the belly of the instrument. Now much depends on this strip of wood which lies in the belly, being made fast there—’tis by name the bass bar; and much depends on this peg which joins top and bottom. This peg we call the sound-post, and ’tis most particularly not to be meddled with. ’Twas just here, that our Vandal had loaded the Viotti Stradivarius with this pad of wax. How determined an enemy is he who takes such pains. Pray, Signor Viotti, have you ever an enemy in England?”

  “None that I know. Yet stay, an enemy I have, so much is certain, for last night in my homeward way I was followed, and I feared a knife in the ribs.”

  “More like a horse-pistol, with a ‘Stand and deliver.’ Yet you came off unscathed after all.”

  “I shewed him a clean pair of heels; I can run with the best. Yet how have I earned such hatred? Who can hate me so?”

  “Who,” said Dr. Johnson with a laugh, “but another violinist?”

  “Or,” said Arthur Betts quickly, “a rival defeated in love?”

  Johnson was staring at the lozenge of wax through the violin-maker’s glass.

  “I think,” he said in an absent voice, “I think we may soon find out.”

  “How, Sir?” demanded Viotti eagerly. “I would give much to know the scoundrel.”

  “There is a way,” said Johnson, “or my observation is much at fault. Let us gather tonight once more, in the withdrawing room of Dr. Burney. I’ll engage him to receive us. ’Tis there I’ll expose Signor Viotti’s enemy; aye, and perhaps restore the diamond of Prince Orloff.”

  The musical trio strove to learn more, but not another word would Dr. Johnson say. They perforce consented to the rendezvous. We left Viotti descanting upon the art of violin-playing, and Arthur Betts hanging entranced upon his every motion.

  “Pray, Sir,” I enquired as we made the best of our way to Dr. Burney’s, “how do you propose to lay your hand upon him who tampered with yonder violin?”

  Johnson: “Look upon this wax. See the print of a finger upon it. I will engage, with luck, to fit this print to the finger that made it.”

  Boswell: “Nay, how? Remember the thumb-print at Stratford, where you said that some other means than gross measurement must be found to fit a finger to its print.”

  Johnson: “I have found the means. I will put my finger—nay, his own finger—”

  Boswell: “Or her finger.”

  Johnson: “Or her own finger—’tis indeed a slim one—on the miscreant.”

  Boswell: “I muse who it may be?”

  “An
avenging Hindoo,” hazarded Dr. Johnson slily, “passing himself off as Viotti?”

  “Why, no, sir, no avenging Hindoo could win such sweetness even from a Stradivarius,” I owned. “Nor would any avenging Hindoo have an interest in harming even the first violinist of the age. Sure such an one had attacked Prince Orloff direct … Prince Orloff! Pray, Sir, how do we know that he is Prince Orloff? Or that yonder yellow sparkler is indeed a diamond, or ever saw the land of the Hindoos? Is not all perhaps a hoax?—the seven-foot hero and his blaze of brilliants, and Viotti’s fiddle choaked with beeswax till it croaks again—”

  “Nay, Bozzy, spare me this while!” cried Dr. Johnson. “Be not so finespun in conjecture. I cannot see that massive thumb that choaked the emperor brought to the finicking task of introducing a lozenge of wax through an f-hole with a hump-backed darning-needle, and there’s an end on’t.”

  “Yet Orloff works in my mind,” continued I presently. “How if he has hypothecated his own diamond? Perhaps he has insured it at Lloyd’s coffee-house, and will have its value again from the gentlemen there.”

  “Oh, the diamond,” said Dr. Johnson. “Well, I have my eye on the diamond, never fear.”

  “Or perhaps,” I went on, “Prince Orloff fancies his diamond, and would keep it. How long, think you, will it be his after the Empress’s greedy eye has lighted upon it? How better keep it, than to noise after the story of its greatness the story of its loss?”

  “At last!” Dr. Johnson breathed in relief. “St. Martin’s Street!”

  Dr. Burney readily assented to another gathering in his withdrawing room. A card was sent to Mr. Tresilian, and another to Prince Orloff. The Prince’s reply was characteristick: “If it is the will of God His Highness will come.” Mr. Tresilian, entertaining no doubts of the efficacy of his own will, as touching not only himself, but also Miss Polly and young Chinnery, sent a curt assent in the name of all three. All that remained was to make the withdrawing room fast and wait the event.

  Once more the company was gathered in Dr. Burney’s withdrawing room. Once more the candlelight sparkled on Sir Isaac Newton’s prisms, and the firelight warmed Miss Fanny’s slender hands, busy with fresh beeswax. Once more Viotti languished, and Miss Polly mantled, and young Chinnery glowered, and old Tresilian watched the three. Once more the Bettses, neat and respectful, wore smiles unchangingly cheerful. As to Prince Orloff, he was tranced in apathy, resigned in fatalistick Russian pessimism to the will of God.

  “Pray, Boswell, be so good as to assist me.”

  I leaped to my feet with alacrity. Dr. Johnson handed me Miss Fanny’s lump of softened beeswax, with the injunction still to keep it warm.

  “Good friends,” he addressed the quiet circle, “we are here for a double purpose, to detect the Vandal who tampered with Signor Viotti’s Stradivarius, and to discover the whereabouts of His Highness’s diamond.”

  “If it be the will of God,” said His Highness.

  “If it be the will of God,” said Johnson solemnly. “The lesser puzzle first. Pray, Mr. Boswell, a lump of beeswax. Mr. Betts, oblige me by setting your fore-finger to the wax.”

  The violin-maker looked up at him with quick intelligence; he saw what we would be at. He pressed his right fore-finger to the wax. Arthur Betts followed, staring in wonder. Miss Fanny was next. Dr. Johnson scanned each imprint eagerly through a glass.

  Now we approached the group about Miss Polly Tresilian. She graciously complied with my humble request.

  “Signor Viotti?”

  Quick colour rushed up his dusky cheeks.

  “Have I tampered with my own most precious possession?” he began hotly.

  Dr. Johnson shrugged.

  “Mr. Chinnery?”

  “I will not, unless Signor Viotti precedes me.”

  Angry glances crossed. Dr. Johnson turned suddenly upon old Betts.

  “You, Sir, if memory serves you are left-handed?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Then touch your left fore-finger, and do not trifle with me.”

  The violin-maker shrugged, and touched. Johnson scanned the imprint, and shook his head. What did he seek? Or was this perhaps but a pretence, designed to force the guilty to betray himself?

  “I am brought to a standstill, unless you, Sir—” to Viotti.

  Viotti shrugged, and touched. Now Johnson turned to Chinnery.

  The thin young man felt every eye, and rose slowly.

  “Pray, Sir, touch.”

  “I will not.”

  Quick as a snake striking Johnson had the slim wrist in his grip of iron, and pressed against the fore-finger the softened wax.

  Chinnery was white as his ruffles as he nursed his wrist. “What signifies this hocus-pocus?” he demanded angrily.

  Johnson produced the lump of beeswax he had brought from Betts’s shop. At sight of it Chinnery went whiter yet.

  “This,” said my friend deliberately, “that when you tampered with Viotti’s violin”—he held the young man’s eyes with his in a gaze deep and full of meaning—“when you tampered with Signor Viotti’s violin out of mere spite and jealousy, you left your finger-print on the wax plain as a foot-print, and a finger-print so singular that none in this room but you could have made it.”

  Viotti rose from the girl’s side, dints of rage whitening his nose, fists clenching and unclenching; but Tresilian stopped him with a heavy hand on his arm.

  “I deny it,” said Chinnery in a strangled voice, “make that good.”

  “’Tis easily made good,” said Dr. Johnson, still engaging his eyes. “I have long observed the pad of the human fore-finger …”

  “Holy Mother,” remarked Orloff, his interest finally piqued, “what a man is this, that goes about peeping at fore-fingers! To what end, in God’s name?”

  “Why not?” said Johnson over his shoulder. “Nihil humanum a me alienum. Now the human fore-finger, in the inscrutable wisdom of God, bears a pattern, as it were an eddy or a spiral, that goes to one center where the pad is highest. Never have I seen a triple center, and only twice in my life a double one—once on the finger of the Rector of St. Olave’s, and once on your fore-finger, Mr. Chinnery. Now the finger-print on the wax has a double center. Was it made, think you, by the Rector of St. Olave’s?”

  Chinnery stood irresolute.

  “Come, Mr. Chinnery,” said Johnson perswasively, “this is not a crime you stand charged with, unless loving a lady too well be a crime. I counsel you, give me best, and be off with you.”

  Chinnery seemed to make up his mind.

  “You have the right of it,” he confessed, “’twas I tampered with the Italian’s Stradivarius.”

  “Then satisfy us,” cried Betts eagerly, “how you contrived to introduce a lump of beeswax through the f-hole and that without the use of my ingenious instrument.”

  “’Twas done by depression,” muttered Chinnery. Viotti ground his teeth. “I am indifferent deft, Sir, being a lapidary, and as to your instrument, I made shift to copy it, having in my pocket a sufficiency of silver wire which I designed braiding into a ring for Polly Tresilian.” His voice broke. “’Twas all for love of Polly, I could not bear he should make music with her, ’twas his playing bewitched her.”

  “Good lack, Tom!” cried Polly, and ran to him.

  Viotti uttered a round oath in Italian, but upon his threatening motion Tresilian pinioned him. Polly had her arms about Chinnery.

  “Poor, poor Tom,” she murmured, “I love you best, indeed I do.”

  “Then be satisfied, and be off with you,” said Johnson sharply. Viotti muttered curses, and wrenched against the restraining arms of Tresilian. “Take my counsel, lad, with an Englishman ’tis a word and a blow, or he takes you to law, and so an end; but a foreigner will have it out of your hide. Be off, and look to your skin.”

  “I’ll go with you, Tom!” cried Miss Tresilian.

  “Not so, Miss, you’ll bide. Now be off, young Sir, and repent in time.”

  Quickly young Ch
innery touched his lips to Polly’s hand, and was gone. Polly burst into tears.

  “Unhand me, Sir,” said Viotti quietly to Tresilian. “You have my parole.”

  “A pretty comedy, Dr. Johnson,” said Prince Orloff languidly. “Now for the after-piece. Where is my diamond?”

  “Sir,” replied Dr. Johnson, “’tis in this room. Yet I do not choose to sniff about like a dog after truffles. I shall look in my head, and find your diamond. Pray, Dr. Burney, have you ever a bowl of poonch? Your downright English poonch is a great quickener of the intellects.”

  “Now, Sir,” said I with resolution, “you shall not take me twice in the same springe. Trust me, gentlemen, in these exact words did my learned friend engage with Bonnie Prince Charlie that he would find his missing ruby in the bottom of Miss Flora MacDonald’s punch-bowl; and drown me therein if he did not know where the thing was all along!”

  Dr. Johnson flashed me a look so imperious and full of meaning that my voice died in my throat.

  “Nay, Dr. Burney, I do but jest,” I added in a small voice, “pray let the punch-bowl be brought.”

  “With all my heart,” cried Dr. Burney. As the punch was brewed I reflected anxiously what my venerable friend could mean with his carousing. Could he intend the thief of the diamond should become befuddled, and so betray himself? My eye lit upon Orloff, and I saw it all plainly. As the glass went round I set myself assiduously to drink with Orloff, designing he should become liquored as my friend desired. As to myself, I had no care if I could be of service to his scheams.

  The chimes of St. Martin’s told the hour round, an hour of toasts and pledges. I looked upon my princely charge. His countenance seemed to waver like a face under water. The moment is at hand! said I to myself.

  I sought my learned friend where he stood by the punch-bowl with his back to the company, intending to impart this news to him. He held a fruit-knife in his hand, and seemed to be peeling a prune.

  “The moment is unmanned,” said I.

  “How?” said he, dropping the prune-pit into his cup.

  “Unmanned,” said I.

  “Alack, Bozzy, so are you,” said he.

  He approached Prince Orloff where he sat wabbling by the fire. The next to the last thing I remember is the triumph in his voice as he cried: