foul play. But subsequent medical examination showed that he had died of aneurism of the heart, brought on by want of nourishment—in other words, starvation—and physical exhaustion. He was nothing else but skin and bone, and it appeared that he had walked from London—it almost seemed without taking rest or food upon his way, for the identical five shillings were found in his pockets for which he had sold his violin.
The supposition was that when he had sold his violin, and played on it his last tune, he had started, possibly in some spirit of half-madness, for the identical spot which that tune commemorated, and had reached it but to die.
On the previous evening, after that final solo with which we had been favoured by the unseen musician I had placed the violin and the bow in the case, and the case upon the topmost bookshelf in my library. When I came home from that river party an accident had happened. The case had fallen from the book-shelf to the floor. In falling, the lid had opened—the violin had tumbled out. The result was that the instrument, which must have struck with surprising force against some piece of furniture, had been shivered into splinters. These we collected, and with the bow, which was also broken, we placed in Philip Coursault's coffin. The dead man and his fiddle were lowered together into the gave.
