The Polar Treasure

Начало книги

SOMETHING TERRIBLE impended.

This was evident from the furtive manner of the small, flat-chested man who cowered in the shadows. He quaked like a terrified rabbit at each strange sound.

Once a cop came along the alleylike side street, slapping big feet heartily on the walk, twiddling his nightstick, and whistling "Yankee Doodle." The prowler crawled under a parked car, and lay there until the happy cop passed.

Near by loomed the enormous bulk of the New York Concert Hall. From the stage door on the side street crept strains of a music so beautiful that each note seemed to grasp the heart with exquisite fingers.

A violin!

It was a Stradivarius violin, one of the most perfect in the world, and had cost the player sixty thousand dollars.

The player was a blind man!

He was Victor Vail. Many music lovers maintained him to be the greatest living master of the violin. He ordinarily got hundreds of dollars for rendering an hour of violin music before an audience. To-night he played for charity, and got nothing.

Читать дальше →