“If there was anything that Mr. Hume liked better than strong drink,” said the clerk, “it was music.  Antonio Spatola would come and play to him for hours at a time.”

“A lover of music who could stand the playing of a street musician for hours!” cried Stillman.  “That’s astonishing.”

“But,” protested Brolatsky, “Spatola is a splendid musician.  He’s studied his instrument under the greatest masters in Paris, Rome and other European cities.  He has played in the finest orchestras.  But he never could keep a position because of his temper.  He’s told me himself that when aroused he doesn’t know what he is doing.”

“I understand,” said the coroner.  “What sort of relations existed between Hume and Spatola outside the music?  Were they friendly?”

“No, sir.  I might say just the reverse.  For hours, sometimes, Mr. Hume would lie back in his chair with his eyes closed listening to the violin.  Then, perhaps, he’d get up suddenly, throw Antonio a dollar or so and tell him to get out.  Or maybe he’d begin to jeer at him.  Antonio had an ambition to become a concert violinist.  Ole Bull and Kubelik had made great successes, he said; and so, why not he?

“This was usually the point Mr. Hume would take up in mocking him.  He’d call him a curbstone fiddler, and say that he ought to be playing at barn dances and Italian christenings instead of aspiring to the platform.  Spatola would get frantic with rage, and fairly scream his resentment at these times.

“Often Mr. Hume would have him bring his trained cockatoos.  And while he was making them go through their tricks, Mr. Hume would call him a mountebank, a side show fakir and other things, and tell him that he ought to stick to that as a business, for he could make a living at it, where he would starve as a violinist.  I’ve often seen Antonio go out trembling and white at the lips with rage.  Several times he’s tried to injure Mr. Hume—­once he took out a knife.”

“Hah!” said the coroner.

“That was the time Mr. Hume called him ‘Mad Anthony.’  I also remember that Mr. Hume pulled aside the curtain and showed him the large painting of General Wayne, laughing and telling him that that was another Mad Anthony.  He was so successful that day in arousing Spatola, that always after that, when he was drunk, he’d call the Italian ‘Mad Anthony’ and it never failed to infuriate him.

“Do you know where this man Spatola lives?”

“In Christie Place, sir; just about half a dozen doors from the store.  I believe he rents a garret there, or something.”

Stillman seemed struck by this.

“In view of the fact that the building was entered by way of the scuttle,” said he to Ashton-Kirk, “I consider that a most interesting piece of information.”

“It may indeed prove so,” was the non-committal reply.

Once more the discontented crease showed itself upon the coroner’s forehead; and again as he turned to Brolatsky, his voice rose sharply.