The return of a rare cello leaves a trail of question marks

In this particular case, a home security camera across the street picked up grainy images of a young man getting off a bicycle and taking the cello from the porch around 6:30 a.m. It also recorded the crash of his bicycle into trash cans before escaping.

With most of the press eagerly awaiting their chance to question Mr. Stumpf, the cellist stepped to the microphone with lowered eyes and Nixonian anxiety. In a low, quiet voice he told the gathering how relieved he was ("this has been an enormous weight on me for weeks"), and was whisked out a back door.

"We all came to ask Mr. Stumpf questions," said local TV personality Laurel Erickson of KNBC TV. "Can't you bring him back?"

Her answer came with a sideways head shake and two words from Ms. Borda. "Nuh-uh." (Mr. Stumpf, she explained, was needed in a crucial rehearsal.)

Last up, LAPD Detective Donald Hrycyk, cut from the same polite-but-taciturn cloth as Jack Webb of "Dragnet," adeptly sidestepped questions about the crime's ongoing investigation, not wanting to play his cards to the cello's thief, still at large.

Detective Hrycyk and assistant chief Jim McDonald merely reiterated already-known details. The cello was returned by a woman who found it next to a dumpster on April 28. A homeless man helped her place it in the trunk of her car. She brought the cello home and asked her boyfriend, a cabinetmaker, if he could repair it.

A week and a half later the woman caught a news report about the missing cello and the $50,000 reward for its return. She logged on to the police website to review the mug shot: Length: 30 1/2 inches. Color: golden brown. Identifying marks: original label stating "Cremona 1684."

After peering inside the instrument and making out a faded label that looked as if it read 1600s, she hired a lawyer.

"We are examining several leads and checking into the story of this woman," said Hrycyk.

Frustrated grumbles began making their way through the crowd. ("This story doesn't add up, these details are too squirrely," said one veteran reporter.) Then City Councilman Tom LaBonge stepped to the mike.

"Hey, wait a minute, this is a good news story and you're a part of it," he said. "Go out there and write a good news story."

It is a good news story, but an incomplete one. One reason, according to veteran violin restorer Adam Crane, relates to the rarefied, and somewhat cloak-and-dagger world of rare and valuable instruments.

"My guess is that they know a whole lot more about what happened and aren't saying because there is so much money involved," says Mr. Crane. For reasons of insurance, assessment, and resale, the less that is known about a given instrument and how it was damaged, the better off the owner is, he says.

L.A.'s fictional detective Philip Marlowe might have said the press left the room wearing those plastic smiles people wear when they are trying not to scream.

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