A cherished violin was lost a few days ago on Toronto’s subway. Eight years ago, the same thing happened — but a pair of strangers intervened to get it home.

The panic set in shortly after midnight, when Lynn Kuo realized her violin was gone.

She tried to steady herself as anxieties raced. The six-figure, string instrument was her livelihood, as assistant concertmaster with the orchestra at the National Ballet. Though the violin was insured, she had scrimped and borrowed money from family to afford it just two years earlier.

And by the time the realization dawned that it wasn’t in her apartment, it had been hours since the violin was left absent-mindedly on a Toronto subway car. She had entrusted it to her partner earlier that evening; he was taking the subway to her apartment, while she biked home. “Make sure my baby’s OK,” she recalls saying. Only as night fell did she notice that the violin had never arrived.

Her partner’s face turned pale. The two scrambled to the subway system that veins the city, the clock ticking towards the last ride of the night. They stopped at station after station, to ask if an instrument had been turned in. That night in 2012 was a long-ago memory until now, when Kuo’s neighbour sent her a text with curious news. It seemed what happened to her, had happened again.

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