When Allen saw this letter it seemed to him absolutely to confirm his
suspicions. Now that the only person in the world who had been
authoritatively able to identify the "Duke of Cambridge" Stradivarius
was dead, Flechter was offering one for sale.
Then occurred the strangest thing of all. On May 28th, five days after
Flechter's letter to Southan, Mrs. Bott received the following
extraordinary epistle. Like the notice given her by Flechter in his
office, it was partly written in printed capitals and partly in script.
_May 28, 1895._
To MRS. BOTT, 306 River Street, Hoboken, N. J.
_Dear Madam_: I wish to inform you that the violin taken from your
house some time ago will be returned if you are willing to abide by
agreements that will be made between you and I later on. It was my
intention first to dispose of it, but on account of its great value
and the danger it would place me in by offering for sale being a
violin maker and dealer and not being able to sell with safety for
such a large sum of money I concluded to wait. I have now thought
the matter over and come to the conclusion that a little money is
better than none and if you are anxious for the return of the violin
and willing to pay a sum of money, small compared with the value of
the violin, I think we can make a deal. You can put a personal in
the New York Sun saying I am willing to give a sum of money for the
return of the violin. No questions asked. Mrs. J. Bott. When I see
your personal in the Sun I will let you know how the exchange can be
made. CAVE DWELLER.
This letter appeared to be written in a somewhat similar hand to that
which penned the offer of the reward, which, according to Mrs. Bott, was
Flechter's. By this time the widow and Allen, were in close
communication. The "Cave Dweller" letter, could it be shown to be in
Flechter's penmanship, seemed to fix the crime on the violin dealer.
Flechter's store is two flights up and looks out into Union Square.
Before the window hangs a large gilded fiddle and the walls are
decorated with pictures of famous musicians. In the rear is a safe where
the more valuable instruments are kept; in the front sits Flechter
himself, a stoutish man of middle height, with white hair and mustache.
But on June 23, 1895, Flechter was out when Durden and Baird called, and
only his clerk and office-boy were on hand. Durden wished, he said, to
see the genuine Strad. about which Mr. Flechter had written him. The boy
went to the safe and brought back a violin in a red silk bag. Inside was
inscribed:
"Antonius Stradivarius Cremonis fecit Anno Domini 1725."
The figures 17 were printed and the 25 written in ink. Durden examined
it for some fifteen minutes and noted certain markings upon it.
On June 26th they called again, found Flechter in and asked to see the
violin. This time the dealer took it himself from the safe, and, at
their request, carried it to 22 Gramercy Park, where Durden said he
desired some experts to pass upon its genuineness. On the way over
Flechter guaranteed it to be a genuine Strad., and said it belonged to a
retired merchant named Rossman, who would expect to get four thousand
dollars for it. He himself would want five hundred dollars, and Durden
should have five hundred dollars, so that they must not take less than
five thousand dollars.
Once at Allen's boarding-house Flechter played upon the violin for
Durden and the supposed Southan, and then the former asked to be allowed
to take the instrument to a rear room and show it to a friend. Here
Mrs. Bott, positively identified the violin as that of her husband,
clasping it to her bosom like a long-lost child. This was enough for
Durden, who gave the instrument back to Flechter and caused his arrest
as he was passing out of the front gate. The insulted dealer stormed and
raged, but the Car of Juggernaut had started upon its course, and that
night Flechter was lodged in the city prison. Next morning he was
brought before Magistrate Flammer in the Jefferson Market Police Court
and the violin was taken out of its case, which the police had sealed.
At this, the first hearing in this extraordinary case, Mrs. Bott, of
course, identified the violin positively as "The Duke of Cambridge," and
several other persons testified that, in substance, it was Bott's
celebrated violin. But for the defendant a number of violin makers swore
that it was not the Bott violin at all, and more--that it was not even a
Stradivarius. One of them, John J. Eller, to whom it will be necessary
to revert later, made oath that the violin was _his_, stolen from him
and brought to Flechter by the thief. On this testimony the magistrate
naturally decided that the identity of the instrument had not been
established and ordered that Flechter be discharged and the violin
returned to him.
Ordinarily that would have been the end of the case, but Allen had his
own private views as to the guilt of the dealer and on August 28th the
Grand Jury filed an indictment against Flechter accusing him of
feloniously receiving stolen property--the violin--knowing it to have
been stolen. Great was Flechter's anger and chagrin, but he promptly
gave bail and employed the ablest counsel he could afford.
Now began the second act of this tragedy of errors. The case was called
for trial with the People's interests in the hands of James W. Osborne,
just advancing into the limelight as a resourceful and relentless
prosecutor. I say the _People's_ case but perhaps _Allen's_ case would
be a more fitting title. For the defense Arthur W. Palmer held the fort,
directing his fire upon Osborne and losing no advantage inadvertently
given him. The noise of the conflict filled the court house and drowned
the uproar on Broadway. Nightly and each morning the daily press gave
columns to the proceedings. Every time the judge coughed the important
fact was given due prominence. And every gibe of counsel carried behind
it its insignia of recognition--"[_Laughter_]" It was one of those first
great battles in which the professional value of compressed air as an
explosive force and small pica type as projectiles was demonstrated. It
was a combat of wind and lead--an endurance contest during which the
jury slept fitfully for three long weeks.
Two things, the prosecution claimed, proved Flechter's guilt: first, the
fact that the violin found in his possession was "The Duke of
Cambridge"; second, that the "Cave-Dweller" letter was in the same
handwriting as Flechter's notice of reward.
Of course the latter proposition carried with it the necessity of
proving in the first place that the notice itself was in Flechter's
penmanship. Flechter through his counsel said it wasn't, and that he had
never told Mrs Bott that it was. He claimed that his brother-in-law,
John D. Abraham, had written it. Mrs. Bott, he alleged, was an old lady
and was mistaken in her testimony when she swore that he had said, "I
have written down something." He had not said so. Mr. Abraham
corroborated him. He had written it himself sitting in an armchair, all
but the words "355 West Thirty-first Street," which had been put in by a
certain Mr. Jopling who had been present. Mr. Jopling swore that that
was so, too. But, on cross-examination, it developed that Mr. Abraham
had been practicing making copies of the notice at the suggestion of the
lawyer for the defense, and, when Mr. Jopling took the stand, he was
called upon to explain an affidavit made by him for Assistant District
Attorney Allen, in which he affirmed that he did not know _who_ wrote
the words "355 West Thirty-first Street." His explanation did not
explain, and, anyhow, there did not seem to be any particular reason why
Abraham and Jopling should have written Flechter's notice for him.
Besides, even if Flechter did _not_ write it and Abraham _did_, it would
still remain almost as bad for Flechter if it was shown that "Cave
Dweller" was his own brother-in-law.
But Mrs. Bott was a woman who appealed strongly to a jury's sympathies,
and she was clear that Flechter had said that he had written the notice.
Moreover, she recalled that the date had first been written _May_ and
that Flechter had erased it and inserted _March_ in its place. A
microscopic examination revealed the fact that such an erasure had been
made. When the smoke cleared the credibility of the defense appeared
badly damaged. But the precise point was of little importance, after
all. The great question was: the identity of 'CAVE DWELLER.' On this
point a number of witnesses testified from a general knowledge of
Flechter's handwriting that the "Cave Dweller" letter was his, and three
well-known handwriting "experts" (Dr. Persifor Frazer, Mr. Daniel T.
Ames and Mr. David Carvalho) swore that, in their opinion, the same hand
had written it that had penned the notice.
It is not unlikely that Flechter's fear of a conviction led him to
invite testimony in his behalf which would not bear the test of careful
scrutiny. Many an innocent man has paid the penalty for uncommitted
crime because he has sought to bolster up his defense with doubtful
evidence without the incubus of which he would have been acquitted.
Naturally the chief point against Flechter, if it could be established,
was his actual possession of the Bott Stradivarius when he was arrested.
Upon this proposition Mrs. Bott was absolutely positive beyond the
possibility of error. So were eight other witnesses for the prosecution.
Then the defense produced a violin alleged to be the same one exhibited
in the police court and brought by Flechter to Durden's house, and asked
Mrs. Bott and her witnesses what they thought of it. Mrs. Bott could not
identify it, but she swore no less positively that it was an entirely
_different_ violin from the one which she had seen before the
magistrate. Then Osborne hurled his bomb over his enemy's parapet and
cried loudly that a monstrous wicked fraud had been perpetrated to
thwart Justice--that the defense had "faked" another violin and were now
trying to foist the bogus thing in evidence to deceive the Court. _Ten
witnesses_ for the prosecution now swore that the violin so produced
was _not_ the one which Flechter had tried to sell Durden. Of course it
would have been comparatively easy to "fake" a violin, just as Osborne
claimed, and the case sheds some light upon the possibilities of the
"old violin" industry.
The star witness for the prosecution to prove that the instrument
produced in the police court _was_ the Bott violin was August M.
Gemunder, and his testimony upon the trial before Recorder Goff is
worthy of careful examination, since the jury considered it of great
importance in reaching a verdict, even requesting that it should be
re-read to them some hours after retiring to deliberate. Gemunder
testified, in substance, that he belonged to a family which had been
making violins for three generations and had himself been making them
for twenty years, that he was familiar with Bott's Stradivarius, having
seen it three times, and that he firmly believed a large part of the
violin produced before the magistrate _was_ the missing Bott--certainly
the back and scroll. Moreover, he was able to describe the markings of
the Bott violin even to the label inside it. It should be mentioned,
however, that in the magistrate's court he had been called only to
_describe_ the Bott violin and not to _identify_ the one produced as the
Bott itself. He further swore that the violin now offered by the defense
on the trial was _not_ the one in evidence before the magistrate, but
was one which he had sold some years before to one Charles Palm.
The defense, on the other hand, called among its witnesses John P.
Frederick, a violin maker, who testified that he was familiar with the
Bott Strad. and had seen it in 1873 at Bott's house, Grenecher Castle,
in Germany; that he had repaired it in this country in 1885; that the
instrument in court was not a Strad. nor even a good imitation of one,
and, of course, was not the "Duke of Cambridge," but that it _was_ the
identical instrument produced before the magistrate, and one which he
recognized as having been sent him for repair by Charles Palm in 1885.
Thus both sides agreed that the fiddle now offered in evidence was a
bogus Strad. once belonging to a man named Palm, the only element of
conflict being as to whether or not the violin which Flechter had
offered for sale was the Palm instrument, or, in fact, Bott's famous
"Duke of Cambridge."
All this technical testimony about violins and violin structure
naturally bored the jury almost to extinction, and even the bitter
personal encounters of counsel did not serve to relieve the dreariness
of the trial. One oasis of humor in this desert of dry evidence gave
them passing refreshment, when a picturesque witness for the defense, an
instrument maker named Franz Bruckner, from South Germany, having been
asked if the violin shown him was a Strad., replied, with a grunt of
disgust: "Ach Himmel, nein!" Being then invited to describe all the
characteristics of genuine Stradivarius workmanship, he tore his hair
and, with an expression of utter hopelessness upon his wrinkled face,
exclaimed despairingly to the interpreter:
"Doctor, if I gave you lessons in this every day for three weeks you
would know no more than you do now!"--an answer which was probably true,
and equally so of the jury who were shouldered with the almost
impossible task of determining from this mass of conflicting opinion
just where the truth really lay.
The chief witness for the defense was John J. Eller, who testified that
he had been a musician for thirty years and a collector of violins; that
the violin in court was the same one produced before the magistrate, and
was not Bott's, but _his own_; that he had first seen it in the
possession of Charles Palm in 1886 in his house in Eighth Street and St.
Mark's Place, New York City, had borrowed it from Palm and played on it
for two months in Seabright, and had finally purchased it from Palm in
1891, and continued to play in concerts upon it, until having been
loaned by him to a music teacher named Perotti, in Twenty-third Street,
it was stolen by the latter and sold to Flechter.
It appeared that Eller had at once brought suit against Flechter for the
possession of the instrument, which suit, he asserted, he was still
pressing in the courts, and he now declared that the violin was in
exactly the same condition in every respect as when produced in the
police court, although it had been changed in some respects since it had
been stolen. It had originally been made of baked wood by one Dedier
Nicholas (an instrument maker of the first half of the nineteenth
century), and stamped with the maker's name, but this inscription was
now covered by a Stradivarius label. Eller scornfully pointed out that
no Strad. had ever been made of baked wood, and showed the jury certain
pegs used by no other maker than Nicholas, and certain marks worn upon
the instrument by his, the witness', own playing. He also exhibited the
check with which he had paid for it.
In support of this evidence Charles Palm himself was called by the
defense and identified the violin as one which he had bought some twelve
years before for fifteen or twenty dollars and later sold to Eller. Upon
the question of the identity of the instrument then lying before the
jury this evidence was conclusive, but, of course, it did not satisfy
the jury as to whether Flechter had tried to sell the Palm violin or
Bott's violin to Durden. Unfortunately Eller's evidence threw a side
light on the defence without which the trial might well have resulted in
an acquittal.
Eller had sworn that he was still vigorously endeavoring to get the Palm
violin back from Flechter. As contradicting him in this respect, and as
tending to show that the suit had not only been compromised but that he
and Flechter were engaged in trying to put off the Palm violin as a
genuine Stradivarius and share the profit of the fraud, the prosecution
introduced the following letter from the witness to his lawyer: