ARTHUR.T Stories ------The Lost Stradivarius --III---Page 17

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:

CLIFTON HOUSE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

_March 23, 1896._

_Dear Counsellor_: Received your letter just now. I have been

expecting Mr. Flechter's lawyer would settle with you; he got nine

hundred dollars for the violin and Mr. Meyer arranged with myself

for the half, four hundred and fifty dollars, which he proposed

himself and have been expecting a settlement on their part long ago. I have assisted Mr. Palmer, his able lawyer, with the best of my
ability, _and have covered Mr. Flechter's shortcomings of faking the violin to a Strad_.

Yours most sincerely,

JOHN ELLER,

Metropolitan Opera Co., Chicago, Ill.