ied 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,