rmining 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