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.

From this letter it was fairly inferable that although the defendant
might be innocent of the precise crime with which he was charged, he
was, nevertheless, upon his own evidence, guilty of having "faked" a
cheap Nicholas violin into a Strad., and of having offered it for sale
for the exorbitant price of five thousand dollars. This luckless piece
of evidence undoubtedly influenced the jury to convict him.

It will be recalled that ten witnesses for the prosecution had sworn
that the violin offered in evidence at the trial was _not_ the one
produced in the police court, as against the defendant's five who
asserted that it _was_.

The testimony was all highly technical and confusing, and the jury
probably relied more upon their general impressions of the credibility
of the witnesses than upon anything else. It is likely that most of the
testimony, on both sides, in regard to the identity of the violin was
honestly given, for the question was one upon which a genuine divergence
of opinion was easily possible.

Eller's letter from Chicago so affected the jury that they disregarded
his testimony and reverted to that of August Gemunder, to whose evidence
attention has already been called, and who swore that it was "The Duke
of Cambridge" which Flechter had tried to sell to Durden. Alas for the
fallibility of even the most honest of witnesses!

The case was ably argued by both sides, and every phase of this curious
tangle of evidence given its due consideration. The defense very
properly laid stress upon the fact that it would have been a ridiculous
performance for Flechter to w