the
sale fell through, the dealer was naturally very angry. Out of this
incident grew the case against Flechter.

The old musician was accustomed to leave his treasured instrument in the
lowest drawer of his bureau at the boarding-house. He always removed it
before his pupils arrived and never put it back until their departure,
thus insuring the secrecy of its hiding-place, and only his wife, his
sister-in-law, Mollenhauer, a friend, and Klopton, a prospective
purchaser, knew where it lay.

On the morning of March 31, 1894, not long after the Nicolini incident,
Bott gave a single lesson to a pupil at the boarding-house, and after
his midday meal set out with his wife for Hoboken to visit a friend. The
violin was left in its customary place. It was dark when they returned,
and after throwing off his coat and lighting the gas the old man
hastened to make sure that his precious violin was safe. When he pulled
out the drawer it was empty. The Stradivarius was gone, with its leather
case, its two bows and its wooden box.

Half distracted the musician and his wife searched everywhere in the
room, in closets, under beds, even behind the curtains, before they
could bring themselves to admit that the violin had in fact disappeared.
Frantically Bott called for Ellen, the servant girl. Yes, there had been
a caller--a young man with dark hair and a small, dark mustache--at
about five o'clock. He had waited about half an hour and then had said
that he guessed he would go. She had not noticed that he took anything
away with him. In his despair the old man turned to his old friend
Flechter, and the next day the dealer came to express his sympathy. He
urged Bott to notify the police of the theft, but the old man was
prostrated with grief, and it was the wife who, with Ellen Clancy,
finally accompanied Flechter to Police Headquarters. The police had no
idea who had taken the old fellow's fiddle, and did not particularly
care anyway. Later they cared a good deal.

Bott now began an endless and almost hopeless search for his beloved
instrument, visiting every place where violins were sold, every pawnshop
and second-hand store again and again until the proprietors began to
think the old man must be crazy. Sometimes Flechter went with him. Once,
the two travelled all the way over to New Jersey, but the scent proved
to be a false one. Bott grew thinner and older week by week, almost day
by day. When the professor did not feel equal to go