he Court might
well have taken it from the jury on that account. But a printed page of
questions and answers carries with it no more than a suggestion of the
value of testimony the real significance of which lies in the manner in
which it is given, the tone of the voice and the flash of the eye.

Once again Flechter sat at his desk in the window behind the great
gilded fiddle. To him, as to its owner, the great Stradivarius had
brought only sorrow. But for him the world had no pity. Surely the
strains of this wonderful instrument must have had a "dying fall" even
when played by the loving hand of old Jean Bott.

At last, after several years, in 1899, the case came up in the Appellate
Division of the Supreme Court. Flechter had been led to believe that his
conviction would undoubtedly be reversed and a new trial ordered, which
would be tantamount to an acquittal, for it was hardly likely in such an
event that a second trial would be considered advisable upon the same
evidence. But to his great disappointment his conviction was sustained
by a divided court, in which only two of the five justices voted for a
new trial. Again Fortune had averted her face. If only one more judge
had thought the evidence insufficient! The great gilded fiddle seemed to
Flechter an omen of misfortune. Once more he gave bail, this time in
five thousand dollars, and was set at liberty pending his appeal to the
highest court in the State. Once more he took his seat in his office and
tried to carry on his business.

But time had dragged on. People had forgotten all about Flechter and the
lost Stradivarius, and when his conviction was affirmed little notice
was taken of the fact. It was generally assumed that having been
sentenced he was in jail.

Then something happened which once more dragged Flechter into the
limelight. Editors rushed to their files and dusted the cobwebs off the
issues containing the accounts of the trial. The sign of the gilded
fiddle became the daily centre of a throng of excited musicians, lawyers
and reporters. The lost Stradivarius--the great "Duke of Cambridge"--the
nemesis of Bott and of Flechter--was found--by Flechter himself, as he
claimed, on August 17, 1900. According to the dealer and his witnesses
the amazing discovery occurred in this wise. A violin maker named Joseph
Farr, who at one time had worked for Flechter and had testified in his
behalf at the trial (to the effect that the instrument produced in the
po