nor even a good imitation of one,
and, of course, was not the "Duke of Cambridge," but that it _was_ the
identical instrument produced before the magistrate, and one which he
recognized as having been sent him for repair by Charles Palm in 1885.
Thus both sides agreed that the fiddle now offered in evidence was a
bogus Strad. once belonging to a man named Palm, the only element of
conflict being as to whether or not the violin which Flechter had
offered for sale was the Palm instrument, or, in fact, Bott's famous
"Duke of Cambridge."
All this technical testimony about violins and violin structure
naturally bored the jury almost to extinction, and even the bitter
personal encounters of counsel did not serve to relieve the dreariness
of the trial. One oasis of humor in this desert of dry evidence gave
them passing refreshment, when a picturesque witness for the defense, an
instrument maker named Franz Bruckner, from South Germany, having been
asked if the violin shown him was a Strad., replied, with a grunt of
disgust: "Ach Himmel, nein!" Being then invited to describe all the
characteristics of genuine Stradivarius workmanship, he tore his hair
and, with an expression of utter hopelessness upon his wrinkled face,
exclaimed despairingly to the interpreter:
"Doctor, if I gave you lessons in this every day for three weeks you
would know no more than you do now!"--an answer which was probably true,
and equally so of the jury who were shouldered with the almost
impossible task of determining from this mass of conflicting opinion
just where the truth really lay.
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