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
police court was _not_ Bott's Stradivarius) saw by chance a very fine
violin in the possession of a family named Springer in Brooklyn, and
notified Flechter of the fact.
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