Lieut. Becker’s chief counsel concentrated his efforts to make Schepps say something that would indicate that he knew Rosenthal was to be murdered and that he was one of the conspirators. It was an attack of the utmost importance to the defence. A good deal of Becker’s money had been spent in an excursion to Hot Springs, made for the purpose of showing that Schepps had incriminated himself while there and had exculpated Becker.
Lawyer Hart, who was with Rose the night Schepps was with Becker, cross-examined Schepps about his conversations with Hot Springs people and failed absolutely to establish contradiction. McIntyre had tried his hand at this work previously, and had raged when Schepps volunteered the statement that one of the principal Hot Springs witnesses for the defence had been a pickpocket in New York for twenty years.
Mr. McIntyre and Mr. Hart gave up the cross-examination late in the evening, apparently running out of ammunition. Mr. McIntyre insisted plaintively that he was wearied, totally exhausted, unable to continue, which drew from Justice Goff, who has a very dry humor, the comment:
“Tut, tut, Mr. McIntyre. You talk of being exhausted. I am upward of 70 years old.”
Schepps was the only witness yesterday. It had been the purpose of the prosecution to call Mrs. Herman Rosenthal, but there was no time left for the long examination that would be necessary and Justice Goff rather reluctantly consented to adjournment. The widow of the murdered gambler will be the first witness to-day.
When Schepps appeared from the witness room at 10:30 A. M. all eyes were turned in his direction. From the first he has been one of the most interesting characters of this case. His childlike vanity, his delight at posing as an oracle among the rudely informed men and women of the underworld, his reputation for impudence and wit, his adventures dodging detectives in the Catskills and his sojourn among admiring citizens in Hot Springs had given him a kind of reputation second only to that of Rose.
He was nervous at first. His sharp eyes squinted behind his nose glasses and his glances darted sidewise. He twisted his fingers together and tried to cross his legs, a proceeding frowned upon by the court officer who stands at the witness chair.